Francois Balloux is WRONG about War Crimes
Killing civilians should be avoided, but it can be legal
Professor Francois Balloux is the Chair in Computational Biology Systems at the University College, London. However, he is not an expert in the Law of Armed Conflict, weaponeering or targeting.
His reckless spreading of misinformation as to what constitutes Israeli "war crimes" was viewed over 1.6 million times.
The Geneva Conventions can be found here.
The basics of the LOAC or Law of Armed Conflict can be found below:
Essentially, the four types of lawful targets are:
Combatants
Military infrastructure
Supply lines and logistics
Weapons and ammunition
Generally unlawful targets (with very narrow exceptions) are:
Civilians and civilian infrastructure
Medical personnel and facilities
Cultural, religious, and historic sites
Surrendering combatants and prisoners of war:
NOTE: The Law of Armed Conflict does not preclude militaries from firing at civilian locations, if it can be proven the adversary is using the civilians for cover. Military Necessity and Proportionality work hand in hand to designate a lawful target. A target can be considered lawful and proportionate if value of its destruction, capture, or neutralization offers a concrete and direct military advantage and the destruction does not cause excessive civilian harm compared to the anticipated military advantage of the strike.
Ryan you are a national and perhaps international treasurer. Your work, the insights and knowledge you provide are critical to forming true understanding of the issues that you touch on. I realize it is exhausting work. And you may feel like Cassandra - telling the truth/seeing the future, but no one believes you. Like you, I feel sorry for the Palestinians and Lebanese who are caught in this anvil and hammer situation, but Iran using these civilians as human shields and expecting no military response to this never ending war on Israel is absurd. Taking the fight directly to Iran is the next logical step - until Iran's politicians and general citizens suffer the consequences of this proxy war, this will never end.
Wouldn't deliberately locating your military command post in a civilian area be considered a war crime? Oh, and thanks for what you're doing here, no one else is spotting disinfo.