Remember when I wrote that Hamas was doing everything humanly possible to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties? Looks like I called that putt a little too early. This is all by way of an explanation for why Israel is probably just hours away from sending in ground troops:

The IDF has made frequent use of what is known as "knocking on the roof": Militants are warned by phone when a residential building used to store arms will be bombed, and told to vacate the premised together with their neighbors. The weapons caches are hit only after the residents leave. Hamas has tried placing civilians on the roofs of such buildings when the phone call warning comes in. In these cases, the IDF fired antitank missiles near the building, and in a few cases the residents left.

So Israel has been using cell phone to warn civilians before hitting weapons-filled civilian infrastructure - "knocking on the roof." Of course providing the warnings allows Hamas to move out some of the missiles. But the Israeli consider that a small price to pay for minimizing civilian casualties. Now Hamas has found an even more egregious way to exploit Israeli humanitarian concerns, above and beyond just putting rocket launchers close to and inside homes and schools:

Israel warns the Palestinian civilians whom Hamas has endangered. Hamas uses those warnings to endanger their civilians even more dramatically. Israel gets blamed for Palestinian civilian casualties. Makes perfect sense.

References:
* Hamas Now Doing Everything Humanly Possible To Generate Gaza Civilian Casualties [MR]
* IAF bombs 3 Gaza government buildings; officials: 25 wounded [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault)
* Hamas Rockets And Missiles Hit Israeli Mall, Injure 3. It's Almost Like There's No Ceasefire At All!
* Hamas Prepares 15,000 Soldiers, Civilian Human Shields For Full Confrontation With Israel