Israel / Palestine

[Superbone]

I don't know who's doing what anymore but I just feel for all the families and children caught in the crossfire. It is all senseless.

[JeremyG]

It sounds like they might not have water after all, even in the south:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told CNN Sunday that Israel has restored water to southern Gaza, where many Gazans have been told to flee. However, the director of the Water Authority there said he didn’t know if water was available because the electricity necessary to pump water for use had not been restored.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/middleea ... index.html

[Nodack]

Saw a clip of Palestinians filling water bottles. Who knows what info you can trust coming out of this.

[Mori Chu]

They don't care about the Palestinian people.

[Mori Chu]

[Cap]

[Nodack]

This is the second Hamas attack on Palestinians blamed on Israel. Hamas/Iran is clearly trying to start a war. I wonder if the average Palestinian knows they being used by Hamas as disposable pawns.

[Mori Chu]

Let's be careful. Israel claims the attack came from Hamas, but they are not providing any evidence of this. Some reporters are calling their account into question. Disinformation and deception abounds during this awful war.

[Mori Chu]

I think we just need to wait a bit longer for more info about what caused this hospital explosion. There's video going around of it that makes it look like it comes from Israel. And Hamas is not known for having any rockets capable of causing this size of explosion. I want to wait for more info.

[Nodack]

Misinformation is high. Both sides claim the other side is responsible. Israel claims it has video evidence it came from Hamas. Hamas has video evidence it was Israel.

Perfect!

[Mori Chu]

For what it's worth, President Biden has said today that he has been briefed on the hospital attack and does not believe Israel did it. So that's persuasive.

[JeremyG]

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

The US "unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict," Biden said during remarks in Tel Aviv, adding, "People of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter."

"Today I asked the Israeli cabinet, who I met with for some time this morning, to agree to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians and not to Hamas," Biden said.

"In light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not block humanitarian aid deliveries, as long as they consist water, food, and drugs for the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip ... and as long as the aid doesn’t reach Hamas," the statement said.

So it took President Biden going in person to Israel and demanding it?

But they are still refusing to allow fuel so hospitals can operate and won't allow any aid into northern Gaza. This is a war crime in violation of international law.

And the US just vetoed a UN resolution calling for a humanitarian pause to deliver aid: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... srael-gaza

[Nodack]

It looks like it was the Islamic Jihad who fired the rocket as part of a barrage of rockets sent towards Israel. One of the rockets malfunctioned and hit the hospital.

‘IT BELONGS TO JIHAD’ Israel releases drone footage & wiretapped call that ‘PROVE’ rocket from Gaza caused hospital explosion ‘killing 500’
https://www.the-sun.com/news/9356417/is ... as-rocket/
But in a shocking retaliation, The Israel Defence Forces released a recording from a wiretapped phone call between two operatives working within the Palestinian militant group.

Posting the clip to X, formerly known as Twitter, they wrote: "Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gaza - the IDF did not.

"Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves".

The intercepted audio recording begins with the first Hamas operative saying: "I'm telling you this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling".

A second militant responds: "And so that's why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad".

The first speaker says: "What?" before the other replies: "They are saying it belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad".

"It's from us?" asks the first Hamas operative, and the other responds: "It looks like it!"

As the chilling phone call continues, the second speaker explains that the shrapnel from the rocket missile was "local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel".

After a few seconds of silence, one adds: "But God bless, it couldn't have found another place to explode?"

[JeremyG]

[Mori Chu]

[Nodack]

Israeli morgue worker says horrors inflicted on Hamas's victims are 'worse than the Holocaust' including decapitated pregnant woman and her beheaded unborn child
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ed-replace

‘There is evidence of mass rape of so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis – women, grandmothers, children.
‘I never expected to be confronted by what I have seen.

‘People whose heads have been cut off. Women standing in their night dresses woken up and shot. Faces blasted off. Heads smashed and their brains spilling out.

‘A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.

[Mori Chu]

Hamas is awful; I don't think anybody here supports the horrible acts of violence they are committing. I wish that Israel's government/military were not committing horrible acts of violence in response, making it hard for me to support their behavior.

[Nodack]

I get it. I have been pretty critical of Israel in the past. We have seen this conflict for many decades played out. Israel gets attacked and then they respond violently and take more land for themselves that they build condos on. I don’t think any group has any respect for the Palestinians. I don’t think Israel does and I don’t think Iran or Hamas does either. The Palestinians seem to be dumb pawns. They can’t lead themselves, Hamas/Iran does. They launch rockets from right in the middle of the most densely populated areas of Gaza using Palestinians as human shields and after every attack the Palestinians suffer the consequences. You would think the Palestinians would wise up and realize they are just pawns and human shields to the rest of the Arab world and reject Hamas but, they never do. Perhaps they are also intimidated by Hamas and cannot survive without their infrastructure.

After this last brutal attack by Hamas Israel has decided that they will no longer tolerate any Hamas in Gaza and I can’t blame them. If it was the US and Mexico’s cartels launched an attack on a US city and massacred a thousand civilians in the most brutal ways imaginable there is no way we would let that go without a massive response. Israel has been dealing with attacks for many decades but, none this savage. Israel is done dealing with Hamas hiding amongst the Palestinians and launching attacks on Israel. There are 36,000 Hamas fighters they say and Israel is going to going to kill them all with their 300,000+ army before leaving Gaza. I feel bad for the Palestinian people caught in the middle. They could have their own peaceful state next to Israel if they wanted.

Wikipedia
Approximately 60 percent of Palestinians (77% in the Gaza Strip and 46% in the West Bank), support armed attacks against Israelis within Israel as a means of ending the occupation, while 70% believe that a two-state solution is no longer practical or possible as a result of the expansion of Israeli settlements.

The armed attacks just piss off Israel and make things worse for the Palestinians. Apparently they don’t care. It’s all about vengeance on both sides at this point and it looks like that violence is about to spread around the world.



London police report 1,353% rise in antisemitic hate crimes since Hamas onslaught
https://www.timesofisrael.com/london-po ... onslaught/


Violent threats across the country disrupt Muslim groups raising support for Palestinians
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/v ... lestinians

[Shabazz]

Hamas is awful; I don't think anybody here supports the horrible acts of violence they are committing. I wish that Israel's government/military were not committing horrible acts of violence in response, making it hard for me to support their behavior.

I’ve been biting my tongue on this thread for a while as the situation is very personal for me, but I’m curious. What would you have Israel do? Even putting aside how we got here, what would be an appropriate response to what happened on 10/7?

[Superbone]

This is a horrible situation. Nobody wins in war. Hamas brought this on so whatever happens is on them. There is no perfect way to respond. It's going to be messy. You can't let it go unpunished or they would continue to do it. Hamas has committed humanitarian atrocities. There will be innocent people caught in the crossfire no matter what. War is hell and Hamas invited it.