Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tpm 290 days ago
Yes, the intent is there in case of Israel. For example, purposely (not incidentally) destroying all life supporting infrastructure even if it does not have any military significance (like drinking water supply) clearly demonstrates intent to depopulate.
1 comments

You say it's purposeful, they say it's incidental. Israel still supplies Gaza with water, albeit at a substantially reduced rate. Roughly 40% of the water infrastructure remains operational[1]. Therefore, your maximalist claim of "destroying all life supporting infrastructure" is false.

Russia has hit plenty of life-supporting infrastructure in the affected areas of Ukraine and millions have been displaced. Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?

[1] https://water.fanack.com/water-situation-in-gaza-current-ove...

From your own link:

> over 85% of water and sanitation facilities are now completely or partially out of service

I don't even think I have to add anything to that. Either they incidentally destroyed that much, which means they are not discriminating between civilian and military facilities, which means they are deliberately commiting massive war crimes against civilians, or they deliberately destroyed that much, which means deliberate genocide.

> Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?

Russia is without a doubt commiting genocide, trying to destroy the Ukrainian nation. This is openly admitted by Putin in that he says there is no such nation. Luckily it is not entirely successful yet, but in annexed territories it is absolutely exterminating any mention of Ukrainian nationhood and ethnicity.

Israel is much more successful, both now and in the long term.

Hamas does not discriminate between civilian and military facilities in their operations. If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure, should that give them legal immunity from being targeted, in your opinion? If so, how do you think that would affect the strategy of said militants?

At least you're consistent in regards to Ukraine. Now let's take it one step further: Most of the infrastructure of Raqqa was destroyed in the war against ISIS[1]. Did the coalition therefore commit a genocide and/or massive war crimes?

[1] https://time.com/5563553/mosul-raqqa-ruins-after-the-war-of-...

At this point deflecting to Hamas is pretty poor and worn out strategy, I think Israeli propaganda should pivot to something else, like [0]. Anyway for the sake of clarity:

> If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure

1) Of course we would have to believe the attackers it's the case. But we can't believe them, can we? I could search for facts supporing my view, but these are not isolated incidents, it's a sustained campaign.

2) There seem to be militants everywhere, according to the total devastation: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/a-visual-guide...

3) You still should not destroy the civilian infrastructure. I mean it's not that hard to understand: you should not kill civilians. Most people do understand that. Israeli army certainly understands that, it just chose to kill civilians and destroy their infrastructure.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

> But we can't believe them, can we?

I have no trouble believing that there are militants using every piece of available civilian infrastructure so that people like you get to shout "war crime" whenever the IDF calls them on their tactic. This is the only effective weapon that Hamas has.

Without ascribing further motivations, I don't see a difference to what's happening in Gaza and to what happened in Raqqa. If the motivation of Netanyahu is to "depopulate" Gaza, one must also ask why Hamas is doing everything to allow this to continue.

There is no question that civilians will die if they're caught up in urban warfare. Israel issues evacuation orders and designates zones where strikes are rare exceptions, with the knowledge that the enemy will take full advantage of this. If you're gonna set a standard beyond that, who can be expected to follow it?

I'm sorry you feel the need to defend mass murdering of civilians, but I can't help you.