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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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how much fuel is hamas hoarding right now?
I'm guessing you mean Hamas' military branch? Because it's the Hamas Government that is running out of fuel, plus all the UNRWA schools and NGO hospitals.
So even if Hamas' military has fuel, It's not enough for 2 million people, so it doesn't matter.
This siege is preventing basic goods from entering to innocent civilians. Trying to get people to look away is really lame.
It's 500,000 liters. You don't just get to say that doesn't matter. Especially when the fuel the UN brought in was also stolen by Hamas. If Hamas is stealing and hoarding all the fuel, then they do carry the blame for the lack of fuel. What good is it doing anyone if everything there will just be stolen by Hamas and then used for further attacks?
The lack of fuel is caused by Israeli illegal blockage on Gaza (which is also a war crime btw). Yes, there is a chance the military side of Hamas has fuel tucked away, but the main cause is still Israel stopping any goods from entering.
By the end of today, if volunteers can no longer bring fuel to the hospitals, about 130 babies are risking death within minutes without incubators. Let's not fucking kid ourselves... Israel is the problem. Whatever Hamas "steals" as you claim (something the UNRWA later denied) is only a drop in the ocean when we talk about 2 million residents who haven't gotten basic needs that would normally flow into Gaza on a daily basis.
Those 130 babies will literally not die. For starters.
How are you ignoring the fact that Hamas takes the fuel. The UN just said they had their fuel stolen. So those babies will die, more Israelis will die, and more Palestinians will die.
If the UN had forces guarding supplies and stopping theft, that might be different. But you are asking Israel to allow in supplies that are be and will continue to be stolen and used in attacks against Israel. Ignoring that it will not save civilians.
If they actually get it. Hamas has already shown they will take it and not give it to their citizens.
Unless Hamas decides to prioritize its citizens, there is nothing the world can do and they are dead.
So, to Israel, are Gazans less important? Because Israel as already shown they will bomb the Rahah checkpoint and not allow fuel in knowing full well it's needed for generating electricity and providing clean water?
I'm genuinely asking: what do you think is Israel's responsibility towards civilians in Gaza and their own hostages stuck in Gaza as well?
As with any nation - yes, your citizens are less important than mine.
I won't comment on the checkpoint as I am not informed on the full story. I have however formally studied war crime in the general sense (not this specific example though).
Blockades are legitimate and commonly used in warfare - denying supplies are practical and it can be reasonably assumed they will find their way into the hands of the enemy. Saying that, it must be proportional and cause as little disruption to the civilian population as possible.
hamas has shown it will cross borders to kill and abduct civilians, and kill them at a later date (undisputed war crime there).
Hamas has shown they will claim aid destined for civilians
hamas has shown they will withhold supplies from it citizens
Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that any supplies crossing the border will be used in direct action against Israel. If the aid was finding its way to civilians, was being utilized for humanitarian reasons and distinctly separately from armed forces supplies it could be argued that the blockade is now illegal. This would also apply if Hamas was no longer a threat.
Israel responsibility lies with its citizens first. Does it suck for civilians stuck in the middle - absolutely.
@HappycamperNZ
It's not a food fight. Deliberate starvation is against international law..
I don't know what you "studied formally" but either you misunderstood what it means to consider the effects on the civilian population, or the person teaching you was some kind of monster.
Reading your link - deliberate starvation of civilians with intent to cause civilian harm or death, or eliminate a part of the population is indeed a war crime.
Also quoted from your link - a blockade is only intended to remove resources from adversarial forces, impediment of humanitarian aid is incidental harm. They key difference here is intent, and with Hamas seizing aid crossing the border and not distributing it any reasonable person would agree that it is stopping supplies to opposing forces.
Does it suck for civilian population - absolutely. But its not a war crime. Personally I think a coalition of multiple countries needs to go in and remove hamas, get aid set up for the civilian population and then investigate crimes on both sides - but that's not going to happen.
@HappycamperNZ I think you have an eccentric interpretation of international law that is contrary to most expert opinion. Which is fortunate because starving civilian populations for any reason is a gruesome thing to do and is quite rightly illegal.
Starving the civilians in this context is widely seen as illegal. Here are some examples of legal consensus opinion I found from a quick google:
The UN Human Rights Council Israel/Gaza: UN experts urge lawyers advising Israeli military to refuse legal authorisation of actions that could amount to war crimes
The ICJ Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: immediately end attacks on civilians
Center For Constitutional Rights, US Rights Lawyers Release Legal Analysis of U.S. Complicity in Israel’s Unfolding Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza
Second article on this
CFR: What International Law Has to Say About the Israel-Hamas War
Legal opinion in Jurist Hamas Atrocities Cannot Rationalize the Starvation of Civilians
Legal professor quoted in Deutschwelle who sums up consensus Israel, Gaza: What are the rules of international law?
