flossdaily
KILLING civilians happens in every war, no matter how just.
The issue is who is being TARGETED.
Hamas targets civilians. Israel targets Hamas.
Hamas hides among civilians, to use them as human shields.
So when Israel targets Hamas, of course civilians are going to die. That’s on Hamas’s hands as well.
If each faction had the ability to only kill exactly who they wanted, Israel would be killing only militants, and Hamas would still be killing children.
It IS fucked up. It’s also true.
Palestinian refugees have been involved in political violence or rebellion many places, and that’s why you don’t see them opening their doors anymore. Here’s a couple:
Jordan:
- In 1970, during a period known as Black September, King Hussein of Jordan moved to suppress the autonomy of Palestinian organizations, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in an effort to restore his monarchy’s rule over the country. This led to armed conflict which lasted until July 1971, resulting in the expulsion of the PLO and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon. The violence during this period resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were Palestinians ➊.
Lebanon:
- After being expelled from Jordan, the PLO resettled in Lebanon and began to extend de facto autonomous rule from there, staging raids into Israel. The presence and activities of the PLO were major factors for the sectarian destabilization of Lebanon, contributing to the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. This continued with various conflicts and Israeli interventions in Lebanon until the PLO agreed to withdraw in 1982 following an Israeli invasion ➋.
Hamas’s well-documented use of its own civilians as human shields, as well as its use of mosques, hospitals, schools and private homes as weapons storage facilities and firing platforms, violates international humanitarian law.
From your own link:
Here we go again with the “double standard” for Israel, said The Jerusalem Post. The soldiers’ testimony—none of which has been confirmed—cited only two “egregious cases,” and neither was a war crime. In one, a sharpshooter killed a woman and her two children in what everyone agrees was a tragic mistake—it merited discussion only because one soldier believed the shooter hadn’t felt “too bad about it.” In the other, an elderly woman was shot as she approached an army position—most likely because she was wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber. Such incidents are highly regrettable, but they are aberrant: The IDF tries to target only militants. Hamas, by contrast, plants bombs in crowded buses and shopping malls; a large car bomb was discovered at a mall in Haifa just last weekend, and it was mere luck that it malfunctioned and failed to go off. The difference between Israel and its enemies is undeniable: “We don’t set out to kill innocents, and if we do, our society feels anguish. They set out to kill civilians, and when they fail, they’re disappointed.”
