Israel / Palestine

[Nodack]

If only Trump was President, this wouldn’t have happened. Well, according to Trump at least.

Trump praises Iran-backed Hezbollah as ‘very smart,’ says if he were president, Israel ‘wouldn’t have had to be prepared’
https://nypost.com/2023/10/12/trump-pra ... li-troops/
The former president implied the terrorist group Hamas would never have attacked Israel from Gaza if he was in the White House.

[Superbone]

I'm behind the idea of black lives matter. All lives for that matter but I get black lives in particular since they've been marginalized in our history. Not sure about the group BLM though. Just like any group, who knows what their other beliefs are.

I'm a human first. This war is atrocious and needs to stop. Upping the game against each other is only going to lead to more and more bloodshed and senseless loss of life. My heart goes out to all the victims and their families. This planet and its people have learned nothing!

[Mori Chu]

Israel has warned all 1.1m Palestinians that they are to leave northern Gaza immediately. They've already begun mass bombing in the area. Do these look like military targets? I fear that this awful Hamas attack will lead to Israel justifying even more atrocities.

[Nodack]

At least they are starting to evacuate them… on day 7 of the assault. They must have gotten a lot of grief from Allies like the US disturbed why they were blocking all food, water and escape routes for the Palestinians before. Maybe the initial shock has worn off and they are starting to think about what they are doing instead of just lashing out in anger.

[Cap]

At least they are starting to evacuate them…

Nope.

Israel told civilians to evacuate from the north to the south. Hamas controls the roads and is not allowing this. Israel’s response: “If Hamas prevents residents from evacuating, the responsibility lies with them.”

So they’re stuck in the crossfire while Israel and Hamas blame each other.

[Nodack]

You would think the Palestinians would get tired of being pawns.

[Nodack]

As Israel bombards Gaza, Palestinians attempt to flee, only to discover nowhere is safe
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/as- ... re-is-safe
On Saturday after the massive Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Gaza civilians of the horrors to come, promising to unleash the full force of the Israeli military on the strip.

“Get out now,” he said, addressing Palestinians in Gaza. “Because we will operate everywhere.”

Khoudary was listening to him as the airstrikes intensified, trapped in her home with nowhere to run.

“Why didn’t he tell us where to flee?” she asked. “Because we’d really like to know.”

Gazans bombarded by Israel have no hope and no escape
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-10-11/
GAZA, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Most of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip have no electricity and no water. And, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run.

Hamas tells Gaza residents to stay put as Israel ground offensive looms
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-10-13/

Oct 13 (Reuters) - Mosques broadcast messages telling Gaza Strip residents to stay put on Friday, in defiance of an Israeli military call for more than a million civilians to move south within 24 hours in the build-up to its expected ground offensive.

Leaders of the enclave's governing militant group Hamas also urged Palestinians to ignore the call, and by Friday afternoon there were no signs of any mass exodus from the north of the enclave.

The Israeli military told the civilians of Gaza City to "evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman that he "rejects the forced displacement" of Palestinians in Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

“We tell the people of northern Gaza and from Gaza City, stay put in your homes, and your places. By carrying out massacres against the civilians, the occupation wants to displace us once again from our land,” he told a news conference.


No, Palestinians Can’t Just Leave Gaza

Despite the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation, they have nowhere to go.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... ckout=true
Palestinians living there have essentially been penned into what human-rights groups call the “world’s largest open-air prison.”
The Egyptian authorities have closed their side of the crossing to prevent the Palestinians from breaking out. Although the Biden administration is pressing for it to be reopened, the regime of General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is loath to take on the responsibility of hosting thousands of refugees.

If this sounds cruel, it is consistent with longstanding policy: Egypt is solicitous about the problems of Palestinians but doesn’t want them on its soil. Cairo is already trotting out its usual excuses of poverty and security: Egypt can’t afford to host refugees, and they might cause trouble.

