Or spend their lives in prison, sure - but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it. That they can’t release their hostages and lay down their arms, rather than continue a fight that cannot help but kill thousands of their people - and end with their deaths any way. Or even that they won’t, if their situation gets hopeless - in many hostage standoffs, for example, the perpetrator surrenders rather than getting in a firefight that will end innocent lives, even though that means prison or worse.
Having committed the intentional mass slaughter that they did, there are no good outcomes for Hamas. Nor should there be. It is not just that their strategy of using the civilian population as protection should enable them to avoid facing the consequences of the crimes they committed. It is a terrible outcome that their strategy might work, that their ability to hide among the women and children of Gaza may allow them to escape the consequences their acts deserve. Which is why it’s frustrating to read you arguing for that to happen and not even considering that Hamas could stop the killing by choosing not to keep pursuing this strategy.
They won’t, of course. Their goal is the destruction of Israel and the killing or expulsion of every Jew “from the river to the sea.” The deaths of innocent Gazans help them achieve that goal. That’s part of what makes them so monstrous. Still, omitting that Hamas could stop the killing if they stopped, you know, committing the war crime of engaging in armed hostilities while embedded among the civilian population is a pretty big oversight.