Thursday, November 14, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
This one says that Israel is violating international law by forcing Gazans to evacuate areas that are about to be attacked. In other words, Israeli efforts to save civilian lives are being framed as Israeli efforts to wantonly hurt civilians.
As usual with NGOs like HRW, the report is detailed, it is heavily footnoted, it painstakingly builds a case, and uses selective facts to create a huge lie. The lies come both from taking data out of context and, more often, ignoring or belittling all data that contradicts its thesis - a thesis that was created before any "evidence" was gathered.
Here are HRW's main arguments (emphasis theirs.)
Military Imperative and the Security ExceptionThe burden is on Israel, as the occupying power of Gaza, to prove that overriding military reasons have made its repeated instructions to evacuate – which have displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population – imperative, or the evacuations were necessary for the security of the population itself. The term “imperative” sets a very high threshold – higher than an ordinary assessment of military necessity. Displacement can only be justified if it is a measure of last resort for military operations where there are no feasible alternatives. It does not suffice for civilians to be at risk from an active or reasonably expected threat from an act (the Israeli bombardment) that would deprive Palestinian armed groups of, or secure for Israel, as the occupier, a military advantage. For there to be a military imperative, the operation threatened must be one whose frustration would threaten the entire military objective in the conflict.Israel cannot simply rely on the presence of members of Palestinian armed groups, materiel, and installations in Gaza to justify the displacement of civilians. Israel would have to demonstrate that displacement of the civilians was, in each instance, its only option.Evacuating a protected population for their security refers to the temporary removal or relocation of civilians from an area of danger or imminent harm to a safer location. This can be done to protect the population from military operations, ongoing hostilities, or other risks to their safety. While it could be argued that Israel at times moved Palestinians in Gaza to areas that were safer than areas from which they were ordered to leave, this report demonstrates that evacuation routes and so-called safe zones were consistently and repeatedly bombed, undermining the Israeli military’s position that people were being moved “for their safety.” Israel cannot rely on the security and safety of civilians as a justification for evacuating people if there are no safe areas to which civilians can move. Ultimately, as this report will show, even if Israel can demonstrate that its actions fall within the displacement exception, its lack of adherence to the strict protections required to make an evacuation lawful demonstrates that its orders for people to move were a pretext for forced displacement.
Most of the things here are true. Here's how HRW lies with facts and, more importantly, omissions.
Destroying active Hamas tunnels and defeating Hamas battalions are clear and legal military objectives. There are only two alternatives: destroy them without telling the civilians to leave, or destroying them after telling civilians to leave.
While there is no formal definition, it is true that a miliary imperative has higher standards than a military necessity. Israel knows that it will be attacking an area to rid it of Hamas operational capability. That knowledge is absolute. Therefore, telling the population to leave is absolutely a military imperative to adhere to international law.
HRW downplays Israel's military objectives as merely combating "the presence of members of Palestinian armed groups, materiel, and installations." Israel doesn't give evacuation orders (as opposed to warnings) in order to get rid of a few straggling rocket launchers. Using Rafah as an example, Hamas was entrenched above and below ground, so much so that nations advised Israel that it was impossible to evacuate the city. After Israel successfully got nearly the entire population to leave and then rid Rafah off Hamas - a clear, legal military objective - now HRW is saying that the evacuations themselves were illegal.
They were not only legal, but imperative, by any definition.
Another of HRW's implied arguments is that if Israel cannot guarantee safety for every civilian, any attempt to move them is illegal. It is not good enough to move them to places that are "safer." The fact that Hamas units deliberately moved to the center of these humanitarian zones, making them valid military targets, is ignored.
The last sentence quoted includes a huge omission, a fact of this war that is completely ignored in this 176 page report.
Normally in wartime, evacuations are executed by an army that is on the ground and in reasonable control of the area. If that is not possible, an army would cooperate with local authorities to plan and execute the evacuation.
Israel is not fighting that kind of war. It is legally required to clear out s many residents as possible without being physically present. The local authorities are Hamas, and they do not want to save the lives of their citizens - they want organizations like HRW to write reports about how miserable the lives of its citizens are. Hamas' entire military strategy is based on using civilians as shields for their operations.
That makes evacuations - again, evacuations that are mandatory ahead of a planned attack - extremely difficult. Israel has no partner to do what it must do under international law. In such a case, in order to achieve its military objectives, Israel can only do exactly what it did: warn residents to leave, tell them the safest routes, and work with international organizations to create humanitarian zones with tents, food, water, field hospitals and so forth to optimize a very bad situation. If a minority of civilians cannot or refuse to leave, that does not mean the area is forever immune to attack - it means that the proportionality calculation allows military action more easily than it did before the evacuations of most residents.
HRW is demanding the impossible from Israel. Any fair look at both international law and Israel's actions show that Israel did everything possible to protect civilians while being able to fight Hamas.
Throughout the report, HRW is quick to say that Israel is not doing this or not doing that. But it is comparing Israel against standards that cannot possibly be upheld in wartime, especially when Hamas' entire tunnel strategy is to place them under civilian areas.
At no point in the report does HRW suggest how Israel could have done better. It does not suggest a single alternative. The only choice - unstated but inevitably the one HRW approves - is to allow Hamas to continue to survive, thrive and ultimately achieve its own objective of mounting more October 7ths.
This is only one page of the report. HRW's "evidence" is cherry picked and often out of context, and counterevidence is ignored or minimized. Israeli officials who have nothing to do with war strategy are quoted as if they are making evacuation decisions for Gaza. Quotes that were made within hours or days of October 7 2023 are presented as if they were official strategy. Evidence that Hamas itself blocked Palestinians from fleeing to safety are presented as mere allegations which are then minimized - while Israel's actions are presented as settled violations of international law, Hamas actions are mere hearsay and not worth investigating.
I could write twenty articles showing HRW's deceit.
The bottom line is that in this report, and all its others, HRW is saying and doing everything possible to both delegitimize Israel and to strengthen Hamas. Looking at their reports comprehensively, an argument could be made that HRW and Amnesty are illegally providing material support for international terror organizations.
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