To be clear, staging militant attacks from a hospital is a war crime.
To make matters worse, it opens up the likelihood and justification of counter-attacks against that hospital and the people in it.According to international humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. The rule has few exceptions.
Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an “act harmful to the enemy”.
Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.
Source: The International Committee of the Red Cross
Nobody should beat around the bush here. Hamas are using injured civilians as a human shield to stage attacks, and in doing so they are inviting retaliation and suffering under well-establish terms of international law. There’s not really any particular gray area here. It’s horrible, it’s unethical, it’s criminal, and it’s just plain wrong.
This is the thing that pissed me off - the organization that has a humanitarian symbol so strong you can be legally held accountable for using it in a way that lessens its importance acknowledges that attacking a hospital being used as a military bases is a legal part of war. Meanwhile there are people whos education doesn’t pass high-school screaming that this isn’t legal, or its incorrect, or blaming the aggressor instead of those deliberately putting civilian lives at risk by blatantly ignoring intl rules of conflict.
If you want to throw in your argument against the red cross, spend your life and billions of dollars helping humanitarian issues world wide and then you might have some authority on the matter.
This is modern warfare. War is horrific, innocents get killed, people suffer. We put rules in place to lessen the effects on the innocent and those who circumvent those rules to try make the others look bad need to be removed in the quickest and most efficient way we can - as soon as one group gets away with ignoring the intl rules, everyone can.
I don’t think any intellectually honest person that supports Palestine thinks Hamas are the “good guys”, they are an evil created and grown directly and indirectly by Israel’s actions.
I doubt anyone thinks they are the good guys, but there are multiple trying to justify blatant war crimes and thinking they should be able to operate with immunity because they have civilians in the cross fire.
Im also doubting some “intellectually honest” people on both sides if the arguement. Well, with this CF all six sides of the arguement…
Who is doing that? Who is saying it’s justifiable for Hamas to use a hospital as a base? The only thing remotely close to that I’ve seen is people saying that a group like Hamas is an inevitable byproduct of Israeli occupation. Everyone knows putting a garrison in a hospital is shit, what’s disturbing is how many people think that justifies murdering every civilian in there
It’s the only place they could make a garrison, any other building Israel even remotely thinks is related to terrorism is summarily obliterated. If you leave people two options and one isn’t plausible you can’t be all too surprised they choose the other option.
The US spent 20 fucking years fighting in Afghanistan which also had hospital garrisons, I don’t seem to remember a pattern or practice of leveling them though. In fact the hospital that was destroyed kicked off a three party international review, the us apologized and paid the families. Israel on thee other hand said fuck it let’s go bomb hospitals.
It’s the only place they could make a garrison, any other building Israel even remotely thinks is related to terrorism is summarily obliterated. If you leave people two options and one isn’t plausible you can’t be all too surprised they choose the other option.
/u/endlessapollo one of them just replied to you justifying garrison a hospital.
It’s not a justification dude, it’s still wrong but you’re lying to yourself if your say you wouldn’t do it either.
Take a guess where all of the known presidential bunkers are in the us.
I have unfortunately seen comments trying to justify it- mostly around them not having a choice (edit: oh look, one just replied), or because otherwise they would be bombed, or its ok because Israel isn’t good either. Whats more disturbing is my comment responding asking if they just justified a war crime because they said it was ok because they would be attacked otherwise got downvoted something like 20 times. Im also aware that isn’t exactly a peer reviewed study.
I fully agree on your comment regarding how worrying it is how many people think killing them all is ok. No, it is a war crime to garrison a hospital, and it removes protection from that hospital but your response still has to be proportional and in a way that minimizes damage and civilian casualties. They could put a sniper in every window, rockets on the roof and you still can’t level the building.
That’s understanding not justification. Saying they get why it was done is not at all the same as saying it’s morally or logically correct.
It specifically does not remove protections, it makes limited military intervention legal. I agree with the rest but that phrasing makes it seem like anything is on the table when it isn’t.
Uh… well for a start one of them just replied to you.
Hi there. How about an old soldier who actually had to know this stuff and use that knowledge in a war?
First off, a single incident isn’t enough. A sniper or even a squad doing stuff can be dealt with in other ways. In order to strike a hospital (or any protected target) with explosives you need evidence it’s a target of “military or strategic value”. This is why Israel isn’t just claiming a few sporadic attacks but instead that all of the hospitals are actually command centers.
Second, the protected target can only be hit by proportional force that accomplishes a specific goal. If there’s an artillery battery in the parking lot and I level the obstetrics wing with dumb bombs then I’ve committed a war crime. Smart bombs with very low yields absolutely exist. Another example is the eponymous claim of rooftop rockets. I can hit that with an airburst explosive to prevent structural damage to most concrete buildings. In the context of protected targets these things matter. You don’t get a green light to demolish it unless it’s basically been hollowed out for military use only.
Third, whoever fires on the protected target is responsible for providing the evidence it was required. And war crimes investigators take a very dim view of “they did it once a decade ago”, as a reason. Israel and it’s allies have yet to do anything that actually proves the existence of a military or strategic target in places like the UNRWA Gaza headquarters.
