Israel - Hamas War V

[fionwe1987]

49 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I have read that numerous babies in incubators could soon die if there is no more fuel to generate electricity for them. As someone who was in an incubator, my parents were very worried when I was in relatively less danger, so I can only imagine how these poor parents feel...

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-neonatal-unit-warns-babies-risk-within-minutes-if-power-fails-2023-10-23/

This is sick. If this is not genocide, what is?

40 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

While I do think Israel was justified in doing something in response to the Hamas massacre, I think their response has moved past reasonable into indiscriminate collective punishment.  Gaza appears to be on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. 

They bomb hundreds of targets each day, and essentially justify everything as Hamas using civilians as human shields, essentially giving them a green light to bomb whatever they want, including hospitals, schools, churches, residential areas, etc.  But their intelligence in Gaza was exposed as absolute shit by their failure to detect the massacre.  How can they have any reasonable confidence that all these thousands of targets that they've bombed are really legitimate targets?  You are telling me that they couldn't detect wind of a massive Hamas operation, but they are sure that a particular house or building is used by Hamas?  And they've identified thousands of these Hamas structures?  Come on.

I don't understand Israel's end game.  Even if they are able to eradicate or severely cripple Hamas, all this death and destruction is just going to create the next version of Hamas.

And they are bombing so much so fast that it is completely bizarre to pretend they can sift through intelligence fast enough for so many locations. First of all, they've themselves caused massive displacement of civilians. Atop this, they do not know exctly what Hamas's distribution is with any certainty. So they have to rely on signals intelligence and human intelligence from a war torn hellscape that is getting more torn by said war every minute, so the balance of number of civilians to potential targets anywhere is going to be shifting, especially in large spaces like hospitals and schools.

To call anyone a human shield in this scenario is factually bullshit. That phrase is now an Israeli term of art to justify genocide. To insist that every bomb lands after a careful consideration of the balance of civilian harm, when such information cannot be accurate in the conditions Isreal itself is creating, is utter blather.

26 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

That is incredibly misleading. He was talking about one specific strip of land and highway that is a major conflict point, not all of Gaza.

What the actual fuck, man.

I don't think he was. You'll note the piece Zorral linked to also mentions this. It also says

Quote

When I learned about the Oct. 7 attack, I reacted with instinctive double horror. I was horrified by the event itself, that so many Israeli civilians—my people, after all—had been so horrifically murdered and violated in so many ways. But I was also in that instant seized with the revelation of what was about to come. If Israel reacted so murderously in the past to a tunnel, or to people trying to cross a fence, what less than calculated mass murder could follow?

And follow it has. Israel has now dropped over 8,000 “precision-guided” bombs alone on Gaza—more bombs than were dropped by the United States on all of Afghanistan in the heaviest year, on an area smaller than the city of Durham, North Carolina. Gaza City is being razed. Refugees are fleeing south, where they are also being bombed. There is nowhere for them to go.

This is the link for that number: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/19/pentagon-weapons-stockpiles-israel-ukraine-00122495

8000 bombs over such a short period, all with perfectly determined balance of civilian vs Hamas lives? It defies reason, unless someone wants to show me some kind of technology or special analysis available to the IDF that allows it to be this precise this fast.

This is, apparently, the actual fuck. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by fionwe1987

[kissdbyfire]

I agree w/ what others have said irt the "damage not accuracy" comment, I took it to mean the bombings in Gaza in general, not just on a tiny road.

Here's another link, from a more conservative than lefty source:

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/10/23/the-telegraph-israel-abandons-precision-bombing-in-favour-of-damage-and-destruction/

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

but indiscriminate bombing has got to be among the worse. 

JDAM bombs are targeted munitions. It's not indiscriminate.

Israel hits sites that house Hamas leadership, that are used for rocket and mortar attacks, that are clearly defensive emplacements like locations with anti-tank missiles. And so on. Taking out missiles, rockets, etc. are all helpful.

[Conflicting Thought]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Taking out missiles, rockets, etc.

and kids

[Mudguard]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

JDAM bombs are targeted munitions. It's not indiscriminate.

Israel hits sites that house Hamas leadership, that are used for rocket and mortar attacks, that are clearly defensive emplacements like locations with anti-tank missiles. And so on. Taking out missiles, rockets, etc. are all helpful.

the target selection is indiscriminate.

[Kalbear]

31 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

???

I thought he was talking about whole of Gaza, since that is the location last mentioned before the 'tiny strip', and Gaza is quite small. If it was just that stretch of border road, wouldn't the Guardian specify? I have looked at other sources and seen nothing that indicates he did not mean the whole of Gaza when making that comment.

https://gript.ie/gaza-bombings-israeli-military-says-emphasis-on-damage-not-accuracy/

So I don't know if you've looked into that at all, but all that has is several links to previous articles that do not actually name the source or the time it was said. That's not great!

The only actual source referenced I can find is an image taken of a statement in Hebrew with no actual link to the original statement (on Haaretz.co.il). And the statement from Haaretz says this:

Quote

IDF spokesman: Tonight there were no infiltrations through the fence, there may
be a few more terrorists in Israeli territory
IDF soldiers killed a terrorist in Kibbutz Sa'ad tonight
and the army estimates that there may be further clashes,
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari informed this morning.
According to him, there may still be a small number of
terrorists hiding in Israeli territory, but the assessment is
that these are individuals. Hagari added that there were no
additional infiltrations by terrorists during the night
through the fence, and the IDF has no information about
a tunnel penetrating the country's territories.
He also said that the army is dropping hundreds of tons of bombs at Takfir in
the Gaza Strip, and explained that "the emphasis is on damage and
not on accuracy." According to him, "We are taking a toll on every Hamas
position and structure, dozens of every pilot in every Air Force strike." Among
other things, the IDF attacked a weapons warehouse located in a mosque,
and homes of activists.

So yeah, it's not about the Gaza strip in general. 

It's still not a great attitude, but holy crap is this kind of thing sketchy as fuck from the media here.

[Zorral]

21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

To call anyone a human shield in this scenario is factually bullshit

In the Jonathan Katz piece above, he says when he was an Israel-based journalist, way back already, the IDF always claimed civilian deaths, including those of infants and children, were because they were used as human shields -- when he witnessed quite otherwise.

I highly suggest all of us read this piece by someone who has lived all this, personally, as a person of the heritage for whom this all is very personal.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Zorral

[Mudguard]

2 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

So I don't know if you've looked into that at all, but all that has is several links to previous articles that do not actually name the source or the time it was said. That's not great!

The only actual source referenced I can find is an image taken of a statement in Hebrew with no actual link to the original statement (on Haaretz.co.il). And the statement from Haaretz says this:

So yeah, it's not about the Gaza strip in general. 

It's still not a great attitude, but holy crap is this kind of thing sketchy as fuck from the media here.

What is Takfir in the Gaza Strip?  It doesn't seem to bring up a place in Gaza.  I don't know if that translation is reliable.

[Kalbear]

38 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I agree that there really aren't any good options, but indiscriminate bombing has got to be among the worse.  With knowledge of the extensive tunnel systems, is the leveling of buildings really achieving much? 

Per @Werthead the answer is 'yes' - it's killing a ton of Hamas leadership, destroying a lot of supplies, and causing a lot of overall damage to their organization. 

It is also definitely not indiscriminate, at least as far as I can tell. PGMs are being used by Israel as a whole against specific targets. Are those targets justified in being targets? I don't know that, you don't know that, and no one will likely know that for years. We know from US targeting and intel that a lot of times they get the intel wrong - that they go after people who have already left, or identify the wrong person, or even get the wrong fire mission coordinates. 

But this is very, VERY different than indiscriminate bombings. That's what the US did in Vietnam and Cambodia. That's what Russia is doing against Ukraine, and it's what Hamas is doing with rocket launches. 

Does it matter to the civilians being killed? Not really. And I also bet that Israel is willing to push the needle on being wrong more of the time in this too. 

38 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

To me, statements that the President of Israel made of missiles being stored in homes is idiotic.  The Hamas terrorists are almost certainly hiding out in the tunnel system along with all of their weapons.

