Dissents etc can be found in the case page: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192
- in particular the opinion of Judge Aharon Barak, the Israeli ad-hoc Judge (a peculiarity of the ICJ is that each side gets to add a judge, but it doesn't have much effect since there are 17 other judges). But interestingly Judge Barak ruled against Israel in the case of two measures, enforcement against Incitement and ensuring humanitarian aid.
I believe it's also available in French, for those more familiar with that language.
Since the comment that I replied to was flagged, I'm posting this here because it is simply a statement of facts.
- Judge Barak's numbers on civilian deaths on 7th october are simply wrong and could've been easily checked. 766 civilians were killed, 1200 was the total number of deaths (including armed forces).
- Israel's own numbers say "2 civilians killed for every one militant"[1], that's 66% in the Gaza offensive.
- 766 / 1200 = 63.8%
- 63.8% and 66% are indeed close numbers, don't see why would it be flagged.
Of course, the numbers claimed by other NGOs / UN make it worse. But Israel's numbers are sufficient to make that claim.
Regarding the people that died on October 7, one important detail is evidence surfaced it appears a sizeable fraction was killed due to Israeli military attacking militants and hostages without distinction, to avoid capture, following the so called Hannibal directive:
Why is this flagged/down voted? Its just a plain statement of fact, supported by credible sources and references. Here's some more references if people think this didn't happen. The IDF attacked and fired on the Nova festival goers with Apache helicopters [1], an Israeli tank fired shells at Kibbutz Be'eri killing hostages and children, and stories of eight babies killed at the kibbutz have been proven to be false, among other things [3], [4]
The report that I saw said that there were 70 vehicles completely destroyed by RPG or Helicopter and the Israeli military did not go into specifics(although they undoubtedly have more data about the event than they have released)
IDF says “immense quantity” of friendly fire, that doesn’t sound like your “a few”:
Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
"While this is not a conclusive finding, it is currently considered the likeliest explanation based on the evidence gathered in investigations conducted by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal.[7]"
No official investigations made (only statements made by pro-israel media eraly in conflict), no proof thefore. Yet israel has track of bombing the Gaza hospitals, which makes aposteriori a more plausible explanation for the incident.
Regardless a failed rocket launch is a different matter from the Hannibal Directive which is deliberate lethal attack on their own hostages. The official directive was retired in recent years but is still practiced per Israeli reporting.
> The Hannibal Directive (Hebrew: נוהל חניבעל; also Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol) is the name of a controversial procedure that was used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) until 2016 to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."
> Israeli newspapers have reported that the IDF was issued orders echoing the wording of the Hannibal Directive during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. The IDF was ordered to prevent "at all costs" the abduction of Israeli civilians or soldiers, possibly leading to the death of a large number of Israeli hostages.
There's lots of proofs of misfires, hospital incident aside Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets are in many cases low quality and disintegrate in the air or just miss completely and land in Gaza. I'm sure you can find articles about it if you wanted to look.
As far as has been credibly reported, it wasn't a "sizeable fraction", it was a very small number. There's only one incident I know of that is verified.
I'm sure more will surface - such is war. Therefore I want to make it very clear - it is not an important detail, despite you calling it such. Hamas are the ones that attacked - if in the process of trying to stop these attacks, the IDF inadvertantly killed Israeli civilians, that is tragic - but is completely the fault of Hamas. This is true both legally and morally.
It is absolutely not "true both legally and morally." It all depends on scale and purpose of the operation. If israeli military acted with disregard to the lives of non combatants, that would account to war crimes, against their own population. They have history of war crimes against their own forces, called Hannibal doctrine, so I won't surprised if they have same directives against civilians.
> It is absolutely not "true both legally and morally." It all depends on scale and purpose of the operation.
Well I wasn't making a general statement - I was talking in this specific case.
Let's give an analogy - if a bunch of bank robbers have taken hostages and are threatening to kill them, and if the police is reasonably certain there is no way of actually getting them out - the police is morally justified in sending in SWAT to try and rescue as many hostages as possible. Even if they know that many hostages will die.
The moral fault is with the bank robbers, not the police.
