[nat0704]

And I suggest taking a look at Israel dropping bombs on a refugee camp (Jabalia refugee camp) they knew was overflowing with women and children.

And I also suggest meditating on the fact that Israel's war on Gaza is the first war in modern history where women and children comprise the vast majority of the victims.

According to CBC radio, more children have been killed in Gaza in the past 3 weeks than in all conflicts since 2019. ( Link: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7012927 )

Perhaps it's time to start viewing both Hamas and the Government of Israel as Terrorist Organizations, since both of them now wholeheartedly engage in intentionally attacking civilian populations.

[invalidname]

> And I suggest taking a look at Israel dropping bombs on a refugee camp (Jabalia refugee camp) they knew was overflowing with women and children.

Israel specifically pointed at the area where they will be bombing to clear civilians. They used cell phone tracking to make sure that their message was getting through and only then conducted bombing. This seriously hindered the impact of the bombing since it lets the terrorists escape.

Notice that these "facts" about civilians dying are given by the Hamas who block escape roads for their own people and disallow them from going into their tunnels for safety. The Hamas wants civilian casualties to raise the next generation of terrorists and to reduce the legitimacy of Israel.

> And I also suggest meditating on the fact that Israel's war on Gaza is the first war in modern history where women and children comprise the vast majority of the victims.

According to the Hamas which has lied repeatedly about everything and specifically prevented people from leaving.

> Kind of makes you wonder who the 'terrorists' are.

No it doesn't. The difference is stark.

The Hamas his holding children hostage. It opened this attack by burning civilians alive and shooting children. It was during a time when Israel was reducing pressure on Gaza so 100% unprovoked and against civilians. They knew retaliation would happen and are keeping hostages so the retaliation will happen.

They block their own people from the tunnels so they will die in the crossfire.

Israel might make mistakes that harm civilians (a lot fewer than reported) but the hamas left Israel no choice. Imagine your children held in a terrorist tunnel, Israel is REMARKABLY easy on them all things considered.

[nat0704]

Yeah, the good ol' "I don't agree with the facts, so they must be damn lies" defense.

Look, I used to be as Pro-Israeli as they come. I fully endorse the right of any nation to defend itself when attacked by terrorists ( and yes Hamas is a terrorist group on par with Al-Qaeda).

But it's one thing to act against terrorists, and it's another thing entirely to indiscriminately kill children for crying out loud. Children!

I supported Israel, but I have a conscience, as do the vast majority of human beings. At this point, there's no difference between Hamas and the Govt of Israel.

In the refugee camp that was bombed, children were trying to drag the corpses of other children they had been playing with together in a playground. That's heartbreaking, it's horrifying.

And to respond to your 'fake statistics' claim, the UN and Aid Agencies have repeatedly certified that the death numbers released are accurate, with some insisting they're actually undercounts, which means even more innocent people have been killed by the Israeli Government's indiscriminate bombing than has been reported.

[stareatgoats]

Your comment was dead, so I vouched for it. I don't agree with all of it, you say for example that there is "no difference between Hamas and the Govt of Israel" (which is a common way off putting things, but there is always a difference between two discernible things). You could have phrased that better in order to keep a civil tone IMO. But Israel is definitely stepping across a line here, this response is not "proportionate" as required by the Geneva convention, which I think is the gist of the comment.

[nat0704]

Thanks. I got a bit overheated there I guess.

I usually just lurk on HN without commenting. But it's just that it was difficult to read someone actually defending & rationalising the intentional murder of children. I mean I had to say something.

Even if it's only online, one does have to speak up.

Keeping quiet and going about one's life, while atrocities are being committed (even if they're being committed by the Govt of a country one previously had some admiration for), makes one a silent accomplice to those commiting the said atrocities.

