"Officials said that Israel and Egypt were prepared to let foreigners leave the Strip which is under heavy Israeli bombardment, but Hamas had refused."
"Officials said that Israel and Egypt were prepared to let foreigners leave the Strip which is under heavy Israeli bombardment, but Hamas had refused."
As a retired Major-General explained on TV over here the other day, Hamas is a Insurrection Movement, which are made of 3 parts, the Political Side, the Military Side and Popular Support.
Want to destroy Hamas, destroy its popular support side.
The current indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians will never destroy it because not only does it increase the Popular Support for any Insurrection Movement against Israel, it also adds to the number of people who would join the military wing of such a movement (i.e. directly put their lives at risk), especially because for all the parroting of Israel's "human shields" propaganda, what the people there see is Israel choosing to bomb and kill their family, so even those who detest Hamas will detest Israel much much more and with good reason.
Unless Israel is willing to commit a Nazi-sized Genocide (which I suspect its current leadership would do if they thought they could get away with, hence their talk of a "second Nakba"), the solution will never be more violence.
Israel really going for a "If there's no witnesses, there's no problem" approach and killing everybody.
They're targetting and killing journalists (and were already doing so before this) and their families.
States murder journalists and their families has no other reason than to stop the truth from coming out, so taking out a couple of tens of thousand who they see as untermenschen to "tie up loose ends" is hardly going to weigh on their consciences.
Well, they ran out of MSF doctors to shoot.
To stop people from going to extreme lenghts, you need to give them something to lose.
Those people lost everything, of course they will fight by any means necessary
We've learned that bombing only makes people more resolved to fight in every war in the 20th and 21st centuries. There's no reason it would change now. You can't bomb away ideas.
Uh… Did you forget Japan?
The idea that the atomic bombs directly caused the surrender of Japan is contested, actually. It's more likely that they created an urgency in what was already looking like a losing battle. The difference in that situation is that Japan wasn't fighting a war of resistance at any cost against the US, they were fighting as part of an alliance on one front of a world war. In that case it is very real that troops lose morale, civilian casualties become too great, and loss of military assets make victory look unlikely, and then surrender looks attractive by comparison. But I think in the case of popularly supported resistance to colonizers, that threshold is quite high - people feel quite strongly about revenge and are convinced of the justice of their cause in that situation, so the brutality of their colonizers isn't likely to do anything other than strengthen their resolve.
Frankly, I actually think the atomic bombing and firebombing campaigns would be considered war crimes if they happened today. It's really weird that people justify it so much by how horrible the Japanese state was at the time - tons of innocent civilians, including lots of children, died horribly, and it was 100% anticipated, and in the case of the atomic bombing, they did it twice, knowing that. You can't justify your own actions by the crimes of your enemy.
Underrated comment that everyone should read and understand.
The Pro-Israel crowd will say it is all lies and Israel is really making good friends with all Palestinians then act all shocked that rockets keep flying from gaza at them. Bombing the shit out of Palestinians has worked SO well over the last many decades. Yet they figure 'we just didn't bomb hard enough' to make them like us!
That popular support will never disappear, Hamas is using Muslim vs infidels agenda. You see, that works well to brainwash Muslims worldwide. At no point would they stop cursing Israel and Jew.
The only people indiscriminately bombing Palestinians are PIJ and Hamas. They spray and pray with rockets, hundreds of them have landed in Gaza.
Israel's strikes are the most targeted fucking strikes you've ever seen a military do, and they actively warn the people in those buildings with everything from roof knocking to a phone call.
You call it propaganda, but it's exactly what Hamas is doing, isn't it?
When Israel calls you and tells you they're going to bomb the building you're in, and when, and Hamas tells you not to leave, how are you going to come away from that hating Israel more than Hamas?
When Hamas steals and hoards gasoline that it could use to run the power plant, the hospital generators, the desalination plants… when they dig up water pipes to fire as bombs… when PIJ fires a rocket that hits a hospital parking lot killing hundreds, you think they're too stupid to follow that?
You think they don't blame them for causing this war? They had a ceasefire and then they invaded Israel killing thousands of civilians, and they brought back hundreds of civilian hostages, you don't think they can tell that's an obvious casus belli?
Are you high? https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/middleeast/satellite-images-gaza-destruction/index.html
Flattening whole communities is as targeted as using a shotgun to kill a fly.
