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CNN’s Wolf Blitzer seemed at a lost of words at the justification being used to bomb a refugee camp in Gaza.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer seemed at a lost of words at the justification being used to bomb a refugee camp in Gaza.
And? If there’s a hostage situation, the answer is not to blow up the entire building, hostages and all.
Even Russians don’t blow the entire building, they just gas it.
Nah. We watched the Russians blow up the buildings in realtime without even worrying if military personnel were housed there. IIRC that was the theater bombing one that I am thinking of.
Yeah, Israel are straight-up taking plays from the Soviet handbook here. Indiscriminate murder of civilians is okay if you get one bad dude. They’ve already dehumanised Palestinians beyond belief, it’s no wonder that they view murder of innocent Palestinians as being completely different to murder of innocent Israelis.
And that’s the most disturbing part of it.
They blew up that whole theater in Mariupol full of sheltering women and children, early on in the war. That must have killed hundreds.
That wasn’t a hostage situation that was plain ethnic cleansing. Russia has thrown pretty much the whole of the male population in the occupied territories in the meat grinder by now, btw.
What OP is referring to is the Dubrovka crisis where Chechens took tons of hostages in a theatre and Russia pumped the whole thing full of gas, probably some fast-acting opioid. Which isn’t that bad of a way to diffuse a situation they just failed to inform EMTs on what they’ve used or at least how patients should be treated which meant a lot more respiratory failures than was necessary. Still a better outcome than storming the thing and the Chechens blowing everything up.
A russian classic, really:
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Answer? They’re at war
As we all know, legal experts prefer to say “all’s fair in love and war” than to follow Geneva conventions.
I agree, but militaries will absolutely strike any high value target no matter the civilian cost. That’s the human cost of war and why we have rules of war. Hamas doesn’t follow those rules and the IDF has labeled them illegal combatants. Thus, in a legal sense, these strikes are being carried out. It absolutely is sickening but this is what Hamas wants to happen.
That’s not how it works. The failure of an enemy to abide by the laws of war does not absolve your side of the necessity of following the laws of war.
Jesus, fuck, it’s the Bush administration all over again. I’m having fucking flashbacks to “Why it’s actually totally legal to torture ‘unprivileged combatants’”
They shouldn’t have gotten away with it… but they largely did, didn’t they? Plenty of tales of US forces executing men of fighting age, based on very spurious allegations. The US killed two Reuters journalists and convicted… Chelsea Manning for leaking the footage to wikileaks. Not as if this was new. Colin Powell started his career by arguably whitewashing the My Lai massacre and ended it by fraudulently justifying the war in Iraq. Certainly didn’t hurt his career. So apparently, it often does work that way. You hire some lawyers, you find a technicality, and you can get away with pretending it was legal. I look forward to seeing George Bush Jr. on dancing with the Stars.
You might suspect that might makes right, and the US, China and Russia get away with war crimes and/or a bit of genocide because they’re nuclear powers.
But that can’t be it, can it? Because Assad gets away with war crimes constantly. IRC there was a story a few years ago, about how doctors in Syria no longer told the UN where their hospital were located. The Syrians were deliberately targetting hospitals, based on UN information. You know, the UN says: ‘don’t bomb this, it’s a hospital, that would be a war crime’. So Assad bombs them all anyway. I think at one point they bombed 4 in one day. Anyway, Assad’s still in power.
That is actually how it works. It is not against international law to strike civilian areas if it cannot be avoided in order to attack military targets. It needs to be done in a manner appropriate to the situation, for which there is obviously no hard line defined. Assuming that Israel is not lying regarding the military target around/under the location of this strike (which they probably aren’t, because murdering civilians without reason hurts their interests), it is explicitly legal without any loopholes or weird interpretations.
That is categorically not how it works. We had trials over this after WWII. The international law was delineated quite clearly. Intentionally targeting civilians to hit military targets is still a war crime. Even if enemy combatants are hiding among civilians to use them as human shields, even if you can prove that it is a standard practice of your enemy. It’s still a war crime. Israel is just so confident that the US will back them up all the way down to total genocide that they don’t even pretend they are trying to follow IHL anymore.
Civilians should never be the target. The Israei government will be questioned for their actions, but I’ll be surprised if they are held responsible for them.
It is if the collateral damage is considered ‘excessive’ in comparison to the military benefits that would be gained if the strike was successful and in relation to the level of precision available.
You know, like murdering 50 civilians in a refugee camp with a guided munition to kill an enemy officer.
Like murdering 8000 civilians in a coordinated ‘surgical’ strike in an operation the media would glowingly call Shock and Awe, and getting re-elected on the back of it.
Or demolishing thousands of mosques, then signing trade deals with Muslim countries, as part of the Belt and Road initiative.
Or forcibly conscripting Muslim men for the meatgrinder in Ukraine, previously leveling Chechnya, then inviting over Hamas for a visit where they praise your leadership.
