There is a lot of room for nuanced talk about intent vs. capabilities. Regardless of your take on the current Israeli military action in Gaza, one thing is undeniable: Israel has the capability to be exponentially more cruel and explicitly “genocidal” to Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) if they chose to be. They are clearly following a type of framework on the acceptable level of civilian vice military casualties, the argument is whether that framework is robust enough and proportionate.
Hamas, on the other hand, has explicitly genocidal intent, it is stated. Hamas has also demonstrated that if given the chance, they will deploy their full capabilities in pursuit of blatantly genocidal aims. This was clearly demonstrated on October 7, if Israel could clearly treat Gazans worse, Hamas clearly gave Israeli citizens the absolute worst they had to offer.
And this element of intent is mostly lost in the leftist neo-Marxist debate where the only moral framework is powerful vs. less powerful which may have some practical application in actually looking for a compromise but far too easily slides in the the morally bankrupt viewpoint of assigning higher or lower moral values to actors simply based on their capabilities.