Thank you for sharing
While proportionality is in LOAC, if there is ample intelligence that the hospital is being used to commit attacks, it doesn’t have to be used exclusively to commit attacks to be a legal target.
Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy.
“the protection of medical units ceases when they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy. This exception is provided for in the First and Fourth Geneva Conventions and in both Additional Protocols.[37] It is contained in numerous military manuals and military orders.[38] It is also supported by other practice.[39]”
“While the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols do not define “acts harmful to the enemy”, they do indicate several types of acts which do not constitute “acts harmful to the enemy”, for example, when the personnel of the unit is armed, when the unit is guarded, when small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded and sick are found in the unit and when wounded and sick combatants or civilians are inside the unit.[40] According to the Commentary on the First Geneva Convention, examples of acts harmful to the enemy include the use of medical units to shelter able-bodied combatants, to store arms or munitions, as a military observation post or as a shield for military action.”
And that’s before we get into the creative reinterpreting of LOAC for terrorists in non- international armed conflicts fought by non-state insurgent groups which were invented post 9-11.
I never said it had to be in exclusive use to get fired on.
I did say the party firing on the hospital needs to provide evidence that each hospital, at each time, was a legal target. “I said so” doesn’t pass muster.
In that case, let’s talk soldier to sailor as I suspect I’ve been out much longer than you and can provide the perspectiveof what is being seen. You’re logically spoken, so I’m going to assume ~sgt rank and American.
During the US time in Afghanistan there was significant urban combat, with multiple civilians around, limited identification of combatants and a campaign to win over the local population so you had to be absolutely sure of your target and operations. This was not just the guy on the ground, but the operations planning at officer level, approval to senior command and in liason with local forces. Post patrol or fire fight the was debriefs, justification of actions, and improvement points to be discussed, remedied and distributed. This happens across theater, from rifleman to pilot to special ops. You likely sat in brief after brief, got frustrated at ops planning, and had to debrief and relive the worst day of your life in hopes lessons could be drawn to save lives down the track.
We civilians saw none of that. We saw videos of tomahawks being launched, helicopters flying, burnt out trucks. Civilians screaming, dead kids, burnt buildings. Coffins coming home, memorials, speeches.
What is happening in Israel is likely very similar. Im not Israeli intelligence so I don’t see the planning that went into the attack, didn’t sit in the ready room as the pilots got briefed, haven’t seen the after action reports - because this information doesn’t make it to the news and isn’t distributed. The best we have to go off is exactly the same as we had for America - there are laws around it, civilians will get harmed in virtually any conflict, but a person who is well aware of the damage they are about to inflict, where, and who else will be affected still has to press the button or pull the trigger knowing exactly where that round is going.
The flaw in your argument is not that you are incorrect - far from it. It’s the belief that because you were not directly involved to witness it it didn’t happen.
I’m older than you think. I was in the 2003 Iraq invasion. And I was specifically a mortarman. I have vivid memories of listening to the fires net and the Battalion coordinator asking for exact details and then us getting exact fire mission specifics to minimize damage. ( A normal mission would be something like all guns fire 10 rounds of ground det HE as fast as possible. These missions were more like our best gun firing one airburst or smoke at a time.) The thing is, those details are all recorded because you have to be able to account for every mission fired on a protected target. They wouldn’t be sensitive either, not the parts about how exactly Hamas is using the building as reported by units on the ground. The reporting method is known and Hamas’ tactics are something they want to show the world.
It’s the absence of these reports along with the completely lackluster post battle evidence that has me wondering what the hell the Israelis are doing.
First off, a single incident isn’t enough.
This is not an isolated incident.
We don’t even have evidence of a single incident.
And before you reply with LoOk At ThE ViDeO!11
That’s one guy. In the street outside a hospital. That in no way justifies anything other than the infantry going by to check it out and help the doctors. One guy with an RPG (not the sensationalist ATGM setup the headline would have us believe) is nowhere near the evidence required to drop ordinance on a hospital.
It doesn’t give them the right to bomb the hospital point blank period, proportionality clauses kick in and it’s arguably reason to ground assault it but they cannot ignore the civilian cost of life when they’re are other ways to go about clearing the garrison.
Ed: Jesus Christ, 3 seconds on Google prior just can’t seem to do.
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to 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”. In other words, the principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.
Unfortunately as soon as they garrisoned it it became a legitimate military target and yes, they literally now have a right to bomb it. Level it, no, you are right on a proportional response and that would still be a war crime, but bombing what is now a legitimate military target prior to any invasion (like any other military target) can absolutely be justified.
Hamas knows this, and are deliberately trying to put the global blame on Israel when THEY GARRISONED A FUCKING HOSPITAL.
Lol “garrisoned”. This isn’t Age of Empires. Gaza is one of the most densely populated area on the planet. They have no freedom of movement, and the area is completely blockaded. Anywhere anyone in that area tries to stage a defense is a “civilian area.” They’re literally prohibited from having anything else.
So there is nowhere they could defend from that you wouldn’t consider “human shield.”
But you know that.
Edit: Corrected. Because fascist apologists love getting honest interlocutors hung up on semantics. I misspoke, and it’s “just” one of the most densely populated areas. Because that changes my argument in any real way whatsoever.
Uhh… military forces holding a building and using it as a base is literally called a garrison.
