Beyond Kamala Harris, beyond Netanyahu’s speech, beyond the near riots in Washington is another main story of the day. That would be the IDF’s recovery of the bodies of five Israelis who were murdered on October 7. The corpses were being held in a tunnel beneath one of the safe zones for civilians Israel has designated in Gaza; no doubt Hamas was keeping them as gruesome bargaining chips.

The discovery of the bodies is but one more example of how Hamas exploits Israel’s both concern for its own citizens, dead or alive, and for international humanitarian law (IHL), which regulates military conduct. As Farhad Rezaei explains, this is a carefully devised Hamas doctrine, with intellectual roots that go back decades:

Devastated by the revolutionary upheaval and the war with Iraq, the new Iranian regime lacked the resources to take on a regular and robust army such as the IDF. Instead, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the parastatal military force loyal to the supreme leader, adopted an asymmetrical form of warfare based on the theory of Brigadier-General S.K. Malik, an Islamist who served on the Pakistani high command. In his book, The Quranic Concept of War, General Malik urged jihadists to wage a relentless and ruthless war against the enemy—militants and noncombatants. He also decreed that it was the duty of Muslim civilians caught up in the battles to die for the jihadist cause.

The IRGC used these ideas to create a doctrine that gave their proxies, mostly Shiite militias, significant advantages over a regular army following what jus in bellum dictates.

Meanwhile, in February, the U.S. National Security Council released its Memorandum 20, which aims to ensure that allies receiving American military aid don’t violate international humanitarian law. While it is certainly desirable that the U.S., Israel, and other countries take steps to follow international law and to limit civilian casualties, Rezaei suggests that some of the specifics of this body of jurisprudence must be refined to deal with current circumstances. Otherwise these laws risk undermining their very purpose:

Pressuring Israel alone to uphold humanitarian standards is counterproductive because it allows Hamas to survive and fight another day. . . . Thus, the United States and its allies must revise the IHL protocols in ways that would deprive terrorists and their sponsors of military and public-relations advantages.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.