Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Loren Pechtel]

Hey, guys, this GOP Florida congresstwat wants to nuke Gaza!

Y’all OK with that, TomC and DrZoidberg? If not, why not? It is the logical endpoint of your own twisted logic.

A nuke is far too much boom for any target in Gaza. Hamas has nothing that can stand up to a 2000# penetrator, no reason to go heavier.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This warms my heart. I still have hope there's enough Palestinians who want peace to kick Hamas out

This is also pretty major. Hamas does not tolerate Palestinian dissent. There's no free speech in Gaza. They have pretty brutal internal repression.

You don't say. It is odd how you speak out of both sides of your mouth, condemned the Gazans for not overtaking Hamas... while at the same time admitting Hamas rule brutally.

*snip*

That was a lot of text to pretty much agree with what I said you are saying... all the while denying that you say it. Want to stop Hamas, stop the money. Iran is the primary target in stopping Hamas. Bombs won't do it.

The problem is they have absolutely no reason to stop. Diplomacy does not work, they just accept the overtures and keep on doing what they were doing.

Thus we are faced with limiting the damage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is Hamas while a de facto governor of Gaza, aren't a formal government, so the rules don't apply in the same usual way. This is what makes this conflict so hard. People want to destroy Hamas, when we should be starving Hamas of money.

Which is exactly why Israel cut off the aid supply and switched to providing it directly. That makes it much, much harder for Hamas to steal it and sell it back to the people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

To declare the aggression is from only one side is wilful blindness.

And the aggression -to some degree - from all corners has been ongoing for nearly a century.

IMO, at this point, there is too much distrust and hate among significant segments in all sides to achieve peace. I think this is going to stagger on for decades more until a monumental tragedy occurs.

Basically all the trouble in Arab lands stems from Iran, the others that have been behind trouble have pretty much learned it backfires. A revolution there could make a huge difference. (Pakistan would still be a source of trouble but they don't tend to play far from home.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A monumental tragedy is already occurring, genocide in real time before our eyes.

And the disaster will continue as long as the culprits, Gazan leadership and their supporters, keep managing to shift the blame onto Israeli defense.
Tom

Someone would have taken the money, thus there would have been Gazan leadership. Thus I blame the supporters. These days, that's Iran.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's a fair point. But it can be argued that the Israelis have been pushed into a corner by half a century of non-stop Palestinian agression. Hamas is just the latest iteration of this kind of behaviour. And fine, most Palestinians are too young to be able to take responsiblity for the actions of PLO. But it just doesn't fucking end. The Palestinians just keep going.

And whose fault is it that Palestinians can't hold elections? Islam doesn't seem to be conducive to democracy. But whose fault is that? Hardly the Israelis. So why hold them responsible?

You’re saying “it just doesn’t end”—but what you’re describing as endless Palestinian aggression is actually an ongoing cycle of displacement, occupation, and resistance, not some ahistorical pathology. You’re treating Palestinian violence as an inexplicable constant, while Israeli violence is framed as reluctant, forced, justified. That’s not analysis. That’s narrative control.

It's not remotely inexplicable. Provide enough money, someone will take it and you will have violence. And note the pattern in the news--occasional attacks by Israel. But that's not even remotely an accurate picture--the thing is the Palestinians keep attacking. This doesn't get reported in the news because it's simply the norm, it's not news. Sometimes the news says what provoked Israel, when it does it's usually something small--no, it's actually because of the pattern. The other way around, though, you do see things out of the blue. A beachgoer in Gaza is killed by a Hamas booby trap, Hamas shoots at Israel--a clearly pre-planned attack. In other words, Hamas was simply waiting for some way to blame Israel.

Yes, Palestinians have a history of armed struggle. But they also have a long, consistent history of nonviolent resistance, political diplomacy, and attempts at statehood—all of which were met with assassinations, bombings, land seizures, and broken agreements. You mention the PLO—well, when the PLO recognized Israel and renounced terrorism in the 1990s, what followed? Oslo. And what followed Oslo? More settlements, more checkpoints, and a peace process used to entrench occupation. That’s not ancient history. That’s why the so-called “endless conflict” keeps going: because power never negotiated in good faith.

Recognized Israel and renounced terrorism??? Sorry, but when pay-for-slay remains budget priority #1 terrorism has not been renounced. It's just convenient fiction for western ears.

