[holmesworcester]

A reminder: Israel counts Hamas soldiers as military targets, even when they are out of uniform and in civilian life.

If we apply the civilized world's standards of war then yes, Israelis who are also off-duty soldiers or reservists don't count as military targets.

If we apply Israel's standards, however, they are.

Are Gazans not allowed to apply the same standards to their adversaries that their adversaries openly apply to them? Would you be this courteous, in their position?

[dijit]

Of the 378 people killed at and around Nova, 16 were off-duty soldiers attending the rave and 4 were killed fighting [1]. That's 20 out of 378 ... so about 5%.

So even by the standard you're proposing, Hamas massacred around 358 people who wouldn't qualify as military targets under anyone's rules of engagement. Including theirs, apparently, since Hamas's own explanation was that they "may have thought" the ravers were soldiers "resting"; i.e. they didn't know and killed them anyway.

The argument you've constructed requires Hamas to have been applying a targeting framework. The evidence is that they found a large crowd of Israelis and opened fire.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-okayed-nova-music-festival...

[JasonADrury]

Ah, so they'd only previously been members of the IDF?

Do you suppose Israel doesn't consider previous members of Hamas legitimate targets?

>The argument you've constructed requires Hamas to have been applying a targeting framework. The evidence is that they found a large crowd of Israelis and opened fire.

But that's effectively indistinguishable from the Israeli targeting framework where everyone connected to Hamas is a legitimate target.

[dijit]

This is settled in international humanitarian law. Per Human Rights Watch, citing ICRC guidance: "reservists of national armed forces are considered civilians except when they go on duty." [1] Off-duty at a music festival unambiguously qualifies as not on duty.

The argument that prior military service permanently strips civilian status has no basis in IHL. If it did, every Israeli who'd ever served (which is nearly all of them, given conscription) would be a legitimate target forever.

So: not a targeting framework, more like a justification for killing the entire population.

On your second point: Israel's targeting decisions are also subject to IHL, and where they kill civilians unlawfully that's also a war crime. That's not a defence of Hamas... it's the same standard applied consistently.

"They do it too" doesn't make either lawful.

For what it's worth, joining Hamas is a choice; IDF service is compulsory. The cases aren't analogous.

[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/09/questions-and-answers-oc...

[JasonADrury]

> This is settled in international humanitarian law

Neither participant in the Israel-Hamas conflict subscribes to that.

And I'm not really sure how you could expect the small resistance group to follow international humanitarian law when the big state they're fighting doesn't either? That seems absurd.

[bigyabai]

> This is settled in international humanitarian law.

Many things are settled in international humanitarian law, thus far it hasn't stopped either side from ignoring it wholesale.

[Cyph0n]

A wonderful quote that demonstrates how Israel applies different standards to itself: even its active duty combatants are painted as helpless innocents!

“Nimrod Cohen was abducted from Tank 3”

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjzgyg9txg

[bluecalm]

Israel has to apply that standard because Hamas operates without uniforms unlike IDF. So yeah, Gazans shouldn't apply the same standard because unlike them Israeli military operates in uniforms so it's easy to distinguish between them and civilians. That Gazans do the opposite is on them.

[JasonADrury]

Are you sure? Israel is kind of notorious for having people in civilian clothes kill its enemies.

[bluecalm]

Sure, if that happens then it needs to be investigated as a potential war crime. It still doesn't change the fact that Israel is in no position to apply that standard because fighting Gazans don't use uniforms. Obviously they will not treat people shooting at them and launching rockets at them as civilians.