Israel has lost over 500 soldiers to date. Why put soldiers at risk? You can be sure that if all Israel wanted was annihilation then there are way better ways (dumb bombs as you say) to just completely level Gaza. Israel is targeting military targets which reside within dense population. This sometimes results in unintended deaths thats war. Also, journalists in war zone tend to get killed. Especially ones which embed themselves within combatants. I would also argue the actual number of journalists killed is much smaller, as the definition of a "journalist" is very fluid these days. But that's just my speculation at the moment, I don't have facts to back that up.