Palestine v Israel.

[Svartalf]

There is a difference between the deliberate killing of civilians (which Hamas definitely did) and the death of civilians because they were in the proximity of legitimate military targets. Having said that, there needs to be a duty of care to avoid civilian deaths as much as possible, and Israel is clearly not doing enough in this regard.

bombing population centers can never be legitimate

[Svartalf]

There is a difference between the deliberate killing of civilians (which Hamas definitely did) and the death of civilians because they were in the proximity of legitimate military targets. Having said that, there needs to be a duty of care to avoid civilian deaths as much as possible, and Israel is clearly not doing enough in this regard.

Are members of the IDF legitimate targets?

I guess so, but when Hamas made their original incursion, they clearly deliberately killed many Israeli civilians, which their indiscriminate rocket attacks also do. But the Israeli air strikes against Gaza are also far too indiscriminate.

The rocket attacks from Gaza have killed a handful of people. The Israeli airstrikes have killed thousands.

at the latest estimates, the oct 7 attack did maybe 1500 victims, the israeli response has done 8 times as much, and they make life impossible for the civilian Gaza population...

[Strontium Dog]

Hamas are the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. Do they not have the right to have an army to defend themselves?

...just to clarify your answer. Are IDF members legitimate targets?

They were elected to a four year term in 2006. So no, they're not the elected representatives of Gaza, which is a homophobic misogynistic racist theocracy.

There are no legitimate targets for terrorists. Happy to help.

[rainbow]

Hamas are the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. Do they not have the right to have an army to defend themselves?

...just to clarify your answer. Are IDF members legitimate targets?

They were elected to a four year term in 2006. So no, they're not the elected representatives of Gaza, which is a homophobic misogynistic racist theocracy.

There are no legitimate targets for terrorists. Happy to help.

Define "terrorist".

[rasetsu]

It's the fault of the refugees that they're dead. -- IDF

[Strontium Dog]

Hamas are the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. Do they not have the right to have an army to defend themselves?

...just to clarify your answer. Are IDF members legitimate targets?

They were elected to a four year term in 2006. So no, they're not the elected representatives of Gaza, which is a homophobic misogynistic racist theocracy.

There are no legitimate targets for terrorists. Happy to help.

Define "terrorist".

Someone who uses terror to advance their aims. A member of a proscribed terror group (like Hamas).

Do they not have dictionaries where you are?

[Strontium Dog]

It's the fault of the refugees that they're dead. -- IDF

I mean, they gave them 2 weeks to vacate the area.

If you're keeping count, that's 2 weeks more than Hamas gave to 1400 people on October 7th.

[rasetsu]

It's the fault of the refugees that they're dead. -- IDF

I mean, they gave them 2 weeks to vacate the area.

If you're keeping count, that's 2 weeks more than Hamas gave to 1400 people on October 7th.

[rainbow]

Hamas are the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. Do they not have the right to have an army to defend themselves?

...just to clarify your answer. Are IDF members legitimate targets?

They were elected to a four year term in 2006. So no, they're not the elected representatives of Gaza, which is a homophobic misogynistic racist theocracy.

There are no legitimate targets for terrorists. Happy to help.

Define "terrorist".

Someone who uses terror to advance their aims. A member of a proscribed terror group (like Hamas).

Do they not have dictionaries where you are?

The Israeli government and the IDF then fits your definition.

You've justified Hamas, shame on you.

[Brian Peacock]

I mean, they gave them 2 weeks to vacate the area.

And then they bombed them where they'd moved to anyway.

* * *

Palestinians under attack as Israeli settler violence surges in the West Bank

Abed Wadi was getting dressed for the funeral when the message arrived.

It was an image, forwarded to him by a friend, of a group of masked men posing with axes, a petrol canister, and a chainsaw, with text printed on the image in Hebrew and Arabic.

"To all the rats in the sewers of Qusra village, we are waiting for you and we will not mourn you," the text said.

"The day of revenge is coming."

Qusra was Wadi's village, in the northern part of the West Bank near Nablus. The funeral that day was for four Palestinians from the village. Three had been killed the previous day - Wednesday 11 October - after Israeli settlers entered Qusra and attacked a Palestinian family home.

The fourth was shot dead in clashes with Israeli soldiers that followed.

The following day, the Qusra villagers were preparing to set out for a hospital half an hour away and return with the bodies of the dead. To do so, they would need to travel across land that is dotted with Israeli settlements, where the risk of violence, high even in ordinary times, has risen dramatically in the two weeks since the Hamas attack that launched a war with Israel.

Wadi put his phone down and continued getting dressed. There were four men in refrigerators in the hospital who needed to be brought home. He was not going to be deterred by a threat, he said. He had heard too many.

There was no way for Wadi to know that, in a few hours' time, hardline Israeli settlers would confront the funeral procession and his own brother and young nephew would be shot dead.

"If we had delayed one or even two days, what good would it have done?" Wadi said, sitting in the shaded courtyard of his family home in Qusra.

"Do you think that the settlers would have left this place on the second day?"

...

Palestinian residents of the West Bank say that while the world's attention is drawn to the unfolding disaster in Gaza, Israeli settlers are taking advantage by entering villages and expelling, and even killing, Palestinian civilians.

In at least three cases, according to video footage or eyewitness testimony from villagers, the settlers have been wearing military uniforms or accompanied by the Israeli military in their attacks.

The first three men who died in Qusra had gone to defend a family in a house on the outskirts of the village, after settlers approached the house and began throwing rocks at it, several residents told the BBC.

They say the settlers then opened fire at the Palestinian neighbours who came to assist, killing two teenagers and a young man - Hasan Abu Sorour, 16, Obayda Abu Sorour, 17, and Musab Abu Reda, 25 - and gravely wounding several others. Moath Odeh, aged 21, was killed later in clashes with soldiers.

Among the wounded were a father and his six-year-old daughter, who lived at the house, who were shot in the face and in the abdomen respectively, according to two people who received the dead and wounded at a nearby medical clinic.

One of those assisting at the clinic was Amer Odeh, a cousin of two of the victims. It fell to Amer to call Said Odeh, the father of 17-year-old Obayda.

"I told him, your son is lightly injured," Amer said, in an interview alongside Said in Qusra on Tuesday. "I could not give him this shock over the phone."

Said rushed to the medical centre. "They told me that my son was injured but there was no way for me to see him at that moment," he recalled, his eyes shiny with tears.

"I told them I wanted to see my son now, and I entered that room and I saw that by the grace of God he had been martyred."

The following day was set to be the funeral for the four victims. Abed Wadi put the image of the masked men with axes and chainsaws out of his mind and joined the funeral convoy bringing the bodies back from the hospital to Qusra.

As the cars and ambulances made their way along the Nablus-Ramallah road, the convoy was ambushed by hardline Israeli settlers. In the clash that followed, according to video footage and eyewitness testimony, settlers pelted the convoy with stones, some members of the funeral convoy threw stones back, and the Israeli settlers and soldiers responded with live fire.

In the "chaos and heavy, random gunfire," Abed Wadi lost track of his brother, Ibrahim, a 63-year-old local politician with the Fatah Movement, and Ibrahim's son Ahmed, a 24-year-old law student. Video footage of part of the confrontation appears to show Ahmed and others running away from the gunfire, before Ahmed is cut down by bullets on the road.

"They told me my nephew was shot twice in his stomach and once in his neck, and my brother was shot in his waist, towards his heart," Wadi said.

"There were no weapons in our funeral convoy," he said. "Usually we would fly the Palestinian flag from the cars but we did not even fly our flag, because of the fear."...

IDF launches investigation after footage emerges showing soldiers abusing and humiliating West Bank Palestinians

The Israeli army is investigating dozens of shocking photos and videos posted on social media of their soldiers abusing and humiliating Palestinians in the West Bank, often while handcuffed and blindfolded.

One reserve soldier in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has been sacked as a result of the posts, which were described by one horrified Israeli as ‘shaming the uniform of the IDF’.

In one of the most brutal clips, IDF troops were filmed as they abused seven labourers from near Hebron on the West bank after they were caught attempting to enter Israel without a permit.

The footage showed the Palestinian men stripped naked or half-naked, blindfolded and handcuffed, and screaming in pain. One of them is being dragged on the ground.

A screenshot from the video shows a soldier stepping with his boot on the head of one of the Palestinians, while another points a weapon at him.

In another scene of violence caught on camera, a soldier kicks a blindfolded Palestinian man in the stomach, then spits on him and insults him in Arabic.

...

In one short clip a Palestinian detainee is blindfolded, forced to sit on the ground with his legs draped in the Israeli flag...

When West Bank Palestinians are subject to the violence of illegal settler communities they have to appeal to the Israeli justice system. 98% of Palestinian killings by settlers are not investigated and/or do not result in charges being brought. Where charges lead to a conviction the majority of sentences are non-custodial.

Channel 4 News video. Contains graphic violence. Age restricted.

Inside the occupied West Bank as violence soars

[Brian Peacock]

I've always believed that fundamental human rights were just that, fundamental... the fundamental basis of a civilised, rules-based domestic and international order. When political actors endorse, condone and greenlight the degradation and abuse of other people's fundamental rights then it shows us all that they have no regard for this basic principle. Over the course of this conflict the UK's govt, and our 'govt in waiting', are clearly signalling that only they, and they alone can decide where the boundary of human rights lies - meaning they are no longer fundamental.

[Strontium Dog]

The Israeli government and the IDF then fits your definition.

You've justified Hamas, shame on you.

You've stopped making any sense now.

I mean, they gave them 2 weeks to vacate the area.

And then they bombed them where they'd moved to anyway.

Citation needed.

[rainbow]

The Israeli government and the IDF then fits your definition.

You've justified Hamas, shame on you.

You've stopped making any sense now.

You're the one that gave the definition that equally applies to the war criminals of the IDF.

...so if the IDF are terrorists (your definition), then are all Israelis legitimate targets?

"Human shields" is the term I think the IDF spokesman used.

[Svartalf]

The Israeli government and the IDF then fits your definition.

You've justified Hamas, shame on you.

You've stopped making any sense now.

I mean, they gave them 2 weeks to vacate the area.
[/quote.And then they bombed them where they'd moved to anyway.

Citation needed.

Actually, Rainbow makes perfect sense, the israeli state and IDF do use terror to drive off palestinians from areas marked for colonisation..

[Brian Peacock]

You got the quotes a bit wrong there Svarty.

I'm surprised I need to provide a citation given that every news outlet is reporting that the IDF are bombing all over Gaza, including dropping bunker busters in the heart of the overcrowded Jabalya refugee. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Nowhere is safe.

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran: Gazans asking 'where do we want to be when we die?'

(video)

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has said that she is "deeply worried" for her extended family in Gaza.

Moran's mother is Palestinian and members of her family in Gaza are sheltering in a church after an Israeli missile struck their home.

Speaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire, she said: "No longer are people saying, where do we go to be safe? The question they are now asking is, where do we want to be when we die?"

My bold.