So the IDF does admit fault when it accidentally hits non-military targets. This seems to weaken the case that they do so intentionally and lie about legal targets. If this is how they behave, why wouldn’t they do so here?
Maybe it’s because it was reported by Israel public broadcaster KAN. They also admitted fault when they shot those unarmed civilians holding makeshift white flags which ended up being hostages.
We do know half the bombs dropped are precision and half are ‘dumb bombs.’ I don’t know of any comprehensive report on it but it seems to me that they admit fault when there’s no possible plausible deniability.
I don’t really see how that weakens the case that they target civilians when they have been repeatedly bombing schools, hospitals, refugee camps, residential areas, and self-proclaimed safe zones for months; justifying it by claiming Hamas combatants were in the area. And that’s compounded onto cutting off the food, water, aid, and electricity for Gaza that they already controlled. Why else would you cut those off if not to target civilians?
Maybe it’s because it was reported by Israel public broadcaster KAN. They also admitted fault when they shot those unarmed civilians holding makeshift white flags which ended up being hostages.
They could have denied it or manufactured evidence that there was a legal target there, yet they didn’t. This makes it clear the IDF acts in good faith at least some of the time.
We do know half the bombs dropped are precision and half are ‘dumb bombs,’ and these were precision from the article. I don’t know of any comprehensive report on it but it seems to me that they admit fault when there’s no possible plausible deniability.
Does it? I don’t see where it says these were smart bombs, the article says additional buildings were hit because they picked the wrong ordinance, (unless it’s been updated since it was archived?)
I don’t really see how that weakens the case that they target civilians when they have been repeatedly bombing schools, hospitals, refugee camps, residential areas, and self-proclaimed safe zones for months; justifying it by claiming Hamas combatants were in the area.
So you’re aware they claim they target Hamas, not civilians, and Hamas hides among them. Why don’t you find that to be credible? There’s lots of evidence Hamas does this.
Why else would you cut [food and water] off if not to target civilians?
The same reason one does not send their supply lines to enemy forces. Gaza declared war on Israel. It would be odd for any nation at war to supply a hostile nation during wartime while it remains belligerent. I believe this is only legally required if the area is occupied, and Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, (a blockade is not occupation.) Soldiers also run on food and water, and Israel is not responsible for Gazans, their government, Hamas, is.
I’ll retract that these bombs were precision, that doesn’t really help the argument since many civilians die when they do use precision bombs on civilian locations.
Israel claims they only target Hamas, in practice the vast majority of who they kill are civilians (mostly women and children). I’ve only found evidence of Hamas using civilian infrastructure twice in the 2014 war, which I can link if you want, can you share the evidence you’ve found?
The disengagement was not an end to the occupation, in many cases it became a more brutal form of it. It also highlights that the settlements never ended in West Jerusalem or the West Bank, only Gaza. I’ll share sources for why international organizations regard the blockade as a continued form of occupation, it boils down to Gaza still being under Israeli military control with Israel controlling its imports, exports, food, water, electricity, sea access, air space, etc.
I’ve only found evidence of Hamas using civilian infrastructure twice in the 2014 war, which I can link if you want, can you share the evidence you’ve found?
I’ll share sources for why international organizations regard the blockade as a continued form of occupation, it boils down to Gaza still being under Israeli military control with Israel controlling its imports, exports, food, water, electricity, sea access, air space, etc.
This all seems reasonable to me given that they remain belligerent. If Gaza were not actively violent all this would seem inhumane and would violate many laws, but this is a nation at war with Israel that refuses to pacify itself and lay down arms. Letting supply lines be open and uncontrolled to a government whose stated purpose is Israel’s destruction, a genocide of Jews, and ethnic cleansing of the levant, is absurd. Many international organizations are clearly biased against Israel and are holding them to unreasonable standards.
I’m still waiting on someone to provide for me a single source where Hamas or the Palestinian Authority admitted that one of Israel’s strikes hit something that wasn’t civilian.
A few things about the civilian casualty statistics: the statistic that 90% of casualties in wars are civilians don’t seem to be supported from what I can tell. It varies a lot but for example the civilian casualty ratio for WWII was like 67%. For the 2008 Gaza war the civilian casualty ratio was more like 74% (noncombatants) and 64% for the 2014 war (unless you only look at IDF sources, then it’s more like 40%). I can’t really get details on the 61%, are they counting all males 14+ as combatants? Even then it comes to 69% civilian casualties. I don’t see how they got to 61%, which is still very high for modern conflicts as stated in the article you linked.
