• @Arete@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -99 months ago

    Not disputing any of that except for your conclusion. Hamas lumping their military losses in with civilians is literally using the fog of war to create confusion.

    • queermunist she/her
      link
      fedilink
      English
      9
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      The UN has been very clear about the rights of the child, and child soldiers are universally classified as victims regardless of whether they are armed or affiliated with a militant group. Israel isn’t actually allowed to carpet bomb child soldiers under international law.

      Stop trying to frame this as the health administration trying to create confusion. Children are classified as civilians, period.

      Also, wanna know something extremely fucked up? Half of Gaza’s population is under 18 and 70% of the population are under 30. The fact that Hamas uses child soldiers is shaped by the fact that Israel created conditions where boys can’t expect to live long enough to even become men.

      And now they’re just killing the boys.

      • @kbotc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -29 months ago

        Israel created conditions where boys can’t expect to live long enough?

        That’s an insane take on Hamas preventing women from gainful employment or education and turning them into baby factories. The reason there’s so many children is because the population literally doubled in 24 years, and you only get population growth stats like those when you have uneducated women who can only have children and do no other function in society.

        • @Killing_Spark@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          39 months ago

          I mean pretty much everyone in Gaza is without employment. Wasn’t the unemployment rate around 75% before October 7th? That’s just what happens if you block pretty much any trade and force a region to depend on outside humanitarian aid

          • @kbotc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            19 months ago

            No, the unemployment rate was not 75%.

            The disparity between Gaza and the West Bank is also reflected in unemployment rates, which over the period 2007-22 have been persistently higher in Gaza at an average of 39 percent, compared to 17 percent in the West Bank. This even as labor force participation rates have remained below 50 percent since the mid-1990s in both Gaza and the West Bank. The situation is particularly pronounced for youth and females in Gaza, where over two-thirds are unemployed, compared to less than a quarter in the West Bank.

            https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2023/327/article-A001-en.xml

            The atrocious unemployment is partially because women are essentially excluded from the labor market.

            • @Killing_Spark@feddit.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              2
              edit-2
              9 months ago

              I remembered incorrectly, what I was thinking about was the percentage of people relying on international aid which is/was between 75% and 80%. I didn’t find anything on how the unemployment rates are calculated, are women even included in the total potential workforce? I’d guess so, because they are interested in reporting a number that’s as high as possible, but on the other hand they might not do that out of bigotry?

              Edit: Apparently yes women are counted towards the total and they are around 60% unemployed

      • @Arete@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -99 months ago

        You do see how Hamas employing child soldiers and then lumping them in with dead civilian numbers to generate outrage is deceptive though, right? Because that was my point.

        • queermunist she/her
          link
          fedilink
          English
          59 months ago

          It’s literally not deceptive because child soldiers are civilians under international law. Extra clarification isn’t necessary.

          Hamas is doing nothing wrong by not identifying dead children as legitimate military targets, because they never are.

          • @Arete@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -109 months ago

            That’s an insane take and I think you know that. Let’s end this discussion here.

            • queermunist she/her
              link
              fedilink
              English
              59 months ago

              It’s insane that you think child soldiers are legitimate military targets.

              We should end this discussion before I say something that gets me banned lol

                • queermunist she/her
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  -1
                  edit-2
                  9 months ago

                  It’s not like my time is valuable lol

                  Also, I find articulating my opinions actually makes them better. Often these are just angry thoughts buzzing around in my head, so writing them all out like this helps me focus my ideas. Don’t worry, I am not trying to convince anyone of anything when I argue on the internet.

              • @Arete@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -99 months ago

                Child soldiers are legitimate military targets the second they pose a military threat. That’s awful, but how war works. Have a nice day.

                  • @Arete@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    -1
                    edit-2
                    9 months ago

                    I just did a fairly deep dive on this because it would be a horrible thing to argue about without a full understanding. You’re incorrect - a child soldier is a combatant under every relevant international law I could find, from the Geneva convention onwards. Further, there have been numerous horrific cases of soldiers having to shoot armed children, none of which has been labeled a war crime.

                    A particularly concise quote from the European journal of international law:

                    The starting points are articles 4(A) of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention and article 43 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, which provides for the definitional elements of what a combatant is under international humanitarian law, albeit overtly in the context of an international armed conflict. If a child is enrolled in the armed forces of a party to an international armed conflict, there seems to be no apparent basis in current international humanitarian law to characterize that child as anything other than as a combatant.