Palestinian officials say Israeli air strikes hit Gaza hospitals and school
Source: Reuters
Israeli air strikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 22 people, and a ground battle was under way at another hospital, Palestinian officials said, as Israel's forces took on Hamas in the heart of the enclave.
Officials said missiles landed in the courtyard of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, in the early hours, damaged the Indonesian Hospital and reportedly set fire to the Nasser Rantissi paediatric cancer hospital.
The hospitals are in northern Gaza, where Israel says the Hamas militants who attacked it last month are concentrated, and are full of displaced people as well as patients and doctors. Israel says Hamas is using them as human shields, which the group denies.
Israeli tanks, which have been advancing through northern Gaza for almost two weeks, have taken up positions around the Nasser Rantissi, Children's and Eye hospitals as well as the Al-Quds hospital, medical staff said ealier, raising the alarm.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-officials-say-hospitals-come-under-new-israeli-attacks-2023-11-10/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=111023&user_email=ca866c5556e8e2484ffc240668545ef53b725bbd8bc92d32d813b036b0bd984d
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JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)
Lanius
(662 posts)jimfields33
(19,382 posts)Good luck. All this kind of thing will do is recruit more people for Hamas.
Igel
(37,535 posts)If you place a military installation in/under a civilian site, you make that site and ny civilians in it into a military site and therefore a possible target
"Proportionate" in this context doesn't mean "equal deaths" or "equal firepower" but "is the civilian damage proportionate to the military benefit" that the damage could cause. That judgment is pretty much up to the attacker. The Conventions do *not* give a nice equation to produce the verdict. If a single sniper is in a hospital, that's one thing; if it's a large installation, it's another.
And the Conventions make clear that the civilian injuries and deaths are utterly not the responsibility of the throw of civilian-killing bombs or bullets, but of the group/military that reduced the civilians to targets.
In other words, if there's a command post under Al-shifa that Hamas put there and the hospital sustains great damage and multitudinous deaths as a result, the blood splashes, per international law, on Hamas.
Like it or lump it, that's the accords.
Aussie105
(7,921 posts)and then you extrapolate to 'a large installation'.
And you use 'if' again, several times.
Seriously, confirmation required!
Even then, killing of civilians isn't justified.
I see a lot of public protests in various countries around the world.
People are taking sides, in other words.
I can't.
Both sides are wrong.
FBaggins
(28,706 posts)One side wants neither Israeli nor Palestinian civilians to suffer. The other side wants maximum suffering among both groups (one due to hatred and the other due to the effect is has on useful idiots)
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)Any civilian deaths are on the hands of Hamas, who started it all by breaking a cease fire that was in place.
So kill hospitalized people anyway? That is completely fucked up.
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)It ain't pretty
There is no excuse for this.
questionseverything
(11,840 posts)questionseverything
(11,840 posts)Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)I bet they killed at least 22 Palestinians.
NH Ethylene
(31,348 posts)It's hard to believe anything they say at this point because of their blatant lies.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Mmm... kay!
maxsolomon
(38,729 posts)I thought the pediatric cancer hospital was empty.
Al Shifra is. Don't know about the Indonesian Hospital. I didn't know there was an Indonesian Hospital.
Goddessartist
(2,176 posts)No excuses for this at all. This is annihilation. Genocide, as my Jewish mother in law says. Horrific.
jimfields33
(19,382 posts)Goddessartist
(2,176 posts)Israel can do no wrong. Of course, Israel is like Goliath, and Palestine is like David, if you're into biblical stuff.
jimfields33
(19,382 posts)When they get rid of all hamas and they still are bombing then they are wrong. Until then, they have to do this or they will be decimated. Many countries in the Middle East want Israel gone.
Goddessartist
(2,176 posts)jimfields33
(19,382 posts)Goddessartist
(2,176 posts)jimfields33
(19,382 posts)Rid of Hamas.
Aussie105
(7,921 posts)Seeing a bleak future for Israel.
Seeing an even bleaker future for civilians on both sides in the area.
Getting rid of Hamas will just leave a huge hole of long term resentment that will be filled very quickly by other Middle Eastern anti-Israel interests.
Polybius
(21,902 posts)I finally met someone who doesn't even think that they are even the slightest bit of careless.
NH Ethylene
(31,348 posts)So are fine with killing thousands of children along the way to Hamas. It's sickening.
disablegamer
(85 posts)People on this board will believe Israel is NEVER in the wrong as long as you say Hamas was there. Hamas can be anything its great cause it means no matter what is attack just say Hamas and you are cleared of all wrong . To bad Russia didn't learn that trick.
