“The Laws of Armed Conflict now carry a glaring asterisk: ‘Except for Israel’”
August 27, 2025
By
Reprinted from Jihad Watch
Elder of Ziyon explores the rules imposed on Israel, and on no other combatant in the history of war. I discuss the first part here, and there is more: “Yet another new rule for Israel and Israel alone (courtesy @TheGuardian and @972mag),” Elder of Ziyon, August 25, 2025:
5. An NGO with known terror ties must be allowed to be considered legitimate.
Just one example: Addameer, an NGO with ties to the PFLP, is still being considered legitimate by the “international community.”
6. Reporters must be allowed into active war zones even if their presence would jeopardize operations.
Israel prevents foreign journalists from entering Gaza where they are in an active war zone and therefore in danger. Were they to be allowed in, that would severely constrain IDF’s operations in order to keep those journalists safe.
7. The professional army statements must be considered false unless verified true, the statements from the terror group are considered true unless proven false.
The international media reports as fact Hamas-supplied statistics on numbers of dead and wounded, and on the makeup — adults, women, children — of those casualties, without questioning them. On the other hand, when the IDF releases its own data on casualties, those numbers are reported as if they are not to be believed. How is it that Hamas came to be regarded as a truth-teller, after decades of its lies, while the IDF, that has an unbroken record of telling the truth, is now to be disbelieved?
8. Unconditional ceasefire is demanded without demanding release of all hostages by the other side.
Israel is expected by most of the world, though not by the United States, to agree to an “unconditional ceasefire” with Hamas, but without the latter being expected to release all of the remaining hostages. Why?
9. Territory that has not been conquered or is still being fought over is considered “occupied.”
Gaza is routinely described as “occupied.” But every last Israeli was pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Given that, how can the Strip be described as “occupied”? It is a “war zone.” That is a different thing.
10. A war is considered “genocide” by default without using any accepted definition of genocide.
No one has yet provided a definition of “genocide” that is agreed upon by all nations. We do know that of the 2.2 million people in Gaza, less than 20,000 were civilians who died from combat-related causes. That is less than 1% of the Gazan population. Would that constitute “genocide”? No one has yet provided a widely accepted definition of “genocide.” The word is simply flung at Israel and by dint of repetition, too much of the world mindlessly accepts it.
11. Using human shields is legal, and the presence of civilians means the enemy can never be attacked.
The entire civilian population of Gaza is being used by Hamas as human shields. This has always been regarded as a violation of the laws of war, but now special rules are being applied that make Hamas’ practice legal, and the IDF is widely criticized for any operations in which civilians in Gaza die, which is the unavoidable result of Hamas embedding its fighters and weapons in and among those civilians.
12. Hospitals, schools and mosques must not be attacked even when militants use them for military purposes.
How often do we hear the IDF being criticized because it “struck a hospital” or “struck a school”? But a school full of fighters and their weapons cannot be called a “school.” Nor can a hospital be considered “only” a hospital if it, too, contains hundreds of fighters, weapons, and hiding places from which Hamas can launch attacks. For example, 900 Hamas fighters inside the Al Shifa Hospital either surrendered to, or were killed by, the IDF. Was Al-Shifa still to be considered a “hospital”? It is not the original function of these buildings — schools, hospitals, mosques — but what they are now used for, that determines whether they are legitimate targets.
As Elder of Ziyon states, “The Laws of Armed Conflict now carry a glaring asterisk: ‘Except for Israel.’”
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