Okay. I don’t really see the significance here. The US hasn’t placed any restrictions on Israel here, and I wouldn’t expect it to have done when it sold it.
Israel has a fair bit of US hardware in its inventory, so you’d expect to see that, and a JDAM is a pretty common weapon.
The US doesn’t object to Israel fighting Hezbollah.
Like, there’s no “gotcha” here.
It’d be odd if Israel had specifically avoided using JDAMs.
EDIT: And I’m sure that Israel’s used plenty of US-made weapons aside from that. That bomb was probably dropped from an American-made aircraft. They were firing artillery in the conflict, and I’m sure that at least some of those rounds were American-made. It looks like Israel has a domestically-made Tavor issue rifle, but also a bunch of American-made rifles. Probably a long list of other items.
checks Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Israel_Defense_Forces
Until the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israel Defense Forces’ principal supplier was France; since then, it has been the United States government and defense companies in the United States.
The “gotcha” is that these weapons are being used to kill civilians. Which is illegal under US and international law.
No, it is not. It’s illegal to perform certain actions that kill civilians under the Geneva Conventions, but there is no blanket prohibition on killing civilians in war, which is why Hamas locating facilities under civilian buildings doesn’t provide them with a legal shield.
That is incorrect. It is very much illegal.
Read your link. Collatoral damage is explicitly permitted:
Civilian deaths resulting from a necessary and proportional attack against a military objective do not constitute a violation. .
And in what way do you deem this attack proportional or the civilians killed as collateral? They targeted a Hezbollah politician, NOT a combatant mind you. Missed. And killed 22 and injured 122 civilians. This was in no way shape or form proportional or necessary even had they killed him.
Also, note the next paragraph:
States have an obligation to investigate all allegations of wilful killings or murders of civilians committed by their armed forces or nationals, or committed on their territory. Where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of the offence, States have a duty to prosecute those responsible. A State responsible for such violations must make full reparation for the loss suffered.
Of the 42,000+ murdered civilians in Gaza and the several thousand murdered civilians in Lebanon. How many investigations has the IDF done to follow UN humanitarian law? Or the US for that matter?
They targeted a Hezbollah politician, NOT a combatant mind you.
Wafiq Safa, the intended target, was the head of Hezbollah’s Security Council.
I can’t dig up much English-language material about the scope of the Council’s responsibilities, and I doubt that there would have much been made public in this conflict, but it’s probably not a stretch that it’s involved in the conduct of the war.
Mr Safa has headed Hezbollah’s security apparatus since 1987 and stepped into the limelight in the mid-1990s when he negotiated the release of Hezbollah prisoners with Israel, who Hezbollah then went on to fight a bloody month-long war against in 2006.
Mr Safa also played a lead role in Hezbollah’s occupation of West Beirut and the Druze-dominated area of Aley in May 2008. “He has wielded illegitimate military force to advance Hezbollah’s interests in Lebanon,” said Firas Maksad, director of the Arabia Foundation, a Washington DC-based think tank.
“He decides what the (Lebanese) army and security forces can do, and of course, today, he is the one who directs, through Hezbollah’s security apparatus, the airport,” said Mr Joumblatt in a televised press conference re-broadcast in Al Jadeed’s profile of Mr Safa. Contacted by The National, Mr Joumblatt declined to comment on the US treasury’s decision.
Missed
It sounds like he was severely-injured, albeit not killed. I don’t think that that’d have much bearing on the matter, though.
How many investigations has the IDF done to follow UN humanitarian law? Or the US for that matter?
I’d guess that there are probably going to be investigations, stuff like murder or rape. I don’t expect that you’re going to have the people here found to have acted inappropriately, though.
A 1:22 target-to-civilian ratio is not proportional. No matter how you rationalize who the target is. This argument is not a valid justification.
I’d guess that there are probably going to be investigations, stuff like murder or rape. I don’t expect that you’re going to have the people here found to have acted inappropriately, though.
How many investigations have you heard of personally? Is the absence of a guilty verdict from a terrorist-state on its own soldiers what’s allowing you to say there are no war crimes going on and America should continue selling weapons?
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Oct 6 that air strikes in Lebanon had violated international humanitarian law by hitting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, in reference to Israel’s bombardment of the country.
“Unfortunately, many instances of violations of international humanitarian law in the way the air strikes are conducted that have destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, have killed civilians, have impacted humanitarian operations,” he told media in Beirut.
The United Nations Human Rights Office released a report Wednesday concluding that the Israeli military’s repeated use of heavy weaponry—including 2,000-pound bombs supplied by the United States—in the Gaza Strip has likely violated international laws of war barring the targeting of civilians and disproportionate attacks.
The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for The Guardian:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
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