I know what the word means. If you want to get all semantic about it, Hamas isn’t a “military force,” they’re an insurgency. I’m not sure an insurgency “garrisons”.
As the elected representative of Palestine they are indeed a military force, operating in a state to state conflict. Like the taliban in Afghanistan - they are the controllers of the country, no longer an insurgency. How “good” they are, morally or militarily, is irrelevant.
Its like saying the US of A is actually an insurgency because they toppled the British government and established their own. Nope - government.
How fair the elections were is up for debate, and how they stopped elections but they are thr government of Palestine.
Furthermore, why are you bring up that I’m being semantic with a word that you had a problem with using?
Gaza is not even close to being the most densely populated area on the planet, what is your source for that?
Also have you seen a map of gaza? There are many open areas hamas could use to launch attacks from, but it chooses (rather rationally I might add) to site its materiel in places where israeli retaliation will cause civillian casualties.
I apologize that I forgot to add “one of the” before “most.” The point still stands.
Oh, you looked at a map of Gaza, and because of that you are an expert on the land and you know the best strategic locations for them to set up? Fuck off.
Israel made an open-air prison, and when a group of extremists react, they bomb the entire fucking prison (strangely aiming at the hospitals, and the areas where they instructed refugees to go).
Edit: After re-reading this comment, i’d like to correct something. I don’t think it’s even accurate to say Israel created an open-air prison, or to call Gaza a prison. The word “prison” heavily implies that the people there did something to deserve their punishment. I wonder if anyone could let me know all the terrorist acts those Gazan children performed… Was it “throwing rocks at IDF”? Because that’s usually punishable by death.
Open areas, you know! Those places everyone can see, who needs operational security when you have all that room for activities!
“Rather rationally I might add” what did you take this part to mean?
No the fuck they don’t!
You just ain’t right bud, do some fucking reading before you spout Israeli talking points.
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to 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”. In other words, the principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.
Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.
Source - International commitment of the Red Cross. Hamas is doing all of these.
Are you telling me you know better than the biggest humanitarian organization on the planet? I have been studying this for two years, read well over 150 peer reviewed articles on conflict and the effect it has on the civilian population, and studied multiple places where International law was not followed. I’ve done enough fucking reading on the topic and don’t need to reply with pro-anyone agenda to discuss it.
https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to 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”. In other words, the principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.
Same source, you know that’s theres like thousands of laws in relation to war correct?
I don’t know better boss, but I can use the search bar and read, you don’t need much more than that to know you’re objectively wrong and your source agrees.
Sadly I think there’s just an overwhelming tendency for bias to make people think “everything my side does is right and everything the other side does is wrong”.
Random people on the internet, many of whom are mostly (if not entirely) detached from realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and may only just be learning about it for the first time from social media, have now formed ranks and picked a side that feels right in the moment. I’d ask people to resist the urge to do that, and instead take some time to read into the complete history of the region and the conflict, but I think it’s much easier to go along with what other people on the net/TV/radio/etc are shouting.
People should keep in mind that there’s a 3rd side to every conflict: the side of the innocent people who have found themselves caught in the middle of an armed conflict that they never wanted or asked for. The Israeli student who was shot to death at a festival, the old Palestinian woman whose family were buried alive in a knocked-down building, the young child who was taken hostage by Hamas scared and alone, and the Gaza teenager who has lost all possibility of the normal, peaceful life and education that so many of us take for granted. Their side is the only side that anyone should be on. And it’s those very innocent civilians who Hamas are knowingly putting in danger by treating them as human shields in a way that openly invites retaliation.
When you stop to think for a minute about what’s really going on here, and when you’ve taken even the bare minimum amount of time to read up on the history of this conflict (one of the longest-running geopolitical conflicts in modern history), it’s not hard to understand that both sides really do have blood on their hands. There are no “good guys” other than the people who have managed to stay innocent, and as the conflict goes on and the desire for revenge burns in people’s hearts, eventually some of those people will become “bad guys” too.
And that’s just a very sad thing, because if nothing else it means that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Sadly I think there’s just an overwhelming tendency for bias to make people think “everything my side does is right and everything the other side does is wrong”.
The good old “they” mentality strikes again. You are completely correct in everything you have said, and I think this is one of the first major global issues where social media has really come to the forefront - just like the TV for Vietnam everyone can see it, but now everyone can put in their own opinions and with the 5-15 sec clips you don’t get verifications, or balanced arguments, or anything that says this person is actually well informed and not coming in with an agenda.
I think what gets me the most is how would anyone else react if their country had a neighbor whos founding document screamed for the death of you. Who ripped up their infrastructure to send rockets against you and made you develop one of the best counter-missile battery in the world to protect your civilians. Who invaded across your boarder to shoot and abduct civilians and openly brags they wanted to get more.
I would argue that people do consider the innocents caught up in it, but the unfortunate fact is that these actions can’t be allowed to continue otherwise more will be affected in the long term. I support Israeli invasion, because dragging this out, allowing Hamas immunity because they have human shields, and keeping the blockade up means help can’t get to those that need it. Attacking civilian structures should be a last resort, but if they are being used to stage attacks its not something you have the luxury of shying away from.
