you accidentally kill civilians trying to hit a military target

You may even kill civilians on purpose to hit a military target, if on balance the military objective justifies the civilian loss of life.

Tragic but true.

I hate war.

The fact that there were military installations below the "refugee camp" (which actually is a legit, permanent city, not a tent city as the name suggests) places the war crime on Hamas - it is forbidden under international law to place military targets near civilian installations, and yet Hamas keeps doing this all over again and then goes crying about war crimes.

> and then goes crying about war crimes

So your strategy is just to wipe the entire place? Interesting, do you have a court system in your country or do you follow similar strategy in internal affairs?

The legitimate and legal (under international law and the articles of war) way is to weigh the military objective against the civilian damage and casualties and decide if this is still a viable target. E.g. it might be legitimate to flatten a house with one civilian and a hundred soldiers in it. It would be grossly out of proportion to kill a hundred civilians just to kill one soldier. Everything between those extremes will be decided by maybe a war crimes tribunal, public international opinion, the conscience of the warfaring parties, circumstances, propaganda, etc.

And there is no possible comparison between the usual peace-time internal court system and international law and wartime law. Those work in completely different ways. International law and articles of war are basically only applicable if some party makes them applicable by force. E.g. if the victor or a sufficiently mighty third party creates a war-crimes tribunal. In all other cases, those are mere "guidelines".

I can't speak for everyone, but in my country the military tries not to create legitimate military targets in the middle of our cities, so it's not really something we've had to deal with.

Gaza strip is 41 km x ~9 km. How big is your city?

that's a big size actually. and let's not pretend they're doing due to lack of space. you don't put your HQ under the biggest hospital due to lack of space. you don't stash your rockets under a school due to lack of space. they know exactly what they're doing and civilian casualities is just another weapon in this conflict. for one side at least.

Thats tiny if you also have to farm land for food. Which they do, they can't just build over all of it.

No doubt Hamas uses human shields, but there are also accounts going back decades of IDF targetting aid workers, journalists and civilians On Purpose.

But we've already established we're talking about underground facilities. They're largely underground in the city as well. I don't see what the need to farm has to do with anything.

As we speak Israeli warplanes have just targeted a convoy of ambulances carrying patients too critical for Gaza's hospitals to cope with and who were on their way to the Egyptian border for treatment abroad. The convoy's departure time was announced to the IDF and the world but the IDF added them to the death toll regardless.

Do you really think so?

If you were to carpet bomb, lets say, all the car factories in Detroit, which is a perfect dual-use target, how much of the city would be left?

The more appropriate question would be, imagine a group of American terorists staged a 9/11-equivalent in China. Imagine 4000 people died and that militarily China has an upper hand.

Would carpet bombing Detroit be the right thing to do in responce?

Do these terrorists also happen to be the elected American government (like Hamas is in Gaza)?

Is there a history of America bombing China (like Hamas is doing in Israel)?

Is the US government in fact firing rockets at China at the very moment when China retaliates with the bombing?

Are the Chinese bombs in your scenario actually carpet bombing or are they bombs or missiles directed at specific military targets that America happens to build below hospitals?

> also happen to be the elected American government (like Hamas is in Gaza)?

> military targets that.. happens to [be] below hospitals?

It is tragic that folks in the Anglosphere do not realise how this sounds to someone from a neutral country, say India.

Surely a rational person cannot believe that hamas uses babies as human shields, but at election time they are virtuous and organise free and fair elections?

Unless you also believe that Russian referendum conducted in Crimea, at gunpoint point, was free and fair?

When Russian military would bomb a school, they would also do a press release about a bunker under than school. I think this is copyright infringement

You misunderstood what I‘m trying to express.

I am not defending Hamas or saying the government is legitimate. Quite the opposite. I am attacking the analogy with China. I wanted to emphasize that China attacking a US city due to the actions of some American terrorist citizens is a flawed analogy because the terror that is coming from Gaza is not just some citizens but it‘s state sponsored, by the Gaza government and of course also by Iran.

> So your strategy is just to wipe the entire place?

No one but some fringe elements of the Israeli far-right are calling for flattening the Gaza Strip ffs.

What I'm calling for is for a joint Western occupation of Palestine, the sooner the better. Enforce laws, prevent the rebuild of tunnels and Qassam rocket factories, and get rid of an "education" system that teaches Palestine children from an early age that Jews are to be exterminated.

> A western occupation of Palestine

Like the 28-year British Mandate which gave birth to the "state" of Israel as an extension of British colonialism led by terrorist thugs such as Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion whose avowed intent was to expel all Palestinians? That turned-out well, didn't it?

I agree, British colonialism and their incompetence in dismantling their empire was and is responsible for a lot of issues in a lot of their former colonies - but the idea of a nation of Israel primarily came to be as a direct learning of 1933-1945.

why are those people called refugees 3 generations later and their proper neighbourhood a refugee camp? that's also an issue... the fact that they're use just in a political game by either Arab countries or their own leadership.