The IDF and Shin Bet security agency on Saturday night named 19 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operatives that it said it killed in an airstrike Saturday morning on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command room at the Taba’een school in Gaza City.
raises hand
Question
Does that mean that if Likud has a headquarters near some civilian installation, that it’s okay to blow it up and the civilians along with it?
(Not that I necessarily believe that Hamas had a command center next to all of the children, but even if they did, I don’t think that automatically means that blowing up all the children in the school becomes okay)
If you want to apply the same ratios the IDF uses when it comes to civilian casualties, Hamas comes out way better on Oct 7. The majority of the hostages and victims were IDF personnel.
Wikipedia: 1,180 killed[18][c][d] 797 civilians,[e] including 36 children[f] 379 security forces[19]
For sources cited (they are legit), see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel
Basically, the unacceptable and disgusting Hamas terror attack had a 32% legitimate targets to total hits ratio
Edit:
Or you can say that for every 1 legitimate target they also killed 2 illegitimate ones.
That of course does not mean that killing of legitimate targets cannot be a war crime (eg when they surrender).
But for the IDF to not be comparable to an abominable terror group, the ratios should be much different. And if we are to accept the “most moral army” thing, the ratio should be radically different (angel vs devil comparison).
Is it?
That’s…Hamas doctrine. They use civilians as human shields to avoid western attacks. Israel is notably different in their approach where they have basically decided to ignore human shield attempts in order to more effectively counter Hamas. Arguably, if it never works and Hamas fighters get killed anyway, Hamas might stop doing it because being amongst civilians means there are a lot of people who can inform on where Hamas militants are and what they’re doing. I suspect most civilians there support Hamas though, so it probably won’t change Hamas doctrine.
In Afghanistan by contrast, the US worked with various tribal elders who didn’t support al-Qaeda. This information allowed US forces to counter human shield tactics in those areas and fighters increasingly moved out to the remote regions so civilians couldn’t inform the US where they were.
It’s israel who’s been using palestinian as humanshield with videos to prove it
Well, Hamas kidnapped several hundred civilians from a music festival to use as hostages before Israel militarily invaded Gaza. Or is that fake news?
The one time the UN looked in detail into this theory, it turned out it was crap. Hamas and civilians are sometimes next to each other just because they all live in Palestine, but the claimed thing where they would deliberately gather up some civilians and have them stand next to their installation, as if this would deter the Israelis or as if there was any shortage of non-artificial civilian casualties and so it was useful on any level to create some artificially, was it turned out a bunch of hooey.
The Israeli army has used Palestinian civilians as human shields, deliberately putting them in strategic places and in front of military targets, in an attempt to prevent attacks, fortify its forces in the Gaza Strip, facilitate its military operations and obstruct corresponding military operations. When conducting ground incursions and military attacks, the Israeli army purposefully used Palestinian civilians to guard its forces’ assembly points. It also made them step in front of military vehicles when it stormed homes and buildings it thought were booby-trapped.
Israel are a terrorist state.
