I could not agree more with Steve Jack when he expresses his outrage at the recent murder of an Israeli family on the West Bank (Oxford Mail letters, March 22).

Unfortunately, this tragic incident is part of the wider picture of tit-for-tat killings which started with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and which sowed the seeds of the hatred which Mr Jack condemns.

For example: In October 1953 the notorious Unit 101 commanded by the then Major Ariel Sharon, dynamited the whole village of Qibya in the middle of the night, killing 69 villagers while they slept – half of them women and children.

Last week, a Palestinian family was killed in Gaza by a shell from an Israeli tank.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak described it as an accident and said that “...it is the price to pay for the fight against terrorists...”. But one might ask, who are the terrorists?

If the unanimous UN Resolution 242 of 1967 calling for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories had been complied with or, better still, enforced, there would have been no Intifada, no Hamas, no suicide bombers, and no massacre of 1,400 in Gaza in 2008. And the Fogel family, together with others, would still be alive.

Sadly, while Israel continues to extend settlements in the illegally-occupied West Bank, this festering sore will continue unabated and more will die unnecessarily.

Gordon Clack, Witney Road, Ducklington, Witney