A Palestinian looks at a damaged vehicle parked outside the branch of the Islamic National Bank after a airstrike by Israel, in Gaza City, on Nov. 20, 2012. On the seventh day of Israel's aerial offensive here, the death toll has reached 114, with more than 800 people wounded, according to the Health Ministry. [Xinhua Photo]

What a difference a week makes. Just as Europeans took to the streets across the continent last week to protest deeper austerity measures as the Euro Zone slid deeper into recession, Americans pondered the ramifications of the emerging "ménage-a-trois" sex scandals rocking the USA's military and intelligence top brass. Meanwhile, as the world kept focus on the continuing degeneration of the Syrian conflict, Israel decided to ignite a new round in its continuing unholy war against Palestine.

In one week, Israel fired artillery "warning shots" into Syria from the Golan Heights (sparking fears it could get directly involved in that conflict), assassinated the chief of Hamas' military wing Ahmed al Jabari, threatened the lives of all the elected Hamas leaders', selectively destroyed government buildings in Gaza, killed dozens of innocent civilians (including children), and called-up 75,000 reserve troops to its border with Gaza in preparation for a ground offensive while it rained bombs on Gaza in a bombardment admittedly aimed at "decapitating Hamas." In response to the "targeted" and "surgical" hi-tech airborne assassination of the Hamas military chief, militants increased the intensity of rocket fire into Israel, with some rockets reaching as far as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – cities previously considered "safe" from Palestinian fire. By the end of one week, scores of Palestinians and three Israelis had already been killed, with casualty figures mounting by the day.

But why now? Why has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched yet another war against Palestine just weeks before a general election scheduled for January 2013?

Israel claims it's responding to increased rocket attacks from Gaza. But its actions and official pronouncements since its targeted aerial assassination of al Jabari incite suspicion of a more sinister motive.

Before Israel escalated the latest tensions, the main headline-grabbing event in the Middle East was the French government's decision to mount an official inquiry into whether PLO Leader Yasser Arafat had been poisoned. An investigation by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV news channel revealed that traces of the highly toxic poisonous chemical Plutonium were found in clothing the PLO leader wore before his mysterious illness killed him.

The Palestinian Authority authorized the exhumation of Arafat's body from his grave inside the Presidential Compound on the West Bank and excavation was just about to get under way when Israel hurriedly and dramatically launched its latest Gaza offensive.

Israel could not have underestimated the ferocity of the Hamas response to the killing of its military chief. Hamas warned Al Jabari's killing would "open the gates of Hell".