JERUSALEM (AP) — The head of surgery at Gaza’s largest and most advanced hospital held up his phone Saturday to the hammering of gunfire and artillery shelling. “Listen,” said Dr. Marwan Abu Sada as fighting raged around Shifa Hospital.
Kinda similar to the “human shields” argument. When I read comics growing up, when a villain takes a hostage the answer was never “kill the hostage” except for the edgiest of antiheroes, yet here we are with “human shields” being used as a justification to kill civilians. It’s fucking wild.
This exactly is my main gripe with how Israel is conducting this war. They’re completely unwilling to take any additional risk to preserve civilian life.
It’s not just in “this war”, they weren’t giving a shit about Palestinian civilians for decades.
Not like they care about any non Israelis in the area. Especially if they are press
They don’t care about Israelis either! They’ve killed a bunch of the hostages, and there was friendly fire at the music festival.
That’s why concluded that the Israeli leadership at the moment are full-blown Fascists: their treatment of people who they see as “not us” as subhuman and the style and intensity of their propaganda entirelly anchored on blaming the victim and them providing a variety of unverifiable excuses for their own killings which are even inconsistent amongst each other (often the excuses for different bombings have inconsistent criteria, which means they’re to a large extent arbitrary or the excuses are being made up after the fact and hence false) are quite the throwback to quite a style of Fascism which is almost a century old and manage to exceed just about everybody since WWII.
Even Russia in its invasion of Ukraine did not get this close to the historical worse kinds of Fascism, probably because the Russians are nowhere as racist towards Ukranians as Israelis are towards Arabs, especially Palestinians.
this war
You mean “this genocide”. They don’t see civilians, they see targets for extermination.
Well, the US has shown that they couldn’t fight an insurgency with their level of protections for civilians.
Makes sense that Israel assesses that they have less resources than the US, and thus can’t fight the same way and have a hope of success.Of course they could have used that as a pretty good reason not to start this war in the first placez but alas, they didn’t.
Israel stated this war, at a minimum, 17 years ago. Blockades are an act of war.
What argument are you making here? Your first paragraph implies you believe that Isreal is justified in it’s approach based on the US’s failed conflicts with Guerilla warfare. But then your second paragraph implies that Isreal is not justified for exactly that reason, which is like… Yeah… That’s correct lol.
I feel like it shouldn’t be a controversial opinion to say that if you are unable to conduct a war without massive civilian casualties then you shouldn’t be conducting that war. If you do anyway you are, at the very best, a war criminal.
This is, actually, an absurd opinion. Massive civilian casualties are inseparable from war, and you will be hard pressed to find a war without them.
The laws of war are built around, and exist because of, this assumption. They exist to give a framework that sets forth principles by which the loss of life can be evaluated.
Otherwise, by your definition, every warring faction ever is a war criminal.
Wow, that is an insanely obtuse interpretation of what I said.
Of course there are always civilian casualties In war. Of course that is why war crimes exist in the first place.
“Massive” literally means “Large in comparison to what is typical”. So when I say massive civilian cassualties forgive me for assuming you’d understand I was using that word for it’s intended purpose.
Bombing a hospital full of civilians is absolutely a war crime.
Makes sense that Israel assesses that they have less resources than the US, and thus can’t fight the same way and have a hope of success.
Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the region, with 500,000 troops, a $20 billion dollar budget, and shared tech with the US. They have no external bases to maintain. They’re terrorists who live at the border in 140 square miles with roads Israel designed to allow their tanks easy access.
In the first week of this genocide, Israel dropped more bombs than the US did during the entire Afghanistan war. On one of the most population dense regions in the world.
But further, Israel immediately cut power and water to Gaza. 2 million people went without water and electricity to attack how many Hamas terrorists?
And let’s be clear, this all happened because IDF forces were busy in the West Bank evicting Palestinians from their homes for settlers leaving the Gaza border unguarded.
The US absolutely fought an insurgency. They just figured out they needed local support. They got it in Iraq, they didn’t get it in Afghanistan.
That’s Israel’s biggest problem here. They’ve spent the last several decades making Palestinians hate them. So there is no possible way for them to destroy Hamas.
I wonder if a lot of people’s idea of war has been shaped by the recent American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, which were wars of choice where at least in theory American soldiers were fighting largely for the benefit of the natives. Countries that believe they actually need to win and don’t have the option of just giving up and going home fight wars in a very different way. Consider for example World War II, the proverbial “good versus evil” war fought by the generation that originally came up with the comic book characters you read about. The Allies certainly didn’t hesitate to kill enormous numbers of Axis civilians in the course of destroying military targets. (IMO the Allies actually went way too far and a lot of the strategic bombing of Germany and Japan served no military purpose, but I suppose they were more worried about bombing too little than they were about bombing too much.)
If you kill hospitals, you kill a generation.
Because that’s where the Palestinians are, and this is a genocide.
Because Israel is committing war crimes. Because Israel has stated, unequivocally, that Palestinians are animals and must be scourged off the face of the earth.
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Oh, Hamas is airstriking hospitals and refugee camps too? No? They’re not? Only Israel is doing that?
