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(paraphrasing again; and I will note we don’t have the actual quote, we have the called person’s recollection of the sense of the call) “We are going to bomb these homes because we need to get Hamas. We need to get Hamas because they are committing evil acts. Did you see how they slaughtered those children?”
Again – I don’t know whether Israel is doing the least bad thing. And they may be doing so in some instances and not others. But concluding that Israel overall is making no attempt to protect civilian life based on a report of someone’s recollection of a phone call, or on an assumption of the state of mind of someone making a phone call even if we had the actual words, strikes me as a considerable overreach.
From the article quoted:
“It is an order from people bigger than me and you, and we have an order to bomb,” the voice added, according to Mahmoud.
…doesn’t that call seem to you to be…extraordinarily cruel?
Imagine you hate Hamas. But you get a phone-call from the IDF that tells you they are going to destroy everything you own. Potentially kill you and everybody that is close to you. Your neighbours. Your neighbourhood. Your possessions.
“We are gonna blow up your house…do you condemn Hamas?” It’s trolling. It’s deliberately cruel. This isn’t a “good news story.”
Because currently there are 4500 children dead as a result of the IDF campaign. If there was a phone call in every instance, there wouldn’t be so many dead children. They do it enough for propagandistic purposes. But not enough to save a significant number of lives.
And I think that its important that everyone here understands this: from today, those numbers will no longer be updated.
Israel doesn’t track the number of civilian casualties.
And the place that was tracking the numbers has gone dark.
From Doctors Without Borders:
Hospital staff have been forced to leave at least 100 bodies decomposing in hospital grounds. Staff watch as stray dogs tear at the bodies. They’ve run out of clean water after storage tanks were struck. Blood supplies have spoiled. Premature babies huddled together, eight to a bed, the only possible way to keep them warm and alive.
Some of the recent posts in this thread have almost been clinical. But this isn’t a clinical war. It is brutal. And it isn’t brutal because “Hamas headquarters are located underneath hospitals and dense residential neighborhoods.” Its brutal because the people that are waging this war are making no real effort to distinguish between the innocent and Hamas.
Al-Shifa is the hosptial that many people in this thread, as well as the IDF, have claimed has a military installation in it/below it without any evidence. And Al-Shifa was where the numbers were compiled. Not only has the hospital gone dark, but our only insight into the devastating toll this war is having on the Palestinian people has gone dark as well.
No, we are not on the same page here. Because we are witnessing what many in the international community consider to be war crimes, committed by the IDF, on a massive scale. The siege, that continues to this day, is collective punishment. Palestinians that have been forced from their homes are calling this the second Nakba.
And I don’t think they get to do that and be “surprised” that people are no longer on your team.
It seems odd that they have no room to keep the bodies away from stray dogs.
Not at all how my reading was meant.
I read a cry of pain, asking for understanding – ‘we have to do this! did you see what Hamas did to those children?’; which, quite understandably, wasn’t heard through the cry of pain coming the other way.
I very much agree that this isn’t a “good news story”. But I really do think that you’re seeing deliberate cruelty when it probably wasn’t there.
If the IDF really has no evidence for a military installation in or below the hospital: then I agree that they certainly shouldn’t be attacking it. But the fact that neither you nor I is privy to the military intelligence available to the Israeli armed forces does not mean that the IDF has no evidence.
They might have no place to put bodies that’s both away from stray dogs and not currently full of live people.
Or they might be afraid to go get the bodies, if there’s active shelling outside.
…its because they don’t want to get shot by IDF snipers.
…but they didn’t have to do this. They didn’t have to blow up the neighbourhood. Its gaslighting. “They have forced our hand! They are forcing me to push this button that will destroy everything you love and cherish!”
If the IDF had evidence they would have presented it to the United Nations a couple of days ago when they had every opportunity to do so. Because attacking a hospital is a war crime. If Al-Shifa is a legitimate target: then the correct thing is to provide evidence that shows Al-Shifa is a legitimate target. It isn’t to surround it with tanks and snipers for two days, shooting at people when they try to leave, occasionally drop a bomb, then “magically” find evidence of a military installation when they finally take it over in a couple of days time.