Unlikely for a variety of reasons - the most notable being that Israel has already captured quite a few stockpiles of weapons and rocket-making systems that were not in those tunnels. The other reason that this is unlikely is again because Hamas is reporting that it's been effective. 

37 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

This is sick. If this is not genocide, what is?

Not this. Warfare - modern warfare in cities or built up population areas - is incredibly brutal. But it is not genocide. 

37 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

And they are bombing so much so fast that it is completely bizarre to pretend they can sift through intelligence fast enough for so many locations.

You'd be absolutely shocked what you can do these days. I get that it feels like this should be the case - that this would be super hard -  but the reality is that the amount of intel that Israel has on this small area is profound. The US had less intel than Israel did over Afghanistan and was able to do hundreds of potential attacks a day; Israel has significantly easier of a time doing multiple missions per unit in a given period, significantly more intel, and a much smaller area to comb over. Israel also has incredible tech for signals int, facial recognition, hacking phones and devices in various ways. 

As an example - unless Hamas got rid of all of their cell phones (which I doubt they did given their incredibly stupid opsec so far) there's a fairly reasonable chance that Israel has had spy software on almost any of Hamas' cell phones at this point, and each of those can be activated to tell another service where that phone is within 5m or less. 

37 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

 

I don't think he was. You'll note the piece Zorral linked to also mentions this.

That links to the telegraph which links back to the guardian. Which eventually links to the commondreams article I brought up. It's this horrible unverified mishmash of bullshit. Again, the statement is from that pictured tweet that references Haaretz, which I can't find on their website. 

37 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

8000 bombs over such a short period, all with perfectly determined balance of civilian vs Hamas lives? It defies reason, unless someone wants to show me some kind of technology or special analysis available to the IDF that allows it to be this precise this fast.

I can show you a lot if you like, but it's gonna take a while to digest it. Israel launched 500 missions last night alone, with multiple bombs per mission as a possibility. Hundreds of tons of bombs is not that special, either; a JDAM by itself weighs 1 ton, and they have bigger munitions. A JDAM can hit a specific area with a 10 meter accuracy. There are other munitions that are even more accurate. The problem is definitely not whether or not the bomb goes where they want it to; the problem is far more whether or not the bomb should be going to that place at all. 

Also note that the reason that the US didn't drop bombs like that (either at the rate or the amount) in Afghanistan is that the targets were much less well-known, Afghanis had significantly better opsec and behavior around hiding, and they were very rarely in places where bombs would make a dent. That really isn't the case with Gaza and Hamas. 

Now where I agree with you is what 'perfectly balanced' is. What is the acceptable loss of civilian life vs. the amount of military value vs. the actual probability of accurate intel that Israel is currently going with? What tells them go vs nogo? I think it's very reasonable to be skeptical of Israel here for both historical reasons and because I doubt they're caring that much right now. 

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Kalnak the Magnificent

[Kalbear]

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

What is Takfir in the Gaza Strip?  It doesn't seem to bring up a place in Gaza.  I don't know if that translation is reliable.

Yeah, I don't know! I couldn't find it anywhere. I don't think it's a translation error exactly - Takfir normally means 'apostate' in Arabic, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to Hamas that way. 

But again the lack of an actual source - like a video of the guy (and there are several!) makes me real disinclined to trust this very much. 

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Yeah, I don't know! I couldn't find it anywhere. I don't think it's a translation error exactly - Takfir normally means 'apostate' in Arabic, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to Hamas that way. 

But again the lack of an actual source - like a video of the guy (and there are several!) makes me real disinclined to trust this very much. 

Then why are you so sure that the statement refers to a tiny highway?  I see nothing to support your view.  That doesn't make any sense from a strategic point of view.  You don't need to bomb a tiny highway with hundreds of tons of bombs to take it out.  Oh shit, your really bombed the crap out of that highway.  I guess I need to take a little detour now...damn.

In the context of the other statements that were cited, the interpretation that damage over accuracy refers to the whole of Gaza make the most sense.

4 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Per @Werthead the answer is 'yes' - it's killing a ton of Hamas leadership, destroying a lot of supplies, and causing a lot of overall damage to their organization. 

