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I do not understand why God had commanded Joshua to unmercifully slaughter all men, women, children, elders and even animals of the cities of Canaan without sparing anyone. Could you please explain?

In the Holy Book of Deuteronomy, God gave specific instructions on how to deal with nations outside inside the Promised Land. For the nations outside and distant from the Promised Land (Deut 20:10-15), He offered them a peace treaty. If they refused it, then all the men of war of the city should be killed but not the women, the children and the livestock. These were to be spared and become spoils to the Israelites.

In case of the cities inside the Promised Land, the rules were clear "But of the cities of these peoples which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the LORD your God" (Deut 20:16-18). God was protecting His people from idol worship or seduction by the women of those cities. The livestock were put to death with the owners, as additional sacrifices to Divine justice. The cattle of the Israelites, when slain at the altar, were accepted as sacrifices on their behalf but the cattle of those Canaanites were required to be slain  with them as sacrifice because their iniquity was not to be purged with sacrifice and offerings: the last two both were only for the glory of God.

The Israelites were required by the divine law to put the kings or chiefs to death. The kings were not crucified alive but were killed first, then hanged on a tree. This was done according to the law given by the Lord, "If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God" (Deut 21:22).

The execution of the king of Ai would strike terror into the other chiefs, and make the act appear as a judicial process, in which they were inflicting the vengeance of God upon His enemies. This would then facilitate the conquest of the land.