To clarify, is it still a terrorist regime when it's not actually targeting civilians, but only by coincidence civilians and civilian infrastructure are close to the regime's military targets?
This is rather clearly described in the laws of war.
If militants hides behind civilians or use civilians as shields for military infrastructure, the lives of the civilians is their responsibility.
This might seem counterintuitive at first but is perfectly obvious once you stop and think:
If it was legal to use civilians as human shields and it would shield your military infrastructure everyone would do it.
Because the laws of the war is so clear about it nobody does it except Hamas and they only do it because they know western media and commentators will blame Israel despite international laws being very very clear in this matter.
> Because the laws of the war is so clear about it nobody does it except Hamas
Everyone does it. We just call it espionage. That said, when a Western espionage mission goes awry and it results in collateral damage, the government doing the fuckery is properly blamed.
Sure, Hamas dials the tactic to eleven. Point is hiding merchant raiders [1] and clandestine activities (e.g. the CIA's fake vaccine campaign to verify Bin Laden [2]) operate on the same principle. And when those go wrong, we properly blame the people using civilians for cover.
Because the war is only partially about engaging with Hamas. It is also about cementing is stranglehold on the West Bank, and in creating conditions in Gaza favorable to what its current regime coldly refers to as "voluntary transfer":
When the targets, as a matter of publicly stated policy, engage in war crimes of using human shields to both attack civilians and defend themselves, store war munitions and setup command centers in hospitals, schools, etc., and when the country defends itself against those war crimes adhering to legal proportionality rules, then no.
If it is actual indiscriminate bombing or targeting of civilian targets not used in war crimes, human shields, storing military equipment & munitions, command& control, etc., then yes.
Bad publicity against your enemy; it's literally the stated policy of Hamas to make more Palestinian "martyrs". It gets others to scream "genocide", causrs more global division, etc. And, in fact, they are averse to killing the human shields, just not absolutely averse (and definitely less averse after you go on murder, raoe, & kidnapping sprees at music festivals, etc).
This is rather clearly described in the laws of war.
If militants hides behind civilians or use civilians as shields for military infrastructure, the lives of the civilians is their responsibility.
This might seem counterintuitive at first but is perfectly obvious once you stop and think:
If it was legal to use civilians as human shields and it would shield your military infrastructure everyone would do it.
Because the laws of the war is so clear about it nobody does it except Hamas and they only do it because they know western media and commentators will blame Israel despite international laws being very very clear in this matter.