In the linked article the only check the IDF was still using on the target list provided by the AI was discarding any and all targets it selected who were women, as they don't believe Hamas would use them as fighters.
> At the height of the phenomenon, Avraham Burg, former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, speaker of Israel's Knesset and interim President of Israel, stated his view that, given Israeli indifference to the tortured lives of Palestinian children under occupation, suicide bombings come as no surprise.
... Palestinians have been tortured from birth for decades. Acting surprised when they fight back is either disingenuous or stupid, or both.
As long as PA pays pension to terrorist families, UNRWA teachers teach math with "how many jews killed" and Iran and Qatar actively sponsor islamist terror, the society will remain the way it is now.
Does child soldier only mean toddlers though? I thought it was more commonly 16, 17 year olds.
Presumably recruiting 17 year olds is against international law.
But for a guerrilla fighting group that doesn't care about international law, a 17 year old is almost the ideal recruit. They can fight almost as effectively as an 18 year old can, and if they die in combat you can also claim, technically truthfully, that the enemy is deliberately targeting children.
It seems that you're claiming the only way to violate international law is to bomb all their people at once.
This is very wrong.
Targeting hospitals without clear proof of military activity is against international law. As is collective punishment, using starvation as a weapon of war, and many other things which are currently being livestreamed to the world.
If you understand a topic this poorly, why not read a little about it before 'contributing' to the discussion?
I'm convinced that there's no way to fight a war without pissing someone off.
Even more so, it's impossible to fight an _assymetric_ war without pissing a lot of people off.
> Targeting hospitals without clear proof of military activity is against international law.
What's "clear proof" is in the eye of the beholder.
> As is collective punishment, using starvation as a weapon of war
I'm actually willing to give Israel the benefit of doubt here, as they actually have no experience whatsoever in coordinating large scale aid deliveries, even if delays somewhat further their goal of punishing palestinians.
> UK government lawyers say Israel is breaking international law, claims top Tory in leaked recording
So what? Every major player on the world stage breaks international law whenever they damn well please, UK, US, Israel, China, Russia, they all do, to the point where in my eyes "x is breaking international law" is a completely worthless statement. Nobody is really going to do anything about it if you're on the right side of the new iron curtain.
This might be very cynical from me, but honestly, can you name the last time when the words “international law” carried any real weight?
It's far less complicated than you make it out to be. I'm on whichever side that doesn't deem it acceptable to deliberately kill kids by the thousand. Whatever else you type does not change that determination.
> I'm on whichever side that doesn't deem it acceptable to deliberately kill kids by the thousand.
Unfortunately, that side doesn’t exist in this world. Civilians have died in every war ever known to man. Whether they are kids or not is completely irrelevant.
Now whether the right-wing soldier who has seen his friends murdered in a music festival and has been sent in with a tank into Gaza care? Very likely less so. Does every member of this right wing government care? Likely less. However the independent court system in Israel can also enforce the various conventions Israel is a signatory to (e.g. the Geneva convention). The situation where young soldiers are in Gaza armed to the teeth fighting an enemy that blends in with civilians is the creation of Hamas.
If Israel follows international law 100% you will still see a lot dead toddlers in this kind of warfare. So just that fact doesn't prove much.
I wonder if we track this sentiment how far back it would go, I'd suspect it goes back about as far as there have been public complaints about child deaths.
You are aware you’re parroting war propaganda, right? I mean sure, this does happen in some cases I’m sure, for that matter I have seen the IDF _on video_ use Palestinians as human shields. But the entire article is about the fact that nobody is even looking if there are civilians there before dropping bombs, and 20K+ of women and children are now dead as a result.
"When people cite deaths from numbers supplied by Hamas, they are parroting terrorist propaganda."
No. Stop it. Numbers provided by the Health Ministry historically have been largely verified. The 30 000+ figure is not in question. All you have is a propaganda talking point doubting its source, not questioning methodology or providing a reasoned alternative figure. The fact Israel can't, and doesn't care enough to, provide numbers of its own IS THE PROBLEM.
Just parrot 'terrorist figures' and you have a license to continue. "Women and kids have killed" as a license to continue killing women and kids. Except you don't and this ugly tribalist brutality will never be forgotten.
When a country is run by literal terrorists, there are no figures that can be trusted. I'm not sure why that's difficult to understand. How many did Hamas themselves kill because they tried to leave an embattle area because Hamas wanted to use them as human shields?? You want to blame Israel for everything, but HAMAS IS THE PROBLEM.
Without Hamas using the entire country as a staging ground for terrorism (and continuing to do so), none of this would have happened.
"Hamas is the problem" but how then to explain increasing settler land theft, and supportive government decisions, in the West Bank where Hamas is not in charge? Who is common to both conflicts?
Keep squeezing those people and eventually Israel will have the terrorist pretext it needs to annex the West Bank entirely. Rein in the settlers and you might have some credibility. Until then this will remain an obvious war on all Palestinians.
