Palestinians evacuate a body from the site of the strike in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday.Credit: Jehad Alshrafi / AP

In the time between the writing of these lines and their publication, Israel will celebrate like never before. You don’t have to be a purist to struggle to understand the meaning of this joy. It mostly indicates the depths of the sickness. A killing has yet to arrive in the endless chain of Israel’s assassinations that brings with it a significant achievement to the country other than the joy of the masses and their desire for revenge satisfied – and again it celebrates victory.

Did the Palestinians who assassinated Rehavam Zeevi achieve anything? Israel will pay the price for this assassination, just as it has paid directly and indirectly, immediately or eventually, for every previous assassination.

If the gates of hell from Lebanon open now – we will know the price. If Hamas uses its remaining strength to enact any kind of revenge – we will know the price. If Deif is replaced by someone more extreme, like after the assassinations of Sheikh Yassin and Abbas Musawai – we will know the price.

And, most of all, if the cease-fire and hostages deal becomes deadlocked – we will know the price. There are no scenarios more predictable than these, but Israel nonetheless celebrates its victory.

However, above all hangs the question: How many barbaric killings is Israel allowed to commit to eliminate a commander or two, however mortal and wicked they may be. This question is not asked in Israel. If anyone were to dare raise it, he’d get the automatic response, “as many as necessary.”

The scenes from Saturday afternoon in Gaza show “as many as necessary”: horror. Combat jets and drones bombed Mawasi, which the army had declared to be the only safe haven for Gaza’s residents. For Israelis who are bloated by their media with a sense of fake victory: this is an area equal to that of Heathrow Airport in London, 6.5 square kilometers (about 2.5 square miles), packed with 1.8 million people who have lost everything.

Naturally, there are no air raid shelters there, nor any houses, just tents and sand. The IDF claims that the area bombed was defined and “forested” – forests in Gaza? – and that scores of terrorists were killed in the bombing, but the pictures broadcast to the world showed destroyed tents and children in their death screams.

Here displaced Gazans found shelter from the heat, thirst and hunger, and this is where the pilots and drone operators targeted their murderous missiles. The result was a massacre: 71 dead as of Saturday afternoon, including children and rescue teams, and their number will rise.

Hundreds of wounded were taken on the hoods of spluttering cars, starving donkey-drawn carts or in the arms of terrified relatives and loved ones to the half-demolished Nasser Hospital, which again looked like a slaughterhouse. Almost none of this interests Israel.

Is the price that the displaced of Gaza paid on Saturday proper? How many children, medics, women, elderly and simple residents will Israel kill for one Mohammed Deif? How much blood must be spilled for the military and political echelon’s appetite to wave success?

100 dead is certainly permitted. What about 1,000? I assume that most Israelis would nod in agreement. 10,000? 50,000? Just say how many is Israel allowed to kill until it’s considered a crime in its own eyes? Where does the massacre stop? The answer is predetermined: “As many as necessary.” In other words: there’s no limit.

Gideon Levy