The state of the discourse.

Killing a building full of women and children to go after a group of people who may or may not be in said building after they killed women and children...

Two unscrupulous groups are willing to murder innocent civilians. Sounds like two groups of terrorists.

Fuck Hammas, fuck the IDF. I'm absolutely fine with them killing each other. I'm not okay with the fact that they're both using innocent civilians as pawns.

The difference being the IDF has consistently gone to pretty significant lengths to warn civilians and give them time to evacuate. Hamas has not and in fact specifically targets civilians. These groups are not the same.
- The difference being the IDF has consistently gone to pretty significant lengths to warn civilians and give them time to evacuate.
  True, but then to bombard from the air destroying whole buildings and killing many civilians to get to a few combatants under the building is not an ethical or moral move either. You don't get a get out of jail free card for notifying up front, you have to follow through.
  Telling someone to evacuate is not enough, you have to verify they have evacuated. If they have not, you should be instead sending in ground troops, and yes with a larger cost in lives and political turmoil, but that is the ethical way.
  Non-combatants are not supposed to be involved in combat.
- Bullshit. There's evidence of some warnings but with literally thousands of air strikes a week there literally isn't the resources to warn everyone like they did during the "cease fire". And you don't get 10,000 civilians dead in a month by warning them.
  
  Last I saw Hamas wasn't troubling themselves with giving ANY warnings. I'd say some>none. Where is the moral equivalence you so desperately want?
  
  It doesn't matter how much you warn them if there's no military presence. The warnings they do give are nothing but a fig leaf to cover up war crimes
- Hamas supporters hate this one trick!
That's a point of view I am willing to accept

He said, believing the IOF, who has killed Palestinians with absolute impunity, and lying through the teeth about it

Don't forget the hasbara bots upvoting him!
Huh?
What would convince you? Based on what I can glean from various sources, it seems at least likely that the claim is true. I also don't see what incentive the Israelis have to lie about it.
- While it does seem plausible. You don't see what incentive the Israelis have to lie about it? Really?
  
  Well think about it for a moment. What I mean is that they already know that they will be accused of lying regardless, so why bother "fabricating" an ambiguous account when they could just as easily lie and claim that they found a giant Hamas command center?
  In other words, they have no incentive to lie about the attack having achieved ambiguous results unless they are actually telling the truth. If you are going to lie, and if you know you won't be believed regardless, why not go whole hog?
  Again, they have no incentive to half-ass it unless they're simply stating the truth.
  
  If they don't have something believable then the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement will cut off their Western support and see them on trial in the Hague.
  Getting the lie right or persuading the world they really really did believe this has literal existential consequences for the politicians and generals.
  
  Historians call that the Criterion of Embarrassment.
- Sure where is the evidence of all those tunnels? Get outta here IDF shill.
  
  It's under all the rubble, just like the Intel on where the hostages are. 🙄
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/idf-israel-army-footage-claims-hamas-tunnel-al-shifa-hospital-gaza
  
  OMG Guys a large hospital has maintenance tunnels!
  Until they release the drone footage of a command center down there it's just infrastructure they're making shit up about.

Has there even been any evidence of that?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-has-clear-information-linking-shifa-hospital-to-hamas-held-hostages/
- Yea there’s no consensus that the ‘evidence’ produced is reliable. At first IDF showed the hatch to a water cistern and said it was the hatch to the network of tunnels. This new photo could just be a hole in the ground. The tour through the MRI room and truck loaded with weapons could be easily planted. Independent investigations like Forensic Architecture have found discrepancies and raised questions over the legitimacy of IDFs claims. Al Jazeera has reported that IDF had misreported facts to build a narrative.
  US intelligence agrees that Hamas was operating out of the hospital, but there not much else backing up these claims right now.
  **edited to remove a bad source
  
  "Cobb-Smith has joined with the most politicized anti-Israel NGOs in pushing false or unsubstantiated accusations of Israeli violations of the laws of war [...] In particular, he circulated false claims (“there was no tactical reason; there was no reasonable use of that weapon system”) as well as claims (later discredited) that the IDF used white phosphorous “in an illegal manner.” Similarly, he has been involved with the campaigns of the anti-Israel NGO known as Forensic Architecture.
  Oh okey, I understand better what you mean by "not much to back those claims"
  
  I did some quick searches on him and saw he was with amnesty international. This didn’t come up for me. I’ll remove him as a reference. Appreciate the insight to him.
  
