Rise of ISIS (9 page)

Article 48 of Additional Protocol I sets forth the following basic rule of distinction—a rule we've discussed repeatedly throughout this book: “In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”
⁸
The Red Cross recognizes that “the parties [to a conflict] are obliged to take all feasible precautions to spare the civilian population,” pointing to the “distinction that must be made between civilians and those directly
participating in hostilities” and recognizing that such a distinction lies “at the heart of international humanitarian law.”
⁹

These rules apply to “each” party to the conflict. Thus, Hamas and Israel are legally obligated to minimize their operations near civilians. While most on the left recognize the reality of this legal mandate, the left—along with the U.N. and the Red Cross—has overwhelmingly criticized Israel for targeting certain sites and objects, and has been silent about Hamas's actions that have turned otherwise protected sites and objects into legitimate military objectives—a violation of the law of war. By so doing, the left, the U.N., and the Red Cross encourage Hamas to continue its illegal tactics by providing it a significant propaganda victory over Israel every time innocent women and children are killed or injured by an Israeli attack on a legitimate military target that Hamas has intentionally located in a civilian area. Every time the left defends Hamas, it provides direct incentives to ensure that more women and children die.

Hamas intentionally rejects its duty to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas militants frequently and indisputably “operate in civilian areas, draw return fire to civilian structures, and on some level benefit in the diplomatic arena from the rising casualties.”
¹⁰
Hamas has intentionally located its military compounds and weapons caches in or next to civilian houses, mosques, and hospitals.
¹¹
Where is the international condemnation?

Let's look at Hamas's violations in detail.

After all, details matter.

According to Article 16 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, places of worship are protected objects.
¹²
To “use
[such objects] in support of the military effort” constitutes a war crime.
¹³
While the international community has condemned Israel for attacking mosques (not a war crime in itself, unless indiscriminately targeted), the U.N., the Red Cross, and other organizations steadfastly refused to condemn Hamas rocket launches from mosques.

Hamas launched 331 rockets at Israeli civilians from mosques during the most recent Gaza conflict.
¹⁴

But Hamas did more than just launch rockets from mosques. On July 22, 2014, an IDF paratrooper was killed by an antitank missile fired from within the Khan Younis mosque.
¹⁵
The Red Cross condemned Israel for attacking the Khan Younis area, without mentioning that Hamas had invited such attacks by engaging in military operations there.
¹⁶
While Hamas is openly and notoriously committing war crimes, the lack of such information in Red Cross statements encourages Hamas to continue using houses of worship to launch attacks on Israelis.

Schools are also protected sites—protected sites that Hamas regularly uses to launch attacks. Hamas located a rocket launch site near a complex of Gaza City schools.
¹⁷
On July 16, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) discovered twenty rockets hidden in a vacant Gaza school.
¹⁸
Using the building as a weapons storage site turned that structure into a legitimate military target. More alarmingly, it has been reported that the rockets discovered by the UNRWA were returned to Hamas by U.N. officials.
¹⁹
This not only rewards unlawful behavior but quite literally aids and abets Hamas in its unlawful war against Israel.

Again on July 22, UNRWA found more rockets in a second Gaza school.
²⁰
The school in which the rockets were found in
the second incident is located between two other schools that housed 1,500 refugees from the fighting—rendering them literal human shields for Hamas rocket storage facilities.
²¹
The U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon, “expresse[d] outrage, and regret, at the placing of weapons in a U.N.-administered school.”
²²
Secretary-General Moon also acknowledged that the location of weapons in such schools transforms those schools into “military targets.”
²³
Unfortunately, despite this statement from even a biased U.N., the Red Cross has not condemned Hamas for committing a war crime by using schools for military purposes. Instead, it has criticized Israel for attacking them, which further encourages Hamas to violate the laws of war.

Hamas launched 248 rockets from schools at Israeli civilians during the most recent Gaza conflict.
²⁴

While Israel expends significant resources on building shelters and antimissile equipment to protect its civilians from rockets fired indiscriminately from the Gaza Strip, Hamas, instead of building shelters to protect the population of Gaza, diverts such resources to build tunnels in civilian areas for military uses,
²⁵
including under mosques, schools, and U.N. facilities. These tunnels were constructed and have been used by Hamas militants to enter and attack Israel.
²⁶
IDF forces have found at least thirty tunnels since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge;
²⁷
ten tunnel openings were found underneath the Shujaiya neighborhood.
²⁸
Moreover, Hamas has fired more than 140 rockets from the Shujaiya neighborhood into Israel.
²⁹

By placing the entrances to its tunnel network within the densely populated Shujaiya neighborhood and firing rockets from the same area, Hamas intended to use the civilian popu
lation as a shield, thereby “render[ing] [the Shujaiya neighborhood] immune from [Israeli] military operations.”
³⁰
This is a clear and unambiguous violation of the law of war and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute.
³¹

Hamas launched 818 rockets at Israeli civilians from general civilian neighborhoods during the most recent Gaza conflict.
³²

Hamas isn't content with firing rockets and launching attacks from mosques, schools, and neighborhoods. It is also well-known for using hospitals as cover for its military operations. Hamas placed a rocket cache next to the Jabaliya Indonesian Hospital.
³³
Hamas stored weapons in the Al Wafa Hospital
³⁴
and frequently fired on IDF troops from the hospital with light weapons, antitank missiles, and rockets.
³⁵
Al Wafa Hospital is close enough to the Israeli border that one can view Israel from it.
³⁶
A tunnel opening used by Hamas was located adjacent to the Al Wafa Hospital.
³⁷
As such, Israel determined that Al Wafa Hospital was not being used for its normal protected purpose and was instead being used as a military installation, making it a legitimate military target.
³⁸
An IDF video showing the targeting of the hospital reveals extensive secondary explosions after the initial Israeli air strike, vindicating Israel's position that the hospital was used by Hamas as a weapons storage facility.