"Israeli precision is a paragon of modern warfare" I've mentioned the strike that hit a vehicle carrying over 70 refugees on a designated safe route, and the claimants of Israeli's amazing military technology have had nothing to say about it.
You may need to look up 'propaganda'.
No, I know what it means, I'm accusing you of straight up lying. It's true in every sense of the word truth, it is an accurate characterization of Hamas's actions, you have no reason to doubt it, you just don't like it because it's an uncomfortable phrase. You prefer to call them "martyrs," don't you?
Your comments are nothing but frothing Israeli propaganda. If you aren't lying, you are extremely misinformed of the situation.
if that were true, it would be very easy to actually respond to me instead of just flatly calling me a liar, right?
I did respond, I didn't flatly call you a liar, I was implying that from my perspective your view seems to either be deliberately antagonistic and untrue or you are not receiving accurate coverage of the conflict. I love Jewish people, I'm not an antisemite or desire any sort of death for Jews or any other group for that matter, but the actions of Israel should be condemned, and they have engaged in massive misinformation campaigns related to Palestine for decades. This is not to say I don't also condemn terrorism and killing of civilians by Hamas as well. But it is relevant to examine who is the original aggressor in the conflict and for what reason the conflict began.
You still won't respond to the point that Hamas is, in fact using Palestinians as human shields. you still just abstractly insist that believing that makes me a dumbass and is nothing but Israeli propaganda. But you don't have anything substantive to say.
You condemn terrorism, except on the internet, where you defend it. You don't want people to die, unless Hamas also wants them to die, in which case you'll divert and deflect all you want.
The original aggressor in the current conflict is Hamas. The original aggressor in the region is a complex, hazy question, but it very obviously predates the 1948 date people just love to focus on. Edit: Here's a starting point, if you need one
Why would I respond to baseless points that are leveled against resistance groups without fail EVERY TIME there is a conflict like this? It's tired, I'm not that young, I've heard all of this already. What is your basis for saying Hamas has been purposely using Palestinians as human shields? I would have the same discussion in person, I'm open with my beliefs. I don't want Hamas to kill anyone FFS, I'm a Buddhist and a vegetarian, I don't even want someone to kill a fly, putting words in my mouth is not a useful way to win an argument.
You condemn terrorism, except on the internet, where you defend it. You don’t want people to die, unless Bibi also wants them to die, in which case you’ll divert and deflect all you want.
You didn't follow your prescription in response to my comment. So I feel your comment is just a flat out lie and you would be a liar by extension.
You said "human shields" is propaganda, without explaining how you thought it was false.
I broke down the actual truth in a fair bit of detail.
You just said "nope, propaganda stupid!"
So no, I was pretty fair with you. If you still don't have anything substantive to say, you can fuck off now.
No I called you high.
In other news:
Bibi just called for a genocide by referring to Palestine as Amalak. If you know your torah you know what that references but if you don't he was kind enough to spell out the verse. Netanyahu quoted from First Samuel 15:3, saying, "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 'Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys'" The invocation of this biblical passage serves not only as a historical reference but also as a genocidal lens through which the Prime Minister views the current conflict.
I'm not on the side of genocide. You sure seem to be however. I'd say that makes you a piece of shit human being.
Is that substantive enough for your goose-stepping ass?
PS. You are still a deliberate liar.
That doesn't even make sense. If the point is to destroy Hamas assets and people, there's no sense in tipping them off about it. So either they're doing that and destroying people's homes for no reason, or they're not actually doing that.
It's not actually possible to take out military targets like that in civilian neighborhoods with air strikes in a "clean" way. Obviously the only reason they don't go in on the ground with IDF soldiers if they actually have legitimate targets instead is because the lives of Palestinean civilians are less important than the lives of Israeli soldiers, and they know that air strikes don't lead to any casualties on their side.
The primary point of airstrikes is to stop the Hamas bases that fire rockets indiscriminately in the vague direction of Israel. They warn people so that people can escape, and then, if people escape, and the rockets are disabled, that's a win-win. Of course, it would be even better if they had magic airstrikes that only disabled rockets, created protective bubbles around any civilians to protect them from any rubble, and convinced terrorists to just stop politely. But short of that, they're going to focus on disabling the rockets and warning civilians.
Yes, they call Hamas terrorists and warn them. They'd rather everybody survive than civilians die. Hamas would rather everybody die than civilians live.