  They pulled that from a site called NGO-Monitor. It's a right wing Israeli outlet that exists specifically to dismiss claims from international NGOs. It's about as credible as the government itself denying it committed crimes.
  
  Eh, either way, discrediting him doesn’t discredit my argument.
  
  Except there's very credible evidence Israel uses WP illegally. There's literally photos of it available online. Is that the IDF calling him biased or what?
  
  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ngo-monitor-bias/
  Overall, we rate the NGO Monitor Right biased based on support for the right-wing Israeli government. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting based on the consistent promotion of pro-Israeli propaganda
- "IDF says..."
  Of course. What reason would they have to lie? /s
  Maybe we should wait until there's been a more neutral investigation before deciding it's one hundred percent true.
  What I never understand about major news stories is that so many people take everything they see at face value and then consider it indisputable fact. When there's an international war going on, no one thinks that just maybe we're only getting a fraction of reality communicated to us? That it must be the worst game of telephone in terms of accuracy? But then if someone even suggests that maybe there's more to the story, they're conspiracy theorists or they get told what "side" they're on.
  We should all be at least somewhat discerning. There's so many different actors with interests in this war. We have no idea what else could be going on that we will never, ever hear about, nor how much spin is being put on the stuff we do hear about.
  
  Do you really think only you had this thought? Don't you think this is exactly what I think about your opinions? And telling this in my face literally does nothing because I am just as convinced that you gobble up Al-Jazeera/Hamas propaganda as, supposedly, I am gobbling up Israeli propaganda?
  Come down to Earth buddy
  
  You are wildly bad faith all over the comments, wow.
  You went too "down to earth" and need to pull your head outta sand or whatever dark hole you have it shoved into.
  
  If you consider logical implications "a bad faith" we have nothing to talk about
  
  If you consider putting words in peoples mouths and strawmanning their positions “a good faith” we have nothing to talk about.
- I mean independently verified. The idf has a history of lying and some of the stuff mentioned in that article has already been disproven.
  
  What's your explanation for the video in the article? AI-generated? Doctor's fire exit? Aliens?
  
  Wow, a tunnel near a hospital. There's tunnels under my university too. Should the idf siege it?What I'm asking for is clear evidence that Hamas was using the hospital as a command center. I still haven't seen any of that.
  
  Oh yup gotcha. i am stopping here, calling my buddies in Hamas for confirmation
  
  Go ahead. Maybe release another phone convo between Hamas militant one and Hamas militant 2?
  
  Truly unbelievable!! They finally confirmed
  
  Perhaps get them to send you their hostage watching schedule / calendar that the IDF was showing off as evidence too. Or the the mysteriously multiplying guns and "one take" "no editing" english video that has edits in it...

Putting aside the lack of evidence of this, and the Israeli government's history of being caught lying about this kind of thing, how many civilians is it defensible to kill per Hamas militant, and does the calculus change if they're children?

...or are we taking the super credible IDF line and saying the infants are Hamas militants?

Putting aside existing evidence for it
There isn't a specific count. Just like there is no count for "how many Russian civilians has to die for each Ukrainian soldier". Israel didn't ask this war, Hamas did. Hamas is in charge of Gaza, not Israel.
- You understand that the Israeli government funded Hamas over the PLO, don't you? Netanyahu signed the death warrant on his own citizens to create the pretext for the genocide he's now accelerating - Netanyahu and the Israeli government did ask for this war.
  
