Israel - Hamas War VII

[Varysblackfyre321]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Honestly I wouldn't listen to the IDF just like I wouldn't listen to Hamas.

Don’t listen to the IDF when they admit/boast about doing horrible stuff?

[Ran]

It's not "tunnels alone". Who said that? There was active firefights in the region around the neighborhood. It was their command and control operations center, which I noted last night made it far more salient at that moment because the whole strategy of the ground offensive entails taking control of northern Gaza.

There were dozens of militants in those tunnels along with their commander, using the infrastructure to coordinate attacks against  the IDF. So: a commander, his troops, his operations center, what ever they had in storage in the network, the network itself, all taken out while immediate and active hostiltiies were taking place.

Jabailya has been a particular focus of evacuation warnings from Israel. People have been urged to evacuate for weeks. The people who remained knew they were facing great danger because it was going to become a warzone soon. Pretty sure they could hear the gunfire and explosions from grenades and anti-tank munitions to the west, for that matter, and I'm sure they saw Hamas guys popping in and out of the tunnels, but still, they stayed.

If you believe Israel has a right to defend itself, this is a pretty clear cut example of their making incredible efforts to warn people to get out of a place, telling them repeatedly they need to leave, and finally moving into action as they promised they would do, Hamas  fighting them every step of the way, and people are shocked that more civilians have died because of Hamas's uncountable crimes.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Ran

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Proportionality is a trickier subject. Most states would not willingly respond with one hand tied behind their back and it's more complicated because if the board was flipped no one would expect Hamas to do the same (many would call for it and Hamas would just laugh at the idea). 

Jesus Christ western leaders have been kissing Israel’s ass plenty, Israel isn’t some poor little kid it’s a nuclear power under the protection of the premier super power and favorite son of the west.

Stop pretending as if everyone is just being mean to Israel.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

The presence of tunnels alone isn't enough to justify an attack.  If it does in your mind, it means that you can essentially level the entirety of northern Gaza.  

ETA: there are likely extensive tunnels in the south too, so that would mean leveling the rest of Gaza is OK.

No, it's not, but they do have to be destroyed which is just another example of why the situation is seven levels of fucked up. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

It's not "tunnels alone". Who said that? There was active firefights in the region around the neighborhood It was their command and control operations center., which I noted last night made it far more salient at that moment because the whole strategy of the ground offensive entails taking control of northern Gaza.

There were dozens of militants in those tunnels along with their commander, using the infrastructure to coordinate attacks against  the IDF. So: a commander, his troops, his operations center, what ever they had in storage in the network, the network itself, all taken out while immediate and active hostiltiies were taking place.

Jabailya has been a particular focus of evacuation warnings from Israel. People have been urged to evacuate for weeks. The people who remained knew they were facing great danger because it was going to become a warzone soon. 

To be clear the IDF says that there were dozens of militants and the commander was there. 

We don't even know if that's what the jntelligence said. We just know that's the press  briefing. We don't know if the xommander was killed. We don't know how imminent any threat was.

We do, however, know that a whole lot of civilians who could not reasonably flee their homes for varieties of reasons were killed or injured.

And we know that the outrage from the world is getting worse. I think that's the next question -is that commander worth the headlines and the political blowback? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Don’t listen to the IDF when they admit/boast about doing horrible stuff?

 When have I ever said I trust the IDF or the Israeli government? I just trust Hamas even less. 

4 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Jesus Christ western leaders have been kissing Israel’s ass plenty, Israel isn’t some poor little kid it’s a nuclear power under the protection of the premier super power and favorite son of the west.

Stop pretending as if everyone is just being mean to Israel.

Buddy, tell me you don't know Israel's history without telling me you don't know Israel's history. It's a tiny country surrounded by nations that historically have wanted to destroy it and just were attacked by people who openly say they want all Jews in the area to die.  

[karaddin]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

 Jabailya has been a particular focus of evacuation warnings from Israel. People have been urged to evacuate for weeks. The people who remained knew they were facing great danger because it was going to become a warzone soon. 

Because they can so easily exit this warzone to a place they will definitely be safe? That's some preem victim blaming bs right there. The entire area is likely to become a war zone in the near future and plenty of people will choose to risk staying and dying in their homes over being displaced, fail to get anywhere remotely safe and still get killed anyway. 

