Hamas has said they will release all the hostages, living and dead:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-hamas-deadline-ceasefire-1.7650305
They haven’t agreed to the full peace plan but let’s hope this goes in the direction of further negotiation rather than endless war.
They’ve offered that several times, but Israel wants a lot more.
Yeah right now this looks like the exact stance Israel and Hamas have had for the majority of the war.
The only real hope at negotiation would have to be another multistage cease fire like the one that was attempted when Trumps second term started, which would at least kick the can for a while until you get back to the issue that if hamas disarming is a dealbreaker for both sides there’s no middle position to take.
Saudi Arabia supports the US with bases as does other Muslim countries in the region.
Many of them are at political odds with Iran. As a result of this war Iran has had their nuclear weapons program set back and Syria was dismantled. Russia lost it’s only base in the Mediterranean. It was a major political change in the region.
There’s a reason none of them want refugees from Gaza. They are collectively a religious train wreck. Nobody wants internal religious strife funded by Iran. There’s no real way to sort out Hamas from other Gazan citizens and that’s the 900 lb gorilla in the room.
Or, if one will, the 900lb toddler.
…their neighbours have taken plenty of Palestinian refugees.
But they aren’t taking many refugees from Gaza during this particular conflict for two different reasons:
It isn’t because:
Its because they are trapped, and they are being exterminated, and Israel want them to leave Gaza, and enabling Israel would by itself make them complicit with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and they don’t want that.
Wow, if Israel was really trying to “Ethnically Cleanse” Gazans, they’re apparently incredibly shitty at it.
…I’m glad you’ve bought up ethnic cleansing.
They’ve flattened Rafah, flattened most of the north and are in the process of flattening Gaza City. Here is video of a bulldozer equipped with a flamethrower.
Why are they setting buildings on fire like that?
From the latest Gaza flash update:
This is ethnic cleansing. That is the most accurate way to describe it.
Israel are targeting shelter, water and sanitation.
Israel are deliberately targeting the healthcare system.
They are targeting humanitarian agencies.
They are targeting the UN and its partners.
They are damaging the environment.
They are targeting the sanitation system.
Israel has nearly totally destroyed all of the tree crops, the shrubland and most of their ability to make crops.
Over a MILLION displacement movements since March.
Much more at the link.
It’s the stuff of nightmares.
But its very very real. And we should be doing everything that we can to stop it.
Addressing the words you said: Israel have actually been very efficient at ethnically cleansing much of Gaza. They’ve set up “concentration zones”, or camps, that comprise only about 15% of the available land. And they are herding more and more people into those zones every single day.
As to the seeming absurdity of both trapping people in concentration zones AND wanting everyone to voluntarily leave: that’s the thing about both ethnic cleansing and the G word I’m not allowed to use in this thread: neither of them need to make any sense.
There doesn’t have to be any logic to it. Israeli leadership will continue with what they are doing now, killing at least a hundred people a day, every single day, flattening houses and schools and Mosques, clearing out entire areas. And they will continue to seek “partners” that are willing to take Palestinians in Gaza that want to “voluntarily” leave, and they will continue to trap them and not allow them to leave.
And if you think thats crazy and absurd and doesn’t make any sense then you would be 100% correct. Because ethnic cleansing and gen____ don’t make any sense. But that isn’t my fault. Take it up with the people that are actually doing it.
How convenient that you can accuse Israel of any heinous thing you want and your accusations don’t even have to make sense. That really is an incredible thing for you to admit.
Just like any other conspiracy theory, the lack of evidence is the proof 
…both things are objectively true.
Israel are stopping Palestinians from leaving. From COGAT:
“Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the body under the Defense Ministry responsible for coordinating the movement of Gaza residents, has maintained that the only criteria for exiting Gaza — both before and throughout the war — are severe illness or injury, or foreign citizenship. In all cases, residents cannot apply directly to COGAT; an international organization must submit the request on their behalf.”
AND Israel are trying to find a ‘partner’ that will take Palestinians that “voluntarily” want to leave.
“Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas.”
What are you actually disputing here? Both things are true.
Just like any other conspiracy theory, the lack of evidence is the proof
Why are they burning down homes with flamethrowers on bulldozers?
What I’m disputing here is the idea that Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza by both not letting anyone out and getting all the Palestinians out at the same time like some kind of Schrodinger’s Genocide.
Why is Hamas turning civilian homes into booby trapped fighting positions? You can’t militarize a position and then cry about it when it’s destroyed by the people you’re trying to kill from said position.
…for the sake of clarity: my post was split into two different bullet points for a reason. They both addressed why people aren’t leaving Gaza. The first is that Israel isn’t letting them, which isn’t ethnic cleansing, and I didn’t claim that it was.
The second was a reference to Israels plan for mass “voluntary” emigration from Gaza. This WOULD be ethnic cleansing. Because it wouldn’t be “voluntary.” It would be forced, by circumstances or otherwise.
