Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

frostbite said:
I read that Israel used 6,000 bombs in a few days. The Palestinians say that they have 4,000 casualties. Perhaps these numbers are not exact but it does seem Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties since there is less than one casualty per bomb. I think that's extremely "surgical" (which is the word you used). But obviously, it is hard to have zero civilian casualties, since Hamas is not somewhere separate from the civilians. Certainly, you and I (and I bet most Israelis) would prefer zero civilian casualties and only Hamas to be eliminated, but is this possible?
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The problem is that the Israeli state doesn't give much of a shit about how many civilian casualties they cause beyond optics (and even then barely.)
owlo said:
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/inside-idf-targeting/

Good article if anybody is interested in the law and IDF targeting.
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Interesting article.

Going by it, then theoretically if Hamas are storing rockets in the basement of an apartment building, or operate out of one of the apartments, then Israel (and other unspecified states) takes the view that the people who live in the rest of the building are voluntary shields and thus fair targets.

Seems at bit grim given the open air prison state of Gaza. It's not like the people have many places to go, thanks in large part to Israel itself.
 
Halftrack said:
The problem is that the Israeli state doesn't give much of a shot about how many civilian casualties they cause beyond optics (and even then barely.)

Interesting article.

Going by it, then theoretically if Hamas are storing rockets in the basement of an apartment building, or operate out of one of the apartments, then Israel (and other unspecified states) takes the view thay the people who live in the rest of the building are voluntary shields and thus fair targets.

Seems at bit grim given the open air prison state of Gaza. It's not like the people have many places to go, thanks in large part to Israel itself.
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I’d actually semi agree with the top half of your statement. I think they ‘care’, but only insofar as “as long as it doesn’t interfere with our objectives,” and obviously far less than about the lives of Israelis.

Kind of. They still need to consider proportionality .It feeds into another law/opinion where israel see an entire building as military infrastructure, even if a small part is used by hamas, so they don’t find the need to conduct proportionality analysis on the infrastructure itself as it will not be considered collateral including hospitals schools etc.

So as an example: Israel or Denmark want to attack a school with a single Hamas fighter in it. They will consider the entire school building (the infrastructure) a legitimate target, and warn the population to move.

If the civilians move, they bomb. If the civilians don’t move, they consider whether they were forced to stay by the Hamas fighter, or stayed voluntarily. If they stayed voluntarily, why? (Did they lack means to evacuate or not hear the warning etc). If a determination is made that they voluntarily stay, they become legitimate collateral casualties.

But another country, say Italy might have a different combat manual where they see a school with a Hamas fighter, and they do not consider the whole building a military target, but rather do a proportionality analysis and decide that the civilian infrastructure (a school) destroyed would be excessive relative to the military objective. So they will halt there, and not get to the next stage
 
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owlo said:
I’d actually semi agree with the top half of your statement. I think they care, but only insofar as “as long as it doesn’t interfere with our objectives.”

Kind of. They still need to consider proportionality .It feeds into another law/opinion where israel see an entire building as military infrastructure, even if a small part is used by hamas, so they don’t find the need to conduct proportionality analysis on the infrastructure itself as it will not be considered collateral including hospitals schools etc.

So as an example: Israel or Denmark want to attack a school with a single Hamas fighter in it. They will consider the entire school building (the infrastructure) a legitimate target, and warn the population to move.

If the civilians move, they bomb. If the civilians don’t move, they consider whether they were forced to stay by the Hamas fighter, or stayed voluntarily. If they stayed voluntarily, why? (Did they lack means to evacuate or not hear the warning etc). If a determination is made that they voluntarily stay, they become legitimate collateral casualties.

But another country, say Italy might have a different combat manual where they see a school with a Hamas fighter, and they do not consider the whole building a military target, but rather do a proportionality analysis and decide that the civilian infrastructure (a school) destroyed would be excessive relative to the military objective. So they will halt there, and not get to the next stage
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Oh. Did the IDF ask them one by one? Census? Or just assuming?
 
Jippy said:
Pretty sure 99.9% of the population have a default setting of boycotting the Ritz because of its prices.

After the embarrassment of people realising how awash London is with dirty Russian money, now people are suddenly giving a shit that Qatar owns multiple trophy assets in the UK.

