"What was different this time was that it was Israel who was the victim."

You've just described the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust [1] as a blip because, in your accounting, it was Israel's turn to absorb one.

The "continuum" framing doesn't hold up numerically either. In non-war years, OCHA records roughly 100–200 Palestinian deaths annually at Israeli hands [2]. Hamas killed 1,139 people before lunchtime. That's not a blip in a continuum, it's five to ten years of equivalent deaths in eight hours.

The youngest victim was 14 hours old [3]. The oldest was a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor [3]. None of those facts change based on who you think had it coming.

[1] https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museu...

[2] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/casualties-thousands-killed-...

[3] https://www.yahoo.com/news/youngest-october-7-victim-just-00...