No. My point matters for debunking pood's objection to the statement that "Gaza attacked Israel".
If your point is just to linguistically justify the phrase “Gaza attacked Israel,” then let’s be honest about what that framing does.
Yes, Hamas is based in Gaza. But when you say “Gaza attacked Israel,” you’re not just stating geography—you’re collapsing an entire civilian population, including children, doctors, teachers, and the sick, into a single actor. You’re using territorial shorthand to imply collective guilt. And that rhetorical move is not harmless—it’s how mass punishment gets softened into acceptable policy.
When “Gaza” becomes interchangeable with “Hamas,” you erase the distinction between militants and civilians, and suddenly the bombing of homes, hospitals, and refugee camps becomes just part of fighting “the enemy.” That’s how accountability dies—when language flattens entire populations into a single target.
If you truly mean Hamas or PIJ or any specific faction—then say that. But don’t pretend that calling it “Gaza” is neutral. It isn’t. It’s a framing that makes 2.2 million people complicit by association, and it’s how war crimes are excused in public discourse before they’re committed on the ground.
So no—your point doesn’t just “debunk pood.” It reinforces the exact logic that’s already cost tens of thousands of innocent lives.
I do not object to any of that, except to say that it's more than "some people in Gaza". Also, you have to add the support for all other terror groups, from Islamic Jihad to PFLP. They all have their differences, but they all agree with the objective of trying to destroy Israel.
Even if support is broader than “some”—even if many Gazans sympathize with Hamas, PIJ, or the PFLP—that still does not make them lawful military targets. Political belief, anger at occupation, or even support for armed resistance does not strip civilians of their protections under international law.
You’re conflating support for an objective—even a violent or extremist one—with direct participation in hostilities. That’s not just a legal mistake; it’s a dangerous one. Because once you start defining civilians by their beliefs, you’re not talking about military action anymore—you’re talking about ideological cleansing.
Let’s flip the frame: large portions of Israeli society support settlements in the West Bank, some even support expelling Palestinians entirely. That doesn’t make them lawful targets. Because we understand that in any society, people hold views—but holding a view is not the same as taking up arms. You don’t bomb neighborhoods because you don’t like the politics inside.
And as for the objective of “destroying Israel”: that belief is born out of decades of displacement, occupation, siege, and dehumanization. It’s not defensible, but it is explainable—and if your answer to it is to punish the entire population until they believe differently, then you’re not defending Israel. You’re waging a war on thought—and calling it security.
So yes, some Gazans support Hamas. Many don’t. Most are just trying to survive. But none of that changes the basic principle: civilians are civilians—even when you hate their politics.
Gazan civilians should get humanitarian aid. Food, water, medicine and medical supplies. But there needs to be a way to deliver said aid without Hamas intercepting it and selling it at inflated prices.
I agree—aid should reach civilians, not be stolen or exploited. But here’s the key point: the obligation to ensure humanitarian access is not conditional on perfect logistics or on whether the enemy might abuse it. It’s a legal and moral duty, not a negotiating chip.
Yes, Hamas has diverted aid. That’s a real problem. But it’s also not new—and aid agencies have decades of experience managing these risks, from Syria to Yemen to Sudan. The solution isn’t to throttle aid or delay it until there’s a flawless distribution model. The solution is to work with international organizations—UNRWA, ICRC, WFP, and others—to deliver aid despite the complications, because civilians still have the right to eat, drink, and survive, even in war.
Denying food and medical care to 2.2 million people because some portion might be diverted is not precaution—it’s collective punishment. And it’s illegal under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits using starvation as a method of warfare—even indirectly.
If you truly support aid to civilians, then you support unimpeded humanitarian access now, with monitoring and coordination—not theoretical support that evaporates in the face of complexity. Because what’s happening today isn’t just imperfect aid delivery—it’s blockade, obstruction, and engineered famine, according to the UN and major aid groups.
So yes, secure the aid. Monitor it. But don’t pretend that civilians must prove their innocence or logistical purity to deserve food and medicine. That’s not law. That’s cruelty rationalized.
Targeting civilians is wrong. We don't disagree there. Where we disagree is that you seem to believe that as soon as Hamas et al operate from civilian areas, they should be beyond reach of IDF strikes. That would make waging war against these terrorists impossible!
No—that’s not what I’m saying, and framing it that way misses the actual standard. The issue isn’t whether Israel can strike Hamas. It’s how those strikes are carried out.
International humanitarian law doesn’t prohibit targeting militants in urban areas. What it prohibits is striking in ways that are indiscriminate, disproportionate, or that fail to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm. That’s not an abstract principle—it’s the backbone of lawful warfare.