Ok, let’s send them to the Hague I guess? Why do you think this is an important point? Hamas isn’t actually a legitimate organization that signed on to international law and would ever care what “legitimate warfare” is. They just went into Israel and murdered a bunch of civilians. If these fighters are caught whether the UN thinks they were wrong is the least of their problems.
And none of that makes Israel attacking a hospital (or just the blatant collective punishment) justified.
Except it literally does justify attacking the hospital. Black on white, letter and spirit of the law.
No it doesn’t, and you’re a shitty person for thinking that.
Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it wrong. They’re right about legitimate targets regarding conflict rules
“Whether it’s ok to bomb a hospital” isn’t a legal question.
We aren’t discussing if “it’s ok”, we are discussing the Rules of Conflict. War is never ok, but war without rules is even worse
Except it literally does justify attacking the hospital.
“Justified” and “legal” are two separate judgements. OP wants to conflate them to excuse an unjust act.
This is not a matter of personal opinion
To be clear, no one here is defending Hamas or saying that it isn’t a war crime.
Proximity shielfing isn’t really the classic human shield idea. It’s like “human shields*” with an asterisk and six paragraphs of footnotes showing how countries like Israel use the idea of proximity shielding to commit human rights violations untouched.
Beyond these crazy and terrible events, I’m left wondering what the big picture end game was here? Was it to block Israel from normalizing relationships with neighbouring foes, or is it a part of a bigger play by foes of Israel to highlight the injustices from their point of view?
This sacrifice of the innocents on all sides is a terribly high price on humanity and how long an eye for an eye will take to play out in the generations to follow.
That’s exactly it. Hamas has previously and continues to do all it can to destroy any hopes for peace and Israel’s far-right has been happy to leverage them for the same reason.
Palestinians and Israelis suffer and die while a few powerful men maintain or gain power from the situation.
Hamas can’t have peace otherwise a more legitimate government takes over and continues toward a two-state system (they had in the past made a wave of suicide bombings to derail the peace process). Israeli far-right doesn’t peace either (they’ve shot one of their PMs in the past over this) as that would put a stop to their ambition of power and colonizing more Palestinian land.
Israeli reporters have shown how the current Israeli PM and his party had passively allowed the financing of Hamas to come into Gaza (enemy of my enemy…) so they would keep destabilizing any peace talks and fight the more moderate Palestinian parties.
In short, Hamas is horrible and keeps provoking Israel and Israel keeps biting the bait and reacting exactly as Hamas expects them to do: doing their own round of horrible atrocities in a vicious cycle of suffering and death which breeds the next generation of extremists.
Anybody looking at this issue purely as a military problem is missing the big picture.
I don’t know if there is an endgame. Just dogs chasing cars. I do know a lot of people have died.
Was it to block Israel from normalizing relationships with neighbouring foes
This was the goal of the October attacks, yes. This goal has failed, thus far.
Doubt there was any goal or forethought past ‘kill Israelis’
The big picture is that in both countries groups/parties want to have the other people gone. Preferably with international support or the support of neighbouring countries.
Everytime they entangle themselves in a conflict, on both sides the number of radicals and extremists grows and with it the power of extremist parties.
For them peace is only when the others are gone. That is why it seems so unlikely that they are open for peace talks as long as these right-wing extremists are in power.
Many don’t want to hear this, but for Hamas their biggest chance in the war is that Israel loses international support. They have no issue with sacrificing Palestinians for this, quite the opposite.
Has it seriously not occurred to zionists that there’s a middle step between doing absolutely nothing and leveling the entire building? Send troops in there to liberate the hospital. A lot fewer innocents will die, and yea more IDF troops will die that way, but in what fucking universe is it preferable to murder civilians than to run a risky military operation? Even if Hamas kills a bunch of patients or doctors in retaliation there will surely be more survivors than if you just bomb the place. But nope, apparently Israeli lives are worth infinitely more than those of Palestinian civilians, so the best solution is to murder all Palestinians so they’re not a “threat” to Israel
When your
best solution is to murder all Palestinians
…bombing hospitals, refugee camps, schools, and endless civilians is a good thing… and explains Israel’s behaviour and rhetoric in a pretty straightforward way.
…of course, killing all those kids makes the question “why are Hamas bad” a bit awkward… I know! Saying it’s bad to murder children is anti-semitic now - that’s not an obvious, massive self-report!
I don’t personally care to judge whether Israel or Hamas are worse - they’re both monstrous, genocidal murderers, killing innocent civilians… But only one of them has the ability to actually deliver on their genocidal intentions, and they’re making headway.
A lot fewer innocents will die, and yea more IDF troops will die that way, but in what fucking universe is it preferable to murder civilians than to run a risky military operation?
A lot fewer innocent palestinians. Why do you expect the Israeli government to prioritise the lives of Palestinian over their own citizens when trying to smack out a terrorist threat? I agree wholeheartedly that the attacks must stop and a ceasefire should be declared but comments like this which just present a simple solution and outright ignore the obvious reason that is not happening just distract from conversations we should be having.
Why do you expect the Israeli government to prioritise the lives of Palestinian over their own citizens when trying to smack out a terrorist threat?
