I see this from a different point of view. It's time for the Gazans to rise up and overthrow Hamas because when you're in a car and someone hijacks it and drives it into a wall, you don't blame the wall, you blame the hijacker.

In recent days, Hamas has fired rockets from an area of Beit Hanoun where an UNRWA shelter is located. Last night, the Israel Defense Forces told the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from UNRWA’s shelter in Beit Hanoun between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. today. UNRWA and the Red Cross received the message. Hamas prevented civilians from evacuating the area during the window that the IDF gave them.
Today, July 24, Hamas continued firing from Beit Hanoun. The IDF responded by targeting the source of the fire. Also today, several rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel fell short and hit Beit Hanoun. This is not the first time Hamas rockets have hit their own people. This is just one example. If one was truly interested in the topic and not just in "talking points" to try to sound smart about something they do not know about, then the information is out there and available.

Additional information that might be useful to know before you sound ignorant: Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2024. Gazans "elected" Hamas (when's the next election, by the way?) shortly thereafter and Israel had to secure the border and you can't blame them since the only purpose of Hamas is to wage war on Israel. Egypt also secured their border and does not allow its Muslim brothers in, but for some reason, this is not news. (Same for Jordan, but that's the West Bank and a whole other conversation)

If there was a surgical precision to avoid civilian casualties, then Israel would do it. But this is war. Not to mention that Hamas rejected 2 ceasefire proposals because the lives of their people were just not worth it to them. Also leaflets were dropped hours prior to the start of the Israeli response urging people to evacuate and Hamas told them to stay. Hamas, with every rocket launch, strives to kill as many people as possible, civilian or not. They have rockets that can reach almost any point in Israel and their goal is to overwhelm the missile defense system. Not only that, but they have a intricate system of tunnels that they have spent millions of dollars and resources devising to infiltrate Israel (they've already used them to kidnap soldiers). Hamas knows that Israel will respond to such an attack but they do nothing to protect its civilians. Why not hide them in these tunnels? Why not actually build shelter like Israelis do. They obviously can. Instead, they arm their children and teach them that to die for this cause is to be martyred.

If Israel was to stop defending itself, they would be dead. Gaza is about twice the size of Washington DC and is densely populated. About 600 tons of explosives have been dropped on Gaza so far and if Israel was not trying to avoid killing civilians, the death toll would be much much higher than it is. (It is tragic that there is a death toll at all, but that's the reality of war and Israeli soldiers have been killed as well.)

Let us now contrast Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties to the actions of Hamas. Hamas maintains a charter which states, clearly and unapologetically, that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it….” It further notes: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” The Hamas charter is a near perfect fit for the U.N.’s definition of genocide, and Hamas stands by it’s charter. It has fired close to 13,000 rockets at Israel, at a rate of nearly 3 per day for the past 12 years. During that same period, 1,235 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian acts of terror, most of them by Hamas operatives. And while Hamas sends rockets and death into Israel, Israel sends aid into Gaza; Israel transfers over 100,000 tons of humanitarian goods into Gaza every month – nearly 5,000 truckloads of everything from food and clothing to agricultural equipment and construction supplies. In the past two weeks, hundreds of truckloads of food and supplies have continued to reach the people of Gaza even as Hamas continues to target Israeli civilians with rockets. Give me an example of one other nation that gives aid to their enemy while being attacked.

Also, when you read about these tunnels (google and youtube it), there is no way that these people, who live in such a densely populated area, had no idea that there were tunnels being dug under their feet. There is no way that they don't know that a missile is about to be launched from their own home. This makes sense because a recent poll from June 2024, showed that the 70 % of the Palestinians still do not favor a two state solution and don't favor living side by side with the Jews. Actually the whole poll was very interesting and I'll share the link but you can also google it (it's from June 2024).

If your readers are going to engage in a debate about this conflict, I would encourage them to actually read from a variety of sources.

I do not support Israel is every thing that they do or have done but I support them here. And I agree that I don't think that anti Israel means anti semitic although that is true with some people and if you follow at least the Paris protests, I think you would agree. I'm not a military strategist and if there is one amongst you that thinks there is a better way to handle the situation, I think that would be an interesting conversation.

It's really easy for those of us not in the conflict to pontificate on the topic from the safety of our couches, but it's not that simple. The fact that you first made up your mind and then came here for "responses" to support your position is indicative of confirmation bias and I would urge against that.