Israel is right about this war. Here's the whole case.
Almost every argument against Israel in this war works by leaving something out. I'm going to put the missing pieces back, with sources. But first, what I'm not denying.
What I'm not denying
This war has been a catastrophe for Gaza's civilians. The UN commission counts more than 20,000 children killed [10], and people in Gaza have gone hungry. Whatever you believe about who's responsible, that is horrifying, and anyone who shrugs at it has lost something human. Israel hasn't been perfect either. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has risen and it's wrong [18], soldiers who commit abuses should be prosecuted, and this government's settlement push is fair to criticize. Defending Israel's war against Hamas doesn't mean defending every decision or every person. It means looking at the full picture of who started this, how it's being fought, and who could have ended it.
Part 1: Who said no to peace
In 1947 the UN voted to split the British Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish leadership accepted. The Arab side refused, and when Israel declared independence in May 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon invaded [1]. The pattern didn't end there. In 2008 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian state. Years later Abbas said on Israeli TV: "I rejected it out of hand" [2]. Palestinians have been offered a state alongside Israel more than once. Their leaders said no, and the war went on.
Part 2: Israel already tried leaving Gaza
In 2005 Israel pulled every soldier and every settler out of Gaza and dismantled all 21 settlements there [3]. Gaza had its chance to become whatever its people wanted. In 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election. In 2007 it seized Gaza by force from its Palestinian rivals, and Human Rights Watch documented its forces shooting captured Fatah members in the legs [4]. Palestinians haven't voted in a legislative election since 2006, and this month the next one was postponed again, to September 2027 [5]. What came out of Gaza after Israel left wasn't a state. It was years of rocket fire, and then October 7.
Part 3: What Hamas is, and what it wants
On October 7, 2023, Hamas led an attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged 251 hostages into Gaza [6]. That wasn't a break from its ideology; it was the ideology in action. Hamas's 1988 founding charter opens with the line "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it" [7]. Weeks after the massacre, Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese TV, "we will do it twice and three times," calling October 7 "just the first time" [8]. Among the hostages were Ariel Bibas, four years old, and his brother Kfir, ten months old. Israel's military said forensic findings showed they were murdered in captivity "with their bare hands"; Hamas claimed an airstrike [9]. Even the UN commission most critical of Israel concluded that Hamas and other armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity [10].
Part 4: How Hamas fights, and why children die
This is the part people don't think about. Hamas built a vast tunnel network under Gaza, and when asked why civilians couldn't shelter in it, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said the tunnels were to protect Hamas from airstrikes, and that protecting civilians "is the responsibility of the UN" [20]. Hamas kept its fighters, weapons and command posts where the civilians were. The Pentagon said Hamas ran a "command and control node" from al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, with weapons stored there [11]. When the IDF rescued four hostages in Nuseirat in June 2024, they were being held in apartments in the middle of a crowded refugee camp [12]. The UN itself fired nine UNRWA employees after its investigators found they "may have been involved" in October 7 [13]. And in messages reported by the Wall Street Journal, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar called the deaths of Gaza's civilians "necessary sacrifices" [14].
Put that together and the picture is clear. Hamas gave itself the shelter and left the children above ground. It put its war machine in homes, schools and hospitals, then counted on the dead to turn the world against Israel. Every child killed in Gaza is a tragedy, and a huge share of the blame for those deaths falls on the group that deliberately fought from among them.
Part 5: "Genocide" and "targeting children"
The genocide charge leans on the International Court of Justice, but the court never ruled that genocide was happening, or even that South Africa's claim of genocide was plausible. Its president at the time, Joan Donoghue, publicly corrected that misreading on the BBC [15]. The latest UN commission report says Israel deliberately targeted children, but read it closely. It reaches its findings on "reasonable grounds", far below the proof any court requires. Israel answered none of its 13 requests, so it never saw what a single strike was aimed at. And it admits it hasn't investigated how Palestinian armed groups use children [10]. Its casualty figures come largely from Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants [16]. None of that makes 20,000 dead children less of a tragedy. But a war fought inside dense cities, against an enemy that hides among children, produces terrible numbers without anyone setting out to kill children. Calling it genocide means ignoring everything above.
Part 6: The hunger
The hunger in Gaza is real, but look at who could have stopped it. For two years Hamas could have ended the war at any moment by freeing the hostages and laying down its arms. It chose not to. When aid did come in, Israel's aid coordination body said the contents of 600 trucks were sitting on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, waiting for the UN to collect them [21]. And Hamas's top political leaders weren't the ones going hungry: they ran the war from Doha, Qatar, where Israel struck them in September 2025 [22]. A group that builds shelter only for itself, leaves civilians to the UN and runs its war from a Gulf capital doesn't get to blame everyone else for the suffering it set in motion.
