Oh they're gonna sanction people. I thought this was a bigger deal, but I guess it's a nothing-ish burger.
NoneOfUrBusiness
I love this meme.
Suxh copium. Al Jazeera's only problem with you people is that it doesn't toe the Western line.
Not sure how hostages and deaths are speculative evidence.
So let me address the deaths first. You can use those (the ones that can conclusively proven to be intentionally inflicted by Hamas forces, because it's not all of them) to try foot soldiers and field commanders, people who were actually there. Not the guy at the very top who doesn't even live in Gaza.
About the hostages, they're the only way for Hamas to get even some of their demands. Which sounds bad until you realize those demands are things like lifting/loosening the blockade, toning down the surveillance (the surveilance Israel does in Gaza would make East Germany blush), not airstrike Gaza every five minutes, etc etc. It's not pretty, but the hostages are very much a case of blame the game, not the player. Now if the ICC decides to prosecute for those I guess they can be traced back to Sinwar.
So the military goals are:
1-Actually attacking Israeli forces. Hamas attacked at least one (I don't know the number) Israeli military base on October 7th.
2-Taking hostages yo Gaza can actually survive after the attack (and so they can hopefully get Israel to starve them less).
3-Delay Saudi Arabian naturalization. Or, in other words, prevent Saudi Arabia from selling out the Palestinian cause like everyone else did.
I'm not sure about the logistics of this, but if Netanyahu doesn't get a guilty verdict it'll validate all criticism of the ICC as a neo-colonialist tool.
But even by proxy, leaders are responsible for the actions of their subordinates.
Up to a point. If he says "I never gave that order" I don't think anyone can prove otherwise, is what I'm trying to say.
As the leaders of a militant faction, like a regular military they are responsible for training their soldiers (or equivalent) and keeping them in line during operations.
Does that responsibility fall on the top leaders or field commanders though? I can definitely see the argument that Hamas leadership is too easy on atrocities in general having legal ground, but how far up the ladder can you take that? Not trying to defend them or saying we should go easy on them here, don't get me wrong, but at least from an international law context I think Sinwar's hands are pretty clean?
and it was a well financed and coordinated attack.
True enough, but there's only so much you can do once the soldiers are actual fighting if you're not on the field (especially when you don't particularly care either way). That said, I haven't seen anything since this "war" started that would serve as evidence to implicate, say, Sinwar in an international court of law. If he says "our plans didn't involve attacking civilians our soldiers didn't it out of their own accord" nobody can prove him wrong. Now I do think that's actually what happened (from a strategic perspective Hamas has too much to lose and too little to gain by killing civilians during a military attack), but even if that's not the case there's simply too little evidence to prove it.
Then who orchestrated the attacks on only civilians?
They... didn't? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The attack had clear military objectives (taking hostages is morally grey but still not the kind of atrocity we're talking about). At least as far as I know everything you'll think of when you hear the words "Oct 7 Hamas atrocity" can be passed as, and probably is, spontaneous violence caused by the fact that Gazans hate Israelis' guts rather than any orders from the top brass. Now I'm not denying general Hamas terror; the shootings and suicide bombings definitely happen, but in a court of law everything we're saying right now about October 7th would be thrown out as speculation, because it is.
I mean is there anything proving Hamas leaders intentionally planned any civilian deaths? They're definitely not doing enough to stop them, but I don't think I've seen anything specifically incriminating their top brass.
Meanwhile FiniteBanjo laughing at us from the good place:
Holy fuck that link. I guess Israel learned that Europeans (generally) won't bend over backwards for their Apartheid (stares at USS Liberty).