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legitster a day ago

> “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement,” - Hegseth

...

> Hegseth and the commander in charge of the Iran operation, Adm. Brad Cooper, were questioned about the strike before Congress. Hegseth said the U.S. does not target civilians and would investigate

So the administration does not intentionally target civilians, they have just stopped caring about who a civilian is.

andrepd a day ago | parent | next [-]

Well Israel has defined "combatant" as "male between 14 and 55", and the Western world more or less shrugged and moved on without missing a beat. I'm not optimistic.

ceejayoz a day ago | parent | next [-]

That, unfortunately, originates more from the US than Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-age_male

nashashmi a day ago | parent [-]

US classifies military age at 16, not 14. You can join the US army at 16. But you cant be sent to war. No. That is different than Israel.

YZF a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

ceejayoz a day ago | parent [-]

The accepted answer here has a decent source:

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/56556/does-the-...

> fight in civilian clothing

(Fake) physician, heal thyself.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-undercover-forces...

> Article 4 applies to soldiers (that e.g. fight in uniform)

Israel openly forbids the importation of uniforms.

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/israel-seizes-la...

YZF a day ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

ceejayoz a day ago | parent [-]

> Hamas itself parades in uniforms but fights in civilian clothing… But Israeli soldiers as a rule wear uniforms and Palestinians do not - ever.

Not even in parades?

> The west bank incident is also completely irrelevant.

How convenient.

> the IDF soldiers wear uniform and fight according to international laws

They are widely and credibly accused of not fighting according to international laws.

> You can't seriously suggest that Israel should equip Hamas with "thousands of items of military clothing, including boots, coats and combat vests, all in camouflage colors."

What military doesn't have boots, coats, and combat vests in its uniform?

You can't claim you get to treat them as illegal combatants because they don't have uniforms when you are embargoing the uniforms, lol.

> That said the Hamas tactics of being "civilian" do endanger their civilians in situations that could be ambiguous.

IDF HQ is right by a shopping mall. Fair to target?

YZF a day ago | parent [-]

* * *

ceejayoz 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Is there a way that we can actually take this discussion beyond propaganda?

That would be great.

> I served in the IDF (a long time ago). I talked with soldiers who fought with Gaza.

I can cite a former Prime Minister of Israel, if we're playing that game. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/former-israeli-pm-olmert-e...

And the former head of Shin Bet. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/israeli-war-opposition-...

> The IDF does not just go around shooting every military aged male in Gaza.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam...

"The men had emerged from a building and were approaching a group of IDF soldiers when they were shot dead, in spite of the fact that they were shirtless and visibly unarmed while waving a makeshift white flag and calling out for help in Hebrew."

> IDF HQ is not "right by a shopping mall". The Kiryah in Tel Aviv is clearly delineated from the civilian area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matcal_Tower

Let's be serious, here; Google Maps has it ~300 feet from the mall and hotel across the street. Do that in Gaza and it'll be deemed to be using civilians as human shields.

> Widely yes. Credibly no.

Some of these war crimes are on video.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyk1dk7d9do

YZF 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> That would be great.

Then why do you keep at it?

We are debating the original claim and you keep bringing up random things.

The original statement that the IDF views every military age male in Gaza as a combatant from a targeting perspective is still false. It's easily falsifiable and you don't care. I provided an actual credible reference (The ICRC), a pointer to video evidence where you can cleasrly see the IDF not targeting military aged males, and my personal experience. My job is easier because you need to prove this is the law/rules/regulations/commands/practice and I just need to provide counter-examples to show that those are not actually the law/rules/regulations/commands. As to the official Israeli law and commands they are very clear about this. You can argue that's not what soldiers are doing on the ground but this claim needs a lot more support than you're providing.

>> So the administration does not intentionally target civilians, they have just stopped caring about who a civilian is. > Well Israel has defined "combatant" as "male between 14 and 55", and the Western world more or less shrugged and moved on without missing a beat. I'm not optimistic.

It's false and you keep insisting it's true. So if you want to build your theory of the world on false things keep doing it.

None of your claims/evidence support your conclusion. The way for you to challenge your conclusion and the original statement is by looking for evidence that it's false. And there is plenty of evidence beyond my personal experience and that of people I know - which you're welcome to discount.

The incident of the killing of the Israeli hostages is indeed very troubling. And it does not prove your point. It does agree with my more nuanced take. Your point is easily disproven by the thousands of interactions between the IDF and civilians in Gaza where military aged men are not shot at. That's what matters. Not whether there have been any war crimes or incidents where civilians have been killed. It should be obvious that if the IDF wanted to kill all military aged males in Gaza that number would be higher than the 9,000 cited in your other response given there are probably around 700k military aged males in Gaza.

It should also be obvious that Hamas tactics of fighting as civilians increases the likelihood of civilians being mistaken for combatants. That's why there's the requirement to wear uniforms in the first place. If you can't acknowledge that this is wrong that's another piece of evidence that you have decided what's wrong and what's right regardless of the actual facts. And no, Hamas isn't fighting in civilian clothing because Israel doesn't let them import uniforms. That's ridiculous.

It's not true that if Hamas had a designated HQ that was clearly delineated from civilian areas, even if it was 300 feet away, "it would be deemed to be using civilians as human shields". Hamas' practices include getting children and civilians to converge on assets that were under evacuation warnings. These practices are not comparable in any shape or form. What is true is that many/most western nations end up having some military installations in proximity of civilians. That is very different than setting up camp inside a civilian building or underneath. There are many examples of these practices by Hamas.

There's plenty of true/real things to be critical of Israel about. I would even join in some of these. But a lot of the criticism levelled at Israel, like this one, are based on falsehoods. The conclusion is chosen first and then reality is formed to fit it. Even bringing up Israel in the context of this thread on Iran is odd. If anything this thread shows that bad things happens in wars. We should be critical of the US here for good reasons. But this example (or countless others from US wars) does not prove that the US targets civilians or doesn't care about civilians. It proves that despite having rules and processes (that are way beyond what non-western armies have) civilians still get killed in wars.

ceejayoz 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Then why do you keep at it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/whoosh/, I guess.

> As to the official Israeli law and commands they are very clear about this.

Oh, come on. The sitting PM is getting out of his corruption trial by keeping the conflict going. The only person punished for gang-raping a Palestinian detainee was the prosecutor who leaked it because they were getting away with it. You're gonna really pull the "well it's illegal!" thing?

nashashmi a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

MisterTea a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> So the administration does not intentionally target civilians, they have just stopped caring.

FTFY. IMO I don't think they directly stopped caring about bombing civilians but have stopped caring about doing their jobs. And this staggering tragedy is the outcome.

I think with the atmosphere this current administration has created, questioning things is likely frowned upon. Better to just follow orders and if shit hits the fan, put on a circus act and move on to the next tragic disaster in the making. Someone else can always take the blame.

noncoml a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Not sure wtf “politically correct” in the context of rules of engagement even means.

What a fucking moron

cogman10 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Instead of worrying about woke things like "is this person actually a combatant actively fighting" they want the much simpler rule of "everyone we kill was actually a terrorist that deserves to die".

Basically they stopped caring those woke UN rules about war crimes.

toyg a day ago | parent | next [-]

Hey, it's worked for a certain allied country in the Middle East for decades at this point...

giva 17 hours ago | parent [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controv...

enaaem 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s strategically extremely dumb, unless your goal is to genocide a population.

folkrav a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Politically correct for this type of ultra-religious zealot just means things they don't believe in. I don't believe he thinks of the children of muslims as real people. The guy is a fanatic who is, from his point of view, on a literal crusade for America.