In years past, when Israel has had to defend itself against the terror of Hamas, the world community has used the words “excessive force” to condemn the Jewish state.

When close to 400 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza earlier this week, the world’s voices of condemnation stayed quiet, ostensibly validating Hamas.

Perhaps it’s not enough to keep engaging in this back-and-forth battle with a nemesis that hasn’t stopped and seems unwilling to cease engaging Israelis with terror. We can only write so many times that if this were any other nation attacked by its neighbor, we wouldn’t blame it for retaliation in the severest of terms.

We know there are Gazans who suffer the economic distress of Hamas’ making. We know that Hamas thinks nothing of placing weapons systems in elementary schools and hospitals. Hamas has made suffering and dying in Gaza easier than living and prospering.

So knowing that their mantra is “take back Palestine from the river to the sea,” why should Israel and Israelis put up with this any longer?

No, our children aren’t on the front lines like those in Israel. But that does not diminish the love and care we have for our ancestral homeland. Sometimes a surgeon needs to be invasive to cut out the tumor that is keeping a patient infirm.

We will never awaken one day to a Hamas that wants to live in peace with Israel. It is up to this generation now, perhaps with the help of the U.S., to make Hamas and its Iranian backers pay the ultimate price for this occupation of terror.

Hamas aggression must end even if it means going in and ending it.

Enough is enough.

Hamas terror must end.