It is also definitely not indiscriminate, at least as far as I can tell. PGMs are being used by Israel as a whole against specific targets. Are those targets justified in being targets? I don't know that, you don't know that, and no one will likely know that for years. We know from US targeting and intel that a lot of times they get the intel wrong - that they go after people who have already left, or identify the wrong person, or even get the wrong fire mission coordinates. 

But this is very, VERY different than indiscriminate bombings. That's what the US did in Vietnam and Cambodia. That's what Russia is doing against Ukraine, and it's what Hamas is doing with rocket launches. 

Does it matter to the civilians being killed? Not really. And I also bet that Israel is willing to push the needle on being wrong more of the time in this too. 

Unlikely for a variety of reasons - the most notable being that Israel has already captured quite a few stockpiles of weapons and rocket-making systems that were not in those tunnels. The other reason that this is unlikely is again because Hamas is reporting that it's been effective. 

As I've already argued, the target selection is essentially indiscriminate due to their poor intelligence in Gaza.  They've already admitted to this colossal intelligence failure.  Why would any reasonable person think that they now have a competent intelligence capable of accurately identifying hundreds of legitimate targets each day?  It defies common sense.  They are essentially throwing darts at a map.

Also, how does anyone know how much supplies are stored in tunnels versus in buildings?  I think it would be obvious after the bombing started, and probably before since it was very predictable that the retaliation would take the form of bombings, that weapons would be stored underground. 

And why would you trust Hamas if they claimed that the bombings were really working?  You are so skeptical about their death numbers (which I agree that you should be), but this you believe?  You really think that they are going to tell you that?  Oh shit man, you blew up all my weapons!  I'm defenseless, really!  Trust me bro!

[Kalbear]

Just now, Mudguard said:

Then why are you so sure that the statement refers to a tiny highway?  I see nothing to support your view.  That doesn't make any sense from a strategic point of view.  You don't need to bomb a tiny highway with hundreds of tons of bombs to take it out.  Oh shit, your really bombed the crap out of that highway.  I guess I need to take a little detour now...damn.

In the context of the other statements that were cited, the interpretation that damage over accuracy refers to the whole of Gaza make the most sense. 

Because the original context of the article was talking about a specific highway that has been targeted quite a lot as part of the overall counterattack. And it's not just the highway - it's the highway along Gaza that runs across several checkpoints and apparently was used as a major staging area for Hamas prior to the 10-7 attack. The goal was (as far as I can tell) not to take out a highway - it was to take out all of that build up of force and resources. 

Just now, Mudguard said:

As I've already argued, the target selection is essentially indiscriminate due to their poor intelligence in Gaza.  They've already admitted to this colossal intelligence failure.  Why would any reasonable person think that they now have a competent intelligence capable of accurately identifying hundreds of legitimate targets each day?  It defies common sense.  They are essentially throwing darts at a map.

I think you're being willfully pessimistic here. Israel has had the capabilities to know where a whole lot of Hamas' leadership and other people were in Gaza for a long time. They did not go after them largely because they chose not to. Their poor intel about the 10-7 attack had very little to do with the people involved, it had to do with the resources and the plan - and even then, they actually got that intel per many sources! They just didn't believe it and didn't act on it. That should not be mistaken to say that their intelligence operations are bad. 

Again, one good indicator that what they're doing is not indiscriminate is that Hamas itself is reporting a lot of operational losses and failures and is doing fairly uncharacteristic things like just releasing hostages without getting anything out of it. 

Just now, Mudguard said:

Also, how does anyone know how much supplies are stored in tunnels versus in buildings?  I think it would be obvious after the bombing started, and probably before since it was very predictable that the retaliation would take the form of bombings, that weapons would be stored underground. 

For a variety of reasons you can't do all your storage there. The most notable being that it takes a fair amount of time and effort to lug multi-ton rockets and equipment out of tunnels to areas to attack from, and Hamas doesn't attack from the entrances of tunnels - they attack from open areas and all sorts of other great places. To move that around takes time and can't be easily done stealthily. For a variety of reasons they appear to have a lot of supplies and storages not in their tunnel system. 

Now, they ALSO probably have a whole lot down there too. But that doesn't mean they have nothing above ground. 