> If [I]sraeli military acted with disregard to the lives of non combatants, that would account to war crimes, against their own population.
I think that's a totally valid internal matter for debate within Israel. Should this kind of doctrine be the rule? Is it appropriate to attempt to stop militants by any means necessary, including possibly at the cost of your own population? This is in the same vein as "we don't negotiate with terrorists", a principled position that theoretically cuts down on terror, but that has brutal immediate ramaficiations in specific cases.
That all said, I don't think this doctrine amounts to war crimes (I'm not sure how it possibly could amount to war crimes). And I think it's an internal matter for debate inside the country, but don't really see how it matters to anyone else.
In fact, it kind of proves the opposite of what many people think - that the IDF is specifically trying to kill Gazan civilians. I'm often asked "what would the IDF do if the innocent civilians around a Hamas militant were Jews, not Palestinians, would you still bomb them even though it might cause collateral damage?". And while I think that question has a lot of answers, I think the "Hannibal directive", if implemented on October 7th (as appears likely), is actually proof that the IDF acts consistently, if terribly brutally - civilians are sometimes collateral damage, even if they're Israelis.
I have a question about your analogy: How is the police so certain that the bank robbers won’t release the hostages with negotiations? Should we trust the judgement of the police?
I think the answer to these questions are: “We don’t known” and “No”. We should indeed scrutinize the police judgement, and if the SWAT team goes in guns blazing killing some of the hostages in the cross fire, we should question that decision. As is often done in countries with free press.
I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country. Even the USA frequently negotiates the release of hostages of terrorists. In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
I think the latter reason is true of Israel’s government. They are actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
> We should indeed scrutinize the police judgement, and if the SWAT team goes in guns blazing killing some of the hostages in the cross fire, we should question that decision. As is often done in countries with free press.
Absolutely. I'm not against scrutinizing anything. Like I said about this specific case - the people most aggrieved and most understanding of the situation is Israelis themselves, since we're talking about cases where Israeli citizens were killed while trying to kill militants. It's absolutely something the Israeli press should explore and something that the Israeli public should and will hold the military accountable for.
It is not, however, something that should be used to "score points against the IDF" or whatever- if the affected citizens themselves are not against the way this was handled, a third party using it as some kind of way to show that "the IDF is evil" or whatever is a bit silly (and, btw, insulting).
Nor is this something that should be used to conclude that "actually, Hamas didn't really kill so many people" - which is clearly false based on vast troves of reports of people killed by Hamas, much of them filmed.
---
In this case, bitter experience shows that Hamas doesn't release captured citizens without horrible costs - last time, for one soldier, Israel released 1,027 prisoners, including the person who just masterminded the October 7th attack. This time, 100 hostages were eventually released for a much more favorable-to-Israel exchange, and in exchange for a pause in the fighting - which some people take as a sign that the fighting pressured Hamas into accepting this deal.
> I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country.
It is - though it's complicated, many European countries do in fact negotiate, the US less often. I've heard reports that it isn't clear which policy is actually better in terms of number of captured civilians.
> On June 18, 2013, G8 leaders signed an agreement against paying ransoms to terrorists.[1] However, most Western states have violated this policy on certain occasions [...] These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, which funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid
> Some Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Britain, tend to not negotiate or pay ransoms to terrorists. Others, such as France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland are more open to negotiation. This is a source of tension between governments with opposing policies.
> In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
That's not the point at all! The point is to make it so that capturing hostages is meaningless - disincentivizing doing it in the future.
Many people in Israel warned, when deciding about that 1k-priosners-for-1-Israeli-soldier deal, that it would cause Hamas to really put effort into kidnapping more Israelis. Well - it happened - and a lot of people consider this proof that that previous deal was a "mistake".
> [Israel's government is] actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
You're talking about this as if it were a coherent response calculated to benefit the government. The decision to shoot at fleeing terrorists was probably made under incredible duress, possibly by field commanders and not the government (I'm not sure), while Israel was experiencing the worst attack in 50 years, possibly since its founding. There was no way of knowing if this was the opening salvo of a much broader attack that would've strained Israel much farther than ended up happening.
