This is a valiant but ultimately vain attempt to say, in effect, "ceci n'est pas une pipe". Or, to use another aphorism, "don't believe your lyin' eyes".

Sorry, Adeline, but what Israel is doing is beyond doubt a genocide. Israeli officials called for genocide. The biblical reference an call to action based on the Amalekite genocide shows intent; the many videos of Israeli soldiers chanting and singing how they will "wipe clean the seed of Amalek" means that theyu heard their leader's call to commit genocide and they intended to carry it out. The things that leaders like Herzog and Gallant have said also clearly show intent to commit genocide. And the despicable utterances of other leaders like Ben Gvir and Smotrich leave no doubt that the Israeli regime wants to destroy Palestinian society and destroy the Palestinians themselves.

This entire genocidal intent goes back decades, and has been expressed by many Israeli leaders, such as Gold Meir, who proudly declared that "there is no such thing as Palestine" and, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said at a news conference: "there is no such thing as a Palestinian". Worse yet, this denial of the existence of Palestinian people was echoed by Israeli Minister of Settlement and National Missions Orit Strook.

In fact, I would not be surprised to see an Israeli defense attorney try to make the case that Palestinians cannot be a protected group because - as every Israeli schoolchild knows - "there is no such thing as a Palestinian - they are just Arabs. This sentiment is so pervasive it is even taught to Jewish students in the USA.

Denying the very existence of a group makes the destruction of such a group inherently impossible.

And your mention of "exculpatory" acts such as the dropping of leaflets and the issuance of warnings is eqasy to dismiss: in each case, the Israelis issued warnings and instructions and then proceeded to bomb the very "safe zones" they had designated! This shows a level of cruelty and barbarism rarely seen, and is right up there with the Nazi cruelty of telling Jews they were about to take a shower.

But the end of your Zionist screed is where you really show yourself to be nothing but a rank hasbarist. Hamas is not out to commit genocide. Their 2017 Charter (which you should read sometime) clearly states that they have nothing against Jewish people. Indeed, Article 16 of the Hamas Charter states:

"16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity."

I would also remind you that Hamas is an acronym for the Arabic: "Islamic Resistance Movement". Hamas exists solely to resist the Zionist occupation of Palestinian territory. Under the Geneva Conventions, an occupied people have a legal right to resist their occupier by any means available. That is what Hamas is doing.

I resalise that it is difficult for a Zionisty like yourself to accept the fact that there is such a thing as international law, and that such laws also apply to God's Chosen People. But such is the case. Of course Israel can ignore international laws and the many resolutions and rulings against it, but that only makes Israel less sympathetic - and much less legitimate - in the eyes of the world.

A day of reckoning approaches, and splitting legal hairs will not save the day. We know what we are seeing, and we choose to believe our eyes.