But when the best anyone can expect isn't good enough, one can be expected to try extremely hard to find ways to recast the situation so it admits a better solution.

That seems to be what was (mostly) missing here.

I agree that if you're going to launch a major war--with forces comprised of soldiers some of whom lost loved ones--in a densely populated area where the target wants you to kill civilians, it's hard to do vastly better than the IDF has. Yes, there are some discipline issues, enough to generate a lot of videos of horrors that never should have happened, but it already took a lot of doing to not kill many more civilians. But--aside from the initial assault needed to stop Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others from launching thousands of rockets--the challenge is to not play the hand you're given but change the game. Israel didn't try very hard to change the game. That's where they deserve blame.

Well, that, and the starvation was just pointless cruelty, unless the IDF was lying all along about Hamas' stockpiles.