quote:

Hamas cut off women's breasts and drove nails through their genitals. After they burnt people alive. After they tortured hostages.

quote:

Israel believes that it has killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant in its intense campaign to eliminate the armed group from the Gaza Strip, a ratio an IDF spokesperson described to CNN Monday as “tremendously positive.”

The AFP news agency first reported the Israeli assessment on Monday, citing a briefing for foreign media by senior Israeli military officials. Asked about reports that about 5,000 Hamas militants had been killed since October 7, one of the officials replied, according to AFP: “The numbers are more or less right.”

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Conricus added: “I can say that if that is true – and I think that our numbers will be corroborated – if you compare that ratio to any other conflict in urban terrain between a military and a terrorist organization using civilians as their human shields, and embedded in the civilian population, you will find that that ratio is tremendous, tremendously positive, and perhaps unique in the world.”

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
I can hardly process how horrible this is, and I'm unable to form coherent opinions about what should be done to stop it.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
https://youtube.com/shorts/FC7...?si=HYLSOoZZt__i1VuM

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
Give it up. Daniel doesn't know how to think. He emotes. All he in interested in doing is posting quotes and videos that support his emotion.

If I were in Gaza under bombardment, and I were an ideologically pacifist person (like that UNICEF "spokesman") I too would likely be aghast at the scale of the destruction. But that's all Daniel wants to see. He does not want to engage with difficult tradeoffs and other points of view. I don't think he knows how to do that. I suspect that kind of critical reasoning might not have figured very highly at that Sarasota college ...

As you note, this is urban warfare in a place where a death cult rules the roost, a death cult whose world view is a 14th century interpretation (see Ahmad Ibn Hanbal) of a 7th century Beduin leader's whispers from God.

If we take the Hamas authority's death figures as accurate, and the Israeli "dead Hamas" figures as accurate, we do indeed have a 2-1 civilian/military ratio, which would be extraordinary given the circumstances. That alone is evidence that Israel is not deliberately trying to maximize civilian casualties, no matter what some excited or emotional Israeli politico or spokesman might say on the spur of the moment.

It's well known (but probably not by Daniel, and he won't do the research either) that Israel has a very deliberate structure for determining whether missions in this difficult terrain are permissible or not. Their JAG teams must approve, and those teams do not report to the military. If the military disagrees with a decision against a particular mission, the commanders can appeal for an expedited Supreme Court ruling on that mission. Are those JAG teams infallible? Of course not. But their goal is not to ensure that civilian casualties do not happen. That's impossible, and it's not what the Geneva Code calls for.

None of this process stuff cuts any ice with ideologues for whom Israelis are white European colonialist vermin. All they see is death and destruction in Gaza and leap to the conclusion that evil Israel is committing "war crimes."

Has Israel committed some actions in Gaza that might fit the bill as a war crime? Yes, quite likely. I would be shocked if NO war crimes have been committed. Systematic and pervasive? I've seen nothing to suggest that that is the case. And the 2-1 ratio is very strong evidence.