This picture of Israeli soldiers smiling for a selfie in front of a destroyed Gaza...

[changefromhr]

I know there are lots of pictures. I try to avoid looking as its just so awful but this one couldn't be avoided.

How sickening that the soldiers can smile and act so happy in front of all that destruction.

This is just another picture, from the thousands, that shows how the Palestinians and their lives and homes are seen as worthless.

The irony isn't lost on me. It's ironic that these 'mumsnetters' defend what even the IDF won't defend. I can't help but to wonder why.

We are watching a war.
Each sides aim in a war is to overwhelm and/or kill their enemy. These men are still alive.

There are many more terrible things that happen in war which is why you don't start them (unless you're Putin - or it would seem hamas).

If anything good comes from this war it might be intervention in the future of Gaza by more benevolent rule than hamas- and no, I don't mean Israel.

Stop the rockets, the suicide bombs and the jihadi mindset and develop as a country, there are many city states in the world that succeed.

It's not about one side or the other it's a shit thing to do

We are watching a war. Wars have got international laws.
and posting pictures of victims or detainees could breech this law

first paragraph of the link in the comment you’re replying to .
International law says detainees must not be exposed to unnecessary humiliation or public curiosity.

@quantumbutterfly , your insistence to avoid any blame of Israel and ignorance of what's been going on the last few decades is at best naive, at worst, chilling.

Well, it is a controversial statement.

but I'm out of here because it's the same shit under a different thread title.

How is that balance?

Palestinian children didn’t do that did they.

is that so difficult to understand

I think you will find that this is incorrect.

This is a non-International conflict and HAMAS is judged to be a Non-State Actor. Therefore it's combatants are not afforded POW (prisoner of War) status upon capture.

Freysimo · Today 07:27
**
But why don't Hamas return the hostages? Hamas knew exactly what they were doing on October 7 and how Israel would react. They wanted this conflict.”

As did Netanyahu, according to many knowledgeable commentators, who say that the longer he keeps his grip on power, the longer he avoids prosecution for corruption. Further that he has turned the terrible situation completely to his advantage to boost hitherto failing support. The longer the hostages are held, the better for him politically and personally.

These threads are fairly pointless now, descending into whataboutery every time. Surely people can agree that acts on both sides are inhuman and appalling. The deaths of innocents on both sides should not be turned into some sort of sick competition.

If that’s the case it’d only apply if those whose pics were Hamas members which many are not. also, not sure why would you challenge it when it’s international experts who are the ones raising that the pics we are seeing from idf members could breech international war laws. It’s not me who is saying it but war experts.

Yes it's open to dispute whether Hamas can be POWs

Big but

If they aren't soldiers in the conventional way then they are classed as civilians and still have rights not to be treated in this way under different laws

There's no third category for Hamas [or other terrorists] that have no protection in international law

Thank you. As pp says the idf CinC has condemned it.
Whether you accept his condemnation is genuine will depend on your own particular bias.
Yes, if the photo of those young women is genuine, it is inappropriate, no better than anyone who holds them up as representative of every IDF member or indeed every Israeli.
Would you fight for the existence of your country and your loved ones if they were on the receiving end of 7/10?
Would the racial memory of 6000000 people like you being murdered for their ethnicity inform that decision?
Most Israelis want to live in peace and safety, as I've said before, when there were the beginnings of peace there were hardliners and agents provocateurs who destroyed it.
The citizens of Gaza say they want hamas gone, what should replace it to give them stability and peace?

Here you are from 20th Feb 2024

''Major-General Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli military, has told his soldiers fighting in Gaza that they are not there for “revenge or genocide”, according to war monitors.

In a letter to his commanders, Halevi also said that Israeli soldiers in Gaza were not to take “souvenirs” or to make “revenge videos”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) report.''

All pretty reputable sources too

Thank you.

I agree with this.

They’re standing in the ruins of Gaza beaming proudly and taking pictures as momento’s and you don’t think that’s bad? Triumphant yelling is beyond the pale though? Well ok…

I'm challenging it because I believe they are wrong.

Many humanitarian law experts would argue that Hamas and Israel are engaged in what is known as a Non-International Armed Conflict.

In other words, it would be classified the same way as a civil war that pits the armed forces of a state against an armed non-state actor, rather than an international conflict between two or more sovereign states.

If that were the case, the conflict would not be governed by the entirety of the laws of war, but instead by the more limited Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions along with numerous customary law rules, which derive from general practices accepted as law.

Common Article 3, which applies to civilians and those no longer fighting, prohibits practices such as torture, summary execution and denial of a fair trial. But Prisoner of War status only applies to conflicts between states so would not apply.

But even if the conflict was an international one, then Hamas’s fighters would still be debarred from Prisoner of War status. They are not the armed forces of Palestine – which is recognised as a State by 138 Nations and has the Palestine Authority as its government.

In any event what I believe doesn't matter and the lawyers will no doubt argue it out in a court somewhere.

Using your logic Israel should also have known that by oppressing a population is only going to build support for the likes of Hamas and the chance of an attack is going to become inevitable if the opportunity arises as it did

Some soldiers on the ground after hiroshima took photos, they weren't supposed to but now they are a historical and shocking record of the destruction.

Another lesson in 'never again' that we seem to keep forgetting. They are young and thoughtless like a million other young people, including the ones who march for a cause they have no knowledge of because someone told them they should.

It is a war zone, it is a horror, as was the 'peace festival' when hamas psychopaths finished with it.

You think I don't care about the innocent lives lost in Gaza because I won't beat the Israeli's with the stick that you've found.

Many of the pics we’ve seen of people being humiliated were not Hamas members. Were civilians.

also, I don’t need a law to know that you shouldn’t post a pic of someone naked without their permission. And I’ve seen far too many pics of men naked in the last few months and doubt they gave permission.

I don’t think they’re young and thoughtless at all. I think they proud Zionists who know exactly what they’re doing. They don’t get a pass just because they’re young, pretty women.

Pretty sure most of you have seen the pic of a naked man arrested whilst an idf member is looking at him.

copied from times of Israel

Asked about the footage in a briefing, Patel says he had not seen it before.

I will leave it to the IDF to speak to those specific situations, but we have been clear to them that the respect for basic human rights, that humanitarian law needs to be respected and that those who do not comply need to be held accountable,” he adds.
The IDF in response says the military ended the soldiers’s reserve service recently, and that the footage was filmed and published “contrary to the protocols and values of the IDF.”

That's your opinion of course.

Glad you're not swayed by a pretty face (can't say that was part of my judgement of that photo).

I don't believe that all IDF soldiers would think the same and act the same. But when members do act in a manner that is wrong, then why can't it just be called out as wrong, rather than excused.

You think I don't care about the innocent lives lost in Gaza because I won't beat the Israeli's with the stick that you've found.

It's not a stick that anyones found - it's widely acknowledged to be wrong including by the IDF themselves

So why do you continue to defend it?