I know I haven't addressed this question directly. I'm not trying to dodge. I'll try to give some semblance of an answer. That said, every thoughtful person knows that any question involving war is going to yield messy answers.
Well, the simple answer is that Israel should agree to a ceasefire when Hamas agrees to an unconditional surrender including the release of all hostages.
That's simple; but, nobody is going to accept that answer without clarifications of what an unconditional surrender would actually mean. Of course, what I would expect is different from what actual Israelis, actual Jews, actual members of the Israeli government expect. Also, there's no monolith among those people. In fact, I'm willing to bet that Netanyahu would be more generous than me.
We do know for sure that Israel is nowhere close to an unconditional surrender from Hamas. These cease-fire agreements that the media are claiming that Hamas is offering are laughable. Basically, Hamas is still demanding what would effectively be an Israeli surrender -- a complete withdraw of the IDF from the Gaza and an agreement to a permanent cease-fire that we all know Hamas will break again once it gets the chance.
That's not a negotiation after the act of genocide that Hamas committed.
If Sinwar's head being removed from his body with a rusty pocket knife isn't a part of the cease-fire negotiation, Israel should hang up the phone. That should be the bare minimum starting point.
I would go so far as to maintain a military presence in the Gaza until Qatar agrees to extradite Hamas's leadership to Israel to stand trial. Treat them like the Nazis they are. Handle this like the world handled the Nazi leadership after WWII.
Would that solve the problem? No.
I'm not going to claim that people are completely wrong to say that Israel's actions are likely to create more terrorists. I'm under no delusion that Hamas is a genocidal, authoritarian group that's oppressing a bunch of liberal people who just want to live in a free democracy and believe in equal rights for everyone.
This problem will persist.
That brings me to the one thing that Israel should do, that should be obvious to everyone, and that nobody is talking about.
Israel should go full Kennesaw, Georgia, and mandate that every Israeli adult have a gun. Every Israeli adult already has to serve in the military to some capacity. They're all trained. Don't just let them, when they're operating as civilians, have a gun. Mandate that they carry a gun. I'm not even saying that Israel should enforce the law. Just have it on the books so, whenever Hamas is replaced with another neo-Nazi group that tries another October 7th, it'll result in a lot more dead terrorists.
I know that a lot of you are gonna think that I'm insane for suggesting that; but, if the USA were sandwiched between Hamas and Hezobollah, I'm pretty sure that we would have already done this.