In Defense of Israel

I have been keeping up on news of the current Israeli-Palestinian war, and I must speak out in favor of Israel. The media tends to paint Israel in a bad light, accusing them of unnecessary violence and murder of innocent Palestinians. However, I'm going to present what I know of the Israeli side of the story:

In 2003, Ariel Sharon gave the Palestinians a small strip of land in Gaza, displacing hundreds of Israelis from their homes, in an effort to make peace. Once in control of this land, the Palestinians elected Hamas, a globally-known terrorist organization, to run their government. And as "thanks" to Israel, they have launched THOUSANDS of Qasam rockets into Israel, aiming not for army bases and government operative buildings (which would have been bad enough), but for towns filled with innocent civilians. The town which has been hit the hardest is Sderot, which has been hit up to over 20 times in a single day. On a good day, only 3 or 4 rockets land in Sderot. The children of the town have to live with the daily reality of running for their lives into bomb shelters, situated in their PLAYGROUNDS and KINDERGARTENS.

When the 6-month cease-fire expired on December 19th (during the cease-fire, an average of 3-4 rockets were STILL fired into Israel DAILY), Israel wished to renew it. Hamas would only agree on the condition that Israel give them more land from which they could launch rockets. Israel said no, and each day more and more rockets were fired into residential neighborhoods in Israel. On Friday, December 26th, 30 rockets were fired. On Saturday morning, Israel finally struck back, from the air, dropping bombs on Hamas operative bases, and places where bombs were made and/or stored for use against Israel. There were casualties, as there always are in war. But there were many fewer than Palestine's media wants us to believe. And as Hamas struck back, sending in more and more rockets, Israel sent in AID PACKAGES for the Palestinian civilians. Those same packages were destroyed by Hamas, without being distributed to their ailing citizens. So Israel is not fighting the Palestinians - they are fighting Hamas. And now, Israel has begun sending in foot-soldiers to specifically seek out Hamas leaders and terrorists, or people who are hiding terrorists or their bombs, to avoid killing any more innocents. I honestly think that Israel cannot be considered the antagonist in this conflict. Shouldn't everyone have the right to protection?