Quote Originally Posted by Hibspur View Post
This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Is it not the case that the civilian death toll in wars tends to be significantly higher than the number of combatants killed? I might be wrong on that, but my memory of studying World War Two at school was that around 70% of those who died were civilians. As you say, it's harder in Gaza to separate the Hamas militant death toll from the civilian one.

With Iranian support for Hamas likely to be significantly diluted in the wake of the last couple of weeks, Hamas should seriously consider releasing whatever hostages remain alive. Netanyahu will prolong this conflict for as long as he can to avoid an electoral reckoning in Israel, but if they can achieve their purported aim of freeing the remaining hostages there's less justification for the ongoing hostilities, especially if Iranian funding for Hamas dries up. As Pretty Boy suggested in an earlier post, a regime change in inIran and fresh elections in Israel would at least provide some sort of hope for a less volatile future situation across the region.
Im not sure Iranian support for Hamas would be significantly reduced, it’s Israel and America doing the bombing. As for the hostages, Netanyahu has long shown that he finds the hostages expendable and will do nothing that would free them short of killing all Hamas operatives.