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You don't seem to understand what "execution" means. Let me put it to you this way: an execution is when you intend to kill someone specific. When the government sentences someone to death and shoots them in the head behind the prison, that is an execution. When the Israeli government is trying to warn people that they're going to attack a place, Hamas refuses to evacuate them, and they die as a result, that is not an execution.
If Israel is going around, finding civilians, putting them against the wall, and shooting them in the head, that is wrong. But the Geneva Conventions are clear that simply because a military installation has civilians in it does not mean the installation is no longer a legitimate target. That's the question at hand here. Hamas has been using civilian buildings as military installations for the entire war. Therefore, Israel is justified in bringing those buildings down. One point you are constantly missing is that not only are the combatants in the building holding the civilians hostage, they are an active threat to people miles away. The longer they aren't dealt with, the worse the situation will become. If they can't go in there and clear the building floor by floor to specifically only kill the combatants - which is precisely the situation Israel is in - then they have no choices other than to bomb the place or to allow the assaults to continue. It's a lose-lose situation, but they have an obligation to their own people first and foremost. Why should Israel take the blame when Hamas is the organization that is putting weapons and personnel into a civilian building, launching assaults at them, and refusing to allow the civilians to leave?
October 7th has had a long, long history leading up to it, on both sides. This just happens to be the worst incident in a long time. It likely wouldn't be as bad as it is today if none of that had happened, or if Israel had listened to their intelligence.
Alright, I will directly answer your questions.
I agree that a leadership change is necessary. But as far as I can tell, you have offered no solutions to the problem of an active war other than "let the Jews die." If Israel gets rid of its idiotic governors and installs people who will at least listen to their intelligence reports, that's a good start, but right now they also have to contend with a genocidal government next door. While you're cleaning up inside the government, what would you do about the soldiers killing your people?
"Border security" means nothing against a foe with a tunnel system that's practically as large and developed as the surface of the country. If you'd like to bury Israeli soldiers underground waiting for Hamas to tunnel to them, I welcome you to relay that to the IDF. Yes, more civilians have died on the Palestinian side, but if Hamas would stop strapping babies to themselves to make it suddenly morally unjustifiable to shoot back, then those deaths wouldn't have happened.
Now, since I've answered your questions, I'd like to ask you some as well.
(Comment 1 of 2)
It's critical we work through this because I see no discernible difference between:
Accepting that executing 3-4 civilians for every 1 Hamas target is okay (which is the ongoing trend).
And leveling a building knowing civilians are inside to eliminate an alleged Hamas target. (again at a 3-4:1 ratio).
Fundamentally zero difference. If you're justifying the latter but not the former, then I highly encourage you to truly reflect on this for a little longer, for this is the heart of what I see is your cognitive dissonance. (a) In both instances, there is a willingness to execute civilians — whether that's pulling the trigger behind their heads, or releasing the payload of a large bomb from above them. Either way, the calculus was made that their lives are worth trading. The only thing that changes is how visceral and close the action is. The calculation was always there (and further below I'll respond to your other point with a source to provide evidence of this).
So to be clear: You're okay with plausible deniability behind them claiming they're NOT going out of their way to kill civilians, but are rather being so reckless that they are killing civilians in great droves either way? That is, if the number of civilian deaths incurred remained the same, but instead of them going, "oops we dropped a JDAM sorry we tried!" they went, "yeah we're going to kill as many as we feel like" — the former is perfectly A-Okay to you, but the latter is not... Even though the amount of actual innocent human suffering remains identical? It's merely whether the murderer tried is how you distinguish good from evil?
Per AP and Reuters in corroboration with the UN and WHO — historically, the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers have been quite reliable. But why can't you put a precise number?
Will they? We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Pretty sure you're putting the cart before the horse, considering, you know that would necessitate them to find a way over the border and iron dome that I originally provided as the easy solution to this problem. At this rate, it seems far more likely that Israel is going to commit genocide on Palestinians than the other way around, don't you think? All the while claiming to be the good guys.
Is every measure being taken? Because it doesn't seem that way. After all as I've pointed out they've killed Humanitarian aid convoys, bombed refugee camps, killed their own hostages no less. In fact, it's the worst conflict in history for humanitarian aid workers and that's largely due to Israel. Forget the contradictory information for where the civilians are supposed to go, the miscommunication breakdown and the unfeasible logistics of moving people who are on the brink of famine and under disease to move from one side to another — all the while humanitarian aid is restricted in the first place.