Whatever you think of this government aside, these specific decisions were almost certainly not made in a calculated way to "justify annexation". (And I very much dislike this government, to put it mildly.)
It is a complete misunderstanding of the situation to think that the government needed to make the threat of Hamas seem larger at the expense of Israeli citizens.
IDF's own reporting calls the amount of friendly fire casualties on Oct 7 "immense". Your interpretation is more conservative than IDF's own analysis and reporting on their own evidence - that's suspicious.
Furthermore there is Israeli reporting on the practical use of Hannibal Directive during Oct 7, which is deliberate killing of military and civilian hostages. Israeli reporting claims that the use of this directive may have been responsible for a "large" amount of hostage casualties.
Despite official recognition of the "immense friendly fire", IDF also reports that they refuse further investigation because they believe it would be "immoral", so there is deliberate obfuscation at play.
>Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
>The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
>It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
>Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
EDIT: Mis-wrote something, see further comments for details.
I went down the rabbit-hole trying to find out exactly what was said and meant. I don't consider Electronic Intifada a credible source (I mean, the bias is in the name!), but they are citing specific statements made by an Israeli army reporter.
That said, I think they (and you) are making things seem very different by the way in which you're quoting the statements. I wrote there are only a few known cases of friendly fire on civilians, and you wrote that the army thinks the number is "immense", which contradicts what I said.
Except, if you look at the context of that statement from the article, I think it doesn't actually contradict it. Here's the whole paragraph:
> Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time.
The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's not morally sound to investigate the incidents. There could've been 100 incidents - e.g. 100 cases of cars bombed trying to cross back into Gaza, which may or may not have had hostages in them (which is I believe where the IDF supposedly invoked the "Hannibal doctrine").
A hundred potential incidents to investigate could absolutely qualify as someone saying there are an "immense number", while still only representing a tiny fraction of victims compared to the numbers we know for certain were killed by Hamas.
I honestly think that if your case hinges on the specific phrasing used to describe what someone from the IDF said, and which doesn't even necessarily prove anything - then your case is incredibly weak. This could've been a translation error (I couldn't find the original Hebrew version of this article), this could've been the reporter slightly exaggerating what they heard (even unknowingly), etc.
Do you have any other sources except for this? I'd love to see them.
Though again, let's be clear - there are already hundreds (possibly over a thousand?) known victims of Hamas that are verified. There might be some friendly-fire incidents too, but there are an incredibly large number that are absolutely known to have been killed by Hamas, many of which were captured on video by Hamas itself!
Trying to claim otherwise is just completely ignoring all real evidence in favor of conspiracy.
EDIT: More Israeli-source/Israeli-reported evidence below (excluding any non-Israeli analysis of evidence)
I just want to note one detail
> The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's morally sound to investigate the incidents.
The IDF says it is *not* morally sound to investigate the incidents
They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
> Almost a fifth of Israeli soldiers who died in Gaza were killed due to friendly fire, according to data released by the Israeli military, Israeli Ynet News reported on 12 December.
There is also IDF reporting on the use of helicopters:
> “The pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian … The frequency of fire at the thousands of terrorists was enormous at the start, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their attacks and carefully choose the targets,” Israel’s Ynet reported last month, citing an Israeli air force investigation.
> “Shoot at everything,” one squadron leader reportedly told his men.
> A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.
> According to Haaretz, the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri after admittedly “shelling” the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive. “The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri residents were killed,” the paper chronicled.
> Pilots have told Israeli media they scrambled to the battlefield without any intelligence, unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants, and yet determined to “empty the belly” of their war machines. “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them,” one Apache pilot commented.
And some Israeli witness accounts:
> An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces.
> The IDF says it is not morally sound to investigate the incidents
Yes, sorry, of course, I miswrote that. (I edited the comment.)
> They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
Again, I can understand that - since people have been insisting on propping up insane conspiracy theories that Hamas didn't actually do anything bad on October 7th. Ultimately I think it's a mistake, and not one that will be relevant anyway - investigations can happen one way or another. (Again, free press, free speech and all that.)
