are they sitting next to a hospital on purpose? or does this just happen to be the vantage point in an extremely dense city crammed with every type of building?
fuck Hamas, but engaging military targets isn’t terrorism
if anyone’s interested in some further reading / contextual information on this article / conflict specifically (or conflict generally):
Counter attacking with troops and killing the terrorist is a reasonable response.
Leveling the entire hospital and surrounding neighborhood with missiles is NOT.
Apparently not because Israel is getting torn apart in the information space for that approach.
Distinguishing between civilians and combatants is anti Semitic
Hamas is literally in this video firing missiles. The people on this site including yourself have your heads in the sand.
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When someone says “Being a governing leader is really hard” they don’t talk about parties or meetings, they talk about these decisions.
What possible line of logic would lead to that conclusion?
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I checked the Arabic news scene for “AI” and whatever they call Israel thanks to Google AI and Yandex translate. They label every single “negative” photo,video,audio AI as things created by Israel. Their heads aren’t in the sand, they are indoctrinated which makes the situation truly horrible. There were teenagers getting medals in Hitler’s last days. As a side-note I guess they are trying to bury your opinion like they do in the evil site not knowing this place was founded by FOSS ideals which they don’t have a clue about.
I don’t think there are media controls on Lemmy but it also opens it up to automated propaganda and manipulation.
I guess they try to “punish” user by downvoting whatever thing they don’t like.
No one on this site is pro-Hamas, other than if you go over to the tankie instances.
You are spreading their propaganda and disinformation.
Hamas is literally in this video firing missiles.
Yes they are. So kill them then without leveling the entire neighborhood, as I already said.
Okay genius, how do you kill them when they are in tunnels under neighborhoods? You cannot get into them without an explosion, even if present in person and they won’t just sit there either. This is not a war crime and I’m really questioning everyone’s collective intelligence and ability to think through problems instead of reacting to stimulus.
You heard from it this guy. Bombing hospitals is not a war crime if there’s a bad guy near there.
This is literally true.
Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an “act harmful to the enemy”. In case of doubt as to whether medical units of establishments are used to commit an “act harmful to the enemy”, they should be presumed not to be so used.
Emphasis mine.
Proportionality is another factor you’re ignoring.
They’re also still required to attempt to limit targeting to avoid civilian casualties and yet they don’t
They do limit targeting. How many strikes are you seeing in the south as compared to the north? That’s a limitation and shows proportionality. You folks may not like it but this is categorically not a war crime.
You don’t have to shoot missiles indiscriminately into civilian zones. If your enemy is hiding among civilian infrastructure and/or using human shields, you need to change your tactics up to suit. Committing war crimes in order to kill your enemy isn’t how you retain the moral highground.
I’m still waiting on these tactics you are recommending. Alternatives don’t exist so your argument is absolute bullshit. The faster they can get through this, the less overall civilian suffering will occur.
The civilians can’t suffer if they are dead so you’re not wrong but are advocating for war crimes.
I think I’d rather be wrong.
What war crimes? There is a difference between war and war crimes and hardly anybody on this site knows the difference.
Go for it. If it is so easy you are welcome to go put yourself in harm’s way. Don’t criticize when you have not been faced with the decisions and a lack of full awareness. Hamas is not sitting out in the middle of a field waiting to be struck.
It is neither my place, nor my responsibility to physically take part in this conflict. However, it certainly IS my place and responsibility, as a human being, to say that purposefully killing innocent civilians and blowing up functional hospitals is evil. Yes, even when there is a bad guy hiding inside.
However, it certainly IS my place and responsibility, as a human being, to say that purposefully killing innocent civilians and blowing up functional hospitals is evil
It’s your responsibility to actually know what is happening before you spout false things online.
Bless your heart, sweet summer child.
So, in your mind, rules of engagement allow destroying civilian infrastructure that currently hosts many civilians so you can kill a handful of bad guys?
Article 19 of Geneva states that if a hospital is being used to store military equipment and active military combatants, then it loses its protection.
Well it’s a good thing they didn’t do that, then. Israeli troops will be entering the hospital to get at the Hamas base within it
Edit: they entered last night
No, but they did do that to every other building in Gaza under the same pretense.
And then you look at reporting from doctors without borders about doctors being murdered by snipers indiscriminately
Weird that the IDF didn’t indiscriminately kill civilians while raiding said hospital last night, then.
It’s less a hospital at this point and more an arms stockpile with some sick people left around as fodder/bad PR for anyone that would attack it.
According to IDF forces, as reported in fourteenwordsnews.com, the evil terrorists did a cartoonishly convenient thing that justifies the worst atrocities we’ve been getting beat up in the news for
Graffiti was also found in the area that said “blacks rule”
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The IDF is shooting doctors through the windows of the hospitals, you think a Hamas guy can just walk in front of the hospital with an RPG? Lmao.
If the IDF wasn’t known for faking basically 90% of all “evidence” they release you could buy this one but at this point the IDF is literally like Putins special military opertion that’s gonna free all the kids in the basement of the Pizza hut
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I bet santa claus has been visiting you for decades, rube
It’s comical how many Hamas-apologists there are on this site.
