Proportionate to what? Al-Shifa was significantly stressed, no doubt. It’s in the middle of an active warzone where one side of the combatants is operating out of it. A disproportionate response by the IDF would be leveling it, regardless of it still being used as a hospital. If anything the IDF action at Al-Shifa has been rather measured from a military operation point of view. You won’t agree, of course, but that’s my opinion.
Were the military gains produced proportionate to the suffering inflicted.
With that clarification, are you saying that it doesn’t matter to you, when determining the proportionality of IDF’s response, whether Shifa was, as IDF claimed, a Hamas headquarters?
Here’s the entirety of Article 18 and 19 of the Geneva Convention:
ART. 18.— Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict. States which are Parties to a conflict shall provide all civilian hospitals with certificates showing that they are civilian hospitals and that the buildings which they occupy are not used for any purpose which would deprive these hospitals of protection in accordance with Article 19. Civilian hospitals shall be marked by means of the emblem provided for in Article 38 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12,1949,but only if so authorized by the State. The Parties to the conflict shall, in so far as military considerations permit, take the necessary steps to make the distinctive emblems indicating civilian hospitals clearly visible to the enemy land, air and naval forces in order to obviate the possibility of any hostile action. In view of the dangers to which hospitals may be exposed by being close to military objectives, it is recommended that such hospitals be situated as far as possible from such objectives.
ART.19.— The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties,acts harmful to the enemy.Protection may, however,cease only after due warning has been given,naming,in all appropriate cases,a reasonable time limit,and after such warning has remained unheeded. The fact that sick or wounded members ofthe armed forces are nursed in these hospitals, or the presence of small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet handed to the proper service,shall not be considered to be acts harmful to the enemy.
There’s nothing there about how proportionate a military response needs to be. Granted, a case could be made that the small arms found there were taken from wounded soldiers being treated at the hospitals and they hadn’t had a chance to return them to Hamas, if it wasn’t for the fact that the IDF and Hamas had been engaged in active combat AT the hospital grounds.
Thanks, Dorjan.
A vehicle identified as having been intended for use in the Oct 7th attack and a large amount of weapons have been unveiled on the grounds of Al-Shifa:
https://videoidf.azureedge.net/d47c315b-4811-4b2f-addd-5fcdf98a5a89
Are you familiar with the Greenbrier? It’s a resort/Hotel that has existed since 1778. In the 20th century, the US managed to build a huge bunker complex underneath it, operating in plain sight. They built 112,000 square feet of bunkers, 720 feet below the surface. 18 rooms, a cafeteria for 400, beds for 60. Construction took 7 years. The whole thing was accessible through a door in tye Greenbrier marked “Danger - High Voltage”.
Despite hundreds of people constantly coming and going, it remained completely secret for 30 years until 1992 when a reporter leaked its existence.
I have no problem believing that Hamas has built bunkers and other facilities under hospitals and schools.
1913 was when it was constructed by the C&O Railway.
And if they could afford that swell of a bunker, they’d do better for rockets than water pipes, fertilizer and sugar
I was going by the Greenbrier website, which says it has been there since 1778. Perhaps a new hotel was built on the site in 1913?
It’s not a matter of money. The Palestinian leadership has siphoned billions off of international aid, and billions flow into Gaza every year. The problem is getting hands on restricted materials and in hiding the extent of weapons manufacture. So instead of commissiining an order for 1,000 rocket bodies, they order 5,000 ft of piping for ‘humanitarian’ purposes, and the various NGOs or governments cough it up.
But those missiles aren’t all that primitive. You don’t need complex rockets to fire a few dozen miles. And pipes of a certain diameter make fine rocket bodies. We’ve seen those Palestinian rockets be quite effective. They are especially useful for burning up Iron Dome rockets at $40,000 each. When a $200 rocket forces the expenditure of a $40,000 defensive rocket, the cheap rocket wins.
At some point, Israel could run out of Iron Dome rockets, at which point they become completely vulnerable to the estimated 100,000 to 150,000 rockets Hezbollah has sitting near the northern border.
