Let me be very clear, killing 1000 Israelis doesn't "warrant" killing a single Palestinian. Revenge killing is not moral, period. If Hamas were to surrender, there'd be no legitimate reason to kill anyone, neither civilian nor militant.
The valid reason to wage war is to prevent someone from killing you. In this case, Hamas has killed invaded, killed civilians, shot rockets, and promised to do it again. It is a valid reason to go to war with them. It is not a valid reason to ever target civilians - but that doesn't mean that civilians won't tragically be killed.
> And "Gaza" didn't invade Israel. Hamas terrorists did.
Hamas is the government of Gaza. It is Hamas that has embedded themselves into the civilian population in such a way as to prevent separating them.
Again, you keep not answering my question - what do you think Israel should do? Should it just not try to defeat Hamas? Should it do it differently (and in that case, what can Israel do instead?)
> And reducing Gaza to rubble and creating a unfathomable humanitarian crisis is going to lessen resentment? Good plan. How about dismantling the settlements? But can't give in to terrorists, can you, and do the thing you should have been doing in the first place if you had any decency. That's impossible to ask of Israelis. Instead, we just ask people in Gaza to die, quietly. Because "they started it" and "we are having our hand forced every step of the way".
I'm not sure why you keep suggesting that all of Israel is some morally corrupt block or something. I hate the settlements and think that it's a huge moral failure on the part of Israel that it hasn't dismantled them already. Many if not most Israelis oppose the settlements (usually).
Many also feel that the settlements are the only defense against what happened near Gaza happening everywhere else that borders the West Bank. I don't think they're right, but it's hard to blame them given what happened.
As for reducing Gaza to rubble - I wish there was another way. But I think that given Hamas's stated goals, the only chance for security and the only chance for peace is for Hamas to be out of the picture. I don't see how that can be achieved otherwise. Israel isn't all-powerful, and it's predictably acting just like every other western country given this type of urban warfare. (You seemed to argue against this, but just look at the damage caused in e.g. Mosul.)
> How about looking into how one of the most hawkishly watched, tiniest strip of border in the whole world could be nilly-willy breached like that? I don't mean this as victim blaming, but you always first look at the things you do control.
Believe me, Israel is intensely interested in this question. And by all current measures, our current government is incredibly unpopular for this reason (among many others).