Explosion possibly caused by RPG attack as IDF prepared structures for demolition using explosives, with nearby tank hit by a missile; death toll in ground op reaches 219
What are they even hoping to get out of keeping the hostages anymore? At this point it looks like Israel is quietly trying to move to acting as though they’re already dead anyways.
hostages one of the few ways Palestinians can actually do anything to improve their lives
Genuine question, how has Hamas taking hundreds of innocent people hostage on October 7th improved the situation in Gaza or Israel in any way? Whose life is better today than it was a couple of months ago as a result?
International humanitarian law prohibits taking and executing hostages. Such acts are considered war crimes (GCI–IV Common Art. 3; GCIV Arts. 34, 147; API Art. 75) and can be tried before any national court, under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
The Convention defines a hostage taker as “any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (‘hostage’) in order to compel a third party, namely a State, an international inter-governmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage, commits the offence of taking hostages (‘hostage taking’)” (Art. 1 of Hostage Convention).
The Convention further specifies that not only those who commit such an act but also any person who attempts to commit or who participates as an accomplice in such an act or attempt is accountable and must be punished.
At any rate, regardless of whether you feel Hamas' jihad is justified or not (it isn't, in fact), hostage taking is an international war crime. The Geneva Convention is the bare minimum standard on this, and as such our opinions and political leanings are irrelevant.
The bare minimum Hamas can do now is to release the remaining hostages and surrender themselves to the IDF to stand trial, so that the innocent people of Gaza can start slowly putting their lives back together.
Genuine question, how has Hamas taking hundreds of innocent people hostage on October 7th improved the situation in Gaza or Israel in any way? Whose life is better today than it was a couple of months ago as a result?
Nobody's but when the war ends the number of hostages Hamas has will be an important factor in just how fucked Gaza will be.
The bare minimum Hamas can do now is to release the remaining hostages and surrender themselves to the IDF to stand trial, so that the innocent people of Gaza can start slowly putting their lives back together.
Yep, just showed your true colors. In that case Israel should also be surrendering its leadership and soldiers to stand trial in the Hague for genocide (or at the very least collective punishment).
Israel (specifically Netanyahu) has repeatedly stated they want security control of Palestine "from the river to the sea". Nothing good is gonna come out of the Gazan resistance surrendering.
Nobody's but when the war ends the number of hostages Hamas has will be an important factor in just how fucked Gaza will be.
How so, and what's the endgame here? Keep as many innocent civilians hostage in perpetuity?
Here you are admitting that Hamas' actions have benefited literally "nobody" thus far, and at the same time you're suggesting that they keep doing what they're currently doing (something which, as we've already established, is a war crime) because it will "be an important factor" in the future, in some very abstract and vague way?
As the saying goes "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results."
Yep, just showed your true colors.
Not sure what this ad hominem is supposed to suggest, but it's weak either way. 🤷
In that case Israel should also be surrendering its leadership and soldiers to stand trial in the Hague for genocide (or at the very least collective punishment).
No Western country has declared support for South Africa’s allegations against Israel. The U.S., a close Israel ally, has rejected them as unfounded, the U.K. has called them unjustified, and Germany said it “explicitly rejects” them.
China and Russia have said little about one of the most momentous cases to come before an international court. The European Union also hasn’t commented.
So far there doesn't seem to be much of a argument that anything that Israel has done up until now rises to the level of a war crime, while as I shared above, the Geneva Convention is explicit that terrorist hostage-taking of innocent civilians is, on its face, a war crime. If Israel is proven to have done things that are so blatantly war crimes, they should be held accountable for those things. It's the only reasonable position to take, frankly.
As always, if you find yourself arguing against the Geneva Convention you might want to reexamine the ethics and soundness of your position.
Israel (specifically Netanyahu) has repeatedly stated they want security control of Palestine "from the river to the sea".
Hamas have also repeatedly stated, including in their 1988 founding charter, that the goal of their jihad is the complete destruction of Israel and genocide of Jewish people in the Levant.