Hamas turned the hospitals into legitimate military targets when it conducted military operations from or near them. As such, these “purely civilian buildings [were] occupied [and] used by [Hamas] and such objectives may be attacked.”
³⁹

Hamas launched forty-one rockets at Israeli civilians from hospitals during the most recent Gaza conflict.
⁴⁰

As explained earlier, Article 52 of the Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention recognizes that “a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school,” although generally protected, can sometimes be used to make “an effective contribution to military action,” and the law of war allows attacking it if such an object makes “an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction . . . offers a definite military advantage.”
⁴¹

Thus, because Hamas uses otherwise protected buildings and facilities to store weapons, to serve as command centers, or as locations from which to fire at Israeli forces, they become legitimate military targets. Such facilities make an “effective” contribution to Hamas's military action and the destruction of which offers a “definite” military advantage to Israel. As such, by converting otherwise protected civilian buildings into legitimate military targets, Hamas violates the law of war.

It's difficult to list in a short chapter all of Hamas's war crimes. Hamas violated the law of war not just in the locations of its weapons but also in the targets it chose. When Hamas launches rockets at civilian areas in the hope that they'll kill someone—anyone—it violates the principles of necessity and distinction with every single rocket launch. They are indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks are those that are launched without consideration as to where harm will fall
⁴²
—just
like Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel
. Indiscriminate attacks are defined as

(a) [T]hose which are not directed at a specific military objective; [and]

(b) [T]hose which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective[.]
⁴³

Specifically, attacks are indiscriminate if they are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof,
which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
”
⁴⁴
When Hamas fires rockets into Israel, not knowing where they will land, there is no “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” and, hence, such firing violates the law of war.

Hamas fired more than 2,900 rockets into Israel since July 8, 2014, before the end of the most recent conflict.
⁴⁵
At least 280 rockets that were intended to land in Israel landed inside Gaza instead,
⁴⁶
meaning that Hamas is killing and injuring its own people. Taking into consideration the inaccuracy of Hamas's rockets alone allows one to conclude that Hamas's rocket attacks are indiscriminate because they are a “means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective.”
⁴⁷
Yet Hamas openly boasts that its rockets “accurately target the homes of the Israelis and the Zionists.”
⁴⁸
As such,
by its own admission,
Hamas's rocket fire is not directed at a “specific military target,” but rather at civilian homes, thereby establishing—without question—a war crime. Sadly, the U.N. and Red Cross have not denounced this criminal activity, thereby leaving Israel unprotected by the very governing bodies that guide and restrict Israel's defense maneuvers.

As such, Hamas should be held solely responsible for the
vast majority of civilian casualties in the current conflict, and the U.N., Red Cross, and governments across the world should be loudly condemning Hamas's violations. Instead, they criticize Israel. The Obama administration went so far as to call a lawful Israeli strike—a strike similar to those that American forces have made hundreds of times in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—appalling and “disgraceful.”

That is shameful and despicable. And it objectively aids terrorists.

Hamas's actions violate and mock the principles of the law of war, whereas Israel's actions seek at all times to comply with the spirit and letter of the law. The U.N., the Red Cross, and even—on occasion—the Obama administration have lost their own moral authority and credibility by siding with Hamas and advancing the jihadists' interests and narrative of war.

L
et's be crystal clear: If the U.N., Red Cross, and even the Obama administration win the legal argument, nations like Israel and the United States will no longer have a meaningful right to defend themselves. If direct warnings of an attack are insufficient, when can a nation defend itself against jihadists who are violating the laws of war? Such rules would give terrorists (who care nothing for the law) safe havens throughout cities and towns as they appropriate and strike from civilian buildings.

It has never been the law that any fighting force, anywhere, enjoys a safe haven when it strikes its enemies. Jihadists, who systematically violate the laws of war, should be the least protected of all combatants. To provide them with any protection at all merely guarantees that civilians will be placed in the crosshairs again and again.

The international left, the U.N., and the Red Cross understand this reality. They are not fools. One can only conclude
that they are objectively siding with brutal war criminals, rendering them complicit (and in the case of the U.N., often explicit co-conspirators) in war crimes.

Let's take the example of the International Red Cross, a formerly respected international organization that loses its moral authority with every pro-Hamas statement. In a recent article, the Red Cross discussed an Israeli strike on a seven-story building in Gaza. In the article, the Red Cross made the following statement:

The ICRC engages in discussion with “both parties” about the “rules of war.” We talk about principles such as “precautions in attack,” “legitimate targets,” “concrete military advantage” and “proportionality.” We remind everybody that if an attack is expected to cause “excessive incidental civilian casualties” in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, it must be cancelled or suspended. We say loudly and clearly that in this war, as in any other, it is not acceptable that soldiers minimize their risks at the expense of civilians on the other side. We also say it is not acceptable to use civilians as human shields, in any conflict. We attend diplomatic conferences, we organize workshops, we “raise awareness” among belligerents to “minimize casualties.” How effective is all this?
¹