You know, I know the terrorists operate from civilian areas. But when are enough civilian casualties enough?
The IDF can do better than this.
Grave consequences: Three children – 6-year-old Muhammad Roka, his 5-year-old sister Nida and 16-year-old Bilal al-Hizi, were killed Tuesday evening as the Israel Air Force attempted to assassinate a group belonging to the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the al-Shifa Hospital Director Dr. Jumaa al-Saka told Ynet.
The Israel Defense Forces expressed its regret “if civilians not involved in terror activities were hurt in the operation,” adding that “responsibility lays on the terror organizations and on the Hamas government.”
Another 15 people were wounded in the strike, including two group activists who were in the car and sustained serious wounds
Eyewitnesses added that some of the passengers managed to escape from the jeep before it was hit.
I’m sorry. I can’t keep defending actions like this.
A senior Air Force officer said that no civilians were identified in the vicinity of the target attacked in northern Gaza.
“When the two missile were fired at the vehicles in Jabalia no civilians were identified around it. We will investigate the incident like every other Air Force operation,” said the officer. He added that the cell hit was responsible for firing Qassams into Israel. (Hanan Greeneberg)
I get that the terrorists hide behind women and children. I know the IDF doesn’t deliberately target civilians. But this is too many times in too short a period that the IDF is getting too much “collateral damage.” There simply has to be a better way.
There has to.
The answer is larger warheads and bigger explosions.
You know you’re going to get “collateral damage” when going after any Pali terrorist. But by making the kaboom *bigger* you reduce the chances of the terrorist or terrorist escaping the blast radius.
Besides, Abbas said he’d blame the rocket crews themselves for any collateral damage from this point out. How dare you question the word of the democratically elected President of the sovereign Palestinian Nation? ;)
Israel has nothing to apologize for. She did not ask for this war, and she fired at a jeep being driven by Al Aqsa terrorists who, when they are doing the firing, aim at school buses and houses.
I’m pretty sure the IDF is doing the very best it can to avoid civilian casualties, and especially kids. It’s just that the terrorists are getting better at making sure they fail.
What’s the alternative? Stop targeting terrorists in civilian areas? They thought they’d done that this time.
So now what? Stop targeting terrorists, period? I don’t think so.
The Philistines are sacrificing children again. This time, it is by transporting children with known terrorists. When the missiles hit, the hew and cry will be about the children,not about the terrorists. Moreover, the terrorists actions directly violate the Geneva Convention (as if they care) provisions about locating military personnel among civilians.
My solution would be for Israel to announce that it would conduct its military operations not as a Western country, but as a Middle Eastern country. Israel should announce that it would conduct operations similar to those of the Philistines, and see how Yasser likes taking the bus to school.
chsw
“But this is too many times in too short a period that the IDF is getting too much “collateral damage.†There simply has to be a better way.
There has to.”
Contrary to your implication, the choice, regrettably, is not between collateral damage and the lack thereof. It is between allowing terrorists safe harbor by attacking from amongst civilians, and defending oneself against these attacks.
I understand the emotional qualms, but there is no “nice” option.
War is heck, Meryl.
Paleo civilian casualties will stop when the paleos stop using their women and children as shields. Every civilian death is their fault, not the fault of Israel.
You might as well tell Israel to stop fighting back.
I’m with Meryl on this one. While I understand the “war is war” arguments, I can’t help, as a human being, feeling awful that children and other innocents get caught in the crossfire. Israel does the best it can, I know. The terrorists don’t care about collateral damage (for them collateral damage is the whole point) … But these are kids we’re talking about.
By the way, Meryl, I found your site via listening to SNN. I really hope that you and your colleagues will continue to podcast. I’ll really miss my weekly audio treat if you guys decide to quit.
I know they’re trying, Lynn. And I know the terrorists are doing their damnedest to hide behind women and children.
I just can’t stand to see any more headlines about dead innocents.
Not good enough, well they are amongst the best in the world, so if the best in the world doing the best it can is not good enough, I think your standards are too high.
The War on Terror is hell, and the alternative is reading headlines of Israeli children who were TARGETED being killed. I could not disagree with you more on this though your intentions are good.
Yes, war is hell. That’s not an excuse for doing it sloppily, or for letting evil done by others excuse one’s own mistakes.
I worry when someone like Meryl, who clearly knows the situation well expresses sadness and criticism for an operation in which children were killed–not an intention to dismantle the IDF, mind, just sadness–and people immediately run in to disavow any ’emotional qualms’.