Just now, Mudguard said:

And why would you trust Hamas if they claimed that the bombings were really working?  You are so skeptical about their death numbers (which I agree that you should be), but this you believe?  You really think that they are going to tell you that?  Oh shit man, you blew up all my weapons!  I'm defenseless, really!  Trust me bro!

It's a fair question. Note that Hamas has said nothing directly; this comes from sources and intel that is from their internal workings. But even then you should be skeptical. One reason that I think this is more likely to be true is because of Hamas' actions. They are acting like they do not want the bombings to continue. Their allies are acting like they've been heavily wounded. Now, this could all be a ruse - that's entirely possible. I don't know why they would lie about it, but it's possible they could. From a strategic standpoint I would think Hamas would want the bombings to escalate more and get more indiscriminate because their only real strategic success has been to get some of the Arab and Muslim nations around them to threaten Israel and cause some of the opinion of Israel to decrease. I guess it's possible that they're using reverse psychology and that that's their goal, but...eh? Seems too complicated to me. Mostly, I trust @Werthead to do the heavy lifting and state things that are likely to be true because of his track record. If he says it chances are good it's been well-sourced and fairly unbiased, based on other sources that have a good track record. 

But yes - I would say very much that be VERY skeptical about everything. About death numbers, about Israel's claims, about atrocities, about all of it. Especially be skeptical of any claims that confirm your biases. 

[Mudguard]

the rockets are much smaller than a multi-tons.  they are only around 100 pounds.

eta: i don't think Hamas wants Gaza to be completely leveled.  and i do think they don't want the ground invasion to happen.  that will make things very ugly.  but the bombing i don't think are doing much to them.  yes, every once in a while they hit a high profile target.  but the vast majority are still alive.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Mudguard

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

the rockets are much smaller than a multi-tons.  they are only around 100 pounds.

Plus fuel, launching equipment, and multiple rockets. I probably misspoke and should have said 'multiple tons OF rockets' but the point is still valid - as much as you'd like to think that it's very basic this way and all of it would be underground that appears to not be how Hamas operates. 

4 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

eta: i don't think Hamas wants Gaza to be completely leveled.  and i do think they don't want the ground invasion to happen.  that will make things very ugly.  but the bombing i don't think are doing much to them.  yes, every once in a while they hit a high profile target.  but the vast majority are still alive.

Do you have sources for that? 

I'm willing to believe that it isn't doing that much damage to Hamas, but I'd really like to take it from something other than "Hamas should be smarter". That said, Hamas has shown some pretty amazing capabilities to plan and activate - as this Reuters article goes into - but I suspect that ability is not nearly as generally widespread across all of their forces or as a general operating principle. 

But I don't know how much damage Hamas has taken. I don't think anyone can state how much has been done, other than the killing of the Hamas forces that invaded Israel proper. 

[Clueless Northman]

57 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

But this is very, VERY different than indiscriminate bombings. That's what the US did in Vietnam and Cambodia. That's what Russia is doing against Ukraine,. 

Ah yes. Of course. Which is why Ukraine has been showing a thousand of randomly slain and bombed civilians every single week since the war began. Let's get real, Israel is killing far more Palestinian civilians per day than Russia did, except possibly the first week of the war and during the siege of Mariupol.

[Mudguard]

to be honest, i knew the size of the rockets were small, but i'm surprised that the rockets are that small.  could the remaining fuel from one of these 100 pound rockets really cause the large fireball seen at the hospital?  

eta: i looked at some crater imagery, and yeah, the craters from the israeli bombs are typically way, way bigger.  maybe 20 lb warhead plus remaining fuel, plus fuel in the cars in the parking lot, was enough to cause the blast.

39 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Plus fuel, launching equipment, and multiple rockets. I probably misspoke and should have said 'multiple tons OF rockets' but the point is still valid - as much as you'd like to think that it's very basic this way and all of it would be underground that appears to not be how Hamas operates. 

Do you have sources for that? 

I'm willing to believe that it isn't doing that much damage to Hamas, but I'd really like to take it from something other than "Hamas should be smarter". That said, Hamas has shown some pretty amazing capabilities to plan and activate - as this Reuters article goes into - but I suspect that ability is not nearly as generally widespread across all of their forces or as a general operating principle. 