Now to your next point: “Who’s fault is it Palestinians can’t hold elections?” You deflect to Islam as if democracy is incompatible with it. That’s not only historically false—it’s an old orientalist trope used to cover for real-world policy. In reality, Israel has routinely interfered in Palestinian democratic processes. In 2006, when Hamas won elections that were internationally monitored and certified, Israel and the U.S. immediately moved to isolate and sanction the new government. When that created a political schism, Israel deepened the divide, allowing Hamas to consolidate power in Gaza while weakening Fatah in the West Bank—a divide that suited Israeli policy perfectly.

Yeah, Israel moved to sanction them. Look at why--they had announced their intent was to go to war. And so what if the divide helped Israel. Look at the reality: it has concentrated the problem in Gaza, making the West Bank much more peaceful. That kept the war smaller and thus kept down the death toll. Why do you think that's bad?

You say, “Hardly the Israelis’ fault.” But Israel controls Gaza’s airspace, maritime borders, import/export infrastructure, population registry, and even the electromagnetic spectrum. Gaza is not independent—it is a blockaded, occupied, and manipulated territory, and has been since long before Hamas took power. To claim Israel bears no responsibility for the political vacuum it helped create is not just factually wrong—it’s willful blindness.

So, they are under blockade. That keeps out most weapons, it doesn't keep the people from functioning.

And here’s the heart of it: even if your frustration is genuine, frustration never justifies flattening cities or starving civilians. Your argument walks right up to the edge of justifying genocide—not with malice, but with exhaustion. But people don’t lose their right to live because you’re tired of hearing about them. And that’s the line too many are willing to cross.

I see no flattened cities. Nor do I see starving civilians other than a few medical cases--and that can happen anywhere.

You don’t have to love Hamas. You shouldn’t. But if your response to every critique of Israeli power is to shift blame back onto a besieged, stateless population, then you’re not defending democracy or security—you’re defending the right of the powerful to punish the powerless indefinitely.

Gaza most certainly isn't powerless. Nor do I see what's going on even as punishment. Rather, it's Israel breaking everything Hamas it can find in order to make it longer before the next 10/7.

There is no moral clarity without accountability on both sides. And if that balance offends you, it might be because you weren’t looking for clarity to begin with—just a justification for the suffering of people you’ve already decided don’t deserve better.

But you are holding Israel "accountable" for Hamas propaganda.

Hamas has built their military bases on top of hospitals. I think that gives Israel a free pass to bomb hospitals. Yes, really. Hamas knew the obvious outcome of making this choice.

On the starving children. Yes, that's terrible. Israel shouldn't. But they also need to break Hamas. If starving them out is the only way, then it's the only way. Which makes me sad. But Hamas is such an extreme and vile organisation, they just have to go.

What you’re saying is exactly how war crimes happen. Not by accident. Not by rage. But by people convincing themselves that atrocity is a sad necessity—just this once.

Let’s be clear: even if Hamas embeds near or inside civilian infrastructure, it does not give Israel a “free pass” to bomb hospitals. That’s not my opinion. That’s black letter international law. The Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and customary international humanitarian law all require that any military strike must distinguish between combatants and civilians, and must be proportional, even if the enemy violates those same laws. You don’t get to say, “They used human shields, so we wiped out the shield.” That’s not defense. That’s a second war crime.

I suggest you reread Geneva. Because Geneva does not protect things used for military purposes. Technically, notification is supposed to be given about the problematic use of something in order to avoid mistakes, but that is utterly meaningless in a situation where just about everything military is disguised as civilian. And I have already addressed your misunderstanding of "proportional."

And starving children? You say, “Yes, that’s terrible. Israel shouldn’t. But…” There is no “but” here. Starvation as a method of warfare is explicitly banned under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. It is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. You just admitted that it’s happening, that it’s terrible—and then excused it because it might “break Hamas.”

Let's examine what it actually says:

1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

3. The prohibitions in paragraph 2 shall not apply to such of the objects covered by it as are used by an adverse Party:

(a) as sustenance solely for the members of its armed forces; or
(b) if not as sustenance, then in direct support of military action, provided, however, that in no event shall actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.

Since Israel isn't doing that your objections are irrelevant.
1) They aren't hitting any foodstuffs in civilian hands in the first place.
2) The objective is to keep Hamas from using them as a source of revenue.

What you're actually after is

Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases.

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

And there is an extreme pattern of (a) and thus no obligation to permit it.

What you’re describing is not just the logic of collective punishment—it’s the logic of siege warfare against a civilian population. And history remembers what that is, whether it’s Leningrad, Sarajevo, or Gaza.

