Even as the news from Israel's battle with Hezbollah in Lebanon dominates headlines around the world, the country's offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip continues. The most recent Israeli incursion into Gaza occurred on Thursday morning and resulted in the deaths of eight Palestinians, four of them militants and one an 8-year-old boy. Some 50 tanks accompanied by bulldozers were involved in the offensive, which pushed eight kilometers into Palestinian territory -- not far from the Egyptian border.

More than 140 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the five weeks since a cross-border raid by a group of militants -- some of them with links to Hamas -- that resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the abduction of a third. Many of those who have been killed were civilians. In addition to the violence, however, the region is witnessing a growing humanitarian crisis with deliveries of food and other essentials delayed and even halted.

According to the aid group Care International, only 150 supply trucks are able to cross into Gaza each day. This needs to increase to 400, the group told BBC, to avoid a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation there. Militants in Gaza continue firing some 10 rockets a day across the border into Israel and Israel accuses Hamas radicals of mixing with civilians and using them as shields.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is hoping that the Lebanon offensive will ultimately help Israel withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank. In a Wednesday interview with the AP, he said "I genuinely believe that the outcome of the present (conflict) and the emergence of a new order that will provide more stability and will defeat the forces of terror, will help create the necessary environment that will allow me … to create a new momentum between us and the Palestinians."

The statements set off a storm of protest among Jewish settlers in the West Bank, with some saying they would refuse to fight and others saying Olmert's statements were tantamount to stabbing the Israeli military in the back. He was accused of using the Lebanon crisis for personal political gain.