this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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[–] donuts@kbin.social 141 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

To be clear, staging militant attacks from a hospital is a war crime.
To make matters worse, it opens up the likelihood and justification of counter-attacks against that hospital and the people in it.

According to international humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. The rule has few exceptions.

Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an "act harmful to the enemy".

Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.

Source: The International Committee of the Red Cross

Nobody should beat around the bush here. Hamas are using injured civilians as a human shield to stage attacks, and in doing so they are inviting retaliation and suffering under well-establish terms of international law. There's not really any particular gray area here. It's horrible, it's unethical, it's criminal, and it's just plain wrong.

[–] HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (14 children)

This is the thing that pissed me off - the organization that has a humanitarian symbol so strong you can be legally held accountable for using it in a way that lessens its importance acknowledges that attacking a hospital being used as a military bases is a legal part of war. Meanwhile there are people whos education doesn't pass high-school screaming that this isn't legal, or its incorrect, or blaming the aggressor instead of those deliberately putting civilian lives at risk by blatantly ignoring intl rules of conflict.

If you want to throw in your argument against the red cross, spend your life and billions of dollars helping humanitarian issues world wide and then you might have some authority on the matter.

This is modern warfare. War is horrific, innocents get killed, people suffer. We put rules in place to lessen the effects on the innocent and those who circumvent those rules to try make the others look bad need to be removed in the quickest and most efficient way we can - as soon as one group gets away with ignoring the intl rules, everyone can.

[–] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

I don't think any intellectually honest person that supports Palestine thinks Hamas are the "good guys", they are an evil created and grown directly and indirectly by Israel's actions.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Hi there. How about an old soldier who actually had to know this stuff and use that knowledge in a war?

First off, a single incident isn't enough. A sniper or even a squad doing stuff can be dealt with in other ways. In order to strike a hospital (or any protected target) with explosives you need evidence it's a target of "military or strategic value". This is why Israel isn't just claiming a few sporadic attacks but instead that all of the hospitals are actually command centers.

Second, the protected target can only be hit by proportional force that accomplishes a specific goal. If there's an artillery battery in the parking lot and I level the obstetrics wing with dumb bombs then I've committed a war crime. Smart bombs with very low yields absolutely exist. Another example is the eponymous claim of rooftop rockets. I can hit that with an airburst explosive to prevent structural damage to most concrete buildings. In the context of protected targets these things matter. You don't get a green light to demolish it unless it's basically been hollowed out for military use only.

Third, whoever fires on the protected target is responsible for providing the evidence it was required. And war crimes investigators take a very dim view of "they did it once a decade ago", as a reason. Israel and it's allies have yet to do anything that actually proves the existence of a military or strategic target in places like the UNRWA Gaza headquarters.

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[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

It doesn't give them the right to bomb the hospital point blank period, proportionality clauses kick in and it's arguably reason to ground assault it but they cannot ignore the civilian cost of life when they're are other ways to go about clearing the garrison.

Ed: Jesus Christ, 3 seconds on Google prior just can't seem to do.

The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”. In other words, the principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.

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[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Beyond these crazy and terrible events, I'm left wondering what the big picture end game was here? Was it to block Israel from normalizing relationships with neighbouring foes, or is it a part of a bigger play by foes of Israel to highlight the injustices from their point of view?

This sacrifice of the innocents on all sides is a terribly high price on humanity and how long an eye for an eye will take to play out in the generations to follow.

[–] ours@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's exactly it. Hamas has previously and continues to do all it can to destroy any hopes for peace and Israel's far-right has been happy to leverage them for the same reason.

Palestinians and Israelis suffer and die while a few powerful men maintain or gain power from the situation.

Hamas can't have peace otherwise a more legitimate government takes over and continues toward a two-state system (they had in the past made a wave of suicide bombings to derail the peace process). Israeli far-right doesn't peace either (they've shot one of their PMs in the past over this) as that would put a stop to their ambition of power and colonizing more Palestinian land.

Israeli reporters have shown how the current Israeli PM and his party had passively allowed the financing of Hamas to come into Gaza (enemy of my enemy...) so they would keep destabilizing any peace talks and fight the more moderate Palestinian parties.