They’ve by policy excluded press access to these environments to an unusual degree, besides murdering at least 83 journalists within Gaza, so I’m less certain that resulting press coverage will result in establishing real consensus truth
I added more of the Israeli-reported evidence above that you're welcome to dig into
This idea stems from lack of familiarity with Israeli society.
Israel is a small country with very few degrees of separation between people.
The communities attacked are highly organized, hate the current government,somewhat critical of the establishment, and closely connected to the highest ranks in the IDF. Including some generals. And also connected to many of the fighters who were there on the ground.
There is absolutely zero chance that the army would kill many people and that it would be kept hidden from the families and the public in large.
Also, Hamas was not merely taking hostages, but spraying people with bullets and setting houses on fire with families in them. So your SWAT team dillema means nothing, as the army had no other option other then engaging with the enemy as fast as possible.
The fact that in many places special forces were indeed sent to carefuly deal with hostage situations is being criticised as it may have wasted time in which the Hamas was killing more people, and people who were trapped in their homes got choked or burned.
The better strategy may have been to charge at the terrorists, as their numbers and whereabouts were unknown and while some were holding hostages others were still moving around in cars or by foot looking for hostages to take or victims to kill.
The only confirmed friendly fire case during October 7 that I personally read about was a tank that entered into a fire exchange with Hamas hostage takers.
40 terrorists and 15 hostages were surrounded in a house at Be'eri,
Firing at IDF and police forces that surrounded the house.
After a failed negotiation in which the Hamas commander alone surrenderd with one hostage, fighting resumed.
The Hamas members were firing with guns and RPGs at the tank and nearby forces.
The Tank fired two shells at the house killing the terrorists and all but 1 of the remaining hostages.
When Brits were firebombing German cities, that had very little to do with freeing anyone from anything. Even at the time it was recognized by many as an act of revenge, and it's hard to not take the same impression from how Israel is conducting itself in Gaza, especially given some telling remarks from Israeli leadership.
> at the time it was recognized by many as an act of revenge
In part. Air power was new at the time, and there was legitimate strategic ambiguity around the military value of removing war factories’ workforces. (This is why Germany and Britain bombed by night while America bombed by day.)
The book Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World War II covers most of the major issues.
The key point of distinction between the American and British approach emerged through what the British euphemistically referred to as "dehousing" - the idea that destroying German housing stock would disrupt the operation of manufacturing, divert materials and labour away from military use and demoralise the population. On this premise, civilian casualties were merely the incidental consequence of destroying houses.
Was it not? The war was not over and so no-one was freed, yet.
Regarding Dresden, from wikipedia...
> United States Air Force reports, declassified decades later, noted as a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the continued Nazi German war effort
It's interesting that we keep quite a critical view of modern politicians, yet when discussing on the field interactions we assume that armies of people, all like one, follow the bloodthirsty orders from commanders above.
> Big difference is that Israel is not targeting civilians on purpose
I think this is not a justified statement. Keeping in mind hat israeli government is clearly very far right, and on multiple occasions have brought up deranged things about Amalek, about "no innocents in Gaza", I think one can establish a reasonable doubt about the true intent of idf actions.
Israel is not targeting civilians, thats a fact.
It gains nothing from hitting them, and trying it best to evacuate them to safe zones. Why would they try to hit civilians? and if they did, why they didnt try to fire into the safe zones? (whom Hamas have fired rockets into Israel from multiple times, yet Israel didnt attack in order to not hit civilians, while risking its own civilians)
The people making decisions right now are not far-right, the far-right have been moved to the side line when it comes to the war decision making.Instead Gants and Eizenkot joined, whom both are moderate right.
All the sentence you quoted are out of context and were said just after a few days that Israel suffered the biggest massacre, the entire country was in trauma and in emotions.
Look, I live in remote corner of ex-USSR, do not care about intricacies of israel politics, all I can see is the top leaders of the country (minister of security, president, defence ministers) keep saying these weird stuff at all phases of he conflict; every other day some mad shit israeli army did again gets posted on X.
