...No, because another terrorist attack of that kind was neither immediate nor compelling at the time that Israel has been killing all of those civilians since the October 7 attack.
How in the world do you know that? Are you privy to Israeli or other intelligence about that? Hamas just said they'll happily commit another October 7th. They consider it fully justified and part of their mission to annihilate Israel. You don't think they're trying? You don't think they have more plans?
Both of us know that Hamas is not capable of mounting another sneak attack, because the IDF has now established an impenetrable perimeter, and all Hamas has been able to do is launch their homemade rockets, most of which are wiped out by Iron Dome. Moreover, Israel had been experiencing such attacks daily before October 7, so, if Israel had no immediate or compelling need to use such lethal force then, it doesn't now. Hamas simply doesn't have the military strength to withstand the IDF. That's why they took hostages--as human shields to be used as bargaining chips in the mistaken belief that Israel would actually refrain from jeopardizing the lives of the hostages in a brutal counterattack. As for threats by individual Hamas leaders, I took those as vows of revenge. And no, I don't think that they thought much beyond having negotiations over hostages with the Israeli government. I doubt that they really got much beyond that rather simpleminded plan--invade, kill, capture, and negotiate.
How will Hamas commit attacks if its ability to do so is eliminated? You're not seriously claiming that Israel ought to take zero military action against Hamas, are you?
Of course not, but what was the rush to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians and put the hostages at risk? If Israel had acted with greater restraint, thousands of lives would have been saved. What they have now is a humanitarian catastrophe and a world that does not share the desire of the Israeli government to mete out revenge against not just Hamas, but the entire population of one of the most densely populated ethnic ghettoes in the world. Worse yet, the Netanyahu government created the conditions for the attack by strengthening Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank so that it could establish more illegal Israeli settlements there. The PA itself had rejected the kind of terrorist tactics that Hamas used on October 7 and had not ever rejected. The Palestinians did not vote to keep Hamas in power, but Israelis did vote for governments whose policy was to keep Hamas in power to help with its West Bank settlements policy.
Actually, it hasn't. It has not cut off all food and water and aid. It is allowing aid to enter Gaza. Do they need more? Of course. And by the way, Hamas has a responsibility to provide its supplies for the needs of its people.
I don't think you are paying attention at all. Nobody expects Hamas to act responsibly, and everyone expects Israel, as a civilized nation, to do so. All supplies must be constantly brought in from the outside. There are some intermittent power supplies, but almost all food, water, power, fuel, and medical supplies have been cut off, leaving only a small token number of trucks to fill needs that had relied on over 500 trucks of supplies per day in the past. And that is when they also had water and power coming from Israel to sustain the ghetto it had created.
Again, how in the world can you say there is no urgency in preventing another attack? You just said Israel, despite its military advantage, underestimated Hamas' abilities. It was just able to kill 1,400 Israelis and injure over 3,000 others. That feels pretty damn urgent. Seems to me pretty obvious, then, that they have to ensure another attack doesn't happen. Disabling Hamas is the most obvious way to do that.
Just give it some thought. What were conditions like at the border when Hamas attacked on October 7? What are they like now? What kind of military force to you think Hamas has to throw at the IDF, the best trained and equipped military in the entire region? Israel is within its rights to disable and destroy Hamas, but it has a responsibility to do so in a way that protects civilians living there who are not part of the Hamas terrorist organization. That cannot be done overnight, and it cannot be done by indiscriminate bombing from afar. It will be much harder and take longer to surgically remove the terrorist government organization that Netanyahu allowed to grow over time. Killing large numbers of noncombatants will only create more terrorist recruits among the survivors and be a public relations disaster for Israel, as well. It is also likely to seriously damage Israel's privileged relation with its largest supporter--the United States. Politically, this is a mess for any US administration, since what Israel does rubs off on us.
When we're dealing with a war zone where terrorists have converted civilian structures to military ones, the game changes.
What is needed now is a coordinated effort to evacuate all patients and staff from Al-Quds
thehill.com
Did you read that article? The IDF blew a huge crater in the densely populated Jabalya neighborhood to kill just one Hamas leader, and it isn't clear that they even got him. They did, however, get a lot of children along with adult civilians. They have also attacked ambulances, claiming they are being used by Hamas. (And how did they know? Anonymous tip from people who didn't tip them off about October 7?) Read the news and IDF explanations for their actions, and then see if what they are doing sounds like what your article describes. It looks like the opposite to me.
I don't want any civilians to die. Gazans are stuck with an impossible set of choices. And by the way, so is Israel. That said, if Israel has committed war crimes, they must be held accountable and we must oppose that. But then we're back to square 1: what should they do?
Stop digging. The hole is deep enough as it is, and they have retrieved very few of the Oct 7 hostages. They've already taken more lives than the Hamas terrorists did.
My point is, there is no easy answer to that question. There is no obvious best strategy that I have seen. Every action has a cost (including the cost of not doing enough to disable Hamas). And I don't want Israel to commit the same mistakes the USA did during the Bush era. Occupation isn't the long-term answer. Genocidal Islamists remaining in power isn't the answer. So, what is? I support a two-state solution. But I have no idea how we get there.
A pause in the killing and perhaps some reflection would help Israel to come up with a better solution, especially with the help of those who support it. Israel has already made the mistake of creating the massive Gaza Strip ghetto and actually allowing Hamas to build itself up there. Now it is paying a very dear cost for that, and the person responsible for that policy is still running the country. He isn't the best person to solve the problem he created, but the Knesset was elected by the Israeli public, and Netanyahu was the winner. The solution won't happen quickly, but what is the rush to blow up Gaza neighborhoods? Israel needs to change its tactics and become more methodical at rooting out Hamas. Personally, I think that Israel should try to bring in peacekeeping troops to supply aid and help prevent a resumption of hostilities. UN troops would be ideal, but I'm not sure that is feasible, given the demonization of the UN by Israel.