In short, Hamas is horrible and keeps provoking Israel and Israel keeps biting the bait and reacting exactly as Hamas expects them to do: doing their own round of horrible atrocities in a vicious cycle of suffering and death which breeds the next generation of extremists.

Anybody looking at this issue purely as a military problem is missing the big picture.

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[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

I don't know if there is an endgame. Just dogs chasing cars. I do know a lot of people have died.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doubt there was any goal or forethought past 'kill Israelis'

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[–] EndlessApollo@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

Has it seriously not occurred to zionists that there's a middle step between doing absolutely nothing and leveling the entire building? Send troops in there to liberate the hospital. A lot fewer innocents will die, and yea more IDF troops will die that way, but in what fucking universe is it preferable to murder civilians than to run a risky military operation? Even if Hamas kills a bunch of patients or doctors in retaliation there will surely be more survivors than if you just bomb the place. But nope, apparently Israeli lives are worth infinitely more than those of Palestinian civilians, so the best solution is to murder all Palestinians so they're not a "threat" to Israel

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

When your

best solution is to murder all Palestinians

...bombing hospitals, refugee camps, schools, and endless civilians is a good thing... and explains Israel's behaviour and rhetoric in a pretty straightforward way.

...of course, killing all those kids makes the question "why are Hamas bad" a bit awkward... I know! Saying it's bad to murder children is anti-semitic now - that's not an obvious, massive self-report!

I don't personally care to judge whether Israel or Hamas are worse - they're both monstrous, genocidal murderers, killing innocent civilians... But only one of them has the ability to actually deliver on their genocidal intentions, and they're making headway.

[–] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (40 children)

No sane team lead would accept a mission like that. That's just asking for massive friendly casualties.

Kicking in doors has an extremely high death toll, especially if it's a known base, of course they're going to level it instead of committing a team that's definitely going to get blown up by ied's and killed in ambushes.

In order to effectively suppress and seize that hospital, you're asking that at least 100-200 friendlies die during the operation to take a building that's a known travel route to their tunnels which house thousands of hamas and related fighters and their kit. Given the level of failure of the intel community in Isreal right now, no one operations side is going to take their word that it's safe to send a team into that hospital.

It's a hospital when it's in operation, right now it's a terrorist base of operations SPECIFICALLY because it was a hospital.

See: https://ground.news/article/hamas-has-command-center-under-al-shifa-hospital-us-official-says

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[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 year ago (6 children)

funny how when Palestine makes a claim, Lemmy just eats it all up.

but when Israel releases footage and coordinates to support their claims, everyone is suddenly questioning.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I guess it has to do with the enormous social media machine Israel has. I take both sides with a grain of salt tho

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[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (74 children)

Counter attacking with troops and killing the terrorist is a reasonable response.

Leveling the entire hospital and surrounding neighborhood with missiles is NOT.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Well it's a good thing they didn't do that, then. Israeli troops will be entering the hospital to get at the Hamas base within it

Edit: they entered last night

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[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's comical how many Hamas-apologists there are on this site.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I literally haven't seen a single Hamas apologist. Nobody likes those terrorists, but those of us that pay attention don't like IDF either

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[–] theluckyone@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

It's not comical how many anti-Semitic and/or pro-genocide apologists are on Lemmy.

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[–] EndlessApollo@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (23 children)

Uh oh, guess that means there's no choice but to level the entire place and kill every civilian in there :(

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[–] paskalivichi@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago (24 children)

Not a good way to avoid having your hospitals bombed...

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[–] ElcaineVolta@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but the forces bombing hospitals, escape routes, and journalists, they aren't terrorists??

[–] uranibaba@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] xkforce@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Palestinians and isreali civilians are caught between two asshole organizations and as they say, when elephants fight, the ants suffer.

[–] uranibaba@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's tiring to see everyone taking sides. Just admit that both sides are wrong: Hamas are using civilians as cover, Israel is just killing everyone to get at Hamas. The people suffer. :-(

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept for so many people. Two sides can absolutely be in the wrong, especially over the span of generations. At such a point it really hardly matters anymore at all who started what, it's just two sides showing humanity's ugliest side non-stop.

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[–] ElcaineVolta@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

of course that's possible, I'm pointing out that the language used in the title of this post doesn't want you to see it that way

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