> Anyway, %50 women and children causality rate on top of illegal occupation and other atrocities wouldn't convince anyone about it being a "collateral damage".

Gaza isn't occupied any longer, or at least, not in the traditional sense. Israel left Gaza in 2005.

As for the casualty rate - just look at the casualty rate in e.g. the Iraq war. Every civilian death is tragic, but war really does involve a lot of collateral damage - all the more so when groups like Hamas purposefully try to get civilians killed.

> How would you feel if Hamas claimed that all the civilians were a collateral damage? After all they documented the extermination of Israeli soldiers and if there are documented intentional killings of the civilians they can just say it was some bad Apples among them.

I would say they are lying, because there are many videos, uploaded by them!, of them targetting civilians. And not just killing them, brutalizing them and massacring them.

Btw, killing soldiers is also illegal if they are not in a position to fight you. Invading a base and capturing it is a legitimate military tactic. Executing all soldiers in it even if they have no weapons or have surrendered is a war crime.

> I'm sure we can also find some videos of Israeli people saying really bad things about exterminating all the Palestinians. IIRC, there were officials calling to drop an Atomic bomb on Palestine and kill them all and other officials calling for mass extermination. Don't you have a far right government?

Yes, some Israeli say bad things, especially in a time of war. And some fringe members of our government have said horrible things and are rightfully condemned. If the government acted the way some members of the government would want it to act - I'd be completely against it and would consider it immoral.

Luckily for both sides, these are fringe views (though not fringe enough).

> Can you put yourself in the shoes of your opponent? Hamas are horrible but Israeli are no better unfortunately

I can put myself in the shoes of my opponent. But comparing Hamas to the IDF is just wrong. The IDF doesn't target civilians, and would definitely never brutally massacre, rape and torture civilians.

> It's fascinating that you can claim with straight face to be the good guys with over %50 civilian kill rate in the prison you created. Very unfortunate, another blow for the ideals of the "civilised world". Once again a well educated, technologically advanced nation conducting unspeakable horrors and claim that they are victims and are the good ones.

I don't think we're the "good guys" - and I think that's a really simplistic way of thinking about things. I think Israel has a lot to answer for by not advancing peace for the last 15 years, for example.

But I also think that given what happened on October 7th, Israel didn't have any choice but to do what it's doing, and doesn't have any chance now - the only way to get safety for Israel and eventually a peace in place is by destroying Hamas.

You just can't live next to a government that loudly proclaims it is intent on killing your citizens, and carries this out!

> Hamas or any Islamic terrorism with political or religious goals is horrible enough and you are asking us to accept more killing with a bit different political and religious goals.

Israel's goals in this war are to destroy Hamas to make us safe. Period. That's the goal and it's a completely legitimate goal, much as Ukraine is fighting off Russia for legitimate reasons.