But I don't know how much damage Hamas has taken. I don't think anyone can state how much has been done, other than the killing of the Hamas forces that invaded Israel proper. 

i'm just using common sense.  i could also ask you whether you have any reliable sources that establish that most of the rockets and other weapons are stored above ground, like in houses like the israeli president suggested.

i still think israeli intelligence in gaza is shit.  i don't see how you can come to any other rational conclusion after missing this massive hamas operation.  sure, maybe they had information on where a lot of the top officers lived and where there families lived.  but after the massacre, i'm sure that the vast majority have moved underground or at least have changed locations.  yes, this is based on common sense.

when there is so much misinformation going on, that's really all we are left with when speculating on the board.  there will be no reliable source on the operations of hamas.  they don't publish a handbook, or guidelines or an accounting of their operations.  everyone is just guessing.

israel also has very large incentives to continually claim that their bombings are highly effective and taking out large numbers of hamas operatives and weapons caches, but i doubt it.  until they move in, they have no ability to send people in to verify the contents of all the structures they demolish.  i see a lot of reports in the media about civilians pulled out of the rubble, but i don't think i've seen any articles on the numbers weapons fragments found in these same buildings.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Mudguard

[Kalbear]

15 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Ah yes. Of course. Which is why Ukraine has been showing a thousand of randomly slain and bombed civilians every single week since the war began. Let's get real, Israel is killing far more Palestinian civilians per day than Russia did, except possibly the first week of the war and during the siege of Mariupol.

Only because Russia can't do it very well, not without risking major resources. 

Don't mistake indiscriminate for severe. I am not claiming that Israel's attacks are not severe, or heavily damaging. That is what war looks like when you have a very high-tech military with the most capable air force in the region going against effectively an insurgency with absolutely zero ability to stop air power. But that is not the same thing as just randomly bombing a region without care about what is there. 

As to how many civilians Russia is killing per day - that seems like a very weird metric to be looking for as far as justification goes. Would it be okay if Russia only killed a couple dozen people when targeting apartments or cafes? Does Hamas' inability to do particularly large amount of damage with their rockets thanks to the Iron Dome mean that launching rocket strikes is somehow okay? 

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

to be honest, i knew the size of the rockets were small, but i'm surprised that the rockets are that small.  could the remaining fuel from one of these 100 pound rockets really cause the large fireball seen at the hospital?  

Dunno, honestly. Fuel explosions are pretty spectacular. 

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

i'm just using common sense.  i could also ask you whether you have any reliable sources that establish that most of the rockets and other weapons are stored above ground, like in houses like the israeli president suggested.

We do, actually, because we've seen several captured depots and whatnot.

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

i still think israeli intelligence in gaza is shit.  i don't see how you can come to any other rational conclusion after missing this massive hamas operation.  sure, maybe they had information on where a lot of the top officers lived and where there families lived.  but after the massacre, i'm sure that the vast majority have moved underground or at least have changed locations.  yes, this is based on common sense.

when there is so much misinformation going on, that's really all we are left with when speculating on the board.  there will be no reliable source on the operations of hamas.  they don't publish a handbook, or guidelines or an accounting of their operations.  everyone is just guessing.

I mean, in that Reuters article Hamas was doing exercises in plain sight against simulated kibbutzes and military outposts. We have actual footage from captured Hamas body cams and other documentation that talks very specifically about their organization, information, etc. Hamas was doing a lot of this in plain sight. The problem was not the information, it was the interpretation; Israel thought that Hamas had pivoted, probably because they really wanted that to be true. Another example of making sure you check the information well, ESPECIALLY if it confirms your biases. Netanyahu in particular wanted Hamas to just have rolled over so he could concentrate on West Bank. But that isn't a problem here. Israel is not trying to figure out what Hamas is doing; they're just trying to kill Hamas people. That is a far simpler problem to solve from an intel standpoint. 