Because they were instrumental in creating that terrorist threat in the first place, not only by perpetrating ethnic cleansing but by directly funding Hamas in the 70s and 80s as a counterbalance against the secular PLO.
I mean America funded and trained what became al qaeda as well. If your only justification here is Israel was aligned with another government 40 years ago and that means their personally responsible for all the people under that government jurisdiction while in hostilities with it then you’re talking crazy. The Palestinians are hamass responsibility as their representative. It sucks hamas doesn’t care about them and most Palestinians would reject them if able but i don’t get why that then means Israel is meant to care instead. Theirs a case for moral compassion from Israel but that flies out the window when hamas is actively attacking them from Palestinian territories. I’d be more inclined to support your viewpoint if hamas was only attacking Palestinians and Israel let them do it because they supported their rise to power in the past.
If your only justification here is
The first thing I mentioned was ethnic cleansing, which tends to radicalize people after a few decades of it.
But also, Israel has Palestine inside a literal fucking fence. They control the fucking water supply. Yes, they are responsible for Palestine
I like how they quite literally skipped past the decades of ethnic cleansing to address Israel’s financial ties to Hamas and then proceed to complain that’s the only negative factor at play regarding Israel’s control over Palestinian lives. Just straight up bad faith posturing.
They seem to be pretty bad at ethnic cleansing. When Israel was founded there were less than 300 thausand Palestinians in Gaza. Now there are more than 2 million.
driving them out of their homes and into shrinking, increasingly crowded prison cities with horrendous living conditions is ethnic cleansing. But they also have killed many thousands of Palestinians, not counting the 11,000 since Oct 7.
Has it seriously not occurred to zionists that there’s a middle step between doing absolutely nothing and leveling the entire building?
But where’s the genocide in that?
Shouldn’t your reasoning mean that we should only sacrifice German, US and British soldiers there?
It is their fault Israel exists like it does now. Every Israeli or Palestinian who dies is an innocent and only US Americans, Germans and Brits should be killed by Hamas.
But what about the reasons for the world wars? So it’s actually Italians who should go and die there! Since it was the Romans actions that lead to the situations which evolved into the first world war!
do you have any footage of hospitals-in-service being bombed?
Since when did video evidence matter to zionists? Since you asked for it though, here’s a recent hospital bombing, plus a strike on a refugee camp bc why not? Idk how much live footage there is of those, but they definitely happened https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/gaza-un-experts-decry-bombing-hospitals-and-schools-crimes-against-humanity https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/11/13/israel-hamas-war-live-gazas-two-largest-hospitals-shut-amid-nonstop-raids Of course I’m sure these won’t count because reasons, but there you go
The only people who have bombed hospitals so far are hamas.
Source: it came to an IDF soldier in a dream
funny how when Palestine makes a claim, Lemmy just eats it all up.
but when Israel releases footage and coordinates to support their claims, everyone is suddenly questioning.
I guess it has to do with the enormous social media machine Israel has. I take both sides with a grain of salt tho
enormous compared to what? because I’m seeing so many hamas defenders in lemmy and they never concede basic facts. it looks like it’s tiny and ineffectual compared with the hamas propagandists.
Man, what? Where do you hang out? My comments have a pro Israel slant to them and I get consistently downvoted.
I don’t think any instance should have downvotes anyhow. A bit too much like Reddit.
I liked Reddit before spez fucked it up and I actually like having the downvote function.
Back when I was on Facebook I wished that site had it.
Oh, social media machine? You mean the same that Qatar and Iran operate? The same that Elon Musk, you know, CEO of Twitter, met with Qatari media mongrels months before the attack. The same Qatar that houses Hamas leadership.
It’s so powerful that I even need to include that, yes, Israel also has one. But it’s doing a pretty shit job evidently.
Lemmy is a hive-mind as much as Reddit is/was. Anyone who claims its somehow better here is either lurking or part of the hivemind (just find the downvoted comments in this thread and think about how you would vote)
Meh, I take all the news and developments with large lumps of salt for this topic especially.
I believe both that Hamas is operating behind human shields to curry favour against humanitarian law, and that the IDF is more or less indiscriminately harming civilians, refugees and militants of Palestine all in the same brushstroke to excuse extermination as merely retaliation (also against humanitarian law in case that’s not clear to anyone)
It’s comical how many Hamas-apologists there are on this site.
It’s not comical how many anti-Semitic and/or pro-genocide apologists are on Lemmy.
I literally haven’t seen a single Hamas apologist. Nobody likes those terrorists, but those of us that pay attention don’t like IDF either
Really? They’re absolutely everywhere on Lemmy:
- IDF has fabricated evidence of Hamas using hospitals.
- Israel is responsible for Hamas’ own actions, often including the 7 October attack.
- Hamas are noble freedom fighters against an occupation. The ends justify the means.
Merely challenging some of these points can get you banned on a few instances.
Never seen any of those except the second one in the sense that it reflects articles like this and similar: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
The other points are hexbear or lemmygrad trolls.
Israel is responsible for Hamas’ own actions, often including the 7 October attack.
Israel not only created an environment where terrorism grows and thrives, they also funded Hamas early on in part of their effort to stamp out secular resistances. The burden of Hamas’ existences falls on Israel too.
