> Around 10% of Gaza's journalists have been killed versus 2.5% of healthcare workers.
One possible explanation is that journalists have a much higher probability of being close to where the fighting is, than healthcare workers.
One possible explanation is that journalists have a much higher probability of being close to where the fighting is, than healthcare workers.
We don't know that reporters are rushing into danger or hanging out where the danger is going to be.
In fact, a lot of the "reporters" who we've been watching were never war reporters to begin with. Motaz, for instance was an aspiring travel photographer. Bisan was a filmmaker. Wael was the cheif of Al-Jazera in Gaza.
They're (most likely) not seeking out death and war, they're just reporting on the condition of their city, of their people.
It also ignores 75 years of history. CPJ stated this was the deadliest conflict for journalists in the past 30 years. Reporters Without Borders has accused Israel of intentionally targeting journalists. Human Rights Watch signed a letter stating the US needed to put pressure on Israel to stop killing journalists. Amnesty international says Israel must be investigated for the war crime of killing journalists.
Part of the trouble is Israel can't prove the 12,000, and no one actually believes the Hamas figures are legitimate. But there are not better figures available for either number. So 1:1 for Gaza is the best we can estimate.
The wikipedia article should be read as a starting point in understanding how extremely unreliable those numbers are, and how much it depend on how people define combatant and civilian.
So, as horrific as this war has been, I don't think the claim that this is "one of the the deadliest wars for civilians in general" holds up.
That's not actually true. The ratio is similar to other wars. Civilians die in war, they die a lot. War sucks. But Gaza is not unusually deadly compared to other wars.
In any case Israel is not conducting a war, they are conducting a massacre.
While the initial cause for war is obviously different, that does not justify war crimes.
I don't think western-brained folks realise how bad this looks to the rest of the world. For example to India, and the amount damage it does to the West's reputation.
I don't think that is a true statement. Obviously it is bad for civilians in any war, but there are other conficts that have been much worse.
I find it vanishingly unlikely that all the things that have happened to this man and his family are just tragic coincidence. He was clearly targeted.
Worth mentioning the IDF know where everyone in Gaza lives.
How is trying to storm a sovereign border peaceful? Pretty sure if a mob stormed any normal government border they would be shot.
It’s not. But it’s not grounds for lethal force. Audible warnings, warning shots and non-lethal rounds were the right moves.
You can't possibly be serious.
Sure it is. But that’s not what you described—the border guards did not have enough information to conclude—as judge, jury and executioner—that they were trying to kill people.
I'd think they'd point their weapons at the ones actually storming not the journalists
Unless you're saying the IDF didn't point and just fired aimlessly in the march's general direction?
The rate of journalists murdered in Gaza is much higher than other similar situations.
The Geneva convention requires citizens and journalists to not be targeted. [1]
Human Rights Watch [2] and Amnesty International [3] are reporting journalists are actively being targeted. Today, someone's phone can be tracked to target them.
The LA Times also had a piece outlining the journalists experiences [4]
[1] https://safety.rsf.org/appendix-i-protection-of-journalists-...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israeli-strikes-on-journa...
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/lebanon-deadl...
[4] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-21/gaza-journa...
Not closer than the people actually doing the fight. Look at this plot: https://imgur.com/a/SWNSYOn
For the curve of journalists killed to bend this way, my rough estimates point it's necessary for the journalist have ~3x the odds of being targeted when compared to a Hamas fighter, or ~75x more when compared to random Gaza inhabitant (~75:1 vs. ~25:1 odds against random person). I posted in detail my estimation method here, but it got downvoted and now sits close to the bottom of this discussion, but you can read it here:
Part I: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603300
Part II: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603311
Part III (Python source code): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603322
Would be interesting to see what the death rates for journalists, medics, soldiers, etc was in afghan war, iraq war, vietnam war, etc. I highly doubt any reaches 10%.
Hamas based their operations where conventional rules of war prohibit fire. That makes comparing casualty rates incredibly difficult. (To my knowledge, nobody else has done this so comprehensively. Though given its success, I expect it to be emulated. Which unfortunately means prohibitions on bombing hospitals, schools and places of worship are now obsolete.)
I'm wondering by what metric do you define success.
Every false flag operation designed to rally support for a conflict.
During the Chinese civil war, the Maoists let the Nationalists take a shellacking when convenient. And while I wouldn’t say America was conducive to civilian deaths on “our” side in Vietnam or Afghanistan, it clearly wasn’t something we optimised for: our priority was protecting our troops.
Hamas is a paramilitary. It serves its own forces. The civilians of Palestine aren’t “its” people; they’re a battlefield element.
