ISRAEL - Palestinian ‘Civilians’
[8 June 2024’s] dramatic rescue of four Israeli hostages from Gaza included a shocking revelation: The hostages, who endured unbearable torture and constant threats of death, were held captive by Palestinian civilians in their home in central Gaza—including a journalist with bylines in Al Jazeera and his physician father.
Let’s get something straight from the outset: When you take hostages, you risk death. The moral and legal responsibility for any casualties resulting from the operation to free the hostages rests fully with Hamas and those holding hostages captive.
Under international law, it is a sacrosanct principle that civilians enjoy special protection, and the intentional targeting or harming of them during hostilities, is a grave war crime.
In other words, when you hold hostages captive, you become a legitimate military target and should not be surprised when the Israel Defense Forces come knocking on your door.
How many Gazan “civilians” helped Hamas move and store rockets? How many “civilians” offered up their homes to hold hostages captive or keep guard to make sure they did not escape? How many have been the willing accomplices and collaborators of Hamas in the worst massacre and crimes against the Jewish people since the Holocaust?
A group that murders, massacres, rapes, beheads, and abducts people, and has a relentless history of fabricating stories, inflating casualties, and using their own civilians as human shields, is not exactly the world’s most trustworthy source.
For Hamas, civilian death is their strategy; Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has called civilian deaths “necessary sacrifices.”
As long as the press and world leaders fail to ask these questions, continuing to push false narratives and unsubstantiated casualty figures, they are only enabling and empowering Hamas and perpetuating the violence and suffering they claim to seek to end.
-www.newsweek.com, 17 June 2024
Commentary
This editorial by human rights attorney Arsen Ostrovsky, and West Point urban war expert John Spencer, hits the nail on the head. The conceit that all (or even most) of the Palestinian deaths in Gaza were civilians, flies in the face of common sense. Gaza is not a country, and although they rule, Hamas is not a real government. More importantly, it does not have a standing army or military bases, nor does it present a clear fighting front. When battling irregular/guerrilla forces, it’s often impossible to determine who is a combatant. It is a tragedy that women and children are caught in the crossfire, but the fault lies entirely with Hamas fighters who, instead of protecting their civilian population, hide behind them and press them into military service.
As Scripture says, “...In your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth” (Psalm 58:2). -By J. Froese
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