I mean much of the world is beginning to turn against Israel. At its core, Bibi is a far right wing nationalist little different than the neoconservative far-right nationalist Bush administration who invaded Iraq and little different than the far-right nationalist government of Putin. Ultimately, this is an exploitable crisis for (what went ignored in your post) Bibi to escape active criminal charges as he maintains immunity in his position of power. You seem intelligent but I'm astonished that you cannot see this.
I mean why not? Since you seem to believe that ends justify the means and that you're unwilling to commit to a ratio of civilians to Hamas target deaths, why not just be done with it? Evidently there IS some point in your mind that you seem to begin to question the morality and I wonder why bombing mosques and apartment buildings and so forth with an alleged (albeit rarely proven) Hamas target inside, all the while people like the father who loses his wife and 3-day-old newborn twins as he's registering their births must suffer — is okay. But after all, like you said using your logic, isn't nuking Gaza simply an extension of the same logic you're already using for their blatantly indiscriminate use of large bombs in densely-populated areas with obvious civilian casualties worse than any recent conflict, including what Putin is doing in Ukraine? After all, can't your conscience be assuaged by your own logic in saying, "Hey, the nuke was necessary; after all, Israel wasn't going out of their way to target civilians; rather Gaza was simply a collective human shield for Hamas that we simply could not ignore!" Herein lies another instance of what I view as cognitive dissonance in your defense of Israel's alleged war crimes (as per the ICC who also has charges against Sinwar and Putin for the record).
Yeah... About that. Here IDF whistle-blowers (multiple) report specific targeting of civilian infrastructure and ignoring collateral damage asessments.
When have Jews or Israel been under any sort of threat like that that isn't profoundly exacerbated by the actions of Netanyahu as of recent? What I mean is that now you've only fueled the fire of Lebanon and Iran and created the next generation of pawns to do their bidding. You've only sowed the seeds of resentment; and congratulations, you destroyed civilian infrastructure... That does nothing in terms of permitting Hamas to regroup. It just ensures that civilians are radicalized in greater numbers. Remember, we Americans tried this in Afghanistan and Iraq only to let Taliban take over and ISIS to come out of Al Qaeda. You should learn from the mistakes of Americans that this is utterly failed strategy, not to mention your extremely low value for the alleged human shields that Hamas is using (though in fairness, Bibi has shown he doesn't even care about the Israeli hostages all that much either).
That's quite not happening when they're bombing these densely-populated buildings, though. Hamas bullets cannot reach Israel from Gaza; their rockets can be shot down as they routinely are. This is falsely analogous.
Nobody said anything about, "Let jews die." I simply said, "1) Listen to your intelligence reports 2) Secure your 25-mile border, and 3) Double your Iron Dome defense system. 4) Ditch the far-right war criminal leader and put someone competent who knows how to actually negotiate in good fait. Doing this, another October 7th is quite likely impossible.
Hamas didn't attack by tunnels. There are also incredibly easy methods of detecting underground tunnel networks via sonar systems that are already employed around the world. I'm giving you real, functional solutions to problems that don't even exist yet. Israel is resourceful; they could certainly do this.
Who put those soldiers on the front-line in a situation where that was a risk of that occurring? Who sent those IDF soldiers to attempt a high risk operation where it was obviously a risk that Hamas would execute hostages? Who chose to do that instead of agree to the ceasefire brokered by other middle east nations and the US? The buck stops with Bibi as leader, and I frankly find it wild that you're trying to deflect responsibility.
This one could've been. We'll never know.
Places with no radicalization are places who have agency, prosperity, and space to breath and prosper in the manner of their choosing. Gaza under routine territorial annexation, sieges has never had this. Israel hasn't even been able to support a 2 state solution, after all.
If you think there is any cognitive dissonance here, you're wrong. My position is simply that Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself from Hamas. That doesn't mean they get to kill people willy-nilly, that would make them no different from Hamas. You don't seem to understand that. If Hamas wants to limit civilian casualties in the war that they started, they're more than free to either stop putting soldiers and materiel in hospitals and schools, or simply surrender. This crisis is self-manufactured.
And again, you are misunderstanding what an execution is. If Israel actually was on a genocidal rampage (like Hamas wants to do), then Gaza would have been nothing but a bloodstain months ago. There would have been zero humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. You stated in an answer to one of my questions that it would be acceptable for Ukraine to fire at soldiers who are using civilians as human shields as long as the goal wasn't to kill those civilians. And I would agree. Ukraine has as much a right to exist and defend itself from Russia as Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from Hamas. But when it comes to the situation in Gaza, you suddenly change your mind. The situation is the same - there's a ratio of 3-4:1 civilians to Hamas soldiers killed - but the main difference is where it's happening. Yes, it's tragic every time a civilian dies. I agree with you wholeheartedly there. But that doesn't mean throwing them up like a smokescreen makes Hamas immune to return fire in the war that they started.
