The Geneva convention was established to minimise atrocities in conflicts. Israeli settlements in Gaza are illegal and violate the Geneva convention. Legality of Israeli settlements Article 51 of the Geneva convention prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian population yet Israel attacked hospitals with children inside. Whether you agree or not that Hamas were present, children cannot be viewed as combatants.so when no care was taken to protect them, does this not constitute a violation? According to save the children, 1 in 50 children in Gaza had been killed or injured. This is a very high proportion and does not show care being taken to prevent such casualties and therefore constitutes a violation.
So my question is simply, do supporters of Israel no longer support our believe in the Geneva convention, did you never, or how do you reconcile Israeli breaches of the Geneva convention? For balance I should add “do you not believe such violations are occurring and if so how did you come to this position?”
Answers other than only "they have the right to go after Hamas " please. The issue is how they are going after Hamas, not whether they should or not.
EDIT: Title changed to remove ambiguity about supporting Israel vs supporting their actions
Some kind of a supporter here, I guess. Or let’s say that I’m so much anti-Hamas that it’s logical to be a bit anti-Palestine and pro-Israel.
Some of those settlements are not legal and israelis should leave those areas.
It’s questionable if this applies when the other side violates other Geneva conventions by using the hospitals for military activity.
Not really questionable - hospitals explicitly lose their protection if they are used for military activity.
They explicitly lose their protection if used for offensive military activity.
If soldiers are being treated in a hospital, it very much does NOT become a valid target. If soldiers are merely hiding in a hospital, it explicitly does NOT become a valid target.
Does one side disregarding the Geneva convention mean the other is free to do so?
I would argue that the Geneva convention is as much about protecting the humanity of adherants as it is about protecting the lives of the innocent.
If you sign up to it, you should not be considering the actions of your enemy in deciding whether to adhere to it or not. Yes the realities of war blur the lines, but as someone else said, if you become a monster to defeat the monster, you still lost.
I mean yeah if both conventions revolve around the same thing, like for instance if the same hospital is both a sanctuary for civilians but also being used by soldiers. A more general whataboutism is another thing.
I’ll just add that according to modern Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) the current definition of a military target may include schools, hospitals, religious sites and culturally relevent monuments should they be used by enemy forces.
Even in WW1 and WW2 when these rules were being written, if your enemy was hiding in a church, that was okay. But if they stored munitions or fired from the church, it and everyone in it would be considered valid military targets.
It was designed that way in order to stop soldiers from hiding in hospitals and schools saying “You can’t shoot us, there are women, children and the sick in here” while they used that amnesty to kill countless others.
Just a distinction a lot of people tend to miss when they talk about “The Geneva Convention.”