I am not denying that the Gazan's are in a fucked up situation and they are oppressed and occupied and that they have the right to defend themselves. But Hamas were also firing rockets on civilians. For 2012 alone to date:
As of November 2012, over 1,947 rockets had been launched at Israel from Gaza since January 2012
While the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, deliberately targeting a civilian population in doing so is not the way to go about it.
A civilian population having rockets falling on their heads also have a right to defend themselves and a right to be protected from harm.
That applies to both sides of this debate.
Unless of course you are going to try and claim that the Israeli civilians are somehow not protected as pjdude is trying to claim that because they are settlers, they are not granted their basic human rights protection awarded to all human beings?
Hamas are hardly angels to their own populace. Is it democracy if you rule by fear and terror and torture and murder your opposition?
In 2012 the Human Rights Watch presented a 43 page long list of human rights violation committed by Hamas. Among actions attributed to Hamas the HRW report mentions beatings with metal clubs and rubber hoses, hanging of alleged collaborationists with Israel, and torture of 102 individuals. According to the report, Hamas also tortured civil society activists and peaceful protesters. Reflecting on the captivity of Gilad Shalit, the HRW report described it as "cruel and inhuman". The report also slams Hamas for harassment of people based on so called morality offenses and for media censorship.[312][313] In a public statement Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director of HRW claimed that "after five years of Hamas rule in Gaza, its criminal justice system reeks of injustice, routinely violates detainees' rights and grants impunity to abusive security services". Hamas responded by denying charges and describing them as "politically motivated"[314]
I do not deny the Gazan's are an occupied people. They are unfortunately occupied on both sides. By their own oppressive Government and Israel.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise that we were determining who is more morally right by comparing numbers.
So Hamas is more moral because their rockets kill less civilians than Israeli one's, because by their own admittance, their rockets aren't as good?
Oh my sympathy lays squarely with the Palestinians of Gaza. Because on the one hand they have the superior military might of Israel bombing them and on the other, they have Hamas who are deliberately targeting civilians with rockets from civilian areas in Gaza.
if I walk onto a firing range and get shot whose fault is it? your basic argument is that it doesn't matter how illegally civilians put them selves into the line of fire it doesn't matter. your sympathy and compassion do you credit however your understanding of international law does not. their are multiple parts of just the geneva conventions involved with moving civilians into occupied territory and directly into the line of fire of military action your pacifism blinds you to the reasons behind some the articles. it does you good that you can't concieve of people who would willing put people into harms way to garner military advantage but their are people who do and Israel by its own actions have shown themselves one of these people. but at the end of the day mutually exclusive things remain mutually exclusive but at the end of the day to be a protected person under the law you can't willfully try to engender attacks against ones self by violating parts of the law designed to protect you.