What is Proportionate? Israel’s Response to Hamas Rockets

Today a Hamas rocket scored a direct hit on a kindergarten in Ashdod It is not the first time. To my knowledge Hamas have scored direct hits on one other kindergarten and a high school. Luckily for Israelis (if you can call it lucky) nearly 500,000 of them are now living in bomb shelters, schools and kindergartens are closed, therefore the children who otherwise would have been killed are surviving, albeit underground. This started me thinking about the issue of proportionality. When people accuse Israel of a "disproportionate response" what exactly do they mean? Indeed what would qualify as a proportionate response?

Hamas score a direct hit on a kindergarten in Ashdod with a missile, should Israel then fire one of their missiles at a kindergarten in Gaza? Would that be proportionate? If Hamas score a direct hit on a shopping mall in Ashkelon, should Israel find a mall or in the absence of a mall, find a market full of shoppers to target? Would that be proportionate?

If Hamas fire eight thousand missiles at civilian targets in Israel, should Israel respond with eight thousand missiles of their own? Would that be proportionate? Hamas in Gaza (which I also understand is a war crime under international law). As far as I am aware rockets are still being fired by Hamas at civilian targets in Israel and it would appear that they have no intention of stopping, unless they can be convinced otherwise.

The question is how much force will it take to convince or indeed force them to stop, not just for now, but for good potential target areas to warn them of an impending attack, yet this is common practice for the Israeli army as it prosecutes its war against Hamas.

As far as I am aware it is also a breach of international law to place military installations in civilian areas or to use civilian populations as human shields, yet it would appear that Hamas has license to breach the law with impunity, cynically chooses to use the very people it claims to be fighting for as human shields.

The unfortunate truth is that Israel will continue to use all necessary means to end the rocket fire achieve its goals and thereby end the fighting. It would appear however that Hamas are only too happy for their own civilian population to suffer the terrible consequences of their illegal and irresponsible actions.

Perhaps the real disproportion exists in the number of martyrs Hamas is prepared to see in its civilian population compared to its leaders, who rather than seeking martyrdom are now hiding in tunnels and masquerading as medical staff in Gaza hospitals.

As far as I understand, under international law, proportionality in war does not mean that you only inflict similar damage and casualties to those which you have sustained. International law actually states that the level of force used in a conflict must not be in excess of that which is required to achieve a legitimate objective, which in this case is the total cessation of rocket fire into Israel by Hamas terrorists.

Civilian casualties in war are horrendous and should be avoided if at all possible. I do not know of any army in the world which sends leaflets and telephones people in

In order to protect its citizens Israel must fight against a terror organisation, which chose conflict over renewal of a cease fire agreement, and which continues to target innocent civilians in Israel and exploit and sacrifice its own civilians in Gaza.