Neither Netenyahu nor Hamas believe in a peaceful two-state solution in which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can live together peacefully. If I had my way they'd both be totally stripped of power.
The hostages are something of value to someone, even if that value is almost nothing to the major players.
And it isn’t like Israel is quietly trying to act as if there aren’t hostages any more, they’ve been acting like it since near the beginning of this war, which I feel caught Hamas by surprise.
What I was referring to is how Israeli papers, especially ToI, refers to Palestinians (Palestinian citizens of Israel or otherwise) as “Arabs” as a form of cultural erasure.
Judging from the downvotes I got, it seems this was not as widely known as I’d assumed.
Actually there are a good number of Arab Israelis who are not of Palestinian origin. It’s a more encompassing term. Plus from what I know Times of Israel is left leaning - so you might be barking up the wrong tree here.
Yes, there are many Arab Israelis, but there are many more “of Palestinian origin”.
I seriously doubt ToI are trying to be “encompassing”… Never heard anyone describe them as “left leaning”. I would personally describe them as a “state tabloid”.
Yeah, to us they’re hostages, sure. But if every citizen of the other nation happens to be a reservist after their gap year of service, they’re unarmed ‘enemy’ soldiers on extended leave.
I’m sure the answer is somewhere in the middle and can’t be so simply decided on the outside by people who sleep soundly at night.
There’s an onion news parody video from the future and they show the Israeli - Palestinian conflict and it’s just 2 guys left fighting over a stray cat they both claim youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo?si=GKs9RdTDMk-p0lZQ
Could be from the petroleum from the cars. It looks like the missile hit right outside the parking lot. Most of the cars are burned through too.
Though I am not seeing images of a crater, and it looks like the hospital is still standing. If it was an airstrike, I would imagine there would be more physical damage. But that is just speculation of a air strike bombing run. I feel like there should be more rubble.
They went as far as to inflate the number of casualties,” he said.
Estimates given in a time of panic. But only a 200 casualty rate is fine. 201 and we'd have to send you off to the gulag.
Uhhh. Yes it does. The logo is a switched version of the Swiss flag and the cross in the Swiss flag is a Christian cross, originating from the Holy Roman Empire.
The international organization is called the International Committee of the Red Cross. National Red Cross and Red Crescent groups are simply local subsidiaries, essentially.
Please don't try to make clever gotchas if you don't even understand what you're talking about, and for anyone who upvoted this, please don't upvote something just because it seems vaguely clever and snarky.
Theres actually another. The Red Crystal, used in countries that are neither Christian or Muslim, though it really only exists because IRCCM didn’t want another religious symbol, i.e. the Star of David, especially since Judaism is a tiny religion (Voodoo is 4 times larger for example). So they compromised with a crystal and let the Palestinian and Israeli chapters in. In Hindu majority India for example basically only the crescent and cross are used.
There actually is the Magen David Adom (basically a Red Star of David) in Israel, which is recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross as the national aid society in Israel, though that didn't happen until 2006 precise because of the reasons you stated.
I urge caution on stories like this because a) it’s inflammatory, and b) I’m old enough to remember the “baby incubator” stories from Kuwait which were initially confirmed by Amnesty International, but then turned out to be complete bullshit.
“CNN has pored through hundreds of hours of media posted online attempting to corroborate accounts of atrocities committed by Hamas. In one video, which CNN determined to be authentic but has not been able to geolocate, an assailant attacks an injured man with a garden tool in an attempt to behead him. But CNN has not seen anything that would appear to confirm the claims of decapitated children.
CNN also visited the ransacked ruins of Kfar Aza on Tuesday and saw no evidence of beheaded youths. Israeli officials have not released any photographs of the incident either.”
Downvote me all you want, but what the fuck does anyone expect from a beaten and caged dog other than for it to lash out? If I was raised in Palistine I would probably feel the same way they do, completely lost and broken and that this is their only hope left to make a stance.
timesofisrael.com
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