“At this point they’re not defending themselves, they’re just attacking and attacking”. This is a common narrative, but is it based in reality? Are you aware that since Oct 7, Hamas has fired an estimated 19,000 rockets into Israel, most targeted at civilians? How many would it take for Israel to have a right to defend itself? 30,000? 100,000? Most of these rockets were fired from apt buildings, schools, hospitals, etc.
“For years and years”. It was two years, and as mentioned previously and rarely covered by the media, Hamas was lobbing rockets into Israel for the entirety of this time. If Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, at any time released the hostages and stopping firing at Israel, the Idf would have stopped bombing.