Israeli air strikes on a so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi killed at least 40 people on Tuesday, according to health authorities in the enclave.
The strikes targeted at least 20 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal area near the city of Khan Younis.
Eyewitnesses told AFP that at least five rockets fell in the area, with emergency services saying the strikes created craters up to nine metres deep.
One of the most horrific massacres… so far.
The crater is insanely deep and wide. Israel using the latest Genocide Joe care package to its fullest potential
These are War Crimes, no?
https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
Hamas is an Islamist militant group based in the Gaza Strip, which has been designated by the US, the EU and other countries as a terrorist group. Hamas has been using human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007. Although the definition of human shields is not consistent among states and inter-governmental organisations, the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) states the war crime of using human shields encompasses “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas, or military forces immune from military operations.”1
Hamas relies on the Israeli government’s aim to minimise collateral damage, and is also aware of the West‘s sensitivity towards civilian casualties. Hamas’ use of human shields is therefore likely aimed at minimising their own vulnerabilities by limiting the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) freedom of action. It is also aimed at gaining diplomatic and public opinion-related leverage, by presenting Israel and the IDF as an aggressor that indiscriminately strikes civilians.2
Hamas’ most common uses of human shields include:
Firing rockets, artillery, and mortars from or in proximity to heavily populated civilian areas, often from or near facilities which should be protected according to the Geneva Convention (e.g. schools, hospitals, or mosques).
Locating military or security-related infrastructures such as HQs, bases, armouries, access routes, lathes,3 or defensive positions within or in proximity to civilian areas.
Protecting terrorists’ houses and military facilities, or rescuing terrorists who were besieged or warned by the IDF.4
Combating the IDF from or in proximity to residential and commercial areas, including using civilians for intelligence gathering missions.
By engaging in these acts, Hamas employs a win-win scenario: if indeed the IDF uses kinetic power, and the number of civilian causalities surges, Hamas can use that as a weapon in the lawfare5 it conducts. It would be able to accuse the IDF (and Israel) of committing war crimes, which in turn could result in the imposition of a wide array of sanctions. On the other hand, if the IDF limits its use of military power in Gaza to avoid collateral damage, Hamas will be less vulnerable to Israeli attacks, and thereby able to protect its assets while continuing to fight.
Hamas’ growing strategic distress in the face of recent geopolitical developments will probably push the organisation towards a more pragmatic strategy in the near future. However, the movement is simultaneously preparing itself for yet another round of armed conflict with Israel. If this indeed happens, and in light of the success of the human shield practice, there is every reason to believe Hamas will continue resorting to the use of civilians as human shields.
Edit: FTA, since people think this is whataboutism :)
The Israeli army said it attacked a Hamas command centre “disguised in the humanitarian area in Khan Younis” and that “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weaponry, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information”.
Edit 2: ITT Hamas? You mean Israel? If not obvious by this point, the effort is to discredit/downplay anything critical of Hamas, turn discussion about Hamas activities into whataboutisms towards Israel, and reframe arguments against Hamas activities as a defense of genocide. Rinse, repeat in every thread about this conflict. Kinda boring after a while.
Fukhueson when they find out you’re not actually supposed to kill human shields:
Wait until you find out that no one should be using human shields to begin with :) either side.
But they are, that is the situation we are in. At every point we can say Hamas is a piece of shit group for using human shields, but that’s not gonna change the situation. You keep saying that Hamas isn’t getting enough criticism, but I think bombardment by the IDF is criticism enough. The whole ask is, stop shooting through the human shields to kill the bad guys. Even here there is doubt that there even was Hamas hiding with civilians to begin with. We are just giving Israel loads and loads of money, but we can’t even get a more definitive answer than “we said so”? At this point I can only think that, even if by some chance Israel really isn’t commiting a genocide, the end result will be indistinguishable from it. Palestine and it’s people will be erased physically or culturally and we are allowing it to happen, and any pointing that out is met with “Hamas is the one using them as shields” or “Hamas started it”. Hamas is unconscionable. Israel isn’t, or atleast they say they aren’t.
either side
Uh huh. Yet all of your comments are clearly supportive of the IDF’s actions, and we know for a fact that the IDF uses civilians (often children) as human shields:
How would Israel operate differently if Hamas was hiding in Tel Aviv and using those citizens as their human shields?
That’s a hostage situation, or breaking and entering (and maybe blackmail), depending on if the citizens in question are different ones from Tel Aviv or the original ones from The Gaza strip. It’s an entirely different situation.
depending on if the citizens in question are different ones from Tel Aviv or the original ones from The Gaza strip.
But I thought they all had the same rights?
Ah yes, hypotheticals we’d never have to consider. What if Hamas actually cared about Palestinians?
Am I doing it right? :)
You’ve clearly gotten the point from my hypothetical and don’t like the conclusion you yourself have reached ;)
Enjoy speedrunning post-9/11 US neoconservatism
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza
Blatant whataboutism :)
Edit: How easy would it be for them to say that both might be true? Very. But if they said that Hamas would lose credibility, and bring into question the whole “freedom fighter” schtick. Can’t address it, must focus on allegations of genocide and accusing others of defending genocide if anyone brings up something critical of Hamas (please peruse their comment history), thereby derailing any discussion on the matter.
See? It’s that easy.
Nice propaganda to justify Israel’s ethnic cleansing and targeting of civilians. That article is full of misinformation and not backed up by independent investigations.
Security
Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice. See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate, before the mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948: Plan Dalet, Declassified Massacres of 1948, and Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948) . Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967: Haaretz, Forward; while the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements (Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ). The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
- Avi Shlaim
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
Civilian Deaths and Human Shields:
Israel does deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so: ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy. When it comes to Israeli Soldiers and Civilians, there is also the use of the Hannibal Directive, which was also used on Oct 7th.
