Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
They have cut off utilities to force Hamas to surface from their tunnels, and apparently this has been pretty successful so far. How many Israeli soldiers do you want to be killed if supplies are restored? This is the quickest way of flushing them out.
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What's your source about the effectiveness of this approach?
Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
This is not a ‘collective punishment’, it is the means to destroy Hamas. It is not aimed at the Palestinian civilians. There will be collateral damage whatever Israel does in fighting Hamas because they are using civilians as human shields.
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Cutting off the utilities to the entire population is classified by brighter minds than ours as a collective punishment. It's really not that hard to work out why.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
You haven’t thought this through, Andrew. Your preferred option will achieve nothing except to prolong the war, and the longer it goes on, the more civilian casualties there will be.
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I've not expressed a preferred option, I've just said that international law needs to be followed. But don't kid yourself that any military action will end the war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
Don’t sit there trying to describe what I think as ‘a race to the bottom’. Both the UK PM and the Leader of the Opposition understand and accept the Israeli strategy. You are the one who is off message.
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Benchmarking against Hamas - which is what you did - is a race to the bottom.
I've not followed the words of Sunak and Starmer to know their views on the utilities. Though like of all of us, they acknowledge the right of Israel to defend itself. I'm not sure anyone on this Forum needs to fall in line with their views anyway.