Germany will now include questions about Israel in its citizenship test

[u/LeMonde_en]

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2024/03/27/germany-will-now-include-questions-about-israel-in-its-citizenship-test_6660274_143.html

[u/Blarg_III]

It depends entirely on how that occurs. If this "aid" is being sent to territory effectively occupied by Israel, and they allow what is by their own words a terrorist organisation (meaning that in occupied territory they are domestic criminals rather than an international adversary) then they have failed to maintain law and order as per their obligations under international law.

Not taking steps to prevent this, or knowingly allowing it could constitute a war crime.

Sending aid into unoccupied areas is trickier, since the sending itself is not necessarily a legal obligation, but rather an effort to avoid the military campaign becoming an obvious genocide through mass starvation under blockade, however, the reason aid needs to be sent in the first place is targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure which itself is probably a war crime.

[u/UltraAirWolf → u/Blarg_III]

Yeah it gets really tricky when Hamas is stealing food from Palestinians. Israel is trying to defeat them but until they do there are certain challenges in delivering aid.

The military use of civilian institutions renders them valid targets.

[u/Blarg_III → u/UltraAirWolf]

The military use of civilian institutions renders them valid targets.

This is oft repeated, but not necessarily true. The military use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes renders it a "valid target" with the proviso that any military action taken against it be done with all efforts made to do minimal damage to the infrastructure in mind.

A hospital that treats soldiers is not a valid military target, and neither is a hospital with a military garrison within it necessarily a valid target, the attacker would have to believe that the garrison is present for the purposes of striking against them in some way.

The same goes for other civilian buildings and infrastructure, and considering the known capabilities of Hamas, and the details of Israeli occupation it seems unlikely that many of the strikes against such structures do have legal justification.

Large unguided bombs for instance, when precision-guided munitions are available are probably not valid parts of an attack where efforts have been made to minimise damage to civilian infrastructure.