Except we aren't seeing the starving that supposedly exists.

You say it makes you sad. Good. It should. But sadness doesn’t justify surrendering your moral compass. If your solution to a vile organization is to make millions suffer, the majority of whom are women and children, then what exactly are you fighting for? Justice? Peace? Human rights? Or just dominance?

Iran and Hamas are the ones making millions suffer.

You say Hamas “has to go.” Fine. But if the path to that is flattening neighborhoods, bombing hospitals, and engineering famine—then what you’re advocating isn’t liberation. It’s annihilation.

And one day, history will ask not whether you felt sad—but whether you looked at those children and said, “Yes, really.”

What you fail to see is that your approach means that anyone that threatens their own population sufficiently if not given their way can't be stopped.

No one’s giving Hamas a free pass. The difference is, I don’t believe the only way to oppose Hamas is by obliterating 2.2 million people. You seem to.

You are. You condemn them but say nothing should be done which makes your condemnation meaningless.

You have a point. I don't disagree. The difference lies in how extreme the 7/10 attacks were. We (as in humanity) can't allow an organisation like that stay in power. That would be unacceptable. That's the main lesson we learned from WW2. Yes, it sucks for the starving children of Gaza. But war is never pretty

I appreciate that you’re engaging seriously here. But this is where the moral center either holds—or collapses entirely.

Yes, October 7 was horrific. No one should minimize it. Massacring civilians and taking hostages are war crimes. But what you’re arguing now is that because Hamas committed atrocities, Israel is justified in committing them too—just more slowly, with state approval, and on a far larger scale.

Continuing to take Hamas propaganda as truth.

Here’s the reality: you can remove Hamas without razing Gaza. You can pursue justice without abandoning it. What you’re defending now isn’t necessity—it’s moral surrender. It’s the normalization of mass death, because the targets are politically easy to dismiss.

You have a magic wand to wave? Because nobody's provided a meaningful proposal for how to get rid of them.

Yes, after the war, many Germans were guilty—through action, inaction, or support. But how did the world respond? Not by flattening every German city after Hitler fell. Not by starving German children to “break Nazism.” In fact, the exact opposite: we launched the Marshall Plan. We rebuilt the country we had just fought, because the lesson of WWII wasn’t just “destroy fascism”—it was don’t let collective punishment become your tool to do it.

After the resistance ceased. The resistance continues in Gaza.

(And I'm sure you're not going to like the reality that dropping the bombs on Japan unquestionably saved a lot of lives on all sides.)

So no—I don’t refuse to assign guilt. I refuse to accept guilt as a death sentence. That’s not justice. That’s how civilizations lose their soul while pretending to save it.

You "assign" guilt but say nothing should be done.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How do you know that?

Even I knew about the tunnels Gazans were building years ago.
You didn't?
Tom

Really? You saw them? Why didn't you sound the alarm and tell the citizens to 'report' it?

Are you saying you weren't aware of tunnels under Gaza?? Because they have been talked about for quite a while. Turns out they were more extensive than was publicly known (I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Israel knew and wasn't talking, but it could be from watching their seismographs as they hit the tunnels), but that's a matter of degree, not kind.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As to information, you said it was obvious what was happening, You did nothing. But you whine about others who you think should have acted in a way you choose not to. Perhaps if you thought about why did not you act, you might be able to grasp why others acted similarily.
It's called walking a mile in another person's shoes. T

Just because we have no ability to act on the information does not mean that everyone has no ability to act on it.

His point is very relevant: the existence of the tunnels was known. But most people wanted to pretend there wasn't a problem.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This warms my heart. I still have hope there's enough Palestinians who want peace to kick Hamas out

This is also pretty major. Hamas does not tolerate Palestinian dissent. There's no free speech in Gaza. They have pretty brutal internal repression.

You don't say. It is odd how you speak out of both sides of your mouth, condemned the Gazans for not overtaking Hamas... while at the same time admitting Hamas rule brutally.

*snip*

That was a lot of text to pretty much agree with what I said you are saying... all the while denying that you say it. Want to stop Hamas, stop the money. Iran is the primary target in stopping Hamas. Bombs won't do it.

The problem is they have absolutely no reason to stop. Diplomacy does not work, they just accept the overtures and keep on doing what they were doing.

Thus we are faced with limiting the damage.

Egypt and Jordan. Nuff said aabout the bullshit diplomacy doesn't work.

