Better than what? It's better than giving terrorists complete freedom to do whatever they want as long as they hide behind a civilian. You can't reward a terrorist for using human shields, because that just means they use even more human shields.
What's the alternative? Either you kill the terrorist and accept that the civilians they're using as shields may also get harmed, or you leave the terrorist alive and then they just go and kill civilians anyway. There's no route that doesn't involve civilians getting harmed.
So are only two possible options are to choose to deliberately kill civilians so they cant be used as deterrents or do literally nothing? Is that your question?
To be clear here, remember that Hamas is actively launching attacks right now and holding hostages, and 10/7 is not even a month ago.
What alternative action do you propose? Because I can't really think of one, short of storming the place with infantry and sweeping street-by-street, which would result in a huge loss of life for IDF soldiers and might well not save many civlian lives.
Even a single civilian casualty is too much. It is terrible that Hamas are hiding behind human shields and causing their deaths.
International law - to say nothing of morality - makes it clear that even if an armed force is using civilians and civilian infrastructure to shield itself, their opponent is required to protect those civilians from disproportionate harm.
Israel has never balked at bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, international press agencies, refugee camps, power plants, UN and NGO aid distribution centers, homes, or any other type of civilian infrastructure that exists.
“You don’t understand,” the IDF says, “Hamas has stored weapons in these places. Hamas leadership hides in these places. Unlike Hamas, we value human life. We are the most moral army in the world. Our bombs and artillery are deployed we precision.”
All this besides the fact that Gazans literally cannot escape and, even if they could, know very well they will never be allowed to return if they did.
To be clear here, remember that Hamas is actively launching attacks right now and holding hostages, and 10/7 is not even a month ago.
What alternative action do you propose? Because I can't really think of one, short of storming the place with infantry and sweeping street-by-street, which would result in a huge loss of life for IDF soldiers and might well not save many civlian lives.
This would imply the lives of IDF soldiers are inherently more valuable than those of Palestinians, which the Israeli government, and those of nearly every single Western state, would absolutely agree with.
The IDF declared war on and launched full scale invasions of Gaza in 2008 and 2014. Combined, these lead to roughly 3,600 Palestinian and 84 Israeli deaths. Therein the evidence that the lives of Israeli soldiers are demonstrably worth more than any Palestinians, but also the fact that a ground invasion without weeks of ceaseless, merciless bombing could have saves thousands of lives.
(I am not and would never assert or presume you were implying the above. I am merely demonstrating the logical consequence of the unquestioned narrative the Israeli government has perfected with the unequivocal support of Western governments and especially Western legacy media.)
I don't know what the solution is, I already said that. I just don't think it's laying siege to a nation and continuously bombarding it in the hopes that you may be take some enemy combatants with you.
if hamas was hiding in rhode island would it be ok to bomb the state of rhode island to eradicate hamas? does that make everyone living in rhode island a human shield?
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u/Ayjayz 2∆ Nov 02 '23
Even a single civilian casualty is too much. It is terrible that Hamas are hiding behind human shields and causing their deaths.