How dare Israel fight Hamas where Hamas is.
…the diversion wasn’t where Hamas was.
It was where hundreds of innocent civilians, including children, had been sheltering, forced there after their homes were demolished in the north. It included 3 Mosques.
I’ve just watched a video of Palestinians collecting up body parts like puzzle pieces. Over 11 thousand Palestinian children at least slaughtered in the last 120 days. They are now dying of hunger and disease.
All of that to rescue only two hostages? Israel have killed more of the hostages than they’ve rescued. As I said: I’m glad the hostages have been released. We need a ceasefire now to get the release of the rest of them.
Erm, cite?
If you’re trying to distract Hamas, it would make sense for the diversion to strike at other Hamas locations rather than at innocent civilians.
Well good heavens, Hamas has never operated out of a mosque, right?
I agree, but at the moment Hamas isn’t willing to come to the table without no-starters like a guarantee that they will continue to rule Gaza after the war. So, just like the last time when they insisted that there could be no negotiarion for a hostage deal without an unconditional ceasefire coming first, until Israeli operations put enough pressure on them to change their mind, operations will have to continue until Hamas is willing to be more reasonable.
The previous ceasefire deal didn’t happen in a vacuum. The terms were not terms that Hamas would have agreed to on Oct 8.
Every hostage freed until then weakens their hand and makes it more likely that they will come to the table. So I repeat - wonderful news.
…cite for what?
That children were killed tonight? I’ve got the pictures if you want to see them.
Or that IDF claims that they are only targeting Hamas are lies on top of lies? Because we’ve got over 11,000 dead children that show those claims are bogus.
So what exactly do you want a cite for? The Axios reporter who got the inside scoop said the heavy attacks on Rafah were a diversion. What more do you want?
And yet: we have hundreds of dead innocent civilians.
Israel have damaged and destroyed over 300 Mosques in Gaza over the last 120 days and have presented zero evidence that Hamas were operating out of any of them. So good heavens, it isn’t my job to prove that the Mosques were valid targets. Thats over to the IDF.
We know that families were sheltering in Huda Mosque. We know that it was targeted tonight and children were killed. We know that 1.5 million people are crowded into Rafah.
Can we have a guarantee that the bloodthirsty megalomaniac Netanyahu won’t continue to rule Israel after the war?
The previous ceasefire worked to Israel’s advantage. It allowed them time to reset from the north to central Gaza so that they could continue their campaign against the Palestinian people.
Every day the war continues is a step towards the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. There is no longer a functional healthcare system. Famine in the north. Famine will soon come to the south. Every day the siege continues is a death sentence. There will be hundreds of thousands of deaths before the end of the year.
None of this is wonderful news.
How dare Hamas fight the IDF where the IDF is (like, all over civilian Israel)…
Does that argument wash with anyone?
You do understand that the building the hostages were rescued from was also a civilian building, yes? Because that’s where Hamas is operating from? So this:
Is some serious nonsense.
Since Israel is a democracy, no, you can’t; in a democracy you cannot make guarantees about who will be in power. That being said, There is every indication that he will not be. And good fucking riddance.
There are a ton of civilian deaths in Gaza. Way too fucking many. It is a horrible tragedy.
This is not because of ethnic cleansing. This is because Hamas ensures that the only way to fight them is to cause civilian casualties.
But I realize I can never convince you of that. So fine. Believe what you believe. When the war is over and the Palestinians aren’t driven from Gaza, I won’t be holding my breath for you to issue a correction.
If Hamas limited itself to launching rockets at IDF bases, and sometimes they fell on sorrounding homes but they were aiming at army bases as a whole, then that would put them miles and miles and miles ahead of where they are now morally, yes. Are you really arguing that it wouldn’t?
I’m not arguing that Hamas isn’t exactly where (I suspect we both think) they are right now morally.
I’m arguing that the IDF is right there with them.
…and the reports say they eliminated three Hamas soldiers in a surgical campaign.
So this:
Is some serious nonsense.
Israel are able to conduct a surgical operation that only takes out three people.
And yet also found the need to also kill hundreds of other people somewhere else completely.
We don’t have to look at tonight. We simply have to look at the entire campaign. It’s been indiscriminate. Not just the bombing. But the siege. And the IDF lies at every single opportunity. Lies, lies, lies, lies.
Well if Hamas can sit at the table knowing a genocidal maniac is going to be there, then Israel can sit at the table as well. That’s just how the world works. There are no excuses.
This is nonsense.
And I know it’s nonsense, because I’ve posted a heck-of-a-lot in this thread, and I’ve meticulously provided cites for almost every assertion I’ve made.
The South Africa case to the International Court of Justice makes the case that this is a genocide. And the genocidal statements from Israel leadership, the strategy, the tactics, that fact that 1.5 million people are now in Rafah and 650,000 people no longer have a home to go to don’t have a home to go to kinda proves the point.
I have no idea how this all will end. I won’t be “wrong” though if after all of this is done, some Palestinians remain. This is still ethnic cleansing. They’ve driven over a million people out of their homes, razed fields, demolished and bulldozed apartment blocks, Mosques, historical sites, schools and universities. It’s at the very least a cultural genocide.
And the systematic destruction of the healthcare system tells us something else. I tells us how little value they have for Palestinian life. 2000 cancer patients no longer can get any treatment. Women giving birth in tents. 300% increase in miscarriages. People that need insulin just dying. Everyone says they’ve got stomach trouble.
This is a catastrophe. This is dystopian. The bombs are a problem, but the bombs won’t be what kills most people in Gaza. It isn’t a “tragedy.” This is deliberate.
