Highlight:

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      They never weren't, but they at least had the decency to pretend like they weren't before.

      • QHC@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh, so war crimes are justified as long as the other side does it first?

        • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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          1 year ago

          Potentially, sure. Things like carpet bombing civilian areas, certain uses of minefields, certain munitions, etc are banned by convention but the thing about the Geneva Conventions are that they are a mutual treaty. Your nation agrees not to do it to other signatories or nations or forces that have otherwise agreed to the limitations as well.

          In this case? No. Not at all justified. Hamas might not agree to the Conventions, and thus don't benefit from the protections, but the moment they suspended elections they lost the right to claim they represent the Gaza Strip, even if Israel didn't claim it as territory regardless.

          Israel is a signatory of the Conventions, and the Gaza Strip is their claimed land, this is a war crime against people they claim as their own, the actions of what amounts to a domestic terrorist network is irrelevant to whether they can starve people into submission.

          A standard genocidal tactic of imperialists everywhere, mind you, from the Irish famine, to the Holodomor, to the Bengal Famines.

      • ???@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        Yes but this particular news story is about Israel publicly announcing a war crime.

        • Pasta4u@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Murder is against the law in western countries but of someone tries to kill you, you can kill them in self defense.

          So yea of someone is committing war crimes against you, you can fo ahead and fight back to get them to stop

          • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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            1 year ago

            War crimes are war crimes, doesn't matter if the other side started them first. Israel is stooping just as low as Hamas is with these tactics, you can and should fight in self defense without targeting Civilians

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              They don't target civilians. Hamas does.

              When you build your headquarters inside a civilian hospital, and that hospital gets bombed, you are to blame for the war crime of positioning your HQ in a civilian hospital, not the person who bombs you.

              • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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                1 year ago

                If you build an HQ in a hospital that's (likely? I'd assume so) a war crime. If your opponent then bombs that hospital to bomb you they are also committing a war crime. Some of you are insane, would you agree with the police shooting hostages because "well they took the hostages first, it's their fault we shot them". Fuck no, you'd cry for whoever did that to go to prison. Just because Hamas is stooping so low does not suddenly make it OK for Israel to stoop just about as low.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I only know the war crimes I was taught about that can plausibly be laid on Jews

                  Yeah I'm aware. Show me on the doll where ((George Soros)) and the ((globalists)) hurt you.

                  • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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                    1 year ago

                    be laid on Jews

                    fancy how it always ends up being this according to people defending Israel as rightful. I don't give a shit about Israel being mostly jewish. Should I give them a free war crime pass because they suffered from genocide in the past? That how you think this should work?

          • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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            1 year ago

            It's legally how the Geneva Conventions work. You are only bound to them if the other side agrees to it as well.

            However, Hamas is not the Gaza Strip, it is not Palestine, and Israel claims the Strip as its territory anyways so to claim the civilian population doesn't accept the Convention so they aren't bound by it is ludicrous.

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      so wait. Siege is a war crime? Not taking a side, I'm just a technicalities kind of guy. Its not like locking people in a house. And don't hostage negotiators do just that in the US? (Could be just on tv). But it's a big place. Fuel and electricity are nice to haves. They should have some amount of food and water stored up. And the southern border is with egypt, so I assume they can't actually do anything about that. Doesn't seem like a straight up war crime. But I have never read yhe definitions they have at the UN.

        • wwaxen@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I just took a gander at the list as a refresher, and it is not 100% a war crime. You can argue this is an unjustified or excessive attack on civilians, but a judge may rule that is is required to defend against the enemy (Hamas).

          • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Item 2.b.25 from the list seems to match up:

            "Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions; "

            • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Is the intent to starve civilians or to deprive hamas combatants of any and all supplies?

              • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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                1 year ago

                If you are blocking an entire region from getting food and water then yes, the intent is to starve the civilian population.

                • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Regardless of what we feel is intended or not, that is what war is - hell for everybody involved. Let's just hope that this doesn't get drawn out.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  That's not what "intent to starve a civilian population" means. This is not a program of starvation. It's cutting off resources before an invasion

                  This isn't your homebrew DnD game where you can make rules mean whatever you want.

                  • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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                    1 year ago

                    This is not a program of starvation

                    It is though. A program of cutting off resources would be blocking fuel and other goods, not fucking food and water. Ukraine was rightfully put in the corner for cutting off water to Crimea after 2014. There is no excuse to starving people, it's a horrendous crime which should land the people involved in prison. Besides what do you think will happen now? Who will the Palestinians in Gaza trust more, the murder hobos who got them into this mess or the Israelis who decided collective punishment is an appropriate response? War crimes are called war crimes for a reason, just because one side commits them doesn''t suddenly make it ok to commit them back.