???
What's with the "not apt"? Are you trying to get an EXACT MATCH of one war to another? Because that's just not possible. The criteria should not be "exact", it should be "most closely resembles".
You're even trying to bring in "an argument to be made that Israel should drop hydrogen bombs to limit civilian and military casualties?"... atomic bombs... seriously?
The "most closely resembles" matches are a sneak attack with a certain number of casualties in the low 1,000's. A major war effort follows, with nothing but "unconditional surrender of the enemy" as the goal. These two match Dec. 7th and Oct. 7th. A disproportional response. Match. A large number of civilian casualties disproportional to the original sneak attack casualties (and despite Tater's efforts to list 20,000+ casualties as a top end acceptable number... the CURRENT 18,000 includes around 8,000 Hamas terrorists, not just civilians only (since Hamas refuses to delineate between the two as it is a propaganda victory using the higher number... even though the higher number DOES include a significant number of militants deaths...)). Match. Efforts to reduce civilian casualties. Match. (Even with G2's point that the atomic bombs were to reduce US military casualties estimated to be around 5 mill to conquer the Japanese main islands... I'm stealing this one). But I'll go to my earlier point which is, civilian casualties are NOT the main concern. Match for both. Elimination of the enemy threat IS the Primary Goal. Match.
And even though different methods were used - Israel is NOT going to use an atomic bomb... they would basically be bombing THEMSELVES... and they are not that stupid - this alone does not say that these too are so dissimilar that the comparison is "not apt".
IMO: quit searching for an "exact match". That just does not exist.