A lot of that ambiguity would vanish if Hamas did not have a habit of not putting uniforms in combat

Drastically overstating their case? Israel estimates tend to be pretty close to accurate. What's been walked back?

And how do you even know how many active combatants have been hit? Hamas does not release such numbers, just pretends everyone is a civilian. The closest we have to a list of dead combatants is the Israeli list that leaked--but that's inherently quite an undercount as it's a list of those both identified as dead and identified as members of a terrorist group.

And note that "journalist" and "Hamas" are not exclusive. The majority of the "journalists" have been identified as members of terrorist organizations. They call their propaganda people "journalists". And how about that Al Jazzera reporter discovered holding one of the hostages?

And reports basically conflate "armed man" and "Hamas" as they are pretty much one in the same. (Other than "Hamas" actually includes allied terror organizations.) Think Hamas tolerates opposition in Gaza??

And "Hamas-run Interior Ministry" is accurate. It's admitting the figures are basically enemy propaganda.

many somewhat intellectual(1), but evil(2), people love to play make pretend of just "summarizing the rational", "playing devil advocate", "just pointing out facts" to endorse their word view while having "plausible deniability" if caught (as they tend to know many people think their ideas are evil).

Idk. if this is happening here but given how some threads devolved and other patterns common for such people emerged (red hearing arguments, false conclusions etc.) it looks quite a bit like it.

This kind people (the also tend to argue endlessly not based on common sense, understanding of the real world and empathy (in questions of ethic/moral) but based on nit picking stuff like as if the word ist just a game you find holes in the rules with to "cleverly win". Because for them the world often is just that.

But a lot of people find such behavior deeply deplorable. hence why if something looks like that it will get a lot of down votes even if it wasn't meant that way.

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(1): Non intellectual people try that too. But they tend to lack the skill to pull it off. Hence why it tends to be pretty obvious why they are down voted or similar.

(2): Non evil people do that too, they just normally have the decency not to do so with topics like genocide. I also use evil here as a over-generalization but I have mostly seen that behavior with neo-nazis and other groups which are least fascist adjacent (and most times outright fascist).

People have had good reasons for downvoting the above, but it's unclear how many and what those reasons might be.

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It's not at all an uncommon scenario to have to deal with in war, especially asymmetrical conflicts.

IMO, Israel stepped very clearly over the line, repeatedly, in how they handled it, but the parent post is a pretty reasonable summary of the considerations.

Steven Sinofsky (ex Microsoft, and was also in the Epstein leaks), has been running cover for the IDF for the last few years. One tweet that comes to mind where he alluded that just because a building may have a few first aid kits, it's not a hospital.

As a person living on the border between New Mexico and Colorado on land that borders reservations and who drives past the site of a residential school pretty regularly, I completely agree.

It could not be more clear - https://youtu.be/ZH142nb6Joo?t=144

There are modern European states refounded after the Allies pursued a deliberate and calculated policy of ethnic cleansing to ensure Germans would never be a problem again - in some cases going from 25% of the population prewar to 1% afterwards, with mass violence and rape included. Ethnic cleansing is only really frowned upon when you lose, or when you win so hard it's a convenient virtue signal and disapproval doesn't threaten the status quo.

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Even so, there have been all sorts of contrarians trying to defend them. Usually for weird anti NATO reasons.

I can’t believe I’m actually writing this: parent is an underrated comment.

The Act of Killing is near the top of my list of underappreciated films. Permanently haunting.

It's one of my favourite documentaries, almost as good as The Death of Yugoslavia.

For whatever reason YouTube has put age limits on some of the uploads of it, here's the start of one without it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9Zw5fN3rE

I linked to an article from an Israeli news outlet citing the IDF considering that death toll to be accurate.

Lack of fuel doesn't mean it was bombed or destroyed.

Tens of millions protested the US response.

Today they still spit to the side when having to say the name George Bush or Tony Blair, among others.

You either weren't there, have a bad memory, are watching typically mainstream new sources, or are willfully ignoring the voices that are having that conversation today.

Many of the ills today can be traced back to powers grabbed at the time to assist that so-called "war on terror".

>the local indigenous people called Palestinians

While you have a valid point overall, I always hate this specific phrasing because it's either ignorant of history or implies there is a statute of limitations on being indigenous. And if it is the latter, you're actively being counterproductive to the cause because that is telling the Israelis that the land will be morally theirs if they can hold it for enough generations thereby encouraging continued occupation.