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And I agree. Just for starters, cutting off the utilities is fucked up. I get maybe doing it for a day to see if that caused Hamas to get spooked and release hostages, but doing it for a prolonged period is flatly wrong. There's more nuance when it comes to gas, however, the hospitals that are way past max capacity and running low badly need it. 

Yeah. If you were dealing with an enemy that prioritized their own civilians and ensured they were getting the food and water then you *might* be getting some military value out of it, but we all agree that sure isn't Hamas. So if they're just going to steal all the food and water reserves you're not degrading their combat capability, you're just punishing the civilians. So that argument goes out the window.

The petrol situation also becomes more defensible (from Israel's perspective) if you haven't cut off electricity since the hospitals aren't relying on generators to have power.

I'd still be opposed personally, but that would be much more defensible than what's happened.

[Fragile Bird]

I stepped away from this thread and just looked at it now, and I want to respond to all this anger about a “refugee camp”. I see Ran just got in ahead of me as I was reading all the posts.

The location that was bombed was the first refugee camp in Gaza, and by first I mean it was set up in 1947. (I’m quoting news reports that I saw tonight, I assume they are correct). It’s not a tent city filled with fleeing people. It’s a city now, with apartment buildings and, as Kal pointed out in the last thread, complete with sewer systems which he suggested caused the collapse in the streets instead of Hamas tunnels. But from what I’ve seen and heard tonight from various sources, the place is a Hamas stronghold, a terrorist stronghold for decades. It was the location where the first intifada started (and spread from). 

Why don’t you ask yourself, why did the guy who was one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack run back and hide in a “refugee camp”? What morality was involved on the Hamas side? This guy knew the IDF would be hunting him down, why did he go to ground in a city of 110,000 people? Maybe because it was a Hamas stronghold criss-crossed with tunnels where he figured bombs wouldn’t get him, even if it might mean hundreds of dead civilians?

Why haven’t Hamas surrendered, to save the lives of their own people? I said in the very first thread that Oct. 7 was a suicide mission. The only problem is they’ve included a whole lot of involuntary suicide candidates.

And yes, all our arguments are about should the Israelis do what they’re doing or not. I’d prefer that there be no war at all. I just don’t know what the appropriate response to 1300-1400 hundred people being slaughtered in a war crime should be. I’m not a member of a nation of people who’ve already faced genocide in the last century, and I don’t think I have the moral authority to tell them what to do.

[Ran]

I'm definitely not going to enter any conversation on IDF strike decisions on the assumption that they're lying to the rest of the world about each strike. If the US starts saying they're full of shit and there's no evidence of tunnels or Hamas fighters in the area, fine, but the IDF has trained legal advisors who sign off on these these things as being appropriate within the laws of armed combat and I think it'd be insane that they're just randomly deciding to hit places when in fact they have a care and duty to do things that protect their troops during the conflict.

They've known this infrastructure has been there since the start of the conflict, if not earlier, but only now after weeks of warnings when they actually finally go in and there's actual gunfights going on did they strike it. They could have done it day 1, when there were hundreds of thousands of more people there, they could have done it two days ago when they started entering, but no, it was only when their troops were being fought against in the region that they attacked it.

As to the "PR" part of it, I think Israel has and continues to make extraordinary efforts to protect civilians even if its interpretation of some aspects of the laws of armed combat are not the same as everyone else's (especially dual-use infrastructure; they don't assess the long-term value of civilian infrastructure when calculating whether to strike it, so they're likelier to flatten an entire building than try to just take out a room or floor -- weirdly, Denmark also has similar guidance), and ultimately the anger should be directed at Hamas for choosing to use civilians as shields, preventing them from leaving, hell, even preventing them from speaking openly to the rest of the world. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Ran

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

It's not "tunnels alone". Who said that? There was active firefights in the region around the neighborhood It was their command and control operations center., which I noted last night made it far more salient at that moment because the whole strategy of the ground offensive entails taking control of northern Gaza.

There were dozens of militants in those tunnels along with their commander, using the infrastructure to coordinate attacks against  the IDF. So: a commander, his troops, his operations center, what ever they had in storage in the network, the network itself, all taken out while immediate and active hostiltiies were taking place.

Jabailya has been a particular focus of evacuation warnings from Israel. People have been urged to evacuate for weeks. The people who remained knew they were facing great danger because it was going to become a warzone soon. 

