‘Amnesty International said Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups flagrantly violated international law and displayed a chilling disregard for human life by carrying out cruel and brutal crimes…’
DOHR and Mahmoud are youth football coaches from Jewish and Arab communities featured in #MoreThanAGame campaign, a key initiative of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism’s Global Sports Programme and its co-implementing partners, United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, and the International Centre for Sport Security. [https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/morethanagame-campaign]
A worthy endeavor, surely. But Hamas does not play fair: “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day…and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force…There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” [The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, 18 August 1988]
Hamas gunmen and/or independent groups of Gazan civilians transmuted the open-air psychedelic trance music “Supernova Sukkot Gathering” of “friends, love and infinite freedom” into a massacre of 260 civilians. Amnesty International said Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups flagrantly violated international law and displayed a chilling disregard for human life by carrying out cruel and brutal crimes including mass summary killings and launching indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel and its Crisis Evidence Lab has analyzed video footage showing Palestinian fighters on the initial day of the attacks at the Nova Music festival. Amnesty International Secretary General Agní¨s Callamard:
“Massacring civilians is a war crime and there can be no justification for these reprehensible attacks. We verified chilling videos that show armed men shooting at civilians and dragging people away as hostages. One disturbing video shows armed men parading a woman through central Gaza, like a scene from a nightmare. All civilians who were abducted, including children, must be released immediately. These crimes must be investigated as part of the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into crimes committed by all parties in the current conflict.” [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/israel-palestinian-armed-groups-must-be-held-accountable-for-deliberate-civilian-killings-abductions-and-indiscriminate-attacks/]
This is a continuing conflict. In the 2014 Gaza War, Palestinian armed groups (including the armed wing of Hamas) had repeatedly launched unlawful attacks and in one instance a projectile fired from within the Gaza Strip landed in the al-Shati refugee camp, killing 11 Palestinian children. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/palestinian-armed-groups-killed-civilians-on-both-sides-in-2014-gaza-conflict/]
In the Gaza War of 2008—2009 (aka Gaza Massacre, Battle of al-Furqan), the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict found that “Palestinian armed groups were present in urban areas during the military operations and launched rockets from urban areas. It may be that the Palestinian combatants did not at all times adequately distinguish themselves from the civilian population. The Mission found no evidence, however, to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or that they forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks. Although the incidents investigated by the Mission did not establish the use of mosques for military purposes or to shield military activities, it cannot exclude that this might have occurred in other cases. The Mission did not find any evidence to support the allegations that hospital facilities were used by the Gaza authorities or by Palestinian armed groups to shield military activities or that ambulances were used to transport combatants or for other military purposes…The Mission cannot, however, discount the possibility that Palestinian armed groups were active in the vicinity of such United Nations facilities and hospitals. While the conduct of hostilities in built-up areas does not, in itself, constitute a violation of international law, Palestinian armed groups, where they launched attacks close to civilian or protected buildings, unnecessarily exposed the civilian population of Gaza to danger…The Mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups should undertake forthwith to respect international humanitarian law, in particular by renouncing attacks on Israeli civilians and civilian objects, and take all feasible precautionary measures to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians during hostilities.” [A/HRC/12/48, 25 September 2009; United Nations Human Rights Council Goldstone Report]
In the 2007 Battle of Gaza, “when Hamas forcefully seized control in Gaza, it has conducted arbitrary arrests of political opponents, tortured detainees, clamped down on freedom of expression and assembly, and violated due process rights enshrined in Palestinian law. The victims have frequently been leaders, activists and supporters of Fatah, especially those with suspected ties to a security force or those who sought to undermine Hamas rule after its electoral win in January 2006.” [Human Rights Watch. Internal Fight: Palestinian Abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. 2008]
The supposed trigger for this year’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was the violence that had erupted during Ramadan of 2021 when Israeli police (plus ultra-orthodox Jews and far-right Lehava Jewish supremacists) meddled with worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and during Qadr Night and Jerusalem Day of 2021 when Jewish settlers sought to confiscate the property of longtime Palestinian residents in the Sheikh Jarrah district and East Jerusalem. The Hamas Deluge was immediately preceded by an Israeli raid on the Tulkarem refugee camp and the Jewish settlers’ rampage through the town of Hawara. [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-05/ty-article/.premium/palestinians-report-two-killed-by-idf-near-tulkarem-refugee-camp-in-west-bank/0000018a-fe2a-d95d-a3be-ff3f5bb60000] [https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-west-bank-settler-violence-ed4c7a1c1f3f3e499eac7da8f3489d21]
From “Sword of Jerusalem Battle”/”Operation Guardian of the Walls” to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Not over by a long shot. Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander in Gaza: “I call on Muslims everywhere to launch an attack.” [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/07/hamas-launches-surprise-attack-on-israel-as-palestinian-gunmen-reported-in-south]
This crisis seen with a Christian lens: “According to an email from Pastor Hanna (John) Massad, founder of Christian Mission to Gaza and former pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, the majority of Gaza’s 2 million people do not belong to Hamas or the Palestine Liberation Organization, but ‘are people who want to raise and support their families.’…Gazan Christians are caught between Israel’s and Hamas’ rockets…They did not create the war, they do not want any part of Hamas, and yet they cannot leave or do anything about the situation…We need to see and understand our Gazan brothers’ and sisters’ plight the way Christ sees it.” [https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-gazan-christians-caught-in-hamas-israel-crossfire/]
