Remember this photo

... when the Terror Excuse Makers¹ talk about "old women," and other categories designed to elicit the sympathy of gullible Westerners, who are being victimized by the Mean Israelis. (Hat tip: Michelle). As I noted below in re the Japanese at the end of 1945, the combatant/noncombatant distinction is a fluid one, constructed not natural and constructed in every society differently.

In a war, you can only observe the combatant/noncombatant distinctions according to the categories your opponents let you. In other words, if they arm women and children, you can't give women and children a pass. Giving women and children a pass was always premised on the chivalric notion that arming them was dishonorable.
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¹ A very different group from the Terrorists themselves, and the one which most Western liberals belong. They will say "well, of course I deplore terrorism," while providing every excuse under the sun for it and/or running interference against doing anything against it (except appeasement) based on any principle at hand that day, even principles that contradict those cited yesterday