Israel Defense Forces: Private homes can be “legitimate” targets

10/24/2023 / By Arsenio Toledo

A senior Israeli military official recently announced that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has unilaterally changed its definition of “legitimate targets” in Gaza to include potentially any private home in the Strip.

The IDF official said civilian infrastructure allegedly being used by Hamas “turns a private home into a legitimate target.” (Related: Israeli military gets “green light” to enter Gaza and begin ground offensive.)

“Anyone who supports that home is a legitimate target,” he added during a press conference in West Jerusalem. This strongly suggests that civilians who are trying to protect their homes from IDF soldiers could be targeted and killed.

The IDF official added that the military will supposedly try not to attack zones in Gaza designated as places where humanitarian aid is being distributed. These designated places will immediately turn into so-called “legitimate targets” if the IDF claims rockets and other armaments are fired from the area.

“It’s a safe zone,” claimed the official. “We have a system, which, every time we decide that an area … is a safe zone, we declare no attack in this area. We won’t attack them.”

The military official acknowledged that the IDF has targeted civilian homes in Gaza, but he claimed that these homes were being used as hiding places by members of Hamas.

Palestinians refusing forced relocation from Northern Gaza to be branded as “terrorist partners”

As part of its preparations for an upcoming ground offensive on Northern Gaza, IDF aircraft dropped leaflets onto Northern Gaza telling Palestinian civilians in the area that they would be identified as “a partner in a terrorist organization” if they did not comply with forced displacement orders and moved south across the supposed safe zone – which still gets regularly targeted by Israeli air strikes.

The leaflets were dropped by IDF drones on Saturday, Oct. 21, days after Israel ordered the 1.1 million residents of Northern Gaza on threat of death to move south without any actual guarantees of safety or of being able to one day return to their homes.

“Urgent warning,” reads the leaflets. “To the residents of Gaza – your presence north of Wadi Gaza is putting your lives at risk. Anyone who chooses not to evacuate from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south of the Gaza Strip may be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization.”

This is not the first time the IDF has dropped leaflets in Gaza ordering civilians to leave their homes. Around a week before, other leaflets dropped in northern Gaza warned citizens to leave once again, stating: “Gaza has been transformed into a battlefield. For your safety, you must not return to your homes until further notice.”

Israel’s continued bombardment of civilian residences and infrastructure like hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza, along with its forced relocation orders, have been decried as crimes against humanity and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law. It has already led to the deaths of over 5,000 Palestinian civilians and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands within a span of a little over three weeks.

Watch this Oct. 23 episode of “Brighteon Broadcast News” as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, warns of the 22 events that will possibly happen if Israel decides to launch a full ground offensive against Gaza.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.