Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem

The bloodied children are clearly civilians; men killed as they launch rockets are undisputedly not. But what about the 40 or so young Hamas police recruits on parade who died in the first wave of Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza?

And weapons caches are clearly military sites – but what about the interior ministry, hit in a strike that killed two medical workers; or the money changer's office, destroyed last week injuring a boy living on the floor above?

As the death toll mounts in Gaza, the thorny question is arising of who and what can be considered a legitimate military target in a territory effectively governed by a group that many in the international community consider a terrorist organisation.

This is also the group that won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 and a year later consolidated its control by force.

So while it was behind a campaign of suicide attacks in Israel and fires rockets indiscriminately over the border, it is also in charge of schools, hospitals, sewage works and power plants in Gaza.

International law

Israel says it is operating totally within humanitarian law, but human rights groups fear it is stretching the boundaries.

And as ground forces clash in the heavily-populated Gaza Strip, the questions will become more pressing.

International law’s rules on keeping civilian casualties to a minimum are based on the distinction between "combatants" and "non-combatants".
As Israel launched the first air strikes, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "You - the citizens of Gaza - are not our enemies. Hamas, Jihad and the other terrorist organisations are your enemies, as they are our enemies."

But when an Israeli military spokesman also says things like "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," things get complicated.

The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".

But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."

Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.

"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied."

Indeed, Hamas itself has been quoted as saying the fact that most Israelis serve in the military justifies attacks on civilian areas.

Hamas policemen

The first wave of bombings, which targeted police stations across Gaza, is a key case in question - particularly the strike that killed at least 40 trainees on parade.

Analysts say Hamas policemen are responsible for quashing dissent and rooting out spies, as well as tackling crime and directing traffic.

But the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which has raised the issue in a letter to Israel’s attorney general, says it appears those killed were being trained in first aid, human rights and maintaining public order.

The IDF says it has intelligence that members of the police force often "moonlight" with rocket squads, but has given no details about the specific sites or individuals targeted.
However, campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) argues that even if police members do double as Hamas fighters, they can only be legally attacked when actually participating in military activities.

Both B’Tselem and HRW are also concerned about the targeting of ostensibly civilian sites such as a university, mosques and government buildings.

Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions - quoted by Israel, although not signed by it - says that for a site to be a legitimate military target it must "make an effective contribution to military action" and its destruction or neutralisation must also offer "a definite military advantage".

Israel says it has bombed mosques because they are used to store weapons, releasing video of the air strikes which it says shows secondary explosions as its proof.

But it gives no evidence for its claims that laboratories at the Islamic University, which it bombed heavily, were used for weapons research, or for its claims that at least three money changers targeted were involved in “the transfer of funds for terrorist activities”.

This is because Israel rarely releases intelligence material for fear of endangering the lives of its sources, Mr Rutland says.

However, on its targeting of the education, interior and foreign ministries and the parliament building, Israel simply argues they are part of the Hamas infrastructure – and there is no difference between its political and military wings.

"To claim that all of those offices are legitimate targets, just because they are affiliated with Hamas, is legally flawed and extremely problematic," says B’Tselem director Jessica Montell.

Questions of proportionality

Other incidents have raised concerns for these reasons, together with a second legal concept - proportionality.

This demands that the military gain of a particular operation be proportional to the likely or actual civilian losses incurred in carrying it out.

As Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch puts it: "Even if you have a legitimate target you can’t just drop 10-tonne bombs on it."
Five sisters in the Balousha family were killed as they slept together as, apparently, a nearby Hamas-linked mosque was bombed in Jabaliya refugee camp on the second day of Operation Cast Lead.

HRW is calling for an investigation. "Was the mosque a legitimate target? We have our doubts… Did they use weaponry that would limit damage to civilians? We have our serious doubts," says Mr Abrahams.

In this case, Mr Rutland said the IDF had no record of a target in that specific area at that time, and gave no further explanation for the girls’ deaths.

A further case is the bombing of a truck that Israel initially said was loaded with missiles.

B’Tselem and the truck's owner – who said his son died along with seven other people – later said it was carrying oxygen canisters for welding. Israel maintains the warehouse the canisters were loaded from had been known to house weapons in the past.

How good was Israel's intelligence? How likely was it, for example, that at the moment of decision, the information might turn out to be wrong? And did the potential gains outweigh the possible losses?

Professor Sands says proportionality is "very, very difficult."

"What's proportionate in the eyes of one person may be disproportionate in the eyes of another," he says.

The difference in numbers in the Gaza war is stark - Palestinians say more than 500 Gazans have died in eight days, compared with 18 Israelis from rocket fire since 2001.

But experts say issues ranging from the parties' intentions, the reasons for going to war, the actions taken to protect - or indeed expose - civilians, and the conditions on the ground, all feed into a much more complicated legal equation.

Israel says lawyers are constantly consulted in its operations. It says it takes all possible steps to minimise civilian casualties.

Guided weapons are used; telephone warnings are often given before buildings are bombed; the IDF says missions have been aborted because civilians were seen at the target.

And it says its enemy is far from a standard army: "We're talking about an entire government whose entire raison d’etre is the defeat of Israel … and all of whose energies are directed at attacking Israeli civilians," says Mr Rutland.

Witnesses and analysts confirm that Hamas fires rockets from within populated civilian areas, and all sides agree that the movement flagrantly violates international law by targeting civilians with its rockets.

But while B’Tselem's Ms Montell describes the rocket fire as a "blatant war crime", she adds: "I certainly would not expect my government to act according to the standard Hamas has set for itself - we demand a higher standard."



