You make a lot of good points, but your framing of what we're doing to rescue our kidnapped women, children (babies!) and elderly, defend ourselves and extricate ourselves from the status quo of being under constant threat as "retaliation" is way off the mark.

It's fascinating to me that everyone takes the Hamas casualty reports at face value, when we know they're not just lying about the numbers, but also about how many of those casualties were due to Israeli activity or their own (such as in the hospital incident), and how many were civilians or not. Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization, not exactly a group that respects the Geneva conventions, and Israel is infinitely more invested in the wellbeing of the Palestinian population than they are.

We actually want peace on our borders and to get on with our lives.

For those of you who would prefer to hear from Palestinians themselves, I recommend listening to the "son of Hamas", Mosab Hassan Yousef, or West Bank Palestinians like "Ali", before becoming mouthpieces for the real oppressors of the Palestinians.