Once this violence in Israel and Gaza ends, there can be no return to 'normal' | Jonathan Freedland

The cycle of bloodshed will repeat, so long as the status quo remains comfortable for everyone except ordinary Palestinians

If Groundhog Day were a horror movie, it would look like this. The deadly violence shaking the Middle East - Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Hamas rocket attacks on Israel - seems to play out the same way, again and again, as if on some macabre repeat cycle. We saw it in 2009 and we saw it again in 2014. Each element is familiar: the lopsided death toll, Palestinian deaths outnumbering Israeli ones; the pictures of flattened buildings; the tears of the bereaved. And outside the region, the same armies of keyboard warriors, each parroting the talking points of their side, insistent that only their own pain counts, blind to the losses of the other.

Related: The violence that began at Jerusalem's ancient holy sites is driven by a distinctly modern zeal | Yair Wallach