> Your math is off

The math isn't mine, it's about the size of the attack scaled to the population size. It's 1,300+ dead and it's adjusted to the size of the population. Since the country is small everyone in Israel knows someone who was there. That's the scale of the attack.

> Anyway, my point was that attacks in the south are not mild. They have more victims than the initial attack on Israel itself.

No. You're counting combatants, victims of Hamas and equivocating bombing with cold blood murder. All are false. You're also trusting Hamas, an organization who had a representative on the BBC claiming that they didn't kill any civilians...

* Hamas doesn't mention how many of the dead are actual operatives or were around such operatives. I'm sure that if they do those calculations Israel will come out on top. Israel is subject to intentional law, right now there's a Hauge court investigator in Israel verifying that records are kept and tracking facts. Every bombing must have actionable intel associated with it for proof in court if it is deemed a crime.

* Murder in person is a completely different situation from bombing. There's no comparison. A stray bullet might hit a civilian but the vast majority of the 1,300 dead on October 7th were civilians. This is an organization that sent suicide bombers into busses and restaurants. That is explicit and intentional targeting of civilians which is a crime against humanity. Israel is actually liable in court if it could be proven that it threw a bomb where it shouldn't go.

They literally mutilated bodies, there's a video of a Hamas terrorist just chopping off a guys head with a shovel. They are insane...

> Anyway, my point was that attacks in the south are not mild. They have more victims than the initial attack on Israel itself.

Again. Israel would be 100% liable and would lose US support if it was indeed bombing invalid targets. We can't see the docs but I'm sure the US is reviewing everything as they want to keep their relations in the region.

As proof look at the Hospital bombing. Israel was able to show multiple different evidence that it was not it. It was able to show that over 400 misfires of missiles happened in Gaza. A lot of these "bombings" might be due to such misfires of missiles intended to land in Israel. After all, the Islamic Jihad placed the missiles right next to a Hospital then blamed Israel...

> Stop blocking humanitarian aid,

Israel allowed humanitarian aid and has done so a few days back. I suggest keeping up.

> ceasefire and prisoner swap/release, as always.

No.

A few years ago there was one kidnapped soldier. The Hamas demanded 1,000 prisoners a lot of which had blood on their hands. Israel relented and released them with a promise that they will not attack.

The vast majority of them took part of October 7th attacks. They learned. They kidnapped hundreds of people. They used ceasefire times to dig deeper tunnels and get more weapons.

These people negotiate only for the purpose of coming back with stronger forces. They have no intention whatsoever for peace or co-existance. Their charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. They don't care about peaceful co-existence or the lives of their own people. All negotiation is just a ploy with these people.

> Then some political solution involving UN peacekeaping mission, or something.

Sure. After the Hamas is completely destroyed. It is an organization that cannot exist. It destroyed the Oslo accord and has done tremendous damage to the Palestinian people as well as Israel.

> It kinda needs trustworthy figures on both sides and a lot of effort at reconciliation on both sides.

You need to understand that it is an evil organization that executes LGBT people. Considers wife beating to be normal marriage. Educates its children that murdering Jews will get them to heaven.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a lying a*hole. But they are at a different level of corrupt, murderous, fanatic lunatics. There can never be anything as long as they exist. They need to stand trial for crimes against humanity and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Don't use nonsense like "both sides".
Then some political solution involving UN peacekeaping mission, or something. It's been done in many places already. It kinda needs trustworthy figures on both sides and a lot of effort at reconciliation on both sides.

> Destroying Gaza

Gaza isn't destroyed. Some neighborhoods. Sure. Specifically the "rich" areas where the Hamas honchos live off the money they stole from the poor Gaza residence.

Unfortunately, some destruction is inevitable in war. This is a war. There are kidnapped people and an organization intent on destroying Israel. The goal of the war isn't to destroy Gaza. It's to destroy the Hamas.

> severely damaging the west bank economy by heavy restrictions associated with a prolonged war

The war is damaging to Israel too. It wants it over quickly. Obviously the Hamas will never surrender so it will take a while. That's the only option as explained above.

> making people there even more frustrated with PA than they already are

The PA has nothing to do with Gaza right now.

> just doesn't seem like it will lead to anything good for regular Israelis.

In the short term: bringing back the kidnapped children is something good.
Bringing down the Hamas is something good.
Stopping missiles that are fired daily (even today) on Israeli cities is something good.

In the long run ending the Hamas might finally open a path to a Palestinian state. That would be a great thing for everyone involved (Israelis too). The Hamas is the main reason the Oslo accord fell apart. I'm not sure how this would work but I'm hopeful in that regard.