The Kims are the government of North Korea. That doesn’t mean they serve its people.
> Have they been renounced by the population in favor of any other government?
Difficult to tell. Hamas did away with elections in their 2007 coup [1].
But rest assured that the people that study those things know quite well it's the country leaders declaring wars, not the people.
But I'm still wondering where we should be drawing the line. For example, Russia has arguably not had fair and free elections for over two decades, so should we refrain from saying that there's a war between Russia and Ukraine and instead say that there's a war between Putin's party (United Russia) and Ukraine"?
Some (many) tens of thousands of people were arrested for complaining... But don't bother, their punishment was only half a year or so in prision... And in unrelated news, some (many) tens of thousands of Russian prisoners were sent to die at the Ukraine winter, on the frontline, without guns or even socks.
But no, all Russians are in full support of this war. You can read all about this on the news.
I'm just asking a naive geopolitical question of whether we should in general be talking about countries being at war (and I just offered Russia vs Ukraine as an example), or whether it's more appropriate to think of wars as being between leaderships/militaries, whereas the rest of either country should be considered generally uninvolved? Or if "it depends", where should that line be?
Civilians aren't targeted just collateral damage.
0:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palesti....
And hell, you are really surprised after everything Israel did in Gaza so far, that support for Hamas rises? Really? I suggest to whatch the first season of Andor for an in-depth explanation of why a hard crackdown is usually only hardening resistence.
Hardly seems worth it to me, but i guess you could argue that is success of a sort.
I'm still waiting on a single shred of evidence to drop about the AP building from 2-3 years ago https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israe...
> Which unfortunately means prohibitions on bombing hospitals, schools and places of worship are now obsolete.
Even if Hamas was fighting from hospitals and schools that is not how this works. Israel would be required to give those schools and hospitals warning first which they have not been doing.
And assuming (incorrectly) that Israel was following the rules of engagement and giving the civilians warning, why are they hitting the refuge camps with 2000lb dumb bombs? Why not guided bombs?
I think you're generally wrong on the "they have not been doing" comment. Israel has been giving warnings, and those warnings were intentionally being ignored to maximize the damage to Israel's reputation. But if you have some comprehensive data here I'd be interested in seeing it.
From my observation the pattern has been Israel giving warnings/ordering evacuations with the response being "it can't be done" only to end with significantly more difficult conditions.
Israel did demand that the entirety of Northern Gaza be evacuated from civilians (including those "camps" you mention, more below, and including all those hospitals) which was again pushed back on as "impossible" or physically prevented by Hamas which in turn caused increased civilian casualty rates and the eventual almost full evacuation under significantly more difficult conditions.
The use of the terminology "refugee camps" is also confusing. Some of what the media refers to as "refugee camps" are permanent settlements, effectively cities, where the population consists of many 1948 refugees. Not what most people think about when they hear "refugee camps". As to why heavy bombs are used I'm not an expert but potentially to penetrate deeper and there might be other reasons.
All that said, I think it should be acknowledged that some of the methods Israel is using are likely to try and achieve some psychological advantage against the enemy. I don't think this that's necessarily a violation of international law given that warnings were given. It's within the realm of what I would call a military objective (demoralizing the enemy forces and destroying their infrastructure).
Context, always.
My context is that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 as a pilot for a plan for complete disengagement from the Palestinians, effectively the two state solution everyone talks about. It handed this region, that used to be occupied (from Egypt) to the Palestinians to make their own. The settlements in Gaza were dismantled and the settlers left. Nobody was being watched or harassed by Israel. Hamas took control of Gaza by force and turned it into a mini-Caliphate with the sole purpose of killing all Jews in the middle east. Launching suicide bombers from it and launching 10's of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. I think this is a more accurate context than yours.
What I will agree with you is that the history of the conflict has relevance to the morality of Israel's actions. I would say though that Hamas' conduct is: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and immoral. This does not need any context. It's absolute. I would also be inclined to say, in this light, that Israel's response to Oct 7th is moral regardless of previous context. I don't think there's any "oppression" or "occupation" that justifies the violence we've seen from the Palestinian side. I can't think of any similar historical examples of these levels of indiscriminate violence against civilians. It's not just their violence towards Israel but their violence towards each other (using children or people with mental problems as suicide bombers e.g.). At least not in modern times.