I accept that you will easily be able to point me to competing positions, largely from Israelis and Americans, but I think you should be aware that these are in the minority.
That's a hell of a what about ism.
Putting pressure on the population like this, is putting pressure on the government to spend critical resources, to make them less capable of fighting a war. It is a valid, and historically often used, siege strategy.
The main point, is the civilians in Gaza are trapped, they're not allowed to leave, they don't have water, they don't have power to make water, they are suffering. That's the takeaway, ending the suffering should be the goal.
Even if Hamas gave up all of their fuel reserves, which the reserving for the ground assault they've been told is coming, even if they gave up all of their fuel, the siege would not be ended, and the civilians would still not have water. It might be delayed by a day. But it doesn't change the situation that exists right now
That doesn't sound a lot tbh... If you calculate with 2M people there, it's just 0.25 litres per person. I don't think that would be sufficient to filter vast amounts of water.
Also, why haven't the fuel tanks been destroyed in the strategic military focused air bombings? Obviously they've been identified so that they can be reported on
No, they just managed to get a good look at fuel tanks (but no information about the content)... and yet when they bomb "terrorists" in Gaza with heir super x-ray vision, they still manage to kill 40% children.
I think this is simply a function of the asymmetry of the military forces involved. The Israeli military has full control of the air, long range artillery, modern western weapons. They can destroy any target they want easily.
Therefore any installation Hamas has that's separated from the population, will have already been destroyed in the early phases of the conflict 20 years ago. Anything they build that's away from population centers would be immediately destroyed.
Perhaps it's an unintended consequence but the emerging behavior is the only military installations that survive are near civilian populations. It doesn't help that the population density of the conflict area is incredibly high, with the majority of the population being children. Meaning there's children everywhere around every target. Because any target that's not around children would have been destroyed already.
And none of this has to do with the intentions of either side, it's just the asymmetric capabilities creating de facto emergent behavior. It's not that Hamas is trying to use human shields, they have no other practical choice. And before the exasperated brigade starts to dogpile me, this is just the reality of war, it's not an apology.
Yes, but you still need someone to pull the trigger, and then you need 10 other nations to say "it's the right to self defense" to make it okay.
It's might + intent, not one without the other.
Because the government of Israel has asymmetric strength in this conflict, it makes them more responsible to move towards peace. Simply because they have most of the capabilities.
Blaming Hamas is completely valid, Hamas is a bad actor.
Blaming the Palestinian people is not valid, Israel the country with its asymmetric capabilities is the responsible one to bring the populations towards peace.
As the last 60 years of demonstrated, using your asymmetric power to just bomb a population into submission, might buy you a respite, but does not end the cycle of violence
Yep, and honestly I keep wondering what Israel was thinking. Did it think it could keep Palestinians from retaliating forever?
What was the plan for Gaza anyway? Leaving that bomb ticking rather than removing the siege (gradually at least) and allowing these people self-determination.
Leaving that bomb ticking was exactly what was keeping Netanyahu in power.
I believe there said they'll stop the siege if the hostages are released.
Ah yes as if they have the right to make conditions about people's lives.
The hostages are being freed one by one. Let's see if Israel stops genocidin' when the hostages have been released.
My bet is that it will not.
Probably the location. A fuel depot would cause secondary explosions, and a large one. Israel attempts to mitigate damage to Innocents with its air strikes.
Counting it towards to number of people is a little silly. Checking how long a generator can run off of a liter of fuel makes much more sense.
On top of that, not only are they hoarding, but they are also stealing what comes in.
I quickly googled some numbers, so no guarantee for 100% correctness.
Desalination uses about 3.6kWh/m3 of water. A generator can produce around 1.5kWh/litre of fuel. 500,000 litres of fuel would result in 750,000 kWh. 750,000 kWh would result in 208,333 m3 or 208,333,000 litres of water. That theoretically would allow you to create around 200 litres per person if you use the entire amount of fuel on water desalination.
But this calculation only works in a hypothetical scenario and not in a real life scenario. Distribution of the water to all the people will require a lot of energy as well, e.g. for tank trucks. And I think in an active war zone you probably won't find world class logistics.
Furthermore, you also need fuel and electricity for other critical infrastructure: firetrucks, hospitals, phones, cooking, ...
Why would anyone believe their estimates? They've been dropping bombs on civilian houses claiming they're havens for terrorists and didn't even see an attack that appears to have been prepared for completely out in the open. Their vaunted intelligence services seem to be more the result of a good branding campaign than actual competence.