The standards of an actually prosecutable war crime are still fairly high. To continue the above quote;
Article 8(2)(b)(iv) draws on the principles in Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but restricts the criminal prohibition to cases that are "clearly" excessive. The application of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) requires, inter alia, an assessment of:
(a) the anticipated civilian damage or injury;
(b) the anticipated military advantage;
(c) and whether (a) was "clearly excessive" in relation to (b).
Like I said, it's something that requires a detailed investigation and substantial resources to demonstrate comprehensively. Going from something that an individual or group morally condemns to an actual actionable war crime is a huge step, and calling something such with relatively poor information is usually a bad idea.
I also find it weird that the offensive tunnel issue is only coming up now. Did Hamas only figured them out last year or what?
Solid BBC article. They've been using offensive tunnels of one type or another since 2001 (then more of a sapper mine attempt). There were limited (likely expensive and complex) attempts to use offensive tunnels in other ways, as with the ambush that captured Gilad Shalit. The internal tunnel network was used in 2008-9 to help Hamas fighters ambush IDF forces. Then;
After the failure of Hamas' rocket forces to inflict significant damage on Israeli towns in November 2012, they decided to build a large offensive-tunnel capability that would enable them to infiltrate assault teams into Israeli villages within a few kilometres of the border or place large bombs underneath these villages.
Remember that in 2007 Hamas took control of Gaza and the internal/smuggling tunnel network (again,
highly recommended reading) and with that gained use of tunnels and the resources/expertise that came with them. Combine that with the Iron Dome and various other measures reducing the effectiveness of the rockets and you have perfect conditions for a switch to more tunnelling.
To the extent they might have used them to cross the border, that would be offensive, but since I'm pretty sure they didn't put their mosques on wheels and bring them across the border with them, you're getting distracted from your original argument. In such cases, Israelis can and should simply gun down said border-crossing invaders. Has nothing to do with what we were talking about.
It wasn't my argument. I was making the narrow point that saying that anti-tank missiles are defensive weapons is false both in principle and in practice in this conflict.
Why would bribing or coercing aid from citizens to provide intelligence about their government require that government's acceptance? Huh? It fundamentally requires the exact opposite... Spying implies lack of acceptance of the people being spied on by its very nature.
The problem is that any action by Israel within Gaza is seen by Hamas as a cause for continued hostilities. Their proposal for a ceasefire required that Israel have zero influence or presence within the strip. Given that Hamas themselves have near complete control over the tunnels, conducting completely covert surveillance of the tunnel network in Gaza through bribes or other means without somehow first compromising Hamas would be near impossible.
Yes, that's the part that needs to change in order for Israel to stop being war criminals 
Simply stating "that's not what Israel does" is not really a meaningful or valid response to "This is what Israel should do differently"
I'm aware that's not how they roll right now. That's the problem.
This is incredibly problematic.
No nation on earth accepts citizen's deaths from outside forces as a cost of the nation's existence. And I'd argue that any government that does accept such a thing is an inherently bad one, failing in it's primary role as a government. Now you could argue they should be safeguarding their citizens in another way, but to deliberately take a policy that will lead to citizens dying is almost always morally unacceptable.
Not to mention how completely unreasonable such a mindset change across the Israeli population is. Next we will implement a single payer healthcare system in the US and reunify the Koreas.
You don't need a bunker buster to take out a dirt and wood tunnel 25m underground. It's not a rebar-concrete stronghole. It's a crumbly hole. Yes it does require detection, but I'm just pointing out that you don't need to detect AND THEN INVADE. If you can detect, then you can disable remotely/by plane/etc. Just a minor tool in the toolkit of response options.
Check the BBC and academic articles I link above. They
are concrete tunnels, relatively narrow (in the case of the offensive ones). You are still grossly underestimating both the sophistication of the tunnels and the difficulties in countering them.
It's NOT a "debate" though. It's just hard numbers that we all have access to. Hamas kills a couple of people, and Israel kills several hundred and destroys a hospital which will probably indirectly lead to hundreds more dying on an ongoing basis from lack of healthcare later on. If that's not "clearly excessive" to you, you're simply delusional.
Again, making a determination of war crimes (or even just proportionality) based on casualty numbers is not how it works. It requires an actual investigation into the actions taken, the reason they were taken and the measures taken to minimise civilian impact. We don't have access to that information beyond the very limited IDF press releases and limited reports coming from Gaza.
I'm not saying that war crimes haven't been committed, but saying it's obvious that they have is simply wrong. It's the kind of crap that makes criticism of Israel look biased and naive.