I honestly haven’t seen any. Every single person other than pro-Apartheid pro-Israel types seems to be making a very clear distinction between Palestinian civilians and Hamas.
You haven’t been looking enough then. I’m constantly downvoted for calling people out who support Hamas
I literally haven’t seen a single Hamas apologist. Nobody likes those terrorists, but those of us that pay attention don’t like IDF either
Really? They’re absolutely everywhere on Lemmy:
- IDF has fabricated evidence of Hamas using hospitals.
- Israel is responsible for Hamas’ own actions, often including the 7 October attack.
- Hamas are noble freedom fighters against an occupation. The ends justify the means.
Merely challenging some of these points can get you banned on a few instances.
No. I’m not seeing these talking points.
Israel is responsible for Hamas’ own actions, often including the 7 October attack.
Israel not only created an environment where terrorism grows and thrives, they also funded Hamas early on in part of their effort to stamp out secular resistances. The burden of Hamas’ existences falls on Israel too.
the same way hamas doesn’t represent palestine, netanyahu’s government doesn’t represent israel either. the funding of hamas was a far-right candidate’s propaganda tactic, not something that the people of israel decided would be a good idea.
I haven’t actually seen anybody blame all Israelis for Netanyahu’s or the IDF’s actions. It’s generally understood we’re talking about the people in power.
You must have just joined lemmy then
While the 1st and 3rd points are nonsense, there’s legitimate strong evidence for point 2. Far right Israeli politicians want this conflict.
Which means there’s 3 sides to the conflict, not 2 - civilians and 2 governments. And a ton of people here are supporting mass murder of civilians because they were born on the wrong side of a border.
Edit: of course tribalists are downvoting facts with sources
^ this. both governments need to be gone, that’s the only chance for the civilians, palestinans and israelis alike, to see peace in their lifetime.
Never seen any of those except the second one in the sense that it reflects articles like this and similar: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
The other points are hexbear or lemmygrad trolls.
Hamas apologists attacking me
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Unless it’s Hamas killing Jews, apparently.
It’s not comical how many anti-Semitic and/or pro-genocide apologists are on Lemmy.
It’s weird how you are okay with genocide against Palestinians, including all the classic hallmarks of genocide via settler colonialism (displacement, apartheid and blockade, massive civilian damage, etc) that we’ve seen countless times since the Native Americans, but if anyone says that’s wrong you immediately cry anti-Semitism. Israel is not the one in danger of being genocided here, they’re the ones perpetrating it. Even lots of Jewish people can see it. To mix up the colonial ethno-state of Israel with all Jewish people is real, deceptive purposeful propaganda.
you completely misinterpreted their comment. they were contrasting the original comment made by Mean-Eye.
I really did lol. Already apologized, but I suppose that I maybe should throw an edit in there for future people.
I’m not okay with genocide against the Palestinians (or anyone else), hence the “pro-genocide” in my post above. I’m not okay with anti-Semitism either. I’m also firmly in the camp of “criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic”.
Both Hamas and the IDF (by extension, the Israeli gov’t) are murderers or complicit in murder. Simple as that.
Oh I agree on all points. Looks like I jumped to conclusions there. Think I got you and someone else I was arguing with at the same time confused. Sorry about that 😅🙏
funny how when Palestine makes a claim, Lemmy just eats it all up.
but when Israel releases footage and coordinates to support their claims, everyone is suddenly questioning.
People have hard time trusting a genocidal country with an incentive for its citizen to propagate its propaganda.
And you have easy time believing Hamas, the other side of this conflict? Seems a little naive if that’s the case
Meh, I take all the news and developments with large lumps of salt for this topic especially.
I believe both that Hamas is operating behind human shields to curry favour against humanitarian law, and that the IDF is more or less indiscriminately harming civilians, refugees and militants of Palestine all in the same brushstroke to excuse extermination as merely retaliation (also against humanitarian law in case that’s not clear to anyone)
“Israel bombed a hospital. 500 killed, 300 injured”
“Eh, actually, it was a self inflicted failed launch”.
“Oh right. So as i was saying, it was just a parking lot near a hospital. About 30 killed”.
Lemmy is a hive-mind as much as Reddit is/was. Anyone who claims its somehow better here is either lurking or part of the hivemind (just find the downvoted comments in this thread and think about how you would vote)
I guess it has to do with the enormous social media machine Israel has. I take both sides with a grain of salt tho
Man, what? Where do you hang out? My comments have a pro Israel slant to them and I get consistently downvoted.
I don’t think any instance should have downvotes anyhow. A bit too much like Reddit.
I liked Reddit before spez fucked it up and I actually like having the downvote function.
Back when I was on Facebook I wished that site had it.
enormous compared to what? because I’m seeing so many hamas defenders in lemmy and they never concede basic facts. it looks like it’s tiny and ineffectual compared with the hamas propagandists.
Oh, social media machine? You mean the same that Qatar and Iran operate? The same that Elon Musk, you know, CEO of Twitter, met with Qatari media mongrels months before the attack. The same Qatar that houses Hamas leadership.
It’s so powerful that I even need to include that, yes, Israel also has one. But it’s doing a pretty shit job evidently.