Hundreds of Genocide Scholars have described this ethnic cleansing campaign as genocide because of the deliberate targeting of children/civilians and expressed intent by Israeli officials: “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza, 800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza , Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated.
On the subject of Human Shields, there are some independent reports for past conflicts of Hamas jeopardizing the safety of civilians via Rocket fire in dense urban areas, two instances during Oct 7th, but no independent verification since then so far. None of which absolve Israel of the crime of targeting civilians under international law:
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields: IDF uses Human Shields, including Children (2013 Report), and in the latest war Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds
My properly sourced information is not invalidated by anything you said. It actually cited multiple highly reliable sources.
Also it’s whataboutism :) anyone noticing a pattern here? Blindly discredit anything critical of Hamas?
Goodbye!
Edit: there’s nothing “propaganda” about NATO. This ought to be a red flag… And yes, this report confirms more than your sources do, posting incomplete assessments of Hamas’ use of human shields does not discredit NATO, sorry.
Edit 2: how hilarious is it that NATO stratcom is accused of being a propaganda outlet when the original post is from MEE?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Eye
Middle East Eye (MEE) is a UK-based news website founded in 2014 that covers the Middle East and North Africa. It is reportedly funded by the government of Qatar.
Organisation
Middle East Eye was launched in London in April 2014. It is not transparent about its ownership. It is formally owned by a company called M.E.E. Limited with a single director Jamal Bessasso; Bessasso is not specified as the owner. Its editor-in-chief is David Hearst, a former foreign lead writer for The Guardian. It employs about 20 full-time staff in London as of 2017.
According to its critics, Middle East Eye began forming in London in 2013 as the Islamist influence of Al Jazeera began to wane; several Al Jazeera journalists subsequently joined the project. Jonathan Powell, a senior executive at Al Jazeera, was a consultant ahead of its launch and registered the website’s domain names. Bassasso, a Kuwait-born Palestinian living in London, was the sole director of Middle East Eye’s parent company, M.E.E. Limited. Bassasso was a former director for the Hamas-controlled Al-Quds TV. David Hearst denied that Bessasso was the owner of the news site but refrained from divulging the real owner.
According to Ilan Berman and Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, Middle East Eye is backed by Qatar. The governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain accuse MEE of pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias and receiving Qatari funding. They have demanded MEE be shut down following the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. MEE has denied the accusations, saying that it is an independent news site, not funded by any country or movement.
Is this comment also accusing me of justifying genocide? Like the others that were removed?
there’s nothing “propaganda” about NATO
You can’t be serious. Everyone does propaganda, propaganda is everywhere. Just because you happen to agree with NATO propaganda doesn’t mean it isn’t propaganda. Your original comment is propaganda, the responses to it are propaganda, this entire comment section is full of propaganda. Anyone disseminating information reflecting the views or interests of any doctrine or cause is engaging in propaganda.
Edit:
I did debunk your quoted paragraphs about human shields and provided sources. Here is a video that details the situation if you prefer
Person provides an incredibly detailed, well sourced comment and you don’t even address a single point from it. Huh.
Israel routinely uses children as human shields.
But hey let’s write huge paragraphs about why Hamas are so horrible for doing it, and than complain about whataboutism when it’s shown that the people actively engaged in a genocide are doing the thing they accuse the victims of as justification for slaughtering them.
My comment is relevant to the article. Your comment in reply to me is whataboutism by definition.
Yes, no doubt left as far as how criticism of Hamas gets received.
I mean it’s not like one is the most moral army in the world and the othet is a terrorist organization fighting their oppressors. Wonder which people expect to not shoot or use human shields
I mean it’s not like one is the most moral army in the world and the othet is a terrorist organization fighting their oppressors. Wonder which people expect to not shoot or use human shields
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moral_equivalence
Moral equivalence is a form of equivocation and a fallacy of relevance often used in political debates. It seeks to draw comparisons between different, often unrelated things, to make a point that one is just as bad as the other or just as good as the other. It may be used to draw attention to an unrelated issue by comparing it to a well-known bad event, in an attempt to say one is as bad as the other. Or, it may be used in an attempt to claim one isn’t as bad as the other by comparison. Drawing a moral equivalence in this way is a logical fallacy.
…
The “not as bad as” argument is always popular with people who know perfectly well they’re doing something immoral. Being fully aware of this problem, they feel compelled to attempt to justify it, and they do so by pointing to other, usually worse, immorality. It is practically synonymous to the idea of “the lesser of two evils”.
Not responding further. I’m in no way accusing anyone of justifying anything, I’m quoting the appropriate section of the article relevant to the fallacy.
It’s how they describe themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms
The soldier shall make use of his weaponry and power only for the fulfillment of the mission and solely to the extent required; he will maintain his humanity even in combat. The soldier shall not employ his weaponry and power in order to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property. — Spirit of the Israel Defense Forces
Not responding further. I’m in no way accusing anyone of justifying anything, I’m quoting the appropriate section of the article relevant to the fallacy.
No shit, all you’ve done is say hamas bad so idf okay then get upset when everyone points out that’s not an argument.
Even here you’ve done nothing but try to take the moral high ground in an area you clearly need to educate yourself more on.
I can cross out things too, but that doesn’t make them true. You could cite where I said those exact things, which would make a much stronger case… Wait, could you?
Cite where you said what things? I literally copy/pasted part of your comment and swapped the nouns around. I never claimed you said the modified quote, my point was that what you said is literally the exact opposite of reality.
Don’t waste your time, bud. I know you’ve probably got a quota to hit, but you’ll just be wasting it on me.
