[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.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> If you read the Wikipedia it specifically says that there is no evidence.

There is a lot of it, but of course you can say it's all fabricated, e.g. these examples: https://web.archive.org/web/20111018011032/http://www.mfa.go...

However, the gist of "lack of evidence" is found in this quote:

> The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict ("UNFFMG") that took place in 2008–2009 accepted the possibility that Hamas launched mortar attacks from the vicinity of a school and from residential homes, sometimes by the threat of force against residents. The report was unable to find specific evidence that civilians whose homes were used for rocket launches were "forced to remain in their houses" but the report repeatedly noted that Gaza residents were "reluctant" to discuss the conduct of Palestinian armed forces due to fear of reprisals.

So yes, if you are going to look for Palestinians who will testify in court that the were forced to remain in a given place or enable to escape for some time, you will never find such a person.

[enterprise_cog]

You’re right, I refuse to blindly believe anything put out by Israel and need hard evidence. Hearsay is not that.

Funny you mention that report though, it also states that Israel intentionally targeted civilians.

Goldstone also said the evidence presented did not meet "the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt".

[invalidname]

There's a lot of evidence but here's the son of the head of Hamas providing some: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8YYmrgAeqw

[enterprise_cog]

An Israeli collaborator who worked as an undercover spy is repeating Israeli propaganda. That isn’t evidence.

[invalidname]

Sure. You can always discount the multiple sources of evidence that you're given. You can ignore the well published beliefs of the Hamas which specifically state that "innocent Muslims" killed in the Jihad are rewarded in the afterlife.

You can ignore all of those things. You can ignore the fact that they placed their headquarters under a hospital or that they fire rockets next to another hospital (and hit it by mistake then blamed Israel).

Just as long as it fits the narrative of Israel is lying and the Hamas is, truthful???

What level of evidence do you need? There's motive, there's justification, there's first person testimony... What do you think, that the people who send suicide bombers into busses with children are too nice???

Confirmation bias is a problematic thing. For instance, I don't want to believe that the Hamas is truthful about the number of deaths in Gaza. But I don't KNOW that they are lying. I have no source of that other than their history. It's also very clear that they don't divide combatants from civilians which is the number I want to know. But the difference is my belief doesn't factor into this. I just don't know. That isn't evidence either.

In this case the evidence is pretty damn clear.

[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.

[Turing_Machine]

You were wrong, and now you're trying to change the subject.

We're done here.

[enterprise_cog]

How was I wrong when I wasn’t even talking about international law? I was saying people who drop bombs in cities are at fault for civilian deaths. I don’t care what international law says.