You find collective punishment reasonable? You seem to believe Gaza is somehow its own nation despite being an occupied territory. Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem have always been under Israeli military control since 1967, when Israel aimed to take those territories by initiating the six-day war. Previously, Israel ethnically cleansed Palestine during the civil war and war for independence in 1947-48 with Plan Dalet and its previous iterations. After independence, the remaining Palestinians within now Israel were subject to harsh military law, until eased to 2nd class citizens they are today. Meanwhile, those military practices have been implemented on the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem since 1967. Except Gaza with the unilateral disengagement and blockade, which in many respects is harsher than the brutal martial law ongoing in east Jerusalem and the west bank. Palestinians have had no civil or human rights under Israeli military control. This is an apartheid state. Popular resistance began as nonviolent with the 1st intifada, until violence escalated after the IDF responded with lethal force. Violent resistance to the apartheid did not come out of nowhere. Before 1948, while early Zionists like Ben Guerion were advocating for partition, Palestinian officials were advocating for a unitary state instead of partition. Israel has never been interested in peace because they covet the Palestinian land but without the Palestinians. Keep in mind Israel as it exists today, is an apartheid state for the Palestinians. Not only do you ignore the 2017 Hamas charter, but that article doesn’t represent the 1988 charter quite right. Yeah of course the 1988 charter is super terrible, it was created by a fundamentalist resistance group under occupation and had no popular support. That doesn’t reflect the will of Palestinians at all. The two most popular goals are sovereignty and right to return, not genocide. This has been a cycle of violence between the Colonizer/Occupier and Colonized/Occupied. A one state solution with equal rights for all is what needs to happen with international pressure for this cycle of violence to end.
The Israeli Army, after ten weeks in which they have repeatedly and intentionally hit non-military, civilian, neutral observer, refugee and journalist targets; in which they have deliberately and indiscriminately murdered thousands of noncombatants during acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, during which they’ve also deliberately murdered their own unarmed and half-naked citizens; bombing hospitals, refugee camps, and the supposed “safe evacuation corridors” they explicitly told the civilian population to use; and after repeatedly lying about and defending their attacks; an onslaught which has been met with almost universal condemnation from the community of nations; has finally admitted, after ten weeks of indiscriminate slaughter, that maybe, just maybe two of their attacks might’ve been misjudged - Oops.
intentionally hit non-military, civilian, neutral observer, refugee and journalist targets
Citation? They claim they attack military targets and have now admitted fault when they didn’t. Without evidence that this is their intent, this baseless accusation doesn’t hold water.
acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide
Self-defense against a hostile nation massacring your civilians is neither. Palestine, on the other hand, is quite explicit about their desire to do both, and their forces in fact did commit genocide and ethnic cleansing when given the chance, when Jordan annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem. Look it up.
during which they’ve also deliberately murdered their own unarmed and half-naked citizens;
Deliberate? Citation needed.
bombing hospitals, refugee camps, and the supposed “safe evacuation corridors” they explicitly told the civilian population to use;
They’ve been pretty damn clear they will attack Hamas anywhere they are found. If only you had as much animosity for the ones putting these civilians at risk by hiding among them and making these strikes into valid military ones as you do the IDF.
after repeatedly lying about and defending their attacks; an onslaught which has been met with almost universal condemnation from the community of nations
Especially the Arabic ones, who ethnically cleansed Jews from their lands when given the chance.
maybe, just maybe two of their attacks might’ve been misjudged - Oops.
Lol, there were no “maybes” in their statement, they took responsibility. So why not lie about these as well? It’s clear you are biased against Israel, and hold them to a different standard than those they are defending against.
Part of the excuse was improper choice of bomb for a densely populated area that would cause disproportionate damage. So it’s kind of an admission of fault, but kind of saying there was some justification that there was a valid target still. But with such disregard for civilian life, even if there is a valid target it is messed up. Proportionality rules and evaluations don’t seem to matter to Israel.
A legitimate criticism, I appreciate your reasonable perspective. The risk of making civilian shields an effective tactic is that then one can expect more of them to be used in the future, but there really are no good choices here, only less bad ones. It is estimated that in most conflicts ~90% of the casualties are civilians, in this conflict, 61% are. By this metric Israel is fighting this war relatively humanely despite the dense urban environment, although I suspect that is of little comfort to Gazans.