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ooh, so we’re at that stage where we’re making conspiracy theories? :o
Bro I’m Palestinian and even I know calling Hamas agents who do awful shit plants is braindead.
They literally rule over a state where half the population wasn’t even born yet last time there was a vote, nuffa that lionizing shit.
Wait. Wait wait. You think they need “plants” to paint Hamas doing horrible, reckless, teorrist shit?
Ok, bud.
I am no fan of the IDF, but you sound like those q anon people who call victims of school shootings “crisis actors.”
They don’t need “plants.”
And yeah, they definitely shouldn’t nuke the hospital. Agreed.
Wut
Hamas clearly in public buildings using civilians as shield. Palestinians clearly know and don’t care. Nothing will stop me from hating on both Hasmas and Israel. And I am slo losing patience for Palestanians for supporting Hamas and not condemning their action.
As usual, the onion nails the satire.
Its hard to care when you get shot for opening your mouth
Just like reddit, people here can’t accept narratives other than mainstream liberal. Sure, there are Gazans that want Hamas out but they are minority. Hamas is a grassroots organization that defeated the party that preferred the two state solution. Hamas was and still is backed by majority of Palestanians. Just look at the Palestanian protesters in the west. NONE of them condemned Hamas. NONE.
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It remains a mystery why Israel shoots at
Hamas baseshospitals.It remains unjustified.
Sadly, that’s wrong. According to established international humanitarian law, it is justified to counter-attack hospitals in the event that they are used to gather recon or stage attacks. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protection-hospitals-during-armed-conflicts-what-law-says
That’s why staging attacks or garrisoning troops at hospitals, thus turning the sick and injured into human shields, is not only a horrible and inhumane thing to do, but also a war crime.
At some level Hamas knows this, and so the question is why they would do even do it? Is it because they think that using human shields is an effective deterrence? Or is it because they want to provoke an IDF counter-attack against a hospital so they can use it in their propaganda? Either way, it’s a war crime on Hamas’ part and generally terrible for the innocent people in Gaza.
Hamas knows they can and will retaliate so they form their strategy to leverage this. And Israel thinks they can get away with bombing hospitals by dumping shit tons of money on pr. What should be done is it should be made illegal according to international humanitarian laws, god knows why it isn’t.
I’m not talking about the law. Laws change over time. Not all laws are just. Not everything just is a law.
So in your own personal sense of justice, is it just to wage militant attacks from hospitals and other civilian resources?
Personally I think it’s wrong to use sick and injured people as human shields.
Neither side is justified.
Hamas hiding behind civilians isn’t justification to kill the civilians.
Edit: he downvoted me in less than a minute, lol. I guess we know where he stands on the bias spectrum.
He thinks Israel is justified in killing these civilians. Wow.
I’m not talking about the law. Laws change over time.
I downvoted you because frankly I think that is a dumb and irrelevant thing to say. The world doesn’t work based on your, or mine, or anyone else’s personal sense of justice, nor should it. That’s why international law exists.
Under international humanitarian law, Hamas using sick people as a human shield is giving the IDF every excuse and legal justification they need to counter-attack the hospitals that they are using to state those attacks. Period.
I would vastly prefer if Hamas didn’t do that. I would vastly prefer that the IDF didn’t have legal justification for attacking hospitals. But what I prefer doesn’t mean shit.
But I guess when you can’t argue against the substance of what I’m saying you can only make embarrassing claims about the timing of meaningless internet points.
Oh well, whatever. Have a good one.
That’s why international law exists.
Lol, and you completely ignore me saying “Not all laws are just. Not everything just is a law.”
If you want to focus on the law, go right on ahead. I don’t even know why you’d bother replying to someone who clearly states they are not focusing on the law telling them what the law says.
Let’s be real. You’re biased towards Israel so you argue against anything that criticizes it. You don’t want me to say killing civilians is unjust because it’s critical of Israel’s behavior, which you cannot allow.
Just admit it. You’d come across as more genuine than whatever you’re doing now.
Not unconditionally though. From your own linked source:
Before carrying out an attack on a medical establishment or unit that has lost its protected status, a warning must be given. Where appropriate, this should include a time limit, which must go unheeded before an attack is permitted. The purpose of issuing a warning is to allow those committing an “act harmful to the enemy” to terminate such act, or – if they persist – to ultimately allow for safe evacuation of the wounded and sick who are not responsible for such conduct and who should not become the victims of it.
Where such a warning has remained unheeded, the enemy is no longer obliged to refrain from interfering with the work of a medical establishment or unit, or to take positive measures to assist it in its work. Even then, humanitarian considerations relating to the welfare of the wounded and sick being cared for in the facility may not be disregarded. They must be spared and, as far as possible, active measures for their safety taken.
This derives from the obligation to respect and protect the wounded and sick as well as the general rules on the conduct of hostilities that apply to attacks on any military objective. Notably, an attacking party remains bound by the principle of proportionality. The military advantage likely to be gained from attacking medical establishments or units that have lost their protected status should be carefully weighed against the humanitarian consequences likely to result from the damage or destruction caused to those facilities: such an attack may have significant incidental second- and third-order effects on the delivery of health care in the short, middle and long-term.
