It was, according to Radio Netherlands, “an abnormally harsh comment.” The New York Times said it was “unusually blunt.”

Both were referring to a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which, in reporting how a team of aid workers in Gaza City came across four small, hungry children sitting by the corpses of their dead mothers, concluded: “The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable.”

It shouldn’t have to be said that this is a ghastly story. But the ICRC, like the UN, appears to be falling over itself to pin the blame on Israel for this and other incidents of suffering among the Palestinian population. “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded,” said the ICRC’s Pierre Wettach. Perhaps they were not aware; but if they were, how does he know there was no attempt to assist the wounded? Was there a way to assist the wounded without endangering the lives of IDF soldiers? Why not ask the same question of Hamas, whose fighters are embedded among the civilian population?

The reason a statement like this is called abnormal is because, normally, international aid agencies are resolutely diplomatic. They do not engage in speculation - which is essentially what the ICRC statement is - and they try to avoid assigning blame. To get a sense of what I mean, compare the above statement with this one from 2007 about Darfur. The balance is scrupulous to the point of being maddening. There is no hint that what we are dealing with is a genocide, nor that the vast bulk of the atrocities are committed by the Sudanese regime and its janjaweed allies. There isn’t even a particular appeal to the Sudanese regime, which would be perfectly reasonable given its pivotal role in the slaughter; yet, on January 6, an ICRC spokesman in Gaza had no qualms about announcing: “We call on the parties, in particular on Israel, to do more to allow the Palestinian Red Crescent and other medical workers to carry out their work and save lives.”

Why the flexibility, the drop in diplomatic guard, when it comes to Israel?