Israel has told the United Nations, in no uncertain terms, that it has no intention of allowing humanitarian supplies into Gaza, even after a personal plea from Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister.

Combined with the ban on foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, it is obvious that Israel intends to starve Gazans into submission, and does not want any pesky journalists there to witness this Israeli war crime.

It is a sad and predictable affair. Israeli politicians apparently cannot wait for an election campaign in order to impress an electorate they must believe is impressed by violence against its neighbours. Hence, Ehud Barak can look like a tough man for preventing international relief agencies from distributing food to impoverished Palestinian refugees.

This, apparently, carries no shame with it in Israel. Barak, the Israeli government and the Israeli army, on the contrary, are priding themselves on preventing ordinary Palestinians from having electricity, food and medicine. And yet, the world is constantly told that Israel is a country that wants to live in peace with its neighbours.

A ceasefire has held in the Gaza Strip for five months. Hamas has lived up to its side of the bargain. It was an Israeli army incursion that provoked this latest round of violence.

Israel, even before that incursion, prevented supplies from reaching Gaza. Israel did not live up to its side of the bargain. The country cannot be trusted to live up to any bargain. That surely is the lesson that will be learnt by Palestinians everywhere.

The actions of the Israeli army and government betray pure and arrogant defiance of international bodies and complete disdain for human rights.

Israel is acting just as colonists and tyrants act everywhere: using violence to impose its will while shutting potential witnesses up.

It surely is time to attribute to Israel the pariah status that it is clearly so eager to obtain.