OK, I don't get it. What about 52 and counting isn't a massacre?
52 unarmed non-combatants in 10 minutes is a massacre. 52 fighters after a week of hard fighting is not.
Massacre indicates murder.
As in why the IDF was forced into conducting the Jenin plowthrough.
As in Arafat's MO
Do the people that are killed have bombs strapped to them? Are they laying booby traps and command detonated mines to kill people who are looking for murderers? Do they have machine guns and shoot at soldiers from positions of advanced camouflage prepared long in advance of the expected "round up"?
On the Israeli side...Did they warn people with bullhorns they were going to knock down buildings, thereby announcing where the snipers should aim their machine guns to kill the Israelis? Did the Israeli's assist people trying to evacuate from the combat zone(answer yes!)? Massacres occur when NONcombatant people are shot either enmass, or indiscriminately. The Jewish people know more about massacres than nearly any identifiable group(not that all peoples haven't suffered attrocity!) because they have been subjected to them throughout history. And finally, the reason that there was no massacre in Jenin, is that there were eye witnesses that got out and whined to the handwringing world press...If the Israeli Army, one of the best trained military machines in the world wanted to committ a massacre, every single accursed one of the Pali's in that breeding ground of killers would never have woken up on the day of the first shots because the whole rats nest would have been pulverized from the air and 23(?) courageous Israeli soldiers would be alive, today. Massacres incur no casualties.
It's called "battle".
Pronunciation Key (ms-kr) n.
1. The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly.
2. The slaughter of a large number of animals.
3. Informal. A severe defeat, as in a sports event.