Fair enough. The ICC Rome Statute specifically refers to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. But per the ICC Rome statute on war crimes, Article 8, Section 2, Subsection (b), Clause (ix), the following is a war crime: “Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected,provided they are not military objectives;”

That’s exactly what Hamas does. No better than Al-Qaida.

Except in theory, you would want your hospitals protected regardless, even if it wasn’t a war crime to hide the military there. Because that’s where your population is vulnerable and being healed.

Using your own population as shields is just next level. Those are the people you are supposedly fighting to protect in the first place.

So glad Israel is the good guy here!

Israelis regularly voted Netanyahu and that even last year despite him being head over heels in dozens of currpotion scandals.

thats my point

There was a ceasefire, then Hamas attacked. Hard to rebuild trust after that.

Well said. The only angels here are the innocents being slaughtered. The belligerents are all devils.

Interesting that you mentioned the removal of Hamas from power but not the current Isreali government.

That’s why you don’t pick sides

You’re misrepresenting my position. It’s, “yeah definitely shoot the terrorist, try to avoid shooting their hostages if you can.”

Also the comparision isnt Palestinian children vs Israeli children. It is Palestinian children vs. grown armed men and women aka Soldiers.

Israel could have worked with insurgencies to target Hamas specifically, without having to bomb everything to rubble. That would have risked more soldiers lives though.

So they are weighting their soldiers lifes at a rate of about 200 Palestinains of which 80 are children.

For comparision. In WW2 about 4 Ally soldiers died for one civillian death in the Axis and about 6 Ally civillians, mostly Chinese, Polish, Ukranian and Russian, died for every Axis soldier. So the war of total annhilation, with death squads eradicating entire villages and concentration camps for mass murder still had a much lower rate of civillian to military deaths.

That is how they justify genocide.

really? you would let them continue killing your kids? tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids 😆

Would you let them keep doing it while insisting that reprisals are off limits?

Yes

Nice of you to value their citizens’ lives above your own. I doubt that will be much of a consolation for your countrymen that you’re willing to sacrifice to violence. Expect more human shields in the future now that you’ve proven the tactic so effective.

What kind of question is that?

A moral dilemma.

If you answer no to that you’re saying I’m no better than them, and if you’re ok with that then what is your moral high ground here?

If you answered no to that I’d say you’re honestly assessing the grim realities of war, where the goal is to pacify the enemy without sacrificing your own people, even if that may result in collateral damage.

They just love their non-representative and in no way realistic strawman.

Hamas barely has any power against Israel

Indeed. It would be nice if they would acknowledge the reality of their situation. Maybe they would release the hostages, lay down arms, and sue for peace, if they acknowledged as you do that they don’t have any hope against winning against Israel with violence.

the children are not Hamas’s kids.

The children that they hide behind are Palestinian children. Hamas is the government of Gaza and every citizen there is under their jurisdiction and control until they are deposed; i.e., “theirs.”

two wrongs don’t make a right

War is always ethically shitty, but I see no other option for Israel at this point. If they don’t meet violence with violence and achieve meaningful objectives to keep themselves safe in response to Hamas’ mass slaughter, it’s just begging for more of the same in the future. War is what happens when deterrence fails, perhaps this will serve as an example to those who would consider attacking Israel next time of the consequences.

If you decide to shoot a innocent child you deserve go to hell there is no buts.

Israel’s intention is not to shoot children being used as shields. It is to neutralize the one shooting from behind them, even if there’s significant risk of hitting a human shield. This devalues the strategy and discourages such people from using human shields in the future. It’s the same reason one does not negotiate for hostages, it encourages future hostage taking. You let this be a viable strategy that deters reprisal, expect more of it.

Hamas barely has any power against Israel

I mean this is demonstrably untrue considering the attack where they killed and kidnapped hundreds of innocents.

That doesn’t make Israel’s response even remotely justifiable of course. But Hamas is not some plucky rebel group throwing pebbles. They’re dangerous and need to be removed from power in a method that doesn’t kill babies.