 

[laughing dog]

As to information, you said it was obvious what was happening, You did nothing. But you whine about others who you think should have acted in a way you choose not to. Perhaps if you thought about why did not you act, you might be able to grasp why others acted similarily.
It's called walking a mile in another person's shoes. T

Just because we have no ability to act on the information does not mean that everyone has no ability to act on it.

And that is relevant to the point of the double standard because….?

His point is very relevant: the existence of the tunnels was known. But most people wanted to pretend there wasn't a problem.

I think most people didn’t think starving children or making Gaza uninhabitable was a good solution.

 

[NoHolyCows]

It's not remotely inexplicable. Provide enough money, someone will take it and you will have violence. And note the pattern in the news--occasional attacks by Israel. But that's not even remotely an accurate picture--the thing is the Palestinians keep attacking. This doesn't get reported in the news because it's simply the norm, it's not news. Sometimes the news says what provoked Israel, when it does it's usually something small--no, it's actually because of the pattern. The other way around, though, you do see things out of the blue. A beachgoer in Gaza is killed by a Hamas booby trap, Hamas shoots at Israel--a clearly pre-planned attack. In other words, Hamas was simply waiting for some way to blame Israel.

Your entire response hinges on a double standard: when Palestinians retaliate, it’s a “pattern of aggression.” When Israel strikes, it’s defense—no matter the scale, the context, or the consequences. That’s not objectivity. That’s a moral filter that renders one side permanently guilty and the other permanently justified.

You say Palestinians “keep attacking,” but you ignore why. Gaza has been under blockade for over a decade, with no functioning economy, no freedom of movement, and no political sovereignty. That’s not a normal baseline. That’s structural violence. And when people are trapped, bombed, and denied basic rights for years, resistance—even in ugly forms—should not be surprising. It should be understood as the predictable result of ongoing conditions.

You dismiss Palestinian deaths as “just the norm,” but that’s the point. When a system makes daily oppression so routine that it stops being news, that’s not a justification for silence. That’s an indictment of the system.

And no—acknowledging the causes of violence is not excusing it. It’s refusing to flatten a decades-long conflict into good guys and bad guys, and finally recognizing that power without accountability is not defense. It’s domination.

Recognized Israel and renounced terrorism??? Sorry, but when pay-for-slay remains budget priority #1 terrorism has not been renounced. It's just convenient fiction for western ears.

You’re confusing political reality with propaganda. The PLO did recognize Israel in 1993. Yitzhak Rabin shook Arafat’s hand on the White House lawn. That wasn’t a rumor—it was a formal diplomatic recognition. The PLO also renounced terrorism as part of the Oslo Accords. These weren’t vague gestures—they were signed agreements, backed by the international community.

If you now claim it was “fiction,” then you’re not disputing Palestinian sincerity—you’re revealing your refusal to accept any Palestinian initiative as legitimate. And that’s the problem.

As for “pay-for-slay”—this is a deliberate misframing. The Palestinian Authority provides financial support to all prisoners in Israeli jails and their families, including many held without trial under administrative detention. If you call that terrorism, then you’ve declared anyone who resists Israeli policy—violently or not—as automatically a terrorist. That’s not analysis. That’s blanket criminalization of a people under occupation.

Meanwhile, Israel has funneled billions into illegal settlements, bulldozed homes, and maintained apartheid-level control over millions without rights. Yet you never call that “state-sponsored terrorism.” Why?

Because your standard isn’t moral. It’s tribal. You don’t actually want a negotiated peace. You want one side to surrender while the other builds walls and redraws borders.

So yes—the PLO did recognize Israel. What they got in return was more occupation, not a state. You don’t get to erase that because it’s inconvenient to your narrative. Facts don’t stop being facts just because they weren’t followed by justice.

Yeah, Israel moved to sanction them. Look at why--they had announced their intent was to go to war. And so what if the divide helped Israel. Look at the reality: it has concentrated the problem in Gaza, making the West Bank much more peaceful. That kept the war smaller and thus kept down the death toll. Why do you think that's bad?

Because your framing treats engineered fragmentation as a stroke of peacekeeping genius—when in reality, it’s a tactic of control.

Yes, Hamas’s charter was extreme. But the response wasn’t to engage diplomatically or pressure reform—it was to immediately punish the population through siege, isolation, and economic strangulation. That wasn’t a reaction to war; it was a pretext to delegitimize an election the West didn’t like. You can’t call for democracy and then crush it when the outcome isn’t convenient.