The reality in Gaza is this: **when you strike a tunnel, a home, or a suspected militant meeting, knowing it will collapse an apartment building, kill dozens of civilians, or destroy a hospital—**you may be targeting a militant, but you’re also violating the laws that define legitimate military action.
What you’re defending here is not the right to strike Hamas—but the freedom to do so without limits, even when civilians die by the thousands. And if your view is that the only way to defeat Hamas is to make war indistinguishable from collective punishment, then what you’re advocating isn’t defense—it’s a war without restraint.
So no—I’m not saying Hamas gets a free pass because they operate near civilians. I’m saying civilians don’t lose their right to life because Hamas abuses their proximity. That’s the moral and legal line you can’t cross—unless you’re prepared to admit you’ve already abandoned it.
I never said that. The argument that Hamas is integral part of the Gazan society is to disabuse pood of his notion that saying "Gaza attacked Israel" is wrong. It is no more wrong than saying "Japan attacked US on 12/7/41".
The “Japan attacked the U.S.” analogy doesn’t hold—because Japan was a sovereign state with a centralized government, a uniformed army, and full control over its territory. Gaza is none of those things. It’s a blockaded enclave without statehood, without an army, and under conditions where half the population wasn’t even alive when Hamas took power. So no, saying “Gaza attacked Israel” is not the same.
You may not intend to treat all Gazans as guilty, but language matters—especially in war. When you say “Gaza attacked Israel,” you’re not just stating a geographic fact. You’re rhetorically collapsing 2.2 million people into a single hostile entity. That’s how civilians—children, journalists, aid workers—end up being viewed as acceptable collateral or presumed enemy assets.
If your point is just to defend shorthand, then you’re ignoring the very real consequences of that shorthand. Because when entire cities are reduced to “enemy territory,” the moral safeguards that protect civilians vanish in practice—even if we pay lip service to them in theory.
So if what happened on October 7 was committed by Hamas and its allies, then say that. Say Hamas attacked Israel. But when you say “Gaza” did it, you’re not correcting language—you’re erasing distinction. And in war, that erasure is never academic. It’s lethal.
The contradiction lies only in not acknowledging the distinction between targeting civilians and targeting a military target whereby civilians may come to harm.
You’re right—the distinction on paper between targeting civilians and targeting military objectives that risk harming civilians is fundamental to the laws of war. No disagreement there.
But here’s the problem: you keep asserting that distinction while defending a campaign where tens of thousands of civilians have died, including thousands of children, and where hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps have been repeatedly struck. At some point, that distinction collapses—not in theory, but in practice.
If every military target is pursued no matter the civilian toll, if every strike is justified with “Hamas was nearby,” and if every civilian death is waved off as “regrettable but necessary,” then the legal principle you’re defending stops functioning as a safeguard. It becomes a fig leaf.
That’s the contradiction: you claim to uphold the law, while defending actions that have systematically violated its spirit and—according to many human rights bodies—its letter. The law doesn’t just care whether the target was military. It cares whether the force used was proportionate, whether feasible precautions were taken, and whether civilians were protected in all circumstances.
So yes, there is a distinction. But when the result is massive, sustained civilian death, that distinction isn’t being meaningfully upheld. It’s being cited to justify its own erosion.
At the same time, international law is not a loophole that says that e.g. if you place rocket launchers next to a tent encampment, the other side may not hit it.
Of course you can. That's the whole difference between a war crime and collateral damage.
[some stuff snipped as it is reiterating same points]
Correct—international law doesn’t prohibit striking a legitimate military target near civilians. But it does prohibit doing so in a way that causes excessive civilian harm relative to the military advantage gained. That’s not a loophole. That’s the legal and moral line between self-defense and a war crime.
So no, placing a rocket launcher next to a tent doesn’t make it invincible. But neither does it give a blank check to bomb the site if you know civilians will die and no precautions are taken. The obligation to protect civilians doesn’t vanish just because Hamas abuses them—it intensifies.
The law exists precisely to prevent combatants from turning every neighborhood into a battlefield and calling the destruction “necessary.” If you’re defending the right to strike military targets, fine. But that right is not absolute. It’s constrained—for a reason.
Following the law when it’s inconvenient is what separates a legitimate military campaign from retribution.
No—you can’t simply say “collateral damage” and walk away from the legal and moral consequences. That’s not how the laws of war work.
The difference between a war crime and lawful collateral damage isn’t just whether civilians were intentionally targeted. It’s whether the force used was proportional, whether all feasible precautions were taken to avoid civilian harm, and whether the attack distinguished between combatants and noncombatants. If you knowingly strike a military target in a way that predictably kills dozens of civilians, especially in a confined space like Gaza, that’s not collateral. That’s reckless disregard for civilian life—and yes, potentially a war crime.
