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Biden said this was a line Israel should not cross.
I look forward to his ignoring this and sending more weapons, and ordering the US military to fly more drones over Gaza.
Is Hamas not the slightest bit culpable for using a hospital to stage militant operations? I think they are.
Is it not a brazen war crime to use the sick and injured as a human shield? In fact, it is.Hamas militants should be nowhere near any hospital, school, place of worship, or other place where civilians and noncombatants may be gathering. To use places like this as a base of operations is both cowardly and completely against international norms and laws. The IDF would have zero justification for any military operation at Al Shifa Hospital had Hamas not made the horrible decision to use it, and the suffering people within it, as a shield. For context:
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Optional Protocols of 1977 (the main treaties of International Humanitarian Law – IHL) set a range of minimum standards for the conduct of hostilities. They are based upon the fundamental principle of distinction between civilians and other protected persons, on the one hand, and those who take part in hostilities (combatants for short).
The term “civilian” refers to individuals or objects (e.g., premises) that do not have a direct role in hostilities (See Rule 5 and Rule 9 of the Study on customary international law by the International Committee of the Red Cross – ICRC). An attack against a civilian person or object is therefore generally a violation of IHL and may constitute a war crime. A person or object can however lose its civilian status if it starts making an effective contribution to military action. It would then become a legitimate military objective (and hence a target) (See Rule 10 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC). This determination must however be unequivocal: when in doubt as to whether a school or hospital has become a military objective, there is a presumption that it retains its civilian status.
Even attacks against legitimate military targets must, however, follow two additional principles: 1) the principle of proportionality – whereby an attack that would 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, is prohibited (See Rule 14 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC) – and 2) the principle of precaution in attack – which states that constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects (See Rule 15 of the Study on customary international law by the ICRC).
Hamas are certainly not ignorant of this, and so they must know that by using the Al Shifa Hospital as a strategic location they are deliberately putting a target on it, so why would they do it?
Hamas 100% wants to provoke IDF killings of Palestinian civilians. This is not a shock, this is how modern guerrilla/terrorist/resistance wars work (pick your adjective).
The Vietnamese resistance under Ho Chi Minh were the most masterful recent practitioners, but the IRA, LTTE, etc also deployed this.
Israel is playing into Hamas’s hands and will get about as much benefit (reputationally and politically) from killing Gazans and razing their homes as the US did in Vietnam.
No one here at all says that. What people are saying is that those in the hospital should not have to pay for Israeli shit or for Hamas shit just the same
Obviously I agree with that. I think all sane and reasonable people agree with that.
At the very least, civilians should have somewhere to go to escape from the fighting, and the sick and injured especially should be able to seek treatment in peace.
Make no mistake though: if Hamas really have been using this hospital as a strategic location for keeping hostages or other militant activity (so far the publicly available evidence suggests that they have been, though, you know, fog of war and all that), then what they are doing is cowardly, shameful, harmful and criminal, as they would be knowingly putting patients in harms way by essentially inviting proportionate counter-operations on the hospital from the IDF.
Is Hamas not the slightest bit culpable for using a hospital to stage militant operations?
Sure, but the difference is that that the IDF is actively murdering with weapons that we are giving them.
Also, if Hamas is subject to the Geneva convention then they are a legitimate state authority. Are you sure you want to take that position? Because it means that literally everything that Israel is doing in Hamas is a war crime.
When asked by reporters at the White House what his message to family members of hostages was, he said: “Hang in there, we’re coming.” […]
White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on the presidential plane, Air Force One, that intelligence confirmed the militant Hamas group, which rules Gaza, used tunnels underneath Al-Shifa and other hospitals to conceal military operations and to hold hostages.
I’m not sure how you interpret “we’re coming” by Biden regarding hostages that US intelligence says are being held in the hospital currently being raided, but it certainly doesn’t seem like Israel is doing this at odds with Biden’s intentions.
If anything, Biden’s red line of “hospitals must be protected” seems like it might be behind the IDF claim in the original article of:
The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.
We’ll see what the next few hours hold, but Biden’s comments just a few hours before and the US intelligence publicly weighing in certainly looks like this is intended to be a hostage rescue operation which the US is at very least aware of if not actively involved in.
It’s absurd to claim that IDF wants “no harm to civilians”. They wouldn’t be bombing residential neighborhoods on the scale they are if they had that goal.