An attacking party remains also bound by the obligation to take precautions in attack, in particular to do everything feasible to avoid or at least minimize harm to patients and medical personnel who may have nothing to do with those acts and for whom the humanitarian consequences will be especially dire.
So leveling an entire hospital because a single rocket is fired from one by terrorists isn’t exactly justified by the law, even if firing rockets from a hospital is a war crime and justifies some degree of proportional reaction assuming humanitarian concerns can be justified.
As for why Hamas does this, it’s because it’s a win win for them. Either they reduce the capabilities of retaliation when humanitarian concerns are factored in, or they harm Israel’s image when engaging in disproportionate retaliation that isn’t adequately factoring in humanitarian concerns.
But the whole point of the Geneva convention and regulation regarding conduct in war is that even if your enemy is the literal worst, that stooping to their level is not what modern nations should do, and concern for the civilians even in enemy territory is a worthwhile endeavor regardless of the disregard for those laws by your own enemies.
I can’t regard Hamas as anything but disgusting terrorists and it’s troubling how much I see apologist rationalization for their terrorist acts on here.
But that doesn’t justify the IDF throwing the Geneva convention out the window and bombing civilian infrastructure to rubble any more than ISIL’s activities in Syria justified Assad’s bombing civilian areas where they were present to rubble.
They’ve been known to do all those things. I don’t know that they did all of it this time (time will tell) but why would they fuck their image in the eyes of world superpowers now? They need support.
And they leveled the hospital? I thought they sent people away after they cleared Hamas out?
The law says its OK so it must be OK!
The video literally shows a tank out the front of the hospital so of course you’re gonna have guys with rpgs defending it?
Cart before the horse
Seriously. There’s an easy way to not get your tanks targeted by fighters who can retreat into a hospital: don’t drive your tanks up to a hospital.
No kidding. IDF is bombing hospitals already… so yeah if you see a tank roll up what are you gonna do?
Pull that RPG out of nowhere because they didn’t already weapons and explosives stored in a hospital as that would be a war crime and the exact reason a military force would attack a hospital in the first place?
I don’t see how ANYTHING would justify bombing a hospital full of innocent people.
I disagree, but also hate you were downvoted without anyone having the balls to reply.
Ignoring who is who, let’s throw in a scenario where a hospital is being used to stage attacks against you - your family, your city, your country, doesn’t matter. You have two options - do something or do nothing.
1, do something. You could blockade the hospital, but then you are blamed for the patients suffering. You could send in aid for the patients, but this gets stolen and never reaches them anyway. Innocents will die. For some reason the people holding the hospital aren’t blamed for this.
You could bomb it, to try and force a surrender when hostile realise they aren’t safe. Innocents will die.
You could swap supplies for patients and send them somewhere else. Supplies are used against you, conflict is prolonged and those remaining suffer. Innocents will die.
You could put armored vehicles outside as a show of force. Weapons being stored on site illegally are fired against you. They are operating in defense. Nothing changes, innocents will die.
You could invade the hospital to arrest or kill those holding the hospital - an enclosed building with multiple chokepoints, ambush locations, CQB. Civilians will be caught in the crossfire, you and those with you are likely to die, the intl community will be outraged at you and anyone can just drop their weapons and pretend to be a civilian. Innocents will die, no guarantee of success, you may die.
2, do nothing. These attacks continue. They know you won’t come get them so they operate with immunity. Supplies destined for civilians are used against you innocents suffer. They know they can take another, possibly one of yours and you won’t do anything. Doesn’t matter if its a war crime to take civilian hostages, so what will others matter if I have shields to protect me. Innocents will die, nothing changes.
What realistic options would you have?
I don’t really care about downvotes too it just reminds me the fascists, country subs brigading on the other site to bury anything they don’t like. It seems Fediverse imported them along with individuals. Living in an oppressive state where government breeds millions of fascists, fanatics I really know the mentality. BTW thanks to EU for condemning them from time to time.
I don’t see how you can justify Hamas intentionally fighting from hospitals, specifically so they get bombed and you can use it as PR against the IDF.
It’s not PR. Do you think they want to get themselves and others killed? IDF is responsible for their own actions in the country they have occupied and oppressed for 55 years.
Do you think they want to get themselves and others killed?
Dude, they’re radical Islamic soldiers who routinely kill themselves in jihad, fighting along civilians they have actively put in harms way.
YES I believe they want to get themselves and as many Palestinians killed as possible. They just want to kill a few thousand Israelis in the process.
Uh oh, guess that means there’s no choice but to level the entire place and kill every civilian in there :(
So weird seeing people carry water for Hamas. It blows my mind.
After learning that there were indeed fighters, weapons, and tunnels just like Israel said, contrary to what a certain popular news outlet said.
If Israel rolled up without any opposition, no one would have died.
Now imagine what would happen to civilians if Hamas were allowed to roll up on an Israeli hospital unobstructed (refer to the attack on Oct. 7 for more info).
You’re right, the Palestine people should just let themselves be oppressed by the state of Israel. Now that the country has been bombed for over a month, they should welcome IDF soldiers with open arms. /s
They couldn’t do that or leave due to Hamas.
They oppressed by Hamas
The people in the hospital can’t do anything about what Hamas does and doesn’t do, as unfortunately within Gaza they can do whatever they want because they have the guns. Hamas committing war crimes doesn’t justify committing your own war crimes.
