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Comment by yonisto | Hacker News Reader

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> What can one do when criminals have embedded them self in the civilian population? Why don't they get out and meet the police on the battle field?

We wouldn't tolerate a SWAT team blowing up a hospital if the mafia had taken over the basement, I have no idea why you think this is acceptable.

> It is much better than the carpet bombing used by other nations.

It is exactly like the carpet bombing used by other nations.

> We wouldn't tolerate a SWAT team blowing up a hospital if the mafia had taken over the basement, I have no idea why you think this is acceptable.

While I agree with comparing Hamas to the mafia, both are criminal organizations, Hamas is more than that. It has rockets, it mascaraed civilians and holds the ideology of genociding its enemy. None of that is applicable to the mafia. So if its people are hiding in an hospital and refuse to surrender there is no moral objection to blow up the hospital (Also, if you are referring to Shifa Hospital, Israel didn't blow it, they entered with SWAT teams and there were fierce fighting costing also Israeli soldiers lives)

> It is exactly like the carpet bombing used by other nations. I'll link to Wikipedia to help you spot the differences [0]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

I think that no matter your view on the mafia or Hamas, it still doesn't justify the amount of death and destruction that is being done in Gaza. No matter how you spin it or sugar coat itw killing, displacing and starving civilians, killing aid workers and journalists and destroying civilian infrastructure are war crimes. As for the Al-Shifa Hospital, Israel's SWAT is either incompetent or not a SWAT team at all judging by the length of the operation, 2 weeks, and the photos of the Hospital after they left.

But Hamas is a cancer that constantly is trying to metastasize into Israel. Seriously, what is Israel supposed to do? Anything they label as "Do not attack" just becomes an attack vector for Hamas.

I will try to answer that question. I think it's better to find the actual reason for what's happening rather than focus on the symptoms. Perhaps Israel could stop being an apartheid[0,1] and treat Palestinians equally. It could also stop imposing a blockade on Gaza[2] and allow it to blossom again and remove the need for supporting Hamas. It could as well allow Palestinians to exercise their right to return to where they or their parents lived [3].

It's easy to point the fingers at Hamas for the region's suffering but that is dishonest and completely omits the big role that Israel played in creating this and previous events.

[0] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/05/does-israels-treatment-p...

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/apartheid

[2] https://www.unicef.org/mena/documents/gaza-strip-humanitaria...

[3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/27/gaza-two-rights-return

> I think it's better to find the actual reason for what's happening rather than focus on the symptoms

You should take your own advice. You didn't cite any reasons. You just cited earlier symptoms.

Perhaps you could help me with that? I was trying to reply to the parent's question about what Israel is supposed to do and offered some alternatives to indiscriminate killings. The part about the right of return dates back to around 1948, right around the time the state of Israel was established. How far back in time should we go for it to stop being a symptom and become a cause?

Your argument is just whataboutism and barely worth even engaging with. It is possible that both sides of the military conflict are wrong. Being against Israel’s actions here don’t imply support for Hamas and vice versa. In this case, Israel is the one with most of the power, and they’ve used that power to kill far more people than Hamas. To defend that abuse of power is immoral.

It seems that you learned a new word "whataboutism" and don't really know how to use it.

Hamas is controlling Gaza for 15 years now. Did they care about the population? did they build roads, schools? or dig tunnels and accumulated weapons? So what ideas do you have? giving them candies? Hamas must be eliminated from position of power, yes it will cost innocent lives, but if you ever wish to move toward peace that is the first step.

And Israel is blameless in all this? They’ve done nothing wrong? Colonizing the West Bank is just fine? You can’t pull the shit they have and not expect splashback. They’ve put the Palestians in a cage, poked them with a stick, and now they act surprised when some of them lash out. I’m not going to defend Hamas’s actions, but what the hell can you expect? Shake a hornets nest and you’re going to get stung.

And if the cost of eliminating Hamas is killing innocent people, don’t you think that might radicalize some of the remaining people? This kind of shit hasn’t worked in the past, so why would it work now? They’re killing innocent people for no good reason.

> They’re killing innocent people for no good reason.

They're killing innocent people as the least-bad option.

Hamas killed a bunch of innocent Israelis. Hamas has stated, clearly and repeatedly, that they intend to continue doing so until they have killed them all. Israel has decided that Hamas has to be destroyed, in order to protect innocent people.

But Hamas surrounds itself with civilians[1]. Faced with the the choice of killing Hamas (and killing innocent Palestinians in the process), or not killing Hamas (and having Hamas kill innocent Israelis), Israel has chosen to kill Hamas. This is not a choice between killing innocents and not killing innocents - that choice is not an option. This is a choice of which innocents die.

[1] Why does Hamas surround itself with civilians? Because it knows that Israel is reluctant to cause civilian casualties. They went far enough this time that Israel has overcome that reluctance.

Sure it has worked in the past, eradicating both Nazi Germany and Empire of Japan during WWII cost many innocent lives. "Few" millions. Now let us count together the wars started by these nations started afterward. I'll start: 0 Of course it will all amount to nothing if Israel will not finish the job.

> And Israel is blameless in all this... The problem is that you assign 0 responsibility to Hamas. As if they are lesser human as if you consider them as dogs or something. Hamas took full control of Gaza, they could have done whatever they like and the choose to invest everything into attacking Israel. Evidently it wasn't much of a cage as they accumulated enough weapon to engage in 6 months war (and counting...). Fact remains that Israel decolonizied Gaza and in return they got October 7. What lesson should they learn from it?

Would Israel blow an israeli hospital if Hamas took the basement?

If they would take just the basement that would be unnecessary, but they took everything up to the roof.

I mean... per the Hannibal doctrine they might just

For an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive#2023_Israel...

Because this is war and not a SWAT police operation?

If soldiers in the field have reason to believe the enemy is in a building and call in air support to bomb it, no part of that is a war crime. Even if someone later goes and discovers the people in that building were actually preschoolers; what matters is what the people in the field making the decisions knew at that moment.

> what matters is what the people in the field making the decisions knew at that moment

This is insane. What matters is the objective truth, whether or not dozens of preschoolers were killed due to an operational mistake.

War is horrible, what’s new? But few things in it qualify for war crimes.

You realize you're actively advocating for a lack of critical thinking and investigation, to maintain plausible deniability? What could possibly go wrong?

The whole point of this article (and much of what we've learned in the last few months) is that Israel is clearly not just targeting areas with suspected Hamas activity.

They're using indiscriminate weapons (so not targeting at all!), hitting known UN and humanitarian sites, and killing so ruthlessly that they killed Israeli hostages that made the mistake of being living humans in front of IDF soldiers.

Not only are they indescriminately killing, they are purposefully targeting and murdering aid workers that coordinated WITH THE IDF before entering the area.

"…were traveling in a convoy that had been coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces and was following an IDF-approved route. The vehicles had GPS trackers and SOS beacons broadcasting their positions"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/idf-strike-on-gaza-aid-...

>This is no different than chemotherapy

Say that to the parents of the aid workers whose vehicle was used as a bullseye: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68711282

awful take

Do you justify killing civilians? That's disgusting.

Neither Isrealis nor Hamas believe it's their duty to prevent civilian Palestinian deaths in this conflict. At this point anyone that can do anything to improve the situation are the civilians themselves by social distancing from Hamas associates by at least the typical blast radius. Athough I don't imagine this would be very effective as well.

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