You're responding to the following as posted by @LordPercyPercy:
"Some more information about the rescue, unverified though:
"Per Saudi news, some of the special forces that entered Nuseirat posed as displaced Gazans from Rafah.
The disguised forces arrived in a white car carrying mattresses on top, and the women were dressed in local attire.
Locals asked where they came from and they answered that they were escaping the IDF operation in Rafah, and had rented a place in the area around the market in Nuseirat, pointing at the building where Noa Argamani was being held.
The unit then split into two groups, each heading towards one of the two buildings, in preparation for the operation.""
You're saying this constitutes a...war crime?
What does IHL say?
"Article 37 - Prohibition of perfidy
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy."
What was shared by LordPercyPercy actually very clear that the disguising of Israel Defence Forces operatives was done for the perfectly legitimate reasons of:
- entering Nuseirat undetected
- moving inside Nuseirat undetected
- ensuring their cover wasn't blown in Nuseirat before they reached the targeted location
It also makes it clear the IDF operatives went towards one of the buildings to begin preparing for Operation Summer Seeds.
None of that is close to a war crime.
In fact, that's called a ruse of war.
What does IHL say about that?
"Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation."
It is perfectly legal for soldiers to camouflage themselves in an urban area and using deception to get close to the target.
Dressing as civilians WOULD be war crime if the IDF had resorted to disguise for the PURPOSE of killing, injuring, or capturing an enemy.
But the PURPOSE here the INTENT was NOT to KILL, CAPTURE or INJURE the enemy.
The purpose AND intent was to RESCUE kidnapped hostages held prisoner in homes in Gaza.
When the rescue operation started, the Israel Defence Force operatives would have no longer appeared to be civilians to anyone since their weapons would have been very visibly out in the open!
The same logic also applies to undercover police officers operating amongst civilians and using deception to get close enough to various types of criminals.
Anyway, soldiers CAN disguise themselves in civilian clothing and drive civilian vehicles in order to remain undetected until they were ready to begin their operation.
As Kevin Jon Heller, Professor of Criminal Law at SOAS University of London and an Academic Member of Doughty Street Chambers, asserted on the very issue we're talking about:
"...the entire point of camouflage is to make the enemy believe it is surrounded only by civilian objects...."
That was the case in Nuseirat.
Cover was only blown when the IDF operatives were trying rescue the three male hostages. At that point, they came under heavy fire, aerial attacks became necessary due to the use of RPGs & machine guns by Hamas and a fire corridor by the IDF battalions was necessary in order to get the hostages away to safety.