- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
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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. 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 are certainly not ignorant of this, and so they must know that by using the Al Shifa Hospital as a strategic location they are deliberately putting a target on it, so why would they do it?
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.
When asked by reporters at the White House what his message to family members of hostages was, he said: “Hang in there, we’re coming.” […]
White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on the presidential plane, Air Force One, that intelligence confirmed the militant Hamas group, which rules Gaza, used tunnels underneath Al-Shifa and other hospitals to conceal military operations and to hold hostages.
I’m not sure how you interpret “we’re coming” by Biden regarding hostages that US intelligence says are being held in the hospital currently being raided, but it certainly doesn’t seem like Israel is doing this at odds with Biden’s intentions.
If anything, Biden’s red line of “hospitals must be protected” seems like it might be behind the IDF claim in the original article of:
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.
We’ll see what the next few hours hold, but Biden’s comments just a few hours before and the US intelligence publicly weighing in certainly looks like this is intended to be a hostage rescue operation which the US is at very least aware of if not actively involved in.
It’s absurd to claim that IDF wants “no harm to civilians”. They wouldn’t be bombing residential neighborhoods on the scale they are if they had that goal.
“Over 100 dead bodies” are still inside the hospital decomposing with no way to get them out. This is fucking horrifying to watch. Even IF there is a command center under the hospital this is the wrong way to address this issue, but Israel is too fucking angry and blood thirsty that they don’t even care. They did it today and they’ll do it again tomorrow. The article says “they were given 12 hours to evacuate” but if those instructions are anything like what they’ve been doing the entirety of the month they were vague and probably not even sent out 12 hours prior because nobody is going to find out. Fucking the evil is what this is. Nothing like punishing women and children for someone else’s actions.
Even IF there is a command center under the hospital this is the wrong way to address this issue
Given the US’s comments in the past 12 hours it looks like this is intended to be an attempt at a hostage rescue. We’ll see how it plays out, but it’s quite unusual that you have both US intelligence publicly agreeing with the claim that hospital is being used not only operationally but for holding hostages, and then just a few hours ago Biden has a message for the hostages’ families of “we’re coming.”
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.”
centre of gravity
For those who are confused by what “Centre of gravity” means in this context:
Center of gravity (COG) is a military term that refers to the source of strength, balance, or stability necessary for a military force to maintain operation.
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
This has nothing to do with hamas. In general, hamas is either a terrorist organization, or a military resistant. In both case, you don’t expect anything from them. Most of the resistant groups or terrorist organization are not expected to tell the truth or be expected to respect international laws.
Isreal, is “recognized” state and government by many countries, they have trades and embassies around the world and part of the United Nations.
When they work so hard to show media “proofs” of a calender posted on the wall, a few guns in the MRI machine rooms, and no sign of it being the center of gravity and they get caught lying by their own videos they published then maybe we should consider them a terrorist organization as well and treat them like that. Maybe we should sanction any one sending them money.
If they are that confident they should show the world evidence, which regardless of what they found, doesn’t mean they can commit war crimes.
Here’s my understanding of what you said.
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We expect Hamas to lie and disrespect international laws because they are a resistance group or a terrorist organization.
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Israel is different because they are “recognized” as a state by the UN and should be held to a different standard.
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You believe the IDF lied in their PR videos and we should consider them a terrorist organization.
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We need to see more and better evidence to back up IDF claims, but regardless of what evidence they produce their actions are war crimes.
With that understanding, I would like to add that Hamas is also a political organization and the ruling power in Gaza. No one can hold a position of authority in Gaza without the consent of Hamas. Hamas also has offices and leadership throughout the Middle-East. Two prominent examples are in Doha, Qatar, and Cairo, Egypt.
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Al Jazeera cut the feed to a journalist interviewing a man in the hospital who complained about Hamas using it as a base
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?
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.
This is why all those arguments about foot soldiers being the more ethical option were complete ignorance in my opinion. Not in a city.
The actual complaint behind that demand has always been “not enough jews are dying that’s not fair”
Nor did they kill civilians inside the hospital.
Asymmetrical warfare relies on keeping a civilian population between you and your enemy.
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
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
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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.
This evidence isn’t very definitive and it can very well be planted there by IDF realising their fuck-up. Sorry but with all these bombastic statements from them, they provided very little credible evidence to justify the occupation of the hospital.
Not to mention that their incubators move is pure PR stunt, knowing perfectly well that the hospital does have incubators but they don’t have electricity to run them on.
What, do they think the doctors are Hamas or something?
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 😊