Why wouldn’t this genocide be blamed on the ones committing it? Use your head.
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Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime.
And before you bring up human shields, the only ones to do so were the Israelis in operation Cast Lead. Read up on it of you don’t know. If you do and still say this, then you’re a genocidaire and I don’t give a shit what you say.
I’m reading through the Wikipedia article and don’t see anything about the Israelis using human shields. Part of it mentions Hamas using human shields, hiding under hospitals, keeping weapons in houses or mosques, etc.
Can you help narrow it down for me which part you’re talking about?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde150152009en.pdf
Page 48.
Israel does a good job of making the world forget their actions.
According to testimonies, in several cases Israeli forces also forced unarmed Palestinian civilian males (mostly adults but in two cases also children) to serve as “human shields”, including making them walk in front of armed soldiers; go into buildings to check for booby traps or gunmen; and inspect suspicious objects for explosives. These practices are not new. Numerous such cases have been documented in recent years and the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that such practices contradict International law and prohibited them in October 2005.73
Thanks!
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Can you please reread what you just said? You’re saying it’s okay to kill children and innocent people in order to kill someone else you actually want to kill?
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Hamas isn’t forcing Israel to commit war crimes.
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lol, Israel doesn’t “have to” do anything.
Could you cite that law for me? Because last I checked there is no such law forcing Isreal to shoot back, school or otherwise.
Intentionally bombing civilians is a war crime. I don’t care how many of your “intended targets” you think you’re getting. If you are bombing civilian centers, like, oh let’s say a hospital for instance, then you are a war criminal, Full stop. There is nothing forcing Isreal to do that.
So, if Hamas hid in a Israeli hospital would it be justifiable to bomb it?
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Operation Cast lead.
You really think using human shields is really a good excuse to bomb hospitals. “they’re using hostages! Quick teach those hostages a goddamn guided 2000lb lesson!”
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Get the fuck out of here justifying genocide.
Never again was for everyone.
Look hamas killing “millions” is unlikely given they haven’t topped 5000.
Coolio. So lemme grab your kids take them hostage and you can tell me again that murdering me and your children is the only solution to hostage situation.
There is clear evidence that at least some hospitals were alleged to be Hamas operation centers but in fact were not. But even if they were operation centers, would you still think it’s justified? How many Hamas members are worth how many “accidental” deaths of hospital staff and patients? Who would even dream of making such a formula? It’s sick.
The issue at hand is about hospitals being destroyed, not about the Israel-Palestine conflict on the whole. Please save your “no side is right” language for an issue where that actually applies.
Would you say the same thing is the US was the one shelling hospitals?
Operation cast lead.
Every accusation is a confession.
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This is true in general, but this time they’re literally in Israel’s crosshairs. These people are dying to sniper fire.
Source?
Ya, fair request. Not that the end result would be any worse than bombing, etc. But that would be the first report of sniper fire on civilians, afaik.
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Here you go
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8phw94
Rockets literally stored 1m from the doorstep of a class room
What a terrible headline. If APNews thinks it’s a war crime, it has a duty to say so. You can’t just write a headline like this without drawing the obvious inference.
Does that headline not read war crime to you somehow?
It is written in the passive. That’s intentional; it’s a classic approach that writers use to dodge the issue. It’s not OK and we shouldn’t excuse it.
Well it’s kind of open to interpretation, which may be why they didn’t want to directly say that, just imply it.
Article 19 of the Geneva convention:
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.
Now are firing qassam rockets “harmful to the enemy”? Probably.
Has due warning been given? Maybe? It’s not well defined what that means. Does roof knocking count? Do you need to submit a form to their embassy?
I think the big problem is that the kind of warfare we are seeing here is unlike what they saw when they wrote those laws.
Given most people aren’t reading the article, the particularly relevant points:
International humanitarian law lends hospitals special protections during war. But hospitals can lose their protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. […]
In an editorial published Friday in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan issued a warning to combatants that the burden of proof is on them if they claim hospitals, schools or houses of worship have lost their protected status because they are being used for military purposes. And the bar for evidence is very high.
“If there is a doubt that a civilian object has lost its protective status, the attacker must assume that it is protected,” Khan wrote. “The burden of demonstrating that this protective status is lost rests with those who fire the gun, the missile, or the rocket in question.”
TL;DR: If Hamas is conducting military operations from hospitals, they can be legitimate targets in the eyes of international law, but precautions still need to be taken to avoid civilian casualties and the case for their military use should be overwhelming, not amorphous or tenuous.
So just shouting, “They’re coming right for us!” Isn’t enough?
I’m shocked.
Because Israel is trying to genocide.
They don’t care about Hamas, they just want Palestine gone.
That doesn’t explain why the rest of the world is ok with it.
We aren’t. But anyone that voices an opinion against Israel in my country is labeled an anti-Semite, so people stay quiet.
Also Putin is doing the same, global out rage, no one really stepped in due to politics
Because if you don’t support genocide you are an antisemite, and only one of those can destroy your political aspirations (hint, it isn’t supporting genocide).
