The bombs came from nowhere.

Despite relative calm in recent months, on Friday afternoon, Israeli forces conducted

airstrikes claiming they were part of a preemptive action after a militant from Palestinian

Islamic jihad was arrested in the West Bank.

But with scores of civilians dead, including 15 children, does the excuse hold up to scrutiny?

After three days of relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, Israel and the Palestinian

Islamic jihad have drawn a ceasefire.

Despite being described as a precise operation to target senior officials in the Palestinian

Islamic jihad or PIJ, it involved launching indiscriminate missile attacks into Gaza,

one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Residential buildings were destroyed and civilian areas flattened.

Over those three days of missile attacks, 350 Palestinians were injured and 44 were killed,

including 15 children.

Five young boys aged between five and 14 were killed while visiting their grandfather's

grave in northern Gaza, and a five-year-old girl was killed in Gaza City.

There are 2.3 million Palestinians coistered within the narrow strip of land.

For comparison, Northern Ireland has a population of 1.8 million people, and it's 38 times

the size of the Gaza Strip.

So precise operations by bomb and missile are impossible.

Israel justified the operation by claiming it was a preemptive move, intended to thwart

the planned rocket attacks by the PIJ.

That means they attacked Gaza before any attacks had been launched against Israel.

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