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> I imagine most of the armchair critics here have never been in a situation where they have to make these sorts of calls. Being in an ambush in a war with an enemy that, let's say, uses "unconventional" tactics (aka war crimes) to try and kill you while vans are approaching you.
Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise, which is something that guarantees horrific civilian casualties. It's not actually requisite that soldiers have this mindset; instilling this requires training, and the fact that it seems to be so pervasive in the IDF is a sign that it's not just a criminal failure of a few soldiers but rather a core part of the IDF strategy that needs to be addressed.
It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here and the consequences. Not the "instilling via training".
When the bad guys use human shields, it’s on the “good guys” to somehow resist the “good guy” urge to blow the whole city up.
Hamas has killed something in the order of 800 idf soldiers during this conflict, if we exclude the ones killed on oct 7th. In that same time at least 75,000 palestinians have been killed - most of which were women and children. So, unless you’re saying this is a justified collective punishment for oct 7th, what on earth are you possibly referring to? Hamas isn’t “waging war” in any real sense.
So if you are going to say the handling of this conflict has more to do with Israeli training/mindset/etc and is not related to the type of conflict, do you have other armies in mind that have fought similar conflicts and done better?
Before the most recent invasion of Gaza started, there was an interview with an Israeli general about the imminent invasion. And when the question came up about what lessons Israel was drawing from other urban conflicts like the Battle of Fallujah, the response was a very indignant we-don't-need-to-learn-anything. Small wonder that the IDF claims to have achieved unprecedentedly low civilian casualty ratios in their invasion of Gaza when in reality, they're commensurate with WW2 ratios and well above the urban assaults of the US's Iraq War.
Which one? There was five, and they generally were pretty bloody.
For the second battle of Fallujah (seems like the one you are talking about), US estimated that most civilians had already left the city. However that is somewhat disputed with some people claiming usa used that as an excuse to claim everyone left in the city was a combatant.
To quote the guradian:
> Before attacking the city, the marines stopped men "of fighting age" from leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian's correspondent estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They leveled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population".
Another guardian quote:
> "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans."
> The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s?
So according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017... there was 200,000 killed and 5 million displaced.
To quote from the human rights section of the article "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group", which doesn't sound great.
So i think it raises the question of if the Americans were really better than the Israelis or just better at the PR game.
> the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Costs of War Project
Does that sound like “par for the course”?
By that measure, every other army in every other war prior has done better.
This “war” (genocide) is not normal.
So unless you have some clear evidence that the definition of journalist is different in other conflicts, you’re just making excuses.
I do not know how many journalists were killed in most conflicts. I do know more than 242 were killed during world war 2, so on its face the claim seems false that it is the deadliest war for journalists in the history of the universe.
The only way their claim can possibly make sense is if they are using different definitions between wars. I'm assuming that to give them the benefit of the doubt. The only alternative explanation i can see is they are straight up lying.
I don't know enough to verify related claims, like deadliest for journalists post world war 2. However given the source seems to be blatently incorrect, i'm not really inclined to believe them on related claims.
I said that the nature of journalism has changed since ww2, because there’s a lot more citizen-journalism - which probably means there are more journalists around to be killed today than during most conflicts in history. So it doesn’t actually surprise me that the highest number would be from a conflict post-2010.
There were three hostages in his father’s apartment. He was also staying there, but the home belonged to his father.
But ok, have a look at what went down that day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre
> the Israeli military killed at least 276 people and injured over 698
Or if you don’t want to believe anybody but the IDF, “The Israeli military acknowledged fewer than 100 Palestinian deaths”
In order to what? What was the cause of the murder of 276 (or 100) people?
To rescue 4 hostages.
Well, I should say more likely in retribution for the holding of those hostages… the air strikes that killed the majority of people appear to have happened AFTER they had extracted the hostages.
Even if we accept the claim at face value, it's just a total. It includes Hamas fighters who were trying to kill fleeing hostages and their rescuers, and anyone killed by them.