Most civilians aren’t but they’ve found out in 3 weeks time that they live all live in pretend democracies and not real ones. Mask off we’re the Russia now.
Ever seen an oil tanker turn? That is the the way the world works with Israel slowly and not quick to judge. The rest of us though have had enough, fuck Israel and no funding of them whatsoever.
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Netanyahu doesn’t give a duck.
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Oh, well if bad people did bad thing, that definitely justifies bombing civilians, which totally isn’t a war crime.
Crazy thought, why don’t we just not bomb hospitals? Anyone?
Or how to make people hate you more than Hamas, a book by the IDF.
And if rockets and other weapons really are being fired from hospitals? What do you do then?
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That’s up to them to figure out how to do it with the least amount of civilian casualty then. Moot point anyway considering nothing has come out with overwhelming proof of Hamas using the hospital as cover.
We already know Hamas is in that hospital and have fired at least one anti-tank rocket out of it.
There’s also the time Islamic Jihadists fired missiles from right next to a different hospital.
Hamas has always used civilian infrastructure to attack from, it’s their MO. They want Palestinian civilians to get killed by Israel.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
JERUSALEM (AP) — The head of surgery at Gaza’s largest and most advanced hospital held up his phone Saturday to the hammering of gunfire and artillery shelling.
“It was the thing we somehow told ourselves wouldn’t happen,” he said, speaking by phone from the central city of Deir al-Balah, where he arrived by foot Friday after escaping what he said were strikes on the hospital with tens of thousands of others.
“It’s to say, ‘Not only will we kill and wound you, we will ensure you have nowhere to go to be treated,’” said Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British Palestinian surgeon working for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza City.
Nonetheless, there must be plenty of warning before attacks to allow for the safe evacuation of patients and medical workers, ICRC legal officer Cordula Droege said.
Even if Israel succeeds in proving Shifa conceals a Hamas command center, the tenets of international law remain in place, said Jessica Wolfendale, expert in military ethics at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
In an editorial published Friday in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan issued a warning to combatants that the burden of proof is on them if they claim hospitals, schools or houses of worship have lost their protected status because they are being used for military purposes.
The original article contains 1,155 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Rules apply only to peasants
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Hamas hasn’t been bombing hospitals. I’m not sure why you think it’s okay for Israel to do that.
From the ISW report today: Israeli forces fought Palestinian militia fighters near the Square of the Unknown Soldier less than half a kilometer from the al Shifa Hospital complex.[1] A Palestinian journalist reported that the al Qassem Brigades—the military wing of Hamas—ambushed Israeli forces south of the Square of the Unknown Soldier on Shuhada Street.[2] Other Palestinian militia fighters fought Israeli forces on Omar Mukhtar Street, which bounds the square.[3]
If you build your defense in urban environment you are supposed to evacuate the civilians. This is standard for any half competent army.
If you build your defense in urban environment you are supposed to evacuate the civilians. This is standard for any half competent army.
To where? Gaza is small enough as is, and the whole strip is being bombed by Israel.
Also, Hamas isn’t an army; they’re a resistance force. Gaza doesn’t have a proper army, which is why they have to resort to asymmetrical warfare.
Away from Gaza City were they currently focus their defensive efforts.
They have a structure and recognition marks, they fall under the Geneva convention as lawful combatants.
Asymmetrical warfare does not allow you to use perfidy and abuse of a protected status.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places in Earth.
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explain
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I do not think 10,000+ dead is >trying to minimize civilian casualties
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If they actually did that the entirety of West Asia and North Africa would attack them and all their allies would abandon them.
So actually, no, Israel doesn’t have that capability.
You seem to have a different understanding of capability than I do. They could do it, so they have the capability, but that says nothing about the consequences.
No, they would be dogpiled as they did it. They wouldn’t be able to finish the job before the whole world ate them alive.
Hamas killed around 1100 israelis on Oct 7.
Israel killed at least 122 of the 1200 themselves. Most likely more
350 of the israelis killed were IDF
This mean the civilian casualty rate was around 70%. On Oct 7.
Hamas has a far better civilian casualty rate than America which goes around 80-90 while committing their supposed genocide attack. This is not an accident you can realize by blind firing into civilian areas.
Purely from these numbers we can conclude in ACTIONS not words that Hamas takes decent care to avoid civilian deaths even when attacking. Far better than israel which just bombs everything that moves.
Israel uses human shields. Operation Cast lead is what human shields looks like.
Stop justifying war crime in defense of an apartheid ethno state trying to commit genocide.
That was 15 years ago, and I see absolutely no mention of Israeli human shields anywhere regarding Cast Lead.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde150152009en.pdf
Page 48.
Israel does a good job of making the world forget their actions.
According to testimonies, in several cases Israeli forces also forced unarmed Palestinian civilian males (mostly adults but in two cases also children) to serve as “human shields”, including making them walk in front of armed soldiers; go into buildings to check for booby traps or gunmen; and inspect suspicious objects for explosives. These practices are not new. Numerous such cases have been documented in recent years and the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that such practices contradict International law and prohibited them in October 2005.73