What you’re really arguing is that intent excuses outcome. That as long as Israel says it didn’t mean to kill civilians, it shouldn’t be held accountable for doing it. But that’s not how international law works—and it’s not how morality works either.
You say civilians aren’t fair game. But if you’re willing to accept thousands of dead children, bombed hospitals, and flattened shelters as “collateral,” no matter the scale, then in practice, civilians are fair game—you’ve just renamed them.Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (yellow) is the terror wing of Fatah l) is the terror wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
My mention of the green headband was symbolic. Hamas fighters wear a green headband, at least ceremonially. They do not usually wear any identifying marks when actually fighting.
Other Gazan/Palestinian terror groups have their own headbands.
Sure—fighters wear headbands. That’s not the issue. The issue is the logic underneath your earlier point: that affiliation, symbolism, or ideological sympathy can be used to morally blur the line between civilians and combatants.
Listing militant factions and their colors doesn’t change the core principle: unless someone is directly participating in hostilities, they are legally a civilian and must be protected. Full stop. That includes people who support resistance groups politically, wear symbolic colors, or live in areas controlled by those factions.
You’re not just describing headbands—you’re inching toward a framework where visible affiliation becomes evidence of combatant status. That’s not just flawed—it’s how war crimes get rationalized. Because once symbols, geography, or perceived ideology become substitutes for combatant identification, you’ve erased the legal and moral standard that’s supposed to protect civilians in war.
You want to fight armed groups? Fine. But if you’re defending a logic that reduces all Gazans to potential militants because of what group governs them, or what symbols circulate in the street, then yes—you’ve gone from fighting terrorism to applying its logic in reverse.
And international law doesn’t bend to accommodate that. Nor should our conscience.
If they are wearing Hamas insignia, what makes you think they are civilians?
Because wearing insignia isn’t what makes someone a combatant—actions do.
Under international humanitarian law, a person is considered a lawful target only when they are directly participating in hostilities. That means actively fighting, planning, commanding, or engaging in military operations—not just expressing political allegiance or wearing a symbol.
If you’re saying that a person can be killed for wearing a green headband, then you’re not talking about self-defense. You’re talking about political execution. That’s not lawful targeting—it’s a war crime dressed up as threat assessment.
By your logic, a teenager at a protest, or someone attending a funeral, becomes a legitimate target based on clothing. That’s not just legally false—it’s morally bankrupt. And if that logic were applied to your side—if, say, someone wearing an IDF pin or an Israeli flag were fair game—you’d call it terrorism. And you’d be right.
Civilian protections exist precisely to prevent that kind of ideological warfare. Wearing a symbol is not a death sentence. And the moment we act like it is, we’re no longer fighting for security—we’re just hunting whoever makes us uncomfortable.
I never said that civilians are legitimate military targets. At he same time, attacking legitimate military targets may lead to civilians coming to harm. That's just the nature of warfare.
Another thing. Many fighters have day jobs. Take the example of the Nuseirat hostage rescue. Three of the rescued hostages were held by a father, a physician, and son, a journalist.
‘He was a pious man’: The Gaza neighborhood shocked to find Israeli hostages in their midst
How many of the >200 other journalists who have been reportedly killed during this war also moonlighted for Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, or another terror group?
Yes—civilians can be harmed in war. That’s understood. But what international law prohibits is targeting military objectives in ways that are indiscriminate or disproportionate, especially when the attacker knows civilians are likely to be killed. “That’s just the nature of warfare” isn’t a defense—it’s how people try to normalize violations of law and morality when they become too frequent to ignore.
And your second point proves how dangerously far that logic goes. You cite a rare case where a doctor and a journalist were allegedly involved in holding hostages—and then use that anecdote to cast suspicion on over 200 other journalists who were killed. That’s not evidence. That’s collective guilt by profession.
You’re not asking for proof that these individuals were fighters. You’re suggesting that their jobs don’t matter, because maybe they were moonlighting for Hamas. That’s exactly how civilian protections erode: by treating affiliation, geography, or profession as circumstantial justification for lethal force.
If a journalist is actively fighting, they become a lawful target at the moment of participation. But unless you have clear, individualized evidence of that participation, they’re a civilian—and killing them is unlawful.
So yes—some civilians might be militants. But that doesn’t make all civilians potential combatants. And if you’re justifying their deaths based on suspicion, assumption, or after-the-fact rationalization, then you’ve abandoned the laws of war. Because once “maybe” becomes a reason to kill, no one’s protected.