In any case, Israel has a responsibility to try to rescue its citizens that were kidnapped. The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers.
If some terrorists kidnapped several American citizens on US soil, and the US determined that any rescue plan would risk disproportionate harm to the country that kidnapped them, would you expect the US to just give up and ignore the hostages?
So, if your neighbour kidnaps a canadian citizen, and mark carney blows up your entire neighbourhood - that’s on your neighbour? Really? You believe that? Like, yeah - we would all wish our neighbour hadn’t kidnapped someone, but i’m pretty sure the moral culpability for murdering an entire neigbourhood is on the ones who sent the bombs.
But ok - the moral culpability is on the kidnappers. Let’s roll with that. So by that logic, it seems like israel is responsible for everyone who was killed on oct 7th. I mean, they were holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges prior to the attacks. That seems like, again by your logic, that it justifies the killing of israeli civilians
So pick one: oct 7th was israel’s fault and hamas is culpable for the deaths that have followed, OR oct 7th was hamas’ fault, and israel is culpable for the deaths that have followed.
Oct 7th and the deaths that followed both being on hamas is not a logically consistant position.
In this scenario it would not be some random Canadian doing the kidnapping, it would be a team of soldiers under official orders from our president. So Carney can't collaborate with Trump to surgically rescue the Canadians, because Trump was the one who had them kidnapped in the first place, and is actively holding them hostage.
In that case, yes absolutely, I'd put the blame squarely on Trump if Canadian rescuers operated in my neighborhood, and it got destroyed during the fighting as US soldiers tried to prevent the hostage rescue.
> holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges
Every country on the planet detains suspects before formal charges are filed. But sure, we can assume Hamas had some valid casus belli, it doesn't really change things.
> it justifies the killing of israeli civilians
Nothing justifies targeting civilians. Hamas didn't incidentally harm some civilians while attempting to free prisoners, they went out of their way to systematically kill, rape and kidnap as many Israeli civilians as possible.
Well I am glad we can agree on that, at least. When the israeli missles were aimed at the apartment blocks, during the raid we are discussing, that was quite literally targeting civilians. And I agree it was un-justified. As was the distruction of all the hospitals in gaza. As was the attacks on clearly marked aid convoys. As was the numerous air strikes on tent cities. Because all of these are targeting civilians, quite literally putting them in the cross hairs and firing, and as you said - nothing can justify that.
So Israel carried out some airstrikes at the same time that Hamas fighters were trying to kill the fleeing hostages and their rescuers, but you're claiming that the two were unrelated? Israel wasn't targeting the terrorists trying to kill them, but murdering unrelated civilians just for fun in the middle of the rescue operation? Any evidence behind this extraordinary claim?
We only have their word they were “under fire”, and no idea if the shots were coming from in the building.
Like the journalist and his family who were killed. Did they have weapons, were they a threat to the soldiers in any way when they were killed? Afaik the idf doesn’t even claim any about that. For all we know they were also being held there against their will - unlikely, but why would i carry water for a gov that’s shown it doesn’t mind killed 100-300, including 3 of their own, to extract 3 people.
Does it matter who owns the apartment? It seems likely based on this description he could be deemed as participating.
Like in normal domestic law, if someone is kidnapped, and the fbi raids the apartment where the kidnapped person is being held, i imagine everyone living in the apartment is going to jail. Who owns the apartment isn't really relavent.
Maybe he deserved jail. Maybe he didn’t. We’ll never know because he was executed by special forces.
All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this.
I'm trying to say this dispassionately because I'm aware that people get defensive, but lets say that you have to fight some enemy but they present as the most vulnerable of a population, how can you fight them without looking awful?
Though "it's complicated" is not, by itself, a conclusion - and neither is "better training" a sufficient answer to a problem this structurally difficult."
So let me check this reasoning: if there was a single US soldier in the WTC towers, the 9/11 attacks were justified because the soldiers were hiding among the civilians?
