It's wild to me how many people here use the "it's war, bad things happen" to justify the situation. Weird that it needs to be said, but this is why war crimes are a thing. Just because it's an armed conflict, doesn't mean anything goes.
The point is to distinguish this war from how others have been fought. A lot of accusations against the IDF's conduct have been baseless. Not wrong in that they're factually incorrect. Just wrong in that it's how everyone else fights wars when they go to war.
This is different. America didn't trigger a famine in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it's not like we fought those wars honorably. That is where it's worth answering the question, is this just war or is this worse.
The accusations of them deliberately shooting children in the head and targeting journalists have been proven unfortunately accurate time and time again.
We must be precise in our language when describing war crimes. No wiggle room.
Just as an example, if a Hamas soldier dons a PRESS vest, is he automatically immune?
In other words, so what if Hamas dons a press vest? We know the IDF have committed war crimes. They seem aware of it, too -
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-set-hide-sol...
This isn't "they're waging a more intense war and accidentally killing more people" -- it is that their actual decision framework was to authorize killings with several multiples higher ratios of civilian deaths than the US authorized in the Middle East.
every boy 15 and over killed in drone strikes now is automatically listed as an enemy combatant
This math is why the civilian casualty numbers from US military shows almost zero deaths for drone strikes.
The New York Times reported in the 29 May 2012 article Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will:
Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.*For comparison, the Israeli government claims that a mere 53% of fatalities are civilians, substantially below independent estimates.
Tangentially related: On the other hand, several later surveys conducted during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq (2003–2011) "all put the U5MR in Iraq during 1995–2000 in the vicinity of 40 per 1000," suggesting that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions." from same link above.
I struggle to believe that cessation of food imports, medicines, medical equipment etc would have no impact on a country reliant on them, and can't see why these sanctions would be enacted in the first place if they were thought to have no effect.
I see no moral justification for using food as a weapon.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of money to be made by defending Israel. Some people will take that money. Just a few citations below:
- Certain social media influencers being paid up to $7000 per post [1]
- Israel boosts propaganda funding by $150m to sway global opinion against genocide [2] [3]
- "[...] a firm called Bridges Partners LLC has been hired to manage an influencer network under a project code-named the “Esther Project.” " [4]
[1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-influencers-netanya...
[2] https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...
[3] https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-spent-m...
[4] https://www.jta.org/2025/09/30/united-states/israels-secret-...