I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high. Once everyone’s bored of this war and distracted, and the man on the street in the Arab world is once again existentially preoccupied, it’s not unlikely Arab leaders will end their performative outrage and return to real politik, making money and throwing Palestinians under the bus.
Oh, don’t worry, my hopes weren’t that Arab leaders would hold Israel accountable. Only that some of us will remember this outrage.
Our hopes should be that the body politic in both America and Israel (the two countries with power to stop it) wakes up and mobilizes to stop it. This is so much faster and more blatant than what america did post 9/11 that I believe (def biased but also seeing encouraging signs) that we can pull it off this time.
Actually, it does if justified. I don’t agree at all with it, but that’s war. The IDF will justify it and no one will do anything but look the other way.
what
Where’s the proof they killed this general? It just sounds way too convenient to try to justify your fuck up with a lie, but until proven that this target was indeed hiding there with other combatants I have my doubts.
So Hamas was not committing war crimes when they shot up that music festival because surely there were some IDF soldiers in there?
The moment unarmed people that have nothing to do with the war are knowingly targeted is the moment any party crosses the line
knowingly targeted != collateral damage
It’s a terrorist act and is a crime. It’s not a war crime as war was not declared. Hamas is not a uniformed military and they don’t fall under traditional laws of war. They are terrorists and international law gives great latitude on ways to eliminate them.
If you really need it spelled out here’s a literal human rights lawyer explaining the war crimes israel is committing and which international laws exactly they are breaking. https://youtu.be/wiGp2mvFLY0?si=WYD-YCE0R1dlhL8V
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It’s not really relevant what Hamas wants to happen. The civilians don’t want to be murdered.
These are war crimes no matter what either of the beligerants think/want.
Most international law experts are already coming down on the side of civilian starvation being war crimes. History is going to judge this a lot more harshly than the talking heads of US/Israeli news.
I don’t think anyone is saying they do.
Is bombing a hospital ok in the rules of war? Because they bombed the only cancer hospital in Gaza yesterday.
Ask Assad. He once bombed 4 hospitals in a day, and IRC at one point doctors in Syria stopped telling the UN where their hospitals were located, because their warnings to not target these hospitals was being used by the Syrians as targetting suggestions.
Shit, is he bombing Palestine too? Otherwise he’s irrelevant to this conversation
Sure, we don’t want no context here. That only makes this less black and white, and nobody ain’t got time for that.
What additional context does an unrelated conflict provide?
You can read the thread yourself, I’m not going to waste my time if you refuse to do that.
Then I guess you won’t convince me, because I read it and don’t understand. Suck to suck (for both of us) I guess
Hamas bombed a hospital by mistake. War zones are dangerous.
You’re referring to the PIJ, not Hamas. And even the PIJ being responsible is very much in question at the moment as more information is obtained on those events. See the New York Times analysis from the other day.
I don’t know what NYT analysis you’re referring to but this one by the BBC seems to support claims that the rocket was fired from within Gaza.
No idea why you’re downvoted, this is objectively true. One may consider it disgusting or morally indefensible, but a) unless Israel is lying about the presence of legitimate targets in the area it is not illegal b) using civilians as human shields is a staple Hamas tactic.
The truth is very hard to swallow. I served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve witnessed this stupidity first hand. Terrorists are cowards who hide behind civilians. They want civilians to die because for every civilian killed they gain more bodies to their cause.
So so very close to piecing together why bombing a refugee camp even if there are terrorists or supporting infrastructure located there is a terrible idea.
I truly don’t know how you can recognize that Hamas wants civilians to die because it will strengthen their numbers, and still excuse the bombing of civilians. Perhaps you’re just trolling?
This explains so much about all the shit you’re smearing all over Lemmy. You just miss murdering Arabs.
I am an engineer, I built schools, hospitals, and other public services. Few military personnel serve in combat roles.
Oh, so you’re just keeping your role of whitewashing a brutal occupation going then.
I don’t support either side of the conflict.
Yet you’re only justifying one side’s actions.
Lol and you get downvoted because you’re not meeting the bloodthirsty soldier narrative that Lemmy’s unemployed communists love to parrot.
You’re probably correct. I’m rather antiwar and pro diplomacy.
Yes, I’ve heard the US operation in Iraq was very successful in defeating the Taliban. Oh wait…
The Taliban are in Afghanistan and the U.S. mission was never against them, ever. Perhaps you should look up basic information first.
Oh, was Iraq justified with Saddam’s “weapon’s of mass destruction” that didn’t exist? Sorry, got my lies mixed up.
Iraq was GWB wanting to make his daddy proud. On the ground things were fine until his dumbass fired the entire Iraqi military. That’s when it all went to hell. It did lead to a United Iraq, but it took 12 years.
I can’t help but parrot exactly what @V17 said. People just don’t want to hear the realities of war.