It is my opinion that every analysis I have ever seen of the wars in Gaza (2009, 2012, and 2014) is basically fraudulent, regardless of which side it supported. This is because all of them frame the conflicts in terms of
visible damage, i.e. the actual death toll/destruction on both sides, and not the potential damage. I have never seen an analysis of what Hamas could do if their missile launches were not immediately followed by Israeli airstrikes, as it is a constraining factor for both accuracy and quantity (the Iron Dome can be saturated by the launching of dozens of rockets at the same location - furthermore, it is literally a hundred times more expensive for the Iron Dome to counter those missiles then for Hamas to build and launch them).
If Hamas were allowed to freely target Israel, they would arguably be able to kill hundreds or even thousands of civilians; if Israel built enough shelters to prevent this, Hamas would still be able to shut down the entire south of the country indefinitely. Even without the threat of a possible simultaneous war with Hezbollah, Israel is under
tremendous pressure to finish a conflict quickly.
It is also my opinion that those who do not understand this should not be taken seriously on any political matter, since a useful understanding of politics requires more than first-order reasoning. If you're reading this right now and didn't think of it before, some introspection may be in order.
1) Occupying powers have no right to self defence, they are always the aggressor by definition, simply by the fact of their presence.
This is not the case (it would not even apply here, since the attacks are being made onto Israeli soil). I'm not even going into how questionable Gaza's status as occupied is.
3) Blowing up civilian targets whenever there is allegedly a 'terrorist' present is a war crime unless the specific military gain outweighs the risk to civilian life and infrastructure (the IDF fails this standard at every turn).
The military gain is general, not specific (i.e. it removes any opportunity for Hamas to take advantage of the fact that countering their attacks requires more resources on Israel's part, and shows them that they cannot organize larger-scale attacks). If that is illegal, then frankly so are most tactics in warfare.
4) Hamas are in point of fact a government within Gaza, and IDF targetted actions against their officials are both terrorism and illegal acts of aggression against a neighbour.
Are you also willing to apply this standard to ISIS, which at one point governed over forty thousand square miles?