Israel ‘hit squad’ kills three in West Bank hospital operation
Israel ‘hit squad’ kills three in West Bank hospital operation
Hospital says the men were ‘assassinated’. Israel says they belonged to a Hamas ‘terrorist cell’.
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This post and multiple comments are being reported, so I'm making a top post to be 100% clear on this:
The facts of the issue are not in dispute. Israel did send an undercover team into a hospital to assassinate legitimate military targets. They admit to it and we have surveilance camera footage confirming it.
Problem #1 - Patients in hospitals, either ill or injured, are a protected class under the Geneva Conventions. You cannot run an assassination operation in a hospital, that's a war crime. Even if the targets are legitimately bad people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_neutrality
"The First Geneva Convention states that there should be no “obstacle to the humanitarian activities” and that wounded and sick “shall be respected and protected in all circumstances.”[4]
Article 18 demands that medical units, i.e. hospitals and mobile medical facilities, may in no circumstances be attacked.[5]
Problem #2 - Dressing as civilians, doctors, and women to engage in a military operation is is SEPARATE war crime called "perfidy".
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule65?country=us#sectioni
"(4) One may commit an act of treachery or perfidy by, for example, feigning an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or a surrender or feigning incapacitation by wounds or sickness or feigning a civilian, non-combatant status or feigning a protected status by the use of signs, emblems, or uniforms of the United Nations or a neutral State or a State not party to the conflict."
Not to mention only one of three killed was even associated with Hamas.
One with Hamas, the two others with Islamic Jihad. So yes, that makes three terrorists.
Two terrorists, one combatant. Unless I missed something Hamas is not a designated terrorist organization.
Hamas is not a designated terrorist organization
It is:
- US: https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/
- EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32024D0332 (see also https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/jha/138098.pdf )
- UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version
- Australia: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-17/hamas-palestinian-listed-as-terrorist-group-australia-government/100839262
- Argentina: https://frenteacano-com-ar.translate.goog/el-gobierno-argentino-incluira-al-grupo-hamas-en-la-lista-de-organizaciones-terroristas/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp (Google Translate link)
In that case I stand corrected
No you are not. OC conveniently left out UNSC, which does not designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. The strongest there is in the list is perhaps the list of the EU, but even that one is perhaps not impartial and rather beholden to its memberstates geopolitical interests tied to Israel.
With the veto powers I consider the UN security council impotent and a puppet - my guess is Russia vetoed any security council resolutions on this one. Ill take Australia and the EU voice any day.
Remove vetoed powers and ill consider them representing us correctly.
I dare him to send some money to Hamas accounts and see whether his position that Hamas "isn't a designated terrorist entity" still stands
Be funnier if they pulled a sovcit and sent a coupon
Hamas isn't a terrorist organization? What the fuck are you smoking?
They bombed entire hospitals and the world community didn't bat an eye, so they thought that the Geneva convention doesn't apply to them
Thanks for adding that. I'm not sure that I feel the first point applies here (I can see that people might argue otherwise) but the second point seems like a slam dunk.
The second point applies to both - a combatant also entered as a civilian and received aid pretending to be a civilian.
One doesn't justify the other - the way i could legitimize it is by saying the hot squad dropped their disguise before engaging... like sending their own flag up the pole. Would need to review prior to saying if it was correct or not.
The arguement against the first section is that those protections apply to civilians and non combatants - conviently left out of their statement. The (pretty solid IMO) arguement is that combatants do not fall under this protection, and terrorists never do, abd these were still designated combatants including possibly carrying arms and planning ops. The room also looks oddly cleaned for three dead people including at least one head shot.
Patients in hospitals, either ill or injured, are a protected class under the Geneva Conventions.
Again, not a clear-cut issue. You cannot extrapolate a few lines from the Geneva Convention with your own definitions of what constitutes a "patient". So again, since this misinformation is being repeated, I find it only fair to quote a few passages on why that is, at least, debatable and why it is still indeed very important to add that the 3 killed were terrorists, were carrying guns and were planning a terrorist attack.
The Geneva Convention provides guidelines for the medical treatment of enemy wounded and sick, as well as prisoners of war. However, there are no comparable provisions for the treatment of terrorists, who can be termed unlawful combatants or unprivileged belligerents.
