Israel - Hamas War VI

[kissdbyfire]

Fuck all religions.

[TrueMetis]

So apparently Israel destroyed the memorial to Shirin Abu Akleh, I was gonna say that jounralist they killed, but that wouldn't really narrow it down would it? If Israel wants the coverage about it to be nicer, maybe they should stop acting like the authoritarian villains in a dystopian video game?

https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2023-10-27-to-watch---israeli-occupation-forces-bulldoze-shirin-abu-akleh-street-and-its-monument-in-jenin.SJeP1BZKfa.html

[Craving Peaches]

Al Jazeera reports over 50 Palestinians are being killed every hour by airstrikes...

Sad to say that I think the number of dead will definitely pass the ten thousand mark.

7 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Fuck all religions.

People using outdated, biased religious texts of dubious authenticity to justify their flagrant breaches of (international law and) common moral standards is sad but not surprising, looking at history (crusades etc.) and recent events...

Edited October 29, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

And the Gaza Health Ministry responded with a list of names and ID numbers for all the casualties they had, which is very verifiable information. So, yeah, he was almost certainly in the wrong there and US officials have notably pretty much avoided answering the question when asked about that since then.

How is it verifiable? All of the information ultimately comes from Hamas or entities controlled by Hamas. The names and ID numbers might be real (or might not -- I do not know), but there's no way to prove anything about the state of the person corresponding to each one unless you believe Hamas.

[Zorral]

If this happens in the most Jewish city in the USA, demanding a cease fire --

Thousands take to Brooklyn and Manhattan streets in pro-Palestinian rally

https://gothamist.com/news/thousands-take-to-brooklyn-and-manhattan-streets-in-pro-palestinian-rally

This is happening in London, and many other places as well.

The helicopters were out in force earlier tonight, so we knew something like this was happening.

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Zorral

[Ran]

9 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Turns out it may not have been The Gaza Health Ministry that lied about the hospital bombing death toll, it seems to be a mistranslation by the media

He doesn't address the fact that the Health Ministry has since given the number of dead at 471, and that this figure can be found days after the explosion on the Arabic Al-Jazeera Arabic site. I find it hard to imagine that the media misunderstood "casualties" or "victims" for "killed"  two times in a row.

Finally, their own document has charts listing their claimed daily death tolls, and notably it says that three times as many people died on the day of the explosion than in the previous day. Going to guess they are still saying their numbers are accurate.

Given the growing consensus that it was a PIJ failed rocket, I do hope they've lied about it and far fewer died than originally claimed.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Ran

[ljkeane]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

How is it verifiable? All of the information ultimately comes from Hamas or entities controlled by Hamas. The names and ID numbers might be real (or might not -- I do not know), but there's no way to prove anything about the state of the person corresponding to each one unless you believe Hamas.

There are loads of aid agencies and charities operating in Gaza who also have information on the population using names and ID numbers. Pick a random name off the list and get one of the many members of the press in Gaza to follow up on it. Alternatively you could start contacting known family members and asking them. 

Seems pretty straightforward to me I’m not sure why you’re stumped by it.

[Ran]

Obviously, with communications down that will be more difficult. But I'm sure there are journalists trying to audit it with available resources, whether journalists in Gaza or combing social media to see if there are references to the individuals and their status. You can basically treat it as an audit and use some statistical techniques to get a sense of the accuracy of the list.

In other news, former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett has described a plan to the NYT's Bret Stephens for dealing with Hamas that seems like the first clearly articulated scheme I've seen for something short of a full invasion actually rooting Hamas out of Gaza while finding ways to minimize collateral damage. I do wonder about the idea of having Israeli troops holding a 13.5 square kilometer strip of land with Hamas rockets and fighters to either side of them, but maybe he's thinking of that being a shift in posture after they initially sweep through and around the northern part of Gaza (I do suspect they have no intention of going into Gaza City ATM).

[Relic]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

How is it verifiable? All of the information ultimately comes from Hamas or entities controlled by Hamas. The names and ID numbers might be real (or might not -- I do not know), but there's no way to prove anything about the state of the person corresponding to each one unless you believe Hamas.

There has been a lot written on the topic recently, and a bunch of links posted about it in this very thread. 

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

There are loads of aid agencies and charities operating in Gaza who also have information on the population using names and ID numbers.

This. And none of the news we are getting have contradicted this as far as I’m aware. And we’re not talking about Al Jazeera only, but most MSM outlets, the UN, and so on. So, as far as we here can tell, these numbers do seem to be fairly accurate and the constant denying of said numbers feels a bit like a lazy naysaying w/o any evidence to back it up. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

The Israeli government seems rather uninterested in getting the hostages back.