Israel is not "colonizing" anything. The state of Israel is the UN recognized legal entity in Mandatory Palestine, following the British Mandate, following the Ottoman Empire's collapse. I don't think Israeli settlements in the west bank (occupied from Jordan but historically part of the British Mandate, so complicated story there) are useful. I also don't like the settlers harassment of Palestinians (which is really a relatively recent phenomena, not going all the way back to 1967) in the west bank. But Palestinians have been attacking Israelis all along as well in some pretty bad ways and refusing to try and settle.
> Launching suicide bombers from it and launching 10's of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. I think this is a more accurate context than yours.
If you want to put context, put context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_co... . But a fight on numbers is stupid so let's not go there. You want to put context as to why 10's of rockets explode on Israel cities, you have to explain why for each rocket Israel retaliates with 10 deaths on Palestinian side. It's all part of it.
> Israel is not "colonizing" anything. The state of Israel is the UN recognized legal entity in Mandatory Palestine,
I don't know how someone can still believe that when there's a page dedicated to illegal Israeli settlements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
EDIT: I'm not even making this up: "Israel approves plans for 3,400 new homes in West Bank settlements" -- "Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want as part of a future state - in the 1967 Middle East war" <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68490034>
> But Palestinians have been attacking Israelis all along as well in some pretty bad ways and refusing to try and settle.
Oh come on. Let my country come to your land, force you to leave by hundred thousands, harass you, beat you, kill you, and let's see if you accept me settling there nicely and comfortably.
We could go on and on and on but please put the context if you want to talk about it, the real one, not the one you pick. The one that is internationally recognized but no one says anything because of interests. The one that is plain visible for all to see. There is suffering on all sides, please don't pretend it's easy.
Maybe we don't even disagree. The real conflict is between the Israel State and the Palestinian "State", or governing bodies. Let those far-right atrocities who know and help each other fight in a cage and leave the population, on both side, alone.
On the details of the history this wasn't "my country come to your land and forced you to leave" it was more like "Jewish people immigrated to this region, their historic homeland, many expelled from their homes in Europe and the middle east and had no options" (compare e.g. to Chinese people from Hong Kong immigrating to Canada) and "war started by the Arab countries against the UN recognized state of Israel led to 700,000 Palestinians refugees" (I'd compare to millions of German refugees in Europe post their loss in WW-II). Jewish immigration to the region was legal and should be viewed as moral on many levels. If the Arab population were to look at it as the positive that it could have been then we'd all be living happily ever after in a prosperous middle east. If anything millions of Jews could have been saved in WW-II if Britain were to allow more of them to immigrate- that was immoral. The Arabs had, and still do, see this as a (racist) zero sum game, not a win-win (vs. how Canada looks at immigration again e.g.). Read Israel's declaration of independence to see how Israel's leadership looked at it (and keep in mind this was 1948!).
The settlements are a tricky topic. I'm opposed to them and the settlers. But this is not what most people talk about when they say Israel is a colonist. What most people mean is the existence of the state of Israel is the "settlement". That's their political perspective and IMO both racist and a distortion of history.
> Jewish immigration to the region was legal
This is the crux of where we disagree. It was legal based on international law, but international law is just western law: Palestinians and neighboring countries said no, and under the same international law they were in the right: they have the right to self-determination. So if we take the legal point, the argument is not receivable
> and should be viewed as moral on many levels
That's plainly subjective and my own thinking makes me say it's immoral to displace hundreds of thousands of people and take their homes, their land, their food, just because.
> But this is not what most people talk about when they say Israel is a colonist. What most people mean is the existence of the state of Israel is the "settlement"
I disagree, anyone I've seen talking about the colonialist aspect of Israel is specifically all the illegal settlements outside its borders, it's the massive control of Palestinian population, it's forbidding them access to their own sea, that kind of things. Everyone who talks about it is clear.
When people talk about the existence of Israel and its racist laws, they will rather use the term "apartheid" which is closer to the truth.
In any case, those disagreements are to be put in perspective to what we both agree on, and that is the nice note of this discussion :)
I think there's a fairly clear delineation between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. A terrorist's goal is to sow terror among the target entity. It does so by random indiscriminate violence (and barbarism). The more random the target is and the more barbaric the attack is the better. 9/11 is a good example. A terrorist has no moral qualms. The goal justifies anything. It's almost certain that the terrorist is losing in any measurable objective. E.g. the Chechen attacks in Moscow leading to Russia essentially levelling Chechnia, or the Sri Lankans destroying the Tamils. It's kind of a lost cause made worse by violence.
A freedom fighter, to contrast, will weigh the morality of their actions vs. what they can accomplish and other non-violent alternatives. They will weigh the violence they use, their targets, against specific "freedom" goals. They will not sacrifice their own humanity to pursue their goal. They have some reasonable chance of achieving some real "freedom" goals out of the targeted acts of violence. WW-II Partisans come to mind.
