I'll probaly get hammered here but here's my 2 cents....
The Gaza strip isnt a particularly big place. You could easily fit it into the Southern Brisbane - Northern Gold Coast corridor.
What Israel probably should have done is rather than carper bomb civilian areas and civilian targets is they should occupied Gaza with a narrower counterterrorism operation focused specifically on Hamas leadership and military infrastructure, rather than a full-scale invasion aimed at total regime change which has been disastrous in terms of civilian deaths.
A more targeted approach, potentially using special forces and intelligence-led strikes, could have been far more effective at destroying operational capacity of Hamas.
Internationally, Israel enjoyed much sympathy when it was the sole victim. But much of this was dissipated when Israel reacted by killing far more civilians and destroying far more property than the Hamas invaders did in their October 7th attack.
A more restrained approach would have worked not just to “destroy” Hamas in a physical sense, but to isolate it as an international pariah..
When Pakistani backed militants shot up Mumbai in 2008, killing 175 people, India's response was quick but far more restrained in terms of the way civilian,s were treated....
After deliberations in which it weighed the likely outcomes and broader effects of various courses of action, Ondia's then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government ultimately opted not to undertake an overt military strike on terrorist camps in Pakistan. Instead, New Delhi responded to the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai through diplomatic and covert channels. In public, the country chose restraint, not revenge. That decision brought India international support, prevented a potentially catastrophic war, minimised civilian casualties, and arguably prevented more terrorism. At least so far, India has not experienced another Pakistani-backed terrorist attack with mass casualties on Indian soil.
