The razing of Gaza and the ongoing murder of thousands of civilians by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with western imprimatur, is a war crime. Strafing civilian populations and pulverizing entire neighborhoods to ostensibly "soften" the few embedded targets within—this violates natural law, international law, libertarian law and Just War Theory.  

It was true when Genghis Bush dropped daisy cutters and cluster bombs on Iraqi civilians, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of them; it was true when allied forces firebombed Dresden and Hamburg, and it was true when Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japanese civilians. 

Not that it helped his victims, but Truman icily expressed some "regret" for "the [beastly] necessity of wiping out whole populations": "I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare," Truman told an ardent supporter, "but I can't bring myself to believe that because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in that same manner."

We know ineluctably that Gaza can be "a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare." The sympathies expressed by Gazans toward their neighbors, victims of the October 7 slaughter, were often meager and grudging. Leadership in Egypt and Jordan is less than candid as to why they refuse to welcome Gaza's refugees into their midst as the Polish welcomed the Ukrainians. In fact, the Egyptians have no intention whatsoever of allowing Palestinians, whom they view as a radicalizing element, into their country. Like President Hosni Mubarak before him; President El-Sisi is fearful of swelling the already-swollen ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Mubarak had periodically conducted mini-massacres against the Brotherhood—the organization that sired Hamas—with no particular outcry from the West.