War Crimes by Hamas, Defense by Israel

"[Mohammad Al-Massi -- commander-in-chief Hamas military wing -- Ismail Haniyeh -- head of Hamas political wing -- Yahya Sinwar -- Hamas/Gaza chief -- charged by the International Criminal Court with extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, torture and outrages upon personal dignity; the three] planned and instigated the commission of crimes on October 7th, and have, through their own actions, including personal visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping, acknowledged their responsibility for those crimes."

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan

 

 

Three master-terrorists, utterly conscienceless sadistic monsters for whom human life is irrelevant to their greater goals of the total extermination of a re-born Jewish State, an ancestral Judaean land where historical antecedents leave no doubt Jews were domiciled for thousands of years until the Roman Empire sent its legions to pacify and control the Middle East for centuries until a time when Jews rebelled, fought and died and ultimately were exiled for a second time in ancient history. Palestinian terrorists are working on a third time.

 

And the State of Israel -- in the aftermath of a horror that slaughtered 1,200 of its citizens as well as a handful of foreign farm workers, where sadistic savagery was displayed in a volume of mass rape, jubilant mutilation, rape and murder of Jewish girls and women, where infants were killed along with their entire families and children, the elderly and ill, Israeli men and women were abducted and taken into captivity in Gaza -- reacted with fury and righteous offense. 

Israel's dispatching of its military into Gaza for the sole and singular purpose of disarming the Hamas war machinery, including dispatching the leaders of the terrorist groups Islamic Jihad and the PFLP on a martyrdom trip to Paradise; to militarily confront the groups, to dispossess them of their stockpiled weaponry, to destroy their tunnel system in Gaza, was meant to ensure that a promised repeat of the ghoulish October 7 attack would never re-occur.

Israel's reaction was the very same as any other self-respecting nation whose first duty it is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens, a well understood and expected response to the fracturing of a nation's trust that a neighbouring country or group of people aspiring to achieve recognition of a nation dedicated to their civil futures would never seek to commit that magnitude of violence on another. The unremitting hatred expressed by Palestinian terrorist groups toward Israel refutes that trust.

Yet in Israel's committing to protect its own from any further such terrorist acts after sustaining multiple decades of recurring lethal attacks massacring its citizens and in the process of response through battling its enemies takes the kind of humanitarian care to take highly unusual steps to mitigate civilian deaths in the geography hosting them alongside their terrorist government, condemnation at the plight of Gazan civilians emanates from all quarters. 

 

Apart from the reality that a majority of Palestinians approve of violence against Israel, approve of Hamas, approve of its charter to destroy Israel, approve of the unspeakable action of October 7, Israel does its utmost to protect the lives of non-combatant civilians. Which is far more than can be said of any other fighting force in history. Where during World War II, the Allied forces fire-bombed civilian infrastructure and cities as punishment for their leaders' instigation of war.

That the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel and the Israeli defence minister -- as well as warrants for Hamas leaders, clearly indicates that in his opinion one group equates with the other. An outrage of discretionary choice to place leaders of a responsible, liberal democracy on a similar footing with leaders of a proud death-cult culture aspiring to destroy an entire people and its state.

Yet the ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant along with Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of war crimes and crimes against humanity in both the Gaza Strip and in Israel. The actual granting of the warrants is the responsibility of a panel comprised of three judges tasked to consider prosecutorial evidence to make their determination whether to issue arrest warrants so that a case can proceed.

 

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan

"[Israel fights with] one of the strictest [moral codes, respects international law and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself -- and has in the past, impartially]."

"The State of Israel is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on the 7th of October."

Benny Gantz, former military chief, member Israeli war cabinet

As for Hamas; it has accused the prosecutor of trying to "equate the victim with the executioner", a statement of such appalling absurdity, turning reality inside out, a trait and a twist of reality typical of Palestinian logic as a manipulative skill to convince others that night is daylight in appealing to the sympathy of the outside world for the 'victims' of Israeli aggression. Hamas, the statement went on, has the right to resist Israeli occupation, including "armed resistance". Israel is 'occupying' ancient Judaean land that Palestinians insist is their own rightful inheritance.