to not understand how you can fire missiles targeting civilians and it not be a war crime

[Itsaboatjack]

now I'm not especially knowledgable about the problems in the middle east but surely firing missiles into a city intentionally killing civilians is some kind of war crime?

Me neither Annie.
i come from a country where the rabbi and ulama's wives nursed each others babies when the times were hard during colonial rule.
Its just a generation away.
I just don't get it

Remember the innocent.

Chomsky tweeted (on Obama 'understanding Israel's need for self-defense'):

Noam Chomsky ‏@daily_chomsky

You can't defend yourself when you're militarily occupying someone else's land. That's not defense. Call it what you like, it's not defense.

Ohbugger! Bless you for having the fortitude to link those images but you should really put a disclaimer.

Sorry, I should have done, yes.

But it's right that we're shocked - that's what gets lost in the tit for tat arguments about who did what when and who started what and who is more justified in their position. If we lose that shock we lose our own humanity as well.

My MP has just retweeted a message from an observer seeing a Palestinian baby pulled out of a residential building destroyed by an airstrike.

yes its right that we are shocked and yes its right to occupy whatever media space that's left to express it.

Its so terribly sad. I cant bear to look at the news.

#GazaUnderAttack is one place.

Oh lord, that hash tag needed its own disclaimer. People are posting photographs from the bombardment. Children killed in the last hour while we've been posting on here. Tiny little bodies, I can't bear it. This is so wrong.

I'm following them too Oh. It's so awful.

I can't imagine what I would do if that happened to my son. I have so much admiration for all the people there who lose their loved ones and yet still promote peace, not hatred, because I'm not sure I could do it.

Elaine mentioned earlier Dr. Abuelaish. He's a Palestinian doctor who lost his three daughters in an Israeli strike in Gaza. Yet he works tirelessly to promote peace. Here's his story:

www.daughtersforlife.com/foundation/the-founder/

I have heard him speak, it's heartbreaking.

Those looking at photos should be aware that Hamas is posting photos from Syria
Hamas recycling photos

Gothanngeddes

As usual a font of misinformation. Orthodox Jews are most certainly not exempt from the draft! Zionism always had a religious element to it.

Dreaming - have you read his book? I was in tears.

Oh for fuck's sake. This guy is from Oxford, he is not Hamas on a propaganda campaign. This is from Agence France Presse. (That's a picture of dead kids killed in an air raid today, by the way, in case anyone doesn't want to be surprised by it)

All you're doing by raising suspicions like that, without the context of the hundreds and hundreds of other observers and reputable journalists posting reports and photographs from the last couple of days, is minimising the significance of what is going on tonight, what is happening to real people, what has happened to children and women and elderly people who have been killed and wounded and bereaved over the last few days.

If it really is the case that some desperate people are misusing images (and I'd hardly think that Business insider is a prime source for clear, informed information on Palestine) don't let that insulate you from the fact that dreadful dreadful violence is taking place and that innocent victims are bearing the brunt of it.

What any one individual, with or without the knowledge of Hamas, may do in a social media campaign has no bearing on the suffering and slaughter that is taking place, with the collusion of our government and with very little recognition and acknowledgement from the mainstream media.

Elaine -- no I haven't, just listening to him speak was heartbreaking enough.

I do think people should be aware that everyone in all these conflicts misuses photos and videos and stages things, etc. This has been a big issue in Syria as well.

But there's a limit to how much you can fake things, especially in a conflict where there actually are quite a lot of reporters. And certainly the horrible deaths today of that family were well documented and witnessed by reporters firsthand.

There are children dying and in pain tonight; the hospitals are desperately in need of supplies. Please make a donation if you can.

www.islamic-relief.org.uk/Gaza_appeal.aspx

I never said all photos from gaza were fake, just that Hamas felt the need to fake some of them.

I think there have certainly been cases where the Israeli response has been disproportionate, I'm not sure this has happened in this case yet.

And if civilians are hurt in gaza, Hamas (and islamic jihad et al) bears equal responsibility for INTENTIONALLY hiding in heavily populated areas. If I were Palestinian I think my first question to Hamas would be 'what the fuck are you doing?'

There's no problem of money in Palestinians territories. They've had hundred of millions of dollars in aid from all over, so much of it ends up in Swiss bank accounts of Palestinian fat cats. There are far more children dying in conflicts and of preventable disease due to conflict the world over

This article from Ariel Sharon's son is utterly terrifying. Chilling.

Caught the headlines on Radio 4. Israel has bombed the home of a Hamas leader, killing all ten occupants - including children. And probably a few neighbours as well.

Not disproportionate? You must either be joking, in poor taste, or very very callous.

And your comment about the financial status of the Palestinian territories is frankly in the realms of fantasy.

God, those photos are pretty harrowing.

I hope Hamas see those photos and stop firing missiles from within populated areas. They have a lot to answer for.

No, ohbugger, I just have family and friends under bombardment day and night in the south of Israel and something needs to be done to stop it. There are no more settlements in gaza btw.

It was not Hamas who killed those people, it was the IDF. It is the government of Israel who needs to answer for the deaths. And no, the responsibility is not equal, whatever the faults on the Hamas side. One of the tweets going around today was along the lines that what Israel is doing is the equivalent of the UK bombing Belfast because there were terrorists operating there; that's not a bad model. There was an interesting discussion re. the Jimmy Savile case about the mechanisms the press use to blame the victims rather than the perpetrators - victim blaming is exactly what you're doing here.

As I said upthread, under international law, even if militants hide in populated areas, it is still illegal for states to bomb those areas and kill civilians.

It's usually considered disproportionate, as seen in this case, where to kill one militant they killed nine civilians, including children.

Earlier Israel also bombed a building that they knew housed media (by that I mean they admitted publicly they knew reporters were there). The apparent intent was to take out Hamas communication equipment on the roof. They blame Hamas for putting it there but clearly it's illegal to put civilians in harm's way to take out communications equipment.

When judging whether something is disproportionate, you are looking at very limited factors. You are not basing it on the wide sweep of history, who started the conflict, who's been most reluctant to negotiate, etc. It is really based on the military factors at play. I don't really see how you can argue that what Israel is doing is proportionate, or that they're showing enough discrimination. They're conducting airstrikes in one of the most heavily densely populated areas in the world.

I got this off twitter earlier and I fully agree:

"#Gaza is just 40km long &10km wide & home to nearly 2M people. It's not the best place to fight a war if you want to avoid killing civilians "