NickB79
(20,356 posts)Israel isn't risking thousands of troops and dropping millions of dollars of ordnance on chasing ghosts.
If fighting is raging next door to the hospital, as the article states, who the hell is the IDF exchanging gunfire with?
disablegamer
(85 posts)why didn't Israel Bomb their meeting there ?
FBaggins
(28,706 posts)Governmental leaders are generally protected from such attention. That’s complicated by also being leaders of a terrorist organization, but being in a non-belligerent country further challenges such an option
NickB79
(20,356 posts)Because there hasn't been an election there in 17 yr.
Isn't that a good argument that Hamas leadership ISN'T protected from attention?
FBaggins
(28,706 posts)They are no longer validly the elected government of Gaza... but they are the government of Gaza.
Geneva and other "laws of war" standards apply to no-elected governments as well.
Isn't that a good argument that Hamas leadership ISN'T protected from attention?
I think the better argument is that they are also the head of a terrorist organization. Governmental leaders who are also military leaders (not in the way that a chief executive is also commander in chief) can be targets...
... but they we're back to the complication that they're in a third country.
JI7
(93,617 posts)NickB79
(20,356 posts)The ground troops, like the ones that carried out the Oct 7 attack, are in Gaza.
And I have a feeling that the same people calling on Israel to stop their military operations in Gaza would shit a brick if Israel carried out an airstrike on the Hamas leadership in Qatar (even though it would be fully justified IMO).
Again, who is the IDF exchanging fire with?
ismnotwasm
(42,674 posts)They are a very effective terrorist organization with a long history of using Palestinian bodies to manipulate the perception of events. There will be no peace as long as they are in power. They will do whatever it takes to remain in power. Whatever it takes.
FBaggins
(28,706 posts)The West Bank has their own government
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)Because Hamas takes the children and places them where they're most useful to them
Another war crime. We've seen the pictures of tunnel entrances in amusement parks, next to schools, etc. Another war crime. They're hardly "faked" since the construction is obviously not new.
Eliminate Hamas.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)Doubt children are going to amusement parks or even schools now.
The killing was happening in their own homes.
Where at least 1,500 are still buried in the rubble.
That Hamas is not only evil but absolutely diabolical in how they have ensured the total destruction of Gaza. We will soon find out they were hiding in or had tunnels under every large apartment block, school, mosque, hospital, water and power infrastructure, civic and commercial building, UN and aid facilities, refugee camps and anywhere else vital to the continued existence of the people of Gaza on that small strip of land.
Has nothing at all to do with Likud's military or political objectives. Nothing at all.
NickB79
(20,356 posts)Platoons of IDF troops with machine guns going wing to wing, hallway to hallway, inside the hospital fighting Hamas soldiers won't mean fewer civilian deaths.
Leaving Hamas fighters inside, alive or uncaptured, isn't an option. That's the nature of war, when you use hospitals as shields.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)The red crayon markings on a satellite image are not proof of anything, let alone that there are command centres inside the hospital.
If you are going to bomb a hospital with patients and people inside, you have to do better than that.
In fact, if you do bomb the hospital with patients and people trapped inside, I imagine that's a war crime.
The exemption in the Geneva Convention, Protocol I, relating to medical units losing protective status if they are being used for military purposes is not to be used to absolve all responsibilities under the rest of the Protocol and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Conventions.
Civilians, medical personnel, patients are to be protected. Period.
If you are going to bomb a hospital, you have to provide all assistance to the hospital to move patients and staff not just to safety but to another hospital that can take care of them.
It's pretty reprehensible to pick and choose only the parts of the Conventions that suit your purposes and ignore all others.
Parting question - do you know how many premature and newborn babies are dead in that hospital now? Last I checked it was 3. I'm afraid to find out.
There are 36 others at risk who may be dying as we speak. What a cruel world.
Novara
(6,115 posts)How about, instead of bombing hospitals, they surround them and take all of them prisoner? Civilians and hiding Hamas all together? Block off the tunnels. Then - oh, this is radical - NEGOTIATE.
WHY is killing every living thing the ONLY option?
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)They have 100s of miles of tunnels
Plus, they're getting fired on when they DO have these places surrounded.
I think when the Israelis feel like they've ID'd most of the tunnel network & destroyed it, they'll begin to reposition. Without that tunnel network Hamas doesnt have NEAR the capability they do now.
NickB79
(20,356 posts)Here's a hint: they won't. They'll either flee, or fight. Hamas doesn't negotiate, as their stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews.
Assuming they fight and don't slip away in their tunnels to fight another day, you'll see IDF soldiers doing close quarters combat INSIDE a hospital. Machine guns, grenades, stray bullets and shrapnel.
Massive civilian death toll as well.
