Israel - Hamas War VII

[Kalbear]

Just now, Bael's Bastard said:

The hostages are with Hamas, where all the essentials are being hoarded from Gazans. Just as with Gazans, if hostages are not getting essentials it is by choice of Hamas, not a lack.

This is also not accurate. The amount of aid that Palestine got during peacetime was approximately 450 trucks a day. That has dropped down to on average 40 trucks a day. That is not because of a choice solely due to Hamas. 

I really liked an interview today on NPR from Yossi Klein Halevi in how he framed it, and while I don't agree with all of his viewpoint I think that the responsibility he took is important:

Quote

 

INSKEEP: You put that in the first person - I am inflicting.

HALEVI: Yes, of course, of course. Look, Israel - this is a very intimate society. When we speak about Israel, there's no emotional distance. Also, there's also no practical distance. What happens politically happens personally.

INSKEEP: Also, it's a democratic society.

HALEVI: It's (laughter) - I'm responsible for what happens here. You know, the essence of Zionism was to make Jews responsible for their fate, so that Jewish history wasn't just what others do to us but what we do to ourselves, for ourselves, for good and for bad. We're going to reassume power, our ability to defend ourselves, and we'll take the moral consequences. Power always has moral consequences.

 

I really wish that was done more often. Hamas is not responsible for the choice of Israel to not do a humanitarian pause. Hamas is not responsible for Israel choosing to stop all food and water deliveries. It is Israel's choice. Those choices may be the best ones or not, but ultimately Israel is the one with the power here. 

[Craving Peaches]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't know where this idea that hostages are lacking essentials comes from. If they do, it's because Hamas is withholding it from them, not because Hamas doesn't have them. They have supplies for months of siege laid in their tunnels, which would include food and water.

I said it was a potential issue, not that it was definite. One of the ladies who was released said that they got pitta bread, cheese and cucumber (I think), the same meal as the Hamas members. How long will the supplies last? Gaza is not producing much, if any, food.

2 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

By all accounts Hamas has months of food, water, fuel, and medicine that they have stolen and hoarded that entered Gaza as aid for Gazans. That is undeniable and has nothing to do with Israel.

This doesn't absolve Israel of responsibility for cutting of supplies to Gaza.

[Craving Peaches]

Surely this is not a good idea?

Apparently he was 'suspected of arson at a mosque'...

[Bael's Bastard]

Personally, I think food, water, and medicine should be let in. As long as it is inspected (Hamas smuggles parts in such materials), let them pour as much in as possible in the hopes that at least some of it will get to Gazans. As long as no smuggled materials are making it in, it can't harm anyone. The issue for many Israelis is there is no confirmation or hint the hostages are being cared for. Fuel is another matter, because it is essential to Hamas' fighting capabilities and nobody in Gaza has any power or means to prevent Hamas from taking it and using it to launch attacks. There is no way to withhold it from Hamas without also withholding it from hospitals, etc.

[Craving Peaches]

25 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Personally, I think food, water, and medicine should be let in. As long as it is inspected (Hamas smuggles parts in such materials), let them pour as much in as possible in the hopes that at least some of it will get to Gazans. As long as no smuggled materials are making it in, it can't harm anyone.

I think it would actually undermine Hamas.

[Craving Peaches]

Quote

French Institute and news agency say their Gaza offices hit by strikes

France's foreign ministry says the French Institute in Gaza has been "targeted" by an Israeli air strike.

In a statement posted on X, the foreign ministry said it had been informed by the Israeli authorities that the institute - which promotes French culture overseas - had been hit. They said they've urged Israel to provide "tangible" reasons for the strike "without delay".

No staff members were present at the French Institute when it was hit, according to the statement.

Separately, French news agency Agence-France Presse also reported that its offices in Gaza had been bombed.

In a statement, AFP said it condemned the strike, which it said happened on Thursday, in the "strongest possible terms", and urged more protection for journalists covering the violence in the Palestinian enclave.

Why was this hit?

Also, more videos have emerged on the ambulance strike. BBC says one of them was very graphic, and that people were filmed 'lying in pools of blood'.

Quote

Across the three videos, we counted around 20 injured or possibly dead people. There is no crater visible in the footage we've seen so far, and no debris or shrapnel visible.

[Craving Peaches]

Israel says the ambulance was being used by Hamas but I am very sceptical of that claim. How would they know this exact ambulance was being used by Hamas, and why would they hit it when patients were inside?

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

Israel says the ambulance was being used by Hamas but I am very sceptical of that claim. How would they know this exact ambulance was being used by Hamas, and why would they hit it when patients were inside?

Is there even a claim that people were currently firing from the ambulance?