All israeli govt is far far right. Likud won't fly in anywhere in civilise world. Just seeing freaks like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir being actually employed in israel says a lot about israel. I am not good at these pilpul games of who slightly less crazy right wing who is more, what was the context of bibis deranged rants, so yeah. IMO israel as well may be targeting civilians. W#hich what ICJ had found that day.
You words are worthless to me, my friend. I make jusdgemjents from what I see, and I think that israel does target civilians in Gaza.
According to recent polls, if Israel had elections today - Smotrich and Ben Gvir will be out of the government, and Likud will get only 1/3 of the votes it got now, but we cant go to elections while in the middle of the war, thats a catch 22 for Israel.
Relying on X for your info is not a good idea, so much fake news, only thing worse is TikTok, for example the famous "500 dead from Israel hitting hospital" that turned out was a caused by the PIJ and there barely anyone hit.
In the mean time the government of Gaza (Hamas) is killing hostages.
Barak is no fan of the current Israeli government. And they often attacked him publicly and organized demonstrations around his home. They truly sent the best international law expert the country has to offer
This is more nuanced. Some people in the government respect Barak. I don't know that Barak is active in politics (I haven't really heard him opine on the current government, but one can imagine he's not a fan). The more extreme parties in the government resent/oppose Barak. The "government" doesn't attack Barak or protest against him but certainly some (extreme/right-wing) political factions in Israel blame him for many things. I don't think he was sent because he's necessarily the best international law expert, but he's a very sharp and widely respected. His being sent while the government is trying to undermine the practices Barak established in the supreme court is a bit weird. Politics.
Not exactly. They sent the guy who controls the local judiciary because not doing so would be impossible due to his immense political power. The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself and having given itself the power to cancel any law or demand any changes to laws/policy on any arbitrary basis; since this state of affairs is backed up by a sufficient number of powerful institutions, it is effectively impossible to challenge.
Barak ruling to resupply the enemy (it is widely documented that "humanitarian aid" goes first and foremost to Hamas) in an international court is entirely consistent with his lifelong tendency to gradually reduce Israeli independence and voters' impact on policy and to increase Israeli compliance to the policy of outside parties, first and foremost the US. (Resupplying the enemy was required by the US from the start. It is interesting to see other examples where civilians are prevented by the international community to leave the area of hostilities and instead they are supposed to be provided with resources in this area where the monopoly on the use of force belongs to one of the sides in the conflict.)
While the exact requirements placed on Israel by larger powers are somewhat unique, having highly influential people in the country effectively work in the interest of larger powers is a common condition for smaller powers. In this Barak is similar to many other high-profile people and organizations in many other countries enjoying limited sovereignty at best.
> The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself
this is at most lie and at least misconception. Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the President of Israel, from names submitted by the Judicial Selection Committee, which is composed of nine members: three Supreme Court Judges (including the President of the Supreme Court), two cabinet ministers (one of them being the Minister of Justice), two Knesset members, and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association. Appointing Supreme Court Judges requires a majority of 7 of the 9 committee members, or two less than the number present at the meeting.
In practice, the 3 Supreme Court Judges, the two representatives of the Israel Bar Association, and the 1 Knesset member "traditionally" representing one of the two major political camps [the one aligned with most Supreme Court Judges] always vote together, so most of the judiciary is appointed according to the wishes of the Supreme Court Judges. The veto on appointing Supreme Court Judges adds a modicum of balance, but given that the country can be set on fire at will by the Supreme Court like we've seen in 2023, I don't believe that this veto is that effective at changing appointments (if an appointee is declared illegitimate by the Supreme Court, the country will be paralyzed by protests; and more prosaically, you promote to the highest court from lower courts and everyone appointed to these was appointed by a simple majority without the 7-out-of-9 veto.)
The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention. This is taught in schools as a good thing because there's "a majority of professionals rather than politicians." I presume that this idea is so effective and consistent with the principles of democracy that it should also work for nominating governments and lawmakers.
>The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention.
Judges in England and Wales (including supreme court judges) are selected entirely by unelected officials; The government is explicitly prohibited from interfering with their decision. Given the influential nature of English law, I would be very surprised if this was unique.
