Any of those individuals that participated in the actions against Palestinians outside the "rules of war" including murder and rape should face the same consequences as the Hamas members involved in the October 7 attack. So, there is no difference. If members of the Zionist militia that committed those acts are still alive and if Hamas went after those individuals, I would not consider that terrorism, but rather justice. But targeting individuals especially non-combatants, who had no involvement in those actions by ignoring their humanity but instead reducing them to members of a group, is terrorism.
The key word is "targeting". In war, innocent people are getting killed. That is clear in Israel's war against Hamas. And if Hamas ends up killing Jews not involved in the war by accident because of their proximity to military targets, that is not terrorism. So, firing rockets at military targets and having one stray off target by accident would not be terrorism. Neither are the firing of rockets by the Houthis against military ships terrorism. Those are acts of war.
400 years ago, Europe was involved in a war which killed 30% of the population of Germany. That would equate to over 1.5 million Palestinians today for reference purposes. Most of those casualties were not the direct result of "war" but rather intentional violence against the population at large. Religion was used to some extent to justify the killing of Catholics and Protestants and to a lesser extent Jews and other groups. It became crystal clear that without "rules" war would devolve into genocide.
Without the restraints that define legitimate targets in war, everything is "on the table".
Terrorists routinely violate those rules, they are risking nations deciding to abandon the rules of war. Should Israel abandon the rules of war, they have the ability to exterminate every Palestinian. Hamas relies on the world to constrain Israel from behaving as they do.
This reflects a change in ideology, that could lead to genocide for either the Jews or Palestinians. If right or wrong is determined by "group identity" rather than individual acts, then any action taken against a group can be justified. At present terrorist groups feel "safe" hiding among "friendly" populations believing the "rules of war" will prevent their targets from responding effectively to their acts.
But as terrorism becomes an increasingly used tool by groups who condone violence against people simply because they are associated with an identity group, we may soon reach a point similar to that in the Crusades when soldiers asked prior to massacring a city's population, how they would be able to tell the innocent from the guilty. The response was "kill them all and let God sort them out".
Talk of reparations deflects from the issue. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians can expect reparations for any acts of terrorism by individuals unless they expect to also pay reparations for their acts. In addition, any reparations assigned would not be assigned to a "nation" or identity group, but only those who were involved in the act of terrorism or authorized it.
The issue is similar to the one in the US, where some African Americans seek reparations from white people, whose family did not even reside in the US during the time of slavery by virtue of their skin color. The concept of guilt by skin color, religion, gender, etc. is a dangerous one.