No. I’m not seeing these talking points.
While the 1st and 3rd points are nonsense, there’s legitimate strong evidence for point 2. Far right Israeli politicians want this conflict.
Which means there’s 3 sides to the conflict, not 2 - civilians and 2 governments. And a ton of people here are supporting mass murder of civilians because they were born on the wrong side of a border.
Edit: of course tribalists are downvoting facts with sources
This is the first I’ve heard of it
Hamas apologists attacking me
I honestly haven’t seen any. Every single person other than pro-Apartheid pro-Israel types seems to be making a very clear distinction between Palestinian civilians and Hamas.
You haven’t been looking enough then. I’m constantly downvoted for calling people out who support Hamas
Counter attacking with troops and killing the terrorist is a reasonable response.
Leveling the entire hospital and surrounding neighborhood with missiles is NOT.
Well it’s a good thing they didn’t do that, then. Israeli troops will be entering the hospital to get at the Hamas base within it
Edit: they entered last night
And then you look at reporting from doctors without borders about doctors being murdered by snipers indiscriminately
Weird that the IDF didn’t indiscriminately kill civilians while raiding said hospital last night, then.
No, but they did do that to every other building in Gaza under the same pretense.
Distinguishing between civilians and combatants is anti Semitic
Apparently not because Israel is getting torn apart in the information space for that approach.
Hamas is literally in this video firing missiles. The people on this site including yourself have your heads in the sand.
Hamas is literally in this video firing missiles.
Yes they are. So kill them then without leveling the entire neighborhood, as I already said.
Go for it. If it is so easy you are welcome to go put yourself in harm’s way. Don’t criticize when you have not been faced with the decisions and a lack of full awareness. Hamas is not sitting out in the middle of a field waiting to be struck.
It is neither my place, nor my responsibility to physically take part in this conflict. However, it certainly IS my place and responsibility, as a human being, to say that purposefully killing innocent civilians and blowing up functional hospitals is evil. Yes, even when there is a bad guy hiding inside.
Bless your heart, sweet summer child.
So, in your mind, rules of engagement allow destroying civilian infrastructure that currently hosts many civilians so you can kill a handful of bad guys?
Article 19 of Geneva states that if a hospital is being used to store military equipment and active military combatants, then it loses its protection.
War is evil. Nothing they are doing is without military purpose. This is a justified conflict. Your perspective is naive and not based in reality and/or military law. Israel did everything they could to avoid this conflict, most of which has been misconstrued as genocide against Palestine.
They have absolutely not made any attempt to avoid conflict
Just wanted to point out a few factual inaccuracies in your comment.
- This is no longer a justified conflict. A state has the right to self defence in a limited way. The right to self defence does not override the rules on collective punishment. The right to self defence does not include the right to invade a state where the enemy is a terrorist group within that state, rather than the state itself. The right to self defence does not override the rules on attacking civilian infrastructure (especially ambulances) even where there is suspicion that a terrorist organisation may be using it. The right to self defence does not override the rules on forcible relocation or blockade. In short, the response to an enemy using a human shield must not be to eliminate the shield. It’s astounding that so many people seem to need this explained to them. This is borne out by international law, cf. the UN charters.
- Israel did not do everything they could do to avoid this conflict. The one thing they had to do was to abide by the Oslo accords, yet they have built settlements in Palestine every single day since signing, and restricted Gazans every single day since signing. The two state solution has failed as a result of Israel’s actions. In terms of actions since October 7th, the usual way to go about dismantling an embedded terror organisation is to use counterintelligence, ground ops and precision strikes. The reasons are obvious, I hope. The only way to get those hostages back is either by freeing them in covert ops or by negotiation at a political level. Destroying entire city blocks from the air will not get the hostages back, as we all know.
- The label genocide is not misconstrued, according to the UN genocide experts. Some say there is a grave risk that this is a genocide, based on the available facts, and some say that it already fulfills the criteria.
I can provide sources for all of my claims, if you’d prefer not to do the legwork yourself.
Hamas were the first to violate the accords. They launched an attack because they weren’t being included in the negotiations.
the usual way to go about dismantling an embedded terror organisation is to use counterintelligence, ground ops and precision strikes.
israel has been doing that for a few decades but Hamas continues to attack until they call for a ceasefire. In which Israel agrees, and then Hamas again breaks the ceasefire.
Lol literally none this si accurate
How do you write so much and get everything wrong
However, it certainly IS my place and responsibility, as a human being, to say that purposefully killing innocent civilians and blowing up functional hospitals is evil
It’s your responsibility to actually know what is happening before you spout false things online.
Okay genius, how do you kill them when they are in tunnels under neighborhoods? You cannot get into them without an explosion, even if present in person and they won’t just sit there either. This is not a war crime and I’m really questioning everyone’s collective intelligence and ability to think through problems instead of reacting to stimulus.
You don’t have to shoot missiles indiscriminately into civilian zones. If your enemy is hiding among civilian infrastructure and/or using human shields, you need to change your tactics up to suit. Committing war crimes in order to kill your enemy isn’t how you retain the moral highground.
I’m still waiting on these tactics you are recommending. Alternatives don’t exist so your argument is absolute bullshit. The faster they can get through this, the less overall civilian suffering will occur.