Other Arab nations offer variations of those lines. Jordan already has too many Palestinians (they make up more than half the population of the kingdom) and too many refugees from other places, such as Syria. Turkey, which is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, likewise has its hands full of refugees from other parts.

The Gulf Arab states have plenty of land and no shortage of money; Saudi Arabia is currently spending hundreds of billions of dollars building a city it doesn’t really need. Their traditional excuse for not taking in Palestinians is that it would let Israel off the hook.

There are questions to be asked about why Iran, Hamas’s sponsor and self-proclaimed champion of the Palestinians, doesn’t offer to host them. And why the European nations, which wring their hands when Gaza is bombed, can find no place for at least a few of the victims.

But by now, you get my point: The civilians in Gaza can’t leave, and it’s a tragedy twice over that nobody wants them anyway.

[Mori Chu]

[Nodack]

Not good.

‘We are deeply concerned’ – Progressive lawmakers make plea to Biden ahead of Israel’s Gaza campaign
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/1 ... l-00121463
Top progressive lawmakers are urging President Joe Biden to lean more heavily on Israel as it launches what seems likely to be an aggressive, bloody and lengthy campaign in Gaza.

The leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus along with dozens more lawmakers wrote the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken a letter on Friday asking them to push Israel to follow international law and for the United States to help establish a humanitarian corridor as the war in the Middle East escalates. Their demands come as Israel has ordered more than 1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south, something that the United Nations said is not feasible.

“As both the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights said, imposing a complete siege on Gaza and depriving 2.3 million Palestinian civilians who have nowhere else to go — half of whom are children — of food, water, and electricity, would be a violation of international humanitarian law.”

In order to prevent hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim Americans, the lawmakers urged Biden to communicate “to the American people that Hamas is not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.”

[Nodack]

lawmakers urged Biden to communicate “to the American people that Hamas is not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.”

Someone needs to tell Israel that.

[Split T]

Yikes…sounds like neither side is playing fair here

[Superbone]

Yikes…sounds like neither side is playing fair here

All is fair in love and war...apparently.

[JeremyG]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rikes.html

The UN agency overseeing relief efforts warned today that 'more than 2million people are at risk as water runs out' in Gaza, with Philippe Lazzarini, a senior official, warning: 'It has become a matter of life and death. It is a must.'

Water has stopped coming out of taps across the territory.

Amal Abu Yahia, a 25-year-old pregnant mother in the Jabaliya refugee camp, said she waits anxiously for the few minutes each day or every other day when contaminated water trickles from the pipes in her basement.

She then rations it, prioritizing her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. She said she is drinking so little herself, she only urinates every other day.

Near the coast, the only tap water is contaminated with Mediterranean Sea water because of the lack of sanitation facilities. Mohammed Ibrahim, 28, said his neighbors in Gaza City have taken to drinking the salt water.

I know the US government has done some bad stuff before, but this is US-supported/endorsed genocide! With the exception of only 55 Congress members.

It’s time we start calling it what it is. Americans have to be free to call out the evils of the Israeli government without fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. Israel is not allowing water, food, fuel, electricity, or escape—for over 2 million civilians, over 1 million of which are children!

[JeremyG]

[Mori Chu]

It really reminds me of right after 9/11, where the horrific attack justified being cruel and hateful toward an entire country or group of people. Palestinian civilians shouldn't be bombed, held captive, sieged, or tortured just because of the awful Hamas attack on Israel. It seems like Israel is always just waiting for any excuse to inflict cruelty on Palestinian innocents. But if anybody says much about that, they're accused of siding with Hamas or dismissing the awful attack on Israel by Hamas.

[JeremyG]

Exactly. People think you have to take sides. But not if both sides are in the wrong (meaning the governments/leaders of both sides).

[JeremyG]

Israel resumes water supply to southern Gaza after U.S. pressure

I have to give the Biden administration credit for this. But they need to make sure Israel allows food and other necessities as well.