That’s because Hamas understands that their best weapon against Israel is photos of their own dead kids. That’s why they go out of their way to maximise civilian casualties by operating out of civilian areas, withholding aid, not building bomb shelters etc….
…Hamas aren’t the people showing photos and videos of their own dead kids.
At the start of the war that was largely the realm of the reporters. Because people didn’t believe what was happening on the ground.
Then Israel started to kill the reporters. Over 125 of them killed so far. Now there are very few Gazan reporters left. They’ve either stopped working, or they are in hiding, they’ve been captured, or have fled over the borders.
So now its largely Palestinians filming themselves. Because they want to make sure a record of their genocide is kept. Because when you are trapped, and herded into a corner, there isn’t much else you can do.
These are all just talking points. Talking points that haven’t been backed up by the facts on the ground. Nobody has “gone out of their way to maximize civilian casualties by operating out of civilian areas.” Instead: Israel have claimed this is what Hamas has been doing in order to for example justify its war on hospitals, yet over-and-over again have failed to make that case.
And every single humanitarian agency on the ground point to Israel being the problem getting aid through to Gaza. Whether it’s banning “dual use” items like “water purifiers, medical supplies and tent poles”, or allowing a standing protest at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to effectively close that off to all aid, to the denial of an urgent mission to Nasser Hospital today, Israel is the problem here, not Hamas.
How many bomb shelters are there in Gaza?
…how many bomb shelters are there in Chicago?
2,500. Designated during the height of the Cold War. Because that’s what a government intent on protecting its citizens does during hostilities.
Hamas have been in power for 17 years. How many bomb shelters have they built to protect their citizens during that time?
Where your question about bomb shelters actually hurts your cause is that even if Hamas had built enough bomb shelters for the population of Rafah (and I’m sure they didn’t) there are now about 5x as many people in Rafah as there are normally. Because the Israeli’s told people to go there to be safe. Which is just another example of Israel exacerbating what is already a crappy situation by moving people around to supposed safe zones.
…LOL. Nuclear theatre. If there was ever a nuclear war, they were all dead anyway.
If they had built bomb shelters, would Israel not target them, just like the “didn’t” target hospitals, and how they “didn’t” target schools, and refugee camps, and Mosques and churches and universities and tents?
Because Israel has targeted all of those things. A bomb shelter wouldn’t have been a defence.
I didn’t know that you meant this seriously. Nobody, and I mean absolutely NOBODY, thought that bomb shelters would have made any material difference in this war. Because it doesn’t matter now anyway. They all would have ended up in Rafah eventually.
Now, a question for you: since the start of this war, how many confirmed Hamas people have been killed by Israel? Not looking for a ratio based on the Hamas Ministry of Health numbers. Looking for the figure from the IDF.
The fact you’re sure Hamas didn’t build enough bomb shelters for the people of Rafah is good evidence that my main point is correct: Hamas maximises their own casualties as part of their battle strategy.
And if Hamas had built bomb shelters elsewhere then it stands to reason there’d be far fewer people trying to get into Rafah.
…Rafah currently has 1.5 million people there at the moment. The 2012 population of Rafah was only 152,000. How many bomb shelters did you expect them to make?
Nonsense. Israel would never have allowed Hamas to openly build bomb shelters for its people. They would have bombed those faster than they destroyed Gazas airport in 2002. Secret tunnel networks and obvious bomb shelters are two very different things.
People aren’t “trying to get into Rafah.”
They are in Rafah.
And they are in Rafah because Israel ordered all civilians to evacuate the north and head south. Then Israel have been clearing the north with troops and bulldozers on the ground. Bomb shelters would have done nothing for them. They would have been driven south regardless.
Then Israel targeted central Gaza and the south. People had nowhere else to go. Again, bomb shelters would have made zero difference here.
Outside of its use as a talking point, bomb shelters have not been discussed by anyone, from Palestinian civilians to humanitarian agencies, as anything that would have made an impact on casualties at all.
Mosques and hospitals aren’t built to withstand bombs. Bomb shelters tend to work well against bombs. That’s the difference between a bomb shelter and a hole in the ground.
So yes, if Hamas had built bomb shelters then a great many of the people who have died in this war would still be alive. The fact that Hamas never bothered building bomb shelters is pretty good evidence that maximising their own casualties is part of their battle strategy. And in their defence, it works amazingly well, doesn’t it?
… Mosques and hospitals are not legitimate targets in war. Thousands of Palestinians are dead because Israel committed war crimes in shutting down the Gazan healthcare system. 23 out of 36 hospitals shut down. 3 currently under siege. No evidence that any of the hospitals were being used “outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy”.
Nah.
Because this is all you’ve got left.
This is the last remaining defence of the way Israel have conducted this war.
“Hamas didn’t build any bomb shelters.”
It sounds ridiculous on the face of it, doesn’t it?
Not the shutting down of the healthcare system. Not the stopping of food and medical supplies from getting to the north. Not the relentless targeting of civilian infrastructure, civilian targets, all of which have been extensively documented by humanitarian agencies. Not the indiscriminate bombing campaign.
Nah, its “Hamas didn’t build bomb shelters.”
This is just utter nonsense. Outside of the circles that constantly recycle these talking points, nobody is seriously making this argument. Not any Palestinians, not any humanitarian agencies.
Only if you believe that Palestinians, including those that are members of Hamas, aren’t human beings who don’t care if their friends, family, loved ones, children, die horrible deaths.
That isn’t a view I prescribe too.