quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
You can bet that Hamas' tunnel network is quite dense under important civilian infrastructure, like hospitals.

Apparently there is a Hamas headquarters under Shifa Hospital. That is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

If true, it certainly is.

Israel is within the code if it notifies the hospital to evacuate, gives it a reasonable time frame (even if difficult) and then uses bunker busters to get at the headquarters. If Hamas refuses to let the evacuation take place, Israel can destroy the hospital and the violation of international law rests with the Palestinians.

This isn't a claim that bombing hospitals is somehow good or desirable. It isn't. It just focuses on the moral dilemmas Israel faces in fighting an urban war against an opponent that has absolutely no regard for the laws of war.

this should be a gift link, so you should be able to read it even if you don't have a subscription:

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...l&utm_campaign=share

Assuming this isn’t staged with actors, it’s evidence that Hamas is deliberately embedding under and within hospitals.

https://x.com/idf/status/17182...y8JjpBe-g7HoxK6DLM-A

If Hamas is deliberately embedded in civilian infrastructure, and the resultant massive loss of innocent life in urban warfare is part of their plan, then Hamas is irredeemably evil.

If, on the other hand, Hamas's leadership is now having a "Nasrallah moment," i.e. "OMG we never thought Israel would do this in response to our little raid ... if we knew then what we know now we never would have butchered all of those people," then Hamas is irredeemably stupid.

In the second instance, they are both irredeemably evil (although evil in a different way) and irredeemably stupid. In any event, if they are embedded in civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, it is not Israel's responsibility if there is collateral damage.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
https://youtu.be/OlOdM-qPCUI?si=J1I11mYgkupewTtN

Queen Rania 4:30- 8:00

Why are some of you blind to the facts she mentions?

Why?!

I know that anything beginning with, "Queen Rania" makes me roll my eyes. /sarcasm

Is she saying anything new? I don't think so. This is the same age-old argument that the Jewish people should not have been allowed to form the state of Israel.

As far as Israel's bombardment of Gaza, she's wrong about the violation of international law as it relates to the targeting of hospitals or other civilian infrastructure, if Hamas is using civilians for cover. As I've said, it's not an atrocity (her word) if Hamas is using the hospitals (or other civilian buildings) as a shield. You are free to disagree, but I have the Geneva Conventions on my side.

To get a little Biblical, Hamas has sown the wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
this should be a gift link, so you should be able to read it even if you don't have a subscription:

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...l&utm_campaign=share

It doesn’t show the entire piece; it wants a login.

You can sign up for a free trial subscription. The Atlantic is very good about alerting you before they charge you at the end of the trial so you can cancel. They also have a half price subscription for educators or former educators.

Non-paywall version for those who don't want to sign up with The Atlantic.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...nd-false/ar-AA1iXPEb

We should recognize Israel's humanitarian approach even to warfare. In any other age the Gazans would simply have been driven into the sea to drown.

If Israel were to target the hospital, don't be surprised if Hamas put a significant number of the hostages under the hospital.

Israel Rescues a Hostage

which suggests that Hamas hasn't tightly controlled the entire process and put all the hostages far away from Israeli operations.

How to get rid of terrorists - supported and sheltered by a population seemingly willing to be used as human shields?

It is a hard lesson to learn that coexisting doesn't work - and the threat can't just be ignored.

The US still needs to come to terms with the growing threat of right-wing domestic terrorists training for the next civil war...

What. A. Mess.