International law is complicated. It allows comingling of combatants and health care workers if the combatants are not engaging in hostilities, but are just assisting the workers. There's also issue of proportionality. You can't bomb hospital with 10000 people if you see 10 people with guns there. You'd still be required to attempt to target combatants and avoid civilian harm. I'd leave it to the lawyers.
I'm in Czechia, a country that supports Israel unconditionally, without an ounce of sympathy for Palestinians. Vast majority of comments on news articles that allow commenting just call for genocide, for leveling the place, justify killing children, call Gazan's not human, express excitement when they are being killed, etc. (yes we have laws against genocide and incitement to genocide) Politicians are not much better, except they're just acting out callous disregard for human beings on the "other side". Media is not showing or describing the human toll in Gaza pretty much at all. A country that sold a lot of planes and weapons to Israel in 47/48 during the arms embargo.
You can show people videos like these, and they'd still tell you it's Palestinian's own fault, and they'd still vote even against an unenforcible, largely symbolic resolution calling for a meaningful ceasefire and distribution of aid, so that there's at least an anesthetic, and safe route to get these patients transfered outside of Gaza.
Or who can scroll a few weeks back through this this https://t.me/s/eyeonpal and think that killing, maiming and terrorizing these people in such horrendous ways, and continuing to opress them after the war, will not make them susceptible to even more radical views than what Hamas have now in the future.
Or the news like:
"Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he ordered a halt to transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority as a result of, what he says, their “support” for Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” Smotrich said in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoted by the Israeli media."
a day after warnings about "explosive situation in West Bank" from security services. It all almost seems designed to trigger as much mayhem as possible, just to guarantee some uprising there. Defunding PA will not make it stronger. It's guaranteed to make it look impotent and useless in people's eyes and make them turn elsewhere.
Anyway, I cope by reading books and learning, so I can confront the ignorance in my country.
> If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
My country was occupied twice. It didn't fight back, and just accepted the fate. (aside from people joining foreign legion or partisans, during WW2)
Lots of nasty stuff. I obviously won't defend the Nazis but Czechs didn't exactly play by the rules of law against the Nazis who also didn't play by the rules of law.
The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
Maybe it's not a good analogy, I'm totally ignorant of European history like most are about middle eastern history, point is that without context you can't make a moral judgement.
Smotrich is an idiot. The PA has no interest in making peace. But Israel and the PA do collaborate because the PA corrupt officials want to remain in power and their people will slaughter them without Israel's protection just like they did to the Fatah in Gaza.
EDIT: So why aren't Europeans killing each other all the time when basically every inch of land there was stolen from someone in some war not too long ago? They were for a long time. Because at some point you move on and you stop thinking that you're going to solve the problem by killing your neighbor. The Palestinians are just not willing to move on. Israel has been willing to move on a long time ago but its neighbors want to kill it. Those neighbors also don't generally share the values of the west at all. Just look at the human right situation in the middle east and how neighboring countries (unrelated to Israel) treat each other. It's not Western Europe.
> The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
People would be pissed, but that's about as much as they could do. Czech would have to negotiate.
I can certainly make a judgement that killing 100x more children than were killed during Oct 7 is more immoral. Don't need any history for that.
First of all I don't believe "people would be pissed". Unless you guys over there are made of a different kind of human vs. the rest of us. True pacifists who would rather die, or see their family mutilated and tortured, than hurting an ant.
A 17yo Hamas combatant counts as a child btw.
It is terrible that children are dying. Most of that is on the Hamas. Hamas intentionally aimed their attacks at children. Hamas kidnapped babies. Executed children in front of their parents. Israel asked people to evacuate and at least in theory is targeting Hamas in an extremely densely populated area where Hamas is using population as human shields.
I can't deny that seeing images of dead children on the Palestinian side is deeply disturbing. Not getting to those Hamas terrorists is not an option. What is the option? Another by the way there is that this monstrosity of Hamas was created with international help and pressure on Israel and now somehow it's all Israel's fault. There's also a clear propaganda war going on here as well and what I'd call double standards.
If Israel could get at Hamas without hurting a single child that would definitely be preferable. You're asking Israel to sit back and be slaughtered. This isn't only about the Israeli children already murdered and taken hostage, it's also about the safety of the rest of the children.
EDIT: just in case you say the option is to "negotiate" this current state is a result of the historical negotiations. How do you negotiate with a brutal enemy that wants you dead? The theory was that they've given up on wanting Jews dead.
EDIT2: Another thought experiment to engage in is if the Hamas was even more successful in their attack, and the other settlements and towns where they were repelled failed, and they killed 10000 Israeli children would there be a different morality? I don't think the ratio of dead people is necessarily a morality factor at war. That does not mean it's good that people (including children) are getting killed.
I'm in Czechia, a country that supports Israel unconditionally, without an ounce of sympathy for Palestinians. Vast majority of comments on news articles that allow commenting just call for genocide, for leveling the place, justify killing children, call Gazan's not human, express excitement when they are being killed, etc. (yes we have laws against genocide and incitement to genocide) Politicians are not much better, except they're just acting out callous disregard for human beings on the "other side". Media is not showing or describing the human toll in Gaza pretty much at all. A country that sold a lot of planes and weapons to Israel in 47/48 during the arms embargo.
You can show people videos like these, and they'd still tell you it's Palestinian's own fault, and they'd still vote even against an unenforcible, largely symbolic resolution calling for a meaningful ceasefire and distribution of aid, so that there's at least an anesthetic, and safe route to get these patients transfered outside of Gaza.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jfd8o/warning_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jeq4r/kids_inj...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c269h/saving_a...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c9igd/israel_h...
Or who can scroll a few weeks back through this this https://t.me/s/eyeonpal and think that killing, maiming and terrorizing these people in such horrendous ways, and continuing to opress them after the war, will not make them susceptible to even more radical views than what Hamas have now in the future.
Or the news like:
"Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he ordered a halt to transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority as a result of, what he says, their “support” for Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” Smotrich said in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoted by the Israeli media."
a day after warnings about "explosive situation in West Bank" from security services. It all almost seems designed to trigger as much mayhem as possible, just to guarantee some uprising there. Defunding PA will not make it stronger. It's guaranteed to make it look impotent and useless in people's eyes and make them turn elsewhere.
Anyway, I cope by reading books and learning, so I can confront the ignorance in my country.
> If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
My country was occupied twice. It didn't fight back, and just accepted the fate. (aside from people joining foreign legion or partisans, during WW2)