The root of what problem? Without settlers, you don’t have an apartheid-like system.
~Max
So we’re in agreement that “apartheid” isn’t the cause of the problems between Israel and Palestine, then.
It is a cause. Certainly an obstacle to a stable Palestinian democracy, which itself is a requirement for self-determination imposed by Israel and the United States.
~Max
And yet, removing the “apartheid” did not bring about a stable democracy in Gaza.
Single gunshots to head or chest, often without any other injuries. Dispoprtionately so. Eyewitness accounts of children shot while standing, walking, or fleeing.
Snipers.
Yes, you’re going to see dead bodies with a single shot to the chest or head, because those are the shots most likely to be lethal. It doesn’t prove anything about who fired the shot, or why, or whether it was aimed or they just caught a stray. This is just inverted survivorship bias.
Did I say it was just bodies? This is also the pattern on injured, not killed, children too, as the BBC and UN investigations show.
The IDF uses snipers. We know this. IDF soldiers have admitted they were ordered to target civilians. “Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes… Shoot to kill.” We know this. Denial is pointless.
There are injured children walking around with a single sniper wound to the head?
…that document is from 2014 and is specifically regarding rules of engagement in an exclusion zone where civilians of any sort are not supposed to be.
What were the instructions regarding [Palestinians] who return?
The instructions were to open fire. They said, “No one is supposed to be in the area in which you will be.”
During the ceasefire as well?
No, after the ceasefire. There was the first ceasefire that collapsed – I don’t remember anymore, there were lots of ceasefires. But after the first one there was that danger and we asked, “Will the civilian population return? What will the situation look like now when we go in [to the Gaza Strip] again?” And they said, “You aren’t supposed to encounter the civilian population, no one is supposed to be in the area in which you’ll be. Which means that anyone you do run into is [to be regarded as] a terrorist.”
What was the commanders’ response?
A typical officer’s response was, “It’s a complicated situation, I realize a situation might arise in which innocent people get killed, but you cannot take that risk or put your comrades at risk, you must shoot without hesitation.” The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes – shoot to kill.
You’re just being disingenuous by claiming it evidences a general order to kill children post-10/7.
I’m saying the IDF hasn’t changed. Are you alleging they somehow got more solicitous of Gazan civilians after October 7th? Because i could use a good laugh.
I’m saying you’re misrepresenting a situation where soldiers had legitimate cause to believe any person they encountered was hostile as an order to deliberately snipe at children.
Where did I say an order was given to deliberately murder children?
Orders were given to treat everyone as hostile (and I mean also in the current conflict, Breaking the Silence still actively collects testimonies like this one), and the consequence is that children are sniped. You don’t have to order your snipers to specifically target children for that to be an entirely expected outcome. When you phrase it as “you don’t have to shoot kids”, the “wink, wink” is already implied.
And “legitimately” is in the eye of the genocidaires, there.
Of course not. Regardless, unequal treatment of settlers and Palestinians in territories under Israeli military occupation was and still remains a cause of problems between Israel and Palestinians, a cause of Palestinian terrorism, an obstacle to a stable Palestinian democracy, and an obstacle to Palestinian self-determination. I am not making the connection between this and the any defense of the apartheid-like system Israel enforces in occupied territories.
~Max
Would it help if I wrote, “The best defense would not assign a subjugated people collective blame for moral atrocities against its oppressors, nor widespread support of the same as part of a broader rebellion”?
~Max
Ahem.
Because they were in an exclusion zone which had been fully evacuated and where NO CIVILIANS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE. The population were under strict orders not to enter that area. Anyone entering the area is deliberately flouting orders and can be assumed to be hostile.
The person being interviewed wasn’t even a sniper! They were a field engineer.
Any unauthorized person in an MEZ is by definition not an innocent civilian.
Where did I say anything about “orders”?
MEZs are not a recognized category that creates new targeting rights under international humanitarian law.
I edited post #233.
~Max
Hamas waived their rights under international humanitarian law on 10/7.
Oh, so they just all spontaneously knew that they were supposed to deliberately execute children and did so on their own volition and suffered no consequences for engaging in unauthorized actions. Got it.
Okay, but even granting that Hamas waived its own combatants’ rights under international humanitarian law, for the sake of argument, I don’t see the connection to the rights of noncombatant children or the best defense of apartheid-like systems Israel enforces in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or in Gaza pre-Hamas takeover in 2006.
~Max
If the Gazan people reject the actions Hamas is undertaking in their name then I encourage them to rebel against their actual oppressors and not the people trying to defend themselves.
The military exclusion stuff goes way beyond Hamas. There are military roadblocks around, e.g., Jericho. Whatever the official rationale, the net result is that actual residents of the area keep getting screwed.