Right. Feel free to recommend something cleaner than airstrikes.
They did go in on the ground with IDF soldiers, what news are you following?
But launching a ground invasion into Gaza every time Hamas or PIJ fired a rocket would be worse, you see how much the world is complaining (and attacking Jews) because of the current ground invasion, right? They're calling the ground invasion a genocide. Surrounding Muslim nations have been saying that invading Gaza by ground would be an act of war against them, they're just itching to invade Israel. Ground wars are not safe for civilians either.
Moreover, if you attack a Hamas rocket facility on ground, kill every terrorist, and let every civilian go free, the rockets and rocket-firing infrastructure are still there. You need the soldiers to stay around long enough to dismantle all that and carry the rockets away. In that time, Hamas will obviously attack the soldiers, and the escalation will inevitably result in more destruction.
How can harm be minimized here? Really? There is no sensible solution while Hamas exists. Hamas must not be allowed to continue existnig. (Nor should PIJ, for that matter). That, at this point, is the justification for a ground invasion.
Buddy, you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on recently have you? Also, a warning drop does nothing but give people time to piss themselves if you only give a hospital a few minutes to evacuate.
Even I knew a day before it happened that they were telling people to leave the hospital with the command center tunnels under it, I saw them talking about it on the BBC so it's a bit rich to pretend only a few minutes was given.
Hamas literally blocked roads going south and shot at civilians trying to flee the combat zone, Israel is going to great lengths to warn the Palestinian people and get them out the way while hamas are doing everything possible to make sure they can't get out the way.
I highly doubt that. As it is the reference is to the massive number of times Israel has attacked hospitals over the years.
"Israel says "Hi civilian we're about to bomb this building because a Hamas target is inside. Please leave so you are not hurt."
Hamas responds with "Go stand on the roof."
But your suggestion is that Israel is somehow the bad guy there?
You "know" that because the very people bombing civilians told you so.
Only a very special kind of person would trust killers when they provide unverifiable "justifications" for their killings that just so happen to blame somebody else and excuse their actions.
Just so I'm clear, which aspect of what I described do you believe does not happen?
Just wanna know the right one to cite.
Israel warning people by phone, leaflet, and then "door knocking" while Hamas tells them to go to their roof/"form a human shield" https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/world/middleeast/by-phone-and-leaflet-israeli-attackers-warn-gazans.html?_r=0
Here's their own words, calling all Palestinians to be martyrs
From wikipedia because I don't want to read the whole charter. original charter linked below the quote (and on the Wikipedia page)
Here's a phone call showing the greater scale of how seriously they take viewing every Palestinian as a martyr, by forcing people to remain in the North at gunpoint
https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1713500050511253928?t=g9Z3zsdfyW3wxIvuMxuHVg&s=19
Warnings like?
Warnings like the things I posted earlier.
I am aware that Israel is bad at propaganda. If anything, that's further evidence in my favor.
If you were actually concerned about killing someone with your airstrike, wouldn't you warn them in the fucking language they speak, in a way that actually reaches them??? I'm so fucking baffled at the psychology behind excusing what is going on.
In your favor… wow you are truly amazing at spin. Keep making the argument that I was right about you being a duck.
My point:
Your "evidence":
Openly antisemitic, Hitler-loving, pro-Hamas propagandists proudly declare how much they love it when Palestinians die. This is not uncommon on Memri TV.
That has nothing to do with my post whatsoever
it doesn't? I thought I was reinforcing your point…
Yes, because people that care about not killing Innocents would say "why don't we go in shoot just the terrorist instead of leveling the whole block?"
Urban combat results in more civilian casualties. Urban combat is a hellish meat grinder.
Bullshit
Yes now imagine how easy it is to ambush there. Now imagine you live in the area still. How dangerous would an army be forced to view you as?
You should really read up on urban combat. Aleppo has a lot of documentation on it.
Lmao. No. You don't have a clue what you're talking about. An Infantry fight in an urban area sucks but it's far less destructive than leveling entire blocks with explosives.
Less destructive but more fatal to civilians.
It's weird you don't know this, honestly
Bullshit. Unless you're committing war crimes left and right.
Fewer civilian casualties is literally the reason the US started using drone strikes instead of boots on the ground.
Dude. They started using drones because there's no congressional hearing when a drone is shot down in some random African country. But you lose one green beret and there's years of hearings. That's why we went to drones.