After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word “war” instead of “genocide” – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: “Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.”

  • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
    23·
    4 days ago

    Look I know this stuff is very hard and emotional. Not everything is a war crime. Using AI to track enemy combatants is not a war crime.

    An airstrike that intentionally kills civilians, incidental to a legit military target, maybe very sad, but it is not a war crime. The assessment of strategic value is weighed against the overall conflict, not the specific attack, It’s weighed against the decades of rocket attacks and suicide bombings by people hiding underground in population centers with impunity.

    Yes, there’s about 10 or 20 documented cases of Israeli soldiers using human Shields in horrific ways. Strapping them to the front of their car, literally holding them between them and gunfire. That’s a war crime. It’s also a crime under Israeli law. People get arrested for it and go to jail for it. It does not happen daily. In Gaza, being a human shield is a way of life. It is always a war crime too, whilst claiming the protections of international law, to willfully violate international law by failing to distinguish troops from civilians, by hiding amongst them and not wearing uniforms. That is the way of life in Gaza, points of pride even, legacy. That’s infinitely more of a crime against humanity in the most literal terms.

    • the_three_tomatoes@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 day ago

      Could I ask. Especially that I’m just now learning about all of this… how are Gazans considered a human shield all together? Are they meant to protect the tunnels from attacks or?

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
        2·
        20 hours ago

        Gaza put Hamas in charge a s Gaza keeps Hamas in charge. Despite that, Hamas members do things such as:

        • telling Gazan’s that airstrike warnings people receive via SMS and phone calls are hoaxes, and that they should stay where they are;

        • physically blocking escape routes;

        • shooting people trying to flee;

        • brainwashing or indoctrinating their close family and friends, and most loyal supporters, to huddle up in rooms with them in hopes that it will stop the Hamas member(s) from being killed in an airstrike by making the incidental casualties too great;

        • building hundreds of miles of tunnels in an area only 25 miles wide–used exclusively for organizing and commanding Hamas activities, smuggling rockets, rocket launchers, other munitions and weapons, fighters, including suicide bombers, mass shooters, hostage takers, along with hostsges, so, in other words, building legitimate military targets where regular people are most concentrated–with shafts leading under and often into major population centers such as schools, hospitals, large apartment buildings, and markets;

        • by traveling with large groups of civilians into areas designated for civilians, and then using those places for command and control purposes, such as Hamas members who have been killed in and near humanitarian corridors and camps;

        • refusing to wear uniforms or distinguish themselves from the innocent people they hide behind/under;

        • encouraging through promotion and literally cash rewards for a culture of “martyrdom,” in which the only civil obligation more revered than adding to the civilian death toll is to actually kill someone from Israel;

        • using the same neighborhoods, week after week, to launch rockets indiscriminately at civilians in Israel, making those neighborhood a legit military target (see above about encouraging people to ignore air strike warnings).

        This is Hamas’s only real strategy at this point: to get as many civilians killed as possible. That’s why the death toll is so high. This strategy often works but ofter October 7, when the tunnels were literally used to launch a mass shooting of over 1,000 innocent people, with hundreds more taken hostage, the tunnels are obviously fair targets when combined with a reasonable attempt to warn innocent people, such as the initial and subsequent repeated orders to evacuate Gaza City, and the millions and millions of phone calls and SMS messages sent warning people of incoming strikes.

        Here’s a story that has stuck with me, and note the bit about how he was up against Hamas posts on Facebook that told his neighbors not to leave their homes:

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67327079

        This culture has robbed generations of ever knowing hope, and has killed countless people. The seemingly high number of civilian casualties is a feature of Hamas’s strategy, so that they can then cry foul, and trick well meaning westerners into joining Hamas in their opposition to Israel and subsidize their terror through charity to the innocent public. If the people of Gaza actually had to bear the consequences of Hamas’s leadership (starvation, dehydration, and abject poverty), they wouldn’t stand for it, let alone support it. It’s a miracle Hamas has failed to get killed more than 1 out of every 100 citizens, and it’s because of Israeli restraint that that number holds, and it’s why the IDF says it’s the most ethical army in the world; any other army would have flattened such an opponent decades ago. That’s how I see it.

        • the_three_tomatoes@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 hours ago

          Thanks for the thorough explanation! I would like to see some links for some things you mentioned (like the warnings being a hoax and blocking escape routes)… but most of the other stuff I was able to find online easily with google.

          But so… does Israel value the destruction of Hamas more than the civilian lives of Palestinians in Gaza? I feel like the cost is too high. 🤔 don’t get me wrong, I am not a general but I don’t feel like I’d be okay with firing into a crowd of children and women in a residential area to kill X number of combatants, even if they snuck into these areas designated for civilians only 😅😅

    • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      Look, I know it’s hard for you to read any of these sources, but they completely prove you wrong.

      The bombing of family homes where Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives supposedly live likely became a more concerted IDF policy during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Back then, 606 Palestinians — about a quarter of the civilian deaths during the 51 days of fighting — were members of families whose homes were bombed. A UN report defined it in 2015 as both a potential war crime and “a new pattern” of action that “led to the death of entire families.”

      However, in many cases, and especially during the current attacks on Gaza, the Israeli army has carried out attacks that struck private residences even when there is no known or clear military target. For example, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, by Nov. 29, Israel had killed 50 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, some of them in their homes with their families.

      According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”

      Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes.

      Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

      However, soldiers continue to occasionally use Palestinians as human shields even after the court ruling, especially during military operations. Despite the fact this violates an HCJ ruling, the security establishment, including the military law enforcement system, has responded feebly – if at all.

      For example, over the course of Operation Cast Lead, which took place in Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009, B’Tselem and other organizations were informed of incidents in which soldiers used Palestinians as human shields. The vast majority of these reports were never investigated, and those that did resulted in no further action. Soldiers were prosecuted in one case only. The two soldiers in question had ordered a nine-year-old boy, at gunpoint, to open a bag they suspected was booby-trapped. Despite the gravity of their conduct – putting a young child at risk – the two were given a three-month conditional sentence and demoted from staff sergeant to private, some two years after the incident took place. None of their commanding officers were tried.

      During Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, in 2014, B’Tselem again received testimonies regarding soldiers’ use of Palestinians as human shields. This time, no one was prosecuted.

      In 2024, Israeli forces systematically used Palestinian children as human shields, a grave violation of international law. DCIP captured testimony from children like 12-year-old Moayad and 16-year-old Hazem, who were stripped, tied, and placed in front of Israeli tanks during aid distributions, enduring physical abuse and deprivation.