#Gaza attacks: Lethal warnings
#Eyal_Weizman
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/gaza-attacks-lethal-warnings-2014713162312604305.html
Very often both journalists and commentators - even those sympathetic to the Palestinian plight - are lost for words when asked to explain what is wrong with warnings. Would you rather, the Israeli Army insinuates, that it uses no warnings at all? How, after critiquing indiscriminate and inaccurate strikes, to protest tactics whose entire logic is to be more precise in choosing between perpetrators and bystanders?
To be asked to choose the lesser evil from a limited set of choices is a fallacy. Those posing lesser-evil dilemmas are always those in power and the problem is always concerned with the death and fate of others.
At the Salha family home there was no weapon cache, no militant headquarters. The Israeli Army simply made a mistake, and later admitted as such. Yet when the few surviving members of the Salha family petitioned the Israeli court for compensation, their case was curtly dismissed. The judge explained that Israel was not liable to consequences resulting from an act of war, and ordered the Salha family to pay the court the costs incurred in bringing the case.
Today in Gaza, the combination of the technology of precision strikes with the legal tactics of warning allows the expansion of the depleted bank of targets and the proliferation of violence. From the air, Israel has started destroying - after warnings of course - not only places it claims are weapon caches but also the houses of Hamas’ field command. Now the target list seems to have extended even to include attacks on hospitals. On July 11, four warning missiles were fired at the Al Wafaa hospital, close to the Israeli border.
With this combination, the Israeli Army has found a tool to enable it to strike targets it should not be striking at all - targets of little military effect, in built-up areas that house many civilians. Since it now has such a tool, the Israeli Army will go on using it until somebody forces them to stop. Confronting Israeli tactics of warning is now a matter of utmost urgency.