But Hamas says it had little choice in Gaza's crowded urban landscape, took safeguards to keep people away from the fighting, and that a heavy-handed Israeli response is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.AP didn't challenge the obvious lie.
"Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that Israel has turned into a war zone," said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in Gaza.
Amnesty International also seemed to buy that Hamas line, even giving it the primatur of international law!
Each party to the conflict must, to the extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.67 The authoritative commentary of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on this provision explains that the use of the term “feasible” is used to illustrate “the fact that no one can be required to do the impossible. In this case it is clear that precautions should not go beyond the point where the life of the population would become difficult or even impossible.” And it notes: “Moreover, a Party to the conflict cannot be expected to arrange its armed forces and installations in such a way as to make them conspicuous to the benefit of the adversary.”Yes, Amnesty justified terrorists' use of human shields by claiming that they it would be "impossible" to do otherwise..
Here are some photos of an Islamic Jihad military exercises taken today, from areas in Gaza that are obviously controlled by the terror group and from which they could have easily fought from. See if you can find any civilian homes in any of these photos:
So crowded!
UPDATE: I originally said this was a Hamas exercise, thanks to Judge Dan for correcting me.