The civilians can’t suffer if they are dead so you’re not wrong but are advocating for war crimes.
I think I’d rather be wrong.
What war crimes? There is a difference between war and war crimes and hardly anybody on this site knows the difference.
Are you claiming killing hostages is good?
When someone says “Being a governing leader is really hard” they don’t talk about parties or meetings, they talk about these decisions.
What possible line of logic would lead to that conclusion?
Lines of logic where you don’t stop prematurely when you get your answer and instead follow through.
At what point were hostages brought up? Are you referencing some misinformation I’m not aware of or prescribing to me someone else’s comment?
No one on this site is pro-Hamas, other than if you go over to the tankie instances.
You are spreading their propaganda and disinformation.
I checked the Arabic news scene for “AI” and whatever they call Israel thanks to Google AI and Yandex translate. They label every single “negative” photo,video,audio AI as things created by Israel. Their heads aren’t in the sand, they are indoctrinated which makes the situation truly horrible. There were teenagers getting medals in Hitler’s last days. As a side-note I guess they are trying to bury your opinion like they do in the evil site not knowing this place was founded by FOSS ideals which they don’t have a clue about.
I don’t think there are media controls on Lemmy but it also opens it up to automated propaganda and manipulation.
I guess they try to “punish” user by downvoting whatever thing they don’t like.
Uh oh, guess that means there’s no choice but to level the entire place and kill every civilian in there :(
So weird seeing people carry water for Hamas. It blows my mind.
After learning that there were indeed fighters, weapons, and tunnels just like Israel said, contrary to what a certain popular news outlet said.
If Israel rolled up without any opposition, no one would have died.
Now imagine what would happen to civilians if Hamas were allowed to roll up on an Israeli hospital unobstructed (refer to the attack on Oct. 7 for more info).
No, if the IDF were allowed to roll up with no opposition, people would still have died. They want to ethnically cleanse Gaza, Hamas just gives them a “good” excuse to do so. If it weren’t for the 10/7 attack they would just maintain the status quo of shooting children for throwing rocks and making it hard to get aid into Gaza
That’s some qanon-level bullshit
No, it’s just observation based on the last few decades of Israeli terrorism and genocide and imperialism. How else do you explain the horrific numbers of civilians killed by the IDF, during both peace time and war?
First explanation: Hamas is lying. Just as as they did before. Second explanation: There’re two fucking million people there, and Hamas is actively trying to kill them, which is way easier than killing IDF soldiers.
I see, IDF hasn’t been murdering civilians en masse, it’s just a big conspiracy to make them look bad! Thank you for the explanation :3
You’re right, the Palestine people should just let themselves be oppressed by the state of Israel. Now that the country has been bombed for over a month, they should welcome IDF soldiers with open arms. /s
They oppressed by Hamas
They couldn’t do that or leave due to Hamas.
Not a good way to avoid having your hospitals bombed…
hamas has no hospitals.
In the Gaza Strip the government was the Hamas government of 2012. Following two Fatah–Hamas Agreements in 2014, on 25 September 2014 Hamas agreed to let the PA Government resume control over the Gaza Strip and its border crossings with Egypt and Israel, but that agreement had broken down by June 2015, after President Abbas said the PA government was unable to operate in the Gaza Strip.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_government
Let’s not pretend like they’re just some random group that just rolled in.
Nope, they are a terrorist criminal organization allowed to take over in the chaos caused by a never ending occupation intended to force People there to allow their land to be settled by the occupiers as the folks living their are systematically genocided.
If terrorists do terrorism around a hospital, you shoot the hospital. It’s the only logical answer.
Yeah I mean that’s why we declared war on airplanes after 9/11
I apparently should’ve added one of these /s
If cancer does cancer stuff around my stomach, you shoot my stomach. It’s the only logical answer. /s
lol let’s ignore what chemo does to you.
I would argue that in this metaphor it’s still more surgical than a bullet but I get what you mean.
Yup, just like a person that has a splinter in their finger needs that arm amputated, for the safety of the rest of the body. /s
They wouldn’t have anything to fire at if IDF troops weren’t there already murdering people.
Huh, wonder why the IDF is there. Oh yeah, it’s because Hamas stormed out of Gaza and specifically targeted civilians as nice soft targets.
Not to defend Hamas or anything. But Israel does the same thing all the time. Proper escalation to kids throwing rocks at armed soldiers is not a lethal hail of semi-automatic military eeaponry fire. Happens all the time though.
And I will stand aside and let you criticize them all you want.
Other than pretending the IDF actions against unarmed innocent civilians is justifiable, sure you would.
I just said I think IDF violence against kids throwing rocks is unjustifiable. DID I STUTTER?
You did no such thing. You simply stated you’d allow another to criticize it without your objection. Immediately after stating the IDF were fully justified in their slaughter of children since a terrorist group hiding among said prisoner children had broken out of the prison and attacked People that were not guarding the prison.
And we all know that October saw the first civilians killed in this conflict.
Israel has killed more children than Hamas did people in that attack.
As in innocent children.
