Your move

The Gaza situation is like a large chessboard. As well as Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas terrorists, there are political moves that take place in stages. First, the International Red Cross and UNWRA protest that there is a humanitarian crisis and not enough food and medical aid is getting in. Israel sends in about 100 trucks of essential supplies a day, but the UN agencies claim this is not enough and that it is not being distributed effectively inside Gaza because of the fighting. So Israel institutes a 3 hour truce every day in order to distribute the supplies. Then the UN sends in convoys of trucks carrying supplies, but one is shot at and a Palestinian UN worker is killed. So then the UN blames Israel and stops the convoys. But, Israel says that they had coordinated the convoys with their troops, so maybe Hamas shot at the convoy.
Then the UN Security Council ignores the Libyan/Arab League resolution that blames only Israel and agrees on a more balanced British drafted resolution that is supported by the US, France and Egypt (that is not on the SC, but mediating on the side). Now the Israeli Cabinet is today considering this resolution, which does call for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, but not until Hamas stops all firing of rockets and smuggling of arms. How is this to be policed? That is not specified, but could be by some international force (including Turkey). Meanwhile the IDF continues its drive in the third phase of the Gaza operation (Phase 1 was the air attacks, phase 2 was the initial ground attack, phase 3 is expanding the ground attack throughout Gaza). It is likely that Israel will accept a ceasefire as long as Hamas does and may not reach all its final goals, but has done enough damage and inflicted enough harm on Hamas to give it a strong message. However, Hamas is by no means "destroyed" (which was not one of the initial stated aims of Operation Cast Lead), its fighting forces are largely intact and its main leaders still in hiding, and if the IDF withdraws, but only with a Hamas ceasefire, the situation will return to the status quo ante, as with Hizbollah in Lebanon. However, both Hizbollah and Hamas in the future will hesitate before they again act to precipitate Israeli reaction. So now the next move in Gaza is up to Israel.
I was asked where the name "cast lead" comes from, was it something to do with a theatrical production? No, it comes from a Chanukah poem by Haim Nahman Bialik about dreidels, that when he was a child he preferred the ones of cast lead that spun the best.
I suggest that if Israel had decided to air drop food and medical supplies into Gaza, that might have avoided the whole business of insufficient supplies/humanitarian crisis and difficult distribution, etc. However, the problem arises in all cases of Hamas taking the supplies for themselves (they are after all terrorist thugs) and depriving the civilian population of the supplies. This is undoubtedly happening, but no UN spokesman comments on that as the reason why civilians are not getting supplies.