But military experts aren't (entirely) the right experts. Military experts are supposed to be able to tell you how to defeat your enemy, as thoroughly as you specify, in the timeframe you specify, with the greatest chance of success, a minimum of friendly casualties, and while trying to stay within the generally accepted rules of war (e.g. keep war crimes to a minimum).

You also need civilian input to decide what timeframe is reasonable and to set various other high level strategy goals. These seem to have been set badly, and with "if we kill civilians, it's Hamas' fault" as the go-to excuse for civilian casualties, and "tell them to go somewhere safer, but bomb there anyway if there's a reason"--absolutely awful if you're trying to build any trust whatsoever, which you're going to need if you are going to try to separate civilians from Hamas. That's not purely a military strategy thing. That's military experts following the parameters set by civilian politicians. The "cut all basic services, leading to famine" decision is a civilian political one--everyone always said that Hamas wouldn't be much affected because they have vast stores in their tunnels.

If the military experts said that the hostages could be rescued in anything like a reasonable timeframe, they were wrong. Approximately zero hostages have been rescued, compared to the number who were taken. Approximately zero have been rescued as compared to having been freed with agreements. Rescue doesn't work. It's hard to see how it could possibly have worked, since if you have hostages and don't want them rescued, you'll put them in exactly the places that the IDF would need heavy ordinance for. If you're going to kill them anyway, I guess it's best to minimize the hostages' suffering, but on the other hand, more time and more pressure gives more chances for an agreement.

When a wanted criminal holes up with relatives, we could just bomb their house. It's way safer. We try other measures awfully hard first, and a lot of the cases where we didn't are widely regarded as inhumane (e.g. raid on Branch Davidians). The military expert (save I guess for military lawyers) aren't tasked with deciding which situations are more like war and which are more like civilian law enforcement.

Anyway, the scheme I outlined is not that different from what, under very heavy pressure from the U.S., Israel is doing now (except less carefully): trying to move civilians out of Rafah in advance of an attack.

It will work much better--less Hamas, more surviving noncombatants (including Hamas members who disarm and blend in but you always have that)--to go slow and do it well. If the IDF or UNRWA or whomever can guarantee adequate food and water for everyone moving, not "we're bombing here, flee for your life, and you figure out how to survive", you'll get better compliance.

And if any more hostages are actually going to make it out alive, slower gives more time to try to reach some sort of agreement, which has been the only way non-negligible numbers of hostages have been freed.

So I just don't see how the "rip it off fast" analogy helps at all. It seems wrong in every parameter, and similar "go fast" thinking seems to have played a major role in almost every excess that has already occurred.