From a tactical perspective it’s a goddamn war crime. When should they stop, then? When no native Palestinian remains, so they can swoop in and take all of Gaza like they’ve been trying to do for the last 70 years? Hamas is a response to decades of ethnic cleansing and Israel is using it as an excuse to further their conquest
Edit: this isn’t necessarily directed at OP. It’s more of an open ended question for those in support of the bombings
As far as international law goes no this is not a war crime.
If your military takes refuge or uses a civilian center for military operation then that location becomes a valid military target regardless of the risk to civilian lives.
Basically Hamas is commiting the crime by purposefully setting up in these areas. Once they do that then civilian death is acceptable collateral damage, legally speaking.
What about bombing humanitarian aide locations or using white phosphorus as a weapon?
Same thing applies to humanitarian aid.
If Hamas has hijacked or is operating in those places then they become military targets.
As far as white phosphorus, it depends on how it’s deployed. If it’s deployed for masking, tracing or identifying then it’s legal.
If it’s being directly used as an incendiary then that’s illegal.
From a tactical perspective it’s a goddamn war crime.
It’s also a war crime to use civilians as meat shields or to use hospitals or other cilvilian buildings as base of operations or storage for military equipment. Please don’t act as Hamas is giving real choices to Israel. They could either act or give the Hamas and other organisations an advantage and they all have their fair share of atrocities but I mostly see the war crime label on the actions of Israel in social media and I find this kind of strange.
Hamas is a response to decades of ethnic cleansing
Hamas is a bunch of rabid dogs that hate jews, just like all the other terrorist factions around them, who want to kill everyone that dont give a fuck about their great Allah. Of course Israel has their fair share in atrocities and is also fueling this conflict, but don’t fool yourself in thinking that those terrorist groups would stop after they got rid of Israel. Netanyahu and his political party need to go if we ever want peace in the middle east, but the same goes for Hamas and all the other religious dipshits.
And just to set this in perspective, the same is happening in Russia right now. There will be a whole generation with a furious hatred for the west and our lifestyle because of the propaganda and the lies of their leader. And I’m asking you, wouldn’t it be justified for the west to defend itself against that?
It’s more of an open ended question for those in support of the bombings
I really don’t think that someone is supporting the bombing of civilians or the amount of casualties. But Hamas or the other groups will continue. Israel gould go back to the borders of 1948 and there would be still missle attacks each day against them. From the perspective of these groups Israel has no right to exist and now please tell me how do you defend yourself against such primal agression? How do you avoid civilian casualites if the enemy is hiding among them? How do you save the life of your troops and keep your defense up in such a scenario? The cruel and sad answer to that is what we all witness every day.
And I do not support it, I really condemn it, but I also have no idea how it could be dealt with in any other way that would not benefit the Hamas in the end.
Where do you think these terrorist groups come from? Decades of people displacing, killing, and blockading their friends and family. The West has been invading and splitting up the Middle-East for like a hundred years. Continuing to do the same is just causing more jihad groups.
The solution, since you asked, is to not undermine the PLO by supporting Hamas like the right in Israel did. It’s to prop up and strengthen the PLO, legitimize them instead of running scared from negotiations every time Hamas does an attack (a third party that should be ignored, but since Israel has never been serious about negotiations since that one guy got assassinated it’s been a good excuse for them to stop them and then keep grabbing more land). Then they can work together against Hamas. Then you’re probably going to have to Marshall Plan the area. It’s racist to think their inherently more violent because they’re brown. It’s basically what people used to say about the Japanese during WW2. They’re in a giant prison right now which breeds that kind of behavior.
Basically they need a chance to have a better quality of life, and that will require what the world did for the Germany and Europe after the war, the same kind of investments we made in Japan or South Korea, or Israel lol. It will probably also require some Reconciliation committees like South Africa, possibly some land reform like in many formerly colonized countries, maybe reparations, etc.
You realise what it took to get Japan and Germany to the point where they could be rehabilitated? Both were completely dismantled as warfighting states, something which caused millions of civillian casualties.
War is grim as fuck but what other choice does Israel have?
