Rules of war: What are they? Will they matter in Israel-Gaza conflict?
The attacks that the Palestinian militant group Hamas waged last week against Israelis, killing more than 1,400 people and abducting an estimated 200 hostages, were breathtakingly cruel violations of the law of warfare.
Israel has retaliated with massive airstrikes into Gaza, where Hamas rules, killing some 2,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Human rights advocates in turn warn that laws of warfare include not only not deliberately targeting civilians, but also avoiding indiscriminate attacks near them, too.
As the Israel Defense Forces prepares an expected ground invasion of the densely populated urban territory of Gaza – where nearly half the residents are children under the age of 18 – analysts fear more human rights contraventions to come.
More than 1,000 miles to the north, it’s clear that some Russian units invading Ukraine made a practice of
