What is this, if not a war?

The death toll in factional violence in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year is fast approaching 200. Over the past few days, Fatah and Hamas have taken turns throwing each other’s members off tall buildings. Gunmen from each group are shooting at each other inside hospitals, assassinating each other’s officials, killing women and children, and preachers too. They are storming each other's headquarters.

As one Fatah spokesman said, “What is this, if not a war?”

So much could be said about how utterly unsurprising these clashes are, about the culture of hatred that both Fatah and Hamas have cultivated and how it is finally consuming them, about the complete failure of the Palestinians and of anyone who has ever taken an interest in their fate to affect the development of a fruitful society amongst them... but the simplest and most salient point of all is that this is, indeed, a war. And it is gruesome.