Between February 13 and 15 in 1945, in just 2 days, 25,000 mostly women, children and elderly Germans were killed in Dresden by allied bombers. In Hiroshima a few months later 80,000 died from atomic bomb Fatboy., By WW2 standards, Israel’s death count in Gaza is tame given war has been going on there for months but the issue become much more morally murkier when you factor in today we have smarter weapons which could have reduced the death toll dramatically..
Netanyahu well knows Hamas will not officially surrender. He isn’t officially targeting civilians per se as death toll would be much much higher. He’s trying to destroy all the infrastructure in Gaza and if some kill civilians…. “whoops well they shouldn’t have bene standing so close”. What he really wants is to make life as miserable as possible for Palestinians to encourage them to “voluntarily” leave Gaza under the guise of “humanitarianism”. This is exactly why he won’t let in any humanitarian relief.
When this war start, Israel held the moral high ground in the west. Much like the US in Afghanistan though as time progresses though and deaths mount. mostly of children, with no official surrender or end of war in sight, Netanyahu loses more and more political capital both inside and outside of Israel. This in turn plays into Hamas hands who no doubt would have done far worse to Jews had it been in their power.
Netanyahu is hoping Trump can win he next election to throw him a political lifeline. Maybe it will work. Trump is a narcissist that doesn’t have any sense of empathy. He doesn’t care if he messes up the conservative party. Doesn’t care if he messes up his own country. And certainly doesn’t care about anyone else’s country much less Muslims.
The Democrats are still in Israel’s corner but inch-by-inch moving towards not towards Hamas side but neutrality., If they win the next election, and Netanyahu is still around taking this all-in approach and handing land to settlers, the Democrats will plausibly start removing military and diplomatic support for Israel. A wildcard is Europe. The EU would take Democrats position. With the rise of the far right in Europe the EU might fall apart but it remains unclear just how many nations would give Israel as blank check in Gaza
Israeli voters is another wildcard. Will they continue to vote for a government that clearly has some extremist elements solely to try get rid of Palestinians rather finally reach for compromise even at the cost of some internal infighting? If so, it seems like it may come at the cost of the political capital Israel has accrued over decades/ And possibly even the freedom of any Jews that aren’t religious. Far right theocrats like Ben Gvir oppose democracy even for just Jews. The theocratic elements in Israel have a high fertility rate. It’s plausible one day their numbers might get high enough to destroy it’s democracy in lew of an Israel run by Torah much like Afghanistan is run by Sharia.