Actually a large number of those 1200 were killed by Israeli incendiary rounds fired from helicopters due to Operation Hannibal. It’s why the estimates kept getting rounded down from an initial 1500, because many of the bodies were too badly incinerated to be counted accurately.

This is a wild enough sounding claim it deserves a cite.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-07/israel-hannibal-direc...

The Hannibal directive or the more recent Dayiha Doctrine[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine

The investigation into this found 14 deaths from Hannibal Directive actions. Mostly firing on vehicles carrying hostages.

Report: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-a-hrc-56-26-2...

Keep reading, you're missing the next sentences.

> The Commission also verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, ISF had likely applied the Hannibal Directive, resulting in the killing of up to 14 Israeli civilians. One woman was killed by ISF helicopter fire while being abducted from Nir Oz to Gaza by militants. In another case the Commission found that Israeli tank fire killed some or all of the 13 civilian hostages held in a house in Be’eri.

> The Commission found that Israeli authorities prioritised identifying victims, notifying families and allowing for burial rather than forensic investigation, leading to evidence of crimes, especially sexual crimes, not being collected and preserved. The Commission also notes the loss of potential evidence due to inadequately trained first responders.

(That I'm completely fine with. But it presents challenges for verifying incidents, which probably means it's an undercount.)

> Mostly firing on vehicles carrying hostages.

That is the Hannibal Directive; "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

If they wanted to go after Hamas, why did they employ methods of combat that were guaranteed to affect civilians, like cutting off the entire strip from food supply?

Or the massacre that this thread is about for that matter?

The issue isn't whether or not Israel started it. It's the genocide they did once it started.

It's really about motive and targeting. Were they trying to get the hostages back or just kill people randomly? Were they targeting Hamas or aid workers?

Cool, now justify the things happening in the west bank. Israel so peaceful, coexists with neighbors.