> spare me the propaganda please, the same line has been repeated since Iraq war. And here we are 30 years later, were Biden says that he saw pictures of kids decapitated and hours later refuted by his own staff. There's pictures upon pictures of Gazan kids and infants being pulled out of rubble and not much acknowledgement of it.

There's plenty of acknowledgement of that. Notice that Israel threw more bombs than anyone ever did in a matter of days. Thousands of bombs. The Hamas historically always inflated numbers (as the Nazis did in Dresden by adding a zero). Even if you take their number as of yesterday of 1,500 for 6,000 bombs. That number shows a remarkable effort to avoid hitting civilians.

There are also many stories of staging photos on the Hamas side, putting a child within the rubble so you can pull them out later. I don't doubt kids were hurt and it's terrible, but children dying from bombing is something that happened in every war since the cannon. It isn't news and it isn't intentional.

> The 2023 incursions in Jenin were offensives by the IDF and the Israeli Border Police.

Yes. I think what Israel did in the territories is terrible. There's an uprising there that has left quite a few Israelis dead. Again, terrible. Lots of shootings at settlers. But I think that's a legitimate struggle.

> There's that interview with ex PM of Israel, Naftali Bennett

I didn't vote for him. I agree, and his comparison to Dresden is just stupid. Again, I think the bombings aren't doing Israel any good and aren't REALLY damaging to the Hamas. In fact, I think they wanted Israel to bomb them as it changes public opinion against Israel and forces the Palestinians in the street to side with Hamas.

I think PM Netanyahu is a useful idiot in service of Hamas.

People losing their home (temporarily) isn't genocide. It's a tragedy but it isn't genocide.

But the core of the issue is how the hell do you fight an enemy that intentionally hides within civilian population and sees it as his god given duty to sacrifice these civilians. This isn't hyperbole, they actually believe that by killing their own people as pawns they will guarantee them a place in heaven!

> Roughly 50% of Gaza's population is under 18. Its the result of decades of indiscriminate killing by the IDF.

That isn't true. It's a result of a fantastically high birthrate and disregard for life by the Hamas.

> I hope you and your loved ones are safe and make it out of this mess. I just want everyone to understand that on the other side of the wall there are families that are sitting in their apartments without protection from an American funded Iron Dome or bomb shelters, waiting to die out of no fault of their own. And for whatever reason people (politicians / journalists of countries that I am a citizen / generally a supporter of) think that Israel in its right to defend itself is justified in leveling Gaza.

I have friends on the other side of that wall. I care for them and don't want them to get hurt either. As I said, the mob mentality on both sides is high and that is the thing that has me stressed about this the most.

I'm old enough to remember a time before the Intefada in the 80s where we used to live side by side with Palestinians from the territories. I used to work side by side with a young Palestinian, a great guy. Younger Israelis and immigrants (who are many) don't have that experience because of the Intefada and the wall. Both sides only see each other through a barrel of a gun and have a problem of disassociation, they think of the other side as "them" instead of as people. Events like these further strengthen that terrible disconnect.

The people on the other side of the wall need help, we need to stop the Hamas who is killing them. But instead of doing that the Israeli government funded Hamas for years because our PM is a moron. We've demonstrated repeatedly trying to get him removed (he's also a criminal under multiple trials). But he won't budge. I think he knew this attack was coming and might be using it as an excuse to further subvert democracy.