“Over 100 dead bodies” are still inside the hospital decomposing with no way to get them out. This is fucking horrifying to watch. Even IF there is a command center under the hospital this is the wrong way to address this issue, but Israel is too fucking angry and blood thirsty that they don’t even care. They did it today and they’ll do it again tomorrow. The article says “they were given 12 hours to evacuate” but if those instructions are anything like what they’ve been doing the entirety of the month they were vague and probably not even sent out 12 hours prior because nobody is going to find out. Fucking the evil is what this is. Nothing like punishing women and children for someone else’s actions.
Even IF there is a command center under the hospital this is the wrong way to address this issue
Given the US’s comments in the past 12 hours it looks like this is intended to be an attempt at a hostage rescue. We’ll see how it plays out, but it’s quite unusual that you have both US intelligence publicly agreeing with the claim that hospital is being used not only operationally but for holding hostages, and then just a few hours ago Biden has a message for the hostages’ families of “we’re coming.”
Its worth reading/watching into past high profile hostage situations. I have a few yellow flag concerns, but The Operations Room youtube channel is really good for this
The reality is: Once you get away from the movies, hostages die. It is about minimizing loss of life, not preventing it. And the US in particular has taken a very strong “we don’t negotiate with terrorists… unless they are wihite” since the republicans sabotaged Carter.
So acknowledging that an ally will be doing an assault and that intelligence feels it would accomplish something is pretty normal.
Calling the shot? That is fairly atypical, but there is also no chance of stealth in this situation. Al Shifa is deep in Gaza and Hamas have sentries. This is WHY “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” because bum rushing is really the only chance.
At which point, the optics of “We are going to rescue those hostages” in the face of “We are going to lob large bombs at any terrorist we can find, no matter how many babies they duct tape to their chest” is a choice.
I’ve generally assumed that the majority of the hostages taken on the initial attack are now dead and have been for some time. The offer of “70 hostages” by Hamas suggested to me that 150+ were already dead.
We’ll see how the operation plays out.
Part of my surprise at the US statements is the high potential for the whole thing going to shit and catching the blowback. The Hamas spin team have already managed to get several headlines of “Hamas blames Biden/the US for what’s happening at Al Shifa” because of those comments.
If there wasn’t some kind of strategic win on the table that the US administration was attempting to connect itself to for credit after the fact, opening itself up to the potentially large political loss if the operation goes south seems plain stupid.
So my guess is still that there’s a real goal of a politically beneficial outcome for the US at the end of the operation such that it motivated preemptive involvement.
Edit: As for “calling the shot” - that’s literally part of the international law. For going into the hospital that’s being used for military ops by an enemy not to be a war crime IDF needed to provide advance notice of an operation, give Hamas the opportunity to cease activities, show demonstrable proof it was continuing, and then go in while taking every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
I think the problem is just how effective the Hamas/(allegedly)Iran spin team has been.
Al Jazeera have been going REALLY hard on reminding people they are state funded media. Hard to tell because we are in a post truth society, but it also looks like they are actively cutting off people who attest to their being Hamas terrorists in said hospitals (which would be true even if it weren’t a base since they are likely wounded). Just look at how fast the entire world decided Israel bombed that hospital a few weeks back (… as opposed to the hospitals they HAVE bombed before and after).
So push the narrative that the IDF care about the hostages and are trying to rescue them. Use allies to accomplish that. If it fails, it fails. It is no different than if they did nothing. But if even a few hostages are rescued (and have sob stories of their treatment by Hamas) then it is a major win.
At this point, the only political win for the US is to not put boots on the ground in yet another Middle Eastern country that has been destabilized.
I think the problem is just how effective the Hamas/(allegedly)Iran spin team has been.
It’s not hard to successfully spin more child deaths than in combined world conflicts since 2019 occurring within a month in one very small area.
So push the narrative that the IDF care about the hostages and are trying to rescue them. Use allies to accomplish that.
I think you may be trivializing the US commentary here. This was the first time since Oct 7th that the US intelligence has said anything about where hostages have been held.
I’m extremely skeptical, especially given the political pressures on Biden right now from both sides, that this was simply to play nice with the IDF.
Again, we’ll likely find out more in the next 24 hours, but I think there’s more going on with the comments than just being amorphous spin, and I don’t see the US administration having made those comments without Nov 2024 in mind, which makes me wonder what the perceived prize is.
Respect for the dead is not just using them to conveniently push a narrative.
When the IDF murder civilians, and they do ti pretty regularly, that needs to be recognized. When others do it, that needs to be recognized too.