The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.
Idk. I will need to look for the news articles, but I thought I saw some US military officials (maybe off the record) stating that Israel’s calculus for collateral or proportional damage are pretty reckless (to say the least). Also the civilian counts… How liberally are they counting all males aged 16 or 18 and older as military combatants? And choice of weaponry or bombs just unjustifiable for the targets they select?
I think the NY Times also did a good job confirming Israel was dropping bombs in areas they told civilians to move to which is also a problem.
I think Israel has justification and obligation to go to war with Hamas after Oct 7h, but their bloodlust is becoming unconscionable. They need a lot more discipline in their approach. That Israeli bloodlust and hamas use of civilians as human shields is fucked.
Alternatively, randomly admitting fault on rare occasions confuses the situation and gives ammo to people who are desperately grasping at any “evidence” to forgive genocide.
When you have a group, like WorldNews, that is as radicalized by shock photos and even fake propaganda–reason and critical thought aren’t welcome. If the only thing someone can see is a targeted picture of a hurt or dead kid, then they won’t be able to hear.
It’s the core of the Hamas propaganda program and why they seek maximum civilian casualties while living as millionaires in Qatar, the state who own and push the radicalizing stories they publish through Al Jazeera.
I appreciate your efforts, though, and I am sorry for the inevitable downvotes.
Yes indeed, much of what I see here is straight out of Hamas’ social media playbook. It’s unfortunate. It’s good to know there’s still reasonable people who don’t fall for it, thanks.
I wear the downvotes of terrorists and terrorist adjacent like a badge of honor. I wish I could display them as my avatar.
The key to reducing the worry is that Lemmy is a super tiny insignificant community. And worldnews even more so, this is what insular communities do. They circle jerk propaganda and radacalize and rile each other up as a key core loop. Meanwhile rebuffing any facts, reason, or reality.
So the IDF does admit fault when it accidentally hits non-military targets. This seems to weaken the case that they do so intentionally and lie about legal targets. If this is how they behave, why wouldn’t they do so here?
Maybe it’s because it was reported by Israel public broadcaster KAN. They also admitted fault when they shot those unarmed civilians holding makeshift white flags which ended up being hostages.
We do know half the bombs dropped are precision and half are ‘dumb bombs.’ I don’t know of any comprehensive report on it but it seems to me that they admit fault when there’s no possible plausible deniability.
I don’t really see how that weakens the case that they target civilians when they have been repeatedly bombing schools, hospitals, refugee camps, residential areas, and self-proclaimed safe zones for months; justifying it by claiming Hamas combatants were in the area. And that’s compounded onto cutting off the food, water, aid, and electricity for Gaza that they already controlled. Why else would you cut those off if not to target civilians?
They could have denied it or manufactured evidence that there was a legal target there, yet they didn’t. This makes it clear the IDF acts in good faith at least some of the time.
Does it? I don’t see where it says these were smart bombs, the article says additional buildings were hit because they picked the wrong ordinance, (unless it’s been updated since it was archived?)
So you’re aware they claim they target Hamas, not civilians, and Hamas hides among them. Why don’t you find that to be credible? There’s lots of evidence Hamas does this.
The same reason one does not send their supply lines to enemy forces. Gaza declared war on Israel. It would be odd for any nation at war to supply a hostile nation during wartime while it remains belligerent. I believe this is only legally required if the area is occupied, and Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, (a blockade is not occupation.) Soldiers also run on food and water, and Israel is not responsible for Gazans, their government, Hamas, is.
I’ll retract that these bombs were precision, that doesn’t really help the argument since many civilians die when they do use precision bombs on civilian locations.
Israel claims they only target Hamas, in practice the vast majority of who they kill are civilians (mostly women and children). I’ve only found evidence of Hamas using civilian infrastructure twice in the 2014 war, which I can link if you want, can you share the evidence you’ve found?
The disengagement was not an end to the occupation, in many cases it became a more brutal form of it. It also highlights that the settlements never ended in West Jerusalem or the West Bank, only Gaza. I’ll share sources for why international organizations regard the blockade as a continued form of occupation, it boils down to Gaza still being under Israeli military control with Israel controlling its imports, exports, food, water, electricity, sea access, air space, etc.
https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-international-law
https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/10/28/israel-disengagement-will-not-end-gaza-occupation
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/israel-opt-israel-must-lift-illegal-and-inhumane-blockade-on-gaza-as-power-plant-runs-out-of-fuel
https://books.google.com/books?id=hYiIWVlpFzEC&pg=PA429
This is the nature of war. In most conflicts ~90% of the casualties are civilians, in this conflict, only 61% are. Israel is fighting a relatively humane war, (although no war is humane,) so I find it curious that they seem to get more ire than other current conflicts with higher body counts and more civilian deaths.