> From my observation
Well from Human Rights Watches observation:
> Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals. When a journalist at a news conference showing video footage of damage to the Qatar Hospital sought additional information to verify voice recordings and images presented, the Israeli spokesperson said, “our strikes are based on intelligence.” Even if accurate, Israel has not demonstrated that the ensuing hospital attacks were proportionate.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-ho...
> I don't think
Again, giving a warning doesn't make it ok to bomb a school. Notice how the HRW quote mentions the attack not being "proportionate"? That's why I seek advice from the experts.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/07/fu...
What's wrong with that? Any honest observer will have battles with groups who want to spin the truth.
I'd say one of the biggest problems in the US political system right now is that we don't have enough organizations willing to battle against our own partisan pressure groups (without siding with any of them).
Perhaps that's what's troubling: so many of our organizations have taken sides that it's difficult to understand an organization that hasn't.
As for raising money in Saudi Arabia: they were raising money from private supporters there, not the Saudi government. Do you think no one in SA supports human rights?
Or, if the suggestion is that HRW is siding with the Saudis, take a look at:
Who do you think "private supporters" are in Saudi Arabia?
And no, I don't think anyone with anything resembling power or wealth in Saudi Arabia supports human rights.
HRW execs admit via email to the editor in chief of a nationally respected magazine that they raise money by bragging how tough they are on Israel. And then they are tough on Israel, and you think it's a principled stance. Maybe they just have profitable principles, I dunno.
And it seems like they are. They're tough on Saudi Arabia too.
But don’t take it from me. Take that from a senior editor who left HRW after 13 years: https://www.timesofisrael.com/outgoing-human-rights-watch-se...
And "political framing that could always contextualize and “explain” why Jewish Israeli lives were lost in Palestinian violence."
It sounds like she wanted their coverage to be more one-sided. Explaining "the ‘context’ of ‘apartheid’ and ‘occupation’" is perfectly valid.
When HRW says Israel is bad, i think its a bit like when a cop says the person they arrested is bad. It may very well be true, but i wouldn't put it as a sure thing until some sort of trial is done.
P.s. in regards to "porportionate" - keep in mind that has a special definition in international law that is different from how people use it in normal conversation.
You are quite right, Israel's interest is to kill and displace the Palestinians, crush them as a people. Very few human right groups would have an interest that aligns with that.
Maybe you don't believe them, but if the goal is to determine truth its probably better to start from a place of assuming innocence and change views based on evidence, not the other way around.
and what interest Palestinians have in regard to Israelis from your point of view?
Already we've seen settlers building an "outpost" inside Gaza, while Israeli soldiers watch on. Meanwhile, Israeli civilians block aid to starving children, again while the IDF watch.
In reference to the same poll: "A vast majority of Jewish Israelis believe that the IDF is using an appropriate amount or not enough force" [0]. "Nearly 58 percent of respondents in one poll said they think the IDF is using “too little firepower” in Gaza" [1]
[0] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-783849
[1] https://truthout.org/articles/polls-show-broad-support-in-is...
But I don't think your survey shows what you're saying it shows. I've no doubt that more Israeli Jews want peace than Arabs. Find me a survey that asks this question to both population, do you prefer peace or a war. I have no doubt what the answer would be. You can see this in the public discourse, the Palestinian population supports "resistance" which is war. you won't find much Israeli discourse about initiating violence against the Palestinian population pre Oct 7th. See this: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/new-poll-shows-palestinians...
Palestinians could have peace at any time. On Israeli terms. They can have their freedom, their humans rights. What they can't have is the land they demand, the right of return, and the eviction of the state of Israel.
In terms of Gaza, it's not surprising Israelis are disappointed with the progress in the war. It's been 5 months and Gaza hasn't been completely retaken and Hamas has not been defeated as a military. Again I don't think this actually supports your point of view at all or necessarily paints Israelis in a bad light. If Hamas hadn't attacked on Oct 7th we wouldn't be having this discussion. Since they have Israel is using all its might to destroy them and yes there are severe consequences to the Gazans. Israel is somewhat in the middle in terms of the usage of force in this situation vs. what most of the world considers to be normal. The Russians e.g. would undoubtedly apply a lot more force. Even most of the western world would and has.
If we're being honest, I think that perception (such that it may exist) largely depends upon the race of the subject states. Consider the recent bomb blast on Iran, attributed to Israel - if Iran responded in the same manner as Israel did after Oct 7th, our govs would be denouncing them as evil incarnate!