And no—the West Bank being “more peaceful” is not proof of success. It’s under military occupation, with checkpoints, surveillance, mass arrests, and land confiscation. “Peace” under domination isn’t peace. It’s quiet desperation.

Saying the divide “helped Israel” reveals the game: this wasn’t about fostering Palestinian self-governance. It was about exploiting division to weaken any unified voice for sovereignty.

You ask why I think that’s bad? Because when you engineer conditions that prevent a people from uniting, electing, and governing themselves—then blame them for being unfit for statehood—you’re not observing dysfunction. You’re sustaining it.

So, they are under blockade. That keeps out most weapons, it doesn't keep the people from functioning.

That response ignores both the scale and purpose of the blockade. It’s not just about “keeping out weapons”—it’s about controlling life itself.

Israel restricts not only arms but also fuel, electricity, building materials, medical supplies, food, and even how many calories per person per day enter Gaza. That’s not hypothetical—it was literally calculated in an Israeli policy document. This isn’t a surgical weapons embargo; it’s systemic deprivation designed to pressure a civilian population.

And no, people cannot “just function” when they’re cut off from clean water, medical care, job opportunities, and freedom of movement. Gaza’s economy has collapsed, its healthcare system is shattered, and unemployment is among the highest in the world—all direct outcomes of a blockade that predates the current war by over a decade.

So yes, when you manufacture desperation, suppress elections, and isolate a population under siege for years, you bear responsibility for the political and humanitarian catastrophe that follows. To pretend otherwise isn’t realism—it’s complicity.

I see no flattened cities. Nor do I see starving civilians other than a few medical cases--and that can happen anywhere.

Then you’re not looking—or you’re choosing not to see.

Entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been reduced to rubble. Satellite imagery, UN reports, and on-the-ground footage all confirm this. More than half the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Schools, hospitals, and entire city blocks have been leveled. That’s not hyperbole. That’s documentation from sources including the UN, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of independent journalists and aid organizations.

As for starvation: UNICEF, WHO, and the World Food Programme have all confirmed catastrophic hunger levels in Gaza. Children are dying of malnutrition. Parents are boiling weeds and animal feed to survive. Aid trucks have been blocked or looted, and the humanitarian infrastructure has been crippled. This isn’t a few “medical cases”—it’s systemic collapse.

You don’t have to agree with every claim made by every critic. But to say you see “no flattened cities” and “no starving civilians” isn’t skepticism. It’s denial. And denial in the face of mass suffering is how atrocity becomes normal.

Gaza most certainly isn't powerless. Nor do I see what's going on even as punishment. Rather, it's Israel breaking everything Hamas it can find in order to make it longer before the next 10/7.

Then let’s call it what it is: indefinite collective targeting in the name of deterrence.

You say Gaza “isn’t powerless”—yet its population has no army, no air force, no escape, and no vote in the government that controls its borders, fuel, water, and electricity. Hamas may have weapons, but the people of Gaza are not Hamas. And when Israel “breaks everything Hamas it can find” by leveling civilian infrastructure, blocking aid, and producing a death toll overwhelmingly made up of women and children, that’s not targeted deterrence. That’s devastation that lands hardest on the people who had no power to stop October 7.

You don’t prevent another atrocity by creating the conditions that breed desperation, rage, and hopelessness. That’s not foresight—it’s statecraft by wreckage. And if the goal is peace, this isn’t a path to it. It’s a blueprint for its permanent deferral.

But you are holding Israel "accountable" for Hamas propaganda.

No—I’m holding Israel accountable for documented actions, corroborated by international observers, independent journalists, satellite imagery, and humanitarian organizations. Not Hamas press releases.

When hospitals are bombed, when aid trucks are blocked, when entire neighborhoods are razed and over half the dead are women and children, that’s not “propaganda.” That’s evidence. And when the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Court of Justice all raise red flags, you can’t just hand-wave it as a Hamas PR stunt.

You’re not objecting to misinformation—you’re objecting to accountability. Because deep down, the suffering only bothers you if it comes from “their” side. That’s not moral clarity. That’s tribalism dressed up as principle.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

I suggest you reread Geneva. Because Geneva does not protect things used for military purposes. Technically, notification is supposed to be given about the problematic use of something in order to avoid mistakes, but that is utterly meaningless in a situation where just about everything military is disguised as civilian. And I have already addressed your misunderstanding of "proportional."

