Let’s get one thing clear: Israeli troops stripping suspected Hamas terrorists down to their underwear after their surrender is not a war crime, despite the spurious outrage blooming in certain corners of the press and on social media.
Images spark outrage, crows Reuters. Is Israel really rounding up Hamas fighters, smirks al-Jazeera.
Those cries echo, of course, the terrorists’ own line: “We urge human rights organizations to immediately intervene to expose this heinous crime,” said Hamas official Izzat al-Reshiq.
The fact is it’s not even mistreatment, considering the severity and nature of the threat the Jewish state faces from the terror cadre.
Stripping Hamas terrorists down is a way of making truly sure that none are armed or wired up with suicide belt bombs — a favorite and long-established tactic of Islamist terror groups around the region.
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And the IDF is detaining these men on an amply justified suspicion of being terrorists.
They are military-age, found hunkered down in places civilians were supposed to have evacuated from weeks ago, in areas of Gaza City known to be Hamas strongholds.
After such apprehensions, the detained get taken into Israel, where they will face a system of due process to determine their culpability — and be released if innocent.
Remember: Hamas is not an army; the killers it employs mostly do not wear uniforms; the group has woven itself inextricably into the civilian fabric of Gazan life as a defense and propaganda tactic, hiding men and armaments in schools, hospitals and elsewhere.
Yet another reason Palestinians should hate the murderous crew.
Remember too that Hamas, as a paramilitary terror organization, flagrantly violates the laws of war. As witness its multiple and ongoing war crimes, including the unthinkable atrocities it committed on Oct. 7, its continued firing of rockets at Israeli civilian areas and its attacks on Gazan civilians trying to evacuate from combat areas.
Efforts to draw moral equivalencies between Israel’s justified self-defense measures and the bloodthirsty, brutal-for-its-own-sake attacks on children, women and the elderly that define Hamas’ tactical approach are absurd — and horrifying.