Hamas are the bad guys in this. Full stop.

[The Magistrate]

49. I Do Not Think So, Sir

This was a conscious decision to commit atrocity. Only one thing can come close to 'justifying' that --- calculation that the act will advance your cause to a degree sufficient to outweigh the loss of good feelings towards your cause doing so will entail. At bottom it is not a question of doing right or wrong, but of whether the act is stupid or not to do. This campaign of atrocity is calamitously stupid, and can only have been performed by profoundly stupid people. Either they actually thought this would improve their position, which only a stupid person could imagine, or they decided the emotional satisfaction attained by committing sadistic atrocity was of greater value than advancing their cause or safeguarding their people, which only a person both stupid and criminally inclined could imagine.