Part 7: "Apartheid"
Around a fifth of Israel's citizens are Arab. They vote, they sit in the Knesset, and in 2021 an Arab party, Ra'am, joined Israel's governing coalition for the first time [17]. Name another apartheid state where the supposedly oppressed group helps form the government.
Part 8: Settlements
Settlements are the strongest card critics hold, and I won't pretend they're nothing. But they still don't prove what's claimed. Israel disputes that settlements are illegal. Its position is that the West Bank is disputed territory where Jews have lived for thousands of years, not land seized from a recognized sovereign state [18]. You can oppose the current government's settlement push, and plenty of Israelis do. It comes from a coalition that polls say is likely to lose the October 27 election [18]. That's what accountability looks like: Israelis can vote their government out. Palestinians under Hamas can't.
Part 9: The referee isn't neutral
The UN Human Rights Council has ten permanent agenda items. Nine are general. One, Item 7, is dedicated to Israel, and no other country has a standing item of its own. In 2007 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself criticized the decision to single Israel out this way [19]. A body built like that has earned scrutiny, not blind trust.
Bottom line
Israel accepted partition; its neighbors invaded. Israel left Gaza; Hamas turned it into a launchpad. Hamas murdered 1,200 people, promised to do it again, hid under hospitals and homes, kept the tunnels for itself, and let Gaza's civilians pay the price while its leaders watched from Qatar. Israel is a democracy with Arab lawmakers, independent courts and elections that can throw out its own government. It makes mistakes, and it should answer for them. Hamas answers to no one. Standing with Israel in this war isn't ignoring Palestinian suffering. It's naming who caused it.
Sources
The Arab-Israeli War of 1948, US State Department, Office of the Historian: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war
Abbas admits he said no to Israel's peace offer, Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/blog/abbas-admits-he-said-no-israels-peace-offer
Israel's Disengagement from Gaza, Congressional Research Service: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS22000.html
Internal Fight: Palestinian Abuses in Gaza and the West Bank, Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/07/29/internal-fight-0
Abbas postpones Palestinian legislative elections another year, Korea Times: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/world/20261011/mahmoud-abbas-postpones-palestinian-legislative-elections-another-year
A look at the hostages taken to Gaza, by the numbers, AP via PBS NewsHour: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/a-look-at-the-hostages-left-in-gaza-by-the-numbers
Hamas Covenant 1988, Yale Law School Avalon Project: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/Hamas.asp
Hamas official says group aims to repeat Oct. 7 onslaught many times, Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-official-says-group-aims-to-repeat-oct-7-onslaught-many-times-to-destroy-israel/
IDF: Captors murdered Ariel and Kfir Bibas with their bare hands, Times of Israel: https://timesofisrael.com/idf-says-captors-murdered-children-ariel-and-kfir-bibas-with-their-bare-hands/
UN Commission of Inquiry report A/HRC/62/CRP.2, United Nations: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-23jun26/
US says Hamas used al-Shifa hospital, The National: https://thenationalnews.com/world/us-news/2023/11/15/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-us
4 hostages released from Hamas captivity in daring IDF raid, Israel Hayom: https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/06/08/4-hostages-released-from-hamas-captivity-in-daring-idf-raid
UN says nine employees "may have been involved" in October 7 attack, Al Jazeera: https://aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/5/un-says-nine-employees-may-have-been-involved-in-october-7-hamas-attack
Sinwar depicts Palestinian casualties as "necessary sacrifices", FDD on the Wall Street Journal's report: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/06/11/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-depicts-palestinian-casualties-as-necessary-sacrifices/
Top judge corrects media on the ICJ ruling, Joshua Rozenberg: https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/top-judge-corrects-media
How reliable are Gaza Health Ministry's death numbers?, VOA: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/amp/how-reliable-are-gaza-health-ministry-s-death-numbers/7343831.html
Ra'am joins the government coalition, INSS: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/raam-party/
Israel allocates $434 million for 34 new West Bank settlements, Reuters: https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/07/14/israel-allocates-434-million-for-34-new-west-bank-settlements
Why the UNHRC's Agenda Item 7 was denounced by Ban Ki-moon, UN Watch: https://unwatch.org/why-the-unhrcs-agenda-item-7-was-denounced-by-un-secretary-general-ban-ki-moon/
Senior Hamas official: "Tunnels are for us, the UN can take care of Palestinian citizens", Ynet: https://ynetnews.com/article/bk00giq0fa
COGAT: 600 aid trucks waiting for UN in Gaza, Ynet: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjis3irg0
Israel attacks Hamas leaders in Doha, CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/israel-attack-doha-qatar-hamas-leadership