How much worse can it get?

I'll wager that it will continue to get alot worse.

What is clear now, and should always have been, is that Israel has never intended to truly withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Yes, yes they did pull out all their illegal settlers, nicely paid for by the US taxpayer (and probably Canada's too), but why? Was it an act of altruism? Highly doubtful, as Israel is not known for her altruistic nature. So, why remove them? Oh, because Israel was trying to show her 'good faith'. Nah... I just don't believe it. They moved them out, in my opinion, to keep them out of harms' way when they finally got around to a real invasion.

According to this article, the Israelis have been training for 18 months in a mock up of Gaza City erected in the Israeli desert. Okay, so 18 months huh? That's when they began training. It must have taken some time to construct an entire mock up of the city - let's say another six months, add another six months for planning and for someone to hatch the idea in the first place and we've got, conservatively speaking, two and a half years ago, so sometime in 2006. Likely, the plan was on the drawing table long before that, but those pesky settlers had to be removed first, goodness forbid that these folks accidentally get bombed when the offensive against the 'terrorists' was launched.

In other words, this invasion has been a long time coming and was the plan all along.

The isolation of the Gaza Strip, forlorn and cut off from the remainder of Occupied Palestine, was the intention from day one. Random squatting and establishment of illegal settlements within the Gaza corridor wasn't working as well as the West Bank due to the fact that the coastal zone was already far too densely populated with refugees already tossed from their ancestral homes in what is now the Israeli State.

So, what to do? What option did Israel have to take the lands of Gaza and all her resources, including the natural gas fields off her coast?

An excuse was needed, one in which Israel could portray herself, once again as always, as the eternal victim.

Enter Hamas.

She had to radicalise those in Gaza, divide her from the West Bank in more than just a geographical nature. By controlling all flow of goods and people in and out of the Strip, she essentially turned the area into one large prison camp. The corruption of Palestinian political figures helped to do the rest, no doubt egged along by Israel herself. The election of Hamas was a dream come true for the landgrabbers in the Administration as it allowed for further reduction in economic aid, greater restrictions on borders, and increase in poverty and despair for those unfortunate enough to be stuck there. The tightening of the noose after the 2006 attacks guaranteed a further polarisation within the Palestinian political scene. Divide and Conquer played out crisply.

And finally, the time was ripe. After enduring a siege for over a year and a half, watching as her people were picked off in a slow bleed, a few here and a few there, the population weakened to a breaking point - Israel has moved in for the kill. Propped up globally by her massive public relations teams and her puppet agents in almost all governments of the West, she is free to massacre as she sees fit. In her mind she has done nothing wrong, she is still the victim in perpetuity.