[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.