International Events Next-

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 minutes ago, SeanF said:

One incident of a girl being filmed being raped by Hamas fighters.

Leaving aside the evil of it, one has to be a total, fucking, moron to think that that is a propaganda victory.

:heartbroken: :angry : :helpless:

[Werthead]

Israel now apparently hitting the individual homes of senior Hamas members in Gaza. Israel has destroyed the tallest building in Gaza, although apparently gave warnings first for it to be evacuated.

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, Toth said:

I'm just baffled that such a large scale and coordinated attack from what was effectively always a tightly locked up reservation actually went through.

Corruption.

Bibi's and biz and political and religious cronies's corruption has infected every part of Israel, as our Israeli friends have been telling us and demonstrating about for a very long time

This attack was actually a great gift to him and his pals.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Corruption.

Bibi's and biz and political and religious cronies's corruption has infected every part of Israel, as our Israeli friends have been telling us and demonstrating about for a very long time

This attack was actually a great gift to him and his pals.

Will Israeli voters reward this demonstration of incompetence?

[Toth]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Will Israeli voters reward this demonstration of incompetence?

Quite probably yes, as far as I can tell. The opposition is super fractured and desperately needed the Muslim parties to close ranks. Ongoing violence in an occupied Gaza will shoot every hope of working together to pieces...

[Bironic]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

One incident of a girl being filmed being raped by Hamas fighters.

Leaving aside the evil of it, one has to be a total, fucking, moron to think that that is a propaganda victory.

For their partisans it might actually be... for the sane people in this world it's just horrific and sad at the same time...

[Zorral]

Quote

While he placed blame for the failure primarily on Israeli officials, he said U.S. intelligence also should have picked up on some of the indicators. The U.S. does not provide air defense coverage for Israel, but the two countries share intelligence.

“They should have picked up something of this scale,” Mulroy said.

One former Israeli security official told POLITICO the unprecedented attack was a “catastrophic” failure that was allowed to happen by “disarray” in the Israeli armed forces and intelligence services.

“It’s a failure in terms of intelligence, operationally,” said Chuck Freilich, the country’s former deputy national security adviser. “It’s clear we were caught totally unprepared by this. The divisional headquarters responsible for Gaza was occupied, they’re in disarray, and so the whole response has been delayed.”
 

But of course, it's Iran's fault. 

Nobody's stating just what the disarray in the Israeli armed forces is, what has caused it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/07/biden-admin-briefs-intel-committees-00120485

Of course, in the end, it isn't the failure of slavery as a system that our oppressed and tortured enslaved run away and don't support us Israel's (or the US's) security intelligence failure, it was outside agitators.

It's impossible not to reflect resonance vibrations of all sorts of historical situations, events and conditions here -- even when there isn't a one-on-one correspondence.  The more history one knows, the more resonances there are in the present

Edited October 7, 2023 by Zorral

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Darzin said:

I expect these attacks will kneecap the growing western support for Palestinians. 

I suppose.  But I doubt Hamas particularly cares.  What has Western "support" ever gotten Palestinians?  Certainly over the last 25 years, Israel has gotten stronger and stronger, while Palestinians have looked considerably weaker.

This atrocity is almost certainly directed at the Saudis and Iran.  The West is silly if it thinks it is about us.

So yes, very very chilling.  But am I surprised?  This has always been about continuing the beatings until morale in Gaza improves.  The coming days wouldn't be any better.  In fact, it can only get worse.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Padraig

[Zorral]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/what-happened-in-israel-a-breakdown-of-how-the-hamas-attack-unfolded

 

[Werthead]

Now more than 250 Israeli citizens killed. That's almost three-quarters of the total number of Israelis killed in the conflict since 2008.

232 Palestinian casualties reported in Gaza. Both counts are believed to be under-estimates so far.

Several areas have been reclaimed, but fighting is continuing in Sderot and Israel reports two large hostage stand-offs are continuing.

Confirmation that Hamas has also used some pretty sophisticated drones to carry out attacks as well.

ETA: Reportedly, Netanyahu has directed the Israeli military to use all measures necessary to permanently destroy Hamas altogether.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Werthead

[Zorral]

Has anyone in US media asked about the context that such an attack could take place? Not speaking here at the molment, to the failure of the massively effective Israeli security intelligence, etc.

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Has anyone in US media asked about the context that such an attack could take place? Not speaking here at the molment, to the failure of the massively effective Israeli security intelligence, etc.

There seem to be multiple theories developing. One is that Hamas undertook a highly successful deception campaign, for example working on a back-channels deal to reduce tensions in return for Israel allowing more Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel, and, whilst publicly opposing it, privately indicating they might change their stance on recognising Israel if Saudi Arabia was able to extract meaningful concessions as part of its peace deal. This led to a belief that Hamas was not looking to escalate in the short term.

There was apparently intelligence that something could happen in August and Israel tightened up security preparations, but after a few weeks and nothing happened, they did take their eye off the ball. And it appears they allowed more military personnel time off on Yom Kippur than was strictly wise (as has been pointed out, not a million miles away from what happened in 1973).

