The Israeli military used a 500lb (230kg) bomb – a powerful and indiscriminate weapon that generates a massive blast wave and scatters shrapnel over a wide area – when it attacked a target in a crowded beachfront cafe in Gaza on Monday, evidence seen by the Guardian has revealed.

Experts in international law said the use of such a munition despite the known presence of many unprotected civilians, including children, women and elderly people, was almost certainly unlawful and may constitute a war crime.

Fragments of the weapon from the ruins of al-Baqa cafe photographed by the Guardian have been identified by ordnance experts as parts of an MK-82 general purpose 230kg bomb, a US-made staple of many bombing campaigns in recent decades.

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[–] 24 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

That's called a precision strike when committing genocide.

Under international law based on the Geneva conventions, a military force is forbidden to launch attacks that cause “incidental loss of civilian life” that is “excessive or disproportionate” to the military advantage to be gained.

So all of Israel's actions since October 7 are a war crime... or does leveling a city of 2.3 million and killing tens of thousands of civilians, to rescue 100 hostages, sound "proportionate"?

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    Fucking war criminals.

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    [–] 33 points 1 year ago

    Genocide. Fuck Israel.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    May constitute a war crime?

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  • [–] [S] 24 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Fingers crossed. Not sure how many children and innocent civilians you have to intentionally murder for absolutely no reason in 2025 to get charged with a war crime, but it must be a pretty high bar bc...

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Everything up till this has been pretty ambiguous. But this one... This is the one that'll make people squint and ask "was that really necessary, now?" Some might even wag a finger.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Death death to the IDF

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    but the tens of thousands of children before this somehow was not yet a war crime. between countless indiscriminate bombings and literally sniping children in the head. somehow, this is the line. only because the size of the bomb. fuck this world man

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    [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    My immedate thought was, "i wonder who they intended to murder?"

    The dead included a well-known film-maker

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    If anyone other than Israel did this, it would probably have been a war crime. Though, as it is, there is no way of determining whether it constitutes a crime.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Fucking war criminals.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Death death to the IDF

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)