Call to boycott the Ritz over Qatar’s Hamas links
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/call-to-boycott-the-ritz-over-qatars-hamas-links-3g2vj32f9
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And almost Manchester United. What a relief the Glazers are stingy bastards
 
adexkola said:
I was too young to experience this, but were we this ridiculous after 9/11, with fake news and documents recovered from Al Qaeda?
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Absolutely. Very famous case that comes straight to mind is Jeffrey Goldberg getting duped on alleged Al Qaeda-Iraq connections, subsequently debunked by Jason Burke, but not before the case had already been made and decisions put in action.
 
adexkola said:
I was too young to experience this, but were we this ridiculous after 9/11, with fake news and documents recovered from Al Qaeda?
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Well apparently they found passports of the hijackers. Also the US presented a lot of fake evidence to the UN to justify it's invasion of Iraq. Which ironically made the whole of the middle east unsafe, and led ultimately to the rise of ISIS and the Afghan war dragging on and eventually ending up with the Taliban back in charge.
 
Sky1981 said:
Sure, you'd make a great hostage negotiator

We've warned them to walk out several times, they don't reply. Let's go boys.
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Those are the LOAC, not my opinion. And it’s not a “let’s go boys” situation, it’s a determination as to whetherwhy they didn’t move, as per this paragraph:

If the civilians move, they bomb. If the civilians don’t move, they consider whether they were forced to stay by the Hamas fighter, or stayed voluntarily. If they stayed voluntarily, why? (Did they lack means to evacuate or not hear the warning etc). If a determination is made that they voluntarily stay, they become legitimate collateral casualties.
 
owlo said:
Those are the LOAC, not my opinion. And it’s not a “let’s go boys” situation, it’s a determination as to whetherwhy they didn’t move, as per this paragraph:

If the civilians move, they bomb. If the civilians don’t move, they consider whether they were forced to stay by the Hamas fighter, or stayed voluntarily. If they stayed voluntarily, why? (Did they lack means to evacuate or not hear the warning etc). If a determination is made that they voluntarily stay, they become legitimate collateral casualties.
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No, you become a war criminal.
 
marktan said:
Also any attempt to paint Israel's bombing in a positive attempt is ludicrous when they've said they've dropped 6000 bombs 5 days or so ago, said they've dropped another 500 yesterday, they're probably approaching 10,000 dropped in a little over two weeks. Do Hamas have 10,000 locations in Gaza? They're carpet bombing Gaza to dust, plain and simple. We should be grateful that they've only killed 5,000 people? Please. Tell that to the families of those 5,000. Shows how low some value the life of a Palestinian - 5000 in 2 weeks is seen as low. The Israelis are being so kind.

These are weird, weird times we're living in.
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Indeed. Apologists for war crimes and the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians will start with mealy-mouthed justifications but, eventually, they'll shrug their shoulders and say they deserved it.
 
maniak said:
Can you quote the specific bit that says it's ok to bomb civilians if you tell them to leave a place and they don't.
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It’s in the article above, that we were discussing and my post was related to. Here is the link. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/inside-idf-targeting/ Most states operate under the same roe as Israel with regards to this, but they differ in infrastructure targeting as per my post here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/isr...s-tweets-more-discussion.438643/post-31240673

Human Shields

Human shields pose a continuing challenge. Gaza is a densely populated urban environment with roughly 2 million inhabitants, and Hamas has a long history of employing human shields to deter attacks on civilian objects that have lost their protection. AP I, Article 57(7) forbids the use of human shields. By it, which the IDF finds to generally reflect customary law, Parties may not use “the presence [of civilians] to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular . . . to shield military objectives from attacks” and may not “direct the movement of the civilian population . . . in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks.” So, Hamas’s intentional use of human shields is clearly unlawful.

However, violations of this rule by Hamas do not relieve the IDF from the requirement to consider the presence of civilians when performing a proportionality analysis or determining what precautions are required in the attack. This raises the question whether the prohibition on human shielding has any teeth. In this regard, the law is complex, with many variations in approach in State practice and scholarly opinion. A majority view among scholars, and the view held by many States, including Israel, is that involuntary human shields (those forced by Hamas to remain in the vicinity of military objectives or taken there) retain their protection from attack and must be accounted for in the proportionality analysis. With respect to voluntary human shields, physically blocking or shielding a military objective amounts to direct participation in hostilities, and civilians who do this accordingly lose their protection. However, there is a debate in the international law community about voluntary shields who do not physically block or shield a military objective but instead use their mere presence to try to influence the attacking force not to attack. The ICRC takes the position that they retain their civilian protections under LOAC, while States, including Israel, see them as direct participants in hostilities.
 
Badunk said:


Any Romanians in the thread? :lol:
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"they are pretty close to us in this moment but it seems to have stopped, the Israeli army intercepts (something), it seems to have calmed down, so it's safe to get up." Not a perfect translation, my romanian is at a childs level but kinda the gist of it.
 
berbatrick said:


Matches with this:
"Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the country had increased airstrikes across Gaza to hit targets that would reduce the risk to troops in the next stage of the war."
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Well IDF told them to move, right @owlo ?
 
frostbite said:
I read that Israel used 6,000 bombs in a few days. The Palestinians say that they have 4,000 casualties. Perhaps these numbers are not exact but it does seem Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties since there is less than one casualty per bomb. I think that's extremely "surgical" (which is the word you used). But obviously, it is hard to have zero civilian casualties, since Hamas is not somewhere separate from the civilians. Certainly, you and I (and I bet most Israelis) would prefer zero civilian casualties and only Hamas to be eliminated, but is this possible?
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Some incredible takes in this thread. This being a prime example.
 
