The victims wwere mainly women and children as usual.Its a good job that there are unlikely to be repucussions from this slaughter of innocents. And it is a long was away after all.
The TARGETS were militants firing indiscriminate rockets (war crime, crime against humanity). The militants need to either surrender or fight (preferably within the rules of armed conflict). I don't care which they choose, but either way they need to remove themselves from civilians and protected places.
Go ahead. Tell me they have "no choice". Wait. Let me save you the trouble.
Militant option 1: Surrender. Remove yourself from the battlefield. Instruct your wife and children to follow IDF instructions, and seek safety away from militant activity. Likely result: You are in prison for some period of time. Your precious wife and children live.
Militant option 2: Fight within the rules of armed conflict. Fight. No one, least of all me, is suggesting you shouldn't. So fight. Just do it away from your wife and children and everyone else's wife and children. Find a nice, bombed-out building (rumor has it there are plenty available) and fight from there. Keep the fight away from the children. Likely result: You die. Your precious wife and children live.
Militant option 3: Fight committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the midst of innocent civilians. Likely result: You die. Your precious wife and children die.
I know, I know, you will reach the end of this all sputtering and spittling, but there is both a legally and morally correct answer here. (Did you need a hint? It involves the children NOT dying.)
You can not argue that Gaza is largely destroyed and also argue that militants have no possible space to put their military operations except embedded in civilian safe zones and protected places. Is one or other. You can not argue that, in 18 years, Gaza planned an extensive military infrastructure and training regimen to execute such heinous atrocities against Israel's civilians in order to goad them into a war and also argue it was impossible to plan for the safety and security for your civilian population. (As in: Good news! We have 7 Billion dollars! Bad news: we can't spend a single penny on protecting our wives and children). Is one or other.
Option 3 is a CHOICE.
www.theguardian.com
