By Ofira Koopmans
Tel Aviv - Most Israelis strongly support their country's deadly and destructive offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli campaign against the radical Islamic movement ruling the strip, as well as its reprisal rocket attacks against southern Israeli cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheba, are at the forefront of the Israeli media's reporting.
The large number of Palestinian civilian casualties, while mentioned, are pushed to the background.
Some critical voices can be heard, but they are a marginal minority.
According to an opinion poll published Friday in Israel's Ma'ariv daily, over 93 percent of Israelis support the Gaza offensive, while only 2,2 percent "fairly" oppose it and another 1,7 percent are "very much" against it.
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Backing for its ground component is less broad: Under 42 percent of Israelis support it, according to the Ma'ariv poll.
As past experience teaches, public opinion could well turn around, if the ground invasion - begun on Saturday after more than a week of relentless airstrikes - starts taking a high toll among Israeli soldiers.
While the Palestinian toll stands at well over 500 dead and at least 2 500 injured, the Israeli toll has so far been minimal - four Israelis died in rocket attacks and one soldier died in the ground fighting by Monday afternoon.
Dozens were wounded.
Both the Palestinian and Israeli media focus all but exclusively on the casualties and suffering on their own respective sides, with Israeli television channels broadcasting exhaustively about the impact of each rocket which lands in the south of the country.
The grisly footage shot for example by the Palestinian Ramattan news agency of Saturday afternoon's deadly airstrike at a mosque in northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya was aired also on Israeli television, but only briefly and in between lengthy reports about the Palestinian rocket attacks and analyses by Israeli experts commenting on the offensive.
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