Because of literally years of terrorist acts from Hamas? Because the action initially had overwhelming public support? Because, as any military action without proper planning, they promised a quick victory and had no plans beyond "bomb, bomb, bomb"? And had no plans for "what do we do if we don't succeed"?

For an exactly same "military action with no planning but a lot of bravado" scenario see Russia's invasion into Ukraine.

Because there were children to starve. Brown children.

We should stop using this term terror/terrorist, it's lost any meaning. If Hamas are terrorists because they're terrorizing Israeli population then so are Israelis' IDF or whatever force kills other country's population. And the list extends beyond that. To paint a resisting force/army as terrorists is just charged language to emotionally manipulate and pollute discourse. It would be more useful to put in balance what each side is fighting for.

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> You can't blow up entire hospitals and kill patients just because someone's storing stuff in the basement

I believe hospitals lose much of their protection under international law when they’re dual used like this. (There is still proportionality and morality.)

This is a common excuse, but The Truth is Israel doesn't care they're housing anything in the basement, they'll bomb it anyway. The ethnic cleansing agenda is plainly obvious at this point. In fact they seem to prefer having Hamas in predictable places, easier to take out and a convenient excuse to cull a few hundred of a superfluous population -- the Palestinian birth rate is way above that of Israelis. The operational reality is that Hamas is simply the best advertisement for the political hacks in charge of Israel, the system perpetuates itself because the current situation provides leverage for both ruling parties. And it turns out when you have two antagonistic death cults, people die. Solution: don't get born a Palestinian in Israel? Depressing.

I don’t like it but it was a war. October 7 was a declaration of war. I heard almost no one complain about the “war on terror” and I’m sure similar collateral occurred.

For some reason people forget the pearl harbour event that happened before it all kicked off ?

Not trying to say it’s fine to bomb a hospital, but it doesn’t seem fair to single out the IDF. Do you whine about Hiroshima ?

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Pictures of a basically untouched hospital. The destruction is way overstated.

And let's look at the numbers. Hamas numbers are fantasy but let's pretend they're accurate. ~70k. I have not seen anyone contesting the Israeli database being combatants. ~9k. Note that even granting the most extreme claims this is still better than what western powers typically do--and it's in an unevacuated urban environment which is the worst case.

It was "reported that", doesn't make it so. And note that one of the reasons noted was "lack of fuel". Gaza never ran out of fuel, it was an artificial shortage caused by Hamas.

Why do you say it's a lie that they lose their protected status? Read what Geneva actually says.

And I note yet another reference to "proportionality" as if it's some magic spell. Such usages imply the actions are not proportionate--but that is never actually addressed. Underwear gnome logic.

Citing chapters in Geneva is not a rebuttal. "Geneva" is yet another magic spell. I'm reminded of the repeated denials by Hamas of bunkers under the main hospital. And Israel came out and said there's no question they exist as we built them. Israel is very big on civil defense.

Night, not illuminated. And note that your summary of Israel's conclusions does not say whether the people actually were non-combatants.

You cannot quote Wikipedia on any topic (Wikipedia policy - cite the source, not Wikipedia) but especially matters to do with Hamas/Israel war. Even Jimmy Wales has noted severe issues with bias.

There's no sleight of hand, just a horrifying reality. It's not just Hamas and Hezbollah. Civilians from Gaza participated in October 7 and poll after poll shows broad palestinian support for the destruction of Israel.

Support for Hamas itself is waning in Gaza due to their brutality, but Hamas began the war with broad support for their genocidal aims.

I feel like there were a few one sided wars we’re forgetting about… This is also a strange advocacy for British or Ottoman rule. Maybe you’re right, if the Israelies acted like their colonial forebears there would be less violence.

If you play with fire you might get burned.

Hamas and friends understand this and rely on western morality to protect them from complete annihilation. They may have miscalculated how often you could kick the dog before it bit back.

This, of course, cuts both ways.

Yes, it's specific. It's also a fact that is in direct contradistinction to the OP's claim.

Israel has also not fired any missiles at hospitals, with one exception (a small diameter bomb aimed specifically at Hamas that caused minimal damage).

Finally, a refutable claim. Can you name me a hospital in Gaza that didn't have a Hamas presence?