Something that should probably be understood as well as that Hamas probably had very little idea of how much information Israel actually has about them. It's basically like a zero-day (in the computer security sense) for Israel, where they are willing to burn all their sources and methods and use that info right now, all the time, as fast as they can before Hamas can change any behaviors. I'm sure Hamas will adapt, but I don't think they're just hiding. 

I also don't believe for a second that as vast as the tunnels are they have the ability to hide 30,000 people in the tunnels and sustain them. That level of logistics was not observed in Afghanistan, and they had a whole lot more experience hiding out against militaries and being effective. 

Also, how do you do all of that when you're still shooting rockets and doing other attacks against Israel, which is what is actually happening? I don't see how you can do both shooting off of rocket attacks AND hide out. 

Finally, I am sure they've moved and tried to move. As I said Israel has a lot of ability to track individuals via camera footage, cell phones, voice signals, etc. 

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

israel also has very large incentives to continually claim that their bombings are highly effective and taking out large numbers of hamas operatives and weapons caches, but i doubt it.  until they move in, they have no ability to send people in to verify the contents of all the structures they demolish.  i see a lot of reports in the media about civilians pulled out of the rubble, but i don't think i've seen any articles on the numbers weapons fragments found in these same buildings.

I think that's entirely a fair criticism and important to point out. Israel absolutely has incentive to lie about this, and we know for a fact that Israel has lied in the past about their targeting. I'm sure they are lying about some of these things now. I am absolutely willing to believe that they are overreacting and willing to go far more into civilian casualties than the US wants them to. But I don't think they are just targeting civilians for the fun of it or because they can, at least not the vast majority of the time. 

But as I said earlier - if these are war crimes, it'll look like this. If these are legitimate targets, it'll look like this. 

[Rippounet]

My guess is the IDF identifies and bombs any place where Hamas fighters could be hiding, now or in the future.
They probably have some kind of intel, but I doubt it's that reliable, so they're going for quantity over quality. Like, if they have a reason to believe there are five potential sites for a Hamas gathering/hiding place, they'll bomb all five.
Another way to put it is that they are probably doing the bare minimum to avoid war crimes, by making sure they have an explanation for every target. But the tactics they are using only work if they have no regard for collateral damage to begin with. Obviously, from an Israeli perspective, it doesn't matter much if a target was actually a Hamas location, since each detroyed building is one less potential dangerous zone for the ground invasion to come.
Morally speaking it's really about whether you believe the end justifies the means. I don't doubt such tactics are efficient, but they're impossible to condone if you value all human lives equally. One way or the other, the sheer brutality of it all pushes all observers to pick a side, which is exactly the kind of situation I dreaded from the start. The longer this goes on, and the more divided and angry people will be over the conflict, which means the potential for escalation grows.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Rippounet said:

My guess is the IDF identifies and bombs any place where Hamas fighters could be hiding, now or in the future.
They probably have some kind of intel, but I doubt it's that reliable, so they're going for quantity over quality. Like, if they have a reason to believe there are five potential sites for a Hamas gathering/hiding place, they'll bomb all five.
Another way to put it is that they are probably doing the bare minimum to avoid war crimes, by making sure they have an explanation for every target. 

I wouldn't even be that charitable. Who would actually hold them accountable? Who would actually investigate this? 

Israel has historically been very good at holding their people accountable for failures in warfare or intel. They've been very good at accepting blame when talking about letting their defenses down. I fully expect a lot of people to get fired/demoted/resign after this for that. But for taking accountability for doing too much damage to civilians? Pfft. The US ain't gonna do that. Israel isn't going to let Gaza get a ton of UN observers any time soon - and if they did, so what? The absolute best case would be a whistleblower in IDF, and I don't think that's likely to happen.

No, what I think holds Israel back is that they are listening to the US and the warnings of the US to not let things escalate. The threat from Lebanon, Syria and Iran to escalate is real. Israel has to give some semblance of legitimacy to these attacks not because of potential war crimes but because of those nations. I don't know how successful that'll be, and I don't know that Israel knows either, but I think that's one of the only things that is holding them back from anything. 

And that will get significantly worse if they do a ground invasion. 

[fionwe1987]

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Not this. Warfare - modern warfare in cities or built up population areas - is incredibly brutal. But it is not genocide. 

