Will the Israeli government be investigated for war crimes?

AGAA4

The settlers have attacked a mosque on the west bank and burned it out. They left a message for the Israeli military saying 'we are not afraid of you'.
A Reuters journalist was violently attacked by a settler who clubbed her round the head.
The settlers have turned into terrorists in my view.

They seem to have always been terrorists - but, as far as I can see, they're upping the ante currently. One can even see little kids joining in for goodness sake on some of the videos made of them.

I saw a clip too re that mosque.

In their minds they already regard the West Bank as theirs and want it "made official" (as they would regard it). Even trying to rename it "Judea and Samaria" - as if it's already theirs! I recently watched one of their news programmes and there was this American guy (judging by his accent and the way he looked - apart from his headgear) getting himself into a right twist wondering how to phrase things as if they were the way he wants them to be - and duly calling the West Bank "Judea and Samaria" every time he mentioned it. It was almost worth watching him to see just how much more getting himself into a "right twist" he was going to do.

One of the positives of the Internet is that - despite them trying so hard to prevent it - videos are coming out (from both Gaza and the West Bank) showing what they are doing. It would have been so much easier for them to hide their conduct back before the Internet. News does get through often these days - despite all the censorship.

The settlers have attacked a mosque on the west bank and burned it out. They left a message for the Israeli military saying 'we are not afraid of you'.
A Reuters journalist was violently attacked by a settler who clubbed her round the head.
The settlers have turned into terrorists in my view.

Nor*

Not can I CariadAgain. The fans of Netanyahu and some of the Knesset who are convicted criminals are very hard to understand.

That would be useful Maremia. At this rate - I think you must be on track to be the best informed of all of us re just what is going on there. That could indeed be a positive - that maybe the agressors will turn in against themselves....

That and the fact that some of the IDF are thinking about things and disapproving of their own war by the look of it.

Maybe there's a chink of hope on the horizon and goodness knows we could do with it whilst so many in Gaza are having to sleep with sodden wet bedding in sodden wet tents and still having problems being able to afford food - quite apart from the living under constant threat.

It's a real struggle to figure out the mindset of those supporting that army and the settlers....I know I can't get my head round why anyone would support them.

'lamenting how good life was before the war'
It's all some of them knew. They had constructed homes, not tents, medical supplies and food.
Of course they prefer how it was before the genocidal destruction. Doesn't prove it was a paradise, just that it was 'better' than the hell they live in now.

A long article this morning about the Settlers, which I will come back to and share, but my main 'take' was that they are now challenging the IDF.
I hope that will herald their undoing.

Oreo

All the peaceniks really want is a halo, and for somebody else to do their fighting for them.

I wouldn’t dream of attempting to wrestle the halo from your hands Oreo, you are more than welcome to keep it.

With regard to me earlier post re-tunnels. Was addressing the piece about children killed in tunnels and pointing out that primarily these tunnels were for commerce not terror.
I did not say that Hamas did not get involved. Or that children again might not have worked for them to dig tunnels.
Poverty brutalises people, and I will argue that Gaza has never been a great place to live or raise children, those who say that obviously see it as their homeland and so love the place despite everything. Understandable. But it has been compared with an open air prison and has none of the essentials let alone luxuries of the first world country on their doorstep - their country also.

All the peaceniks really want is a halo, and for somebody else to do their fighting for them.

Our forebearers

Must cancel predictive text

“I started out my worklife determined to never facilitate wars in the smallest of ways (which, in my case, meant typing anything to do with fighting wars/civil defence/etc) and there was a couple of occasions when I had to make my refusal plain - as it was being asked of me. I hadnt seriously thought an office worker like me would ever come across any occasion I'd be asked to - but yep.....civil defence typing requests (duly refused), typing someone's personal war memoirs as an extra (duly refused).”

So you would stand by and see your parents, friends, even children killed by aggressors.

Or perhaps you think that life under the Nazi jackboot would be a picnic, I’m just thankful that our fire eaters thought differently.

Illegal settler violence has been the worst ever this year.

