Note before reading that my following post is NOT a justification of the evil massacre that Hamas perpetrated. It is however a comparison meant to illuminate something about the concept you've noted.
So, food for thought: a lower ratio of civilians to military and security personnel was killed on October 7th (according to Israeli published figures) than tends to be killed in even precision bombings.
Note: I can only fairly say "tends to be killed" because it can be difficult to truly get accurate data on military bombing casualties -- but one can absolutely find many individual cases of dozens of civilians being considered valid collateral for 1-3 military targets.
So notice that these figures are looking between 1.86 and 3.13 civilians per soldier dead.
That means an essentially random massacre which deliberately TRIED to target civilians, but which was primarily performed by individual soldiers, couldn't even cause nearly as many deaths as precision bombings do.
And note that, from what I could gather, those figures on Israeli deaths don't include government workers as being valid combatants, when I doubt any Hamas pencil pushers that may exist would get the "luxury" of not being counted as non combatants.
The can of worms opened up here only gets messier still if you then start going more philosophical issues like how they seem to have spent the last few decades uncertain if Palestine is basically a mini case of Escape From NY, under outright Israeli military occupation, or an entirely independent country. I'd want to ask the Israeli government if this is a war or a policing action.
A minor counterpoint to something you wrote though: I don't think this is often something in terms of their civilians being less valuable, at least not publicly due to the obvious bad optics. I rather think it's a case presented more like a need for some civilians to die now to prevent more from dying later or being "oppressed under illegitimate government" type concerns, etc.
So, food for thought: a lower ratio of civilians to military and security personnel was killed on October 7th (according to Israeli published figures) than tends to be killed in even precision bombings.
Note: I can only fairly say "tends to be killed" because it can be difficult to truly get accurate data on military bombing casualties -- but one can absolutely find many individual cases of dozens of civilians being considered valid collateral for 1-3 military targets.
Source on deaths: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social... > 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces
If we use sources like Times of Israel, which ignores police and other emergency personnel, claims become https://www.timesofisrael.com/14-kids-under-10-25-people-ove... > 859 civilians 274 soldiers
So notice that these figures are looking between 1.86 and 3.13 civilians per soldier dead.
That means an essentially random massacre which deliberately TRIED to target civilians, but which was primarily performed by individual soldiers, couldn't even cause nearly as many deaths as precision bombings do.
And note that, from what I could gather, those figures on Israeli deaths don't include government workers as being valid combatants, when I doubt any Hamas pencil pushers that may exist would get the "luxury" of not being counted as non combatants.
The can of worms opened up here only gets messier still if you then start going more philosophical issues like how they seem to have spent the last few decades uncertain if Palestine is basically a mini case of Escape From NY, under outright Israeli military occupation, or an entirely independent country. I'd want to ask the Israeli government if this is a war or a policing action.
A minor counterpoint to something you wrote though: I don't think this is often something in terms of their civilians being less valuable, at least not publicly due to the obvious bad optics. I rather think it's a case presented more like a need for some civilians to die now to prevent more from dying later or being "oppressed under illegitimate government" type concerns, etc.