You probably know this better than me but LE couldn’t just leave hostages takers alone but they do have a legal duty of care regarding the lives and safety of the hostages. A SWAT team using overwhelming force, say dropping a bomb, on hostage takers position would still be likely to be considered negligent. In the situation with Gaza it’s virtually impossible to just take out Hamas fighters Without killing civilians. That both is because Hamas deliberately hides among civilians and also that Gaza is one of the densest places in the World. While the IDF doesn’t deliberately go after civilians it is clear they don’t seem to have much of a standard of care regarding civilians. For example telling people to evacuate to the South of Gaza even though they are also bombing there.
The numbers aren’t reliable but it’s still most likely that thousands of civilians in Gaza have died. I don’t think even the IDF denies that. A precision guided missile that blows up a whole apartment building in the middle of a dense urban environment is going to kill a lot of civilians.
Babies and children have to be identified if they are militants or civilians? Come on. But yes, information comes only from the Hamas Ministry of Health. Have you wondered why? Because the IDF does not allow foreign news outlets inside Gaza. They recently allowed and embedded CNN, but their reports/videos have to pass through IDF first. Had they allowed the media to do their job, we could have compared notes among their figures.
Thank you for not admitting you are OK with it. I have no reason to believe you think otherwise privately. Showing decency and humanity is the right step toward reducing children's casualties (my primary concern). That is how I wish the policy-makers on both sides would react (with regard to children being bombed). Admit that it is a tragedy. Do something to avoid it (or at least minimize it).
I believe the IDF has been trying to minimize civilian casualties. It's Hamas who hide like cowards behind civilians. It's part of their evil plan.
Hamas isn't 3 guys in a bank with shotguns, they are a thousands strong terrorist group with anti-tank weapons. If the hostage takers in the bank have RPGs and have anti-personnel mines all over the place, they are not sending in a SWAT team to try to capture them. See above regarding bank robbers as compared to Hamas. Israel does more to mitigate civilian casualties than any other military in the world. No one else drops leaflets telling the enemy where they are going to bomb in advance and warning them to evacuate. No one else does "roof knocks" on buildings they will strike later. The issue is that the people in Gaza do not cooperate with these mitigation strategies, whether through their own choice or being restrained by Hamas. Unfortunately, one cannot dictate how the opponent fights the war, you just have to take them as they are and do the best you can.
Thanks. “Must do what it takes” is a problematic statement when it comes to military actions that put civilian lives at risk. If there is literally no limit to how many civilians may be killed in completing “the job”, this is not compatible with existing norms for just war (proportionality) as quoted earlier in the thread. It is clear you believe that Israel faces an exceptional threat, so perhaps your position is that those norms just shouldn’t apply. I agree that it is critical that Israel eliminate the threat of Islamic jihadists (and that’s not just Hamas) against their people. I don’t think a purely military response that treats Palestinian lives as having negligible value is the right way or the most effective way to achieve that goal.
Bibi is a sack of **** that needs to hold on until the folks with pitchforks die down. And by "folks", I mean his constituents, not the terrorists. He and his ragtag "wartime emergency coalition" aren't gonna elicit good vibes from anyone outside the West Bank settlers anytime soon.
I agree with you, but that's not what's happening. The IDF is the military in the world that protects civilian life more than any other.
Evil is making arguments with little video clips, IMHO. But humans gonna human. Video clips are great for humor and pets. Real topics need real discussions, not one-off examples of shitty behavior. It's like wondering if you need to tear down your house b/c, well, this one light switch doesn't work. "Look at this video of the light switch! *flip* *flip* -- nothing! It's terrible! Just gut the entire house."
