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Shifa hospital workers just became VOLUNTARY human shields for Hamas. Does that make them legitimate targets?
EoZ ^ | Oct.29.23

Posted on 10/30/2023 7:54:24 PM PDT by Freeleesy

Shifa hospital workers just became VOLUNTARY human shields for Hamas. Does that make them legitimate targets?

Israel released evidence this weekend showing that Shifa Hospital in Gaza was a Hamas headquarters.



This was not exactly a secret.  Reporters have known this for at least 15 years.

But one thing happened on Saturday which has implications for international law.


Workers at Shifa sang a song saying, "We will not leave."

Meaning, they are saying that even if Israel tells them to leave in order to attack the Hamas targets in the lower levels, they are saying that they would prefer to be human shields for Hamas.

Does this change their civilian status under international law?

One of the giants of international law in war is Yoram Dinstein, and he is quoted in an ICRC monograph by legal scholar Jean-Francois Queguiner as saying "civilians who act as voluntary human shieldscan be regarded as directly participating in hostilities, with the result that they aredeprived of immunity against direct attack and have no effect whatsoever on acommander’s assessment of proportionality."

Israel's' High Court agrees, saying in 1 2006 case that ‘if they do soof their own free will, out of support for the terrorist organization, they should beseen as persons taking direct part in the hostilities.' 

Another legal scholar, Michael N. Schmitt, agrees that voluntary human shields are to be regardedas taking direct part in hostilities, and they lose their protection as civilians, but practically speaking they cannot be directly attacked. However, ‘voluntary shields … are excludedin the estimation of incidental injury when assessing proportionality.’

Other scholars say that the voluntary nature of their human shielding can affect the attacker's calculation of proportionality. In other words, the attacker must ensure that the civilian cost is proportional to the military benefit gained by the attack, and to many legal experts, the value, so to speak, of the voluntary human shields is lower than that of involuntary human shields (or what some call "proximate human shields") of wholly innocent civilians who happen to be between the attacker and the target. And according to some, their value is zero - Israel does not need to worry about killing them once they make clear that they are putting their bodies on the line for Hamas. 

Meaning that by singing this song, to a small extent, these workers just made the hospital a little more likely to be attacked by Israel because their value as potential civilian casualties may be discounted. 

Obviously, this doesn't apply to the involuntary human shields - patients or workers who did not participate in this little song. It doesn't make much of a difference in reality. If Israel decides that the hospital is a hugely important component of Hamas' military operations and sufficiently important Hamas members are under the hospital, it may very well decide to bomb the hospital after repeated warnings. 

But these doctors and workers just cheapened their own lives under international law and they made such an attack a little more, not less, likely. 



TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Politics
KEYWORDS: gaza; hamas; humanshields; koranimals; palestinians; rashidatlaib; selfinfliction; shifahospital
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To: Mogger

I agree except they should live under six feet of earth.


21 posted on 10/30/2023 8:27:07 PM PDT by Ronald77
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To: Jonty30

Just about


22 posted on 10/30/2023 8:29:14 PM PDT by Freeleesy
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To: Paladin2

Daydreaming about grinding coffee with Michelle O., (again!)


23 posted on 10/30/2023 8:30:02 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: Freeleesy

No, of course not. They need to give them at least a one hour warning before blowing the building to Smithereens.


24 posted on 10/30/2023 8:31:29 PM PDT by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.)
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To: BlueLancer

Shame on Palestinian cult of using their own people as human shields this since 1982 Lebanon. (Despite spam by 2 Pro-Hamas Wikipedians).


25 posted on 10/30/2023 8:32:02 PM PDT by Freeleesy
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To: Reverend Wright

The Rooskie leaders of late do seem to be inscrutable as being within those Matryoshka dolls and not explaining how Islam is a fundamental value to Rooskie Kulture.

Maybe it’s a Marxist thing. I don’t know or understand.


26 posted on 10/30/2023 8:33:20 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Freeleesy

They’re stupid enough to believe they’ll get virgins and riches from Allah if they’re martyred.

You can’t reason with pigheadedness like this.


27 posted on 10/30/2023 8:34:03 PM PDT by Bullish (...And just like that, I was dropped from the ping-list)
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To: Freeleesy

Hamas’ headquarters is a legitimate military target regardless. Israel has the right to fire on it, and destroy it, no matter who is in the way.

