Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City school

[haele]

243. If they weren't before, they will be now.

That's what happens every time a state military tries to treat a guerilla force like a co-equal military. There's proven asymmetrical warfare doctrine on how to deal with guerilla forces with minimal adverse affects to local civilians they embed themselves in with that also reduces most of any sympathy the locals might have with guerillas.
That isn't "bomb them all and let Gawd sort them out". Curtis LeMay, head of the Bomber Mafia in WWII caused tens of thousands of useless civilian casualties in the axis countries along with bomber crews pushing the idea that the civilians in those countries would give up supporting the war after their cities were bombed for no strategic reason. Totally ignoring that the Blitz on England didn't work on the population. Almost like he and other Allied military strategists thought the Germans and Japanese were lesser people because their governments and armies were violent, pitiless, uncivilized thugs and rapists.

Trying to turn locals against a government policy or guerilla force by collective civilian punishment didn't work then, and the supposedly more educated, savvy, and civilized Likkud government is making sure it won't work now.

You can criticize me for holding the current Israeli government to a higher standard than Hamas when it comes to dealing with the Palestinian civilian population they (the Israelis) recognized as quasi-legitimate enough to be considered either a viable workforce when crossing the border to or citizens when they are residing in Israel. They are a Government, not a rival religious street gang.

Hamas is a violent, simplistic terrorist organization trying to expand turf and get rid of opposition. The only real way to neuter and eventually eliminate them is to remove support for their cause; to keep bored or desperate young people with nothing to do and few opportunities from joining their ranks, and to give the civilians around them an alternative to imagining support for Hamas will give them any dignity or improvement to their daily lives.

But I suppose it's too late now anyway. Any chance of a peaceful single joint state or even two state solution disappeared with the assassination of Rabin. So just go head and bomb them out of existence and then build a huge buffer wall to keep any undesirables away from the rest of that country. After all, it's not like building a wall around Texas.
I guess just be too hard and take too long to try to re-convince the civilians in Gaza or the West Bank they have any opportunity for dignity or improvement outside of a group of warlord thugs who will treat them like useful commodities instead of troublesome potential criminals.

Haele