[philwelch]

> But Israel is definitely stepping across a line here, this response is not "proportionate" as required by the Geneva convention

This is not actually how the Geneva Conventions work. In particular, the Geneva Conventions do not allow a belligerent to intentionally use human shields in order to turn a legitimate military target into an illegal target. Furthermore, the so called rule of "proportionality" does not actually use the term "proportionate". Instead, the criteria is whether the "expected" civilian casualties are "excessive" "in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated". There's a good thread here breaking this down: https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1719729794043052234

[stareatgoats]

> the Geneva Conventions do not allow a belligerent to intentionally use human shields

The proportionality rule ultimately requires a judgement call, like the thread you provided states. I understand that your call might be different than mine, but to me the evidence is clear: Israel is not paying appropriate heed to Article 57 §1: "In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects."

You seem to think the massive toll on civilians and civilian objects (houses) is merely because Hamas is using them as shields, to me this tactic of Hamas' is now mainly an excuse used by IDF to terrorize to the point of obliteration a perceived hateful albeit civilian population, a strategy that has strong support in Israel after Hamas heinous attacks on October 7.

We can debate the finer points of this ad nauseam, but that would be missing the greater picture, which is that the Israeli army is now doing exactly what Hamas expected them to do. What we need now is to tell the Israelis to stop and reconsider, not provide them with further excuses for genocidal policies. The current trajectory is not in Israel's long term interests, nor those of the region or indeed the world.

[philwelch]

There’s no evidence that Israel is targeting the civilian population of Gaza. If they were, they wouldn’t have warned them to evacuate south of the Wadi over a week ago.

Hamas routinely places military targets such as rocket launch sites, headquarters, and weapons productions centers directly alongside and underneath civilian population centers. They do this to manipulate gullible people like you and they are succeeding. Israel is right not to care about such foolish opinions when Hamas has vowed to repeat the massacres of October 7 repeatedly as long as they exist. They are not the ones pursuing a genocidal policy.

[philwelch]

Those casualty numbers all originate from the “Gaza Health Ministry”, which is in reality just Hamas. They are not reliable and shouldn’t be taken at face value.

During the 2002 Battle of Jenin, Palestinians claimed hundreds to thousands of civilian casualties, including claims of mass graves. Afterwards, the total number of Palestinian casualties turned out to be 52 to 53, most of whom were militants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin_(2002)

As for Jabalia, many of the civilian casualties are attributed to “sinkholes” (i.e. the Hamas tunnel network). There were also warnings of “the possibility of secondary explosions due to the presence of munitions in the area” (https://x.com/gaza_report/status/1719363355360518250), along with reports of “the loss of Jabaliya brigade commander Ibrahim Biari and several other fighters when their underground operations center collapsed after being hit by an Israeli air strike.”

Israel issued a warning weeks ago that the safest part of Gaza would the southern half of the strip, south of the Wadi Gaza. Why wouldn’t Hamas place refugees there instead of on top of their underground command centers where they were storing munitions?

> Kind of makes you wonder who the 'terrorists' are.

On October 7th, Hamas fighters entered Israel to rape and murder over 1,400 people in their homes, in the streets, and at a music festival. Over 200 were taken hostage. Do you believe this was a legitimate act of resistance?

[tamimio]

> Those casualty numbers all originate from the “Gaza Health Ministry”

The white house did eventually confirm the casualties (1), not to mention in previous wars there were no major discrepancies and were credible and believed by the white house and media too, in fact, UN believes that the numbers are actually higher but still under the rubble

> Some U.N. officials, however, say the real number of casualties is likely significantly higher because the health ministry’s tally doesn’t include people still under the rubble. (2)

(1) https://twitter.com/OopsGuess/status/1719517883976614095

(2) https://archive.ph/1ftlW

[philwelch]

> The white house did eventually confirm the casualties

The White House confirmed that civilian casualties are taking place, but civilian casualties take place in every armed conflict.