Real Name said:
Some incredible takes in this thread. This being a prime example.
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I would use the word disgusting. It is like telling someone who has lost a sibling to a violent death that it is not that bad because they have lost only 25% of the siblings.
 
Real Name said:
Well IDF told them to move, right @owlo ?
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What’s your post in reference to? From the discussion I’m reading the added poster is merely clarifying the legal framework within which Israel is acting, which does not in any way warrant a reaction like this. Did I miss something?
 
frostbite said:
I read that Israel used 6,000 bombs in a few days. The Palestinians say that they have 4,000 casualties. Perhaps these numbers are not exact but it does seem Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties since there is less than one casualty per bomb. I think that's extremely "surgical" (which is the word you used). But obviously, it is hard to have zero civilian casualties, since Hamas is not somewhere separate from the civilians. Certainly, you and I (and I bet most Israelis) would prefer zero civilian casualties and only Hamas to be eliminated, but is this possible?
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Gazan health ministry figures (Hamas) are over 5k dead and a further 15k wounded. That's 20k+ casualties and is the only real approximation we have. Doesn't seem to reflect "extreme surgical precision" to me.
 
Badunk said:


The human tragedy must not be boiled down to statistics and flow charts. The hurt is off the scale.
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The doctors there are saying that the children are developping massive PTSD symptoms due to the intense and continuous bombing in the last 17 days, let alone the constant presence of death around them. Half of the population are children.

That's another generation completely fecked, supposing they survive this insanity.
 
HTG said:
What point are you trying to make here? Don’t you think it would be better if you were to add some context to the sources you provide?
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You don't understand what the clip is saying? I need to add "Joe Rogan, the most successful podcaster in the world, is shocked at how how one-sided the conflict is"?
 
Real Name said:
Well IDF told them to move, right @owlo ?
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Im not responsible for the LOAC.

Ekkie Thump said:
Gazan health ministry figures (Hamas) are over 5k dead and a further 15k wounded. That's 20k+ casualties and is the only real approximation we have. Doesn't seem to reflect "extreme surgical precision" to me.
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It doesn’t indicate anything either way, as we have no data on ratios as Hamas don’t provide them. It could be incredible or shocking precision. There’s no accurate way to measure it yet.
 
owlo said:
It’s in the article above, that we were discussing and my post was related to. Here is the link. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/inside-idf-targeting/ Most states operate under the same roe as Israel with regards to this, but they differ in infrastructure targeting as per my post here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/isr...s-tweets-more-discussion.438643/post-31240673

Human Shields

Human shields pose a continuing challenge. Gaza is a densely populated urban environment with roughly 2 million inhabitants, and Hamas has a long history of employing human shields to deter attacks on civilian objects that have lost their protection. AP I, Article 57(7) forbids the use of human shields. By it, which the IDF finds to generally reflect customary law, Parties may not use “the presence [of civilians] to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular . . . to shield military objectives from attacks” and may not “direct the movement of the civilian population . . . in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks.” So, Hamas’s intentional use of human shields is clearly unlawful.

However, violations of this rule by Hamas do not relieve the IDF from the requirement to consider the presence of civilians when performing a proportionality analysis or determining what precautions are required in the attack. This raises the question whether the prohibition on human shielding has any teeth. In this regard, the law is complex, with many variations in approach in State practice and scholarly opinion. A majority view among scholars, and the view held by many States, including Israel, is that involuntary human shields (those forced by Hamas to remain in the vicinity of military objectives or taken there) retain their protection from attack and must be accounted for in the proportionality analysis. With respect to voluntary human shields, physically blocking or shielding a military objective amounts to direct participation in hostilities, and civilians who do this accordingly lose their protection. However, there is a debate in the international law community about voluntary shields who do not physically block or shield a military objective but instead use their mere presence to try to influence the attacking force not to attack. The ICRC takes the position that they retain their civilian protections under LOAC, while States, including Israel, see them as direct participants in hostilities.
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Maybe I'm interpreting things wrong, but with so many ifs and buts that hardly seems to be clear law. Especially the last part where you use the expression "voluntary shields". The people being killed are being killed in their homes, in hospitals, in refugee camps, in schools. Not in front of military targets, so even following the international law you're posting, Israel is committing war crimes, not following international law.
 
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