Comment by hedora
3 days ago
How are you proposing the deal could be made more fair?
Keep in mind:
Israel killed 100x more civilians than Palestine during this conflict, and more damage was done to Gaza than any European city during wwii. 90% of the population is displaced. 10% are casualties. Israel intentionally blew up all the civil infrastructure (hospitals, doctors, engineers) first.
There are > 17,000 children that have no adults to care for them any more. That’s 10 orphaned kids for every Israel civilian casualty in the middle of a famine with no support infrastructure.
It could be made more fair if all the hostages were released. Why would international society accept hundreds of peaceful civilians being tortured, raped and murdered for over a year as acceptable?
Israel actually built a lot of the civilian infrastructure, including the largest hospital in Gaza. It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks. Why is it acceptable to shoot rockets purely targeting civilians while breaking a cease fire agreement?
> hundreds of peaceful civilians being tortured, taped and murdered
There is no absolute evidence that any of Hamas' hostages have been raped or tortured - according to released hostages, they were treated very well! AFAIK the only known instance of Hamas murdering a hostage was when a fighter lost it after Israel killed his entire family - all the other deaths have been a result of Israeli bombs (because if you want hostages back, you bomb them... right?!).
And as you doubtless know, many of the "peaceful civilians" are actually serving IDF members...
And as you also doubtless know, Palestinian hostages are routinely raped and tortured to death in Israeli dungeons - there is a wealth of evidence.
> It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks.
This is what Israeli Hasbara do - repeat unevidenced claims until people accept them as "truth". But it's lies, there isn't a shred of evidence that Hamas as used even a single hospital as a "terrorist hideout". You know who has repurposed Gazan hospitals for military ops? Israel - every accusation is a confession with them.
You have first hand accounts of the rape and abuse by the people who were kidnapped.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/middleeast/amit-soussana-...
What do you mean there is no proof? There are mountains of evidence.
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Can't believe we're here again.
> There is no absolute evidence that any of Hamas' hostages have been raped or tortured - according to released hostages, they were treated very well!
Hamas literally executed some: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/01/middleeast/israel-gaza-ww...
But yeah, other than that, treated very well!
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> It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks.
No, this is not pretty clear. This is pure Israeli propaganda.
> How are you proposing the deal could be made more fair?
Keeping hostages is a war crime. A fair thing would be for Hamas to follow its obligations under international law and unconditionally release them (before anyone says, well israel did X which also isn't allowed, 2 wrongs don't make a right).
> more damage was done to Gaza than any European city during wwii
How are you quantifying this? I'd be surprised if Gaza has more damage than say Dresden.
Israel's prisons are full of Palestinian hostages kidnapped from Gaza and the West Bank. Their courts have no jurisdiction over them and have no issue calling anyone a terrorist.
A hostage and a prisoner is not the same thing under international law.
> Their courts have no jurisdiction over them
Israel is the occupying power. International law requires that an occupying power provide law & order, so it does have the authority to persecute people who commit crimes (although they are required to keep the laws the same as they were pre-occupation, with some exceptions).
They are also allowed to keep prisoners of war (although i am not sure if hamas counts as that as they are a non-state group). They are allowed to persecute war crimes that enemy combatants commit (as long as they give a fair trial)
> have no issue calling anyone a terrorist.
The phrase "terrorist" doesn't really have much meaning under international law. Israel is free to call its enemies dirty names if it wants, there isn't any rule against calling your enemies mean names.
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Having both sides obey their obligations under international law would be a good first step.
Maybe Israel could start by turning over everyone subject to an outstanding International Criminal Court warrant. (Starting with Netanyahu, of course.)
Dresden is a darkly funny choice for comparison. Area bombing definitely wasn't a war crime and Arthur Harris was not a war criminal.
Regardless of the circumstances of the bombing, if the question is - did there exist any cities in europe that were more damaged in WW2 than gaza was in the current conflict, isn't it natural to compare gaza with the most famously damaged european city in WW2? Like what comparison would you expect to be made in relation to that question?
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Here's a suggestion - don't rape girls, burn babies, kill everyone at a music festival etc. if you don't want your city (Gaza) to be destroyed.
There are consequences.
It would be far more dangerous for the world if the terrorists had learned they can rape and murder without consequences.
This is just such a toxic thread.
What say did the civilian victims in Gaza have in the horrific acts by Hamas?
There isn’t even a glimmer of moderation in anything I see in the argument here.
What say did the Yemenite civilians have in the Saudi lead aggression.
What say did the Syrian civilians have in the civil war.
What say did the Iraqi civilians have in the U.S. lead war.
What say did the Ukrainian and Russian civilians have in their war.
Your remark comes off as there should never be a war again period. The Palestinian people voted Hamas in AND were polled in majority support. Beyond Hamas the general Palestinian civilians also had those helping Hamas, supporting Hamas, and over 60-80% viewings Hamas’s actions as just.
> There isn’t even a glimmer of moderation in anything I see in the argument here.
At this point, would we be surprised if this thread turned out to be part of an OSINT campaign?
Civilians who die during war rarely have any responsibility for the things their leader do.
What say did the average russian citizen have in putin's choice to invade Ukraine? And yet we are largely ok with ukraine bombing russia, killing some of those civilians in the process. That is the way of war.
I believe we should focus on things that are violations of the rules of war, not civilian death in its entirety. Otherwise we are just saying war is evil, as innocents have died in pretty much every war. A true point perhaps but kind of useless. It also raises the question of what one should do when confronted with war? Just roll over and die.
It has been alleged that Israel has violated rules of war. If true and backed up by evidence, it should be condemed for such violation. But civilian deaths are not a violation of the rules of war. They can be under certain circumstances, but they aren't in and of themselves.
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None of these orphaned children did any of these things.
Don't pretend collective punishment is justified. There are consequences.
So you call all wars “collective punishment”?
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If, as you argue, it’s appropriate to respond to one civilian casualty by orphaning 10 kids, killing 100 civilians and displacing 1000, then the same reasoning implies it’d be acceptable for the Middle East to collectively murder 10% of Israel’s population, displace 100% of it’s population and level all it’s buildings and infrastructure.
So, if Iran has working nukes, I guess they should use them?
Then what? Israel probably has nukes too, so I guess the US should help them glassify the entire Middle East?
First, no concrete evidence was ever presented that anyone was raped or babies burned. Even Israel admitted no babies were burned. These were lies to dehumanize Palestinians and justify the atrocities committed against them.
Second, history didn't start on October 7th. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed before Oct 7, including hundreds at a peace protest just a few years before. And Israel had 5000 hostages of their own on Oct 6th. The year before October 7th was one of the most deadly for Palestinians in history.
> First, no concrete evidence was ever presented that anyone was raped
The international criminal court has found there is sufficient evidenve to issue a warrant for the crime against humanity of rape for Hamas leadership.
Obviously Its not the same as a guilty verdict, there has been no trial, but i would still consider that pretty compelling.
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> There are consequences.
Here we go, justifying war crimes in the plain sight.
You mean like some Israelis admitted doing during the 1948 independence war?