If Israeli soldiers are employing those techniques it is despicable, and they should be punished. That won't happen unfortunately since there is no organization to hold them accountable.

Your assertion that Hamas are not employing human shields is simply unbelievable. Fighting from within buildings occupied by noncombatants is using them as shields since the presence of noncombatants will result in changes to enemy tactics. Are you going to claim that Hamas evacuates all noncombatants from every building they fight from?

Also, how close to the fighting does someone have to be to act as a shield? The lethal area for a 155mm high explosive artillery projectile is 50 meters in radius from the point of detonation. Factor in that indirect fire is not a precision form of attack, and it is understandable that noncombatants do not have to be in the immediate vicinity of combatants to act as shields. Hamas does not have to literally hide behind noncombatants to use them as shields.

Finally, shields do not have to be protecting personnel. They can be used to protect other types of potential targets. Such as weapons storage sites and tunnel entrances.

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Posted by trackfan

Baton Rouge

Member since Sep 2010

19691 posts

Posted on 9/2/14 at 9:20 am to Poodlebrain

quote:
Fighting from within buildings occupied by noncombatants is using them as shields since the presence of noncombatants will result in changes to enemy tactics. Are you going to claim that Hamas evacuates all noncombatants from every building they fight from?

According to the U.N., Hamas did use buildings that the U.N. had abandoned, but not the buildings that the U.N. employed as shelters during the war.

quote:
Also, how close to the fighting does someone have to be to act as a shield? The lethal area for a 155mm high explosive artillery projectile is 50 meters in radius from the point of detonation. Factor in that indirect fire is not a precision form of attack, and it is understandable that noncombatants do not have to be in the immediate vicinity of combatants to act as shields. Hamas does not have to literally hide behind noncombatants to use them as shields.

This is the central question. Gaza isn't Lebanon where Hezbollah has plenty of open space miles away from civilian areas to launch attacks, Gaza is the most densely populated real estate on the planet. What distance is Hamas obligated to operate away from civilian buildings? I don't know the answer, and I doubt that the Geneva Convention spells it out that clearly. Let's also look at the flipside of this question. Should Israel use non-precision weapons like artillery shells in such a densely populated area?

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Posted by Iosh

Bureau of Interstellar Immigration

Member since Dec 2012

18941 posts

Posted on 9/2/14 at 12:50 pm to Poodlebrain

quote:
Your assertion that Hamas are not employing human shields is simply unbelievable. Fighting from within buildings occupied by noncombatants is using them as shields since the presence of noncombatants will result in changes to enemy tactics.

So what? Set aside for the moment that fire from civilian buildings is feature of every modern urban guerrilla war. This still leaves open the question of whether shelling the human shields is appropriate. Britain did not shell entire apartment blocks in Belfast in response to IRA bombs and rockets. When Yuogslavia shelled civilians in Drenica while hunting down KLA irregulars, we condemned them for war crimes. The story of the Immortal Six Hundred would've been very short and boring if Maj. Gen. Foster had simply shrugged and shelled them.

Moreover, Hamas fires their rockets from extremely light, mobile frameworks that can be assembled and taken down by a team of two in a matter of minutes. Even if you accept that this is using human shields, and if you accept that shelling an apartment block is a morally permissible response, it's not going to be a very effective one. By the time the origin has been confirmed, the firing solution plotted, the calls to the residents made, and the love tap shot fired, the Hamas rocketeers have probably already ran out the door, or will be mixed in with the civilians. So what does it actually accomplish? They will find another building. The residents, if they are lucky, will lose everything except what they can carry. If they are unlucky, aged, disabled, sleep too soundly, welp

I don't dispute Hamas bears some blame by launching the rocket. But this doesn't exculpate the IDF, which chooses to react in such a morally questionable, strategically ineffective way.

This post was edited on 9/2/14 at 12:52 pm

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