I’ve read a lot of articles and seen a lot of videos with said evidence, too many to list them all. Here’s an older NATO report with multiple sources showing that Hamas uses such tactics, here’s the wikipedia aritcle about Hamas’ use of human shields with many citations, and here’s the IDF’s youtube channel where they share video evidence.
This all seems reasonable to me given that they remain belligerent. If Gaza were not actively violent all this would seem inhumane and would violate many laws, but this is a nation at war with Israel that refuses to pacify itself and lay down arms. Letting supply lines be open and uncontrolled to a government whose stated purpose is Israel’s destruction, a genocide of Jews, and ethnic cleansing of the levant, is absurd. Many international organizations are clearly biased against Israel and are holding them to unreasonable standards.
“only 61% civilian casualties” require you to believe all men above 16 who were killed were hamas
I’m still waiting on someone to provide for me a single source where Hamas or the Palestinian Authority admitted that one of Israel’s strikes hit something that wasn’t civilian.
A few things about the civilian casualty statistics: the statistic that 90% of casualties in wars are civilians don’t seem to be supported from what I can tell. It varies a lot but for example the civilian casualty ratio for WWII was like 67%. For the 2008 Gaza war the civilian casualty ratio was more like 74% (noncombatants) and 64% for the 2014 war (unless you only look at IDF sources, then it’s more like 40%). I can’t really get details on the 61%, are they counting all males 14+ as combatants? Even then it comes to 69% civilian casualties. I don’t see how they got to 61%, which is still very high for modern conflicts as stated in the article you linked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
https://gwern.net/doc/politics/2010-roberts.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_strikes_and_Palestinian_casualties_in_the_2014_Gaza_War
You find collective punishment reasonable? You seem to believe Gaza is somehow its own nation despite being an occupied territory. Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem have always been under Israeli military control since 1967, when Israel aimed to take those territories by initiating the six-day war. Previously, Israel ethnically cleansed Palestine during the civil war and war for independence in 1947-48 with Plan Dalet and its previous iterations. After independence, the remaining Palestinians within now Israel were subject to harsh military law, until eased to 2nd class citizens they are today. Meanwhile, those military practices have been implemented on the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem since 1967. Except Gaza with the unilateral disengagement and blockade, which in many respects is harsher than the brutal martial law ongoing in east Jerusalem and the west bank. Palestinians have had no civil or human rights under Israeli military control. This is an apartheid state. Popular resistance began as nonviolent with the 1st intifada, until violence escalated after the IDF responded with lethal force. Violent resistance to the apartheid did not come out of nowhere. Before 1948, while early Zionists like Ben Guerion were advocating for partition, Palestinian officials were advocating for a unitary state instead of partition. Israel has never been interested in peace because they covet the Palestinian land but without the Palestinians. Keep in mind Israel as it exists today, is an apartheid state for the Palestinians. Not only do you ignore the 2017 Hamas charter, but that article doesn’t represent the 1988 charter quite right. Yeah of course the 1988 charter is super terrible, it was created by a fundamentalist resistance group under occupation and had no popular support. That doesn’t reflect the will of Palestinians at all. The two most popular goals are sovereignty and right to return, not genocide. This has been a cycle of violence between the Colonizer/Occupier and Colonized/Occupied. A one state solution with equal rights for all is what needs to happen with international pressure for this cycle of violence to end.
https://imeu.org/article/plan-dalet
https://forward.com/news/470923/israel-land-conquest-1967-occupation-six-day-war-plans/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law#Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_prisoners_in_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–2019_Gaza_border_protests
https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/12/17/born-without-civil-rights/israels-use-draconian-military-orders-repress
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Cablegram_from_the_Secretary-General_of_the_League_of_Arab_States_to_the_Secretary-General_of_the_United_Nations
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/palestinian-arab-congresses
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/01/examining-myths-israel/
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/28/israel-palestine-history-peace
Here, let me fix that for you:
The Israeli Army, after ten weeks in which they have repeatedly and intentionally hit non-military, civilian, neutral observer, refugee and journalist targets; in which they have deliberately and indiscriminately murdered thousands of noncombatants during acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, during which they’ve also deliberately murdered their own unarmed and half-naked citizens; bombing hospitals, refugee camps, and the supposed “safe evacuation corridors” they explicitly told the civilian population to use; and after repeatedly lying about and defending their attacks; an onslaught which has been met with almost universal condemnation from the community of nations; has finally admitted, after ten weeks of indiscriminate slaughter, that maybe, just maybe two of their attacks might’ve been misjudged - Oops.
