Human Rights Watch Condemns Israel's Collective Punishment on Gaza, Urges Biden to Help Restore Aid

[Uncle Joe]

Israeli soldiers and settlers have cracked down on the occupied West Bank since Hamas's shocking attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 55 and arresting over 700 Palestinians, including several prominent lawmakers. "People are worried. All of this is unprecedented," says Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch in Ramallah. Bashi is co-founder of Israeli human rights group Gisha, which works against apartheid policies that affect Palestinians, and urges U.S. lawmakers to address the human rights violations that led to this conflict. "No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn't address the abuses on the ground."

[Lonestarblue]

1. The West Bank is not governed by Hamas. What is the justification for killing Palestinians there?

[JohnSJ]

2. It isn't meant to be "collective punishment" any more than the fire-bombing of Dresden during WWII,

the bombing of Afghanistan for sheltering bin Laden.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done to end the war, and prevent massive American losses that would have been incurred with an invasion of Japan, as was demonstrated in the battles of okinawa and iwo jima, etc.

The Hamas charter calls for the extermination of ALL Jews, that is an example of intent to commit genocide. So when HRW says "Hamas Must Condemn Attacks on Civilians", and they don't, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

"The Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in a Tel Aviv café, which killed nine civilians in addition to the bomber. After the attack Sami Abu Zuhri, a long-time official spokesman for Hamas, was widely quoted as saying that “the operation is a natural reaction to continued Israeli crimes against our people,” and that “the Palestinian people are in a state of self defense and have every right to use all means to defend themselves.”

Other Hamas officials also endorsed the attack. Wasfi Kabha, minister for prisoners’ affairs in the government, told reporters that the attack occurred “in the framework of legitimate right of resistance against Israeli violations and crimes.” Musa Abu Marzuk, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, called the attack “a natural response to the Israeli aggression on our people.”

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who also leads the Fatah organization, condemned the attack. However, neither Prime Minister Ismail Haniya nor any other Hamas official has apparently done so."

https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/04/20/palestinian-authority-hamas-must-condemn-attacks-civilians

[Uncle Joe]

3. I believe what was left of humanity after World War II decided collective punishment was evil.

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

States parties and signatories

The Geneva Conventions which were adopted before 1949 were concerned with combatants only, not with civilians. Some provisions concerning the protection of populations against the consequences of war and their protection in occupied territories are contained in the Regulations concerning the laws and customs of war on land, annexed to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. During World War I the Hague provisions proved to be insufficient in view of the dangers originating from air warfare and of the problems relating to the treatment of civilians in enemy territory and in occupied territories. The International Conferences of the Red Cross of the 1920's took the first steps towards laying down supplementary rules for the protection of civilians in time of war.

The 1929 Diplomatic Conference, which revised the Geneva Convention on wounded and sick and drew up the Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, limited itself to recommending that "studies should be made with a view to concluding a convention on the protection of civilians in enemy territory and in enemy occupied territory." A draft convention containing 33 articles prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross was approved by the International Conference of the Red Cross in Tokyo in 1934 and is generally referred to as the "Tokyo Draft". It was to be submitted to a diplomatic conference planned for 1940, but this was postponed on account of the war. The events of World War II showed the disastrous consequences of the absence of a convention for the protection of civilians in wartime.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949#:~:text=IHL%20Treaties%20%2D%20Geneva%20Convention%20(IV,Geneva%2C%2012%20August%201949.

According to this NBC journalist, Hamas' representative told him that Hamas wants an end to the current Israeli government but they have no problem with Jews living anywhere.

&t=141s