In any case, I really think - really hope - that's not true; surely most civilians don't think forced starvation, massacres of children, torture etc are "OK". If so, there is no hope for humanity.
And bear in mind this is not "just" about Gaza - many more people now know about Israel's illegal and dehumanising actions towards Palestinians, whipping up Islamophobia, and general land-theft and terrorism throughout the region. And we do not understand how this is allowed to happen in our name, supported by our governments.
> Even most of the western world would and has.
In the past, yes. And in times gone by, civilians were kept informed of global events by newspapers and TV news. Now, we are basically seeing a genocide, land-grab and oil-grab unfold right before our very eyes, from the normal, everyday people who are affected - people who now don't seem so different to us, people just like us.
If Israel raided Iran, raped Iranian woman, beheaded random Iranian citizens, abducted Iranian children and elderly, Iran would absolutely be justified to start a war with Israel. Many Iranians are strong supporters of Israel in this conflict by the way. In a war you do anything possible, these days within international law, to defeat your enemy and I'd fully expect Iran to try that under those circumstances.
You're insisting Israel is the bad side here. I'm going to respectfully disagree. There is no comparison between the moral positions of Israel and Hamas.
We're seeing war. The use of the word genocide in the context of this war is propaganda and is eroding the meaning of that word.
EDIT: It's also important to consider that Iran is already waging a proxy war on Israel. A war with no justification.
> what interest Palestinians have in regard to Israelis from your point of view?
I'm not sure I understand the question? Is it "how to Palestinians feel about Israelis?". If so, I don't know, but I can imagine how I might feel if I'd been dehumanised my entitre life; lived under brutal occupation/blockade my entire life, seen siblings carted off to be tortured in Israeli dungeons, had my father shot in front of me etc. Perhaps Israel should stop stealing land and homes, and stop their institutionalised dehumanisation of Palestinians; many Israelis seem to need de-radicalising.
The previous restrictions on Gaza were also a result of attacks coming out of Gaza on Israeli civilians.
If the population was starving while Hamas, the government of Gaza, managed to smuggle in RPGs, assault rifles, lathes, trucks, rockets, mortars, sniper rifles, heavy machine guns etc. then clearly the issue is a matter of their priorities, not Israel. Hamas stole concrete to make tunnels, used water pipes to make rockets, was the elected government, and is completely responsible if its population is starving (which I don't think was true anyways). You're also somehow conveniently leaving Egypt out of the picture. Why should Israel feed its enemies (and allow them to work in Israel, and give them water and power). Egypt could have done all that. But Hamas didn't only pick a fight with Israel- they also collaborated with ISIS in Sinai and picked a fight with Egypt.
They "randomly attacked Israel one day" because they are consumed by hate and religious fanaticism. Just listen to what they say. If they chose peace, they'd get peace, Israel has no interest in randomly attacking them.
We've seen some evidence that hospitals are used outside their humanitarian function.
It's true that even if the hospital loses it's protection that does not mean that it's ok to just go ahead and level it because of the presence of a single combatant (and that hasn't happened, I'm pretty sure e.g. no hospital in Gaza suffered a direct bombing attack e.g. but it may be ok under certain circumstances to completely level a hospital that is used for military purposes if enough warning has been given), the proportionality principles still applies. Proportionate has a very specific meaning in terms of the Geneva convention which most people aren't familiar with. I agree that the IDFs actions must be proportionate in that sense. The IDF claims its actions are. The IDF has lawyers that evaluate actions against international law.
Human Rights Watch isn't necessarily an unbiased observer here. Naturally they would not have access to the IDF's intelligence and the IDF can be justified in not sharing its intelligence to protect its sources.
My basic take is why is it beneficial for the IDF to waste time and resources attacking hospitals that have no military use? It's bad PR, it's wasted efforts that could be directed somewhere else. Doesn't make sense. It's possible it could be "more careful" in avoiding those in certain situations. Is it the highest item in the priority list (e.g. above the security of IDF soldiers), probably not.
It does when your enemy is Amalek.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/south-africa-is...
I don't think most Israelis really think the Palestinians are the biblical "Amalek". More like the children of "Ishmael", i.e. "cousins". They likely do view Hamas specifically as an entity that should be annihilated. i.e. all 40k or so Hamas combatants killed or captured. But even if we take this at face value it's still stupid to waste energy on a place that's known to not be a military threat while there are active military threats. First finish the military threat.
Evacuated to where, exactly?
Like lambs to slaughter.