Citation? They claim they attack military targets and have now admitted fault when they didn’t. Without evidence that this is their intent, this baseless accusation doesn’t hold water.
Self-defense against a hostile nation massacring your civilians is neither. Palestine, on the other hand, is quite explicit about their desire to do both, and their forces in fact did commit genocide and ethnic cleansing when given the chance, when Jordan annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem. Look it up.
Deliberate? Citation needed.
They’ve been pretty damn clear they will attack Hamas anywhere they are found. If only you had as much animosity for the ones putting these civilians at risk by hiding among them and making these strikes into valid military ones as you do the IDF.
Especially the Arabic ones, who ethnically cleansed Jews from their lands when given the chance.
Lol, there were no “maybes” in their statement, they took responsibility. So why not lie about these as well? It’s clear you are biased against Israel, and hold them to a different standard than those they are defending against.
Part of the excuse was improper choice of bomb for a densely populated area that would cause disproportionate damage. So it’s kind of an admission of fault, but kind of saying there was some justification that there was a valid target still. But with such disregard for civilian life, even if there is a valid target it is messed up. Proportionality rules and evaluations don’t seem to matter to Israel.
A legitimate criticism, I appreciate your reasonable perspective. The risk of making civilian shields an effective tactic is that then one can expect more of them to be used in the future, but there really are no good choices here, only less bad ones. It is estimated that in most conflicts ~90% of the casualties are civilians, in this conflict, 61% are. By this metric Israel is fighting this war relatively humanely despite the dense urban environment, although I suspect that is of little comfort to Gazans.
Direct quote from your link
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
Source of 61%:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/the-israeli-army-has-dropped-the-restraint-in-gaza-and-data-shows-unprecedented-killing/0000018c-4cca-db23-ad9f-6cdae8ad0000
Idk. I will need to look for the news articles, but I thought I saw some US military officials (maybe off the record) stating that Israel’s calculus for collateral or proportional damage are pretty reckless (to say the least). Also the civilian counts… How liberally are they counting all males aged 16 or 18 and older as military combatants? And choice of weaponry or bombs just unjustifiable for the targets they select?
I think the NY Times also did a good job confirming Israel was dropping bombs in areas they told civilians to move to which is also a problem.
I think Israel has justification and obligation to go to war with Hamas after Oct 7h, but their bloodlust is becoming unconscionable. They need a lot more discipline in their approach. That Israeli bloodlust and hamas use of civilians as human shields is fucked.
Alternatively, randomly admitting fault on rare occasions confuses the situation and gives ammo to people who are desperately grasping at any “evidence” to forgive genocide.
Or perhaps admitting fault discredits those who inappropriately call self-defense genocide, or maybe it’s just the right thing to do.
Except it doesn’t though. Admitting fault once or twice doesn’t prove that you were not at fault every other time.
When you have a group, like WorldNews, that is as radicalized by shock photos and even fake propaganda–reason and critical thought aren’t welcome. If the only thing someone can see is a targeted picture of a hurt or dead kid, then they won’t be able to hear.
It’s the core of the Hamas propaganda program and why they seek maximum civilian casualties while living as millionaires in Qatar, the state who own and push the radicalizing stories they publish through Al Jazeera.
I appreciate your efforts, though, and I am sorry for the inevitable downvotes.
Yes indeed, much of what I see here is straight out of Hamas’ social media playbook. It’s unfortunate. It’s good to know there’s still reasonable people who don’t fall for it, thanks.
I wear the downvotes of terrorists and terrorist adjacent like a badge of honor. I wish I could display them as my avatar.
The key to reducing the worry is that Lemmy is a super tiny insignificant community. And worldnews even more so, this is what insular communities do. They circle jerk propaganda and radacalize and rile each other up as a key core loop. Meanwhile rebuffing any facts, reason, or reality.
Downvotes mean you’re doing it right.