Both of these ideas are bonkers. Both are illegal under international law. There are 15,600 people waiting for medical evacuation right now and there are countries that are ready to take them. They should be allowed to leave.
There is also ethnic cleansing going on throughout Gaza. This is separate to the mass emigration plan. They have cleansed much of the north. They cleansed Rafah. They are cleansing Gaza City. They are forcing people to move, then they are demolishing their houses, meaning they can not return to their homes.
I’m not accusing Israel of :any heinous thing that I want". Israel are doing heinous things. They literally engineered a famine. That is heinous. I’ll stop accusing them of doing heinous things when they stop doing heinous things.
They aren’t. They are civilian homes. People used to live their. They weren’t forced out of their homes by Hamas. They wre either ordered to leave by the IDF, or they fled because they feared what would happen to them, or they died there because the IDF dropped a bomb on them.
Once people have been forced to abandon their homes by Israeli forces then I concede that Hamas will use sometimes use those abandoned homes as fighting positions and may even booby trap them. But that isn’t why the homes were destroyed in the first place. The pattern of destruction is systematic. Entire neighbourhoods cleared out and flattened.
And Israel do the very same thing. They set up bases in schools, hospitals, homes. Israel militarises civilian infrastructure.
You can’t seriously be claiming that this level of total destruction was because “Hamas were militarising a position.”
Those are scenes of systematic destruction. They are flattening the strip. Here is Rafah:
In the early days of the “war” there were over a million people forced into this city. They were ordered there by Israel in order to escape the north.
Then they were ordered to leave here as well. Then the city was flattened. This was supposed to be Biden’s “red line.” What a big joke that turned out to be.
Here is Jabalia and Beit Hanoun.
Flattened.
Here is Beit Lahiya.
Look at the make-shift tents in the rubble. The utter devastation.
More from Jabalia.
You want us to believe that this scale of destruction is all because Hamas has allegedly militarised ALL of it. Thats the sort of claim that demands a significant amount of evidence. Lets start with Rafah. Why was Rafah destroyed?
And using flamethrowers in this context is prohibited under international law. It is “prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.” Bolding mine.
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III). Geneva, 10 October 1980.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/ccw-protocol-iii-1980
Ratified by Israel in 1995.
Witnesses report that Israeli forces brutalized and forced some sort of flag humiliation ritual on Greta Thunberg:
The allegation was corroborated by at least two other members of the flotilla who had been detained by Israeli forces and released on Saturday.
“They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.
Right, in fact Hamas kills people who try to use the evacuation routes Israel designates, because they want people to stay put. That’s how human shields work.
…Hamas aren’t responsible for the devastation that is shown in those videos.
And do you have a cite for this?. Because I just went searching for it and these were the first hits I got in Google for “hamas killing people on evacuation routes” (without the quotes).
It wasn’t until well down the page that I found a Reddit post that had a grainy photo with a claim Hamas were blocking the road, not killing anyone.
There are a lot of links to reputable news agencies reporting on the IDF killing Palestinians on evacuation routes. I’m sure if I were to keep going I’d find PLENTY more. It sure looks like those “evacuation” routes are dangerous because Israel keeps bombing them and killing people on them.
After a lot of digging I found this:
The source is an IDF paramedic.
There is this (paywalled) article where Hamas tells people not to evacuate. But no killing.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip/card/hamas-tells-civilians-not-to-evacuate-to-the-south-T9TX4p5KHl930OHJDyfp
The same again: source an IDF tweet. No reports of killing.
And another.
No reports of killing: just an alleged transcript from the IDF of a conversation with a resident who said there were shootings. Same photo as the Reddit post.
That’s how human shields work.
The only real evidence of use of human shields in Gaza is again: by the IDF:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-military-human-shields.html
When Hamas uses civilian homes they become military targets.
…so is the argument here that every single civilian home in Rafah, Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Gaza City are being used by Hamas? I can’t believe thats true. If it were, there would be dossiers of evidence.
So again: let’s start with Rafah. By all accounts and from the video footage, Rafah has been levelled. So show me the justification for that.
Hamas is fighting a gorilla war so show me where they’re located.
…in the eyes of international humanitarian law, that isn’t my burden to prove: it’s Israels. And I can’t imagine any justification for the flattening of Rafah.
You keep ignoring the obvious. Hamas is waging a gorilla war. There is no battlefield you can point to. And it’s not up to Israel to reveal their intelligence operation to satisfy you.
In WW2 the Allies flattened Germany and incinerated multiple German and Japanese cities. This is what war looks like. And don’t bother coming back with the Queensbury rules of war that were enacted after WW2. It’s nothing but an attempt to whitewash the war after the fact.
War is about death and destruction. In this case the battlefield for Hamas is civilian infrastructure.