The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was Justified (3rd attempt)

I argue now that my opponent has accepted the premise that Israel's attack in response to the actions of Hamas must be proportionate. He has done this by trying to explain away my points and saying that Israel is not committing actions as bad as I described. By trying to argue that it is a proportional response, he accepts the premise it must proportional too be justified. Let me lay out the bare facts. Assuming that this invasion must be a proportional response to be justified. Israel suffered 15 Casualties over 8 years, a further 3 civilians in the conflict. Palestinians in retaliation suffered 894 civilian casualties, 50,800 people were left homeless, and 400,000 in a humanitarian crisis without running water. I can't seriously think that my opponent believes in any way this is a proportionate response to the terrorist attacks on Israel. What makes a Palestinian life worth less than an Israelis? Why should Israeli be able to punish the lives of 400,000 people in response to the death of 18 of their citizens? Further more my opponent has tried to simply blame Hamas for all of the casualties, simply saying it's their fault. In response to that I'll make a few points. Firstly my opponent has not argued against the fact it's the attacking force's responsibility to ensure that only a reasonable number of civilian casualties occur, clearly not what has happened in this invasion. If Israel wishes to defend itself by attacking Hamas the onus is on it to ensure that it doesn't do so while blowing up multiple innocent civilians for it to be justified. Secondly my opponent simply maintains that because Hamas member is in the area of a civilian, it is his fault if the civilian dies. This is fairly ridiculous to say. Let me give you an example. A Hamas member is seen launching a rocket and run's into a nearby apartment complex known to hold approximately 500 civilians. Israel has three choices. They can either move into there with ground forces, tracking down the militant or capturing him. They can leave him to fight another day because they think the risk to their men is too high. Finally they could drop a 2000 pound bomb onto the building, guaranteeing that they do kill the militant, but also 500 civilians in the process. By your logic, the 500 civilian casualties is the fault of the single Hamas member running into the building, and no moral blame can be assigned to the Israeli commander simply because he is attacking a militant. Come on now, I think we can agree that with any targeting of a militant force the number of civilian casualties must be taken into account, and you cannot simply lay all following moral consequences of the following action at the feet of the enemy for simply being in a location at the time. This goes back to my example of a murderer taking hostages inside a building and the police blowing up the building in response. You can assign partial blame to the murder for taking the hostages, but you cannot excuse the action of the police for killing everyone inside. "Israel's acts are NOT unrestrained" I would agree that the actions were not unrestrained, because almost by definition that would mean almost anyone in Gaza would have been killed, however the question is can this action be justified? Is this action that they are committing worth the gain that comes from it? At killing 894 people, 50,800 left homeless and 400,000 without water, I say no it's not worth the gain, cannot be justified as self defence because it's not proportionate. I'd also state that Hamas tactics, like it or not, aren't designed to TRY and kill Palestinian civilians. It's designed to try and stop Israel attacking. I fully admit this and understand why they are attacking this way. Israel is one of the largest military forces in the world and Hamas simply cannot take it on toe to toe, which leads to the tactics we see. This is the same with terrorism and any guerrilla warfare action out there. Unfair as it is, it works for a reason, and that is that the civilian casualties that result are unacceptably high. Does this mean a nation should ignore the civilian casualties it will cause out of frustration? Of course not. Knowing this, does not change the fact that that it IS unjustifiable. It does not change the amount of innocent civilians killed, and the amount of people left homeless. My opponent also claims that Israel is doing this for peace. If it brought about this noble aim it may go a long way (but not quite) the price paid by those civilians. Has it though? How successful has this action been? Was it worth the price? Well, unfortunately not, Hamas are still launching rockets, Israel is still being attacked. How many more incursions and civilian lives must be lost before this military option brings peace? "It takes an incredible amount of naivete to expect that Hamas can be reasoned with." My opponent also says that this is because Hamas is unwilling to negotiate at all, however this attack came off the back of a relatively successful ceasefire where the amount of rockets fired dropped by 98% compared to the 4.5 months before it. Clearly this shows that Hamas will negotiate as long as everyone is getting a fair trade at the table. Military options aren't the answer, and aren't the only options as my opponent tries to suggest. The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was not, and can not be justified.