The right-wing leader appeared on multiple cable news shows to speak on the current state Israel’s monthlong siege on Gaza, which human rights experts have warned amount to ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, and said that the only solution to the violence is to end the Israeli occupation and allow Palestinians the right to self-determination.

  • danhakimi@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Targeting civilians is a war crime. Targeting enemy combatants while trying to evacuate civilians, trying to warn civilians so desperately that you warn the enemy combatants too, and killing civilians in attacks that target legitimate military targets and reflect a sufficient level of care to minimize risk to human life, is not a war crime, that’s the definition of “collateral damage.”

    There’s no double standard there, that’s the whole issue.

    • Devi@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      They have bombed a neonatal unit! You can’t murder premature babies and be like “Whoopsy!”. Absolutely disgusting. As for ‘evacuating civilians’ they’ve blocked the borders. Workers who worked outside Gaza have been forcibly returned.

      This is genocide.

    • anachronist
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      1 year ago

      I agree. Why doesn’t Israel start acting like that? It’s minimum behavior for a civilized nation.

      • danhakimi@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It is. When your enemy is embedded in hospitals and mosques and everywhere else civilians try to go for safety, it gets hard. But I’m sure your alternative is just for Israel to just agree to a one-sided ceasefire and wait for Hamas to shore up its weapons, move the hostages, and repeat its 10/7 attack, huh?

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Hamas wouldn’t have done 10/7 if not for Israel’s colonialism and genocide, and Israel has never had a true “ceasefire” in Palestine. They for years have done bombing campaigns that they euphemize as “mowing the grass”, against Gaza. You can’t divorce the current conflict from the history that led to it.

          Turns out that desperation breeds extremism, and Israel is the one who made Palestinians desperate.

          People don’t denounce slaves who revolt as being too brutal, but continually murdering and starving peoples’ children apparently is not bad enough to justify revolt when it’s only Palestinians being murdered.

        • ahh yes. Because the Israeli army has literally no options between “relentless bombing of Gaza, denying access to food, water and medicine, sniping civillians trying to flee according to your demand on the safe routes you designated and bombing ambulances trying to move patients in the same way” and “doing nothing and watch Hamas regroup.”

          Israel could have led an infantry assault into Gaza withou pounding everything first. That would have meant higher casualties though and here shows the true nature of Israels government and army.

          They do not care for any palestinian life. So far for every Israeli soldier that got killed, more than 200 palestinian civillians were killed.

          In world war 2 the axis powers killed about 6 civillians for every axis soldier and the allies killed about 1 civillian for every 4 ally soldiers. So the war that was about total destruction and genocide still had more than a magnitude less civillians killed relative to combatants killed.

          • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            “Yeah, but if there’s one Hamas guy inside a densely-populated refugee camp, what possible other choice do we have than to bomb literally tens of buildings in there? He could have been in any of them! We gave those civilians ample warning that they are subject to murder at any time, anyways! How can you say we’re not merciful and restrained!?”

          • danhakimi@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            ahh yes. Because the Israeli army has literally no options between “relentless bombing of Gaza, denying access to food, water and medicine,

            the IDF turned off its supply of 7% of gazan water for a few days, and is still getting shit for it. Hamas never bothered to maintain the power plant or desalination plant, stole fuel from the power plant that could have been used to keep running the hospitals and desalination plant, and openly dug up water pipes to fashion into rockets. They didn’t even hide that, they were proud of that.

            sniping civillians trying to flee according to your demand on the safe routes you designated

            You know that bridge was Hamas snipers, right? Israel didn’t have a real presence in that area yet, the closest thing they had was a ship that did not fire small bullets. People initially blamed all the bullet-ridden bloody bodies on the bridge on an Israeli airstrike, and then realized that there was no sign of any explosion anywhere on the bridge, and had to change their story. =/

            and bombing ambulances trying to move patients in the same way”

            Hamas said that there were no patients in those ambulances, but the IDF had intelligence that there were, in fact, terrorists in them. This is in keeping with a long-standing pattern going back a good 20 years, Hamas loves shuttling terrorists around in ambulances.

            Israel could have led an infantry assault into Gaza withou pounding everything first. That would have meant higher casualties though and here shows the true nature of Israels government and army.

            I love how, now, people are saying “they should have invaded by land!” when, before the ground invasion began, everybody was protesting the concept of a land invasion and surrounding nations had threatened to declare war if Israel invaded.

            They do not care for any palestinian life. So far for every Israeli soldier that got killed, more than 200 palestinian civillians were killed.

            You know how I know you made that number up? Nobody anywhere has published any number of palestinian civilians that were killed in this war.

            In world war 2 the axis powers killed about 6 civillians for every axis soldier and the allies killed about 1 civillian for every 4 ally soldiers. So the war that was about total destruction and genocide still had more than a magnitude less civillians killed relative to combatants killed.

            Please, feel free to cite Hamas statistics here, I’d love to see if they’ve finally claimed a number of civilians vs combatants.