Gaza had near total autonomy since 2005. Rather than build their economy and society, they put all their efforts into building tunnels and missiles. They even ripped up the infrastructure left in place when Israeli settlers left.
Before the Oct. 7th attack, Gaza had one of the fastest growing populations in the world. They'd been having as many children as they could to build an army to fight Israel. Children were taught in school that it's righteous to martyr themselves for their cause. Their purpose in life isn't to build a better life for themselves; it's to destroy Israel.
They haven't had total autonomy when the Israeli government decides how much food and medicine and everything else goes into Gaza and when the produce that they once grew in the greenhouses that were abandoned there, was stopped at checkpoints to wilt and rot so that the people couldn't earn income from it. They have no autonomy when Israel patrols the sea and shoots at anyone who goes out to far in small fishing boats.
And the suggestion that they are having children to 'build an army' is ridiculous. They are poor, can't afford birth control and even if they could, their religion probably doesn't allow/encourage it as they see every child as a gift from God. Also, the reason Gaza has grown so fast is because Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinian villages and families all over the country and they retreat to Gaza to escape that violence.
And while they might be at peace with 'going home to God' when they die, at the same time, Israeli's are actively teaching their children that Palestinians are subhuman and deserve to die.
James Brancatella, a convert from Catholicism to Islam, has a video on his Youtube channel called 'Israeli Children Being Taught to Murder and Enslave all Arabs'. It appears to be a nanny cam (maybe a security camera) type video of Israeli children in a classroom, being encouraged to discuss killing Palestinians (if they met an Arab boy, what would they do, with the answer being 'kill him') and the adults in the room all smile and nod approvingly. If you think Jewish children aren't being indoctrinated, well all I can say is, you are mistaken and you are naive.
I'd share the video if I could but for some reason, every time I do that, it shows up as unavailable even though the video is available on Youtube. But do a search for Brancatella's name and the name of that particular video and you can easily find it.