(there wouldn't be an article about it if it was an obvious question: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19998085/ , you should contact that journal and ask them to retract that article since you seem to say that they're wrong)
Qualifying as wounded or sick in the context of international humanitarian law requires the fulfilment of two cumulative criteria: a person must require medical care and must refrain from any act of hostility. In other words the legal status of being wounded or sick is based on a person’s medical condition and conduct.
(https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/article-12/commentary/2016 )
Being an active terrorist member of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, carrying at least one gun, planning a terrorist attack, and very likely committing perfidy by hiding as civilian patients in a hospital, all of that is certainly NOT "refraining from any act of hostility". You're free to consider the more general moral debate on whether it's okay to assassinate terrorists hiding in a hospital, but it's wrong and misleading to make the Geneva Convention say what it clearly doesn't say at all.
What would have clearly defended the terrorists' right to care would have been if they surrendered and left Hamas. But in the absence of that, it's, at best, still debatable whether the First Geneva Convention defends those terrorists' right to hide as civilians in a hospital to "receive care" or not.
With all this said, yes, it is very much indeed misinformation to maliciously leave out the fact that the 3 killed were Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
"shall be respected and protected in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES". This absolutely is a clear cut issue.
If you had the full section, yes.
You missed the part where a patient refrains from all acts of hostility (Hamas one wasnt), and terrorists don't qualify at patients (two jihadists). Otherwise i could break a leg, admit myself to hospital and be free to plan and act upon anything I wanted.
Those who fall under the protection are protected in all situations. Active combatants and terrorists don't fall under the protection of the convention.
It's not when they themselves require "the fulfilment of two cumulative criteria: a person must require medical care and must refrain from any act of hostility".
Again, since you're fully confident in this, go ask the journal to retract the article I linked to. Show them how they should read the Geneva Convention, that it "shouldn't be a debate" and that it shouldn't even require an article.
Again, they were in hospital beds, they were NOT engaging in hostility.
Being in a hospital bed doesn't make you a non combatant - like other poster said, it's also what you are doing from that bed.
CNN just stated that according to the hospital, he was sleeping when he was killed.
In the nicest way possible- irrelevant. Doesnt matter if you were awake any more than falling asleep on watch.
I admit to a certain personal bias having just spent 4 days in 2 hospitals, it's hard to be planing military action when you have tubes running in and out.
This guy was apparently recovering from shrapnel injuries. He wasn't actively being a threat to anyone.
(caution - GRAPHIC photos)
"Niji Nazzal, the hospital's medical director, told Reuters the three were executed as they slept, shot in the head with silenced pistols in the room where they were being treated."
"Hospital sources said one of the three, Basel Al-Ghazzawi, had been paralysed when he was wounded by shrapnel during a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in October, and was in a wheelchair."
Yes, it would be difficult with tubes running out of you - but not every hospital visit requires that.
This would be a much clearer issue if we had security footage of the exact moment they were killed, what was in the room, and what reaction each had. Unfortunately what we have looks like a sterilized room (evidence, not germ) and general statements that aren't lining up - little blood stains for three people killed by gunfire, nothing in the room except shoes (no bags, clothes, medical equipment apart from the bed including the supposed wheelchair he was in or supposed firearms), and shot by silenced pistols when the team went in with assault rifles?
I mean, at the end of the day we probably won't get the full story, thats up to international courts. But fuck there's alot of misinformation and blatant incorrect statements.
Oh, and sorry to hear about your hospital stay - hope you aren't in a user pays system.
go ask the journal to retract the article I linked to
Classic bullshit demand.
Oh look - links to the act, information provided in a clear and balanced way, and discussed without insults and posturing is downvoted to shit yet buh, warcrime is pushed to the top. Me thinks there is a bias.
is downvoted to shit
You should take those counts with a grain of salt, and they shouldn't mean anything in principle since we have no Karma here. I caught someone making two accounts just yesterday to downvote everything on my profile. Lemmy has a clear vote manipulation problem and some are clearly weaponizing it to try to hide some stories from those who filter by "Hot", like for instance this story which literally got censored by the bot downvotes: https://lemmy.world/post/10789603
I know it means nothing as both there is no karma and they are worthless, but misinformation and lies still carry weight based on what people believe others think.
If we want a community where facts and evidence are supported we need to be supportive of those that provide facts and skeptical of those that throw out emotive language and half truths.