[ristlane]

Hamas is hiding among civilians. I don’t want innocent people to be hurt, but their use of human shields is simply the standard playbook in this type of warfare. Hamas rationally wants Gazan civilians to be nearby and indistinguishable from combatants.

[ajb]

This is true but not the whole story. If Hamas were dug in under an Israeli school or hospital, would it similarly by okay to treat civilian deaths as 'just Hamas fault'? Obviously not. The problem here has that the situation is between a war and a policing situation. Gaza is not a state, but it is not a suburb of Israel either. So who is responsible for the safety of Palestinian civilians?

[ristlane]

If Hamas were entrenched under an Israeli school or hospital, the civilians would vacate the area so the IDF could take care of it.

In Gaza, Hamas may be preventing civilians from leaving (but I’m not there to verify). It would help to have civilian corridors into the south and into Egypt, but again that’s not in the best interests of Hamas.

I’d like the IDF to do their best. They are indeed responsible for trying not to kill civilians. There’s only so much they can do, short of a so-called “ceasefire”.

[Thiez]

> It would help to have civilian corridors into the south and into Egypt, but again that’s not in the best interests of Hamas.

Such a corridor is in nobodies interest but Israels, as they would happily expel the entire Gaza population and then forbid them from returning. It's not like high ranking Israeli officials haven't alluded or outright said this, and Israel has quite a history of illegal annexation in the West Bank.

Providing such a corridor would just be asssisting in ethnic cleansing.

[edanm]

Hamas rules Gaza, Israel doesn't (or at least didn't) have a military presence inside of Gaza. Israel withdrew all Israelis and all military forces from Gaza, as was often demanded of it ("End the Occupation"). I'm not sure what makes the situation unclear (for the specific things you talked about).

[ajb]

The way you have phrased your question invites discussion of legal definitions. Moral questions are not answered in this way. What is the moral difference between soldiers and police as regards civilians? Both have the same moral obligation not to harm civilians. The difference is that police have a monopoly on violence and soldiers do not, because there is another belligerent force. Hence, it is clear that under some circumstances, the moral obligations of soldiers would reduce to that of police (when the opposing beligerent force is nearly eliminated). The degree to which this is the case depends on the tactical state of play, which is unclear (and likely to remain so).

I have to say that it's also unclear to me personally whether the current rate of civilian deaths could be justified under any circumstances. Since Israel has not stated what it wants the end-goal of the war to be, we don't know how it could justify it either.

[edanm]

> Hence, it is clear that under some circumstances, the moral obligations of soldiers would reduce to that of police (when the opposing beligerent force is nearly eliminated). The degree to which this is the case depends on the tactical state of play, which is unclear (and likely to remain so).

This is clearly not the case - the IDF is still actively fighting Hamas militants, Hamas is still firing rockets at Israel, IDF soldiers are getting killed every day, etc. Not to mention, the population itself is not fully cooperating with the IDF, I believe.

For contrast, Israel has ordered many Israelis to leave areas for their own protection, I believe around 100-150k Israelis have evacuated their homes. No one is talking about them being "ethnically cleansed", and whil there is internal political pressure to help them, no one thinks it's immoral that they were asked to relocate. Clearly the situation in Gaza is different, because many people are outraged that Gazans were similarly asked to evacuate their cities for their own protection.

> I have to say that it's also unclear to me personally whether the current rate of civilian deaths could be justified under any circumstances. Since Israel has not stated what it wants the end-goal of the war to be, we don't know how it could justify it either.

Israel has stated it wants the hostages returned, and Hamas destroyed. Whether this is achievable, or what exactly counts as "Hamas being destroyed", are open questions, but not impossible to answer. (And frustrating as it is, it makes sense that Israel doesn't want to publicize its exact goals.)

Regarding the rate of civilian deaths - this if of course hard to exactly know, given the incentive of both sides to manipulate numbers. I trust the Israeli side far more, and I think everyone should given that the other side is Hamas, but I'm also obviously biased.

That said, the IDF has said it thinks it's killing 2 civilians per 1 Hamas fighter. This is a ratio that, as far as I know, is roughly in line with other conflicts by Western countries. The rate itself is fairly high but it's likely to be far shorter and lead to orders of magnitude less killed than in other conflicts.

I do want to mention that, while I talk about these numbers as statistics, every civilian death is a tragedy. Hell, every death is a tragedy - if Israel could manage to not kill any militants, it would be morally better, because every death is a tragedy.

[VBprogrammer]

> That said, the IDF has said it thinks it's killing 2 civilians per 1 Hamas fighter. This is a ratio that, as far as I know, is roughly in line with other conflicts by Western countries. The rate itself is fairly high but it's likely to be far shorter and lead to orders of magnitude less killed than in other conflicts.

The idea that this war is winnable seams incredibly naive. The idea that hitting hard now prevents future conflicts is an untested hypothesis at best.

Are there any examples of a war where an entrenched gorilla group with broad civilian support have been successfully "defeated"?

[edanm]

> Are there any examples of a war where an entrenched gorilla group with broad civilian support have been successfully "defeated"?

I'm not sure you can call it an entrenched guerilla group given that it is effectively the government of Gaza.

And yes, there are many examples where wars ended when one side surrendered, just to state the obvious, Japan and Germany in WW2.

[VBprogrammer]

Would Israel allow Gaza to have a conventional standing army? With barracks, heavy weapons and maybe airbases?

Isn't it a bit silly to complain about their lack of adherence to conventional military practices?

[oytis]

No state will tolerate a hostile army near its borders. But if representatives of Gaza/West Bank recognized Israel and made a peace agreement with delineated borders - they would have their army like any other government.

Today it sounds highly hypothetical, but was definitely possible at many points in Israel's history.

[VBprogrammer]

I find it hard to imagine a future in which Israel allows a Palestinian state to have its own army of any reasonable capability. Almost as much as I find it improbable that such an army wouldn't be mobilised against Israel as soon as it was sufficiently established - regardless of any pretext of peace.

However, my point was based on the situation today. The import of building materials into Gaza is strictly controlled because those materials could be used to build and fortify military positions.

It is contradictory to prevent the creation of military positions and also complain about civilian structures being used for military purposes.

[aprilthird2021]

The IDF HQ is in a heavily populated part of Tel Aviv. If a country dropped an enormous bomb on it which flattened nearby civilian homes and populations, would it be okay because the IDF is "hiding" among civilians? The IDF also literally used human shields until 2005 when it was banned (and a bit more afterwards trying not to get caught), so is it okay to kill ~20000 Israeli civilians as a result of that?