[Craving Peaches]

26 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Is there even a claim that people were currently firing from the ambulance?

No, they just said they were Hamas fighters. I don't believe it. So far, they have zero proof. And if their 'proof' is anything like the probably fake 'conversations', I still won't believe them. Red Cross and UN had apparently been told that ambulance was transporting injured people to Egypt to be treated.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

the obviously fake 'conversations'

Proof of this? I mean, if it's obviously fake, there should be some kind of iron-clad proof, so I'm interested.

The ambulance issue seems quite complicated by Hamas propaganda apparently attempting to paint a separate event, a car accident where an ambulance numbered 1242 seems to have plowed into a horse-driven cart, killing the horse and a number of passengers, as being the bombing. Shameful, and very tragic -- there seem to have been some children killed who were probably riding on the cart or standing by the road when the accident happened.

But there is separate imagery of an actual burned-out wreckage of an ambulance which seems to be the one the IDF is taking credit for.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Ran

[Varysblackfyre321]

12 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

No, they just said they were Hamas fighters

We are getting to the point where israel will be confident enough to bomb a hospital  for allegedly treating a Hamas fighter and knowing Biden won’t do a damn thing.

[Craving Peaches]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

Proof of this? 

Multiple Arabic native speakers said that the Arabic in the conversations was not natural or spoken like a native speaker, but rather like a non-native speaker or something translated. Also, it was made up of two seperate audios that were then put together:

Also, no media outlets I have seen have been able to verify its authenticity, e.g.:

Quote

CNN cannot independently confirm what caused the explosion at the hospital and cannot verify the authenticity of the audio intercept.

Also, I don't know if you listened to it, but they, at least in my view, are not speaking in a manner people would in a natural conversation. They are speaking as though they are giving exposition dialogue. Almost like some of the AI generated things (not that I think AI was involved, but it has the similar 'air' of not being something someone would say in a natural conversation).

I though we had a discussion in a prior thread about how the audio wasn't reliable, per the Channel 4 investigation?

Nothing is absolute proof but I think this is very strong evidence that the conversation was made up.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Altherion]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I strongly disagree. The temporary ceasefire or humanitarian pause gives Israelis a chance to actually show that they do care about the civilians and contrast their behaviors with Hamas, which appears to not.

And what would this accomplish? Israel has been working to show that they care about the civilians from the very beginning (e.g. they try very hard to warn them to leave areas about to be attacked in a variety of ways) and this does not prevent practically everyone from focusing on the mistakes that result in civilian casualties rather than the general attitude. The vast majority of the people and nations criticizing Israel now would pretty much forget the pause ever existed the moment it ends.

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

This isn't giving anything worthwhile to Hamas - it is giving help to Palestinian civilians.

It's giving Hamas time to regroup and possibly resupply (if they can smuggle things in with the civilian supplies or simply confiscate what they want from the legitimate supplies).

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

There is no way to eradicate Hamas via military alone

Sure there is: it started off as about 30000 armed terrorists and is fewer than that now. If Israel keeps eliminating the terrorists, eventually the structure will disintegrate.

You seem to have this utterly bizarre view of the world in which if Israel acts according to your moral values (e.g. helps out the Palestinian civilians in Gaza), things will somehow magically go better for it... but there is absolutely no reason why that should be the case (which is why the Israelis don't do that). There is a strong argument for the pause, but it belongs more in the US politics thread than in this one because it's much more about Biden and the nature of his coalition than it is about Israel and the Palestinians.

[Ran]

18 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Multiple Arabic native speakers said that the Arabic in the conversations was not natural or spoken like a native speaker,

The source for this judgment, per the report, are two anonymous Arab journalists. We have no idea to say what their qualifications are to make such a judgment besides being Arabs. Normally, you'd want to look at dialect or language experts, and ideally people you identify so that others can decide whether they are approaching things in an unbiased and professional way and with due diligence.

Channel 4 is basically the only serious outlet that has made this particular claim that they don't sound Gazan, and most other outlets don't seem to have found the same issue.

It's worth noting that Earshot.ngo made this report in conjunction with Forensic Architecture, which is part of Al-Haq, and is very much a Palestinian NGO and is explicitly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli in general. This doesn't mean they should be discounted, but... if you discount the IDF out of hand because of their obvious bias, I think you need to consider how trustworthy they themselves are given their generally undisclosed bias.

18 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Also, it was made up of two seperate audios that were then put together:

That is not strange at all, since two different phones were used by the people having the conversation, and they appear to have either hacked one or both cell phones to record incoming and outgoing audio streams (i.e. two separate recordings, or channels, per device hacked), or they are tapped into the actual network and are capturing one caller's outgoing stream and then the other caller's outgoing stream, again creating two separate channels that they then put together into a single file.