Or if Hamas killed a single israelian soldier in their horrendous attacks in private homes, then it's justified because there were soldiers in those houses?
Or if the israelian reservists have their weapons at home and can be called upon directly from home to action, does that mean Iran or Hamas are justified at flattening residential buildings in Israel because those could host soldiers?
Israel demonstrated complete disregard for human life for the sake of expediency to say in a gentle way, but in a harsher way, you could say the aftermath and details that are emerging point to malicious collective punishment.
If anything it's an argument against it.
the Taliban are an occupying force that do his.
https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot
"There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority."
"My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage."
"Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators."
"This is equally true of the Arabs. Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine. ... We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims, watering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want. They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies. To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system."
"All Natives Resist Colonists. There is no justification for such a belief. It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously, and which even the Papuans will never sell. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised."
"This Arab editor was actually willing to agree that Palestine has a very large potential absorptive capacity, meaning that there is room for a great many Jews in the country without displacing a single Arab. There is only one thing the Zionists want, and it is that one thing that the Arabs do not want, for that is the way by which the Jews would gradually become the majority, and then a Jewish Government would follow automatically, and the future of the Arab minority would depend on the goodwill of the Jews; and a minority status is not a good thing, as the Jews themselves are never tired of pointing out. So there is no "misunderstanding"."
"This statement of the position by the Arab editor is so logical, so obvious, so indisputable, that everyone ought to know it by heart, and it should be made the basis of all our future discussions on the Arab question. It does not matter at all which phraseology we employ in explaining our colonising aims, Herzl's or Sir Herbert Samuel's.
"Colonisation carries its own explanation, the only possible explanation, unalterable and as clear as daylight to every ordinary Jew and every ordinary Arab. Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed. "
"We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say "non" and withdraw from Zionism. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."
"In the first place, if anyone objects that this point of view is immoral, I answer: It is not true: either Zionism is moral and just ,or it is immoral and unjust. But that is a question that we should have settled before we became Zionists. Actually we have settled that question, and in the affirmative. We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not. There is no other morality."
This is the part that gives me the most pause. The FA report makes it sound like they went on a murder spree for the hell of it and then tried to cover up the evidence (i.e. they knew it was an ambulance and intentionally targeted it). But if that was the case, and they had no qalms about killing people, why would they leave witnesses and then release said witness a month later. If the motive was some ethnic hatred fueled revenge, why leave witnesses?
Then why bother with the cover up at all?
FWIW, to me what it looks like based on the very limited information we have, is initially the soldiers thought (for whatever reason, possibly unreasonably) the vehicle was an acceptable target. At some point it becomes clear it wasn't and they have an "oh shit" moment and engage in a cover up after the fact.
If this is actually what happened (obviously,very big if), whether or not a war crime was comitted would come down to what the soldiers knew when they attacked the vehicle (and what would have been reasonable for them to have known at that time) since war crimes do have an intent element.
Which to be very clear, even with all the above, its very plausible a war crime was comitted. But i'm not sure its certain based on the publicly available information.
Is it plausible?
There were four ambulances and a fire truck with flashing lights on the roofs and the report says the soldiers had a clear view from the elevated sandbank. Night vision would obscure the markings, but lights still show in both thermal and image-intensified NVG. Even if they weren't sure they were ambulances, they should still be wondering about the emergency lights. And if they weren't sure, did no soldier look even briefly without night vision? This occurred during twilight, about half an hour before sunrise.
If they could see so little that they couldn't recognize 4 ambulances and a fire truck with emergency lights, and the aid workers never fired shot, why did they open fire?
It doesn't explain well why they initially said the vehicles were acting suspiciously by driving with their lights off and only changed their story after video emerged. And it doesn't explain why they shot at the "clearly marked UN vehicle" when it arrived well after sunrise.
You forgot to mention that they destroyed the vehicles and they buried the dead with them in the sand. And that, was not made by the same people that killed the help workers.
