Comment by baltimore
No, a mass terror attack would indiscriminately target victims. This is almost entirely opposite -- an organization widely recognized as a terrorist group (1) is narrowly targeted.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_g...
Also because one would have to weigh the alternative.
Imagine Israel declared an old fashioned war against Lebanon as response to the missile strikes originated from its territory.
I think the number of civilian casualties of a conventional "legal" war would be much much higher than the collateral damage of this operation.
Now, does that make it "right"? To me war is horror and is to avoid at all cost. Is a smaller horror a cost one's willing to pay to avoid a bigger horror? Hard to say. But I think it's still important to at least try to see things in a broader context otherwise we may never understand why people on the ground make the choices they do.