Let’s imagine that you are a country that has been attacked by a terrorist enemy embedded in a civilian population. You recognize that if you do not respond the likelihood you will be attacked again is high. You get blamed if there is an incident in which civilians are killed for which you are responsible. You get blamed if there is an incident in which civilians are killed for which you are not responsible.
What is the best course of action?
Extra credit:
You are a wealthy country very concerned about civilians in a territory controlled by terrorists. Is it possible for you to provide aid to the civilians and be confident that aid will actually go to help civilians rather than be used by the terrorists controlling the territory?
I think worrying too much about the blame thing is wrong. Israel has wide support in the US. Support for the Palestinians isn’t broad or deep. Even in the Arab world no one really likes them. Iran finds them useful but I dont see them opening the door to have them move there. Support for Hamas is, near as I can tell, close to non-existent in the US. So the answer is you go in and kill Hamas. We did this several times in Iraq when we cleared out ISIS. (Read the Exum article.) It will of course cost some Palestinian lives but I think the bigger issue has always been the Israelis worrying about their own loss of life. They seem to prefer dropping bombs. So the pattern is some Israelis get killed. Israel bombs until there are enough dead people to consider it adequate revenge. They target Hamas but who knows how many they actually kill and how many are left.
They either need to carry out a Mosul (?)/Fallujah type clearance and accept the losses but actually kill Hamas, or they need to take security seriously, which they did not in this case.
Extra credit- No way to be sure, but you are advocating a zero risk policy. Those are generally bad. The corollary question would be is it OK to have everyone die of thirst in order to kill off Hamas? If not, then you have already answered the other question.
Steve