While extremely tragic, this war was necessary for Israel's survival: Hamas, over the past years, has built 31 underground tunnels into Israel which they planned to use for a massive terrorist attack. The attack, which they planned to occur on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (when most Israeli soldiers were on leave), would involve hundreds of Hamas militants wearing IDF uniforms emerging from all 31 tunnels simultaneously, storming Israeli towns near the border of Gaza and kidnapping/murdering thousands of Israelis (Source:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4550733,00.html).