[vharuck]

>How about Israel stop fighting, right now? Right this minute. The magazines come out of the rifles and the fighter jets stay on the ground. As soon as the Gazans decide that this is what they want, they can return the hostages and this will happen.

The Israeli government can stop fighting in a way that's currently killing Gazan civilians and destroying Gazan civil infrastructure.

The Gazan civilians cannot release the hostages. Those hostages are held by Hamas, the Gazan government.

This broad-brush blaming leads to despicable crimes against humanity, and is why so many nations have agreed to rules of war. It is inhumane to intentionally punish civilians for what their government is doing. Collateral damage is inevitable, but there must be an effort to minimize it and to actively preserve the lives of civilians. If that means sending in convoys of food trucks after securing a city, then that's what a humane government should do.