Agony piled on agony. Unspeakable atrocities committed on innocent Israelis, swiftly followed by unspeakable horror visited on innocent Palestinians.

And so another generation on both sides of this ethnic divide is radicalised by the injustice of it all. What an unholy mess this part of the Middle East has become.

And yet, and yet. It’s not difficult to interpret the cries of pain. From Israeli Jews who suffered so grotesquely in the past, finding their supposedly safe haven invaded by militants who long since lost their moral compass - if they ever had one. What they did on October 7 will live long in everyone’s memories.

Meanwhile the Palestinians, crammed into what is often called the world’s largest open-air prison, find that even their remaining sliver of land can all too easily be bombarded in a comprehensive act of vengeance and their homes reduced to rubble.

That Hamas is a terrorist organisation masquerading as a legitimate government can no longer be in any doubt. Yet its militancy finds a mirror image in the mindset of some of the hardline ministers with whom the Israeli Prime Minister climbed into bed in order to retain power.

Just as Hamas wants to eradicate Jews, some Israeli ministers have openly admitted to wanting to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth. One of them has already been charged with terrorist and racist offences, and now, heaven help us, he’s in charge of security. As I say, what an unholy mess.

So we mourn the horrendous losses with which so many Israeli families are having to deal, just as we grieve for the deaths of little Palestinian children. Joe Biden, who flew to Israel this week, called the Hamas attacks “pure evil” – which they were.

It is also gross to force half the population of Gaza to pack up and move to an already overcrowded place whilst cutting off food, water and electricity, and allegedly bombing the only exit route through which people can flee and humanitarian aid can enter.

In truth, there are few nations whose history allows them to clamber on to the moral high ground. The Americans caused countless civilian deaths in Vietnam, and the UK burned German citizens alive as it carpet bombed cities like Dresden.

I had a history teacher who once opined that if there were a third world war it would start in the Middle East. I fervently hope that prediction was misguided.