Your interpretation is both misleading and dangerously selective.

Yes, Geneva Conventions allow targeting of military objectives, even if they are embedded in civilian infrastructure. But what you’re ignoring—or deliberately omitting—is that the burden doesn’t stop there. Even when targeting legitimate military assets, Parties to a conflict are still obligated to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and refrain from attacks if the expected civilian harm outweighs the anticipated military advantage. That’s not some fringe legal theory—it’s Article 57 and 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. It’s binding customary international law.

So no, you cannot collapse a hospital, refugee camp, or residential block and just point to Hamas and say “they made us do it.” That’s not a loophole. It’s a violation. The obligation to distinguish and to avoid excessive civilian harm is not waived just because your enemy violates the law first.

And as for your idea that “everything is disguised,” that’s the oldest excuse in the book. It’s also how every state justifies overreach—from Fallujah to Grozny to Gaza. But the presence of an enemy does not erase the rights of civilians. That’s not a misunderstanding of proportionality. That’s the whole point of having it.

Let's examine what it actually says:

1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

3. The prohibitions in paragraph 2 shall not apply to such of the objects covered by it as are used by an adverse Party:

(a) as sustenance solely for the members of its armed forces; or
(b) if not as sustenance, then in direct support of military action, provided, however, that in no event shall actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.

Since Israel isn't doing that your objections are irrelevant.
1) They aren't hitting any foodstuffs in civilian hands in the first place.
2) The objective is to keep Hamas from using them as a source of revenue.

What you're actually after is

Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases.

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

And there is an extreme pattern of (a) and thus no obligation to permit it.

Your legal cherry-picking doesn’t hold up—and here’s why.

You quoted Article 54 of Additional Protocol I, which prohibits starvation as a method of warfare. But you then ignore the most critical clause: “in no event shall actions be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation.” That clause is absolute. No matter how food is being used, or who might profit, you still cannot reduce access to the point of starvation. That’s not just a guideline—it’s explicit black-letter law.

Now to your second move: you cite Article 23 of Geneva Convention IV, which allows for restriction of humanitarian aid if there’s a risk of diversion. That’s true—but it does not override the obligation to ensure civilian survival. Article 23 is about neutral aid shipments, not an occupying power controlling the entire flow of food and medicine into a population it governs. Israel, as the occupying power under international law, has a positive duty to ensure the welfare of civilians. Blocking aid under the guise of “security concerns” does not absolve it of that responsibility—especially not when UN agencies, humanitarian NGOs, and health experts on the ground are documenting widespread malnutrition, dehydration, and catastrophic hunger.

In fact, the Rome Statute of the ICC (Article 8(2)(b)(xxv)) defines as a war crime:

“Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival.”

That’s what we’re seeing. Fuel restrictions block bakeries. Food trucks are halted. Humanitarian convoys are turned back or bombed. Aid workers are killed. That’s not just a tragic side effect. It’s a pattern, and patterns matter in law.

So no—you can’t wave off starvation by saying “we’re only targeting Hamas revenue.” The intent doesn’t erase the impact. The legal threshold isn’t your motive—it’s whether civilians are starving as a result. And they are.

So your attempt to hide behind legal technicalities fails on its own terms—and worse, it reinforces the exact kind of moral logic international law was written to restrain.

Except we aren't seeing the starving that supposedly exists.

Then you’re ignoring the data—or dismissing it because it contradicts your narrative.

The World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNRWA, and countless independent humanitarian groups have documented acute malnutrition, wasting in infants, and famine-like conditions across Gaza. Aid agencies report children dying of hunger and dehydration. Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, and the UN’s own field assessments confirm: this isn’t speculation. It’s on record. It’s happening.

You don’t get to erase that by saying, “we aren’t seeing it.” You’re not on the ground. You’re not in Rafah, in Jabalia, in northern Gaza where bakeries are rubble and water is undrinkable. The people documenting this aren’t partisan bloggers—they’re the same agencies the world relies on to identify famine in Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan. You either trust the data or admit your argument isn’t about facts—it’s about protecting power.

And let’s be clear: pretending starvation isn’t happening because it’s not televised to your liking is exactly how atrocity denial begins.

NHC

 

[TV and credit cards]

There Loren. Everything you’ve been told over and over again and then some put in a succinct and eloquent manner by NoHolyCows.

Still gonna fight for your team?

 

[NoHolyCows]

Iran and Hamas are the ones making millions suffer.

