In light of the recent dramatic rescue of four Israeli hostages held by Palestinian civilians, a legal expert and military specialist are urging a reevaluation of use of the term “Palestinian civilian,” arguing that those participating in hostilities, such as hostage-taking and other Hamas crimes, lose their civilian status under international law.
In an essay published in Newsweek on Monday, international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky along with retired United States Army major and world-renowned urban and warfare expert John Spencer, suggest that a review of the frequently used term “Palestinian civilian” as well as a commitment to truth are necessary steps in resolving the current conflict.
The piece, titled “It’s Time to Start Using the Term ‘Palestinian Civilian’ Correctly,” begins by pointing to the “shocking revelation” that the four Israeli hostages rescued last week from Gaza were held in the homes of Palestinian civilians — including a popular journalist and respected physician.
With the successful operation “amazingly” condemned by the UN as a “war crime” and labeled a “massacre” by the EU, and as media outlets echoed casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, the authors insisted now is the “perfect opportunity for a long-overdue conversation about the use of the phrase ‘Palestinian civilian.’”
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Noting that “when you take hostages, you risk death,” the authors argued that the “moral and legal responsibility for any casualties resulting from the operation to free the hostages rests fully with Hamas” as well as those holding them:
Under international law, it is a sacrosanct principle that civilians enjoy special protection, and the intentional targeting or harming of them during hostilities, is a grave war crime. But one should not need to be a legal scholar to understand that if you are a journalist or physician holding hostages, you are no longer a “civilian.” In fact, the Geneva Convention makes it unequivocally clear that civilians lose that protection when they take direct part in the hostilities.
“In other words, when you hold hostages captive, you become a legitimate military target and should not be surprised when the Israel Defense Forces come knocking on your door,” they added.
Highlighting the “countless reports” indicating that many others have been held captive by “ordinary Gazans,” including “families, doctors, teachers, and even U.N. employees,” the essay then notes how Gazan civilians actively joined the radical U.S.-designated Islamist terrorist group Hamas on October 7, participating in the brutality, raising crucial but overlooked questions about their complicity.
It is also well known that civilians in Gaza willingly joined Hamas en masse on October 7 and took part in the massacre, rapes, and abductions on that day. How many Gazan “civilians” helped Hamas move and store rockets? How many “civilians” offered up their homes to hold hostages captive or keep guard to make sure they did not escape? How many have been the willing accomplices and collaborators of Hamas in the worst massacre and crimes against the Jewish people since the Holocaust?
“These questions are crucial,” they add. “Yet the international community is failing to ask these questions.”
The authors also condemn officials for “blindly” accepting casualty figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry, which they describe as a “propaganda arm of Hamas,” to falsely accuse Israel of genocide and other crimes.
“A group that murders, massacres, rapes, beheads, and abducts people, and has a relentless history of fabricating stories, inflating casualties, and using their own civilians as human shields, is not exactly the world’s most trustworthy source,” they write, lamenting that the fact “has not stopped the international community” from using Hamas’s figures.
According to the authors, the actual number of civilian casualties in Gaza is much lower than reported, with many “civilians” being combatants or involved in holding hostages. Furthermore, the authors note that for Hamas, “civilian death is their strategy.”
They conclude by arguing that by continuing to propagate “false narratives” and unverified casualty figures, the press and world leaders are “enabling and empowering Hamas and perpetuating the violence and suffering they claim to seek to end.”
Spencer, who serves as chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point and who recently returned from a visit to Israel’s front lines, recently suggested that Israel’s military lessons learned from battling Hamas in Gaza, amid diverse modern warfare challenges, are set to significantly improve U.S. military readiness and “save American lives.”
In October, Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh insisted that the “blood” of Gaza’s women, children, and elderly is needed to “awaken” Palestinian resolve.
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In December, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp noted that Israel’s military has “achieved a significantly better civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in battle than most — if not all — other armies.” He acknowledged the IDF’s success despite the fact that Hamas fights “from within the civilian population,” uses “human shields,” and “deliberately [tries] to force the IDF to kill as many of their civilians as possible,” so that the world “turns on Israel and falsely condemns it for war crimes.”
Last month, the United Nations quietly cut its estimate of Palestinian children killed in Gaza by half, calling into question the figures frequently used by international news outlets and governments to criticize Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
On Monday, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett highlighted the need to address widespread anti-Jewish sentiment among Palestinians, who overwhelmingly support both Hamas and the October 7 massacre it perpetrated.
“I wish we could say that the Palestinians were ‘hijacked’ by Hamas and the people themselves actually seek peace and prosperity, but the facts show the opposite,” he wrote, referencing a new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) indicating that 67% of Palestinians support the October 7 massacre.
Breitbart News reported in December how support for Hamas had more than tripled in the West Bank following the terror group’s massacre, according to a poll showing more than four-fifths of Palestinian respondents from the West Bank agreed with the terror group’s decision to execute the barbaric attacks.
The previous month, a poll by Birzeit University’s Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) showed significant Palestinian support for Hamas and its October 7 attack, with nearly three-quarters favoring the elimination of Israel.
According to conservative pundit Brigitte Gabriel, the “sad truth” is that the Palestinians in Gaza “mostly support what Hamas is doing,” and even those who disagree with Hamas “hate the Jews so badly — they are collectively antisemites.”
Hamas’ massacre, the deadliest against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust, received broad support from Palestinian factions across the board, with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad participating in it, the “moderate” Fatah expressing support, and the official Palestinian Authority (PA) pledging to pay nearly $3 million to the families of slain terrorists who executed the massacre.
As Breitbart News reported, immediately after news of the October 7 massacre broke, Palestinians at home and abroad were seen celebrating jubilantly, greeting the returning executioners as heroes, burning seized Israeli cars, distributing sweets, and firing guns in the air.
Ordinary Palestinian civilians were not just seen celebrating the massacre, but actively participating in it, with full mobs captured on film pouring across the breached border to take part in the killing and raping of innocents, as well as the looting of their property.
According to IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus, significant numbers of Palestinians unaffiliated with terror groups entered Israel and participated in the atrocities alongside the terrorists. In addition, Gadi Yarkoni, the mayor of the Eshkol Regional Council, told the Free Beacon that the “second wave of Arabs who came into the country were just as cruel as the terrorists of the first wave.”
“We saw that it was not only Hamas who came to slaughter us,” he added. “It was all the residents of Gaza, including people who worked in our kibbutzim.”
Hamas’ multi-pronged October attack saw roughly 3,000 terrorists infiltrate Israel, resulting in nearly 1,200 deaths, over 4,800 injuries, and at least 241 hostages taken, with most victims being civilians, including dozens of Americans.
Following the attacks, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asserted, “Anyone who claims to support the people of Gaza but not Hamas should remember that Gazans elected Hamas.”
Last week, the IDF confirmed that all three of the male hostages dramatically rescued on Saturday were held by Abdallah Aljamal, a Palestinian civilian and “journalist” who contributed to the Palestine Chronicle and Al Jazeera, along with his physician father.
It is believed that 116 Israeli hostages remain captive in Gaza, with over a third presumed dead.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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