I'm not looking to defend Israel's actions or to take a political stance here, but just wanted to ask about the proportionality/fairness argument - to the best of my knowledge, a proportionality between casualties on the two sides is not an expectation of any rules of war, and I don't recall ever seeing it applied to other conflicts.

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magicalhippo 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> to the best of my knowledge, a proportionality between casualties on the two sides is not an expectation of any rules of war

If you were talking about combatants, you'd be correct. The main point about Gaza is that the majority of those who are killed are civilians[1]. And most civilized countries recognize[2] that civilians should be spared during armed conflicts.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250821135825/https://www.thegu...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I_to_the_Geneva_Conve...

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gambiting 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is correct, but every war should have an end at some point. To maybe ask this in a different way - how many more palestinian children have to die for the Israeli government to say "ok yeah we're done now". What is that number going to be? 20k? 100k? Every single one of them? Their stated objective is to eliminate th Hamas militants, but on the path to that goal the truly astounding civilian cost cannot justify the end, can it? Or if someone thinks it can, I'd ask - really? Surely there is a number between 0 and "every single person in Gaza" that would cause even the most hardened supporter of Israel to stop for a second?

(although maybe not, given that there are Israeli politicians saying everyone above the age of 5 in gaza should be cut down, so maybe I'm too optimistic).

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jfengel 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It kinda doesn't have a body count limit. After October 7, practically all Israelis (even ones who are deeply opposed to the current government, the settlers, etc) said "This will not happen again, ever. And if that means sterilizing the Gaza Strip of all life, so be it."

I heard that from many people, including a 90 year old nun. (I could not have imagined what Sister Claire-Edith would look like furious.) They simply couldn't imagine any course of action that would allow that to occur again.

That didn't mean that exterminating Gaza was inevitable. They would have accepted a complete and unconditional surrender of its leadership, along with freeing all of the hostages, and allowing an outside force to establish a new government.

I'm not saying that's fair; I'm trying to explain what the parameters were.

It's clear (now more than ever) that the current government would have faced a quandary if that had happened. They wanted the war, more or less as it was carried out. But had Hamas surrendered, a lot of Israelis would have said "that's enough", and it would be much harder to continue in the face of public opposition.

That never happened, so it continued. Eventually they did get fatigued, with time more than body count. Hostages were exchanged and Israel started to prep for the Iran war. (Iran played a significant part in funding that October 7 attack, though it's indirect enough that a lot of Israelis do not support this war.)

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gambiting 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Thanks for such a complete answer.

The question I have is - what now then? Because the war is still going on. What event is the Israeli state waiting for now, exactly? Whatever remains of Hamas leadership to say "we give up"? Would that even suffice? Because right now it looks like Israel will just continue killing people in Gaza until they get bored or run out of munitions, or have something else to do(like the war with Iran and other neighbours - which doesn't formally end the hostilities in Gaza anyway, just might ignore them for a bit). If that's the "plan" then yeah, it will continue until everyone there is dead, moved out, or.....I don't know if there is a 3rd option. And at that point it's just a systematic eradication of the entire population, which is precisely what genocide is.

	▲	jfengel 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The war in Gaza is over. There are still deaths, but they're the "ordinary" deaths of two countries who hate each other. Hamas is back to chucking rockets over the wall; Israel is back to disproportionate responses. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_att... (Nobody has created a 2026 article yet.) At that pace, it can continue indefinitely. They are replacing people and ammunition faster than they're killing/using them. The war in Iran is supposed to end that, or at least shift it. Without Iranian support, Gaza could collapse. What happens after that, I cannot even begin to guess. Maybe the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank takes over. They've got an OK-ish relationship with Israel, though Israel keeps testing that relationship with more and more settlements by religious fanatics. It's at least as likely that Netanyahu loses the election in October, at which point he may be prosecuted. Nobody in Israel is exactly in favor of the Palestinians, but there are at least some who aren't going to actively antagonize them. That will depend on their relationship with the US, which may change in November.

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jacquesm 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The only way this war will ever end is when either Gaza or Israel has disappeared. The colonists won't stop, ever.

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vkou 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Proportionate casualties is not a requirement, but targeting civilians is a war crime. The IDF has repeatedly and actively targeted civilians, even when no military targets are present in the area. They have not prosecuted the soldiers and commanders that have carried out those crimes.

This makes the entire regime culpable, and given that it is a democracy, the electorate shares a part in that culpability.

Notice that the entire polity of Palestinians is being held fully culpable for the actions of... Its unelected leadership.

... Also, using a war to displace an occupied civilian population is a genocide.