- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
Biden said this was a line Israel should not cross.
I look forward to his ignoring this and sending more weapons, and ordering the US military to fly more drones over Gaza.
Is Hamas not the slightest bit culpable for using a hospital to stage militant operations? I think they are.
Is it not a brazen war crime to use the sick and injured as a human shield? In fact, it is.Hamas militants should be nowhere near any hospital, school, place of worship, or other place where civilians and noncombatants may be gathering. To use places like this as a base of operations is both cowardly and completely against international norms and laws. The IDF would have zero justification for any military operation at Al Shifa Hospital had Hamas not made the horrible decision to use it, and the suffering people within it, as a shield. Hamas are not ignorant and they know that by using the hospital as a strategic location they are putting a target on it, so why would they do it?
For context:
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Optional Protocols of 1977 (the main treaties of International Humanitarian Law – IHL) set a range of minimum standards for the conduct of hostilities. They are based upon the fundamental principle of distinction between civilians and other protected persons, on the one hand, and those who take part in hostilities (combatants for short).
The term “civilian” refers to individuals or objects (e.g., premises) that do not have a direct role in hostilities (See Rule 5 and Rule 9 of the Study on customary international law by the International Committee of the Red Cross – ICRC). An attack against a civilian person or object is therefore generally a violation of IHL and may constitute a war crime. A person or object can however lose its civilian status if it starts making an effective contribution to military action. It would then become a legitimate military objective (and hence a target) (See Rule 10 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC). This determination must however be unequivocal: when in doubt as to whether a school or hospital has become a military objective, there is a presumption that it retains its civilian status.
Even attacks against legitimate military targets must, however, follow two additional principles: 1) the principle of proportionality – whereby an attack that would cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited (See Rule 14 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC) – and 2) the principle of precaution in attack – which states that constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects (See Rule 15 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC).
Hamas 100% wants to provoke IDF killings of Palestinian civilians. This is not a shock, this is how modern guerrilla/terrorist/resistance wars work (pick your adjective).
The Vietnamese resistance under Ho Chi Minh were the most masterful recent practitioners, but the IRA, LTTE, etc also deployed this.
Israel is playing into Hamas’s hands and will get about as much benefit (reputationally and politically) from killing Gazans and razing their homes as the US did in Vietnam.
No one here at all says that. What people are saying is that those in the hospital should not have to pay for Israeli shit or for Hamas shit just the same
Obviously I agree with that. I think all sane and reasonable people agree with that.
At the very least, civilians should have somewhere to go to escape from the fighting, and the sick and injured especially should be able to seek treatment in peace.
Make no mistake though: if Hamas really have been using this hospital as a strategic location for keeping hostages or other militant activity (so far the publicly available evidence suggests that they have been, though, you know, fog of war and all that), then what they are doing is cowardly, shameful, harmful and criminal, as they would be knowingly putting patients in harms way by essentially inviting proportionate counter-operations on the hospital from the IDF.
Is Hamas not the slightest bit culpable for using a hospital to stage militant operations?
Sure, but the difference is that that the IDF is actively murdering with weapons that we are giving them.
Also, if Hamas is subject to the Geneva convention then they are a legitimate state authority. Are you sure you want to take that position? Because it means that literally everything that Israel is doing in Hamas is a war crime.
Relevant bit of information:
“Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told CNN the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity.”
The U.S. said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions.”
Yeah… and there were WMDs in Iraq.
I guess its true then. US and Isreal never lies…
Good thing Hamas only tells the truth! /s
Just to be clear: your reasoning here is that if a murderer hides out in an American hospital its totally legitimate just to blow it the fuck up to get at him, right?
No, that is not what I said and not what I believe.
Hospital based Hamas “command centers” are starting to feel like “al Qaeda second in command”. Seems like they are magnetically attracted to ends of American ordinance.
Al Jazeera cut the feed to a journalist interviewing a man in the hospital who complained about Hamas using it as a base
It’s not like this hasn’t been reported before. It’s sort of an open secret.
Even if Hamas has a command center underneath the hospital, it doesn’t justify killing civilians inside the hospital.
Edit: clarification of my point
Probably why they are going in on foot instead of bombing.
Yet civilians are getting killed by sniper fire.
So what’s the Alternative?
Hamas made the hospital into a legitimate target in a war by using it like that.
Can’t evacuate, can’t bomb, can’t go in on foot - why are people always saying what they don’t want but never what the Alternative is?
Should Hamas be rewarded for using their most vulnerable civilians as a shield like this?
well everyone was saying Israel needed to go in on foot until they did then they said they can’t do that either.
Yeah that’s what I say. They just want Israel to roll over and do nothing even though they are the ones that were attacked.
Bunch of morons just want Israel to stop murdering people.
Look, setting aside the whole human shields argument; that’s wholly irrelevant here. We’re talking sniper fire. Like the one where you take aim, go “I have a clear shot” and shoot. The idea of “there are Hamas operatives in this building so it’s okay” only works (I mean it doesn’t but if you assume it does) when you can’t choose your targets; a soldier holding a sniper and taking individual shots isn’t that.
I’m not sure that IDF snipers even know how to shoot anything that isn’t a Palestinian civilian.
So what’s the Alternative?
Not murdering civilians?
So what’s the Alternative?
Not shooting children in the face. Is that REALLY hard for you to understand?
Hamas made the hospital into a legitimate target in a war by using it like that.