As Tywin suggested, I don't take any statements made by the IDF at face value.  They claim all sorts of stuff, many of which defy the facts that are obvious to all to see.  Again, this massive bombing was them doing everything they could to minimize civilian casualties? 

The claim they killed a commander and a bunch of terrorist infrastructure, but did they really?  Have they provided us with concrete evidence of any of this, or are we supposed to just take their word?  They know this guy was an important architect of the massacre but three weeks ago they didn't have idea any this was going to happen.  All of the sudden their intelligence apparatus in Gaza started working in the middle of a war and now they they can identify hundred of targets each day?  Also, somehow they have confirmation that they killed the commander and many other terrorists (however many really means), yet when asked about civilian casualties they say that no civilian casualties are confirmed.  Jesus.  

The presence or absence of tunnels is more or less meaningless to me, since the tunnels are everywhere.  I noted that the IDF tried to suggest that some of the damage that killed civilians was the result of collapsing tunnels, when that is obviously complete bullshit.  You can see half a dozen massive craters from the bunker buster type bombs that were dropped and which caused all the damage.

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's a tiny country surrounded by nations that historically have wanted to destroy it and just were attacked by people who openly say they want all Jews in the area to die.  

Can we not catastrophize October 7? It was really horrorfic I get it but Israel wasn’t under anywhere near existential threat over it and quite frankly that’s the only scenario where I might be sympathetic to how Israel has chosen to act in response which likely include tens of thousands of people mainly children dead, and hundreds of thousands if not over a million people displaced and primed for radicalization. 
 

Also speaking as an American I’d at least want my president to call for a ceasefire to save his chance at re election and avoid the election of a fascist.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Ran]

Just now, Varysblackfyre321 said:

the only scenario where I might be sympathetic

Nice.

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Can we not catastrophize October 7?

Appalling comment 

[Mudguard]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Buddy, tell me you don't know Israel's history without telling me you don't know Israel's history. It's a tiny country surrounded by nations that historically have wanted to destroy it and just were attacked by people who openly say they want all Jews in the area to die.  

Unfortunately, I think this is true, and I think this is the basis for Israel's responses never being proportional.  It always seems to me that Israel retaliates at least 10 times harder than they were hit, maybe as a way of deterrence.  This can sometimes work against bullies, but I don't think it's going to work in this case against fanatics.  When the scale of the Hamas massacre became apparent, almost the entire world was behind Israel and condemned the Hamas attack.  But this relentless bombing campaign has destroyed almost all of the goodwill around the world.

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

I'm definitely not going to enter any conversation on IDF strike decisions on the assumption that they're lying to the rest of the world about each strike. If the US starts saying they're full of shit and there's no evidence of tunnels or Hamas fighters in the area, fine, but the IDF has trained legal advisors who sign off on these these things as being appropriate within the laws of armed combat and I think it'd be insane that they're just randomly deciding to hit places when in fact they have a care and duty to do things that protect their troops during the conflict.

Israel, especially under Netanyahu, has a history of lying about their actions, about the success of their actions, about the damage it causes and about who will be held accountable. 

The US isn't going to come out directly and say anything to contradict Israel at this time regardless, but the idea that because Israel has legal advisors - that are legally advising the military when you yourself said Israel has no legal bindings to follow anything, including the genera convention? Come on.

My personal suspicion is that Israel intended to kill this commander. I have no idea if they succeeded. I doubt there were that many other units. But much like doubting the accuracy of the casualties its important to at least preface all of rhis with the source. IDF says fhis was why they did this. It hasn't been independently veriified.

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

They've known this infrastructure has been there since the start of the conflict, if not earlier, but only now after weeks of warnings when they actually finally go in and there's actual gunfights going on did they strike it. They could have done it day 1, when there were hundreds of thousands of more people there, they could have done it two days ago when they started entering, but no, it was only when their troops were being fought against in the region that they attacked it.

So multiple things come to mind here.

- why is it important to do this specifically right now? They've started the invasion but it was not an imminent threat. If it is a command post it isn't like it's gonna go walk away. The gunfights were not anywhere near this attack either.

- why was it necessary to drop a bomb instead of using other weapons or methods? This person was not in the tunnels apparently, nor was the command post and other stuff the idf says exists there.

- why didn't Israel give advance warning? They've done that in the past. Even with high value targets.