  Okey that is a valid argument! Second one in a dozen of comments or so
  Yes i know this mofo funded hamas and hope he ll pay for it. However, the attack on 7 October happened on Israeli territory, not the opposite. That's still a "defensive operation" in my understanding.
  
  I really don't like this argument (defensive genocide? Come on.), but it's one for Palestine in any case - look at the Israeli operation of Palestine as an open air concentration camp, and look at the casualty stats - between a dozen and five hundred Palestinian casualties per Israeli casualty, depending on your datasource and the way you slice it. This would justify the 7 October attack as defensive - which they weren't.
  Again, if you combine all that with the fact what Israel have backed the IDF, and the fact that Israel are a nuclear power with an advanced military, and f35s (compared to a paraglider and small-arms) how do you conclude that this is defensive?
  
  I reject your second argument: the fact that one army is light years ahead of their opponent does not automatically make «offensive» whatever they do, nor does it mean that the advanced army should not fight at all. Good for them to be advanced
  Regarding your first point, and the fact that there are so many civil victims for so «few» Israeli victims: agreed there are many. With some gotchas:
  a non zero number of those civilians are only «civilians» because Hamas said so. It is a known fact they count their own fighters as «civilians». I do not deny that there are indeed, true civil victims. Israel has a record of letting people know where they attack in advance, so they do have some good will credit.
  When you have a terrorist nest, next to your house, I think it's pretty sensible to go in, and reduce their capacity to do harm. Most comments here reject even the fact that Israel had a right in first place to even enter the Gaza. I do believe they have total right to do so.
  a genocide is a deliberate killing of civilians. Only Hamas deliberately targets civilians. IDF obviously could take more care in avoiding unnecessary death, but they don't kill for fun as much as I know
  It strikes to me that not as much pressure is put on Hamas for taking care of their citizen as it is on Israel. Hamas is ruling there, maybe Gaza's citizens should somehow be involved in solving their problems?
  I am not here to justify every death of every kid in Gaza, but I do say that Israel was provoked, and we are in «find out» phase of «fuck around», and yes, I reject the notion of «genocide»
  
  a genocide is a deliberate killing of civilians. Only Hamas deliberately targets civilians. IDF obviously could take more care in avoiding unnecessary death, but they don’t kill for fun as much as I know
  Genocide is any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
  
  (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
  Sure seems like Israel is trying to get a full bingo card on this one even if you reject the notion of «genocide».
  And before you go for the "intent" get out of jail free card...
  Israel's Public Diplomacy Minister: "Erase all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence & try to enter Egyptian territory or they will die & their death will be evil.
  Gaza should be erased!"
  Still questioning a genocidal intent?
  How about Bibi Netanyahu saying “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’," .
  Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called residents of Gaza, about half of whom are children, "human animals" as he ordered a "complete siege" on the enclave including a total blockade of food, fuel, and electricity.
  Former military officer Eliyahu Yossian said the IDF must enter Gaza "with the aim of revenge, zero morality, maximum corpses," and toldChannel 14 in Israel on Monday that "there is no population in Gaza, there are 2.5 million terrorists."
  Earlier this year, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at an event in Paris, "There's no such thing as Palestinians because there's no such thing as a Palestinian people." He also said the West Bank town of Huwara should be "wiped out" by "the state of Israel," while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map of what he called "The New Middle East"—without the illegally occupied West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem—at the United Nations General Assembly just weeks before the onslaught in Gaza began.
  Sure seems like a pattern of intent. I could find you that video of Bibi back in 2002 saying much the same if you like. This isn't new.
  
  up to 2005 UN, EU, America, Russia, Israel and a host of middle east intermediates like Qatar: provide aid to Gaza to encourage economic growth, is inevitably siphoned off by Hamas and others for military purposes
  2006: UN, EU, America, Russia, Israel: "dear Hamas totes congrats on winning an election, wonder if you could abandon your pledge to genocide Israel and pick up the two state solution discussions where Fatah got up to? Else..y'know.. we'll have to cut aid and stuff coz that's a bit terroristy"
  Hamas: "Fuck you infidel! We look forward to strangling your children in their bed" incoherent yelling
  UN, EU, America, Russia: deep sigh
  Israel: cuts aid, blockades Gaza
  Egypt: also blockades Gaza Yo you Hamas bois are batshit insane, no way we're having an open border with you "Muslim brothers"...
  Western social science students: why would Israel do this?
  
