they didn't have significant deterrence, Israel 'mowed the lawn' every few years and could always destroy Gaza to defeat Hamas if they felt the threat became too strong. Hamas just beat them to it and got some punches in before Israel did it.
They didn’t have a blank check to level Gaza. Sure they would do some assassinations here or there or fight 5-10 day “war”, but it always ended with a ceasefire.
October attacks and their heinous nature on civilians gave Israel their version of 9/11 to go full no strings attached Grozny on Gaza. No body including EU or America could stop them for fear of looking anti semetic.
Hamas gave Israel everything it could want to deal with the problem once and for all.
In a few days Hamas killed more than 1,000 Israelis (around 400 soldiers/police force). with 1,500 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones Iran only managed to kill around 30 Israelis and 1 IDF soldier (off duty)
Hamas never had ballistic missiles. There’s a difference between paltry rockets and BMs. And killing civilians is exactly what got Hamas zero sympathy on the international stage. That was the dumbest thing they ever did was killing innocent people. The optics never look good especially against a group that controls the MSM.
And your flaw is you confuse tactical success with strategic success. For Hamas maybe Oct attacks was the most successful tactical win they ever had (and will have) against Israel but that tactical win lead to a strategic defeat.
People like you forget after the May 2021 war, Israel looked weak. It couldn’t stop Hamas from firing 10,000+ rockets into Israel and it ended in a back to status quo stalemate. Many commentators were shocked that Hamas could fire so many rockets and stand fighting. The thought that Israel could challenge Hezbollah on the ground was thought to be absurd as long as Hamas was around.
The issue is at the end of the day, war is about strategic victories. Body counts and casualties doesn’t win wars or change strategic reality. Russia has killed 2x or 3x more Ukrainians than vice versa and yet many would say Russia is facing a strategic defeat.
in the best case scenario Hamas would have traded its power / weapons for more concessions from Israel without having Gaza turned to rubble, but we can't predict what else might have happened
In the best case scenario, Hamas would have waited for AoR to finish the Syria project and the Jordan project and not run head first into suicide mission. If Israel was going to attack Gaza and demolish it as you claim, then waiting and having the self defense excuse would have been a lot in terms of gaining Arab world support. Certainly it was better than proactively going around to murder hundreds of innocent civilians and looking like crazed ISIS Wahhabis on the international stage.
As much as you like to think Bibi could have leveled Gaza without needing the October attacks, it’s simply not true. There is a reason why Gaza has survived for decades. Israel actually withdrew from Gaza originally. So no, Israel didn’t have enough policies capital on world stage to level Gaza to the ground. But it did have it after the October attacks. They simply burned it up committing so much genocide.
So Hamas gave Israel everything it could have ever wanted to finish off any armed Gaza movement. Now Gaza will become like the West Bank.