It's true that some people were forced to leave after the Arabs started a war on Israel in 1948 and those people generally weren't allowed back. It's also true that many people chose to leave and also weren't allowed back. That said your logic makes no sense to anyone with western values IMO. Your life is more important than your property. I.e. between the option of staying in your property and dying and leaving and not dying the choice for most people in the west is clear. It's true that if they leave they may not be allowed to return. We can argue about the morality of that given they started this current war as well. I think in practice Gazans will be allowed to go back, but time will tell and events will transpire. If anything in practice leaving their homes to allow Israel to focus on Hamas would have likely shortened the war and increased their chances of getting back home and to normality sooner.
I can't really follow your logic who is wanting to kill who and who has been abusing who.
Yes, they have repeatedly dropped leaflets telling civilians to move to "safe" areas - and have repeatedly proceeded to bomb those areas.
> including those "camps" you mention
Like the one where an Israeli tank drove over inhabited tents?
Palestinian propaganda repeats this first point, it's not in good faith.
I'm not familiar with the second incident you're mentioning but I'm sure in any major war there will be plenty of examples of "things that are really bad". E.g. in the Ukraine-Russia war summary executions of surrendering soldiers, intentional bombing of civilians, are things that happen a lot and don't make the news. Give me one example of a major war where these things don't happen. For a western country the answer should be that these incidents should be investigated and the individuals punished. I think that rarely happens (e.g. you're not going to find many incidents of US soldiers, or "private security contractors", punished in the various wars the US engaged with). We should still strive for that. I'm pretty sure the IDF command does not order tanks to run over civilians, that is not policy, quite the opposite.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/ho...
In my eyes, this is cast-iron proof that there is little concern on IDF side for civilian deaths. I do not see a plausible counter-argument
That bomb is large enough to level an apartment block, so ~100 casualties and they don't know where it will land. Who are they targeting with that type of bomb, 1 Hamas fighter hiding among population?
It's error margin is in hundreds of meters. You are not allowed to kill 100 innocent people in the hopes (not certainty!) of getting 1 enemy soldier. That's exactly what 'indiscriminate killing of civilians' means.
That is why United States has never used this size of bomb, let alone unguided, in it's recent wars in Urban areas. They were also fighting guerrilla fighters - Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc.
The act of using this weapon in Urban area is a war crime, just as it would be a war crime to use chemical weapons, etc.
This has not stopped the IDF
Neither does the IDF by all available evidence.
Are these civilians not their families and communities? According to Hamas does death for their cause not earn you points for your glorious after life? You have to understand their beliefs to understand how they justify their actions. I have no doubt what they are doing is sensible to them else why would they do it?
If the laws are rewritten to state "you are never allowed to attack a hospital or a school. No exception", then what will follow is one party to the war will put their military installation insides schools and hospitals and the other party to the war to the war will say "these geneva conventions are unreasonable and we wont follow it"
In other words, nobody would respect Geneva conventions if they are unreasonable
What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow the terrorist government to continue to operate unimpeded, which enables attacks on your own citizens?
There's no population on the planet that would accept that.
Doesn't your argument boil down to "wars are not moral"?
When the Iraqis and the US were besieging and pounding Mosul, was there a lot of discussion about the suffering of the innocents? Did the US or anyone else air drop supplies to them or send aid trucks into Mosul? Maybe- but I don't recall.
Let's not forget that ISIS was thousands of miles from the US and the US was under no direct threat. Contrast that to an enemy much stronger in numbers and arms vs. ISIS 15 minutes from your cities.
This is just evidence to what is the "standard" in how wars are waged in similar situations.
Before the Geneva convention, and obviously after the Geneva convention, some countries/armies would just fire artillery into the besieged city and drop bombs and starve them until there's no more resistance. This would be the Russian or Syrian approach which they copy-pasted many times in the Syrian civil war and in Ukraine (by both sides). Israel is not doing that.
All that said, I think Israel should strive within reason to facilitate aid delivery to civilians. It is doing that but it can probably do more. There are some portions of the Israeli public that think that after Oct 7th the "enemy" should be brought to their knees by any tactic but I don't think that's the majority and I don't think that's what the decision makers are pursuing. There are challenges in getting aid to people in a war zone where random people pop up with RPGs and shoot things or steal the aid for military purposes. If something goes wrong, like it did the other day, and many people died, Israel takes flak (essentially for trying to get aid into those problematic places).
The Hamas, being the elected government of Gaza, and having hoarded provisions for their prolonged battle, is also responsible for the well being of their citizens. They don't give a damn but we shouldn't forget they're responsible (in many ways) for the current situation.