That’s not what I’m saying. I hold the Israeli government and Hamas to both be responsible in this conflict. I don’t see judging who is more responsible as that productive of an exercise. More Palestinian civilians have died, but that’s because Hamas actively put them in harm’s way. What would you ask Israel to do, given that 1,400 of their citizens died on 10/7 and hundreds more remain hostages?
Israel’s position previous to 10/7 was that they would just leave Gaza as an open air prison with Hamas in charge, though they would never like it framed that way. After 10/7, that changed. Hamas is clearly more of a threat than they envisioned and has to be exterminated.
Given that this is the general air inside of Israel, what should happen? I’m not sure they can really even back off at this point, given how far Hamas went. Unfortunately, smarter people than me don’t have good answers. Part of the problem is a failure of leadership on both sides. Bibi apparently did his best back in the day to essentially legitimize Hamas while cutting the PLA out of the peace process, purposefully splitting the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Palestinian leadership is a mix of corrupt, weak, and uninspiring. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve a new generation of better leaders, but I haven’t heard of any.
First Civilians killed was way back when the KGB convinced the idiot ideologues in Egypt to attack Israel allowing the Israelis an excuse to preemptively strike in 1967. Oh, and the Palestinians have been being genocided ever since.
I think you’ll find that the Zionists have been running Palestinians out of their homes since the 1940s
Why is the IDF in the West bank, and actively trying to stir up conflict? And if a radical group/government took control of the West bank because of it, would you blame both sides?
You are skipping over a sixty Year occupation to get to your “unprovoked” pretending.
they managed to find something at the start of the conflict.
According to IDF forces, as reported in fourteenwordsnews.com, the evil terrorists did a cartoonishly convenient thing that justifies the worst atrocities we’ve been getting beat up in the news for
Graffiti was also found in the area that said “blacks rule”
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The IDF is shooting doctors through the windows of the hospitals, you think a Hamas guy can just walk in front of the hospital with an RPG? Lmao.
If the IDF wasn’t known for faking basically 90% of all “evidence” they release you could buy this one but at this point the IDF is literally like Putins special military opertion that’s gonna free all the kids in the basement of the Pizza hut
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I bet santa claus has been visiting you for decades, rube
if anyone’s interested in some further reading / contextual information on this article / conflict specifically (or conflict generally):
Well, that’s misleading. The article acts as if they’re doing it from the hospital. They’re firing from the road. There’s nothing given in the article indicating they had anything to do with the hospital.
In the footage the terrorist runs into the hospital’s underground carpark
but the forces bombing hospitals, escape routes, and journalists, they aren’t terrorists??
Can’t both be wrong?
Palestinians and isreali civilians are caught between two asshole organizations and as they say, when elephants fight, the ants suffer.
It’s tiring to see everyone taking sides. Just admit that both sides are wrong: Hamas are using civilians as cover, Israel is just killing everyone to get at Hamas. The people suffer. :-(
I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept for so many people. Two sides can absolutely be in the wrong, especially over the span of generations. At such a point it really hardly matters anymore at all who started what, it’s just two sides showing humanity’s ugliest side non-stop.
One group seems to be following the Geneva convention.
But yeah. Same.
Lol I legit can’t tell which group you are referring to.
Oh I can help with that.
It’s a big no no to set up an army garrison in protected buildings like hospitals according to the Geneva convention. Reason being, you can cause said building to lose it’s protected status.
Does that help?
of course that’s possible, I’m pointing out that the language used in the title of this post doesn’t want you to see it that way
No, didn’t you get the memo?
Everything is a team sport these days, and just like you can either be team Jacob or team Edward but can’t be undecided, online etiquette rules dictate that you can either be team Hamas or team IDF.
And no, team ‘civilians’ doesn’t count. Too much grey area for people to know whether you are on their team or not. They’ll need to read your entire comments to know if they should downvote you or upvote you.
Could you imagine?
That’s probably a war crime in and of itself.
So hurry up and pick a side and stop making discussing international conflicts online so complicated with your ‘nuance’ BS.
So glad you brought this up… I am 100% team Voltari. Edward is like over 100 years old and Bella is like 16, 17 maybe? Seems a little statutory rapey. Oh then Jacob falls in love with their child at the age of like less than one…
Voltari should have ripped them all apart and threw them in the fire.
It is possible for everyone to be wrong.
Israel: THERE IS A COMMAND CENTER UNDER THIS HOSPITAL
World: Cool, what evidence do you have?
Israel:10 SECONDS OF BLURRY FOOTAGE!
Hamas clearly in public buildings using civilians as shield. Palestinians clearly know and don’t care. Nothing will stop me from hating on both Hasmas and Israel. And I am slo losing patience for Palestanians for supporting Hamas and not condemning their action.
As usual, the onion nails the satire.
Its hard to care when you get shot for opening your mouth
Just like reddit, people here can’t accept narratives other than mainstream liberal. Sure, there are Gazans that want Hamas out but they are minority. Hamas is a grassroots organization that defeated the party that preferred the two state solution. Hamas was and still is backed by majority of Palestanians. Just look at the Palestanian protesters in the west. NONE of them condemned Hamas. NONE.
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are they sitting next to a hospital on purpose? or does this just happen to be the vantage point in an extremely dense city crammed with every type of building?
fuck Hamas, but engaging military targets isn’t terrorism