Oh? Is Hamas a legitimate state authority now? Doesn’t that make the IDF actions a war crime then? I thought they were TERRORISTS which means that this is an enforcement response, not an invasion. You don’t get it both ways. Either Hamas are the state of Palestine or they aren’t, and they can’t make anything a “legitimate target”.
Can’t evacuate, can’t bomb, can’t go in on foot
They can leave…
Should Hamas be rewarded for using their most vulnerable civilians as a shield like this?
Weird argument given that the presence of civilians isn’t slowing down the IDF at all. In fact they seem to have a ton of practice at killing civilians in Palestine. Not very good shields are they?
Since we are proposing questions here, I have one for you:
Where are civilians in Palestine supposed to go? You seem to think that its OK to slaughter them like pigs for going to a hospital. Where should the IDF NOT be allowed to butcher Palestinian children? Seriously, tell me one place that if an IDF bomb blows a bunch of people apart its a bad thing. Is there ONE SQUARE INCH of Gaza in which the IDF is not allowed to shoot a civilian in the face?
Nor did they kill civilians inside the hospital.
While we can’t 100% say they don’t have a command center underneath the hospital, Israel’s evidence so far has been fabricated. The video claims a random calendar is a guard shift list, for example.
Edit: Typo.
To be fair, the HM has said it’s a regular hospital shift calendar but hasn’t been able to explain why it starts on 10/7 and is titled with Hamas’ name for the attack. And it’s kind of hard to think of a valid reason, especially when considering all the other evidence along with it.
That’s even worse
Asymmetrical warfare relies on keeping a civilian population between you and your enemy.
At this point I think we can safely conclude that Hamas doesn’t care if Israel collectively punishes Palestinian civilians any more than Israel cares when Hamas lobs rockets at Israeli civilians - that is, they don’t like it when it happens, but it happening will in no way persuade them to stop.
Logically, it’s an impasse, the consequence of which will be the eventual extermination of the Palestinians- an outcome that Bibi seems not to be bothered by at all
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Less than an hour earlier, around 1 a.m. local time (2300 GMT), a Gaza health ministry spokesman said Israel had told officials in the enclave that it would raid the Shifa hospital complex “in the coming minutes.”
The fate of Al Shifa has become a focus of international alarm because of worsening conditions in the facility in recent days with global calls for a humanitarian ceasefire after five weeks of an Israeli assault on Gaza.
The military added: “The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.”
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told CNN the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity.”
Palestinians trapped in the hospital dug a mass grave on Tuesday to bury patients who died and no plan was in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators, Ashraf Al-Qidra, Gaza’s health ministry spokesman, said.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said in an Oct. 30 statement on attacks on protected sites such as hospitals that Israel would also “need to demonstrate the proper application of the principles of distinction, precaution and of proportionality”.
The original article contains 956 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Perhaps 1 baby step ahead of just blowing the hospital to pieces. But I’m going to watch for if they find even some of which they claimed was there.
Already located weapons and killed Hamas combatants in firefights inside the hospital grounds.
I suspect the main goal is to forcefully evacuate any remaining able bodied civilians and begin moving patients and medical staff south. Israeli reports already state that incubators were brought in.
I sure hope it’s safe wherever the patients and medical staff are being evacuated…
Israeli troops found weapons and “terror infrastructure” during an ongoing raid within Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
He did not spell out what had been found or provide any visual evidence, but said this would be presented later.
Yeah. So we’re going to have to take the IDF’s word for it on the weapons part.
Probably to hospitals in the southern Gaza strip. Not as safe as evacuating them to Ashkelon, but it’s highly doubtful Israel will allow any Gazans to seek medical care inside Israel for a few years at least.
I haven’t seen any image or video evidence of weapons yet. That will likely show up in a few days. The talking heads sometimes let things slip past the censors, and they’ve been hinting at something big. Not hostages big, but extremely clear evidence. They are saying that they’ve located tunnel entrances, including several that Hamas attempted to seal up and hide in the last few days.
What, do they think the doctors are Hamas or something?
theres offices and tunnels under a lot of the hospitals. either people arent paying attention or their purposely ignoring facts
either people arent paying attention or their purposely ignoring facts
The third option is that Israel is lying.
I have been paying attention to the IDF propaganda that all get debunked within a day. Are you talking about the elevator shaft in a building 200meter from one hospital?
Hamas had accepted to send an independent journalist to check out the hospital and this was refused by israel. That alone tells you all you need to know
or they dont want the press to get hurt where the fighting is happening
Yeah that’s probably why israel has killed over 40 journalists so far by bombing them.
Oh wait those were Palestinian press so that’s fine right?
You have many Israeli politicians declaring all of Gaza to be Hamas.
Correct. And that’s not a joke they legit claim doctors and paramedics are hamas.
They even edited some Mein Kampf book with Arab letters pasted on the front and called all the children Hamas. Every Palestinian is Hamas twice over.
Israel defines Hamas as the Gazan government. That’s why they recently blew up a government building.
To date, the Hamas government is only economically bonded with the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Authority, performing the governing over the Gaza Strip independently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_of_the_Gaza_Strip
Yes, but are you just sharing this piece of information or some kind of conclusion from it?
is this false? :o
Oh no forgive me it was a DIFFERENT government building! Lmfao
oh you westener~ what government do you think is in control of gaza?
Westerner? How many assumptions are you making about me?
Oh wait yeah you are trolling, I see. Otherwise why would you come up with crap? Have a nice day 😊