There are two separate components to your piece. The first is the NYT's coverage and the second is the war itself. The NYT is the NYT and that says it all. It has allowed its opinions to creep into its news reporting in so many ways as to no longer be reliable as anything other than an expanded opinion page.
With regard to the war, there is a simple dichotomy. Isarael did not function as an independent country prior to WW2 when it existed as a Jewish Kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty following the Maccabean Revolt until it was conquered by Rome. So, if we view Israel as an occupied "state" getting its independence than it would stand to reason that it would be Jewish state again with the government of Israel the only legitimate government of the country.
As a government, it has the power to grant citizenship to anyone it chooses and seize lands and distribute them to anyone it chooses. The government of Israel was recognized by the UN and so at least internationally, the land of Israel falls under the governance of the Israeli government, which has all the sovereign powers of any other state government. Hamas and Hezbollah are simply revolutionary bodies trying to overthrow the legitimate government of the country.
Whether you sympathize with the Palestinians or not, does not change the "legal case".
The other option, which is a legal stretch, is that no government was ever recognized at the time Israel became a nation. Then what we are looking at is a civil war with both the Jews and Palestinians having their own provisional governments. That will continue to war with one another until one side gives up (unlikely) or both sides agree to a permanent division of land into two distinct countries (the two-state solution). But this latter resolution can only work if both countries relinquish any and all claims regarding citizens and land of the other country. I do not think the Palestinians are prepared to do that yet.
I say yet, because I think rather than the war Israel is waging on the Palestinians, I think the targeting of their leaders will more likely lead to the end of the war. I am not a fan of targeting leaders, but it is pretty clear that Palestinian leaders are not responding to the horrors of war that October 7 brought about, so a different strategy may be called for.
