Israel / Hammas conflict what were the options

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In a bid to try and educate myself and understand the very complicated background, what were Israel’s options after the Hammas attacks?

They are getting pilloried for retaliating and obviously no one wants more innocent civilians killed but what could they have done instead?

I think the above is more of an example of one of the many layers of wider long-term hubris underlying this situation. Just my opinion, but I tend to think nobody has done more in the long-term to undermine a permanent solution here than Benyamin Netanyahu.

@TheWhalrus Does that include the repeated rejection of the two state solution by various Palestinian authorities over the decades?

I stand by my above comment, although I also agree that the Palestinian authorities haven't been a great deal better for much of the time.

The point about radicalisation is interesting. Despite the Holocaust, the Jewish population has not been radicalised to the point it wants to wipe Germany and the Germans off the map, has it?

I don’t think Israel had any other options, and whilst the Palestinians continue to support Hamas and its goals wrt Israel, we won’t see any change.

@shockeditellyou "whilst the Palestinians continue to support Hamas and its goals wrt Israel, we won’t see any change."
How do you see ordinary Palestinians being able to withdraw their "support" of Hamas? There haven't been elections since 2006, after which all opposition were driven out of Gaza by Hamas. I've seen estimates of Hamas fighters at about 30,000 - 40,000, which is a relatively small proportion of the 2.5 million people. An insurrection of an unarmed population is never going to work against Hamas, so how should they do this?

This is one of the tragic parts of this.

I'd imagine most Palestinian citizens probably don't like Israel but stop short of violence and would prefer Hamas not to have done what they've done, with the predictable consequences we're now seeing.

It's not like many of these people could realistically have emigrated in recent years either, with Israel and to some extent Egypt controlling the border crossings.

There are currently over 10,000 Palestinian hostages being held in Israel, most of those are CHILDREN and most without ever being trialled or charged with any crime. This is against International Law (not that that seems to matter when it comes to Palestinians). In 2011 Israel released over 1000 Palestinian hostages in exchange for one Israeli prisoner and from the moment Oct 7th happened it was clear to anyone well versed in this chaotic conflict that it was prisoner exchange. Before anybody comes at me this didn't start on Oct 7th; for over 70 years Palestinians have had to deal with an Apartheid, an open prison while their land, homes and freedom stolen. Sorry but the Prime minister doesn't care about the hostages, he wants the land. You can't build a "Holy Land" on the mass graves of children. So to answer your question OP; the appropriate thing to do would have been to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.

Where's the Palestinian equivalent of the SDLP/John Hume? Where are the voices outside of Palestine forming an alternative? That's how you get an alternative narrative for Palestinians to rally round, but it has to be driven by Palestinians themselves, and actively supported by other Arab nations. It's not like other Arab nations are thrilled by Hamas (just look at the history of Jordan and Egypt with Hamas), but they need to take the next step to actively supporting an alternative whilst not being seen to be too sympathetic to Israel.

That was beginning to happen (see the normalisation of relationships with Israel)- and I suspect one of the driving forces behind Hamas' attacks.

This was part of the Good Friday agreement that everyone agreed to including Ireland who had a referendum. The starting point was very different and the peace process took a long time and had many ups and downs.

it’s not the same situation - Northern Ireland - but it’s an example of how peace is possible even where the hurt and violence has deep roots and a long history. It is possible for people with opposing aims can live together and agree to work towards those opposing goals through peaceful political means.

This is the thing. Since the holocaust various groups with a grievance have claimed 'Their treating us worse than the Jews' in order to justify acts of violence, while the actual Jews have got on with their lives without taking any kind of revenge.