Claim: Israel must continue bombing Gaza until the Hamas leadership is eradicated in order to secure its national safety.

Published October 20, 2023

“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity."

"In the five cases described below Amnesty International found that Israeli forces carried out attacks that violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects."

Bombing with disregard for civilian life is a war crime and not an acceptable cost for securing national safety.

Published November 30, 2023

This investigation, published an independent media outlet run by Israelis and Palestinians on the ground, was "based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions."

The report claims that since October 7th, the Israeli army has acted to "significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”)."

"The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it."

"Another source said that a senior intelligence officer told his officers after October 7 that the goal was to “kill as many Hamas operatives as possible,” for which the criteria around harming Palestinian civilians were significantly relaxed. As such, there are “cases in which we shell based on a wide cellular pinpointing of where the target is, killing civilians. This is often done to save time, instead of doing a little more work to get a more accurate pinpointing,” said the source."

This article claims that Israeli intelligence has enough information to estimate how many civilians will be killed in a bombing, and is doing it anyway. It suggests that even if the bombings of Hamas targets were to continue, they could be more targeted and more effort could be made to prevent civilian casualties. 

Hamas' top leaders aren't in Gaza. They're in Qatar.

Hamas has said they will continue to attack Israel. Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Hamas is still holding Israeli hostages. There can be no ceasefire until Hamas releases the hostages and makes peace by saying they will no longer seek the destructiuon of Israel.

So long as Hamas is committed to the eradication of Israel, Israel must be dedicated to the eradication of Hamas.

As soon as Hamas wants to say they are no longer at war with Israel, the war will be over. But you can't say you're not at war with Israel while your charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

https://embassies.gov.il/holysee/AboutIsrael/the-middle-east/Pages/The%20Hamas-Covenant.aspx#:~:text=The%20Hamas%20charter%20is%20the,18%20years%20of%20its%20existence.

Published October 28, 2023 by Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, told reporters. "This is the second stage of the war whose goals are clear - to destroy Hamas' governing and military capabilities and to bring the hostages home."

"He reiterated Israel's appeal to Palestinian civilians to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip where Israel was focusing its attack, and vowed that every effort would be made to rescue the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas."

"A widely expected Israeli ground offensive in Gaza – whose 2.3 million residents are densely packed into a tiny coastal strip – would likely result in a surge of casualties for fighters on both sides."

According to Macrotrends (links below) Israel's military size as of 2019 was 178,000 active personnel. Compare this to Iran's 650,000 active military personnel in the same year.

As of 2023, it was estimated that Israel had an additional 465,000 reserve forces (link below), while in 2012 Iran was reported to have 650,000 reserves.

So it seems like even though Israel has advanced weapons, their weakness is in personnel, making it a costly choice to send ground troops into perilous situations.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ISR/israel/military-army-size
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IRN/iran/military-army-size
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us