No problem. I figure at this point we can merge these two discussions into the same thread, so I won't respond to your post in the Australia thread.

The thing is, you're assuming a reasonable Israel that simply doesn't exist, and you're assuming that Hamas, PIJ, etc. also carry this assumption. But they don't! They have, and had, a much clearer view of the situation and of Israel's nature than you do. They knew prior to October 7th that Israel's long-term plan was the expulsion of all Palestinians and the annexation of all of Palestine. The West Bank settlements continued to expand, and Gaza remained under siege. At the same time, all of the middle eastern comprador states were moving towards normalization of relations with Israel.

Their strategic calculus was that they had to make a move before it was too late - the status quo had to be disrupted, because the status quo meant the slow and total dissolution of the West Bank, reducing Palestine to Gaza alone, which Israel could continue to isolate and slice up at will. So, they made their move. I don't think they expected Israel's response would be anywhere near as extreme as it was, but they had tried the peaceful option - in 2018, the IDF responded to the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations in the Great March of Return with gunfire - live ammunition.

Israel did not deny that they responded to the protests with live fire, rather a senior IDF officer claimed that most of the deaths were unintentional, caused by ricochets or protesters suddenly bending over while the snipers had targeted their legs. (Haaretz) I'll reiterate that, they responded to a peaceful protest by having snipers shoot demonstrators in the legs. 183 were killed total, including 35 children, 2 members of the press, and 3 health workers. 4 IDF troops were injured by thrown rocks. The statistics do show that the majority of the injuries were to the legs, with 4903 of the 6103 injuries from live ammunition being to the lower limbs, not including the 1576 injuries from bullet fragmentation, (UNHCR Report) but there is absolutely no way to justify firing live ammunition into a peaceful demonstration, full stop. "Shooting in the legs" is sometimes touted as something the police should do rather than killing someone, but a firearm should only be used in life-or-death situations, and if you are able to shoot someone in the leg rather than the center of mass, shooting is not justified. This is only amplified by the fact that the IDF soldiers were in no danger. Actually, it's much more likely that the shooting of people's legs was punitive. They blew people's legs off for daring to approach the border wall - the Palestinian side of the border wall mind you, so it isn't as if they had crossed any "border." I'll enclose a few quotes from the above linked report below, highlighting the incidents:

Israeli forces injured a schoolgirl (13) with bullet fragmentation. As she lay on the ground, four men attempted to evacuate her. The forces shot three of them, killing Marwan Qudieh (45) from Khuzaa village and injuring a potato seller and another man in the legs. One of the rescuers had to have a leg amputated.

Maryam (16), a schoolgirl from Rafah, was shot in the leg by Israeli forces as she stood with a small group of girls waving Palestinian flags, approximately 50 m from the separation fence.

Alaa, a member of the Palestinian cycling team, was shot by Israeli forces in the leg as he stood holding his bicycle, wearing his cycling kit, watching the demonstrations, approximately 300 m from the separation fence. His right leg had to be amputated, ending his cycling career.

Israeli forces shot Mohammad (17), a student athlete, in the back of his right leg as he gave onions to demonstrators to relieve tear-gas symptoms, approximately 300 m from the fence. His leg had to be amputated.

Israeli forces shot Yousef, a student journalist, in the legs with two bullets in immediate succession. He was wearing a blue vest marked “Press” while photographing the demonstrations approximately 800 m from the separation fence. His right leg had to be amputated.

The above incidents are by no means an exhaustive list - remember, there were 4,903 leg injuries from live ammunition over the course of the protests. There were also plenty of people shot in the head, 70 fatally, over the course of the demonstrations, and I am not inclined to believe that all of those were accidental. Here's an example of one of the shots to the head (one of the non-fatal ones):

Israeli forces shot a schoolboy (16) in the face as he distributed sandwiches to demonstrators, 300m from the separation fence. His hearing is now permanently impaired.

These incidents establish that maiming with live ammunition was a specific policy of the IDF during the 2018 Gaza protests, and that fatalities were a perfectly acceptable consequence of that. Before October 7th, it was a common sight in Gaza to see someone limping around on crutches, having had their legs amputated a few years later after Israeli snipers targeted them. Was there widespread outrage among the Israeli public at the abuses by their military? No, rather 61% of Israelis believed that the IDF's handling of the situation was appropriate.

In this context, how is armed resistance not justified? What would you do if you were born in a fenced-in refugee camp, under blockade your whole life, bombed periodically when someone fought back against the colonizers who forced your parents or grandparents into said camp, and who blew your legs off if you dared to peacefully protest near the containment wall? What do you think is an appropriate response to such oppression and murder? A sternly-written letter?

It's made out to be a very complex situation, but it's relatively simple. Israel conquered and colonized part of Palestine, and kept pushing and pushing, despite peace treaties and international agreements, to take more and more of it. Palestinians were (and are) noncitizens with limited rights, under the control of and subject to abuse by Israeli troops and settlers. The US-friendly Arab dictatorships in the region were all in the process of normalizing relations with Israel, and the ongoing apartheid and slow-motion expulsion was going to continue without opposition until there was no Palestine left, and all Palestinians were forced to live in exile (ironically echoing the fate of the Jews after the revolt and the destruction of the second temple.) Israel left Palestine no other options besides military action or accepting its slow and inevitable disintegration.

So, they made their move, and they caught the IDF completely off guard. Israel responded genocidally, with a total blockade, bombing of every square inch of Gaza, and unmarked free-fire zones in which civilians could be shot at will, tempered only occasionally with a brief, partial ceasefire, or a brief easing of the blockade, only to resume in earnest shortly after. Gaza has paid dearly for daring to resist its slow destruction, but Israel has also paid with thousands of deaths, with each Israeli life lost being seen as infinitely more valuable than the innumerable Palestinians they murdered.

More importantly, they have become an international pariah, as have their American backers. In the long term, they will not recover from this. They're hated by the majority of the world, and viewed as the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany. As their right wing extremists grow more influential, they will continue to push for more land, and a more total domination over the middle east, and one day they will bite off more than they can chew. One way or another, Israel will either have to reject ethnic supremacy and accept Palestinians as full citizens, or it will collapse.