People who think it's acceptable to bomb civilian residential areas flat because they're "booby trapped" are lost souls.

Those booby traps also kill Gazan children. Did you see that recent video of the Gazan girl getting blown to bits? They tried to pin it on Israel, but it was a Hamas IED. That's why there was a camera pointed at it.

sorry, is this an argument that no israeli explosions are caught on camera? that seems unlikely

In what sense am I being obtuse? By actually talking to Gazans?

No, this is what Gazans in Gaza say. They say that the camera was pointed at the IED location to film Israeli soldiers tripping it.

Imagine having your comment history and pretending to care about children in Gaza being blown to bits. Unreal.

Do you care about the safety and security of people in Israel? What would you do if a fundamentalist group shot thousands of rockets into your town over a decade?

> What would you do if a fundamentalist group shot thousands of rockets into your town over a decade?

I wouldn't be running an explicitly racist apartheid ethnostate. I wouldn't be engaging in constant ethnic cleansings for the last 75 years.

The question was what would you do, not what you wouldn't do.

What would you do if you were a southern governor responding to a slave revolt? It's the same kind of question. I wouldn't build my society on ethnic supremacy and then seek to maintain that through force.

What would you do if you were expelled from your homeland at gunpoint by foreign settlers, and then 19 years later, your refugee camp was conquered by the very same people, who then ruled over you using brute military force for nearly 60 years, with no end in sight?

If I lived in a bad neighborhood, I would leave. Why don’t Israelis?

Based on your argument, why don’t the Gazans leave? Would you not consider Gaza to be a bad neighborhood?

The answer for both sides is that both sides have historical claim to the land, and there is no better neighborhood to live in for either of the sides anyway.

I accept that argument. If I were Gazan I’d leave too, if I could.

But Gazans can’t leave (the borders have been closed for years now), while Israelis can emigrate whenever they like. So on an individual basis, every Israeli has made a choice to accept living in the bad neighborhood, whereas the Gazans have no choice but to make the best of the bad situation.

The Gazans have a border with Egypt as well.

As for the Jews, there is no place safer than this "bad neighborhood".

The many Jews and ex-Israelis here in the NYC suburbs seem to find it pretty safe. My neighbor just sold his Tel Aviv condo he's owned for 40 years -- he seems to believe he's never going back.

Yes, I care about children. And whatever manipulated media convinced you that Israelis do not care about children, when we are the side going far behind reason to protect children, had turn you too into a useful idiot.

Why does this matter?

This is an argument that Hamas is bad not why buildings need to be destroyed

It matters because those structures have been converted from peoples' homes to weapons of war. And those weapons are dangerous to both Israeli soldiers and to Gazan citizens.

Many of the dead children pinned on Israel are the result of the bobby trapped buildings. This actually makes sense in Muslim media, where culturally those killed by either side are considered martyrs and afforded the gifts of heaven. But it makes no sense in Western media where human life is supposedly valued.

You definitely won the argument.

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Wtf? We've banned this account.

the most precise thing is getting somebody else into power who removes hamas via police means rather than leveling buildings.

You know what, you're right.

As soon as Hamas returns the hostages, we could then progress to the day after and who will rule the strip.

Attacking structures instead of Hamas members is not precision

People keep saying that but nobody proposes a meaningful more precise approach. There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?

And look at Israel vs Hezbollah--Hezbollah makes little use of human shield tactics, casualties run in the ballpark of 90% combatant. Same force, same type of opponent, what's the difference in Gaza? Hamas makes very heavy use of human shield tactics and worse. We see 30-50% combatants. That implies that the majority of the deaths are because of Hamas.

"There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?"

Why would the military in countries hostile to Israel provide Israel with advice or plans on defeating their enemies?

To make them look bad.