I don't think people understand the extent of the challenge presented by the latter part described by a former hostage here. You have a population that is so indoctrinated by hate that it celebrates Hxmas using them as human shields and firing rockets indiscriminately from a school yard (something that's hard for western audiences to comprehend). You have a media that mostly refuses to cover the fact that this is happening constantly thus encouraging it (most of the recent rocket launched have been from inside safe zones). You have a terrorist group that views civilian deaths as a central tool in their war strategy. So what options do you have? You can just leave Gaza, but then they just keep firing rockets and trying to kill your citizens. You can play costly defense as they keep acquiring weapons, but then risk an eventual 10/7 style attack. You can destroy the infrastructure and weapons supply, but that means a ton of collateral damage which plays into their strategy of creating international pressure. You can try to minimize that damage by evacuating the civilian population, but then they are displaced and the terrorists travel with them and get cover from that same population. Anyone who pretends there is an easy answer here is just ignoring the reality of this war. People pretend that recognizing these limited options means simply dismissing the costs of choosing one of them. Of course in an ideal world that actually valued Palestinian civilian lives instead of viewed their deaths as useful tools against Israel, the world would have come together to exert enormous pressure on those funding/sustaining Hxmas to force them to give up their arms and release the hostages after 10/7. If that type of pressure had been placed on the Islamic Republic, Turkey, and Qatar, the war could have mostly been avoided. There would have been an agreement to demilitarize Gaza until a respectable non-terrorist force could have taken over and a ton of lives would have been saved. But we don't live in that world. So now a lot of people are paying a heavy price for a war the Islamic Republic and its proxies chose to start. https://bird.makeup/@aghamilton29/1828221612325241240
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