Israel's Disproportionate "Retaliations"

Much of the time, the Western World, and the United States most importantly, persuade themselves that what Israel is doing, and all the attacks and offensives that take place are a reaction to Palestinian violence and attacks. Let's take the example of the Gaza Offensive, which just ended a little over a month ago. Because of the rockets that Hamas was launching into Israel, Israel decided that it was enough and attacked the small, yet heavily populated Gaza Strip, first from the air and then on foot. Yet the Israeli government, or the world at that matter, never asks why they started attacking Israel in the first place. Maybe it was resistance to the occupation, but in my opinion it was an outcry to the ridiculous blockade that Israel has cast on all the Gaza strip. It controls what comes in and what goes out. There is barely any food, no electricity, no clean water. What could the Palestinians do other than launch rockets. I see these rockets as flares, fireworks that get the attention of the population around them. They were used as signals of desperate and immediate help, just like the sinking Titanic used flares to signal to ships in the distance. After this "Act of Defense for the safety of the Israeli people" was over, the result would be the slaughter of about 1,300 people and more than a fourth of these victims are innocent women and children. When the world confronts the Israeli government with this information, all it can say is "Hamas is using innocent civilians as human shields". If I were to ask the Israeli government to explain what they mean, they would say that "Hamas is hiding in heavily populated areas to get the sympathy of the world when there is a huge number of casualties". However, where can the ruling group of an area live, or hide in that matter. Gaza is one of the most heavily populated areas in the world, with about 1.5 million people living there. I won't deny the "Acts of Humanity" that Israel has done by releasing flyers to the Gazans reading "We Will Destroy Your Home Tomorrow, Go Somewhere Safe". But where is safety? Where is safety in a strip that barely measures 139 square miles that is bombarded by white phosphorous and other lethal bombs every two minutes. Where is the family that just received this flyer going to go? Out on the streets, where it's even more dangerous due to the land offensive, because there is no way out of the Gaza Strip. This is what Tzipi Livni said "We are not telling them to go out of Gaza, we are just telling them to go to a safer place in Gaza". As if the poor innocent families had a copy of the IDF's agenda on what to destroy next.