No, actually, I am not okay with governments lying about their motives for a war. That's one reason I despise Russia. But again, if Israel's goal was to simply wipe out the Gaza strip, everyone there would have been turned to paste months ago. Israel is suspected to have nukes, after all. Instead, they have been warning people ahead of their strikes, and those people died because Hamas refused to evacuate them so they could use them as propaganda pawns in the war that they started.
(Comment 2 of 2)
Empathy can be useful even to put yourself in the shoes of the wicked. I'll be honest: If I put myself in the shoes of a desperate Gazan whose children and wife were blown up by an Israeli air strike, I wouldn't just think, "Hamas did this!" I would say, "I thought Israel were the good guys and yet look how little they value the lives of us body shields?" At which point in my grief and blind revenge I would join the movement to seek revenge — especially if I'm of limited economic opportunity (what job is there now that Gaza is in ruins?) and of low education. The Taliban fought a war from caves against a force far exceeding Israel and ultimately won. Just as the Vietcong ultimately did. For Israel, this is their Vietnam; this is their Vietcong. Now, strategically, if you were tasked with being the David against the Goliath that is the IDF and you were severely out-gunned, it simply would not be wise strategy to sit in the open against someone who has precision-targeted air force. Knowing your enemy and knowing that Israel holds itself to a moral standard of not harming civilians, I too would probably hide among the civilians. What I would NOT expect is that my opponent who holds the moral high-ground would suddenly decide that killing as many civilians as it takes is 100% okay. Perhaps there was a miscalculation, but then I'd also just go and huddle in my tunnels as the civilians incur the majority of damage above. Does it really impact anything for terrorists who can simply recruit a new army from the surviving orphans, get new weapons from Iran and Lebanon, and have the next leader take its place no different than what happens with the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda? 20 years of failed US interventionism as a stronger fighting force no less suggests a resounding No.
Let me give you a hypothetical. Just suppose you're wrong and Bibi is doing this solely to remain in power. Suppose he knows that this won't eliminate terrorism but only exacerbate it but doesn't care. Suppose he and his cronies want to annex new beachfront property and as Naomi Klein spells out in The Shock Doctrine and to paraphrase Milton Friedman that a crisis is a great opportunity for profit — consider that at least my methodology permits outsiders to immediately protect innocent civilians no matter where they are or whether they're victims of offense or victims of a defensive maneuver. Surely you're aware that perception is reality and that many in Russia wrongly believe just as Hamas that they are doing the right thing. That in fact they are the oppressed by NATO, by Nazis, by creeping Jewish annexation shoving them into tighter and tighter slums. After all, so goes the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So naturally, heinous crimes against civilians are justified everywhere under false pretenses that it is actually THEY who are on the defense and retaliating for an arbitrary act of the opposition from their perspective of reality. At least with my approach, we can cut through the bullshit of "he started, they started it; I'm justified/they're justified" and just go straight to the quantifiable reality: "Who is actively inflicting more pain and suffering at this present moment on innocent people?" And that is, at this moment, 100% Israel. Keep in mind that when October 7th happened while I was no fan of Netanyahu's actions and stoking the flames of day-in-day-out suffering of Palestinians, I was still in Israel's corner and felt sorry for the civilian lives lost. Do you see how my allegiance isn't to nationalism but rather humanism? And in maintaining such optics, you're able to in the moment identify the key threat to innocent loss of life independent of alleged justification that is often in the eye of the beholder.
So could the crisis for innocent civilians end if Hamas surrenders? Possibly, yes. But that necessitates expecting the terrorists to do what Israel themselves as the "good guys" have been unable to do—practice reasonable restraint. You and I both don't expect Hamas to do the "right" thing; but we do expect the "good guys" who supposedly hold themselves to a higher moral standard than that of a terrorist organization to do the right thing in valuing innocent human life. Yet actions speak louder than words and we care not what excuse a murderer has when they kill an innocent child; only that they did.
Ultimately I don't believe you can excuse the civilian death toll incurred by Israel by exclaiming, "The murdering of innocent civilians will stop when the murdering terrorists suddenly value innocent human lives like we supposedly do!" That doesn't make sense, again, is a race to the bottom where only the civilians will suffer.
You mention that you'd have no problem with an independent group investigating Israel for their actions, and that is exactly what is happening at the ICC. Bibi shares crimes against humanity charges alongside Sinwar and Putin. (Keep in mind that Jack Smith who worked at the ICC to prosecute war lords is now the lead prosecutor against Trump right now).