I mean, you have that many hostages, who would not be released without strong military force on Hamas/Gaza. There’s a reason that the soldiers are there. I agree that a deal should be made, should have been made 8months ago, but this is not the soldiers’ fault, but rather the politicians (Bibi and Sinwar). If you break into someone’s house, and take their son away, don’t be surprised if that someone is coming back to get them back, hurting your own kids in the way if your refuse to do so.
The thing is that while Israeli left is openly demanding that the settlers will be punished for their crimes, the world left is giving Hamas “a free pass” to do whatever they want, including holding their own civilians hostages. Same for the IDF, Hamas constantly, and purposely shoots rockets on cities and towns in Israel. Again purposely from within civil location. Should Israel just “accept?” Pay the absurd cost of every iron dome rocket while waiting for Hamas to learn how to outperform it?
This lack of global pressure on Hamas of disarming itself brings down the legitimacy of the claims of the left in Israel. People here can’t and won’t rely on foreign forces to protect the Israeli border. I myself don’t rely on that (technically the UN holds the border between israel and Lebanon and we see how useless this is).
So, again, both parties are absolutely sure that they are protecting their home, they don’t, in effect, but they have no way out of it due to politics and corruption (of both sides’ leaders).
First, as I said before, I’m against the war, against the occupation, and in favor of two states solution (ideally, a democratic one Jewish-palestinian state should exist, but this is not going to happen).
Now, I’m sorry, if you ignore the hostages, and the fact that October 7th happened as an offensive act by Hammas, you are painting only a partial picture.
Hamas had 10m to stop the the offensive by Israel, release the hostages. It was that easy 8 months ago, even 5 month ago. Today, I’m not sure. If you ignore this card in hamas’s hands then you are again, painting a partial picture.
And as I said countless times in this thread, directing our anger at the armed forces, rather than politicians (on both sides) only aggravate the war.