There is fear that it is going to lead to confrontation, which I guess is what the settlers want so that they can then use it as an excuse to turn the West Bank to rubble.

I was answering you.

Perhaps you didn't want replies 🤔

Read reply on that from Babs03 on the previous page.

I can categorically state that I've never dug tunnels for terrorists under duress.
Have you?

Now that should be an interesting one if anyone ever runs a poll on it as to what percentage of people on here have never ever ever done a job that was disagreeable to them/exploitative/dangerous/immoral generally.

My feeling is that it wouldnt be very many at all.

I started out my worklife determined to never facilitate wars in the smallest of ways (which, in my case, meant typing anything to do with fighting wars/civil defence/etc) and there was a couple of occasions when I had to make my refusal plain - as it was being asked of me. I hadnt seriously thought an office worker like me would ever come across any occasion I'd be asked to - but yep.....civil defence typing requests (duly refused), typing someone's personal war memoirs as an extra (duly refused).

Not mentioning the time when I thought "A secretarial job in the University would be the best environment for me" and wrote asking for a couple and walked into the geology department (if my memory serves me right) and didn't think there'd be a problem for a second. Then up came a question of "We have to search out places for dumping nuclear waste. Would that be a problem to you?" At that point the silence was so very long - as I was there gobsmacked by such a question straight out of left field that it was obvious that an answer would be along the lines of "How fast could I tell Greenpeace about it?"

It's surprising just how very hard it is - even in a country like Britain and even back in the 1970s/1980s to avoid jobs one disapproves of....so goodness only knows how hard it is in a less civilised and/or largely destroyed country and when one has few options and is even being expected to work whilst one should still be at school.

Even in this country - my father made it plain to me he hadnt gone into the armed forces by choice and that it was his wife's decision that he stayed in them for as long as he did and it took a determined teenage daughter (me) to get him out of them.

I'd love to know if there are many people at all - even in Britain - that have never ever had a job they disapproved of per se at all and never had a job where they disapproved of the wages/conditions at all (ie for being too bad to be fair). 10% maybe?

Not so much Hamas but owners of tunnels

That is heartbreaking, Babs03.
However, the vast majority of the tunnels in Gaza were owned and operated by the militant part of Hamas and other militant groups.

I have also heard women from Gaza lamenting how good life was there before the war.

So many different stories.

‘Not so much hamas but owners of tunnels’ Babs03 are you serious?!
Nobody so much as coughed in Gaza without hamas knowing about it, and the majority of tunnels were /are for the benefit of hamas.

David49

Nobody has mentioned this atrocity yet

“Hamas officials openly admitted that children were used to help build their terror tunnels and that at least 160Palestinian kids died during so-called work accidents,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rightsNGO.

Not many on here will like reading that.

AGAA4

Oreo

Using young girls? Rubbish.

Of course the IDF can do no wrong in your view. Using anyone as a human shield is despicable.

The IDF like any Army in the world can do wrong of course, and often on the ground do what’s expedient rather than morally or ethically right at times.
I can believe that they may have made Palestinian men go in front of them in tunnels or into houses where they suspect hamas members or boobytraps but refuse to believe that they have done that with girls or women.

That's shocking Babs - but one can get the gist of it's like 19th century Britain (probably even worse) - where children were financially speaking forced into awful work - because in many families it was a case of "Too many people to feed and few options for feeding them".

They didnt have any sort of welfare state as far as I can work out before all this trouble started and they seem to have a lot more children than we do from what I can make out - so lots of extra mouths to feed.

