By MAYA ZANGER-NADIS NOVEMBER 12, 2023 19:09 Updated: NOVEMBER 12, 2023 21:26
Israeli security forces delivered 300 liters of diesel fuel to Shifa Hospital in Gaza early Sunday morning and later received intelligence indicating that Hamas had intercepted the delivery, according to a Sunday night IDF statement.
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Hamas puts their rocket launchers next to schools, so the only way to take out their ability to launch rockets at Israeli civilians also has a high likelihood of damaging the school. Hamas puts terrorist HQs in tunnels under hospitals, weapons caches in apartment buildings, and so on. This is deliberate; the point is to increase Palestinian suffering in order to ensure that Palestinians and Israelis cannot make peace, with the ultimate aim of establishing a new Islamic State in Palestine.
Unlike the PLO, Hamas has never been signatory to the Geneva Conventions. Hamas explicitly repudiates the notion of a civilian/military distinction, both for Israelis and for Palestinians.
And that justifies bombing civilians being used as human shields?
There’s a really good reason that nations should comply with international law and not do shit like deliberately put military targets in civilian buildings.
There’s a really good reason that nations in armed conflict should comply with international law and not conceal military targets as medical facilities.
Why? Because doing those things makes the civilian buildings and medical facilities into legitimate military targets.
A major goal of the international law of war is to reduce civilian suffering. The rules that Hamas is breaking, are rules that exist to reduce civilian suffering – in this case, the suffering of Palestinian civilians.
But yeah, if your foe is shooting at you from an ambulance, yes you get to take out the ambulance. If your foe is shooting rockets from a school, yes you get to take out the school. Ambulances and schools aren’t supposed to be shooting at all.
But again, Hamas doesn’t recognize a civilian/military distinction. This makes them a really shitty government.
Hamas is not a nation.
Israel undermined the only government Gaza had and propped up the terrorists instead.
Hamas is the government of Palestine in Gaza. They have been the government there since 2006. A group can be both the government of an area and a terrorist organization. Sucks, but it happens regularly.
Unless you are just being pedantic and arguing that a ‘government of a nation’ and a ‘nation’ are different things. Then sure, I can read a dictionary as well. But, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that isn’t what you mean.
Because then the nation economically crippling them will shoot those innocents and commit more war crimes?
When a robber takes a hostage you don’t shoot them through the hostage unless you’re a deranged sociopath.
This isn’t a crime situation. It’s a war. A major goal of the international law of war is to mitigate harm to civilians. When one warring party doesn’t go along with that plan, the other party is not required to give up on defending itself.
“Ooh, you shot rockets at a city from a school. I guess I can’t do anything about that! I’ve gotta just let you keep on doing that. Wow, putting military stuff in schools is some kind of super power you have, that just prevents me from ever fighting back! Neat! Maybe I should do that too … oh wait, it wouldn’t work, you attack schools all the time, even without military targets in them.”
This is a crime situation. A war crime situation where millions of lives are held forfeit due to the action of hundreds to thousands.
There is a way to go after these people without blowing up every innocent nearby but the conversation has been so poisoned you seemingly think it’s either do nothing or bomb everything.
And as a final thing, this isn’t a self defense thing. Reprisals aren’t defense, they’re revenge after the option for defense is over. You seem a bit mixed up on that.
When the “robber” keeps shooting missiles at you, you indeed do shoot. If Hamas cared one bit for the safety of Gaza they would cease their attacks. But they don’t. And leave Israel no choice.
Ok so now that we know how little you value human life my follow up question is, why not use techniques that would separate the hostage from the perpetrator? Why is it important that the criminal dies right that second?
Because a criminal exists any life they stand behind is forfeit so you can get to them? Sounds less like justice and more like blood thirst. This is the same mindset fueling police abuse around the world, so hopped up on militant “justice” they disregard the citizens they claim they want to protect.
You completely ignore that the “criminal” is still shooting at you. Your little metaphor has no relation to the reality but I guess it makes you feel good?