If the most recent death toll wasn't enough, here's something else showing that they don't really care about keeping an appearance, as well as another U.N. school, i don't know what to say or do, everyone knows that they won't destroy "Hamas" :

If their goal was only to send a message, then there's no point to be that extreme, the only reason left that i can see is that they want to keep the Gaza Strip, it's always a bet but they considered that they'll be allowed to(, in which case their security would indeed be increased by getting rid of all palestinians).
Their neighbours would have to be quite desperate to think that embracing Israel and the west is still their best option, but if they do it'd probably be for economic reasons, and/or perhaps fears of retaliations, i.d.k., we'll see how it'll evolve in the future, but i can't believe that they would kill all of these people and destroy everything without a real goal, sending a pointless message isn't one, nor is the unrealistic aim of destroying "Hamas", i find it hard to imagine them simply going back to their side as if they accomplished something by pointlessly mass murdering thousands of childrens&humans on the other side of the wall, awful that this senseless option of a useless massacre is the most desirable.