We are not talking about a normal political party. We are talking about a terrorist organization.
You’re right—Hamas is not a normal political party. It’s an armed group that commits war crimes. But international law doesn’t say “civilians are protected—unless they support a terrorist organization.” That’s not how civilian status works. Civilian protections don’t depend on your beliefs. They depend on your actions.
Unless someone is directly participating in hostilities—fighting, planning, commanding—they are protected under the laws of war. That includes people who sympathize with, support, or even vote for a terrorist group. The minute we make support a justification for lethal force, we’re not fighting terrorism—we’re using its logic.
Ask yourself this: should Israeli civilians who support far-right parties that advocate for Palestinian expulsion be considered legitimate targets? Should Americans who supported the Iraq War be fair game? Of course not. Because we understand, in every other context, that political support is not participation in combat.
Once we start stripping away civilian status based on political allegiance, there are no civilians left—only enemies. And that’s not law. That’s ideology weaponized.
Then the question is simple:
If you’re not endorsing tribal vengeance, then where is the red line? Where does self-defense end and disproportionate force begin? Because so far, you’ve justified:
- Tens of thousands of civilian deaths
- Bombing of hospitals and refugee camps
- Starvation of an entire population
- The killing of journalists, doctors, and children with no individual evidence of combatant activity
And every time it’s challenged, the answer is: Hamas hides among civilians, so what else can Israel do?
But that’s not moral clarity. That’s justification after the fact.
If you truly oppose vengeance, then show where you draw the line. Show what level of civilian harm is unacceptable—even if Hamas is present. Because if there’s no limit, no restraint, and no accountability, then what you’re defending isn’t self-defense. It’s impunity.
Headbands are used as symbols by the fighters for these factions. It identifies somebody as belonging to the "military wing" of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad etc.
Yes—fighters wear headbands. But a headband is a symbol, not a combat action. And unless that person is actively taking part in hostilities, wearing a symbol—even one tied to a militant group—does not make them a lawful target under international law.
This is the heart of the issue: you’re treating symbolic affiliation as a proxy for combatant status. But civilian protections don’t vanish because someone wears green, red, or black. They vanish only when that person is directly engaged in military operations. That’s the line that separates law from ideology, and restraint from retribution.
If someone is carrying a weapon or actively fighting, then yes—they’re a combatant. But if you’re targeting based on what someone is wearing, you’re no longer distinguishing between fighters and civilians. You’re just profiling, and justifying it after the fact.
That’s not fighting terrorism. That’s flattening the rules that are supposed to protect us all—especially in war.
The numbers are from Hamas run Gaza Ministry of Health. If anything, they'd want to exaggerate civilian deaths and downplay deaths among the fighters.
As to the methodology of making the graph, it was a simple matter to make a histogram from raw CSV data.
As to justifying mass civilian death, nobody likes that. But civilian deaths happen in war. More-so in urban warfare. And much more so if one side operates from among civilians because dead civilians give them a propaganda boost from the useful idiots in the West. Idiots like the DC Jewish Museum murderer or the attempted arsonist of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
Yes—civilian deaths happen in war. That’s not in dispute. What’s in dispute is whether the scale, patterns, and tactics that led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza are the unavoidable consequence of urban warfare—or the result of choices made without sufficient regard for civilian life.
Your point about Hamas exaggerating deaths actually works against you. If even Hamas’s figures show a majority of the dead are women and children, then the reality may be worse. But either way, your graph doesn’t prove what you think it does. You’ve inferred combatant status from age and gender brackets, but that’s not how the law works. A 17-year-old male is not a lawful target unless he’s actively participating in hostilities. Anything else is profiling. And profiling people for death based on age or gender is not lawful war—its collective suspicion turned lethal.
And let’s be clear: you’re now not just defending the casualties—you’re starting to blame them. Saying that Hamas benefits from dead civilians and therefore we should discount the moral outrage is a grotesque inversion of responsibility. It implies that because one side may exploit civilian deaths, the other side bears no real responsibility for causing them. That’s not just cynical—it’s dangerous.
And invoking fringe extremists like a museum shooter or an arsonist to discredit concern for civilian life? That’s not argument. That’s guilt by association at its ugliest. If you need to link humanitarian outrage to criminals to dismiss it, you’ve already run out of moral ground to stand on.
So let’s come back to clarity: civilian deaths in war are not always avoidable—but they are not excused just because the enemy is worse. The laws of war exist to restrain both sides. And the side that ignores that obligation—especially the side with overwhelming power—cannot claim the moral high ground by pointing to the other’s depravity.
NHC
