If you feel you know enough to object to this specific action, I have no argument with that. For me, trying to analyze the ethics at this level of granularity while it’s happening is impossible. I don’t know the significance of who they were targeting, I don’t know how many civilian casualties they should have expected.
I appreciate that response.
My objection is with an approach that led to an event like that, where Hamas’ atrocities and their mingling with innocent civilians becomes justification for any action Israel decides to take. If the fallback for any tough question is “but Hamas!” then much worse will happen there (and discussion in this thread becomes pointless).
The existential threat is from Hamas. Were it not for their actions on 10/7, every casualty would still be alive.
Here’s a statement which is often repeated as a truism in the context of this conflict. I’d be interested to know if you agree with it:
If Hamas laid down their weapons there would be peace in Gaza. If Israel laid down their weapons, Israel would be destroyed.
You don’t have to justify your answer. For the record, I believe that it’s true.
…and for me it all comes back to this. According to the Israeli army spokesperson, the reason why Jabalia was targeted was because “a very senior Hamas commander in that area.”
So under what circumstances would a senior Hamas commander not be in an area? They are always somewhere. Whether it be in a bunker planning another terrorist attack, or at a refugee camp visiting a relative or friend. This makes everyone a human shield by default, not because Hamas are positioning themselves deliberately among civilians, but because positioning yourselves among civilians is something that everybody does.
You can’t then turn that around and call this a war crime. Not unless Netanyahu visiting a hospital is also a war crime.
Can you clear things up for me: are you arguing that Palestinians do deserve this? That the current number of civilian casualties is acceptable?
Because I didn’t expect to get any push back on either of these ideals. Because child casualties in Gaza are already double the entirety of child casualties in the Russia-Ukraine War. And its only been a few weeks, and Israel are showing no sign of slowing down.
If you think this is acceptable, that’s fine. But we are already well past my threshold, as we are past the threshold of most humanitarian agencies.
If the extensional threat is from Hamas, why has the IDF killed over 3700 Palestinian children?
And if Israel isn’t an extensional threat to the people of Gaza, then why did they kill over 3700 Palestinian children?
If Israel doesn’t pose an existential threat to the inhabitants of Gaza, can you explain any of those quotes?
And no, “Hamas killed them” isn’t an answer. That wouldn’t stack up in a court, that doesn’t stack up here.
I mean, its utter bullshit. There wasn’t peace before Hamas existed, so magically taking away Hamas wouldn’t make a material difference.
And nobody is arguing that Israel should “lay down their weapons” (and no, a ceasefire is not what anyone means when they use a phrase like this).
It’s more than a little disingenuous to snip the two thirds of the paragraph that explained exactly what I meant, then claim that the one third that you did quote is unclear and twist it into a despicable meaning.
Is this satire? Hamas have to organize terrorist attacks and torture prisoners somewhere, so it’s probably just coincidence if it’s in the basement of a hospital - they were all just visiting a sick friend.
What the fuck? Not when prosecuting a war they don’t.
If your argument is “but it’s densely populated” - well, yes. That’s why it’s so difficult for Israel to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas chose to launch this war from bases in a densely populated area, and to hide themselves among the most vulnerable civilians in the most densely populated areas.
You’re beginning to understand.
That kind of war went out long before the Geneva conventions. I’d say fifty years before. After the Blitz, Dresden, Berlin and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, nobody thought of war in that way.
I hope IDF do what they can, but the losses are horifying.
…it isn’t my job to make a “convincing case that there is some other more effective way to remove the Hamas regime.” So I’m going to ignore every request to do so.
I simply don’t think its simply worthless to just say “the Palestinians don’t deserve this” and “this number of civilian casualties is unacceptable.” I consider it my duty to say those things. And I’m not going to debate that. I think the laws of war are explicit here. And in Israel’s case, as the occupying power, even more so. They should be protecting the Palestinian people. They aren’t at war with the Palestinian people. They are at war with Hamas.
We were talking about human shields. We were talking about Jabalya. We were talking about Hamas positioning themselves deliberately among civilians, and if, as you posit here, a Hamas operative were visiting a sick friend at Jabalya, that doesn’t mean they have “positioned themselves deliberately among civilians”, it just means they were visiting a sick friend. And that isn’t a war crime.