If they choose not to release the intelligence, I have no qualms in calling what they’ve done to EVERY hospital in Gaza over the last couple of days a war crime.
FWIW the EU has condemned Hamas for using hospitals as human shields. Does the EU know something or just political rhetoric? (I do not know)
Full Title: EU condemns Hamas for using ‘hospitals as human shields’, urges Israeli restraint
So let me understand your view of the situation. You think that Al-Shifa is not on top of a military target, that it just has doctors and sick kids inside and no Hamas tunnels underneath, and that the IDF has surrounded it and is bombing it and taking potshots at doctors just for fun, or because they want to kill all the Palestinians, or you tell me why; and in fact there are no Hamas forces there and the IDF could walk in at any time?
…it isn’t my job to make the case for why Al-Shifa is a legitimate military target. And if the IDF don’t want to present the evidence they have, then what they are doing is indisputably a war crime.
OK, just clarifying.
Thousands rally across Boston and Cambridge for peace in Gaza
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators shut down city streets Sunday afternoon as they marched from the steps of the Boston Public Library across the river to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and the end of US aid to Israel.
They were military veterans, teachers, LGBTQ+ people, Jews, Muslims, Indigenous Americans, Asian Americans, and Black people. A few had green or pink hair. Some wore face masks; many were swathed in traditional patterned scarves, or keffiyeh. A few women donned Arabic dress. One man sported a President Biden mask and carried a baby doll that looked like it had been smeared in fake blood.
[…]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDp0XZsiOew](https://Hundreds rally in Boston in support of Palestinians)
Odd title, looking at the crowd, I’d guess a few thousand.
I also heard from a guy i know on-line who attended a large rally in London.
Here’s how it becomes a regional war…
And it’s not the IDF’s job to make the case to you, either. They’re not going to compromise operational security and risk the lives of its own troops just to make a political point. That’s how Hamas operates, not Israel.
That said, here’s the IDF’s own website on the matter:
Feel free not to believe them.
…oh trust me: I don’t believe a word of that. The only thing that comes close to “evidence” is a reference to 2008, which, I’m going to assume references this.
15 years ago. And not evidence of a “military installation.”
As I said: the IDF want to openly target hospitals based on 15 year-old information and “super-secret-intelligence” that they won’t share with us, that’s fine. But we get to call it what it is: A war crime.
I think everyone should visit the cite Alessan has just provided to see just how flimsy the case that Al-Shifa is a legitimate target is. Then look at the desperate pleas from Doctors Without Borders, from the World Health Organization, over the last couple of days for Israel to stop their assault.
See, this is why I’ve been avoiding this thread and others like it - it’s the frustration. Everyone knows that Hamas has its headquarters under al-Shifa hospital. It’s been common knowledge for the past 15 years. The fact that people are coming here and arguing about it… ugh. It’s like climate change all over again. I’m out.
Whether or not it’s a war crime depends on what military installations actually are underneath it, not on how strong a case the IDF makes to the public.
Whether you believe it’s a war crime depends on whether you believe their case, of course.
Fwiw, i have read what doctors without borders says. I’m a donor, and they send me updates like that.
…no.
You don’t get to make the case that a hospital is a legitimate target after you’ve laid siege, bombed it, killed and wounded people. They’ve had weeks to make the case. The UN ambassador spoke to the assembly just a few days ago and spent most of his time lambasting UN and humanitarian agencies. The very least he could have done was pulled a Colin Powell. Because the thing is: Israel’s case here is even flimsier than this.
And we aren’t just talking about Al-Shifa. 21 hospitals in Gaza are out of service. No fuel. No food. No water. No medicine. Do they all have military installations under them? Because even if they did, that still isn’t enough to make them a legitimate target. Not according to the conventions. The standard is higher than that.
I don’t say any of this lightly. Because I don’t think we should be taking any of this lightly. If you are going to lay siege to a hospital, the standard needs to be higher than “it’s been common knowledge for the past 15 years.”