Excuse me? Modern warfare is now defined a crippling siege that affects civilians to this extent? The issue with the neonatal ward is the loss of electricity, because Israel cut it off. This is not an inevitable consequence of modern warfare. If it is, modern warfare is terrorism. I see no distinction. Just because this is terror unleashed by the state, I see no reason to accept it as moral, and it most certainly isn't legal. 

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

You'd be absolutely shocked what you can do these days.

No, I really wouldn't. Your issue is you're getting dazzled by the technical capabilities. That isn't what I'm questioning. I'm questioning if those technological solutions work during a mass migration in such a densely packed area.

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I get that it feels like this should be the case - that this would be super hard -  but the reality is that the amount of intel that Israel has on this small area is profound. The US had less intel than Israel did over Afghanistan and was able to do hundreds of potential attacks a day; Israel has significantly easier of a time doing multiple missions per unit in a given period, significantly more intel, and a much smaller area to comb over. Israel also has incredible tech for signals int, facial recognition, hacking phones and devices in various ways. 

 

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

As an example - unless Hamas got rid of all of their cell phones (which I doubt they did given their incredibly stupid opsec so far) there's a fairly reasonable chance that Israel has had spy software on almost any of Hamas' cell phones at this point, and each of those can be activated to tell another service where that phone is within 5m or less. 

And how well does cell phone tracking and hacking work when there's a mass of a million+ people moving in a tight area? Ever struggled with cell reception in New York city? Now imagine that with *everyone* moving. 

Are cell phone towers being safeguarded from damage to continue allowing tracking and signal transfer at the same rates as "peacetime"? If not, how good is the signals intelligence Israel is receiving now, in the chaos conditions it has created, compared to normal? How much more is that uncertainty increasing the picking of incorrect targets? 

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

That links to the telegraph which links back to the guardian. Which eventually links to the commondreams article I brought up. It's this horrible unverified mishmash of bullshit. Again, the statement is from that pictured tweet that references Haaretz, which I can't find on their website. 

But this is the level of citation all across news. This isn't a specifically singular instance of quotation telephone, where sources quote sources quote sources. This is true not just for this guy's statement, it's true for the statements from Hamas too. You seem convinced for some reason that the primary source contradicts the interpretation, but I'm not seeing it. Why do they need hundreds of bombs for one highway?

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I can show you a lot if you like, but it's gonna take a while to digest it. Israel launched 500 missions last night alone, with multiple bombs per mission as a possibility. Hundreds of tons of bombs is not that special, either; a JDAM by itself weighs 1 ton, and they have bigger munitions. A JDAM can hit a specific area with a 10 meter accuracy. There are other munitions that are even more accurate. The problem is definitely not whether or not the bomb goes where they want it to; the problem is far more whether or not the bomb should be going to that place at all. 

Also note that the reason that the US didn't drop bombs like that (either at the rate or the amount) in Afghanistan is that the targets were much less well-known, Afghanis had significantly better opsec and behavior around hiding, and they were very rarely in places where bombs would make a dent. That really isn't the case with Gaza and Hamas. 

Um... I'm not questioning the speed of the launch of the bombs, or their number. Or that they'll usually land reasonably on target. The technological capability of the Israeli military isn't in question. The technological capability to correctly  identify so many targets with any level of precision as to the ratio of civilians to acceptable Hamas targets, especially in the chaos of the mass migration they triggered.. that's what I'm questioning. 

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Now where I agree with you is what 'perfectly balanced' is. What is the acceptable loss of civilian life vs. the amount of military value vs. the actual probability of accurate intel that Israel is currently going with? What tells them go vs nogo? I think it's very reasonable to be skeptical of Israel here for both historical reasons and because I doubt they're caring that much right now. 

 

Then the targeting is indiscriminate. You are required to be certain of minimal civilian loss of life before launching a missile at a site. "We'll shoot the missile and see later if we had the right to" is not acceptable. And since they aren't giving us any proof that they did this kind of analysis, and historically have failed to, I really don't know why you keep insisting they're working within the rules of war. That just isn't true. 

ETA: removing some assumed pronouns. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by fionwe1987