Yes, and there’s a rather long history of independent investigations recognizing war crimes on both sides of this particular conflict over the last two decades.
But I’m sorry - the notion that different sides of the conflict will not use the dead or reports of abuses from the other side as spin fodder for their own political objectives is incredibly naive or idealistic.
Israel’s government is using the dead of Oct 7th to try and spin justification for objectives they’ve had since well before it, much like the US used 9/11 to try and spin justification for enriching Haliburton and going after Saddam. And Hamas/Iran are using the dead in Palestine to try and spin their own longstanding objectives much like how ISIL or the Taliban used the loss of life and displacement under US invasion to justify their own propaganda.
Should the dead be used to further dystopian state objectives? No, of course not.
But it’s been that way for thousands of years, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.
Relevant bit of information:
“Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told CNN the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity.”
The U.S. said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions.”
centre of gravity
For those who are confused by what “Centre of gravity” means in this context:
Center of gravity (COG) is a military term that refers to the source of strength, balance, or stability necessary for a military force to maintain operation.
I guess its true then. US and Isreal never lies…
Good thing Hamas only tells the truth! /s
This has nothing to do with hamas. In general, hamas is either a terrorist organization, or a military resistant. In both case, you don’t expect anything from them. Most of the resistant groups or terrorist organization are not expected to tell the truth or be expected to respect international laws.
Isreal, is “recognized” state and government by many countries, they have trades and embassies around the world and part of the United Nations.
When they work so hard to show media “proofs” of a calender posted on the wall, a few guns in the MRI machine rooms, and no sign of it being the center of gravity and they get caught lying by their own videos they published then maybe we should consider them a terrorist organization as well and treat them like that. Maybe we should sanction any one sending them money.
If they are that confident they should show the world evidence, which regardless of what they found, doesn’t mean they can commit war crimes.
Here’s my understanding of what you said.
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We expect Hamas to lie and disrespect international laws because they are a resistance group or a terrorist organization.
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Israel is different because they are “recognized” as a state by the UN and should be held to a different standard.
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You believe the IDF lied in their PR videos and we should consider them a terrorist organization.
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We need to see more and better evidence to back up IDF claims, but regardless of what evidence they produce their actions are war crimes.
With that understanding, I would like to add that Hamas is also a political organization and the ruling power in Gaza. No one can hold a position of authority in Gaza without the consent of Hamas. Hamas also has offices and leadership throughout the Middle-East. Two prominent examples are in Doha, Qatar, and Cairo, Egypt.
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Just to be clear: your reasoning here is that if a murderer hides out in an American hospital its totally legitimate just to blow it the fuck up to get at him, right?
No, that is not what I said and not what I believe.
Al Jazeera cut the feed to a journalist interviewing a man in the hospital who complained about Hamas using it as a base
Hospital based Hamas “command centers” are starting to feel like “al Qaeda second in command”. Seems like they are magnetically attracted to ends of American ordinance.
It’s not like this hasn’t been reported before. It’s sort of an open secret.
Yeah… and there were WMDs in Iraq.
Even if Hamas has a command center underneath the hospital, it doesn’t justify killing civilians inside the hospital.
Edit: clarification of my point
Probably why they are going in on foot instead of bombing.
Yet civilians are getting killed by sniper fire.
So what’s the Alternative?
Hamas made the hospital into a legitimate target in a war by using it like that.
Can’t evacuate, can’t bomb, can’t go in on foot - why are people always saying what they don’t want but never what the Alternative is?
Should Hamas be rewarded for using their most vulnerable civilians as a shield like this?
Look, setting aside the whole human shields argument; that’s wholly irrelevant here. We’re talking sniper fire. Like the one where you take aim, go “I have a clear shot” and shoot. The idea of “there are Hamas operatives in this building so it’s okay” only works (I mean it doesn’t but if you assume it does) when you can’t choose your targets; a soldier holding a sniper and taking individual shots isn’t that.
I’m not sure that IDF snipers even know how to shoot anything that isn’t a Palestinian civilian.
well everyone was saying Israel needed to go in on foot until they did then they said they can’t do that either.
Yeah that’s what I say. They just want Israel to roll over and do nothing even though they are the ones that were attacked.
Bunch of morons just want Israel to stop murdering people.
So what’s the Alternative?
Not shooting children in the face. Is that REALLY hard for you to understand?
Hamas made the hospital into a legitimate target in a war by using it like that.