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7811386.stm


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So to what standard do we hold Israel or our own nations for that matter?

unarmed people in their homes, schools, cities not engaged in fighting and not harboring combatants are civilians

armed soldiers, military troops, guerillas, firing rockets, bombers, those who willingly hide them, and their command and control structure are participating combatants

at least that is the way i see it

So 2-3 armed men hiding/firing from a home where there is an extended family family of 12-14 living warrants the shooting a missile, two tank shells and then the walls crushed by bulldozer? Wipe out the family with the aggressor?

As for the harboring combatants. Armed men break into your home and set up that's not harboring. You didn't ask for it. But then I suppose the IDF will never know because they wipe everyone in the house, can pretty much say what they want.
If a family member takes a weapon and fires at you then I would safely say harboring the aggressor.


A lack of concern for civilian casualties is the way of thinking that we normally say terrorists have. A nation with this attitude is no better.

i make the distinction between the case where someone

1) willingly hides combatants sheltering (harboring them)
they are participants

and

2) unwillingly are forced to have the militants stay in their home
such people are human shields - non-combatant victims
but they are victims of the hostage takers - hamas

But the IDF doesn't make that distinction and therein lies the problem. They receive fire from a residence and retaliate as mentioned. Missile, two tank shells and bulldozer. It is only learned afterwards that there were civilians there.
Their air strikes are hitting residential and school areas, the artillery same. There is no concern for civilians. That only serves to further infuriate a population, create martyrs and another generation of enemies.
I can understand the need to protect one's own troops but not at the cost of so many civilians.



That's just an easy way to ease a conscience. "Not my fault. I didn't force the civilians to be there..Hamas did. Their deaths aren't my fault." Even though the return fire from you was completely disproportionate with the fire received and knowing it is a residential area no concern given that civilians may be there.

Nonsense. Israel the country and the IDF does make this distinction. That is why they take extreme precautions to try to avoid civilian casualties. It is Hamas and Hamas supporters who are responsible for the rocket attacks and casualties on both sides.

The military actions of Israel is to protect Israeli civilians. It is Hamas' tactic to operate in populated areas using their own people as cover. Hamas does not protect Palestinians but sacrifices them as if their lives have no value.

One cannot ease one's conscience defending Hamas and blaming Israel with these thoughts.

"Gaza Witnesses: Militants Fired Mortar Rounds Near U.N. School
Filed under: Gaza, Hamas Rocket Attacks — No To Terror @ 8:16 am

The Associated Press scored an exclusive with two Gaza residents who confirmed that two Hamas rocket launching squads used some 350 Palestinians as human shields by firing rockets at Israel on a street near the U.N. school in Jabalyah where they sought refuge from shelling.


AP reporters Ibrahim Barzak and Jason Keyser say that two witness in Gaza “saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling.”

http://www.hamasterrorism.com/

But the area is under Israeli control. It is occupied territory and as such the civilians to be protected by Israel. Not killed and then say Oops, it's the fault of Hamas. Israel knows that the area is residential, knows that there are civilians.

Missile first, tank shells and then bulldozer without knowing? Without trying to remove hostiles by other means? With total disregard for civilians?

The IDF has dropped in my esteem. I thought them a better military force than that.

When Hamas quits hiding in schools and mosques so they can claim civilian casualties, the world will become outraged. Until then, this nonsense will go on and on.

It's cowardice and the people of Gaza are the victims.

"And the city shall be accursed ... and all that therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live." God explains that Rahab is to be spared since she hid Joshua's spies and lied to those who were searching for them"

Keep yourselves from "the accursed thing". Whatever that is. And be sure to save all the silver and gold for God!

"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword."


Its in their history!

Israel soldiers shot a UN truck that was taking supplies to Palestine and killed the driver.

The truck was marked.

Winx,

There is some dispute apparently Israel reports that the truck was fired on not by IDF forces but by Hamas...

"Who killed the Palestinian driver of an aid truck and wounded two others as their convoy made its way into the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing during Thursday's "humanitarian cease-fire?"

UNWRA suspends Gaza humanitarian aid operations

According to the foreign media, who based their information on UN sources, IDF tank shells blasted the truck. According to the Magen David Adom medic who claimed to have taken the Palestinians to an Israeli hospital, the truck actually came under Hamas sniper fire. "

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424892324&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

So, this may be more complicated than the original report suggests.

When I clicked on the link, I got this and I don't know what it means:

HTTP Server Error 503

No available server to handle this request.

The Jerusalem Post??????

Certainly not biased in any way towards Israel.

"Ad hominem argument is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem as abusive, sexist, racist, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or attacking the person who proposed the argument (personal attack) in an attempt to discredit the argument. It is also used when an opponent is unable to find fault with an argument, yet for various reasons, the opponent disagrees with it."

so, it must be wrong because the Jerusalem Post reported it.
Right.

Every other report states that it was Israeli fire. The IDF wouldn't bother investigating if it was completely positive that it was Hamas fire. As I said certainly not unbiased.

it is comman knowledge they do not negosiate with terrorists

if they attack regardless of those held hostage by terrorists they will be less likely to hold hostages in in the future

thus saving lives in the long run

That is a tough stance but I find it difficult to blame them.

"We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets." - Bin laden

Does anybody understand this computer message?

Sorry but that doesn't work.

That places a 'civilized' nation on the same level as terrorists. If nations are reduce themselves to that level then all that has been advanced and sought by great men and women over centuries was for nothing.

yeah, it says that there is no server available