Old-school wiretaps of actual copper-wired phone networks did just record a single channel with audio from both ends actually travelling back and forth (although you could have tapped a phone directly to pick up the speaker and the microphone in separate recordings), but modern packet-switching networks don't do things that way. 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Ran

[Craving Peaches]

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Israel has been working to show that they care about the civilians from the very beginning

This is contrary to so much of what we've seen, that I'm not sure how you could reach this conclusion. At best, in my view of the evidence, Israel has not been very careful on where and whom it is dropping its bombs. There are videos that purport to show ambulances being targeted; UN-run schools being hit, fleeing civilians following Israeli orders to evacuate being hit, the places that people are supposed to be evacuating to being hit.

Does all of this just vanish because they drop a few leaflets or make a phone call sometimes? Or because they hit the building 'gently' before blowing it up?

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

mistakes that result in civilian casualties

If they are just mistakes, there's an awful lot of them. In under a month, nearly 4000 children are dead.

Do you think so many people would be protesting, and so many politicians urging Israel to take more care, if they had been working to show they care about civilians from the very beginning?

Edited November 3, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Varysblackfyre321]

Just now, Altherion said:

Israel has been working to show that they care about the civilians from the very beginning (e.g. they try very hard to warn them to leave areas about to be attacked in a variety of ways)

Pretty sure they bombed another refugee cap yesterday.

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

and this does not prevent practically everyone from focusing on the mistakes that result in civilian casualties rather than the general attitude.

The general attitude is pretty bad too.

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's giving Hamas time to regroup and possibly resupply (if they can smuggle things in with the civilian supplies or simply confiscate what they want from the legitimate supplies).

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah likely. In that time do you think they’d have opportunity to successfully invade Israel or kill all Jews or whatever bad thing that’s worth the high human costs?

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Sure there is: it started off as about 30000 armed terrorists and is fewer than that now. If Israel keeps eliminating the terrorists, eventually the structure will disintegrate.

You do get those people can be replaced right with maybe all the young people that are being radicalized. Unless you plan on killing all of them they’re not all just going to go elsewhere, bitterly cursing hamas and understanding Israel had no choice but to bomb that refugee camp or hospital they’re family was in or whatever.

10 minutes ago, Altherion said:

You seem to have this utterly bizarre view of the world in which if Israel acts according to your moral values (e.g. helps out the Palestinian civilians in Gaza), things will somehow magically go better for it... but there is absolutely no reason why that should be the case (which is why the Israelis don't do that)

On the bolded we can finally agree.

[kissdbyfire]

I find the argument claiming that this conflict can be solved militarily b/c some terrorists have been killed and if you keep at it you’ll eventually get them all very problematic. First, no, you won’t b/c they’re not all in Gaza, so unless Israel starts bombing other places like Qatar they won’t be able to eliminate Hamas this way. 
But also, let’s look at the maths here. As of yesterday, just over 9,000 killed in Gaza. Hamas was said to have, at the start, 30,000 militants. We know for a fact that not all 9K killed were terrorists, and that 3K+ were children.  But let’s be super generous and optimistic and say that, of the ~ 6K adults killed, half were terrorists. So now there are only 27K left to kill. So if it takes 27 days to kill 3K terrorists, then this war must go on for months on end to finish them militarily. And of course along with them all the civilians - the children, the elderly etc. 

Yeah, sounds like a great plan! /s

Edited November 3, 2023 by kissdbyfire

[Kalbear]

Just now, Altherion said:

And what would this accomplish? Israel has been working to show that they care about the civilians from the very beginning (e.g. they try very hard to warn them to leave areas about to be attacked in a variety of ways) and this does not prevent practically everyone from focusing on the mistakes that result in civilian casualties rather than the general attitude. The vast majority of the people and nations criticizing Israel now would pretty much forget the pause ever existed the moment it ends.

I disagree, especially if they changed things. Also, these are not 'mistakes'. Israel did not mistakenly bomb a refugee camp twice while saying they were doing it to go after a commander. Israel did not mistakenly bomb an ambulance and mistakenly state that Hamas was using it for transport. These were deliberate actions, admitted to by IDF and justified as having military significance. The world is not focusing on Israeli mistakes all that much (they have happened already and they were not newsworthy for very long) - the world is focusing on the deliberate horrible actions that are being taken. 

Because honestly, doing real basic things like 'not bombing refugee camps' and 'not bombing ambulances' is not that hard to do. Whoever is authorizing these attacks has some real problems with understanding propaganda use or imagery or narratives - or, simply, they do not care about that. 