Then answer this: Who is dropping the bombs? Who is blocking the aid? Who controls the airspace, borders, fuel, electricity, and food access?

It’s easy to say “Iran and Hamas are to blame”—and yes, they bear responsibility for their own crimes. But blaming them for everything conveniently erases the power that Israel wields over Gaza every day, not just in war. You can’t claim to oppose suffering while defending the system that enforces it.

If you believe Hamas causes suffering, fine—so do I. But if your response is to inflict suffering on everyone under their rule, then you’re not solving a problem. You’re multiplying it. That’s not justice. That’s collective punishment. And history won’t remember it as anything else.

What you fail to see is that your approach means that anyone that threatens their own population sufficiently if not given their way can't be stopped.

No—what you fail to see is that the standard you’re setting is one where the worse a group behaves, the more permission we give ourselves to behave just like them.

If Hamas threatens its own civilians, the answer isn’t to make good on those threats for them. The answer isn’t to say, “Well, they hid among children—so we had no choice but to kill the children.” That’s not strategy. That’s complicity.

You say my approach means “they can’t be stopped.” No—my approach means we don’t become what we claim to oppose in the process. Because if the only way to stop a brutal actor is to outdo their brutality, then we haven’t solved the problem. We’ve just shifted the flag flying over the rubble.

You are. You condemn them but say nothing should be done which makes your condemnation meaningless.

No, I condemn them and I insist that whatever is done must follow moral and legal boundaries. That’s not meaningless—it’s the entire point of civilized standards.

Saying “stop Hamas” doesn’t mean “flatten Gaza.” And demanding restraint doesn’t mean inaction—it means acting in a way that doesn’t slaughter civilians by the tens of thousands. If your version of opposition requires that, then it’s not justice you’re after. It’s vengeance disguised as policy.

Continuing to take Hamas propaganda as truth.

Then let’s stick to non-Hamas sources:

The United Nations, World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even former Israeli officials have all confirmed the scale of destruction, civilian death, and humanitarian collapse in Gaza. This isn’t about trusting Hamas. It’s about acknowledging what’s been verified by independent observers, satellite imagery, aid organizations, and international law bodies.

Dismissing every critique as “Hamas propaganda” is not a rebuttal. It’s a refusal to engage with reality unless it flatters your position. And when war crimes are waved away because the facts are inconvenient, that’s not truth-seeking—it’s complicity.

You have a magic wand to wave? Because nobody's provided a meaningful proposal for how to get rid of them.

No magic wand. Just the hard truth that being unable to remove a threat cleanly doesn’t make doing it brutally acceptable.

You keep asking for an alternative—as if the absence of a perfect plan somehow justifies flattening cities, starving civilians, and shattering international law. But that’s not how morality—or legality—works. “We didn’t know how else to do it” is not a defense for war crimes. It’s how they’re excused.

And if your only proposal is total war on a trapped civilian population because the enemy is embedded—then the real problem isn’t Hamas. It’s the belief that some lives are expendable when justice gets hard.

After the resistance ceased. The resistance continues in Gaza.

(And I'm sure you're not going to like the reality that dropping the bombs on Japan unquestionably saved a lot of lives on all sides.)

Then let’s be honest about what you’re arguing: that mass death is acceptable if it shortens the war. That flattening cities, starving civilians, and targeting infrastructure are justified if it “saves lives in the long run.” That’s not a moral principle—that’s a moral loophole. And it’s the same logic that’s been used to excuse every atrocity ever framed as “necessary.”

You say the resistance continues in Gaza. Yes—and do you think bombing children makes it end sooner? Do you think shattering families breaks extremism, or breeds it? The lesson from post-war Germany wasn’t “crush them until they stop.” It was: when the war ends, don’t let vengeance write the peace.

And as for Hiroshima—if you’re invoking that as a moral model, then you’ve already conceded everything. Because that wasn’t a triumph of justice. It was the moment the world learned how easily horror can be rationalized when you believe the victims don’t count.

You "assign" guilt but say nothing should be done.

No—I say something must be done, but not anything. Justice without restraint is just vengeance in uniform. If your solution to guilt is mass death, then you’re not pursuing accountability. You’re pursuing annihilation dressed up as moral clarity.