I mean they can exchange the hostages for prisoners and attack again with full force as soon as ceasefire is broken by a missile launch which will probably not even take a day when you look at the past.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

they can exchange the hostages for prisoners

Hamas wants 5,000+ people released, many including known terrorists, and not all of them would be repatriated to Gaza, I expect, but had their domiciles in the West Bank.

Israel has made swaps under worse terms before, but I expect they're taking stock and seeing what other avenues avail themselves.

[kissdbyfire]

Some more on the death toll from the AP:

GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY SAYS PALESTINIAN DEATH TOLL TOPS 8,000

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza says over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed since war broke out on Oct. 7. 

It said Sunday that the toll has risen to 8,005 Palestinians, including more than 3,300 minors and over 2,000 women.

The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but includes doctors and veteran civil servants who are not affiliated with the group. Its tolls from previous wars have held up to U.N. scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies. The ministry released detailed records last week showing the names, ages and ID numbers of most of the deaths it has recorded, saying some bodies have not yet been identified.

[Hmmm]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

Hamas wants 5,000+ people released, many including known terrorists, and not all of them would be repatriated to Gaza, I expect, but had their domiciles in the West Bank.

Israel has made swaps under worse terms before, but I expect they're taking stock and seeing what other avenues avail themselves.

I guess the hope is that if they hold off on doing a hostage deal for a bit longer, Hamas might get more desperate and present a more reasonable deal than Israel having to free a small army of ISIS-style terrorists.

But the main problem with these sorts of situations is that you do not want to set a precedent. If Israel's enemies see that capturing some hostages is all you need to do in order to extract huge concessions from them, they are of course going to keep doing such things in the future. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Hmmm

[Luzifer's right hand]

12 minutes ago, Hmmm said:

I guess the hope is that if they hold off on doing a hostage deal for a bit longer, Hamas might get more desperate and present a more reasonable deal than Israel having to free a small army of ISIS-style terrorists.

But the main problem with these sorts of situations is that you do not want to set a precedent. If Israel's enemies see that capturing some hostages is all you need to do in order to extract huge concessions from them, they are of course going to keep doing such things in the future. 

That's why such an exchange will only escalate hostilities I feel unlike what many other seem to believe. Israel can only do that without sending the wrong message if they at least attempt to destroy all Hamas forces in Gaza afterwards.

[Gorn]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

Hamas has made another offer to exchange all Israeli hostages - including military, apparently - in exchange for all Hamas prisoners currently in Israeli custody.

That's a significant increase from their last offer, which was all civilian hostages in return for all Palestinian prisoners (of all stripes).

That's still an awful deal for Israel to make and one they shouldn't even consider. Especially considering that many of the terrorists they exchanged for that soldier last time are the exact same people who organized and participated in the latest attack.

[Zorral]

You know that thousands and thousands of Israelis and Jews around the world are outraged that Bibi etc. have no interest in the Israeli hostages, viewing Bibi etc as using the members of these families as blood sacrifice, for ... what?  Making the Israelis and the world hate them?

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You know that thousands and thousands of Israelis and Jews around the world are outraged that Bibi etc. have no interest in the Israeli hostages, viewing Bibi etc as using the members of these families as blood sacrifice, for ... what?  Making the Israelis and the world hate them?

Well, it's an opinion.

If some militant freed to release a hostage goes on a knifing spree in the West Bank, will they consider those dead Israelis blood sacrifices as well?

There are no easy answers, I'm afraid.

 

 

[Ran]

On 10/27/2023 at 11:05 PM, Kalbear said:

My suspicion is that the services being down is much more a factor of the infrastructure failing due to repeated bombings and redundant systems dropping over; it is not intended.

Reporting from WaPo indicates a "senior U.S. official" says that Israel deliberately blocked access to the services prior to their incursion on Friday. The US has since said it should be made available again, and apparently internet access is coming back up now.

Whether Israel is doing that because they really just wanted it off for their initial toehold getting established and always intended to make it available again, or if it really is down to just US pressure making them do something they didn't want to do, who knows.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Well, it's an opinion.

If some militant freed to release a hostage goes on a knifing spree in the West Bank, will they consider those dead Israelis blood sacrifices as well?

There are no easy answers, I'm afraid.

Nah. Choosing whether your priority is life(trying to rescue hostages) or death (killing others in retaliation) is easy. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous.