Israel - Hamas War VI

[Ran]

57 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

There's an implicit assumption that goes beyond politics here, that an individual, family, or nation that has been struck hard should strike back hard.

Maybe for others, but not for me.

I have a very specific goal that I believe needs to actually happen for a path forward: that when this conflict is over, Hamas is out of power in Gaza and it and other militants are sufficiently weakened that a coalition of states can provide an interim administration safely, providing an umbrella both to alleviate the situation in Gaza and create the ability for non-militant Gazans to form a civil society capable of fielding its own governance.  The people of Gaza need to be given the chance to choose, and Hamas does not allow them to do that.

Hamas has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars that should have gone to Gazans to create and maintain its military infrastructure. It uses terror tactics on its own populace and stifles any substantive criticism of their regime, often violently, and otherwise acts to perpetuate itself and maintain control in Gaza.

I do not see a way other than military to achieve this goal. There is currently no opposition in Gaza that can do it. Talk of economic sanctions will also greatly impact Gazans, since Hamas will simply take from them to make up shortfalls. Israel has, through errors of its own which I hope the architects will pay a substantial political price for, allowed Hamas to get an iron grip on Gaza that it will not relinquish willingly. Only a substantial military defeat of the jihadists can shake them out of control of Gaza.

Now, that said, there are two parts to going forward to peace: Gaza, once freed of Hamas, needs to take steps to establish an open and democratic state.  Israel in turn will have to help Gaza rebuild... and it needs to stop expansion of settlements and resume serious efforts to find some correct solution. Israel needs to become an active partner rather than a hinderance towards Palestinian statehood. And vice versa.

75 years of various flavors of war, terrorism, abuse, etc. has failed. Hamas's control of Gaza is the latest such obvious failure. It needs to be corrected, or nothing will go forward.

It's all a tall order, I know. 75 years is a long time. But if Israelis hold their government to account for their part in this disaster, the new government may be incentivized to give it an honest go, if Palestinians are willing.

 

[LynnS]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

It's all a tall order, I know. 75 years is a long time. But if Israelis hold their government to account for their part in this disaster, the new government may be incentivized to give it an honest go, if Palestinians are willing.

It's a difficult mindset to change and it will take time.  Nothing can happen until Hamas is removed.  But this is the only way forward.

[Daeron the Daring]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

The people of Gaza need to be given the chance to choose, and Hamas does not allow them to do that.

How about we give them the chance to choose between wether they want to be bombed for their freedom (Israel seems to have made itself the deliverer of it, according to you) or not? 

It's a long stretch to assume palestinians want to happen what's currently happening, even with the supposed (but absolutely not and nowhere near guaranteed) positive outcomes.

It's even more outlandish to think that Israel is doing this for the sake of the gazans. They do it for security reasons, and I'm pretty sure there are options to achieving that with less civilian casualties.

I mean, is every country on Earth with a militarily threatening neighbour engaging in open warfare? It doesn't seem to me that way.

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Daeron the Daring

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Be critical of Israel all you want, but if you're spending all your time in these threads going after them while at best paying minor lip service to the fact they were brutally attacked, that does raise eyebrows. 

Just say the quiet part of your words out loud and accuse Kalbear of antisemitism for the audacity of criticizing Israel! 

Make no mistake. Hamas committed an act of terrorism. They are terrorists. Hamas should be punished for its horrific act of terrorism and kidnapping.  

Some people made the comparison that if 2977 people died in 9/11 that proportionately for a nation of Israel's size and population that the dead on 10/7 would be a much greater magnitude. What then does that mean for the death toll that Israel has inflicted upon the civilian populace of a nation less than 1/8th the size of Israel? Does that mean nothing? Are the lives of Palestinian civilians worth less to you? 

How many dead Palestianian civilians at the hands of Israel is the removal of Hamas worth to you? What is the acceptable number of hostages that a police officer can shoot andkill in order to take out the terrorist who is using them as shields? While we may rightly condemn the terrorist using people as shields, wouldn't we also condemn the police officer who seems pretty indifferent to killing hostages in pursuit of the terrorist? 

The United States was rightly criticized, IMHO, for the many civilian deaths we inflicted on Afghanistan and Iraq in its pursuit of vengeance and our "War on Terror." In retrospect, our invasive wars on terror created many more problems than they solved. And many people from these lands hate us more now than before. Why is Israel free from similar criticism? 

[kissdbyfire]

The fucking hypocrisy, gaslighting and disconnect are mind boggling.
 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-vetoes-un-security-council-action-israel-gaza-2023-10-18/

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would have called for humanitarian pauses in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants to allow humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/blinken-urges-considering-humanitarian-pauses-in-gaza-fighting-to-protect-civilians/#:~:text=US Secretary of State Antony,of stoppage to the fighting.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged members of the UN Security Council on Tuesday to consider “humanitarian pauses” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in order to protect Palestinian civilians.

 

[Ran]

No hypocrisy at all? The US is insisting that if there is a call for a humanitarian pause, it needs to recognize that Israel has a right to self-defense. The resolution they vetoed failed to do that. Blinken's full remarks repeat that Israel not only has a right, but an obligation, to defend itself, so I think we can be sure that any US-led humanitarian pause resolution will include some form of language that affirms Israel's right to defend itself.

[Gorn]

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It's not downplaying.

There's an implicit assumption that goes beyond politics here, that an individual, family, or nation that has been struck hard should strike back hard.

And I dunno, but that's a bit bizarre to me. As a matter of fact, and contrary to what several people say in these threads, as a rule, states don't answer terrorist attacks with military attacks. In the crushing majority of cases, that's just not an option. Most of the time, it's about intelligence and special operations rather than mobilizing the actual military. You're powerless, so all you can do is grieve, and hope someone will get the bastards, later.

Let's go back to what happened on October 7th. 2500 Hamas members invaded Israel by crossing the border from Gaza, followed by between 3000 and 5000 rockets being launched. That's an act of war, as clear-cut as it gets. Acts of war are answered by the military, and any state that fails to do so has failed in its commitments to its citizens.

What does Israel want to accomplish? Simple, to prevent the same type of attack from happening a year, two, or five from now. And you and Kalbear may be right that Hamas will not be destroyed by this, but denying them safe shelter and base of operations and having them go back to being an underground organization that operates in the shadows is a significant improvement over them controlling and ruling over 2+ million Palestinians.

ISIS attacks were answered by military attacks, and it worked. The coalition killed ISIS fighters until ISIS ran out of fighters, and it took their territory to prevent them from recruiting and supplying more fighters.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Gorn

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

1 minute ago, Gorn said:

ISIS attacks were answered by military attacks, and it worked. The coalition killed ISIS fighters until ISIS ran out of fighters.

The United States created the environment that allowed the growth of ISIS in the first place. You know what else would have worked? Not invading Iraq in the first place. 

[Kalbear]

42 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Let's go back to what happened on October 7th. 2500 Hamas members invaded Israel by crossing the border from Gaza, followed by between 3000 and 5000 rockets being launched. That's an act of war, as clear-cut as it gets. Acts of war are answered by the military, and any state that fails to do so has failed in its commitments to its citizens.

Nowadays it is not so clear cut. If the only difference between terrorism and warfare is scale then it's reasonable to say what Israel is doing is massive state-sponsored terrorism.

I don't ascribe to that. And there is no requirement that Israel must do that, either. This isn't a video game where you are only given a couple of choices in a dialog box.

42 minutes ago, Gorn said:

What does Israel want to accomplish? Simple, to prevent the same type of attack from happening a year, two, or five from now. And you and Kalbear may be right that Hamas will not be destroyed by this, but denying them safe shelter and base of operations and having them go back to being an underground organization that operates in the shadows is a significant improvement over them controlling and ruling over 2+ million Palestinians.

Again it's being put in terms that either they do precisely what they are doing or nothing at all. To be clear that is not what i am suggesting. Nor am i suggesting hamas should be kept in power. My personal view is that netanyahus policy of keeping and effectively supporting hamas in power was a grave mistake. 

But how that is accomplished matters a great deal. Especially if you are (like @Ransuggests) wanting to have something happen after the military is gone and other countries are helping deal with it. For instance, 9 Arab countries yesterday came our and condemned Israel publicly for the civilian deaths and said that Israel is not allowed to break international law. It is now going to be very hard for Israel to get those countries or their allies involved in peacekeeping efforts, and without some plan for peace hamas (or something even worse like isis or Islamic jihad) will take power in Gaza agajn.

42 minutes ago, Gorn said:

ISIS attacks were answered by military attacks, and it worked. The coalition killed ISIS fighters until ISIS ran out of fighters, and it took their territory to prevent them from recruiting and supplying more fighters.

Note that you're also glossing over the how here as well. Isis was not destroyed by large scale bombardment, nor were they weakened that way. And that coalition included the forces which would hold power afterwards in their planning. ISIS is a great example of a few things - how not to handle a withdrawal, how to build consensus before attacking, how to have a plan for afterwards. How do you think Israel is doing there?

[Zorral]

The brutal logic of tying colorful pieces of string around children’s wrists in Gaza

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/27/gaza-palestinians-displaced-humanitarian-siege/

Quote

 

Amid close to three punishing weeks of Israeli airstrikes, a bleak practice has emerged in Gaza. Some parents in the embattled, besieged territory are scrawling the names of their children on the limbs of the little ones. Others are tying makeshift identification bracelets or little colorful pieces of string around their wrists.

There’s a simple, brutal logic: As the Palestinian death toll soars past 7,000 killed, including close to 3,000 children, according to aid agencies, morgues and hospitals are overwhelmed. 

 

 

[Tywin et al.]

@Rippounet, I'll let Ran's post stand in for my response, but there is one thing we're clear on, you're mostly a pacifist and I am not. I'm also not a hawk, however, I'm not one to run away from a fight, especially when I think it's necessary.

1 hour ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Just say the quiet part of your words out loud and accuse Kalbear of antisemitism for the audacity of criticizing Israel! 

Never said that and I've been critical of the Israeli government for most of my life.

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Make no mistake. Hamas committed an act of terrorism. They are terrorists. Hamas should be punished for its horrific act of terrorism and kidnapping.  

So then how would you punish them? Honestly I don't think they should be punished so much as neutralized because nothing is going to improve until they're out of power, and that largely requires a military response. 

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Some people made the comparison that if 2977 people died in 9/11 that proportionately for a nation of Israel's size and population that the dead on 10/7 would be a much greater magnitude. What then does that mean for the death toll that Israel has inflicted upon the civilian populace of a nation less than 1/8th the size of Israel? Does that mean nothing? Are the lives of Palestinian civilians worth less to you? 

Yes, that does help frame why this was such a traumatic event for Israel. It's also very traumatic for Palestinians. I don't think anyone has downplayed that fact. However, who caused all this pain? It's Hamas and they've gotten way less blame in these threads than Israel which is insane. Far too many posters have basically written a sentence about why Hamas is bad followed up by essays about why Israel is bad. I've said several times there needs to be way more balance. 

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How many dead Palestianian civilians at the hands of Israel is the removal of Hamas worth to you? What is the acceptable number of hostages that a police officer can shoot andkill in order to take out the terrorist who is using them as shields? While we may rightly condemn the terrorist using people as shields, wouldn't we also condemn the police officer who seems pretty indifferent to killing hostages in pursuit of the terrorist? 

Ideally none. I hate having to repeat myself. Palestinians are not Hamas, but Hamas is the governing body of Gaza. I wish we had Hamas heat seeking rockets that could just hit them, but that's not how the world works. 

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The United States was rightly criticized, IMHO, for the many civilian deaths we inflicted on Afghanistan and Iraq in its pursuit of vengeance and our "War on Terror." In retrospect, our invasive wars on terror created many more problems than they solved. And many people from these lands hate us more now than before. Why is Israel free from similar criticism? 

Correct, but that was vengeance. We probably could have been in and out of Afghanistan in six months and we never should have attack Iraq. However, that's not a perfect comparison because as I said before Gaza is right next to Israel, is still trying to fire rockets at them and have hostages. The comparison between 9/11 and 10/7 are valid in the scope of the attack, but the realities on the ground are rather different. 

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

There's an implicit assumption that goes beyond politics here, that an individual, family, or nation that has been struck hard should strike back hard.

And I dunno, but that's a bit bizarre to me. As a matter of fact, and contrary to what several people say in these threads, as a rule, states don't answer terrorist attacks with military attacks. In the crushing majority of cases, that's just not an option. Most of the time, it's about intelligence and special operations rather than mobilizing the actual military. You're powerless, so all you can do is grieve, and hope someone will get the bastards, later.

That assumption is there for a reason though: a group that does not retaliate strongly when attacked will be attacked again and again and again. You are correct in that the retaliation is often not military in nature, but that is because most such attacks are not perpetrated by something the size of a small nation state which sends on the order of 1500 attackers. It's necessary and sufficient for the retaliation to be substantially greater than the attack that provoked it, but, crucially, only with respect to the size of the attacking group. When the attacking group is on the order of 10 people total, a military response is obviously unnecessary.

2 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

What is the acceptable number of hostages that a police officer can shoot andkill in order to take out the terrorist who is using them as shields? While we may rightly condemn the terrorist using people as shields, wouldn't we also condemn the police officer who seems pretty indifferent to killing hostages in pursuit of the terrorist?

Yes, but only because the police officer's nominal job is to protect the hostages. The situation with a nation state at war is not the same: a government has a duty to protect its own people and to refrain from attacking purely civilian targets, but there are no protections for civilians who are unfortunate enough to be near military and dual-use infrastructure when it is attacked.

[Ran]

The IDF has released graphics and videos alleging that the central Hamas headquarters are in a tunnel complex directly underneath the large Al-Shifa hospital which has been a center piece of reportage as ambulances arrive with the wounded and dead over the last days. In particular, it's alleged that the generators powering the hospital are also powering the lighting and other electrical devices in the tunnels.

This may well be preparing people for the fact that they may be planning to attack the tunnels, and thereby the hospital. Rumors (only rumors so far, haven't seen anything confirmed) claim that the IDF has contacted the hospital and told them everyone needs to evacuate.

ETA: Huh. So dug further, and lots of reports from 2014 about the complex, all noting that the core of it was actually made by Israel in 1983 when it still controlled Gaza and was refurbishing and expanding the hospital; originally the complex was intended to house additional operating rooms and offices for the hospital. This is I guess also why the generators there are wired to power the place, and why Israel seems so certain about it.

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Ran

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

 

75 years of various flavors of war, terrorism, abuse, etc. has failed. Hamas's control of Gaza is the latest such obvious failure. It needs to be corrected, or nothing will go forward.

It's all a tall order, I know. 75 years is a long time. But if Israelis hold their government to account for their part in this disaster, the new government may be incentivized to give it an honest go, if Palestinians are willing.

 

I think this post was very well stated. I want to point this out specifically because it highlights a crucial detail - that Israel will also need to change their policies and practices quite a bit as well.

I hope that people recognize this too. And more importantly recognize that if Israel does not change or does not do these things this will happen again in 5-10 years. 

And the more Israel alienates others in the area and continues to cause massive diplomatic and political problems for its rivals and allies in the area, the more likely it is that it will happen again. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

Edited October 27, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Craving Peaches]

Al Jazeera reports that many areas in Gaza are losing online connectivity.

Quote

We don’t know about anything that is happening in other districts in the territory. Maybe there are new bombardments taking place in these areas. We don’t know how many victims. We can only hear bombardments everywhere, but we don’t know any anything about the casualties, about the situation on the ground.

We don’t know anything also about the medical conditions of doctors, medical workers, even at the Al-Shifa Hospital [the largest in Gaza]. The situation is catastrophic right now.  We can no longer communicate with the international community to send our voice to the world to know what is happening on the ground. I hope that this message might  reach and have an access to the world despite what we have experienced throughout the last hour.

We are now in a hospital and we are going to be live by satellite as much as we can and every single hour. So please, if you can hear us, send that message to the world that we are isolated now in Gaza. We don’t have any phone signals. We don’t have any internet connections. We found great difficulty even to communicate and contact with our relatives in different parts of the territory.

Journalists here, even the citizens inside the hospital, they don’t have any access to the networks. They don’t have any kind of communication even with their neighbors. There is a great problem in the network connections. We don’t know how it’s dropped. We don’t know if it was targeted.

The situation on the ground is really terrible. Everyone is afraid, everyone is terrified. Please ,guys, if you can hear us send this message to the world that we are becoming isolated.

Al Jazeera currently only has sporadic communication with correspondents in Gaza following the latest strikes on the besieged enclave.

Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli bombs rock Gaza as UN meets | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Worrying if we won't know what's happening..

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I think this post was very well stated. I want to point this out specifically because it highlights a crucial detail - that Israel will also need to change their policies and practices quite a bit as well.

I hope that people recognize this too. And more importantly recognize that if Israel does not change or does not do these things this will happen again in 5-10 years. 

And the more Israel alienates others in the area and continues to cause massive diplomatic and political problems for its rivals and allies in the area, the more likely it is that it will happen again. 

This is part of the tragedy of such actions though. There is no doubt that Israel will change its behavior, but it takes an amazing leader with very strong and widespread support to implement the kind of changes you are talking about. It's much more likely that the changes will be along the lines of stronger fortifications along the border, a more thorough blockade to let fewer weapons through, etc.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This is part of the tragedy of such actions though. There is no doubt that Israel will change its behavior

There is quite a bit of doubt that Israel will change their behavior, especially change it in such a way that is more giving to Palestinians. 

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

, but it takes an amazing leader with very strong and widespread support to implement the kind of changes you are talking about. It's much more likely that the changes will be along the lines of stronger fortifications along the border, a more thorough blockade to let fewer weapons through, etc.

If that's the case then all the bombing is a pointless waste of lives and ammunition. 

[fionwe1987]

I've seen multiple articles mention the increasing loss of communication.

Gazans are rapidly losing access to the internet from TheEconomist https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/10/20/gazans-are-rapidly-losing-access-to-the-internet

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On october 9th, in response to a deadly attack on Israeli soil by Hamas, the Palestinian militants that run Gaza, Israel tightened its blockade on the strip. Internet connectivity, which has always been lower in Gaza than the rest of the region, has fallen significantly since the start of the current fighting (see chart). That presents an enormous challenge for civilians and aid workers, and restricts Israel’s ability to communicate with Gazans.

Israel has tight control over Gaza’s internet infrastructure. Fibre-optic cables to the strip pass through Israel. It has also banned technology upgrades that would make connections more secure, meaning that mobile-internet providers there are limited to 2G. This is much slower than the 5G connection that most Israelis can get access to, compounding connectivity issues.

Since the start of the current conflict Israeli air strikes have crippled Gaza’s already fragile communications infrastructure. Attempted repairs are fraught with danger. And, on October 11th, due to Israel’s blockade, Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel. This has further throttled internet connection, as well as hitting other crucial infrastructure such as desalination plants.

The hit to connectivity in some districts is so severe as to be equivalent to a shutdown caused by a government order or a natural disaster. The hit to connectivity levels is greater than that in Ukraine in the early weeks of its conflict last year. For some areas the internet will, in effect, be offline: cellular data and home broadband will not work. In other areas the internet will be usable but slow. In places that used to have several functioning fibre-optic cables and internet service providers, there is now just one. Text-based messaging may work depending on the provider or region, but audio and video will be very slow, if they work at all.

Internet access takes on a new importance during war. The UN monitors outages because they can give cover to human-rights violations. It is vital for alerts to be transmitted, too: on October 10th the Israel Defence Forces used Facebook to warn residents of Gaza’s al-Daraj neighbourhood about forthcoming airstrikes. Without stable internet, it becomes harder for anyone to know what is going on.

 

 

We've been assured Israeli SIGINT is excellent and crucial to determine from afar where Hamas targets are. And that this is the basis on which we should trust that Israel isn't commiting war crimes. 

Can someone explain how signals intelligence works when there are no signals?

Further, can someone explain why Israel is going above and beyond in constraining communications? Yes, of course, Hamas will be using them, but so will civilians, and there are real benefits to internet connectivity during a mass migration.

We've been assured by members of this board repeatedly that Israel has no choice. That it is doing what only any other nation would.

It is not. This is not something that has happened in every battle. Israel has more control over Gaza than most nations do over enemy combatants. And Israel is fully responsible for how it uses this power, no matter what trauma its citizens were subjected to. 

This is cover for war crimes. This perpetuates war crime, since it prevents proper identification. This is criminal. Inhumane. Disproportionate, deliberate and disgusting. 

[Relic]

Watching news coming out of Gaza today...not sure there is currently a worse place to be, in the world. These poor folks are getting absolutely shit on. We are the worst species.