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Of course many of those people can’t help that Hamas is set up there.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that places like hospitals can go from protected to valid targets when militaries start fighting out of it.
That’s exactly what Israel said was happening which was doubted by many in the fediverse and other lefty spaces (I count myself as a lefty for whatever that’s worth). Now we have receipts.
Hamas is fully responsible for the endangering those people.
If there’s ever another election there hopefully people remember this and don’t elect them again.
A hospital (in operation) is never a valid target. Even if Hamas fighters are in there. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
You’re wrong.
Legitimate military targets include: armed forces and persons who take part in the fighting; positions or installations occupied by armed forces as well as objectives that are directly contested in battle; military installations such as barracks, war ministries, munitions or fuel dumps, storage yards for vehicles, airfields, rocket launch ramps, and naval bases.
Hamas put those people and babies in danger when they set up barracks and munitions there.
You don’t get to just shoot shit out of a hospital and expect the opposing force to sit there with their thumb up their ass.
I’ll remember this next time you’re in any kind of hostage situation. I’ll tell the cops to fire away, you’re obviously cool with it.
This is not a hostage situation. It’s a war.
No, if the IDF were allowed to roll up with no opposition, people would still have died. They want to ethnically cleanse Gaza, Hamas just gives them a “good” excuse to do so. If it weren’t for the 10/7 attack they would just maintain the status quo of shooting children for throwing rocks and making it hard to get aid into Gaza
That’s some qanon-level bullshit
Now imagine what would happen to civilians if Hamas were allowed to roll up on an Israeli hospital unobstructed (refer to the attack on Oct. 7 for more info).
Simple. They shell their own people alongside the terrorist.
While there’s definitely Hamas supporter and anti-jew around, when people call for humanitarian ceasefire and stop attacking hospital, they aren’t supporting Hamas, but somehow it got included into one because that doesn’t fulfill some people’s agenda and believe, and the same people will instead carry water for IDF and Netanyahu, the force and people who disproportionately attack Gaza as a retaliation for 7th October attack, collective punish the people of Gaza and displaced millions, attacking media because they didn’t show the same perspective as them, literally murder journalist that tend to publish unfavourable news against Israel, establish illegal settlement in West Bank using far right terrorist, using disproportionate force to disperse Palestinian protestor, arrest Israeli politician that criticise them, shoot a child with live bullet to disperse protest, arrest Palestinian without reason, treat Palestinian in a way that basically fit ACAB, deliver luggage-full of cash to Hamas leader, so on and so forth. Aren’t your mind blown? Or is that not an issue because one side is clearly evil so the other side should be okay to conduct evil?
In the full-length interview, Porat states that the Palestinian fighters – who she says treated her and the other Israeli civilians “humanely” – intended to “kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us.”
Ohhh Hamas was only there to do a little light kidnapping. Please ignore the beheddings and people burned alive. It’s damaging to our current propaganda efforts.
Also ignore this call from a terrorist to his family bragging about all the Jews he killed and attempting to get his father to open WhatsApp to see the awesome photos.
Ohhh so that’s how IDF sympathiser works, denying survivor account because it doesn’t align with their view, and ignore the main point.
Maybe here’s another one with viewpoint align to the IDF sympathiser will do?
Now i wonder how Be’eri are so wrecked, hmmm 🤔
Hey, what gives? I thought all Hamas was gonna do was a little light kidnapping?
?
You’re the one that claimed i said that while my point isn’t even that. You’re still salty about missing the mark ehh?
Well, that’s misleading. The article acts as if they’re doing it from the hospital. They’re firing from the road. There’s nothing given in the article indicating they had anything to do with the hospital.
In the footage the terrorist runs into the hospital’s underground carpark
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We should nuke it, then. there might be underground tunnels and bunker that run very deep. that’s only way to be sure that guy is dead. fuck everyone else, lmao.
No one here said that. Stop reading what you want to from what people say just so you can rant about it.
Terrorists kidnapping people, haven’t had any leads on where they are, but israel is taking its sweet time to plummet most of gaza infrastructures to the ground. Very very convenient excuse to drive out innocent palestinians off their land. hmm… it’s not like Israel helped create Hamas, and planned it.
Helped create hamas over a decade ago, yes. Planned what tho? If you say the Israeli government planned the October attack then you’re bordering on a qanon conspiracies level of uncoroborated BS.
Who’s betting they’ll find the hostages safe and sound, well taken care of, just after most of gaza becomes a wasteland and israel claims it for themselves. And they get a hero’s welcome while US, UN and EU gives a pat on the back.
No one. Some hostages have already died after excursion to Palestine so assuming hamas is treating them “safe and well” is very optimistic. Even if they wanted to their aren’t enough resources to care for actual Palestinians atm and Israel attacks don’t exactly leave leeway for safeguarding hostages. There’s a reason most hostages families are rejecting israels policy on this, its cause no one seems to be considering what would happen to the hostages and the government/bibi seem dead set on just retaliating for something they clearly should’ve been prepped to prevent.
Don’t tell me politicians haven’t sacrificed their own citizens to further their agenda. You’d be dumb ass propaganda guzler who needs to read a history book.
