Sounds kind of like gambling to me. Put a lot of money in and maybe get something cool out of it. Thinking of it that way at least makes some sort of sense.
Encouraging Jews to leave "voluntarily" was Hitler's first step, too. Then when most people don't want to leave their homes, you justify your escalation by saying you gave them a chance.
Calling Hamas "democratically elected" is a huge stretch. Hamas recieved 44.45% of votes in the last election, which was in 2006. They are absolutely not in any way accountable to the people they rule. The average Palestinian has about as much chance of freeing those hostages as I have of breaking people out of Guantanamo.
Why would Hamas surrender? This is great for them. They need war to justify their existence, and they don't care about the civilians of Gaza much more than the IDF does.
Maybe this isn't the case in your neighborhood but my local grocery stores have racks of gift cards, including for Steam. I know people who have similar concerns as your dad, so they just buy Steam credit for themselves.
This seems fine? It's not as though the current reservoirs are fully enclosed or anything that would prevent animals from relieving themselves in the water. As long as the end product is clean who cares?
We get along okay. We don't have a lot in common but we can occasionally hang out and have fun playing games or something.