In the Netherlands the Dutch Supreme Court provides parliament with a shortlist of 6 people.
The Dutch parliament then makes a short list of 3 people based on that list. Traditionally the first three people on the 6 person list by the Dutch Supreme Court.
This 3 person list is then offered to the Dutch government who then appointments one of them, traditionally the first one on the list, as a Supreme Court judge.
In the entire history only once did the Dutch parliament deviate from the Supreme Court’s 6 person shortlist and only once did the Dutch government deviate from the parliament’s 3 person shortlist.
So in practice it’s the Supreme Court who chooses who should join them, none of the judges are elected officials.
Lower court judges aren’t elected either, like say, in the US.
Neither are prosecutors for that matter.
In general these are all merit based appointments, not unlike your average job application, just with more ceremony.
Most of the judiciary are his loyalists. An example of his ongoing influence is the ridiculous legal doctrine invented just this year where the Israeli declaration of independence was retroactively declared to be the supreme law of the land, akin to a "meta-constitution"; his opinion on the matter was published after many months of campaigns where people would declare their "allegiance to the declaration of independence."
I feel like this is an over-simplification that's not going to be well understood by people not familiar with Israel's judicial history and systems.
He has some influence but I don't think "loyalists" (or the other terminology used in your earlier comment) is that accurate. The supreme court justices today have a range of opinions and are largely independent and interpret law (and some other universal principles, like human rights, is really what Barak brought to the table).
The interesting bit to me here is this signals that if those cases were brought in front of Israel's supreme court the outcome would likely be similar to the ICJ (except Israel's supreme court's rulings must be followed, it's not optional or requires security council approval). I think that was partly the intent in sending Barak and really the main argument that people that oppose the government initiatives to restrict the Israeli Supreme Court have. And so there's really no need to take Israel to the ICJ since its independent supreme court would e.g. enforce the same standards anyways.
> The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself and having given itself the power to cancel any law or demand any changes to laws/policy on any arbitrary basis;
1. Not completely. There are quite a few countries with fully independent judiciary, with judges appointing judges.
2. Courts with power to initiate, and prosecute a case by themselves also exist in other countries.
An important part of Barak’s involvement is the complete recognition of ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter, which it found (and Barak didn’t disagree) it had.
Notably also voted against telling Israel to follow the raw key prohibitions of Genocide convention as written in the convention, something Israel agreed to in the past. Curious.
Also voted against asking Israel to preserve evidence of the crimes. Interesting perspective for a former judge.
Hmm, the relevant meat appears in paragraph 43. One one point, he votes against because it’s redundant to the Convention. Fair enough. On the other, a question of “plausibility,” comes up, which seems a term of art I wasn’t able to quickly decipher.
Please don't post like this. It's against the intention of this site and especially against the intended spirit I tried to describe at the top of the thread.
I've been posting similar admonishments to commenters on all sides of this argument when they cross the line into flamewar. Your comments in this thread have clearly been doing that, and not only the comment I replied to.
It's common for people with strong feelings on a topic to feel like the mods must be biased against them and secretly in favor of the other side (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Meanwhile the other side(s) feel exactly the same way. These perceptions feel convincing, but you can't trust them—they're a product of some kind of hard-wiring that we all seem to share, especially when our emotions get engaged.
Any fair minded person who slogs their way through my moderation posts in this thread, and any similar thread, is going to see how hard we try to be even-handed, apply HN's rules fairly, and so on. Not that we always get it right, of course.
By the way, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. There is far too much content on HN, or even in a large thread like this one, for us to see it all. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
The civilian death toll in Gaza has been tragically high but there hasn't been any independent verification. Regardless of what's on Wikipedia, we can't trust specific numbers.
Hamas can't go toe-to-toe with the IDF. They are hiding in tunnels and among civilians, so these ratios aren't surprising.
To some extent, you can't blame Hamas for these tactics. They would quickly lose a conventional war. At the same time, if you have zero chance of winning a military victory, perhaps you shouldn't use violence to pursue your political goals...
Yes right, if israel is unable to fight conventional war, without massive disproportional amount of civil casualties, they should not probably engage in one.
