This is what happens in a world where people no longer even trust "universal" gestures of surrender like white flag - because people use that symbol as a ruse.
Aye there's a reason why Geneva conventions and standard rules of engagement have warships fight under their own country's flag and their soldiers fight in their own country's uniforms to be afforded wartime protections regarding POWs and surrenders. False surrenders and using unarmed ambulances as troop transports, using the enemy's uniforms e.t.c. void wartime protections (WWII commandos wore their own uniforms behind enemy lines, so in theory should have had their surrenders accepted, whilst a saboteur or spy in plain clothes or enemy uniform would not). Even irregular forces who don't have a uniform are expected to wear some marking, e.g. an armband or headband, marking them as belonging to a combat unit.
Things get more challenging, both on moral and pragmatic grounds, when a conventional army is fighting an irregular force that is integrated into a civilian population. Whether Gaza, Afghanistan, Malaya, Vietnam, Ireland, Iraq, Algeria, even the nascent revolutionary American republics in their wars of independence - how does a conventional army deal with fighting an irregular force interspersed in a civilian population? Breaking the customs and norms of who is an acceptable target and
when they are an acceptable target is a politically vital consideration. An urban insurgency in particular is a sensitive issue. If you strike at someone who is a member of an insurgency, even if they are not engaged in active hostilities, you create the new standards for rules of engagement. Any military target is a valid military target, even if they are not engaged in active hostilities. The end result is soldiers and sailors getting targeted, even when they're off duty or just walking about the street doing their normal business. It's a bit like WWI snipers on both sides agreeing not to kill soldiers having a bath or using the latrines. Mutual respect, trust and custom often affords more protection and likelihood of peace than laws. And obviously it's hard to get two sides to trust one another, when their professions are the waging of war against their foes. No easy solution.
While I would default to "trust but verify", I can totally understand why people no longer just take such gestures at their face value.
Again, this is why war sucks - it just eliminates any semblance of civility from human interaction.
The IDF report basically lays the blame on two things:
1. The IDF soldiers majorly fucked up. Visibly unarmed, calling for help, no shirt to conceal a suicide vest, speaking Hebrew e.t.c., it's why they teach officers to
not get involved in direct combat so they can avoid getting laser-focused on something small and missing the big picture
2. There was no protocol in place for "what to do if encountering escaped hostages" because there was no expectation that hostages could escape captivity. Seems like a pretty inevitable fubar if soldiers are told to expect terrorism, ambushes, but not to expect Israeli civilians.
Human brain is good at filtering out information it is not primed to consider relevantIMO currently Israel's military is suffering under the constraints of its political leadership. Rescuing hostages and eliminating Hamas leadership require different operations. It would have made sense to do anything to get the Israeli hostages back first, have Bibi be replaced, then get to work building up intelligence on where the Hamas leadership all are before planning a major operation. Going in blind without adequate intelligence when this whole mess started from a lack of intelligence and a self-defeating policy of empowering Hamas and refusing to negotiate with moderate authorities is compounding mispolicy and failure with misaction. Especially since between waning tolerance in the West for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of Palestinians and the cost of mobilising much of the Israeli workforce means there must be clarity in what exactly is to be achieved. Otherwise it's going to be a repeat of Libya and Iraq, that whole "we did it, mission accomplished, we killed terrorism once and for all" mentality that guarantees doing the same fight over and over again forever.
So what will this war buy with the blood of the all dead? Not an end to the conflict but a period of calm for Israelis that will end again, necessarily, because the underlying conflict still exists. Politically, perhaps, it will guarantee that the febrile rightwing coalition of Netanyahu lasts another year or longer with him at its helm.
And it will end as the last two Gazan conflicts have ended. Egypt, a historic broker of ceasefires in Gaza, will calculate a point when Hamas has been hurt enough and public opinion over its inaction is beginning to become damaging. It will step in with a deal that will see it talk once again, albeit in a limited fashion, to Israel – and at last to regulate a situation it does not want to see spiral out of control.
Then this stupidest of wars will stop.
Israel's tanks will pull back to their bases. The Gazan rocket teams will lick their wounds, rebuild their arsenals in the metal shops and commission new murals for the walls to sanctify their fallen dead in the public memory.
And the civilian dead will stay dead, discarded pieces in a pointless game of chess.
It's amusing that this article from 2014 talking about Netanyahu riding this war with no win state to another year in power and this article from 2023 describing the exact same thing with the exact same person shows how little has changed with Netanyahu at the helm.
Given his weak political position and the widespread expectation that he could be sidelined once the fighting ends in Gaza, they said, Netanyahu has a strong motive to prolong the military offensive.
“He has every incentive to keep the war going, to ensure his political survival,” one U.S. lawmaker who asked not to be named told NBC News.
At the same time, Israel is increasingly isolated internationally as the Palestinian death toll in the conflict has reached 18,700, with 70% of them women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. The vast majority of the territory's 2.2 million people are displaced, and half of them are estimated to face starvation, according to the U.N.
A current Israeli official said that Netanyahu is pivoting to the right as the domestic political cost of his government’s failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack looms. The attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of about 240, was the worst terrorist strike in Israeli history.
And the only thing that changes is Israel horrifies the world it depends on for supportHer relatives and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem say a mother and daughter were killed inside the Holy Family Church complex on Saturday by sniper fire.
The BBC has asked the IDF for comment.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said two Christian women - named as Nahida and her daughter Samar - were shot and killed while walking to a building in the church complex known as the Sister's Convent.
"One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety," a statement said. Seven more people were shot and wounded as they "tried to protect others inside the church compound" on Saturday.
The patriarchate said no warning had been given and added: "They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents."
The patriarchate said that earlier on Saturday an Israeli tank fired on part of the church compound with 54 disabled people inside. It caused a fire that destroyed the building's generator, the only source of electricity, and some of the disabled people can no longer use their respirators, the statement said.
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Topic: Israel-Gaza/Palestine war thread (Read 30813 times)