The piece is subtitled: 'Remembering the civilian victims of modern warfare.' In January 2009, when living in Spain, I read an editorial in a Spanish newspaper. It compared events taking place at that time in Gaza to the 1937 bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War when a large number of civilians were killed - the subject of Picasso’s most famous painting. My piece reflects a sense of horror at the way civilians have become the principal victims in modern warfare, beginning with Guernica and continuing to the present day. No comment is begin passed on the origins of the conflicts or the motives of this taking part.