As if we know how many Hamas fighters have been killed at the first place.
According to the official stats there is like 259 IDF casualties during the land operation. Which means that death ratio is 30:1 wrt to supposed 8000 Hamas death.Laughable.
Even then, military necessity of killing combatants, not actively particpating in the war is not justified. Yes, you can kill those, who is shooting the rockets at Tel-Aviv, but bombing willy-nilly all of Gaza just because there might be tunnels, where potential combatants might be hiding,. is not acceptable, although not am not an international law lawer.
Then they shouldn’t. That’s the simple answer of it. If they want to get rid of Hamas they will need to find another way. This level of civilian casualty is unacceptable. And as proven by the ICJ decision, it is not accepted.
While their statistics are regarded as an accurate account of the total death toll, they make no distinction between civilian and combatant deaths. This is obviously a crucial shortcoming if we are trying to ascertain whether the number of civilian deaths are disproportionate to the military objectives.
If we go all 19th century and assert that all men over the age of 18 are combatants. Then we get 70% of the deaths are civilian, and 30% are combatants. However we know a large number of adult men killed in Gaza or not combatants, e.g. they are journalists, UN workers, poets, university professors, etc. So 66% civilians seems very likely to be a huge underestimate.
What are you implying? That Samer Abu Daqqa, cameraman for al Jazeera killed in an Israeli strike on december 15th is a Hamas combatant? This is some serious accusation which requires some serious proofs.
Here is a list of the 88 (and growing) journalists so far killed in Gaza [1]. I would be impressed if you could find any shred of evidence that any one of them was an active duty combatant when they were murdered.
> Mustafa Thuria, identified in a document found by IDF troops in Gaza, was a member of Hamas' Gaza City Brigade, serving as Squad Deputy Commander in the al-Qadisiyyah Battalion.
> Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, is an Islamic Jihad terrorist, and was involved in the organization’s terrorist activities. Documents found by IDF troops in the Gaza Strip reveal his role in the Islamic Jihad's electronic engineering unit and his previous role as a deputy commander in the Zeitun Battalion's Rocket Array.
I think others have been shown wielding rifles or taking part in Oct 7, but I'll need to dig up the links when I have more time.
Edit: See e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/C17sCXPMKqW/?img_index=3. I don't think it should come as a surprise that some journalists participate in combat on the side; there are many examples throughout history of desperate defenders handing out weapons to civilians. Kyiv was a recent example.
Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were not active combatants when they were killed:
> According to Al Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout, Hamza al-Dahdouh and a group of journalists were en route to the Moraj area north-east of Rafah - which was designated a "humanitarian zone" by the Israeli army - but which had reportedly experienced recent bombings.
They were fleeing an area in Khan Younis being bombed to a designated safe zone in Rafah when their car was hit by an Israeli missile.
Even if we take the IDF at their words—which we shouldn’t—this is still not a shred of evidence they were active combatants when they were killed.
But we shouldn’t take IDF at their words, they have been proven to lie consistently when they target journalist. A high profile case was when they murdered Shireen Abu Akleh, changing their story multiple times until, finally, when the evidence against their story was so overwhelming, they finally admitted to targeting her.
As for the instagram thread. We really need a name to go with this. Who is this person? Is he on the list of the 88 which the Israel has murdered so far? ~The second photo doesn’t even look like it is the same person, and the third photo even looks photoshopped (and fails to show other results in a reverse google image search)~ [wrong, see edit].
His name was Muhyiddin Muhammad Muhammad al-Sadoudi and was a 24 year old fighter for the al-Qassam brigade, who died during active training in July last year, not by the Israeli army, and not in the current war. Only claimed to be a fighter, and never claimed to be a photojournalist by Hamas’s armed wing. He is not on the list of the 88 journalists in Gaza murdered by the Israeli army.
When you say they were not active combatants, what do you mean by that? If they were retired (which seems unlikely) that's one thing, but if they were just not on the frontlines, that wouldn't make them them illegitimate targets under the Geneva Conventions.