When Hamas uses doctors as involuntary human shields, that is an atrocity by Hamas, and siting their headquarters in a hospital was an atrocity by Hamas. If involuntary human shields die in the process, they were murdered by Hamas, just as when a kidnapper uses his victim as a shield in a gunfight with the police, and the police shoot at the kidnapper and kill the hostage, the kidnapper is guilty of murder. The police are guilty only of poor aim, which is not the same thing.

If the doctors volunteer to be human shields, and die in the process, their blood is on their own heads, and there is no atrocity.

Note that if their cooperation is coerced by Hamas (”stay here or we’ll kill your whole families”), that is an atrocity by Hamas, and, if they die, they were murdered by Hamas.


28 posted on 10/30/2023 8:35:34 PM PDT by Keb
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To: Mogger
The editing is Taqqyia (fooling the infidels).

Holy

29 posted on 10/30/2023 8:35:56 PM PDT by Freeleesy
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To: Salvavida
Hamas are not signatories to Geneva. Why would they care about Geneva conventions?
30 posted on 10/30/2023 8:37:03 PM PDT by Bullish (...And just like that, I was dropped from the ping-list)
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To: Jim Robinson

Right, Jim.


31 posted on 10/30/2023 8:38:08 PM PDT by Freeleesy
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To: Mogger
Every non Muslim needs to read the enemy's book.

Robert Spencer does a good job here explaining Islam -

https://ia800606.us.archive.org/29/items/RobertSpencersQuranCommentaries/BloggingTheQuran.pdf

This is part of his introduction:

“To understand the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, one good place to start might be to explore what they themselves say about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what they want. That in turn will lead you to the Qur’an (or Koran), the Islamic holy book. The jihadists quote it frequently and portray themselves as those who are following “pure Islam,” the genuine article as it is taught in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. So in the course of my work explaining the jihadists’ objectives, I’ve quoted the Qur’an a great deal – and hardly a day goes by without my being accused of “cherry-picking” violent passages, and quoting them “out of context.” Meanwhile, the Council on American Islamic Relations and other Muslim groups say that in order to understand the true, peaceful Islam, we should read the Qur’an.

So over the course of the next few months, I’m going to read it, and discuss it in a series of columns. All of it. Not “cherry-picked” or “out of context.” The whole thing, beginning to end. … I’ll try to explain how mainstream Muslims who study the Qur’an will understand any given passage, and what its import might be for non-Muslims.”

32 posted on 10/30/2023 8:41:49 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam only understands Death and Pain. Give it to them. )
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...
Let's find out...

33 posted on 10/30/2023 8:42:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: Mogger; All
Reminder:
Among other things, the terrorist said in the interrogation: "The plan was to go from house to house, from room to room, throw grenades and kill everyone there, including women and children. Hamas ordered us to do the following: trample on their heads and cut them off, cut off their legs." He added that it was also "religiously approved for them to have sex with a corpse after they killed it."
source
34 posted on 10/30/2023 8:44:29 PM PDT by Freeleesy
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To: Freeleesy

Kill them all.


35 posted on 10/30/2023 8:45:16 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Mogger

This post and its links needs to be made permanent.

In as many places as possible.


36 posted on 10/30/2023 8:48:15 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Freeleesy

It doesn’t matter. Somebody gamed this to multiple outcomes.

Bombing a hospital will generate one of those outcomes.


37 posted on 10/30/2023 8:53:43 PM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Freeleesy

“We will not leave”

A statement likely subject to immediate and intense revision once the ordnance starts arriving.

CC


38 posted on 10/30/2023 8:55:17 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (My cats are more amusing than 200 channels worth of TV.)
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To: Freeleesy

Cannon fodder. For propaganda purposes. Oh, look at what the evil racist genocidal Israelis are doing to innocent health care providers. Isn’t such a practice in violation of the Geneva Convention? (As if Fakestinian savages really GAFF about such formalities)


39 posted on 10/30/2023 9:00:49 PM PDT by Impala64ssa (EVERY TIME A HEMI STARTS, AN EV DIES!)
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To: Mogger

Thank you for the link!

>> Every non Muslim needs to read the enemy’s book.
>> Until they do, and then behave accordingly, this madness will never end.

Yep. As per my tag line ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM.


40 posted on 10/30/2023 9:05:46 PM PDT by Nervous Tick ("First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people...": ISLAM is the problem!)
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