> not to mention in previous wars there were no major discrepancies

False; did you read the part of my comment addressing Jenin? Even in this conflict, the blast at the hospital, Hamas claimed 500 deaths when they blamed it on Israel. It turned out that not only did Israel not bomb the hospital (rather, it was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad), but the total number of deaths was, depending on which source you believe, anywhere between 1/10 and 1/2 as many as Hamas had originally claimed.

[tamimio]

> The White House confirmed that civilian casualties are taking place, but civilian casualties take place in every armed conflict.

They did confirm the numbers, they are independently audited by the UN team too, always been the case, even Senators now are confirming the numbers (1), additionally, if US “really” wanted to confirm the numbers, they can send a team there to confirm these numbers by themselves, but we all know it’s just a dirty politics to hijack the credibility of Palestinians officials’ statements to allow further crimes goes undetected.

> False; did you read the part of my comment addressing Jenin?

I did, and has nothing to do with this current issue so it’s irrelevant, since they fall in different administrations (one in Gaza other in West bank)

> It turned out that not only did Israel not bomb the hospital (rather, it was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad)

That’s also another lie, it wasn’t a misfire as noted by many analysts who also analyzed the sound of that hit, this video probably provides the best timeline (2)

(1) https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1719858059193794599

(2) https://twitter.com/ChiefTrumpster/status/171679329621789515...

[philwelch]

You’re citing an anti-Israel Pepe the Frog account on Twitter calling itself “Chief Trumpster”? Are you fucking serious?

[tamimio]

Yes because CNN is more credible these days?! That being said, it isn’t citing but rather that account made the available information in a simple short timeline to follow easily, and references are in the video and in the thread too, however, you can find similar conclusions by other analysts, this ex IDF pilot who worked as a squad commander goes in details how the official report is false, https://twitter.com/talhagin/status/1715168880849465506

[boeingUH60]

The terrorists are the side that attacked first and have a literal terrorist name.

[nat0704]

Oh, so in your twisted world, as long as you're atacked first, you're fully justified in murdering innocent women & children, is that it?

[candiodari]

No, but if someone is bombing you and you move civilians literally into the area to be bombed, to accuse the other side of bombing civilians ...

Then you're at fault. Not whoever dropped the bomb.

In case there's any doubt what I mean: Hamas is moving Palestinian civilians (in addition to killing them outright) at gunpoint into areas Israel has announced they'll bomb. That's as bad as throwing them off buildings, shooting them, and other methods they use, and as it makes it impossible for Israel to avoid civilians, it does remove the blame from Israel.

[enterprise_cog]

Warped logic. The person dropping the bomb is always at fault. They know civilians are there.

And please post evidence of your claim they are moving civilians in intentionally. Turns out those buildings being blown up are also people’s houses and they don’t want to leave.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

I tell you some anecdata. I dated an Israeli girl once. She was totally pro-peace, organizing protests against her government policy re. Gaza and so on. At some point she dated an Israeli soldier who told her a few stories, so it's a third-hand account and take it with a grain of salt. But there were several cases when Hamas was firing from a specific building, then the Israeli sent their forces there and discovered the whole roof of that building is filled with Palestinian women and children so their aircraft had to fly back. They had been doing this for years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield#Israeli%E2%80%93P...

[enterprise_cog]

If you read the Wikipedia it specifically says that there is no evidence. The human shield claim is so the IOF can bomb civilian areas with no responsibility for their deaths.

Also, as for your story, I don’t believe them. More likely that soldier killed civilians knowingly and then made up the story after.

[Turing_Machine]

> Warped logic. The person dropping the bomb is always at fault.

Not under international law. If you hide among civilians, using them as human shields, any civilian deaths or injuries are deemed to be war crimes committed by you, not the opposing force.

Look it up.

[enterprise_cog]

Who cares about international law when the US and Israel routinely violate it and are not punished.

[kazinator]

To my understanding, that's roughly how Hiroshima continues to be explained to American children.

[pauldenton]

It's a bit more nuanced in Japan I suspect. Covering the Hibakusha, as well as that firebombing over 2 nights in Tokyo having more casualties than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.