But mostly - is it worth it? They knew it was going to be a bloodbath and a pr disaster. They planned this response ahead of time and their talking points. This wasn't a surprise attack or response - that kind-of press response requires days of prep and coordination. Are the hundreds of casualties, the kids killed and injured and the pictures taken, the immediate response of diplomatic losses from non-arab counties in South America, the reprisals from Yemen, the responses from turkey - are any of those worth it?

Israel's government seems to think so. That alone should make you question all of the decisions that they are making.

 

-

[Mudguard]

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

I'm definitely not going to enter any conversation on IDF strike decisions on the assumption that they're lying to the rest of the world about each strike. If the US starts saying they're full of shit and there's no evidence of tunnels or Hamas fighters in the area, fine, but the IDF has trained legal advisors who sign off on these these things as being appropriate within the laws of armed combat and I think it'd be insane that they're just randomly deciding to hit places when in fact they have a care and duty to do things that protect their troops during the conflict.

They've known this infrastructure has been there since the start of the conflict, if not earlier, but only now after weeks of warnings when they actually finally go in and there's actual gunfights going on did they strike it. They could have done it day 1, when there were hundreds of thousands of more people there, they could have done it two days ago when they started entering, but no, it was only when their troops were being fought against in the region that they attacked it.

As to the "PR" part of it, I think Israel has and continues to make extraordinary efforts to protect civilians even if its interpretation of some aspects of the laws of armed combat are not the same as everyone else's (especially dual-use infrastructure; they don't assess the long-term value of civilian infrastructure when calculating whether to strike it, so they're likelier to flatten an entire building than try to just take out a room or floor -- weirdly, Denmark also has similar guidance), and ultimately the anger should be directed at Hamas for choosing to use civilians as shields, preventing them from leaving, hell, even preventing them from speaking openly to the rest of the world. 

I think in the case where one of their attacks kills or injures hundreds of civilians, they have a moral obligation to share intelligence with the world that proves that the strike was justified.

Israel has struck thousands of targets in a very short period of time.  Have they once admitted to an error?  If they provided some degree of transparency, I would have much more trust in them.  But instead, all I see from them is blatant propaganda.

[Ran]

In other news, interesting Bloomberg article on a post-Hamas Gaza:

Quote

The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troops if Israeli forces succeed in ousting Hamas, people familiar with the matter said.

The people said the conversations have been impelled by a sense of urgency to come up with a plan for the future of Gaza now that a ground invasion has begun. A second option would establish a peacekeeping force modeled on one that oversees a 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, while a third would see Gaza put under temporary United Nations oversight.

Still early days, but I think it would be for the best if countries other than Israel were involved in administering Gaza afterwards, and hopefully managing to find partners who aren't jihadists and want peace.

[polishgenius]

32 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

Why don’t you ask yourself, why did the guy who was one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack run back and hide in a “refugee camp”? What morality was involved on the Hamas side? This guy knew the IDF would be hunting him down, why did he go to ground in a city of 110,000 people?

 

Not a single person here who is criticising the IDF for this thinks the Hamas commander is a good guy. 

33 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m not a member of a nation of people who’ve already faced genocide in the last century, and I don’t think I have the moral authority to tell them what to do.

 

As a member of a nation of people who've already faced genocide in the last century I guess I have the moral authority to say that the way this current campaign is being conducted and presented does not feel like the workings of someone who wants long-term peace? 

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

11 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Not a single person here who is criticising the IDF for this thinks the Hamas commander is a good guy. 

 

As a member of a nation of people who've already faced genocide in the last century I guess I have the moral authority to say that the way this current campaign is being conducted and presented does not feel like the workings of someone who wants long-term peace? 

 

 

More than I do.

[Varysblackfyre321]

29 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Appalling comment 

 

40 minutes ago, Ran said:

Nice.

Yes, I might be more sympathetic to all the evil and illegal shit Israel an existential threat which poses as much threat to Israel’s existence as a mosquito does to you.

 

Instead of being offended can you actually answer my question as to what catastrophe is likely to be adverted by all the steps Israel is taking to annihilate Hamas which so far has taken massive human cost already? 

34 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Appalling comment 

9-11 was bad and the US’s response to it was largely stupid and evil and now looking back it’s pretty safe to mock people who invoked it when doing evil and stupid 

Just invoking the attack isn’t conversation ender on whether or not Israel’s actions are justified.