You’re reading a lot into a comment which basically amounted to someone saying this has nothing to do with the hospital and then someone pointing out the terrorist ran to hide in it at the end. Try not to conflate multiple pov and people together just so you can rant about everyone not being as flagrantly outraged as you. What israel is doing here is awful, no one is justifying that.
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I don’t know how you managed to say something so ignorant, wrong, disproportionate and illegal in 3 words. That’s impressive.
Without going into that person’s history, my guess is they’re criticizing the response to Hamas turning the hospital into a war zone and weapons cache as heavy handed.
You’re a better person that me - I’m envisioning a gruff old racist nam vet who is proud of a few napalm stories, saying to just kill them all and move on.
Yeah, considering how little regard zionists have for Palestinian life this really just sounds like something they’d say unironically
Israel: THERE IS A COMMAND CENTER UNDER THIS HOSPITAL
World: Cool, what evidence do you have?
Israel:10 SECONDS OF BLURRY FOOTAGE!
To be clear, staging militant attacks from a hospital is a war crime.
To make matters worse, it opens up the likelihood and justification of counter-attacks against that hospital and the people in it.According to international humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. The rule has few exceptions.
Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an “act harmful to the enemy”.
Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.
Source: The International Committee of the Red Cross
Nobody should beat around the bush here. Hamas are using injured civilians as a human shield to stage attacks, and in doing so they are inviting retaliation and suffering under well-establish terms of international law. There’s not really any particular gray area here. It’s horrible, it’s unethical, it’s criminal, and it’s just plain wrong.
This is the thing that pissed me off - the organization that has a humanitarian symbol so strong you can be legally held accountable for using it in a way that lessens its importance acknowledges that attacking a hospital being used as a military bases is a legal part of war. Meanwhile there are people whos education doesn’t pass high-school screaming that this isn’t legal, or its incorrect, or blaming the aggressor instead of those deliberately putting civilian lives at risk by blatantly ignoring intl rules of conflict.
If you want to throw in your argument against the red cross, spend your life and billions of dollars helping humanitarian issues world wide and then you might have some authority on the matter.
This is modern warfare. War is horrific, innocents get killed, people suffer. We put rules in place to lessen the effects on the innocent and those who circumvent those rules to try make the others look bad need to be removed in the quickest and most efficient way we can - as soon as one group gets away with ignoring the intl rules, everyone can.
Hi there. How about an old soldier who actually had to know this stuff and use that knowledge in a war?
First off, a single incident isn’t enough. A sniper or even a squad doing stuff can be dealt with in other ways. In order to strike a hospital (or any protected target) with explosives you need evidence it’s a target of “military or strategic value”. This is why Israel isn’t just claiming a few sporadic attacks but instead that all of the hospitals are actually command centers.
Second, the protected target can only be hit by proportional force that accomplishes a specific goal. If there’s an artillery battery in the parking lot and I level the obstetrics wing with dumb bombs then I’ve committed a war crime. Smart bombs with very low yields absolutely exist. Another example is the eponymous claim of rooftop rockets. I can hit that with an airburst explosive to prevent structural damage to most concrete buildings. In the context of protected targets these things matter. You don’t get a green light to demolish it unless it’s basically been hollowed out for military use only.
Third, whoever fires on the protected target is responsible for providing the evidence it was required. And war crimes investigators take a very dim view of “they did it once a decade ago”, as a reason. Israel and it’s allies have yet to do anything that actually proves the existence of a military or strategic target in places like the UNRWA Gaza headquarters.
My friend, they celebrate an airstrike with multiple rocket enough to create a crater few meter wide, using it on a human target, inside a crowded refugee camp. They certainly will not listen to any reasoning.
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While proportionality is in LOAC, if there is ample intelligence that the hospital is being used to commit attacks, it doesn’t have to be used exclusively to commit attacks to be a legal target.
Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy.
“the protection of medical units ceases when they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy. This exception is provided for in the First and Fourth Geneva Conventions and in both Additional Protocols.[37] It is contained in numerous military manuals and military orders.[38] It is also supported by other practice.[39]”
“While the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols do not define “acts harmful to the enemy”, they do indicate several types of acts which do not constitute “acts harmful to the enemy”, for example, when the personnel of the unit is armed, when the unit is guarded, when small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded and sick are found in the unit and when wounded and sick combatants or civilians are inside the unit.[40] According to the Commentary on the First Geneva Convention, examples of acts harmful to the enemy include the use of medical units to shelter able-bodied combatants, to store arms or munitions, as a military observation post or as a shield for military action.”
And that’s before we get into the creative reinterpreting of LOAC for terrorists in non- international armed conflicts fought by non-state insurgent groups which were invented post 9-11.
I never said it had to be in exclusive use to get fired on.
I did say the party firing on the hospital needs to provide evidence that each hospital, at each time, was a legal target. “I said so” doesn’t pass muster.
In that case, let’s talk soldier to sailor as I suspect I’ve been out much longer than you and can provide the perspectiveof what is being seen. You’re logically spoken, so I’m going to assume ~sgt rank and American.