It also looks like simply that the initial stages of the attack were well-planned but once the militants got into southern Israel they proceeded on an ad hoc basis, possibly surprised they got that far unopposed.

Beyond that, the surprise is that they undertook such an attack whilst accepting that Israel's military response will be colossal, and possibly existential to Hamas, or at least its ability to function in Gaza. There is some concern in Israeli military and political circles that perhaps this attack was undertaken to trigger a massive Israeli response, which in turn would trigger supporting attacks by Hezbollah or (less likely) Iran directly, and put Israel in a difficult position.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

One is that

But-but-but -- the disarray of Israeli military etc.?  Who is speaking to that, what it is, and why and how this is the case?  Very curious.

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But-but-but -- the disarray of Israeli military etc.?  Who is speaking to that, what it is, and why and how this is the case?  Very curious.

Even the best militaries in the world get caught off guard: think of the US airforce on 9/11. This, like 9/11, is a failure of the intelligence services.
From what little I've seen, the military recovered rather quickly. But in asymmetrical warfare, it can take time to locate the targets (I assume they'll be making sweeps for weeks), and I suppose it's not easy to deal with many simultaneous hostage-taking situations.
I also wonder about the rumor that a high-ranking Israeli officer (Nimrod Aloni) was captured.
The IDF's priority will certainly be to recover the captives alive, but I don't know if this will be possible. After that... I don't trust Netanyahu to do anything smart (I fear the unity government is only to rubberstamp his decisions).

[Luzifer's right hand]

15 hours ago, Padraig said:

I suppose.  But I doubt Hamas particularly cares.  What has Western "support" ever gotten Palestinians?  Certainly over the last 25 years, Israel has gotten stronger and stronger, while Palestinians have looked considerably weaker.

This atrocity is almost certainly directed at the Saudis and Iran.  The West is silly if it thinks it is about us.

So yes, very very chilling.  But am I surprised?  This has always been about continuing the beatings until morale in Gaza improves.  The coming days wouldn't be any better.  In fact, it can only get worse.

According to German language sources a German citizen who was at a rave near Gaza was killed and they filmed and uploaded the desecration of her corpse. The German fiance minister has already talked about making a decision about aid payments asap(340 million € are currently promised). 

Palestinians in Berlin and Vienna celebrated the attacks publicly.

Afaik the Palestinians depend on financial aid and this might hurt them a lot as Germany influences EU policy quite a bit.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[Werthead]

Hezbollah launched a small attack across the border, Israel responded on a small scale and both sides left it there. Granted this is barely a day and a bit into the conflict so this could escalate, but that to me looks like Hezbollah does not want to join the conflict in full force. The situation in Lebanon is flaky and Hezbollah have a lot of internal dissent and rivals (if mostly limited), so launching a war with Israel right now would be unwise.

It looks like additional Hamas forces have either slipped into the area or moved on, and there's heavy fighting in several places not attacked yesterday, particularly around Magen.

Israeli fatalities have exceeded 500, which outstrips all previously Israeli casualties combined from the conflict combined since 2008 by almost twice. Some reports this is the largest number of casualties in under 36 hours experienced by Israel since the Yom Kippur War. Palestinian fatalities reported at around 330. Near-parity in losses on both sides is unprecedented for decades. Both are also believed to be underreports, and of course action is continuing from both sides.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Werthead

[Rippounet]

Ah. To further answer your question, @Zorral, it seems the "Gaza division" of the IDF had been sent to the West Bank after an attack of Jewish settlers on the Palestian village of Hawara.
But it's more of a case of bad timing compounding the fact that the IDF was caught by surprise.

[Darryk]

I feel sick seeing the footage. I'm so angry the Israeli military allowed this happen.

Yesterday I was so angry I wanted to wipe them all out but today I've calmed down a bit and I think Israel should do what it can to get the hostages back and then negotiate a peace.

The occupation is unsustainable. All those soldiers in the West Bank should have been defending the border.

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Leadership. It's their expressed view that Israel should not exist and have tied themselves to groups that openly say they want every Jew dead or removed. Their views are no different from the Nazis. Now that said right wing Israelis are also pieces of shit. 

It’s probably not just leadership we don’t have to make Palestinians less reactionary than what data on their views suggests to acknowledge unfair treatment of them by Israel is unfair and should be stopped.

22 hours ago, Werthead said:

The perception now is that Israel needs to respond with overwhelming force and incredibly decisively to show they have a handle on the situation.

Yeah this is all just some grand suicide bombing by Hamas.

[Rippounet]

56 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Yeah this is all just some grand suicide bombing by Hamas.

Might be a bit more than that.
The point of 9/11 was to trick the West (and the US especially) into overreaction, to start a conflict of "civilizations" going way beyond Al-Qaida's terrorist actions. Ben Laden considered that he had succeeded.
There's something similar here. For people who want "holy wars" and "clashes of civilizations," any overreaction by Israel and the West will bring us one step closer to that. And it's hard to imagine Netanyahu reacting with moderation.