Posted on 06/09/2025 8:31:31 AM PDT by RandFan
Even wars have rules. They don't stop soldiers killing each other but they're intended to make sure that civilians caught up in the fighting are treated humanely and protected from as much danger as possible. The rules apply equally to all sides.
If one side has suffered a brutal surprise attack that killed hundreds of civilians, as Israel did on 7 October 2023, it does not get an exemption from the law. The protection of civilians is a legal requirement in a battle plan.
That, at least, is the theory behind the Geneva Conventions. The latest version, the fourth, was formulated and adopted after World War Two to stop such slaughter and cruelty to civilians from ever happening again.
At the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva (ICRC) the words "Even Wars Have Rules" are emblazoned in huge letters on a glass rotunda.
The reminder is timely because the rules are being broken.
Getting information from Gaza is difficult. It is a lethal warzone. At least 181 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war started, almost all Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel won't let international news teams into Gaza.
Since the best way to check controversial and difficult stories is first hand, that means the fog of war, always hard to penetrate, is as thick as I have ever experienced in a lifetime of war reporting.
It is clear that Israel wants it to be that way. A few days into the war I was part of a convoy of journalists escorted by the army into the border communities that Hamas had attacked, while rescue workers were recovering the bodies of Israelis from smoking ruins of their homes, and Israeli paratroopers...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Not enough for the Gazans to surrender in the killing of Jews. Until that happens, Israel hasn't completed its mission. I don't know how much simpler it can be.
Has Hamas signed the Geneva Convention?
A huge crime Israel committed was the murder of our sailors on the USS Liberty while clearly flying a visible American flag back in 1967.
Bullshit.... any lecture about Israelis endangering civilians that does not include seeking the identified war criminal/terrorists BY NAME is nothing but PROPAGANDA.
If there is not some Simon Wiesenthal effort to hunt down Hamas rapist killers the way they did Nazi scum, then the whining about “innocent” Gazans is PROPAGANDA.
Journalists cant get into Gaza so how can we make an inference
What you said is both true and irrelevant.
Exactly... this war can end this afternoon. Hamas can wave the white flag, surrender and return all kidnapped Israelis this afternoon and the combat would stop.
Funny how Jerry the Fairy does not seem to waver one bit in his support of Hamas over that. In fact has no interest in how "governments" respond to that.
Do you find that interesting?
Because I find it simply fascinating!
Bullcrap.... Journalists were embedded WITH the Hamas terrorists DURING the attack.
If you can’t make an inference about the difference between Gaza filth and the Israelis... you are morally depraved.
If Gaza surrenders and lays down their arms today, and stops all resistance, the killing would come to an immediate halt.
If the Israelis did the same thing, the Gazans would kill every last one of them in a bloodbath.
ALL terrorists are civilians.
I think the gravest of war crimes is taking civilians hostage, torturing and murdering them.
And they did it to babies, they did it to kids at a dance party, they literally raped women to death which I was thankfully unaware was even possible. They raped women and murdered them during their vile act and then committed necrophilia.
The only criticism I have for the Israelis is that they aren’t using napalm and and flame throwers.
The Israelis are doing something good. They are forcing Gretta Thunberg and everyone on the ship to watch the graphic video of October 7 that Hamas filmed.
I do not accept the concept of “war crimes”.
Crimes can be committed during wars - happens all the time. Looting, rape, murder - all part of the package. That’s one of the reasons war is bad, really bad, and should be avoided when possible.
But war itself is not a crime. It’s war. And things that would be criminal in the absence of a state of war are transferred from “crime” to “war”, which are ontologically completely different things.
Calling what Israel is doing in Gaza “war crimes” just confuses the issue. The government of Israel has reached certain conclusions about their relationship with the indigenous population of Palestine that justify what they are doing.
We are certainly not ones to complain, after the conquest of the West, after Dresden, after Hiroshima. War is war, lawyers and laws have nothing to do with it. “Between armies, the laws are silent”.
Of course, if the balance of power changes and what is done in Gaza is visited on Tel Aviv, the same rules apply. The Golden Rule is seldom applied in statecraft, perhaps it should be used more often.
Pray for peace.
The Geneva Convention pertains to Uniformed Militaries of countries, not plainclothes terrorist groups.
But vaporizing Japanese babies in the blink of an eye is fine?
You're going to need an essay to tackle that.
As the UK disappears as a European country, will the BBC even be around in the “years to come?”
Funny because people have accepted that concept since the beginning of our stories about war.
Even the most primitive tribes have rules about what you can and can not do during war.
So you can "not accept" it all you want but as a human, not animal, concept it exists.
their relationship with the indigenous population of Palestine
I am sorry but the Arabs are not in any way shape or form "the indigenous population of Palestine".
Typical of anti-Israel BBC
Which was apgized for, and restitution was payed. Also done by a Socalist Laubor Government that has no more power in Israel. Now use something that isn’t 58 years ago.
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