In terms of "razing" there is extensive use of bulldozers, bombs and demolition to neutralize mines, booby traps, tunnel shafts. Expose tunnels. Remove positions the enemy can utilize. This is why the IDF has managed to take over most of Gaza with relatively low casualties (still a lot but a lot less than was expected). I'm ok with this morality in this context, minimizing my casualties in a conflict that the other side insists on continuing. There is a fine line there and the line is international law (which generally allows these tactics).
The infrastructure destruction has been going on for decades. Israel routinely destroys Palestinian homes prior to October 7th. Is that Hamas? when they do it in the West Bank where Hamas is not active, is that Hamas too? How about the Thousands of Palestinian Men, Women and Children arrested without charge or trial and help in inhuman detention camps, is that Hamas? or are you maybe just trying to turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed United States political, financial and military support so that you can sleep better at night.... it was Hamas is getting old. At some point you need to wake up and understand that the real boogeyman is Israel. They are not your friend
Hamas is not an Israeli creation. I don't know where you're getting that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hamas#The_founding_...
Hamas was not "initially funded by Israel". References?
Support for violence and Hamas amongst Palestinians is not "my narrative". It's truth supported by numerous surveys. If you want to get some color go look for the YouTube channel that interviews Palestinians on the street on topical questions over the last decade or so.
Hamas enjoys broad support and would get re-elected, that's why we didn't see any elections after 2006, because the PA would have lost to Hamas. Also the attack of Hamas on Oct 7th has broad support and previous to Oct 7th support for the use of violence against Israel was similarly broad.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/palestinian-pol...
"The polls shows 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching its October 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, were murdered and over 240 were taken hostage. A large majority believes Hamas’s claims that it acted to “defend” the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and win the release of Palestinian security prisoners. Only 10% say they believed Hamas has committed war crimes, with a large majority saying they did not see videos showing the terrorists committing atrocities."
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8...
"The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party." (2021)
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1217758546/hamas-support-pale...
I can give you 100's of more surveys over the last decade. It might be true that Hamas' support today in Gaza is waning given the circumstances but probably rising in the west bank. Palestinians were celebrating Oct 7th.
Hamas is active in the West Bank. You're also wrong about that. In fact the previous war in Gaza was a result of Hamas actions from the West Bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gush_Etzion_kidnapping_an...
Anyways we are talking about Gaza, how did this get to the West Bank? Your statements about the west bank are also wrong. Israel demolishes houses of terrorists that murder Israeli civilians. That's pretty much the only "routinely destroys homes" I can think of. Israel doesn't arrest children and put them in inhuman(e?) detention camps, where do you get that stuff?
Israel isn't perfect by any means, but the bad guys in this story are the Palestinians. There's no excuse for things like suicide bombers blowing up busses, malls, and restaurants. There's no excuse of Oct 7th. They chose indiscriminate violence as their way of settling the conflict and refused any peaceful attempts to settle it. You're the one that needs to wake up and at the very least learn the facts of this conflict before you make up your mind. EDIT: Also no excuse to firing 10's of thousands of rockets and mortars into Israeli population centers. All these things are war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel's actions as a whole are not.
In our personal lives the government can compel us to follow the law with the threat of overwhelming force; if I break the law I will be arrested, and regardless of how much I fight back I will not be able to stop it. Laws in our everyday lives are like commands from a parent to a child; the government, as the parent, can and will compel the child's obedience.
International law is different. If a state breaks international law, there is no entity willing or capable of using overwhelming force to compel obedience. States have armies and some have nuclear weapons; the amount of force required to compel a state to behave a certain way is huge, and generating that force is extremely costly. When states break international law there are consequences, but at the end of the day violence is generally not on the table.
Effective international law is a balancing act. An international standard of warfare that placed extremely strict standards on when it was permissible to kill civilians would make fighting a war significantly harder. No state would obey such a law because winning the war is the absolute highest priority, making the law worthless. Instead, laws of war try to outlaw actions that don't affect the ability of a country to win a war. No chemical or biological weapons (high explosives are more effective), humane treatment of prisoners (discourages the enemy fighting to the death), and no killing civilians unless in the pursuit of a military objective (if it's not in pursuit of a military objective, then it's a waste of resources). The goal of the laws of war is to prevent unnecessary violence, not prevent violence altogether. It's a case of "perfect is the enemy of good."
>The word to pay attention to here is "military advantage" - i.e. "military value" of the target. Seeing a "hamas" go into a hospital or a rocket being fired from it doesn't give Israel the green light to bomb it. While there is no well-defined metric or number that defines proportionality - it is safe to say that Israelis don't meet the necessary criteria by any reasonable measure. Establishing the necessary proportionality to justify an attack on a hospital, refugee camp or shelter is needless to say, extraordinarily high.
