You are correct, which is why (I assume as you were replying) I was editing my post. It is absolutely an attempt at ethnic cleansing, where they are herding Gazans towards the south in hopes that they just fuck off to Egypt.
> There's no other way to fight urban warfare in reality, that's the point.
That's an unfortunate situation for a member of the liberal order to be in, and I sympathize. I also don't think that changes the calculus. Civilians don't stop mattering because you want to (justifiably!) neutralize the authoritarians hiding amongst them.
In that case the IDF should not fight an urban war. There is no strategic objective that can reasonably be achieved that justifies the carnage. What the IDF is waging in Gaza is clearly not any kind of defensive war: it is a retaliatory operation motivated by the humiliation suffered by the IDF and the Israeli government who failed, miserably, in their responsibility to defend their people. Hamas could never have perpetrated the 7 October atrocity, if the IDF was not asleep at the wheel, or rather off to defend the fascist settlers, and leaving the "socialist" kibbutzim to defend themselves. If the IDF really wanted to avoid a repeat of 7 October, the way to do that is very easy and does not require any Palestinians to be bombed at all: just don't fuck up again. The IDF had one job. They failed, and now the Gazans are paying for their failure. "Urban warfare" my ass, this is just shooting fish in a barrel.
And as everyone and their little sister has pointed out, including plenty in Israel, even if, when, Hamas is destroyed, the only way to avoid a new resistance organisation emerging is to exterminate the Palestinians (not just in Gaza, everywhere, and that includes Syria and Lebanon) and so perpetrate the genocide you claim Israel does not want to. Failing that, you think "Hamas-ISIS" are Nazis? Wait 'till you see the monsters that will rise from their ashes, the maggots bursting from the corpse of Gaza.
As to the hostages, there's no doubt that if Israel wants to get them back, then it should keep bombing and razing Gaza; but if it wants to get them back alive, then it should stop now.
What's happening in Gaza is by all means not a genocide. If the IDF wanted to do this, they could just carpet bomb the Gaza Strip. There's like 2 million people in Gaza, and about 20-30k casualties so far - for an urban warfare scenario, under the conditions of this war (=especially Hamas hiding amongst civilians), that actually shows significant restraint on part of the IDF.
There are some cases where IDF soldiers likely have committed war crimes (destroying random shopkeepers' inventories, there's been a few videos of these on TikTok), but as despicable as such acts are, that's still not a genocide.
> Or, anyway, that's what it would be if it wasn't more and more obvious that the people that Ben-Gvir and that crew have a problem with are "everyone in Israel who isn't Jewish."
Fully agreed, Netanyahu and his ilk absolutely have to go, the sooner the better - they are actively making the situation worse including on the legal front.
> But we have expectations of modern societies, and one of them is not to force flight-or-death of entire ethnic populations.
There's no other way to fight urban warfare in reality, that's the point.