Oh? Is Hamas a legitimate state authority now? Doesn’t that make the IDF actions a war crime then? I thought they were TERRORISTS which means that this is an enforcement response, not an invasion. You don’t get it both ways. Either Hamas are the state of Palestine or they aren’t, and they can’t make anything a “legitimate target”.
Can’t evacuate, can’t bomb, can’t go in on foot
They can leave…
Should Hamas be rewarded for using their most vulnerable civilians as a shield like this?
Weird argument given that the presence of civilians isn’t slowing down the IDF at all. In fact they seem to have a ton of practice at killing civilians in Palestine. Not very good shields are they?
Since we are proposing questions here, I have one for you:
Where are civilians in Palestine supposed to go? You seem to think that its OK to slaughter them like pigs for going to a hospital. Where should the IDF NOT be allowed to butcher Palestinian children? Seriously, tell me one place that if an IDF bomb blows a bunch of people apart its a bad thing. Is there ONE SQUARE INCH of Gaza in which the IDF is not allowed to shoot a civilian in the face?
So what’s the Alternative?
Not murdering civilians?
This is why all those arguments about foot soldiers being the more ethical option were complete ignorance in my opinion. Not in a city.
The actual complaint behind that demand has always been “not enough jews are dying that’s not fair”
Nor did they kill civilians inside the hospital.
While we can’t 100% say they don’t have a command center underneath the hospital, Israel’s evidence so far has been fabricated. The video claims a random calendar is a guard shift list, for example.
Edit: Typo.
To be fair, the HM has said it’s a regular hospital shift calendar but hasn’t been able to explain why it starts on 10/7 and is titled with Hamas’ name for the attack. And it’s kind of hard to think of a valid reason, especially when considering all the other evidence along with it.
That’s even worse
Asymmetrical warfare relies on keeping a civilian population between you and your enemy.
At this point I think we can safely conclude that Hamas doesn’t care if Israel collectively punishes Palestinian civilians any more than Israel cares when Hamas lobs rockets at Israeli civilians - that is, they don’t like it when it happens, but it happening will in no way persuade them to stop.
Logically, it’s an impasse, the consequence of which will be the eventual extermination of the Palestinians- an outcome that Bibi seems not to be bothered by at all
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Less than an hour earlier, around 1 a.m. local time (2300 GMT), a Gaza health ministry spokesman said Israel had told officials in the enclave that it would raid the Shifa hospital complex “in the coming minutes.”
The fate of Al Shifa has become a focus of international alarm because of worsening conditions in the facility in recent days with global calls for a humanitarian ceasefire after five weeks of an Israeli assault on Gaza.
The military added: “The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.”
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told CNN the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity.”
Palestinians trapped in the hospital dug a mass grave on Tuesday to bury patients who died and no plan was in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators, Ashraf Al-Qidra, Gaza’s health ministry spokesman, said.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said in an Oct. 30 statement on attacks on protected sites such as hospitals that Israel would also “need to demonstrate the proper application of the principles of distinction, precaution and of proportionality”.
The original article contains 956 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Perhaps 1 baby step ahead of just blowing the hospital to pieces. But I’m going to watch for if they find even some of which they claimed was there.
Already located weapons and killed Hamas combatants in firefights inside the hospital grounds.
I suspect the main goal is to forcefully evacuate any remaining able bodied civilians and begin moving patients and medical staff south. Israeli reports already state that incubators were brought in.
I sure hope it’s safe wherever the patients and medical staff are being evacuated…
Israeli troops found weapons and “terror infrastructure” during an ongoing raid within Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
He did not spell out what had been found or provide any visual evidence, but said this would be presented later.
Yeah. So we’re going to have to take the IDF’s word for it on the weapons part.
Probably to hospitals in the southern Gaza strip. Not as safe as evacuating them to Ashkelon, but it’s highly doubtful Israel will allow any Gazans to seek medical care inside Israel for a few years at least.
I haven’t seen any image or video evidence of weapons yet. That will likely show up in a few days. The talking heads sometimes let things slip past the censors, and they’ve been hinting at something big. Not hostages big, but extremely clear evidence. They are saying that they’ve located tunnel entrances, including several that Hamas attempted to seal up and hide in the last few days.
This evidence isn’t very definitive and it can very well be planted there by IDF realising their fuck-up. Sorry but with all these bombastic statements from them, they provided very little credible evidence to justify the occupation of the hospital.
Not to mention that their incubators move is pure PR stunt, knowing perfectly well that the hospital does have incubators but they don’t have electricity to run them on.