I look at those names and ages, and I flinch too. I don’t necessarily say that I wouldn’t have ordered the strike, given the option. But I grieve for the children. War is hell. That truth should never be used to rationalize the deaths of children.
Merde! Why don’t you just pack it in and move to America. Oh, sorry … that’s right, you already did that. If the palis want to pack kids in their car with terrorists for propaganda reasons then I wish the IDF would come up with missles that just left no remains to be identified.
I sympathize with your point of view, Meryl, because it is terrible when children are killed. But while it may be the case that Israel didn’t do all it could have to avoid civilian casualties, it may also be the case that the Palestinians did everything they could to cause those casulaties, especially since they just lost their big propaganda hit when HRW (surprisingly) admitted Israel might have been right in its investigation of the previous “shelling the beach” incident. After all, these are people who send out retarded kids as suicide bombers.
Meryl, this is very fishy. The IAF has drones over Gaza taking real-time pictures – and they saw the car without civilians around it. After the bomb, suddenly there are civilians killed. Perhaps a mistake was made, and perhaps there were children in the car with the terrorists just for this purpose.
In any case, your justifiably uncomfortable reaction to the headlines is no justification for the IAF to stop what it is doing – because then OUR children will be killed by them. What’s more important, your guilt, or saving lives?
… and perhaps these “collaterals” were killed during the raging internecine Pali-on-Pali fighting that is going on – almost totally undocumented by the media.
Sorry folks – it’s barely half a century since “the greatest generation” carpet-bombed Dresden and other German cities. The notion that wars can be conducted without any civilian casualties is just untenable.
We’ve become
1)Spoiled by the restraint of the IDF, and the accuracy of the targeted techniques it pioneered.
2) Boxed in by our own pro-Israel arguments based on that restraint. Perversely, those arguments have been used by the Double Standard Gang to limit what is considered acceptable Israeli military action – to the point of unreal demands for complete, bloodless purity.
The time has come to defend ALL Israeli actions, and express sympathy – but not a smidgen of guilt, weariness, or defensiveness – at the collateral damage that does ensue.
Yes, it is sad when children are killed in war. Israel should bow its collective head in silence for a moment or two, apologize for any “collatral damage” and then get on with bombing the terrorsts to Kingdom Come, come hell or high water.
The alternative to IDF action is dead Israeli kids rather than dead paleo kids.
Take your choice.
The reason this is still happening is not because Israel is responding too harshly, it is because it is not reponding harshly enough. The next time a Qassem is fired at Sderot, Israel should bomb all PA institutions flat, regardless of who is in them, specifically targeting the Hamas leadership. Forget all of these nickel-and-dime targeted “assassinations”. There’s a war on, and Israel is being derelict in its duty. Sderot is under daily bombardment. How come Israel has not invaded Gaza and killed thousands of terrorists? Instead, they are allowing Jews to be fired at with impunity. In any other country, the government would have fallen by now. Only in Israel can someone like Shimon Peres still show his face in public, much less be part of the governmemnt.
In any case, it is a chutzpah of chutzpahs for the paleos, who kill Jewish kids on purpose, to wail and beat their breasts when their own kids, whom they deliberately put in harm’s way on purpose, hiding behind them like the filthy cowards they are, get killed.
If there is a choice between innocent Isreali deaths or innocent Palestinian deaths – I know what my choice will be. Sorry but Hamas has suicide bombed any sympathy out of me.
And another attack missed and killed innocents.
I’m sorry, but the negative PR factor alone is killing Israel.
This way isn’t working. The attacks haven’t stopped.
I think Ephraim has a point about threatenting the leadership. It always worked before.
Meryl
Israel should turn off the electric power in Gaza and cut off the water that she supplies them. Also no jobs for Palestinians in Israel as well.
Somehow when Pals kill innocent Jews it does not seem to cause bad publicity for them in Europe, I wonder why?
15 Ephraim:
“Only in Israel can someone like Shimon Peres still show his face in public, much less be part of the governmemnt.”
Amen to that. Also how on Earth a Stalin looking, ignorant union thug named Amir Peretz can wind up with the Defense protfolio is beyond me. One of my Orhtodox co-workers a few moths ago referred to Ehud Olmert as a “snake.” I think he was right. If a hostile government across the James River was shelling Richmond, or across the Hudson River was shelling Manhattan, we would be demanding total war against that terror entity. I see no reason why the people of Sderot have to live in fear. I think that Israel has been trying to wage war on the cheap by an assassination here and another assassination there. Trying (admirably I might ad) to limit both Palestinain and Israeli casualties.