During the US time in Afghanistan there was significant urban combat, with multiple civilians around, limited identification of combatants and a campaign to win over the local population so you had to be absolutely sure of your target and operations. This was not just the guy on the ground, but the operations planning at officer level, approval to senior command and in liason with local forces. Post patrol or fire fight the was debriefs, justification of actions, and improvement points to be discussed, remedied and distributed. This happens across theater, from rifleman to pilot to special ops. You likely sat in brief after brief, got frustrated at ops planning, and had to debrief and relive the worst day of your life in hopes lessons could be drawn to save lives down the track.
We civilians saw none of that. We saw videos of tomahawks being launched, helicopters flying, burnt out trucks. Civilians screaming, dead kids, burnt buildings. Coffins coming home, memorials, speeches.
What is happening in Israel is likely very similar. Im not Israeli intelligence so I don’t see the planning that went into the attack, didn’t sit in the ready room as the pilots got briefed, haven’t seen the after action reports - because this information doesn’t make it to the news and isn’t distributed. The best we have to go off is exactly the same as we had for America - there are laws around it, civilians will get harmed in virtually any conflict, but a person who is well aware of the damage they are about to inflict, where, and who else will be affected still has to press the button or pull the trigger knowing exactly where that round is going.
The flaw in your argument is not that you are incorrect - far from it. It’s the belief that because you were not directly involved to witness it it didn’t happen.
I’m older than you think. I was in the 2003 Iraq invasion. And I was specifically a mortarman. I have vivid memories of listening to the fires net and the Battalion coordinator asking for exact details and then us getting exact fire mission specifics to minimize damage. ( A normal mission would be something like all guns fire 10 rounds of ground det HE as fast as possible. These missions were more like our best gun firing one airburst or smoke at a time.) The thing is, those details are all recorded because you have to be able to account for every mission fired on a protected target. They wouldn’t be sensitive either, not the parts about how exactly Hamas is using the building as reported by units on the ground. The reporting method is known and Hamas’ tactics are something they want to show the world.
It’s the absence of these reports along with the completely lackluster post battle evidence that has me wondering what the hell the Israelis are doing.
First off, a single incident isn’t enough.
This is not an isolated incident.
We don’t even have evidence of a single incident.
And before you reply with LoOk At ThE ViDeO!11
That’s one guy. In the street outside a hospital. That in no way justifies anything other than the infantry going by to check it out and help the doctors. One guy with an RPG (not the sensationalist ATGM setup the headline would have us believe) is nowhere near the evidence required to drop ordinance on a hospital.
I don’t think any intellectually honest person that supports Palestine thinks Hamas are the “good guys”, they are an evil created and grown directly and indirectly by Israel’s actions.
I doubt anyone thinks they are the good guys, but there are multiple trying to justify blatant war crimes and thinking they should be able to operate with immunity because they have civilians in the cross fire.
Im also doubting some “intellectually honest” people on both sides if the arguement. Well, with this CF all six sides of the arguement…
Who is doing that? Who is saying it’s justifiable for Hamas to use a hospital as a base? The only thing remotely close to that I’ve seen is people saying that a group like Hamas is an inevitable byproduct of Israeli occupation. Everyone knows putting a garrison in a hospital is shit, what’s disturbing is how many people think that justifies murdering every civilian in there
I have unfortunately seen comments trying to justify it- mostly around them not having a choice (edit: oh look, one just replied), or because otherwise they would be bombed, or its ok because Israel isn’t good either. Whats more disturbing is my comment responding asking if they just justified a war crime because they said it was ok because they would be attacked otherwise got downvoted something like 20 times. Im also aware that isn’t exactly a peer reviewed study.
I fully agree on your comment regarding how worrying it is how many people think killing them all is ok. No, it is a war crime to garrison a hospital, and it removes protection from that hospital but your response still has to be proportional and in a way that minimizes damage and civilian casualties. They could put a sniper in every window, rockets on the roof and you still can’t level the building.
That’s understanding not justification. Saying they get why it was done is not at all the same as saying it’s morally or logically correct.
It specifically does not remove protections, it makes limited military intervention legal. I agree with the rest but that phrasing makes it seem like anything is on the table when it isn’t.
Uh… well for a start one of them just replied to you.
Sadly I think there’s just an overwhelming tendency for bias to make people think “everything my side does is right and everything the other side does is wrong”.
Random people on the internet, many of whom are mostly (if not entirely) detached from realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and may only just be learning about it for the first time from social media, have now formed ranks and picked a side that feels right in the moment. I’d ask people to resist the urge to do that, and instead take some time to read into the complete history of the region and the conflict, but I think it’s much easier to go along with what other people on the net/TV/radio/etc are shouting.
People should keep in mind that there’s a 3rd side to every conflict: the side of the innocent people who have found themselves caught in the middle of an armed conflict that they never wanted or asked for. The Israeli student who was shot to death at a festival, the old Palestinian woman whose family were buried alive in a knocked-down building, the young child who was taken hostage by Hamas scared and alone, and the Gaza teenager who has lost all possibility of the normal, peaceful life and education that so many of us take for granted. Their side is the only side that anyone should be on. And it’s those very innocent civilians who Hamas are knowingly putting in danger by treating them as human shields in a way that openly invites retaliation.
