I see your points and mostly agree. I’m not trying to be obtuse. But to be falling off by half within four months? Also, why text people and tell them to evacuate? Wouldn’t that provide the same subterfuge? The IDF still texts people before they bomb if they know there are civilians around, look it up.
But more importantly, they aren’t bombing indiscriminately. In my understanding: they are bombing legit targets, the tunnels and members of Hamas, and Hamas uses human shields and sympathy from high civilian casualties (martyrdom) as a weapon. Aren’t they the superceding cause of the civilian casualties? I agree, 30,000 dead is horrendous. Hamas members are honored to cram their entire extended family into an apartment right above their nearest tunnel shaft and have them all die as martyrs while their phones buzz with unread emergency broadcasts.
1.2 million people evacuated safely, a massive forced evacuation. That fact alone makes it reasonably suspect. I get where the allegations are coming from. On balance, I find Israel’s response to be proportionate (destroying the enemy’s attack capability (the tunnels)), and evacuations are necessary to achieve that purpose.
This war is unique, the tunnels are unprecedented in all of human history. The willingness to use human shields is not entirely unprecedented, but the tunnels, hiding military infrastructure under hospitals and schools, under apartment complexes, under colleges, makes it unprecedented in its atrocity. October 7 was the last straw. Hamas has to go. The tunnels have to go and the city rebuilt from scratch.