  I'll keep this simple.
  You have a bunch of genocidal dipshits welding small arms embedded in a civilian population, propped up by a genocidal nuclear power with a modern military and F-35s.
  Which has the ability to deliver on that genocidal intent, and has been wiping out the other at a rate of between a dozen and five hundred to one over the past few decades?
  Why did Israel prop up Hamas over the moderate, secular PLO, who wouldn't murder Israelis?
  
  It's interesting how this leaves out 17 years of choking supplies of food and water to the civilian population of Gaza, the Israeli occupation and settlements in Gaza prior to 2005, the fact that that illegal occupation had been ongoing for 38 years despite international outcry, the naval blockade amounting to an act of war of its own, and really the whole broader context of the population of Gaza being displaced by ethnic cleansing by Israel since 1948.
- I must have missed the part of the Geneva Conventions that says, "unless they started it."
  Oh wait, no I didn't. Because it's not fucking there.
- Oppression breeds war.
  
  a vacuous truth.
  
  Why would you defend the maintenance of an open air concentration to house millions of children (among others)?
Israel at least has a government and a democracy, and the government even has been somewhat honest with the NSO group and their crappy spyware tools - though I'm not sure why any of this needs to involve bombing hospitals or why "a functional democracy" has to be defended with such fervour, but hey at least we can hold onto the hope that democracy itself will mean that there will be a degree of accountability for those in power
- A government with officials who openly admit to wanting to eradicate what's left of the Palestinians.

Tactical placement and all haha

We need a hell of a lot more evidence to support that than we've seen, it would still run into major problems with proportionality/distinction standards regarding all the civilians they killed in and around the hospital, and it wouldn't make a scratch with regard to the other civilian infrastructure they've targeted.

So then when terrorists use human shields, which in this case include literal babies, it's okay to ignore the human shields and just indiscriminately attack?

I didn't say "it was okey". I said i do understand why that happens. I am also saying Israel takes some steps to limit the number of civil victims, while Hamas takes none
- Hamas has a different agenda. It's an asymmetrical conflict. The intention of Hamas and Hezbollah is to provoke Israel into a genocide. Hiding among the trees to incite Netanyahu to burn down the forest.
  They want nothing more then to get on video Israeli forces massacring thousands of Palestinian civilians.
  So for Hamas, it's Christmas.
  
  The goal of Hamas is not to provoke isreal into a genocide, it's to make people think israel is committing a genocide. It's definitely working.
  
  Do you think what is happening is something different?
  
  What was the correct response, according to you?
  
  Not bombing a hospital.
  I'm not an expert. So I'd defer to Lt. General James Glynn, survivor of Fallujah on how to approach the situation in Gaza.
  I'd also refer to centuries of counter-insurgency that notes that massacring civilians only drives more recruits to the enemy cause, often recruits who are willing to engage in suicide missions.
  Even leaving the hospital intact and doing nothing was a better option, and in fact, Israel is not fighting a war of desperation, and can actually afford to approach violence with deliberation and consideration.
  The reason Netanyahu is behaving like Trump or George W. Bush is because he likes the idea of rushing in with stormtroopers and crushing the enemy, not because it's actually a good idea. And that's why Hezbollah provoked him in the first place.
  