[Nodack]

The leaders of the Palestinian people in Gaza are Hamas. They run everything in Gaza. The leaders of the US are Dems and Cons. When the US declares war it is our leaders who do it and they represent us. When the US attacks another country it isn’t just the military attacking, it is the US. All of us.

It was Hamas who attacked Israel. They represent the Palestinian people. The attack came from Gaza where the Palestinian people live . If the Palestinian people don’t want to take the blame from Hamas attacks then they should have gotten new leadership a long time ago. They may not have been informed or taken part in the attack but they are partially responsible. They seem like pawns that are controlled by Hamas and Iran and they don’t seem to care or attempt to distance themselves from them at all.

Still it wasn’t the Palestinian people who directly attacked and they weren’t informed of the pending attack. Israel is just as bad as Hamas for carpet bombing entire neighborhoods. Sure they killed some Hamas members. They most likely killed more women and children than Hams though.

My point is the Palestinian people aren’t 100% blameless the same as I am not blameless for what our country does.

[Nodack]

Lots of misinformation out there. Hamas doesn’t want the Palestinians to evacuate and are willing to kill them to make sure they don’t leave? That vicious attack on a convoy of Palestinians blamed on an Israeli air strike might have actually been Hamas?

Hamas seen blocking evacuation routes in Gaza - IDF
Analysts noted that a car bombing seemed to target the evacuation routes in Gaza on Saturday.
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conf ... cle-768382
Video and photos shared by the IDF on Saturday showed large objects being placed on the roads designated by the IDF in an attempt to block them, with massive traffic jams seen from the air as tens of thousands of people attempted to evacuate.
Additionally on Saturday, Palestinian media shared a video claiming to show an Israeli airstrike hitting one of the evacuation routes, although a number of open-source intelligence accounts which analyzed the footage noted that the explosion appeared to originate from a van on the ground as there was no projectile visible at any point in the footage.

[Mori Chu]

It's interesting to try to describe what exactly Hamas is. I would not call them the "government" or "leadership" of Palestine, but, to be fair, Wikipedia does describe them as the "de facto government" of Palestine. My interpretation of that is that Palestine has no government, and so Hamas is the closest thing they have to any kind of leadership. Its name means "Islamic Resistance Movement."

As for how Hamas gets supplies and funding, Wikipedia says:

Much of the money raised comes from sources that direct their assistance to what Hamas describes as its charitable work for Palestinians, but investments in support of its ideological position are also relevant, with Persian Gulf States and Saudi Arabia prominent in the latter. Matthew Levitt claims that Hamas also taps money from corporations, criminal organizations and financial networks that support terror.[346] It is also alleged that it engages in cigarette and drug smuggling, multimedia copyright infringement and credit card fraud.[345] The United States, Israel and the EU have shut down many charities and organs that channel money to Hamas, such as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief."

As for their recent military activity:

During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war Hamas infiltrated homes, shot civilians en masse, and took scores of Israeli civilians and soldiers as hostages into Gaza[73][74]. According to Human Rights Watch the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and taking of civilians as hostages amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.[425] During its October 2023 offensive against Israel, Hamas massacred over 260 people at a music festival, while abucting others.

As for whether the Palestinians support Hamas, this is an interesting excerpt:

A poll conducted in 2021 found that 53% of Palestinians believed Hamas was "most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people", while only 14% preferred Abbas's Fatah party.[543] At the same time, a majority of Gazans saw Hamas as corrupt as well, but were frightened to criticize the group.[544] Polls conducted in 2023 found that support for Hamas among Palestinians was around 27–31%.[545]

So, ... it's complicated. I'm sure there are Palestinians who support what Hamas does, since they feel they're being persecuted by Israel and kind of like seeing somebody "hit back" and represent them. (It is wrong of them to support these acts of violence, of course.). I'm sure there are also many there who don't want anything to do with Hamas and just want to live their lives. It's like asking, do all Americans support Trump's Muslim ban? Or his border wall? Some percentage do; others don't; others don't care. The vast majority of people just want to go about their own lives and not deal with this stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas