…this isn’t correct, and ask respectfully that you retract.
These aren’t standard military operations.
The siege is an atrocity. And history will not look favourably on the country that enacted it, nor the countries that support it.
Hamas’s use of Al Shifa Hospital has been known for over a decade. It has been reported multiple times by independent foreign press that they at the very least heavily used the hospital as a staging area for rocket attacks, conducted interviews with the press from the Hospital, etc. The use of Hospitals in general for command centers, storage, and rocket launching sites has been SOP for Hamas since the beginning of their existence. Even Al Fatah has called out and criticized Hamas for using the hospital’s x-ray facility as a jail and interrogation room. The Palestinian Authority issued an official statement accusing Hamas’ security services of having turned medical centers into jails and interrogation facilities. Again these accusations and observations have been going on for well over a decade. I find it much more believable that Hamas is in fact using the hospital as their HQ based on this as opposed to your assertation that that’s not something they’d do because of, reasons.
It’s right there in what he quoted (emphasis added)
I think it’s a fair point he’s making, and it’s important to talk about Hamas as at the same organizational level as Likud/IDF, not at the same level as Israel.
I agree. How on Earth is Israel going to do that while Hamas controls the Gaza strip? Removing Hamas is a necessary first step to improving Palestinian lives.
Sure, right in the post I quoted where you compared Hamas to Israel rather than Hamas to a far right party…
It’s a hospital. It is currently treating thousands of people and serving as shelter for many others who have nowhere else to go.
Regarding the firing of rockets:
I note that you very carefully used the words “staging area for rocket attacks”, which could mean anything from “rockets were stored here” to “a couple of Hamas operatives met outside the front door.” Its a rather nebulous, meaningless thing to say when we are talking about whether or not a hospital is a legitimate target.
I no longer accept these talking points as gospel any more. Not when Netanyahu’s standard of evidence is a poorly made CGI video. If civilians are there the target should meet the highest of all possible thresholds before it is designated an acceptable target. The fact that we have over 3000 dead children, with no sign that the rate of children dying every day will come down any time soon, show that this threshold hasn’t been met.
It’s an active hospital and a Hamas operations center (at the very least) or HQ at the same time. Yes, these are real hospitals with real patients undergoing care. Which is exactly why Hamas sets up shop in them. I don’t know why you seem to have such a hard time grokking that. And yes, their doing so is a war crime.
@Banquet_Bear I’ll ask you the same thing I asked others in here. Hamas as a matter of policy embeds itself within the civilian populace of Gaza, using them as human shields. Do you support them or do you believe they should be taken out by Israel? If the latter, exactly how do you propose that they do that? So far the answer has been either a rehash of what Israel is already currently doing presented as something new and novel, “the political process”, or wishful thinking. Do you have something better?
The whole situation is an atrocity, and the responsibility lays squarely with Hamas.
Exactly. Exactly.
Just because it’s a war crime for Hamas to set up military operations in a hospital doesn’t mean that it might not also be a war crime to bomb that hospital. There’s a concept of proportionality. How much does the bombing impact Hamas’ military strength and how many innocent civilians were killed.
Yes, I’m sure that every nation at war has violated the laws of war from time to time. That doesn’t make them bad laws, or meaningless. It’s GOOD that nations are criticized for those violations. Ideally, it reduces the amount of such violations. Ideally, Israel will try not to totally piss off the rest of the world by brutally killing too many civilians.
…you are making a very specific claim here. Pick one or the other. Then either support it with cites or withdraw it.
Describe to me what this means. By “embeding” do you mean living in a home, getting food from the markets, that kind of thing? Are you talking about a Hamas terrorist, or a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health? A journalist that works for a Hamas affiliated media outlet?
Or do you mean something else, and can you describe that to us?
Because “embeds itself within the civilian populace of Gaza, using them as human shields” is a talking point. It isn’t useful in a discussion about what is and isn’t a valid target in war because you could be literally describing anything.
So I’m not going to debate talking points with you. If you want to talk about specific actions they have taken in the last three weeks that you consider fit in here, we can talk about that.
Israel needs to comply with international law. Thats my position. The strategy to take down Hamas must also not disproportionately and collectively punish all of the people that are living in Gaza.
The responsibility for the atrocities done by the occupying power (as still recognized by the ICRC and almost every other human rights agency ) lie with the occupying power. Hamas are also responsible for atrocities. Both things can be true.
This. Hamas is a brutal and evil organization. That doesn’t excuse Israel if it kills a disproportionate number of civilians in its attempt to wipe out Hamas.
There have been a bunch of people in this thread (@Banquet_Bear, @Walken_After_Midnight, @Broomstick) who have asserted that Israel does not care about collateral damage. The only evidence provided for this claim is the large number of Palestinian casualties, which is, let me say emphatically, an unquestionably terrible thing.
But the reason for the large number of dead Palestinian civilians is not due to a lack of effort on Israel’s part. It is due to Hamas’ efforts, as described by @Dorjan and many others. And no one has presented any alternative means to address the situation, yet many have seen fit to condemn Israel as callous to war crimes or as downright genocidal.
It absolutely boggles my mind.
…what does “caring about collateral damage” mean to you?
Can you walk us through the decision matrix that ultimately lead to the Jabalia refugee camp? How did the IDF show us that they cared about collateral damage here? Please be specific. What actions did they take? What warnings did they give and were those warning sufficient? And why did they bomb it again the next day, then the day after that?
You don’t get to blame your alleged war crimes against a civilian population on a terrorist group. That isn’t how it works in international law.
We don’t have to.
That isn’t our obligation. That isn’t our job. That isn’t even the purpose of this thread. I’m watching entire generations of families getting eliminated. I’m allowed to speak up about that.
It’s a fucking reality, man.
…in context, it’s an excuse to justify alleged war crimes.
There isn’t a radioactive crater where the camp used to be.
International law doesn’t work. It’s antiquated. It’s derived from a concept of war as being hundreds of thousands of infantrymen forming lines and plinking away at each other in a field somewhere far away from where anyone lives, where battles never take place in population centers and the population certainly isn’t involved in partisanship or providing shelter or cover for the fighters, and where no soldier would ever dream of engaging in perfidy or hiding amongst the population. Modern war doesn’t look like that.
…if this is the threshold, then you’ve made it explicitly clear that no, Israel does not care about collateral damage.
Nope, it’s a reality. You are welcome to ignore it - that’s a privilege that comes from living in a place that doesn’t have to deal with a hostile terrorist regime on your border. But if you do choose to ignore that reality, do not be surprised when people who have to live with it ignore your advice or your condemnations.
…oh boy.
I’m not going to debate that here. Feel free to open up a Great Debate. But suffice to say, I disagree.
Israel is a nuclear power. If they didn’t care about collateral damage they could have exterminated the entire population of Gaza by this point.