Please allow me to rephrase what you said a bit.
I prefer you didn't. You tried and failed miserably, complely changing what I said to exactly what I did not mean. Edit: In fact, you paraphrased it to be exactly what you've been saying, which you know cannot be what I meant because I've continued to reply to you and say, "No, you're wrong."
Israel knows full well that when they go after Hamas a lot of civilians are going to die as a result. But, they are targetting Hamas, with which most people agree.
When you say "deliberately killing the human shields/civilians" then you are saying that they are targetting those civilians which I don't believe is true.
No, I meant exactly what I said. They are dropping bombs knowing those bombs are going to kill civilians.
If one bad guy buries himself under a pile of 1,000 babies, it doesn't matter that he's your target and the babies aren't, you commit a war crime by killing those babies unless you establish proportional proportionality. Which so far Israel has failed to do and they can't with the numbers in question.
Under international law, all civilians are given the same value. Israel has now killed over 9,000 people, mostly civilians. The total number of Israelis dead since Hamas came into existence is just over 1,700. It's virtually impossible for Israel to establish proportionality with those numbers.
When they drop a bomb on a Hamas position, they and everybody else knows that it's unavoidable that civilians will die, but that does not mean that they were the target.
It doesn't matter if they were the target. If they are in the cross hairs it counts. Someone gave an excellent example: if a hostage taker uses a human shield and stand behind him with a gun to his head, police can't just shoot the human shield so that they're able to shoot the bad guy. They can't just toss a grenade into a room full of hostages to kill the bad guy that's in it. It doesn't matter who the bad guy is, there is a legal and moral obligation to protect civilian life.
I'm not ruling out that Israel is committing war crimes. I'm saying it's complicated.
I'm telling you that it isn't complicated. Israel has an obligation under international humanitarian law to protect and preserve human life. But that's not the point. You're the one saying this is ok, so don't dance around. Knowingly killingly civilians is a war crime. You either support that or you don't.
So their state goal is to rid the world of Hamas, which is a good thing for the world.
The same way WWII was to eliminate Nazis. Nazis are still here. Israel can kill every single Palestinian and succeed in genocide where the Nazis failed, and Hamas will still exist. Nice goal in theory, but if that's the objective that can never attain it and therefore they are killing civilians for nothing.
So if Hamas won't negotiate peace and release the hostages and Israel MUST eliminate them, how do they do that without falling into the PR trap.
Well that's the million dollar question. I'm asking you if you would support killing the hostages to kill a few members of Hamas. If not, why are the other civilians Israel is killing fair game? If yes, what's the point?
So yeah, Israel has lost their humanity and sense of compassion for other humans, but what option do they have.
To not do it. What about your humanity and sense is compassion? Do you support Israel killing any and all civilians Hamas uses as human shields?
Israel didn't start this most current conflict and they are not the ones putting civilians in harms way, so is it a war crime? I honestly don't know. Even though Israel may be pulling the trigger,
I've told you at least a half dozen times that it is. This is why I keep saying you repeat the same things over and over but the facts don't change. Knowingly killing civilians is only acceptable under proportional proportionality which there is no way Israel can justify with these numbers. It's not a question, it's not iffy, there is no debate: Israel is committing war crimes no matter how much you prevaricate and repeat yourself.
Let's say Israel is committing war crimes but Israel is still on a mission to destroy Hamas to save their country which Hamas wants to drive into the sea. Israel is on the brink and either let themselves be exterminated by Hamas or destroy Hamas even though there are unsavory consequences.
How do you establish that? In 15 years Hamas has killed less than 2,000 Israelies. That is far lower than the rate Israel's population is growing. Of the top 10 causes of death, you have to lump "killed by Hamas" in with every other accidental death to even make the list. Hamas poses no real threat to the extermination of Israel.