“Gaza teens say dangerous work in tunnels is only employment option – UNICEF article
Back-breaking and life-threatening labour in the tunnels
the only option, say teenagers in the State of Palestine
By Catherine Weibel
GAZA, State of Palestine, 9 January 2013 – In the small patch of land that runs along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the sound of generators roars amid hundreds of white tents planted in the landscape of sand and bullet-riddled ruins.
Located on the edge of the town of Rafah, the tents hide entrances to tunnels that have been used to smuggle food, fuel and construction materials under the border since the beginning of the closure five years ago. Israel says some of the tunnels are used to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
Inside one of the tents, a dozen teenagers sit around a big hole, waiting for the last of their friends to rise up to the surface. The tunnel, with its walls of bare soil with wooden supports, is tall enough for a man to stand with his head bowed.
Accidents are rife. Since 2009, eight children have been killed and another three injured in collapses, electrocutions, explosions of gas cylinders and air strikes.
Children working in tunnels are a not a rare sight, but no one knows how many there are. Many tunnel owners find it easier to hire children, who are less likely to complain about working conditions or the pay. Parents claim they have no choice but to send their children to work in the tunnels to help feed the family.
Tunnels or tombs?
Sixteen-year-old Mohammed* was sent to work in tunnels when he turned 14. “One morning, my mother took me in her arms and hugged me, crying. She said that I was a man and that, from now on, I would no longer go to school but had to work because my father was too old to find a job,” he says. “I was forced to drop out of school and ended up in a tunnel.”
Mohammed can barely keep his eyes open as he talks, his frail body numb with exhaustion. “The first time I arrived at the tunnel, I freaked out and I cried,” he recalls. “I did not want to work underground; the tunnel looked like a tomb. One of the workers gave me a small pill to relax.”
The pill was Tramadol, a mild opioid painkiller of poor quality imported through the tunnels from Egypt. It has become a popular drug in Gaza and can be very addictive. Many children working in tunnels say they take it regularly. “Sometimes my body is aching too much, but I still have to go to work, so I take a pill,” says another teenager.
“What choice do I have?”
Mohammed earns up to 120 shekels (about US$30) per back-breaking shift in the tunnel. He says he could find a job on a construction site, but the heat is excruciating and the salary is only a third of what he currently makes. “I wish I could become an electrician, but I don’t really know how to get there,” he reflects.
Mohammed’s friend, 16-year-old Ahmad, keeps going to school every day after his night shift. “My teacher says I should stop working in the tunnel, but what choice do I have? I cannot leave my family without bread on the table,” he laments, adding that he keeps falling asleep in class. “I fear that, in the end, I will never graduate from school.”
Risking their lives
Mohammed and Ahmad recall how they almost died together in a tunnel collapse. “We knew that help was on the way and there was some air left, but one of the gas cylinders we were transporting started to leak, and we suffocated,” remembers Mohammed. “We panicked and we thought we were going to die.” The children were rescued in time, but Mohammed was hospitalized for a week.
Mohammed says that his cousin, who worked in another tunnel, was not so lucky. “The gas cylinders he was transporting exploded when he lit up a cigarette, and he died,” the child says, softly. “I hate gas cylinders. I don’t want to carry another one in my life, but I have to work.”
Saqer is an educator in a UNICEF-supported Adolescent-Friendly Space in Rafah. He says that he sometimes comes across children working in tunnels and tries to talk them into quitting their jobs.
“I have convinced a teenager to go and work in a bottle factory instead, and I am now trying to find him vocational training, as he does not want to go back to school,” the educator says. The teenager is still working in the tunnels from time to time because it is more profitable.
Since the closure was slightly eased in 2010, the number of tunnels has decreased, and work has started drying up. “I don’t go underground as often as I used to,” says a 15-year-old tunnel worker.
He does not seem to know whether it’s a good or a bad thing.
* All names have been changed.”

Not so much Hamas but owners of tunnels used for smuggling goods into Gaza for many years. And dirt poor families forced to send their children to work.
Hamas may have done this as well but the tunnels were not dug for terror but trade originally.
Let us not forget that Gaza was a third world country suffering a blockade. And like most third world countries children had to work or families went hungry.

Nobody has mentioned this atrocity yet

“Hamas officials openly admitted that children were used to help build their terror tunnels and that at least 160Palestinian kids died during so-called work accidents,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rightsNGO.

Punished?
Who in the IDF has been punished so far for war crimes?
Wasn't it you who said Israel would not co-operate?
Think you answered your own post.