I’m not talking about the ministry of health reports, I’m talking about interviews and stories I’m hearing on NPR and the BBC with people who have seen first hand what is going on, and aid organizations with people on the ground there e.g. Doctors without borders.. Of course its hard to get reliable facts as to what is going on since the IDF is making it difficult and dangerous to be a journalist in Gaza. But what is getting out seems pretty horrific.
There’s are a lot of photos and videos and reports from third parties (like people who worked with “doctors without borders” in Gaza and are now in the US) that say there is massive destruction in Gaza, that civilians are being bombed at home and in refuge campus, that Israel is destroying critical infrastructure in Gaza, etc. When it seems to be official Israeli policy that it’s okay to bomb a refuge camp because a couple of soldiers are in it, that it’s okay to destroy any structure that any enemy soldier ever took cover in, then you are going to get really negative international press. Photos of babies with their heads blown off don’t play well.
Are you under the impression that I or anyone else have said that Gaza is a pleasant place at the moment?
It’s not. Anyone in Gaza is going through absolute hell. Because that’s what it is like to live through urban warfare.
And it doesn’t help your press coverage when there’s a really disproportionate death toll among journalists.
Bullshit.
When you operate your little guerilla Jihad out of a refugee camp you’re going to get hit back. That’s fucking life.
Even Hamas doesn’t deny routinely using civilians to shield their operations, yet the West is full of people rushing to make up excuses that even Hamas doesn’t try.
Israel does not bomb a refugee camp because of “a couple soldiers” nor does it destroy “any structure that any enemy soldier ever took cover in”. That is ludicrous hyperbole and precisely the reason why I’m not taking any of your pearl clutching or finger wagging seriously.
If you want to engage with reality, let me know.
I believe this is the article in English (paywalled).
Reality suggests that blowback is a real thing, and that for every Gazan civilian killed by Israeli weapons, some # of future terrorists are created. ISTM that, even if Hamas is destroyed, Israel isn’t safeguarding their future. They’re just creating the next Hamas.
I’m sorry, but when Israel destroys hospitals after it takes control of them, they don’t have a lot of credibility. If that wasn’t because, “soldiers took cover here before we took control”, then what the fuck was the purpose?
So yes, i believe Americans who worked for doctors without borders when they disagree with the IDF.
That you refer to a city where families have lived for several generations as a “refugee camp” shows how effective Hamas’ propaganda has been.
It’s an artifact of the underlying conflict that many of the Gazan population centers are generally referred to as “refugee camps”. But at the moment, there are a lot of actual refugees there, too.
I appreciate and sympathize with Israelis who have endured terrible grief and fear since the October 7th attacks, and surely many feel that, at least when it comes to outside opinion, they’re screwed either way. But Gazans are suffering tremendously. And it’s not like Gazans were doing great before October 7th; and the same goes for Palestinians in the West Bank. Hamas bears a lot of the responsibility for that suffering (in Gaza at least), but Israel bears some too, especially in the West Bank. And, ISTM, it’s been a while since Israeli leadership, or the IDF, has actually done anything significant to alleviate that suffering, or even minimize it when almost entirely within their power (i.e. the WB).
When the Israeli government allows so many terrible things to happen in the WB without justice, why would any Israeli think outsiders wouldn’t suspect that similarly terrible things are likely happening in Gaza without justice as well?
This is the original of that article:
I do have access to the English article. I don’t have access to the Hebrew article. @Babale or @Alessan, are there relevant translation errors on Haaretz’s part I should be aware of, for example:
This description is one of many obtained by Haaretz, some from combat soldiers, others from commanders. The picture that emerges: In recent months, Israeli soldiers have used human shields in this way all over Gaza; even the chief of staff’s office knows.
Another soldier in that unit said that this happened time after time; he said that in every operation, a human shield would be sent out 10 minutes before everyone else; then came the wait for the brigade commander.
In one case, an Israeli soldier who took part in a raid on a building said one of the units had a Gazan dressed in white overalls. As part of an attempt to make armed Palestinians inside the building come out, the Gazan was sent there as a kind of mediator. But the attempt failed and the armed men shot the man.
A soldier in a conscript army brigade added: “About five months ago, two Palestinians were brought to us. One was 20 and the other was 16. We were told: ‘Use them, they’re Gazans, use them as human shields.’”
One soldier said that when he and his colleagues asked “why,” they were told about the dogs of the Oketz canine unit. Dogs were getting killed or wounded when they were sent in to locate explosives or attack the enemy. Or after their experience, the dogs had to be discharged because their operational senses had deteriorated.
A more senior official confirmed this claim, though some soldiers said they thought this was just an excuse to soothe consciences.
&etc, they even printed one soldier claiming his battalion commander said to ignore laws of war and focus on IDF needs. The narrative is that many soldiers and even commanders are NOT okay with the use of human shields, but it’s not up to the objecting soldiers and the objecting commanders turn a blind eye (I.e. leaving meetings early when the topic comes up).
I’ve always thought Haaretz was highly reputable. It’s possible all the people they interviewed lied but I am assuming Haaretz itself is not manufacturing facts or running a story without reasonable cause to believe it’s accurate. And here they are reporting as fact that multiple Israeli soldiers admit to using Palestinian detainees as human shields, and that multiple sources confirmed the practice is widespread in the IDF today. They say they have sources describing incidents all over Gaza, multiple sources from different units, multiple sources from the same unit, even mentioning that some sources were commander rank. They also cite footage previously published in Al Jazeera as corroborative though I don’t have a link.
I think the question at this point for @Babale is, barring mistranslations, what evidence is the Haaretz article lacking that prevents you from thinking the IDF is more likely than not using Palestinians as human shields?
~Max
Damn, Hamas is so damn pervasive, they’re influencing how people talk in Eritrea, Algeria and Thailand… since the 70s.
“We’ve been calling these cities “refugee camps” for 50 years now because we want to preserve the fiction that these people are just temporarily displaced and someday they’re gonna be able to go back to the house in West Jerusalem that their great-grandfather abandoned 80 years ago because the King of Egypt lied to them about their prospects” isn’t a very convincing argument for that terminology not being Islamist propaganda.
That’s not why they’re called refugee camps though. I think it has to do with the fact that the international community is providing the basic services like shelter, food, and water.
~Max
Look at this video (about 30 seconds in), you can see the rapid build up of tents and such on the outskirts of the city just from October to February.
~Max
So , Islamists run the Karen camps, now? And the Sudanese ones? And the Sri Lankan ones?
“Refugee camp” is the term of art for a place where refugees live. Griping about the naming just because the people who live there managed to erect “nice” buildings* is just absolutely fucking petty.
* Of course, as I’ve pointed out before, they’re sure as shit living in tents now, and those “nice” building are now so much rubble.
If you were born in a place, and your father was born in that same place, and his father was born in that same place, you’re not a “refugee” unless the people in charge of that place have some sort of agenda.
The international community? I mean, that’s who’s in charge of all these multi-generational refugee camps, globally.
Multi-generation refugee camps are the norm. Focusing on the fact they’re called what they are is dumb.
But then, you’re definitely that stupid, so it figures.
I mean, you’d have to be thick as pigshit to think mocking anyone’s right of return, as a pro-Israeli stance, is going to appear as anything but hypocrisy.
You realize refugee is a term of art too? Having to do with lacking protection of the country of one’s nationality due to events that specifically occurred before, like 1950 as I recall.
~Max