You forgot to mention that they lie about what happened.
You forgot to mention that, after the investigation, one of the official was demoted, and that's it.
All this seems to point, not to a mistake, but to a pattern of behavior, in my opinion. Personally, I'm done with the 'mistakes', like blocking baby formula from entering Gaza and all that.
5 minutes is a really short period of time, i can easily believe that a convoy of combatants might not return fire in that time period, especially if taken by surprise at night and the people shooting are under cover and far away so its not immediately clear where to even return fire to.
Removed from command for killing aid workers point blank? That seems like a light wrap on the wrist, not commensurate with the severity of the deed, no?
Removing from command is a pretty serious penalty as far as the military goes. Yes, it is not a criminal punishment but that action was taken "out of the loop" of the investigation towards criminal charges.
But we don't know that that was the reason they were removed from command. E.g. if they failed to cooperate with the investigation but the investigators didnt find enough evidence charge them with something, then removal sounds like an appropriate choice.
I think you're being a bit too forgiving to what's become a clear documented pattern of behaviour during this genocide [1]
Defenders of Israel always try to put a label on us: anti-Semites, anti-Iaraelis etc. You are trying to make it seem like this was some kind of isolated incident, an unfortunate consequence of the war. It wasn't: Gaza is in ruins, Israel continues ethnic cleansing in West Bank all while gaslighting everyone who opposes it. Israel is evil.
> It was not any of these things. It was not an open air prison or a concentration camp. That's the truth. Both these accusations are cheap propaganda that doesn't stand the most cursory fact checking. Look into how many people traveled to and from Gaza a year. Check out the vast tunnel network and rocket arsenal Hamas manged to build. That Hamas preferred to smuggle CNC machines and lathes and explosives from Egypt instead of food for the Gazan population is on them.
> Hamas took over Gaza by force, killing their Palestinian brothers, tossing them from roof tops. Israel just responded to Hamas' war on it. You know, rockets and such. All along Gaza had a border with Egypt which Israel did not control.
> Don't defend Hamas. Just don't do it.
Its entirely possible to despise hamas and wishing them horrible death, while despising what state of israel was and is and will be doing there. Defenders of israel often bring the masacre of 2023 like its good enough excuse to perform another civilian masacre. Heck, you want to drag people who dare to speak out into automatic hamas supporters, thats a bit cheap trick. What about focusing on civilians here, on all sides, like a normal moral human being should do? What did those murdered kids and rest of civilians on both sides did to deserve any of this?
Yes it is a concentration camp, the very definition of it. Maybe you are mixing this with nazi extermination camps, those were a different category - then I suggest some reading on that topic.
Let me ask - how easy it was, even before current war for regular palestinian to lets say move to another part of the world? I don't mean som israeli farmers using/abusing them as extremely cheap labor, I mean normal travel. Stateless people, kept in utter poverty by design, almost malnourished, effectively forbidden to leave what looks like the definition of open prison or what say US did to its japanese population during WWII. Some digged tunnels don't change anything here.
That and the abundant evidence of genocidal intent in Gaza and the explicit ethnic cleansing of the West Bank with full support of the Israeli society is the reason why it is evil. This incident is one of literal hundreds.
Do you currently serve or have you over the last two-and-a-half-years served in the IDF (or one of its supporting directorates) or do you currently work or have you over the last two-and-a-half-years worked in one of the Israeli intelligence agencies?
I ask this because you admit to having used thermal night vision equipment, you know what is being discussed in Hebrew-language Israeli media; and you call your interlocutors armchair critics implying you do more than just sit in an armchair. In the interests of full disclosure -- are you a neutral third-party or do you have skin in the game?
Soldiers vs aid workers, and you're defending the murderers, and propagating a particular stereotype, thus further hindering your cause.
Can't tell if this is due to a lack of self insight, institutionalised delusion or cold hearted intentional weaponisation in a self declared war.