Some people are supporting Hamas or the Palestinians because of their tendency to see the world as oppressors vs oppressed, colonizers vs the colonized, which gives them an automatic affinity for the Palestinians. But Israel is not a superpower, and it is made up of people who have been among the most oppressed in history. And they aren’t fighting an optional war against a weak enemy, they are fighting for their very existence. They are surrounded by enemies with hundreds of thousands of rockets pointed at them and a stated intention to kill them all.
If Hamas forces Israel to expend too many of their Iron Dome and Patriot missiles, Hezbollah could then launch wave after wave of missiles at Israeli population centers. Some of those missiles, like the Fateh series, can carry 500kg warheads and cluster munitions design for maximum human casualties. Israel doesn’t have the luxury of prolonging the conflict.
Don’t forget “white” vs. “brown people”. (Never mind how many Israelis are quite dark-complexioned, to the types of supporters you mention above, all Jews are as white as WASPs.)
Okay–but what’s theoretically possible isn’t really in question here. What’s in question is what evidence there is. Most specifically, what evidence comes out soon.
It’s been more than 24 hours since the IDF stormed the hospital. The paucity of evidence so far is staggering, and making me really rethink what I wrote earlier. Is this a second failure of IDF intelligence, leading to tremendous loss of life?
A hostage, Yehudit Weiss, a resident of kibbutz Be’eri was recovered near the hospital. Somehow she got separated from the others.
A autopsy should indicate her approximate time of death.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/16/middleeast/israeli-hostage-yehudit-weiss-shifa-gaza-intl/index.html
IDF released video apparently showing a tunnel in the hospital complex.
N/M wrong thread
Jordan has arguably “stepped up” more than anyone else in the region, to the point that 1/5 of their population is made up of people displaced since 1948. They also have naturalized almost all of them, unlike some nations which have not given citizenship to families that, in some cases, have lived 3 or 4 generations in their territory and remained stateless.
Compare this to other Arab countries, many of which have done essentially nothing except provide lip service to the Palestinian cause.
The Guardian is not impressed with the evidence so far from al-Shifa hospital.
The evidence produced so far falls well short of that. IDF videos have shown only modest collections of small arms, mostly assault rifles, recovered from the extensive medical complex.
That suggests an armed presence, but not the sort of elaborate nerve centre depicted in animated graphics presented to the media before al-Shifa was seized, portraying a network of well-equipped subterranean chambers.
And apparently the IDF isn’t being honest about what they’re finding.
Even the videos produced so far have raised questions under scrutiny. A BBC analysis found the footage of an IDF spokesperson showing the apparent discovery of a bag containing a gun behind an MRI scanning machine, had been taped hours before the arrival of the journalists to whom he was supposedly showing it.
In a video shown later, the number of guns in the bag had doubled. The IDF claimed its video of what it found at the hospital was unedited, filmed in a single take, but the BBC analysis found it had been edited.
I’ve wondered about the practicality of a tunnel under a huge multi-story structure?
The tunnel could be engineered first and the foundation designed with support above the tunnel.
I don’t think Hamas had that opportunity. It’s my understanding the tunnels went under the old buildings and streets.
I wouldn’t want to start digging under the foundation of a multi-story hospital. That’s a lot of weight and who knows how well that structure was constructed.
the absence of “See, we told you that this is the HQ and here are 100s of pics from all angles of the 1000s of weapons we found” news, speaks quite loudly, I must admit.
Gee, it sucks when the “military intelligence” turns out to be a bust.
Bush administration: Whoops! Turns out there weren’t WMD’s in Iraq after all.
Putin’s Russia: Whoops! Turns out there weren’t hordes of Ukrainians wanting to become part of Russia
Netanyahu’s Israel: Whoops! Turns out Hamas wasn’t under this building after all. Or this building. Or this building…
One of my takeaways: Mossad’s reputation is overblown.
There should be immense pressure on Netanyahu to pivot immediately to humanitarian support.