We are talking about human shields, we are talking about the threshold for what we would consider a war crime. And just being in an area doesn’t automatically make everyone in that area a human shield, and simply being in an area with people around them doesn’t mean that the Hamas person has committed a war crime.
The argument is that if there was a high ranked Hamas leader at the camp, then the IDF had the option of a highly targeted attack, as they have done multiple times in the past. If the intent was to get rid of tunnel infrastructure, then they had the option of giving sufficient advanced warning, as they have done multiple times in the past.
Let’s not pretend that what happened at Jabalya was the only thing that could have happened at Jabalya.
Can you be a little bit less cryptic?
You think Netanyahu visiting Chaim Sheba Medical Center would automatically designate all of the civilians there as human shields, the hospital as a legitimate target, and if the hospital were bombed and civilians were killed, you would consider that acceptable collateral damage?
Or did you mean something else?
That’s an interesting observation, as Israeli GHQ is across the street from a shopping mall and a bunch of skyscrapers and is not that far from the center of the city. I suppose during WW3 they won’t have to wait too long for a direct counterforce hit.
“Tunneled under by terrorists” is not the same as “used at the same time for military purposes”.
I’d argue that even “hiding place of an enemy commander” is not the same thing as “used for military purposes” for this consideration. This is an argument Israel can make when an otherwise civilian building is launching rockets, sure. Or even used to make rockets. But not “there were Hamas tunnels under the whole neighbourhood”, no. Even in 1899.
I think the factual question "why was this highly ranked commander at the hospital, and what was he doing there? " is relevant to whether the attack could have been justifiable under the rules of war. If he was just visiting a sick friend, then i agree, it was not. If he was meeting with other militants to give them orders, then it might have been. And also, it would have been a war crime for him to do the latter, but not the former.
I don’t know the answer to that factual question. I’m not enthusiastic by Israel’s public explanation, " he happened to be there". I would be less disturbed if Israel had more clearly claimed that they were disrupting a significant military activity, and but just targeting a guy.
But fwiw, “human shields” are always innocent people who have been involuntarily placed in harms way. That’s kinda the definition.
How is taking out a senior officer not significantly disrupting military activities? His job is to conduct significant military activities, so it seems to me that killing him would do a pretty good job of disrupting them.
Even senior military officers take time off from work. It’s just an assassination, not a military action, to kill them when they are on leave.
I say this with all due respect: give me a fucking break.
It is very seriously disturbing that this sentence appears on a website dedicated to reasoned discussion.
That Adolf guy with the moustache had his own place for taking time off from work, at a nice little resort in the mountains with beautiful scenery, called the Eagle’s nest. I suppose you wouldn’t have supported any US army activity there?
This thread has become completely detached from reality. Hamas military leaders are just visiting friends and relatives in the hospital? i’m tapping out. Good luck, @Babale .
I think it matters whether
- they are there briefly, doing something not inherently military, and can be targeted before or after they are in the hospital.
Or - they are hanging out there, living, planning, organizing, etc. from within the hospital. Using it to shield themselves.
Attacking a hospital is guaranteed to kill a lot of innocents. It’s justified in the latter case, but probably not in the former case.
If you orchestrate the cold blooded murder of 1,400 people, you should never feel safe again. Every time you pull your pants down to take a shit you should have a very easy time evacuating your bowels because of how terrified you are that this will be the time that they catch you with your pants down, literally.
I agree (though I’m not sure it’s all that recent a development).
I’m sorry to hear that but I can’t say I blame you. Thank you for many excellent points in the thread so far.
Sure, I agree. My concern isn’t with him. It’s with the children and other civilians who happen to be nearby through no fault of their own.
On the news this morning, I saw a father who finally found his dead son in the rubble of the Jabalia refugee camp after digging for hours. He was carrying his body for a while, before returning to start digging for his daughter. Is this justified for you because they managed to kill one Hamas soldier, or is it justified because innocent Israelis were previously killed? Was there no other way to kill this one solider and “destroy Hamas”, other than bombing refugees?