And my point is that they should, very much, care - because the world appears to care quite a bit. And politically Israel does need the US to be able to back them both in the immediate future (for weapon resupply) and in the longer term future (for help with diplomatic choices, working with other forces in the region, and whatever remains of Gaza). 

Put it another way: if Israel simply did not bomb a refugee camp or an ambulance most countries would not be happy with things, but it would not be causing diplomatic withdrawals. That's it! Yeah, those might have military value but the diplomatic value of not doing it is far greater. 

Just now, Altherion said:

It's giving Hamas time to regroup and possibly resupply (if they can smuggle things in with the civilian supplies or simply confiscate what they want from the legitimate supplies).

What do you think they are needing from the legitimate supplies that they don't already have? Hamas does not have a problem with supply right now. That might be a valid argument 3 to 6 months down the road, but now? It's a bullshit rationalization to choices made that don't need to be. Do you think that Hamas is going to get resupplied by being given tunnels and mining equipment? Show your work here - what do you think Hamas needs right now that they are not getting?

Just now, Altherion said:

Sure there is: it started off as about 30000 armed terrorists and is fewer than that now. If Israel keeps eliminating the terrorists, eventually the structure will disintegrate.

That isn't how it works. Especially when the leadership of Hamas is elsewhere and the financial and political backing of it is elsewhere. Especially in organizations that are not particularly hierarchical in nature, have a lot of independent operation, and do not have a whole lot of requirements around infrastructure. You can certainly diminish that fighting force but killing a whole lot of civilians in the area is a good way to ensure it is rapidly refilled. 

Just now, Altherion said:

You seem to have this utterly bizarre view of the world in which if Israel acts according to your moral values (e.g. helps out the Palestinian civilians in Gaza), things will somehow magically go better for it... but there is absolutely no reason why that should be the case (which is why the Israelis don't do that). There is a strong argument for the pause, but it belongs more in the US politics thread than in this one because it's much more about Biden and the nature of his coalition than it is about Israel and the Palestinians.

I don't know about a magical viewpoint per se; it's based quite heavily on the last 30 years of counterinsurgency, regime deposing and what works and what doesn't work. I do know that if you do not work with the civilian population of a war area you will have a harder time fighting there; the US found that out both ways with Afghanistan and Iraq and Somalia. I do know that if you don't have a plan for what happens after the fighting stops you are likely to cause an even worse situation for you and your allies in a fairly short time, as was seen in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon and Gaza. And I know that if you have absolutely no interest in administering an area after you finish fighting - which itself is not necessarily going to happen any time soon - you will need either someone to do it for you who shares your interests of not having a jihadist, militant enemy on your border and will try and make that better, or you will get a jihadist, militant enemy on your border. 

I'll say it another way. Israel needs to have some Palestinians at least willing to listen to it if there is going to be any hope of them ending this threat. It needs either something like the PA or PLO to assist at some point in the future. Doing things like suspending tax payments to the PA AND bombing refugee camps AND bombing ambulances will make it impossible not just for Biden and the US to keep supporting Israel; it'll make it impossible for any group in the area that could represent the Palestinians to make any kind of deal or support Israel. And that is why Israel needs to do this and things will go better for it - because the alternative does not exist. 

[TrueMetis]

25 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I find the argument claiming that this conflict can be solved militarily b/c some terrorists have been killed, if you keep at tit you’ll eventually get them all very problematic. First, no, you won’t b/c they’re not all in Gaza, so unless Israel starts bombing other places like Qatar they won’t be able to eliminate Hamas this way. 
But also, let’s look at the maths here. As of yesterday, just over 9,000 killed in Gaza. Hamas was said to have, at the start, 30,000 militants. We know for a fact that not all 9K killed were terrorists, and that 3K+ were children.  But let’s be super generous and optimistic and say that, of the ~ 6K adults killed, half were terrorists. So now there are only 27K left to kill. So if it takes 27 days to kill 3K terrorists, then this war must go on for months on end to finish them militarily. And of course along with them all the civilians - the children, the elderly etc. 

Yeah, sounds like a great plan! /s

The fact that there is no goddamn way that this operation actually succeeds in the stated goals does seem to be rather conveniently ignored by many.

[Varysblackfyre321]

24 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And my point is that they should, very much, care - because the world appears to care quite a bit. And politically Israel does need the US to be able to back them both in the immediate future (for weapon resupply) and in the longer term future (for help with diplomatic choices, working with other forces in the region, and whatever remains of Gaza). 

I do wonder if the fact this is an election year for Biden has made them even a bit more carblance. Even if it politically hurts him significantly and he’d lose, he’d get replaced by trump who’d not even feighn concern for Palestinians at worst actively encourage more barbarism at worst.