When you stop to think for a minute about what’s really going on here, and when you’ve taken even the bare minimum amount of time to read up on the history of this conflict (one of the longest-running geopolitical conflicts in modern history), it’s not hard to understand that both sides really do have blood on their hands. There are no “good guys” other than the people who have managed to stay innocent, and as the conflict goes on and the desire for revenge burns in people’s hearts, eventually some of those people will become “bad guys” too.
And that’s just a very sad thing, because if nothing else it means that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Sadly I think there’s just an overwhelming tendency for bias to make people think “everything my side does is right and everything the other side does is wrong”.
The good old “they” mentality strikes again. You are completely correct in everything you have said, and I think this is one of the first major global issues where social media has really come to the forefront - just like the TV for Vietnam everyone can see it, but now everyone can put in their own opinions and with the 5-15 sec clips you don’t get verifications, or balanced arguments, or anything that says this person is actually well informed and not coming in with an agenda.
I think what gets me the most is how would anyone else react if their country had a neighbor whos founding document screamed for the death of you. Who ripped up their infrastructure to send rockets against you and made you develop one of the best counter-missile battery in the world to protect your civilians. Who invaded across your boarder to shoot and abduct civilians and openly brags they wanted to get more.
I would argue that people do consider the innocents caught up in it, but the unfortunate fact is that these actions can’t be allowed to continue otherwise more will be affected in the long term. I support Israeli invasion, because dragging this out, allowing Hamas immunity because they have human shields, and keeping the blockade up means help can’t get to those that need it. Attacking civilian structures should be a last resort, but if they are being used to stage attacks its not something you have the luxury of shying away from.
Meanwhile there are people whos education doesn’t pass high-school screaming that this isn’t legal, or its incorrect
So…Joe Biden and UN?
Biden graduated in 65 from uni of Delaware… c average but still passed
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University of Delaware
Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark, where he was more interested in sports and socializing than in studying,[15] although his classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities.[33] He played halfback with the “Blue Chicks” freshman football team (at the time, freshmen were not eligible to play varsity sports).[25][26] However, when he got a poor 1.9 grade point average for the semester, his parents told him that he had to give up football to concentrate on his classes.[26] He continued to get mostly “C” and “D” grades for his next two semesters.[34] His grades then began to improve, but never became especially good.[34] He wanted to return to the football, and by the spring practices of his junior year he thought he was about to earn a starting spot as a defensive back on the varsity for that fall.[25][35][26]
It’s literally wikipedia dude, the university of Delaware says the same, but do go on, who’s your source.
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I told you wiki, I need not link it as I’m certain you’ve the ability to type.
Similarly it contains many sources and you’ve as of yet not proved any part of your claim, you’ve not even provided a source that backs up your “lol biden didn’t graduate” claim, dudes an asshole but he graduated from college and law school. The fuck are you huffing?
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It doesn’t give them the right to bomb the hospital point blank period, proportionality clauses kick in and it’s arguably reason to ground assault it but they cannot ignore the civilian cost of life when they’re are other ways to go about clearing the garrison.
Ed: Jesus Christ, 3 seconds on Google prior just can’t seem to do.
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”. In other words, the principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.
Ok, let’s send them to the Hague I guess? Why do you think this is an important point? Hamas isn’t actually a legitimate organization that signed on to international law and would ever care what “legitimate warfare” is. They just went into Israel and murdered a bunch of civilians. If these fighters are caught whether the UN thinks they were wrong is the least of their problems.
And none of that makes Israel attacking a hospital (or just the blatant collective punishment) justified.
Except it literally does justify attacking the hospital. Black on white, letter and spirit of the law.
No it doesn’t, and you’re a shitty person for thinking that.
This is not a matter of personal opinion
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“Whether it’s ok to bomb a hospital” isn’t a legal question.
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Except it literally does justify attacking the hospital.
“Justified” and “legal” are two separate judgements. OP wants to conflate them to excuse an unjust act.
Hamas are the legal representative government of palestine mate. For all intents and purposes according to law, this is two countries at war, not a fight against a terror group, but a hostile state
Nah the PLO is the official government of Palestine and is recognized as so by basically everyone, but they are stationed in the West Bank and Israel tries to keep them separated. Hamas has some control over Gaza and held an election decades ago before most of the people there could vote and hasn’t held another one since.
The palestinian authority answers to hamas and the muslim brotherhood. So, yea, hamas, the people that actually got voted in, do run the show.
50% of the people alive in Palestine today weren’t born when the last election was held and then elections were shut down.
To be clear, no one here is defending Hamas or saying that it isn’t a war crime.
Proximity shielfing isn’t really the classic human shield idea. It’s like “human shields*” with an asterisk and six paragraphs of footnotes showing how countries like Israel use the idea of proximity shielding to commit human rights violations untouched.
How many war criminals from US, Russia have been charged and are rotting in jail? Bush, Obama, Trump? or does this law only apply when you want to use PR for your war contractors against brown people?
“According to international humanitarian law” my ass.
Umm, sir, are you OK? You’re supposed to want them to all kill each other so we can claim their souls.
Jokes on you. I’m a ginger so I’ve just been “tactically acquiring” them.
