Hamas terrorists fire anti-tank missile at IDF troops from Gaza hospital entrance

https://lemmy.world/post/8217084

Hamas terrorists fire anti-tank missile at IDF troops from Gaza hospital entrance - Lemmy.World

To be clear, staging militant attacks from a hospital is a war crime. To make matters worse, it opens up the likelihood and justification of counter-attacks against that hospital and the people in it.

According to international humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. The rule has few exceptions.

Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an "act harmful to the enemy".

Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.

Source: The International Committee of the Red Cross

The protection of hospitals during armed conflicts: What the law says

According to international humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. The rule has few exceptions.

International Committee of the Red Cross

This is the thing that pissed me off - the organization that has a humanitarian symbol so strong you can be legally held accountable for using it in a way that lessens its importance acknowledges that attacking a hospital being used as a military bases is a legal part of war. Meanwhile there are people whos education doesn’t pass high-school screaming that this isn’t legal, or its incorrect, or blaming the aggressor instead of those deliberately putting civilian lives at risk by blatantly ignoring intl rules of conflict.

If you want to throw in your argument against the red cross, spend your life and billions of dollars helping humanitarian issues world wide and then you might have some authority on the matter.

This is modern warfare. War is horrific, innocents get killed, people suffer. We put rules in place to lessen the effects on the innocent and those who circumvent those rules to try make the others look bad need to be removed in the quickest and most efficient way we can - as soon as one group gets away with ignoring the intl rules, everyone can.

It doesn’t give them the right to bomb the hospital point blank period, proportionality clauses kick in and it’s arguably reason to ground assault it but they cannot ignore the civilian cost of life when they’re are other ways to go about clearing the garrison.

Unfortunately as soon as they garrisoned it it became a legitimate military target and yes, they literally now have a right to bomb it. Level it, no, you are right on a proportional response and that would still be a war crime, but bombing what is now a legitimate military target prior to any invasion (like any other military target) can absolutely be justified.

Hamas knows this, and are deliberately trying to put the global blame on Israel when THEY GARRISONED A FUCKING HOSPITAL.

Lol “garrisoned”. This isn’t Age of Empires. Gaza is one of the most densely populated area on the planet. They have no freedom of movement, and the area is completely blockaded. Anywhere anyone in that area tries to stage a defense is a “civilian area.” They’re literally prohibited from having anything else.

So there is nowhere they could defend from that you wouldn’t consider “human shield.”

But you know that.

Edit: Corrected. Because fascist apologists love getting honest interlocutors hung up on semantics. I misspoke, and it’s “just” one of the most densely populated areas. Because that changes my argument in any real way whatsoever.

Uhh… military forces holding a building and using it as a base is literally called a garrison.
I know what the word means. If you want to get all semantic about it, Hamas isn’t a “military force,” they’re an insurgency. I’m not sure an insurgency “garrisons”.

As the elected representative of Palestine they are indeed a military force, operating in a state to state conflict. Like the taliban in Afghanistan - they are the controllers of the country, no longer an insurgency. How “good” they are, morally or militarily, is irrelevant.

Its like saying the US of A is actually an insurgency because they toppled the British government and established their own. Nope - government.

How fair the elections were is up for debate, and how they stopped elections but they are thr government of Palestine.