The difference between us isn’t whether Hamas should be stopped. It’s whether stopping them means abandoning every principle we claim to stand for. You’ve chosen to make atrocity negotiable. I haven’t.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They were setting up the Gazans for the current situation. By ignoring the military installations under and adjacent to civilian infrastructure, they knew that they were setting up Gazans for destruction when they attacked Israel. Which they did. Gazans using their own people for human shields is the humanitarian disaster going on here. That and rich Muslims funding the leadership doing it. And the international media and demonstrators blaming Israel instead of the Gazans Who Matter.
Tom

Look who’s blowing shit now with evidence- free conspiracy theory.

Evidence-free conspiracy??

You really think the fact that Iran is funding it is evidence free??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Another thing. Even using Hamas' own numbers, military age males are greatly overrepresented among. Just before the recent ceasefire, I downloaded a list of all fatalities as reported by Hamas, with name, sex and age. I then made this:
View attachment 50690
Note first that we should discount age 0 as a glitch. It seems that Hamas MOH put "0" whenever age was unknown.
But besides that, we see that the female fatality distribution follows the population pyramid, as it tapers off, as you would expect from random civilian casualties of war. But male fatalities show a distinct bulge from teens through 40s, i.e. military age (Hamas et al recruit them young).
And again, these are Hamas' own figures. The true numbers are probably even more skewed toward military age males.

Yup, that graph is quite damning. I'm thinking back to an exercise in a statistics class back in college. The professor was showing us demographic graphs and having the class try to figure out where they came from. I'm sure we would all have immediately identified it as war, but there are enough wars around I don't think we could have figured out which one just from that.

 

[laughing dog]

They were setting up the Gazans for the current situation. By ignoring the military installations under and adjacent to civilian infrastructure, they knew that they were setting up Gazans for destruction when they attacked Israel. Which they did. Gazans using their own people for human shields is the humanitarian disaster going on here. That and rich Muslims funding the leadership doing it. And the international media and demonstrators blaming Israel instead of the Gazans Who Matter.
Tom

Look who’s blowing shit now with evidence- free conspiracy theory.

Evidence-free conspiracy??

You really think the fact that Iran is funding it is evidence free??

No.

Is it possible for you to base your response on the actual context of a discussion instead of a projected straw man?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ah, the “every accusation is a confession”. Maybe if you’re not sure what yo say, you should shut up.

Bullshit.

I'm absolutely certain that the Egyptian military had Intel and Clout. You are the one who doesn't know what you are talking about.

Really??? You don't seem to know that Egypt has been cracking down on tunnels between Egypt and Gaza for years?

Egypt has been pretending to crack down--but they were not actually doing much. Unquestionably the local officials were in on it, whether Cairo was or not remains unproven. But look at how Egypt has reacted to the Philadelphia Corridor. That actually stopped the smuggling (the tunnels come out in IDF-controlled territory) and Egypt hates it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ah, the “every accusation is a confession”. Maybe if you’re not sure what yo say, you should shut up.

Bullshit.

I'm absolutely certain that the Egyptian military had Intel and Clout. You are the one who doesn't know what you are talking about.

Really??? You don't seem to know that Egypt has been cracking down on tunnels between Egypt and Gaza for years?

Egypt has been pretending to crack down--but they were not actually doing much. Unquestionably the local officials were in on it, whether Cairo was or not remains unproven. But look at how Egypt has reacted to the Philadelphia Corridor. That actually stopped the smuggling (the tunnels come out in IDF-controlled territory) and Egypt hates it.

Prove it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Another thing. Even using Hamas' own numbers, military age males are greatly overrepresented among. Just before the recent ceasefire, I downloaded a list of all fatalities as reported by Hamas, with name, sex and age. I then made this:
View attachment 50690
Note first that we should discount age 0 as a glitch. It seems that Hamas MOH put "0" whenever age was unknown.
But besides that, we see that the female fatality distribution follows the population pyramid, as it tapers off, as you would expect from random civilian casualties of war. But male fatalities show a distinct bulge from teens through 40s, i.e. military age (Hamas et al recruit them young).
And again, these are Hamas' own figures. The true numbers are probably even more skewed toward military age males.

Yup, that graph is quite damning. I'm thinking back to an exercise in a statistics class back in college. The professor was showing us demographic graphs and having the class try to figure out where they came from. I'm sure we would all have immediately identified it as war, but there are enough wars around I don't think we could have figured out which one just from that.

The second a Hamas fighter hits the dirt it goes in Hamas' column for civilian casualties

And they don't wear uniforms. Hamas are on purpose trying to maximise Palestinian civilian casualties.

Yet, somehow Israel is getting shit for accidentally killing Palestinian civilians