Hamas are a democratically elected terrorist organization, their political wing winning the mandate dosent really count them as a political party or making them less tainted to any extent. If people elect any stained organization to power then they should face the repurcussion. In retrospect US governments designated by their populace, groomed Bin Laden and its eventually ended up killing their civilians in 9/11, we Indians voted an impotent government to power and it led to a string of low level terrorist attacks across the country that finally culminated in the Mumbai massacre.
As for some regular Labobs around here trying to pick up some clever debates by counting corpses, the problem is more astronomical than Israel blowing out few Hamas installations or vice versa. Like in the Mumbai attacks the alleged freedom fighters from Pakistan in an ideal world shouldn't have had any apparent reasons to grab a jewish couple, cut the eyes, ears and nose out of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, broke his legs and then smashing his face with bullets, torturing his pregnant missus for hours, stripping her, smashing her abdomen constantly and finally shooting between her legs, killing their children- it all sums up the brutal abhorrence of Jihad’s around the world who have turned on against Israel as whole , even those Mossad agents who received the corpses stated another holocaust is on the reckoning. Doubt any human rights organization or any Islamic nation had the guts or time to condemn these viciousness then, as the damage is usually guaged on the media barking out some sensational report on death counts.
The state sponsored terrorism by the pan arab league or any other Islamic nation cannot be eradicated unless the guilty states are made to pay a prohibitive price. STASI the east german intelligence was behind terrorism in the western europe and it continued as long as communism lasted there. Syria and Libya were playing the same cards and only a strong reply from the US forced them to revert back. The problem in the middle east is more cancerous than 1.5 million people fighting over a tiny strip of land, would not evaporate even if an independent state of Palestine is created. Israel have every right to hit back and as long as they allow humanitarian aid and basic amnities to flow across the gaza strip, they shouldn't be blamed.