Take the recent ICC arrest warrants as an example. The ICC just ruled that Russian targeting of Ukraine's power grid constituted a war crime.“During this timeframe, there was an alleged campaign of strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations, which were carried out by the Russian armed forces in multiple locations in Ukraine,” the court said. "The ICC said the attacks led by Koblylash and Sokolov on Ukraine’s electrical grid caused civilian harm which was excessive when compared with any expected military advantage". This even though power infrastructure has clear military value.
Now look at the siege and attack on Shifa hospital. If Shifa was a vital command-and-control hub where the head of Hamas operated from , or if it contained a major ammo depot - that may constitute sufficient military value to justify the incidental deaths caused by attacking a hospital. A calendar and a couple of AKs behind an MRI machine doesn't does not. Moreover the fact that Israelis had to go in and spend weeks on a fishing expedition to dig up (or make up) the sufficient evidence to justify the attack after-the-fact, proves that they didn't have the necessary justification to stage the attack in the first place. Thus the attack on the hospital violates the Geneva conventions and is a war crime. (But don't hold your breath for any action from the ICC - They are extremely biased and beholden to US and NATO interests).
At this point the mountain of evidence is simply undeniable. When we compare the intensity of atrocity committed by the Israelis, to those in other recent conflicts - Mosul, Homs, Mariupol, Grozny, Yemen- the israelis sails past them all with a healthy margin. Israelis killed more children in a few months than the syrians, russians did over many years. In terms of civillian/combatant ratio and the sheer intensity of civillian deaths in a short time-frame- I am not aware of any national force committing similar attrocity in the 21st century (Maybe the Ethiopian civil war, but I don't know, i am not versed on that conflict) If this was Russia or Iran we wouldn't be having this conversation.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least 25,000 people died in the siege of Mariupol over the course of less than three months. The current conflict in Gaza is grave, but it is not incomparable or unprecedented.
All that said I think Israel will be responsible for lots of broken innocent civilian lives and broken infrastructure when this is all done and their best policy in Gaza will be like USA had towards Germany and Japan after WW2.
This apparent myth rubs me the same way as "there's no food because Hamas is stealing it" - really? All of it? For what purpose?
Getting international opinion to turn against Israel.
Thats the way Hamas can survive this, getting enough pressure on Israel to make them stop.
Two, Israel is doing an incredible good job at putting the pressure on themselves right now.
Sinwar himself said it :
Then a courier arrived with a message from Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, saying, in effect: Don’t worry, we have the Israelis right where we want them.
Hamas’s fighters, the Al-Qassam Brigades, were doing fine, the upbeat message said. The militants were ready for Israel’s expected assault on Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern edge. High civilian casualties would add to the worldwide pressure on Israel to stop the war, Sinwar’s message said, according to people informed about the meeting.
Source https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-thinks-it-could-...
You sound confident, stating it like it's a fact. Care to share your sources?
This is why the common rhetoric given from politicians and jingoists is that all of them are guilty and that no one is innocent. Using the same example, the workers and students of that school are de facto responsible because they allowed that school shooter to enter the school.
If there were multiple school shooters inside one school, and they were coördinating with other shooters across the country, that becomes a valid trade off. (In a classic solo shooter scenario, everyone you want to save is inside the building. There is no external context.) In the same way that a hijacked plane, post 9/11, is a valid target for being shot down.
How many school shooters would need to be in a Florida High School before you think it's worthwhile to bomb it? Just a rough number
Let's change the analogy: ISIS terrorists take over the MIT campus. Inside the university are 50 armed terrorists. Is it valid to now bomb the university? What if there are 100 terrorists?
There is no issue with scale here. No matter how much it scales, you won't reach a point where there is an ethical position that argues for the mass murder of people that we actually view as people. It only becomes ethical when we dehumanize the people affected.
So we're back to 'all of them are guilty'
The shame here is what you described is literally Hamas' reasoning for carrying out the October attacks. Dehumanization, hyper aggression, and hiding it all behind 'the opposition is inherently evil, guilty by association, so we are fundamentally justified'.
Interesting. I wonder whether genocide of all people seriously harmed by IDF since Oct 7 should also be added to the list of war crimes obsoleted in this recent war. It only makes sense, since all these people are enemies of the state of Israel with a very high probability of causing harm to the civilians living there in the future. Geneva conventions are really showing their age in the past few months.