Thanks for getting to the bottom of those photos which admittedly lacked context. I didn't meant to suggest that he was in the list of journalists killed by the IDF; I didn't even know he was deceased. I think the point stands that both freelance photojournalism and guerilla fighting can be done in a part-time and/or non-professional capacity.
I mean if they are in an active combat mission posing a threat to Israeli solders or civilians. But reading more about this case it turns out I was wrong if we take the IDF at their words—which we shouldn’t to:
> “Prior to the strike, the two operated drones, posing an imminent threat to IDF troops.”
If this is true then they were indeed legitimate targets. However if what Al Jazeera says is true, then they were not.
> When asked on Jan 10 by AFP about what kind of drones were used by the two men and the nature of the threat the drones posed to Israeli troops, the army said it was “checking”.
> It said Mr Thuria was identified in a document found by troops in Gaza to be a member of Hamas’ Gaza City Brigade, while Mr Dahdouh was identified as a terrorist belonging to Islamic Jihad.
> The army statement included a copy of a document it said was a list of “operatives from an electronic engineering unit of the Islamic Jihad, including Dahdouh and his military number”.
So we pretty much have Israel says so, which is not good evidence, or any evidence for that matter. However the Al Jazeera story has witnesses:
> He [Mr Thuria] and Mr Dahdouh had been tasked with filming the aftermath of a strike on a house in Rafah, and their car was hit while they were on their way back, AFP correspondents said at the time.
And from talking to families and people on the ground there there are some reports that IDF killed many Isreali civilians on that day [1]. The extent is not obvious without independent investigation of course.
kinda different comparing a state with an organization that was caught lying about death statistics numerous times in the past [1] and including in this war (such as the ali ahli hospital incident).
it should raise some questions how the casualty count went to 500 in a few hours, where everywhere else in the world it takes days to get a body count after any disaster
It is beyond me how someone can believe that an organization capable of kidnapping babies to advance its political goals is beyond lying to do the same
There are lies and errors. From both sides. But the 26000 figure is generally accepted by the UN and aid agencies. Figures from Hamas in previous conflicts have been confirmed.
it is accepted by the UN because there is no other figure. they have no other way of estimating, also the UN is far from a neutral element in this conflict
The UN is a political body composed of the political interests of its members, which are mostly authoritarian states, and it hasn’t shown much support for Israel due to the vast membership of Islamic countries. Parody case in point, Iran being Human Rights commission seat
UNRWA, the UN agency on the ground was shown again and again to be in the very least in the mercy of Hamas therefore cooperative, at most its infrastructure and staff was used by the organizations for attacks against Israel and to hold hostages.
The ICJ in this case heavily quoted UNRWA as a source while it is an extremely problematic one.
The hospital bombing I quoted above is an example case where many experts tried to estimate casualties based on evidence, they arrived to figures that range from tenth to fifth of what Hamas published.
This together with the fact they control the casualty figure and have a clear interest at inflating it in order to stop Israel from attacking, is pretty obvious to me what’s going on.
Leaving the fact that this figure also includes Hamas members, and therefore is useless at estimating if there is excessive collateral damage
the fact there isn’t a better source does not make the only source reliable.
This is going to be a major issue when the actual court case will have to rely upon it.
the numbers will always be ‘too high’ as they are the number of civilian deaths in a war.
However, if they are much lower relative to similar conflicts than that changes a lot. Currently we have no way of knowing that, yet still people attribute these numbers some magical properties
> Weird how only disputing the Hamas numbers as biased is a talking point.
Why are you surprised that people trust Israel more than Hamas? Israel is a country that's ranked 29 of 167 on the Democracy Index[1], right _above_ the US. Hamas is literally a terrorist organization recognized in many countries, probably yours too.
and a summary is: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Dissents etc can be found in the case page: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192 - in particular the opinion of Judge Aharon Barak, the Israeli ad-hoc Judge (a peculiarity of the ICJ is that each side gets to add a judge, but it doesn't have much effect since there are 17 other judges). But interestingly Judge Barak ruled against Israel in the case of two measures, enforcement against Incitement and ensuring humanitarian aid.
I believe it's also available in French, for those more familiar with that language.