DarkGamer

A nation isn’t a country? Tut tut.

It literally isn't.

A nation is a group of people with a common language, history, culture, and (usually) geographic territory. A state is an association of people characterized by formal institutions of government, including laws; permanent territorial boundaries; and sovereignty (political independence). A state may comprise one or more nations (as did the Roman Empire and Austria-Hungary), and a nation may be represented in (or ruled by) one or more (usually contiguous) states, as in the early modern principalities of Germany. A state comprising or dominated by a single nation is often called a nation-state.

I read citations, if you cared to provide any.

am I making a decision that will result in the deaths of more children

I submit binding Israel's hands and keeping Hamas in power does exactly this, is makes countless future generations of children unsafe and under the control of a terrorist government who uses them as shields.

A person makes a decision. If that decision is almost certainly going to result in the deaths of children, it is the wrong decision. You will never face a simpler moral scenario than this.

It sounds like you're suggesting that Israel should let Hamas kill Israeli children and civilians uncontested because they are hiding behind their own. Long-Term/big picture, I fail to see how that improves anyone's safety besides Hamas.

People can argue about justifications in good faith, of course… although ironically in this case, we can’t even do that, since we both know that bombing Gaza to the tune of 90% civilian casualties does nothing to ameliorate the conflict and everything to exacerbate it.

• As far as I know, the only casualty figures we have so far are from Hamas, and recent analysis seems to indicate that they are not credible.
• According to figures I've seen,
  Israel's civilian casualty rate is significantly lower than 90%. 90% is the average for civilian casualties in urban combat scenarios involving explosives, according to the UN.

Also, this isn’t a war. Wars are fought between nations, and Israel does not recognize Palestine’s sovereignty. Gaza has no self-determination. There’s no government. It is a prison full of children. An abomination that nobody living in Gaza created, perpetuated from outside.

A nation is different than a country, afaik no one disputes that Palestinians are a nation, but its statehood is hotly contested.

According to Google:

Nation: a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory

Hamas is the government of Gaza, they were elected and bafflingly and unfortunately they still experience widespread support from Palestinians. If elections were held again today, Hamas would win.

An Israeli official said no ceasefire had been agreed in Gaza, after Hamas said it had accepted a proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators over the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The Israeli official said the proposal that Hamas had accepted was a "softened" version of an Egyptian proposal, which included "far-reaching" conclusions that Israel could not accept.
"This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal," said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/rafah-live-gazans-start-leaving-parts-southern-city-israel-warns-operation-2024-05-06/

That is but one of many reasons to oppose Hamas. Conflating their actions on Oct 7 (content warning: NSFL, cruelty, violence, death) with collateral damage caused while defending and retaliating against them is inappropriate, wrong, and in incredibly bad taste.

Your energy would be better spent objecting to those who provoked this war while using said children as human shields, hiding among civilians, and using otherwise protected areas as military assets. They are the ones subjecting children and civilians to danger and causing these deaths.

Israel has the right to defend itself even though collateral damage exists, and Hamas hiding among their own children does not make them immune from reprisals. If this strategy worked, we could expect more children and other civilians to be subjected to danger in the future as human shields.

My moral rules are applied consistently, I support our modern, western allies who care about civil liberties, and are defending themselves against genocidal opponents. I oppose genocidal belligerent Islamists who attack civilians. Not going to support for a group that would throw me off a building and opposes the enlightenment by forcing Israel to stop attacking them before they are deposed. Doing so is not a good deed.

The best way to keep civilians safe is to let Israel finish the job, because Hamas puts them at risk and is more than happy to kill them or let them die if it serves their geopolitical interests and makes Israel look bad.

We haven't mastered SSH authentication via psionic tendrils

Racism and collateral damage exist, therefore Israel shouldn't be able to defend themselves or retaliate against a genocidal foe? What's frightening is such reasoning.

The damage has been done though, I doubt any developers will put their eggs in this basket after they've shown themselves willing to destroy all of their customers business models