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Editorial: Israel has a right to go to war – but the need for restraint is urgent

There are rules to war and ignoring them will only fuel the flames of this terrible conflict

Israeli soldiers in northern Israel. As a democratic state and in the context of the laws of war, Israel is not above criticism of its response to the Hamas attack on October 7. Picture: AFP

As the Middle East stares into the abyss of a new and perhaps terrible war, one fact above all needs to be borne in mind.

When Hamas terrorists entered southern Israel on October 7 and murdered 1,400 civilians in a few hours, they perpetrated the most terrible mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust.

The atrocity was a crime against humanity, not an act of Palestinian resistance. Those civilians were murdered because they were ...