Can someone explain the Israel/Hamas conflict to me?

It's not an excuse. They did quite publicly and openly issue warnings for weeks that this was going to be an active combat zone.

I wish the West would be more critical of Hamas deliberately placing its headquarters among civilians and using them as human shields instead of blaming it all on Israel.

The way the West falls for this tactic every time actually encourages Hamas to continue to use civilians as human shields, because the world bashes Israel for them a lot more than them. When they realize this tactic works as a way of making the Western world to put pressure on Israel to stop the attack, they will continue to do do. The way of stopping Hamas from using people as human shields is not to reward them for it this way, but the way would be if the world make it clear that it holds THEM responsible for these deaths when they deliberately place terrorist infrastructure among civilians. THAT is the war crime.

IDF literally admits in both links I've shared that they were aware of how many civilians were there.

Yes. As I say, the old IRA "we gave warning" tactic.

It's clear that you and PG13 are just going to jump on any post that shows empathy towards innocent Palestinians or throws any criticism towards the IDF/Israel and how their attacks are being operated. I'm far from a "Free Palestine" person but the two of you should relax.

But okay. Let's say Israel is all wrong in how it wages this war. I'd like to see suggestions about what would be a better way. A way that avoids civilian deaths, but is also effective in achieving the military target of eradicating Hamas. That while Hamas entrenches itself in densely populated civilian areas and uses civilians as human shields. So, any solutions to this problem?

So the much hyped Nasrallah speech fell flat. (In several Arab countries there were huge screening parties.) It must be disappointing for Hamas fans. For everyone else it's good news that it doesn't seem the situation will escalate on the North for now. (That doesn't mean Hezbollah won't keep shooting some rockets, as they do now, but it seems they won't do much more.)

I think viewing Hamas as like a cancerous tumour is a good way of putting it. Sometimes painful invasive surgery is required and follow up chemotherapy to remove it successfully.

I echo your point too about rights as well as responsibilities. In Northern Ireland, we had John Hume, a Nationalist leader, challenging Nationalist and Republican dogma where he said they loudly proclaimed their rights but were absolutely silent about their responsibilities to Northern Ireland's society.

And the reason they were silent about their responsibilities towards the emergence of normal politics was because they wanted Northern Ireland destroyed.

Similarly, Palestinian leaders have long been loud about their rights but absolutely silent on their responsibilities to society.

The songs, ballads and so on Hume noted had to be firmly rejected by Nationalists and Republicans because those perpetuate the problem by glorifying violence against the Unionist population.

Palestinians will have to do the same which is going to be difficult since Hamas indoctrinate children via cartoons, school textbooks and so on.

I'll post the document from United Nations Watch later.

I think the denazification of Germany is a good example as is the derepublicanisation of Provisional Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland following PIRAs defeat.

But what really made the difference in Europe was coal and steel for peace. What has made a difference between Israel and Jordan has been Water For Peace. This will become more important after any potential defeat of Hamas.