What, do they think the doctors are Hamas or something?
theres offices and tunnels under a lot of the hospitals. either people arent paying attention or their purposely ignoring facts
either people arent paying attention or their purposely ignoring facts
The third option is that Israel is lying.
First link is from X, just Israeli soldiers delivering 300 liters of fuel that won’t run the hospital for more than an hour, a troll move.
Second “proof” is an article from 2014. No one ever denied there being tunnels, that would be fucking stupid.
The third one is also from 2014 and behind a paywall.
The fourth one is a link to a google book but I can’t read any pages.
And now I’m not even bothering to click the rest.
Has it ever occurred to you that it’s not enough to just post hyperlinks and say they are “proof”? Do you understand that it should also entail containing a “proof”? Evidence is not just providing a link or video, it has to actually show something tangible. Israel has failed at that miserably again and again.
First link is from X, just Israeli soldiers delivering 300 liters of fuel that won’t run the hospital for more than an hour, a troll move.
It can power different machines, not the whole hospital at once. Fuel is low for starters to see how effective providing aid will be. Moreso focus on that hamas is hindering their efforts.
Second “proof” is an article from 2014. No one ever denied there being tunnels, that would be fucking stupid.
Yes, they’ve known about Hamas having control of the hospital since 2014.
The third one is also from 2014 and behind a paywall.
Use a paywall bypass?
The fourth one is a link to a google book but I can’t read any pages.
In google books you can preview pages by searching for specific words. Here you go!
Has it ever occurred to you that it’s not enough to just post hyperlinks and say they are “proof”? Do you understand that it should also entail containing a “proof”? Evidence is not just providing a link or video, it has to actually show something tangible. Israel has failed at that miserably again and again.
bruh you just said you’re not bothering to look at the rest eheheh. besides~ the EU, UN, Amnesty International all confirm that Hamas are using hospitals as shields.
I’m not bothering to look at your like 8 links because the first 4 were bullshit and humans only live for so long, would rather make time for a nice cup of coffee instead.
Screaming “proof, proof, proof” isn’t proof, sorry.
The 300 liters of fuel were shameful and offensive, the IDF should be ashamed. Israeli is the reason these babies are dying, and 300 liters were not enough. On top of that the IDF published a recording with someone at the hospital stating that they “didn’t want to accept the fuel”… but of course when you speak fucking Arabic, you can hear clearly that it says, “this amount [of fuel] is not okay”, since the IDF promised 2k then delivered 0.3k… even though Israel is the reason they don’t have fuel and are dying. Pathetic “evidence”, a recording of a few seconds because the rest of the call would have made it clear what the topic was about.
Israel doesn’t have convincing evidence, period.
I’m not bothering to read your comment because humans only live for so long, would rather make time for a nice cup of coffee instead.
I have been paying attention to the IDF propaganda that all get debunked within a day. Are you talking about the elevator shaft in a building 200meter from one hospital?
Hamas had accepted to send an independent journalist to check out the hospital and this was refused by israel. That alone tells you all you need to know
Surely the really bad 3D rendering video we were provided by the Israeli authorities is proof enough and we should implicitly believe their “totally independent, trust me I wouldn’t lie to you” assessments???!!!
Right?!
hiii~ X3 @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
the idf built the expansion and undeground plans for the hospital back in the 80s
pls don’t shoot miku! miku only adds context! :3
So many edits in the last few weeks…
or they dont want the press to get hurt where the fighting is happening
Yeah that’s probably why israel has killed over 40 journalists so far by bombing them.
Oh wait those were Palestinian press so that’s fine right?
You have many Israeli politicians declaring all of Gaza to be Hamas.
Correct. And that’s not a joke they legit claim doctors and paramedics are hamas.
They even edited some Mein Kampf book with Arab letters pasted on the front and called all the children Hamas. Every Palestinian is Hamas twice over.
Israel defines Hamas as the Gazan government. That’s why they recently blew up a government building.
To date, the Hamas government is only economically bonded with the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Authority, performing the governing over the Gaza Strip independently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_of_the_Gaza_Strip
Yes, but are you just sharing this piece of information or some kind of conclusion from it?
is this false? :o
Oh no forgive me it was a DIFFERENT government building! Lmfao
oh you westener~ what government do you think is in control of gaza?
Westerner? How many assumptions are you making about me?
Oh wait yeah you are trolling, I see. Otherwise why would you come up with crap? Have a nice day 😊
