I think what you missed are the allegations of war crimes, likely because you didn’t read the linked article, or the articles that article links to.
Imagine thinking that the Wikipedia page on "Israeli War Crimes is news to anyone.
I do not acknowledge “We’ve got all these human shields and they’re STILL shooting back at us!” to be a war crime.
I’m in 100% agreement and I try real hard to stay out of threads like these because I just don’t see how to reconcile the underlying initial premises that lead to such divergent points of view.
Well, if that’s what you’ve got to say, then it’s clear you haven’t read the linked article.
Nobody is saying that the IDF has never done anything wrong. There have definitely been incidents where soldiers or units have done horrible things. Some of those cases were reacted to with appropriate severity, others were not treated severely enough, and some were even ignored. No one is denying any of this.
Incidentally, this is something you could also say about any other nation’s armed force in the world, and certainly few nations see as much morally difficult action as the IDF does.
On the whole, taken systemically, the IDF certainly has flaws, but intentionally committing war crimes is simply not one of them.
That’s why no one takes your Wikipedia link as a serious argument.
For the sake of argument, let’s say Hamas is prepared to allow two million Palestinian civilians starve to death to achieve their aims. Does that mean the IDF also has carte blanche to do the same?
Overall, Hamas are barbaric monsters and getting rid of them will be tough if not impossible. I don’t envy the IDF/Israel, they have a tough needle the thread, to get rid of barbaric monsters while not becoming monsters themselves in the process.
Neither do I. That’s why I phrased it as “I’d wager”
One doesn’t have to be a “military strategist” to be reasonably certain that people on the ground with guns and decent aim would kill less civilians than GBU-28s slung into their buildings. Even if they were firing indiscriminately, which the IDF would not be.
Oh, yes, my suggested course was totally to not kill the civilians and then stand back and do nothing else 
They weren’t in that area at the time. The IDF should have waited until they were, rather than indiscriminately blowing up that many civilians. There was nothing “precision” about that strike.
No, but that’s also very clearly not what they are doing. If that was the IDF’s plan, why enter Gaza with ground troops?
Sure.
The principles of the murdering terrorists don’t signify here. International law does.
What hypocrisy? Has anyone here said Hamas shouldn’t also abide by the rule of law?
The hypocrisy of Hamas’s tactics. They fight in a prohibited style and then exploit the tragic consequences of a restrained response. The fact that anyone falls for such obvious perfidy is almost as tragic.
…I was really hoping that it wasn’t a case of “just trust me bro.”
But it looks like that’s exactly what it is.
You don’t get to call what I said earlier “disgusting” and “disingenuous” when you’ve presented zero evidence for anything you described.
This just popped up on my feed last hour.
I’m reading several of them a day. I have to prepare myself every morning when I wake up to read story after story of families wiped out.
I have no problem believing that in some instances, civilian casualties are unavoidable. But not on this scale. Not without evidence. You can’t tell me that the IDF are doing everything to prevent collateral damage when they broadcast propaganda that essentially tells us that the entire Gaza Strip is a valid target.
It isn’t, as you said earlier in the thread, that I’m parroting Hamas propaganda. I’m listening to Israeli propaganda. And I think it’s telling us exactly what they are doing. Its all out in the open. They aren’t even hiding it.
Incorrect.
[ETA-I added the wrong link]
I was unaware Hamas claimed to be in compliance with the Geneva Conventions…
Anti-fortification munitions dropped on civilian houses is not what I’d class as a restrained response. “Not the most extreme response possible” is as far as I’d go, but “restrained”? Come on.
At this point, the IDF needs to produce actual evidence when it does shit like blow up an ambulance.
Especially since that ambulance was supposedly to travel south, and the IDF itself says
“Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety,”
The Palestinians health authorities (Yes, run by Hamas, we know ) had notified the ICRC about the convoy, the Egyptians say they were expecting injured people from the convoy, the IDF says there were Hamas people on board… 
How are injured civilians supposed to evacuate, if not in ambulances?
If they do not seek to be compliant with it, then they should not expect to be treated in accordance with it.
It shouldn’t need repeating, but it’s Palestinian civilians that should be treated in accordance with the Conventions. And Palestinians civilians are not Hamas.
And in any case, no. Even non-compliant enemy combatants should be accorded the protections of the Conventions (which allow plenty of leeway for attacking non-compliant enemies).
What I would dispute in posts such as those that you have made is the insinuation that one side is full of blame, while the other is blameless. My argument would be that both sides share some blame for the overall situation. I would say there are different proportions of blame when comparing the, let’s say, military aspects of Hamas vs IDF with the overall Palestine vs Israel situation, but they are inextricably linked. Hamas do not do what they do because they are fundamentally evil, but rather because they are a manifestation or symptom of underlying political issues that have not been resolved.
Obviously, the actions of October 7th went far beyond anything that has happened before and they can genuinely be described as acts of evil. However, as the UN secretary-general said, they “did not happen in a vacuum”, albeit while adding that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas”.
I feel like some people, perhaps those who do not have a deeper knowledge of the history of the conflict, see the events of recent weeks as being like a self-contained short story in which some evil-doers arrive on the scene, commit evil acts and all that needs to be done is for the evil-doers to be killed and everyone will live happily ever after, end of story. I would argue that this is not a short story, but rather a book with many hundreds of pages, perhaps several volumes, with countless chapters, in which both sides have played the roles of villain and of victim at different moments over a period of multiple generations. To actually write an ending for the book would require a holistic understanding of the history and grievances of both sides, and a willingness to recognise and address those grievances by both sides as part of a political solution, not by one side killing all those on the opposing side that they disagree with.
ISTM there is a clear Prisoner’s Dilemma type of situation (both sides having chosen to “defect”) where it is tacitly, if not explicitly, clear that no one is going to respect any conventions of war. Therefore ambulances are fair game and everything else we have been hearing. Game-theoretically, this is the only Nash equilibrium.
[–]aaBlueDragon 104 points 12 hours ago
I asked a friend who speaks Arabic, and it’s not already expired, it’s about to expire, in 7.12.23.
They are essentially complaining that it will only last them a month.
I’m trying to understand this