  I am not a fan of Netanyahu/Trump/Bush neither, however you only described what not to do.
  I am still convinced that taking out Hamas out of Gaza is the viable long term solution. I don't know about the hospital, and believe IDF knows better than me
  
  Actually I said doing nothing would be better than what they did so that is, compared to bombing a hospital, a viable alternative.
  Getting Hamas out of Gaza is going to be like getting white supremacists out of the US. It's virtually impossible, but when the hearts and minds of the public are not pissed off due to poor governance, they can be reduced to a fringe group.
  So if Israel stopped its thousand-year religious resentment plan, provided relief and then promoted equal treatment of the Palestinian public (installed enforcement of civil rights) that would do a tuckfun to reduce the significance of Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist groups Iran or Russia might throw into the mix.
  But this requires the right-wing identity groups in Israel giving up their ethnostate and modernizing their attitude — what is a challenge even for the EU and US (though the US stopped trying over a century ago).
  So I'm going to watch Israel bath Gaza in the blood of Palistianians and make the rest of the world sick to their stomachs, and we'll all promise, yet again, never to let this happen, to never forget.
  See, the consequences of Israel jackbooting like every other imperialist is built into the paradigm. Sadly it'll also add fuel to the antisemitic fires already igniting across the world. The thing is, Netanyahu and the IDF have bought the ticket to ride, as if no lives they cared about were actually in the balance.
  
  Alright, you do have sensible arguments. I based my opinion on the fact that Hamas could be taken down, just like ISIS was. I don't have a crystal ball telling me if that gonna succeed, as it did with ISIS, or not.
  Congratulations you seeded a grain of a doubt in the mind of a Random Internet Stranger, this might as well be counted as victory.
  
  The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, curiously, is still around and still has its labor camps. It's just doesn't have any support (that I've heard for a while) from international interests, and no-one want to touch it. So yeah, this is an end result that can occur.
  The point is not to win over random internet strangers, but to get as many people as possible at the same place in the dialog. Providing support and fair governance to a people to quell unrest is a centuries old COIN method. When we have the resources (in the case of Gaza, we have some that would absolutely help) the question is what the obstructions are getting them to the people so they can breathe easier. That usually comes down to political interests who want them to suffer for spite (we saw that with the George W. Bush administration and anything that looked remotely Arab or Muslim) and those who want them to be angry and violent. Sometimes there's intersection between these.
  Right now, here in the States, hate is deliberately being used to manipulate voters, and at the same time I think we can't really call ourselves a unified society unless we're at least trying to cooperate towards mutual benefit. And this informs my own bias.
First of all, you're either ignorant or an idiot if you think what Israel is doing is "indiscriminate".
More importantly, what's your superior moral alternative when a force breaches borders, murders hundreds, and takes and holds hundreds more as hostages, and then retreats to the cover of hospitals and schools in a dense city?
- Does that force come from a people who've been deprived of everything, forced into a system of apartheid, robbed of their freedom and routinely bullied, tortured and killed for half a century?
  That seems to be an important factor to just leave out of the equation.
  "Pick up the gun.." - Bill Hicks
  
  No. Obviously? And it's irrelevant. There's no symmetry here.
  If Hamas puts down their guns there would be peace.
  If Israel puts down there guns there would be no Israel.
  
  Only a Hasbara clown or a complete idiot would utter such stupidity, congrats.
- More importantly, what's your superior moral alternative when a force breaches borders, murders hundreds, and takes and holds hundreds more as hostages, and then retreats to the cover of hospitals and schools in a dense city?
  Let's do a little thought experiment here. Say that everything happened exactly as before except this time they retreated and hid inside Israeli hospitals and schools, on the Israeli side of the border, full of Israeli citizens. Do you think Israel would attack those terrorists in the same way?
  
  Probably not, because those would be THEIR hospitals. There would be no tunnel system, no munitions stores, etc etc.
  Your "gotcha" thought experiment is asking whether or not a country should treat the enemy country with equal caution to their own. Did you even consider it before asking it?