How do you distinguish a Hamas militant from a civilian?

Investigation, forensics, data and intelligence gathering, witnesses, evidence. Israel does not seem to be concerned with any of the ways it could distinguish militants from civilians, or if it is, they are hiding the evidence from us.

[citation needed]

If a blockade doesn’t have a clear military purpose then it is, by definition, the crime of collective punishment. There have to be military objectives to depriving people of food, fuel, water, shelter, and medicine. In some cases there are clear military objectives, such as depriving Hamas of fuel for their rockets, but it’s much less clear what the military objective of starving the entire city is supposed to accomplish. And no, the trickle of food aid they’ve allowed in is not nearly enough to avoid mass hunger.

Israel does not seem to be concerned with proving the military objectives of its blockade either, or is hiding this evidence.

Didn’t prove anything to you.

This is the crux of your argument, isn’t it? As long as Israeli could, hypothetically, have some secret legal justification for the things that sure as fuck look like war crimes then you simply do not believe war crimes have been committed. My point with all of these things that I point out is that they require some extraordinary explanations that Israel has not seen fit to provide anyone, we’re just supposed to trust them.

I saw multiple emotionally manipulative posts about premature babies in the hospital when they were running out of power. Nothing about those premature babies being dead. Only about them being evacuated.

Doctors claim four babies died during the raid. I’m sure you don’t believe them.

I do find it interesting the level of evidence you require from Israel vs the level of evidence required from Palestine.

Well there’s a power imbalance, isn’t there? Israel is an extremely wealthy and technologically advanced country with nearly unlimited ability to gather information on the inside of Gaza, so it’s reasonable to expect them to have evidence. Evidence they refuse to present.

Palestinians lack almost all ability to gather information or report facts from the ground, so I’m more lenient. When Palestinians are trying to record the truth on phone cameras while dodging air strikes and uploading whenever they’re lucky enough to find an internet connection, it’s reasonable to expect their side to maybe not have as much readily available evidence. They’re very limited by the conditions on the ground.

Here’s what I think, based on what Israeli officials have said and based on Israel’s actions: they want to annex Gaza and expel most or all of the local Palestinian population, and they are trying to do it in a way that doesn’t cause a regional war by pissing off the entire region and doesn’t cause them to lose allies internationally. They have to strike a careful balance to achieve their objective, and so far are succeeding.