[dlubarov]

The 276 figure is a claim from Hamas. I don't think they regularly make up casualty numbers, but they certainly did in the Baptist Hospital case, where they initially claimed Israel killed "at least 500" before it became clear it was actually a PIJ rocket. It's highly plausible that they made another exception to their usual casualty reporting process for this embarrassing incident.

Even if we accept the claim at face value, it's just a total. It includes Hamas fighters who were trying to kill fleeing hostages and their rescuers, and anyone killed by them.

In any case, Israel has a responsibility to try to rescue its citizens that were kidnapped. The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers.

If some terrorists kidnapped several American citizens on US soil, and the US determined that any rescue plan would risk disproportionate harm to the country that kidnapped them, would you expect the US to just give up and ignore the hostages?

[kennywinker]

> The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers.

So, if your neighbour kidnaps a canadian citizen, and mark carney blows up your entire neighbourhood - that’s on your neighbour? Really? You believe that? Like, yeah - we would all wish our neighbour hadn’t kidnapped someone, but i’m pretty sure the moral culpability for murdering an entire neigbourhood is on the ones who sent the bombs.

But ok - the moral culpability is on the kidnappers. Let’s roll with that. So by that logic, it seems like israel is responsible for everyone who was killed on oct 7th. I mean, they were holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges prior to the attacks. That seems like, again by your logic, that it justifies the killing of israeli civilians

So pick one: oct 7th was israel’s fault and hamas is culpable for the deaths that have followed, OR oct 7th was hamas’ fault, and israel is culpable for the deaths that have followed.

Oct 7th and the deaths that followed both being on hamas is not a logically consistant position.

[dlubarov]

> if your neighbour kidnaps a canadian citizen

In this scenario it would not be some random Canadian doing the kidnapping, it would be a team of soldiers under official orders from our president. So Carney can't collaborate with Trump to surgically rescue the Canadians, because Trump was the one who had them kidnapped in the first place, and is actively holding them hostage.

In that case, yes absolutely, I'd put the blame squarely on Trump if Canadian rescuers operated in my neighborhood, and it got destroyed during the fighting as US soldiers tried to prevent the hostage rescue.

> holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges

Every country on the planet detains suspects before formal charges are filed. But sure, we can assume Hamas had some valid casus belli, it doesn't really change things.

> it justifies the killing of israeli civilians

Nothing justifies targeting civilians. Hamas didn't incidentally harm some civilians while attempting to free prisoners, they went out of their way to systematically kill, rape and kidnap as many Israeli civilians as possible.