> “We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
Watching i24 news is a little unsettling. They run bits with interrogators announcing how productive torture has been, and make jokes about how it would be much easier if lemons just gave up their juice without being squeezed.
I've seen a few clips on Twitter, and it's some of the most disgusting footage I've ever seen in my life - torture, murder and genocide made into light entertainment for Israelis. It's just... unspeakably vile.
There are ~2M civilians who live in Gaza, and many of them don't have access to food, water, medicine, or safe shelter. Some of those unfortunates live above, or below, Hamas operatives and their families.
"Oh, sorry, lol." "It was unintentional, lmao, seriously." "Our doctrine states that we can kill X civilians for every hostile operative, so don't worry about it."
The war in Gaza is unlike Ukraine -- where Ukrainian and Russian villagers can move away from the front, either towards Russia or westwards into Galicia -- and where nobody's flattening major population centers. In Gaza, anybody can evidently be killed at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all. The Israeli "strategy" makes the Ukrainians and Russians look like paragons of restraint and civility.
The war in Gaza is unlike Ukraine because Hamas does not issue uniforms or clearly demarcate military targets.
When the US was in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda learned that the US (generally) won't shoot ambulances. So what became the most valuable vehicle to Al Qaeda? Hamas took notes, but Israel doesn't seem to care as much as the US.
Also, besides all that, once something is used for military operations, it is fair game as a military target. Regardless of civilians. When the law was written it was assumed that governments wouldn't intentionally use their civilians as protection.
This is not true you can just google Qassam brigade to see their uniform, they have a very emblematic headband.
They are hiding in tunnels though so you're not just gonna find them everywhere, Hamas does not have military equipment to be able to fight head to head with a modern military, it's just an insurgent group.
> once something is used for military operations, it is fair game as a military target.
Except you have to prove it was used for military operations, not just bomb hospitals. This is called a war crime.
They do have uniforms, they just don't use them because it's way more effective to have Schrodinger super-position civilians who are soldiers when a gun is in their hand, and innocent civilians when they drop the gun.
Also, Hamas's leaders are worth over $10 billion collectively. They can at least afford basic uniforms and spray paint to mark their vehicles. But again, they won't do it, because civilian deaths are the last piece they have left for international support. Which comes in the form of aid, which they seize, and pad their $10 billion with.
you're misunderstanding. Palestinians fighting in plain clothes are not Hamas. they are ordinary citizens fighting for their lives because they have no choice
The difference here is that when Israel does so - which is exceedingly rare - it is merely a slap on the wrist. Weeks to months in prison. Where's the deterrence in that?
Because it's Israel. It's also why no western country has ever really officially condemned Israel no matter what they do. They are on "our side" so it's okay. And those civilians kind of deserved it anyways or something, and we can just trust every single word the IDF says and use them as an actual source to pretend the IDF isn't into mass civilian murder.
The only thing that made this time a bit different is the crazy, almost hard to believe, switch from the Ukrainian conflict and how it was seen and portrayed... To western countries staying completely silent when again, it's our side doing it. Well it wasn't hard to believe but it just made it a lot more blatant.
Israel doesn't really care though since israeli officers routinely go on public tirades that amount to mask-off allusions to genocide ("wipe Gaza" "level the city to the ground" "make it unliveable"), with again 0 consequences at all. Even Russia at least tries to not have Russian military officers just say the quiet part out loud.
This is what I found the most shocking and disheartening in the first days after the October 7th massacre and the start of indiscriminate bombing of Gaza - the reaction and inaction of the West.
At the moment of the Russian invasion, so many countries banded together in supporting Ukraine, both in materiel and moral support. Russia became a pariah overnight.
It was an awful situation but it was uplifting to see how we all cared about sovereignty, peace, self-determination and the well-being of civilians.
Then civilians in Gaza started getting slaughtered and... nothing, or worse - full support of it.
The exact same freedom-loving world leaders had become mute.
I consider myself more cynical than the average person, but this still caught me off guard. Two horrible situations, two suffering peoples and such different outcomes.
As a father of a young child, it was a gut punch to see what we were suddenly trying to justify and it left me numb for days until I adjusted to the actual reality.
The reaction to the Russian invasion had little to do with the welfare of Ukrainians; it was more about political affiliations.
The selectivity of Western calls to not commit war crimes predates the response to Oct 7. Two weeks earlier, the Azerbaijani dictatorship ethnically cleansed over 100,000 people from their ancestral land. Not a peep from anyone, in fact Azerbaijan is a "reliable, trustworthy partner" according to von der Leyen: https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/statemen...
Yeah,true even Russia doesn't openly state that their goal is to level Ukraine to the ground and displace the population one way or the other.
Israel also gets away with encroaching and colonizing palestinian territory (that they don't even deny isn't theirs until they "settle" it). Again, Russia at least gets international condemnation when it does so
Russia entered into an international agreement guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (Minsk), and subsequently clearly violated it. Israel and Palestine have no such agreement, though they’ve come relatively close to making one, and both countries have repeatedly violated the other’s territorial sovereignty over the past 80 years. They’re very different cases.
Uh? Colonizing a country and land that isn't theirs inherently violates multiple international laws. A treaty isn't somehow worth more than territorial integrity
> The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members
The only consequence for them was "paying compensations" as if there was a price to put on human lives.
The example you're citing was actually investigated, and (IIRC) it was found that Hezbollah was firing mortar(s) from a position directly adjacent to the UN post. I believe that it was generally assumed that Hezbollah was using the Canadians as 'human shields'. Culpability in such situations is usually attributed to the shield-users, largely due to the consequences of attributing blame to the retaliators (i.e. encouraging further use of human shields).
Have you looked at the Wikipedia article? According to it, the UN said the Hezbollah position was 150m away from the UNIFIL Khiyam base; the Israelis claim the distance was <40m.
>"According to an interview on CBC radio and multiple print sources, retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, referring to an email he had received a few days previously from the now deceased Canadian peacekeeper Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, stated that "...what he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were (sic) targeting them and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it.""
>"UNIFIL maintained that Hezbollah fighters were not allowed into any of its bases. However, they reported more than 20 instances of rockets being fired from less than 500m from their positions, as well as a number of cases of small arms and mortar fire from within 100m. Additionally, UNIFIL reported several instances of their positions and vehicles being hit by Hezbollah mortars, small arms fire, or rockets."
So even according to your link, it's either Israel or Hezbollah. In fact, the victims seem to be just as scared by the Hezbollah than by Israel (an ally state). Now, surely you can agree that only one those two is very often condemned in the west, while the other is praised, supported, and granted a free pass for leveling a city to the ground? You're proving my original point, that Israel can act like a criminal state with 0 repercussions.
Isn’t a military person a legitimate target at the time of the war? I think it is, the issue is the collateral damage. But then again this war shows that Hamas is also not following the rules and gets too close to civilians.
