@FortuitousMess @72mz @QasimRashid they're *targeting* terrorists. Collateral damage is not a war crime. It's a tragedy. I wish it weren't happening. I wish they were able to evacuate. But there is no war crime happening.

Note that the numbers come from Hamas, and they have not claimed that any of the victims were civilians. When they say "children," they mean people under 18, but they recruit terrorists much younger than that. Younger than 15, even—which *is* a war crime.

@72mz @DanHakimi @FortuitousMess @QasimRashid

No harm to one person can justify harming an unrelated, and therefore innocent, person.

If Israelis earned the right to kill innocent Palestinians in self-defense Hamas, then those Palestinians earn a commensurate right to kill innocent Israelis in return.

That kind of madness is why we’re in this situation now.

@HeavenlyPossum @72mz @FortuitousMess @QasimRashid Do you know what a target is?

Why does nobody in this thread seem to understand the concept of a target?

@DanHakimi @QasimRashid @FortuitousMess @72mz

I understand your euphemism, I just reject its validity.

Setting aside the fact that the Israeli state does deliberately target civilians, the argument that killing civilians is required by the security situation is both Hamas’ and the Israeli state’s argument.

The horrors of 7 October no more justify what Israel is doing now than the horrors of the occupation justified what Hamas did on 7 October.

@HeavenlyPossum @QasimRashid @FortuitousMess @72mz ugh, the word "target" is not a euphemism. Your lies and false equivalencies are not fooling anybody.

Hamas doesn't pretend that their targeting civilians is necessary for or has anything to do with security, they just want to instill terror in Israelis and bring about compromise through fear.

Israel does *not* target civilians, but Hamas embeds itself within the population *while firing rockets*. How should Israel fight back?

@DanHakimi @QasimRashid @72mz @FortuitousMess

The Israeli state does, in fact, target civilians both directly and collectively.

That aside, the Israeli state has also killed 10,000 civilians in the last few weeks. A policy that reliably and predictably produces civilian casualties—especially *mass* civilian casualties—is indistinguishable from a policy of deliberately attacking them, for anyone who isn’t a sophist.

I am not a military tactician; I can’t offer more specific military advice than “don’t murder children.”

@HeavenlyPossum @QasimRashid @72mz @FortuitousMess

Nobody in Gaza or elsewhere has claimed that Israel has killed 10,000 civilians since 10/7. Hamas has claimed that Israel has killed 10,000 people. Let's pretend we believe the number. They have not claimed that any of those people are civilians—it does not even pretend to delineate. We also know that some of those people were, in fact, not killed by Israel, but by stray Palestinian rockets or other Palestinian murderers.

@HeavenlyPossum @QasimRashid @72mz @FortuitousMess Did you know that Hamas recruits child soldiers? And not just 17, but much younger, young enough that their recruitment is an actual war crime. Did you see the massive rocket-firing rack they set up in a mosque basement and youth center? https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-troops-in-gaza-discover-rocket-launchers-stationed-inside-youth-center/

Hamas not only uses children as human shields, it indoctrinates them as soldiers. Again, how the fuck do you want Israel to respond, just accept the rocket fire?

@DanHakimi @72mz @QasimRashid @FortuitousMess

“How the fuck do you want Israel to respond, just accept the rocket fire?”

“How the fuck do you want Palestine to respond, just accept the air strikes?”