According to Britannica:
The development of the Geneva Conventions was closely associated with the Red Cross, whose founder, Henri Dunant, initiated international negotiations that produced the Convention for the Amelioration of the Wounded in Time of War in 1864.
…Because some belligerents in World War II had abused the principles contained in earlier conventions, an International Red Cross conference in Stockholm in 1948 extended and codified the existing provisions. The conference developed four conventions, which were approved in Geneva on August 12, 1949: (1) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, (2) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, (3) the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and (4) the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
These are supposed to be “the rules of war.” Hamas does not follow them, and humanitarian groups choose to overlook that fact.
On Friday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about an investigation, conducted by the Henry Jackson Society’s Centre for the New Middle East.
The article reports:
The United Nations and its network of international NGOs have systematically whitewashed Hamas’s reliance on human shields in Gaza, sweeping aside mountains of evidence revealing how the terror group intentionally places civilians in harm’s way to maximize bloodshed, a new report finds.
The first-of-its-kind investigation, conducted by the Henry Jackson Society’s Centre for the New Middle East, presents “the ‘missing chapter’ in all the U.N. and NGO reports” issued since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Its authors reveal in detail how the terror group transformed civilian residences and infrastructure into military outposts, all while evading international scrutiny.
The article cites incidents such as placing mines among children’s toys and storing rockets in a child’s bed. Hamas has also reportedly hidden entrances to their tunnels in children’s bedrooms. The terrorist group has long been known to use civilians as shields. That is what makes it so difficult for Israel to fight Hamas without killing civilians.
The article notes:
Hamas members have admitted the terror group’s attitude toward civilian casualties in Gaza. The day after Oct. 7, for instance, Hamas official Ali Baraka told Russia Today TV that “the Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs.”
Terrorists’ admissions of their own tactics have not prompted the U.N. to acknowledge them. In one notable display noted in the Henry Jackson Society compilation, a U.N. official said “word count” prevented the international body from noting Hamas’s reliance on human shields in a June 2024 report on “Children and Armed Conflict.”
…High-profile human rights organizations that work alongside the U.N. have also downplayed—or outright ignored—Hamas’s intentional endangerment of civilians.
One such group, Amnesty International—known for its hostility to Israel—released a December 2024 report accusing the Jewish state of perpetrating a genocide in Gaza. The 296-page report, You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, barely mentions Hamas’s battlefield tactics, the Henry Jackson Society’s analysis shows.
Much like the ICJ’s filing, Amnesty International “deliberately omits any discussion of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network,” mentioning them only in the context of Israeli military operations.
A 2024 report from Human Rights Watch contained similar accusations of genocide without any discussion of Hamas’s tactics.
There are a lot of causes for the irrational anti-Semitism that is rampant around the world right now. A media that fails to report the truth is one of them.