Israel - Hamas war VIII

[Zorral]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Clearly you should talk about the historical origins of the conflict, duh

 

No I am talking about what is going on for the last decade at least and right this minute.  I don't have to go back to 1947-8 or even the Caananites or even Ur and Sumer.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

No I am talking about what is going on for the last decade at least and right this minute.  I don't have to go back to 1947-8 or even the Caananites or even Ur and Sumer.

Why would the last decade matter to stopping the bombs right now? Or, to somewhat paraphrase Ran, why should what happened a decade ago mean that you should just refuse to have a state now? This gets into a lot of the Trump-backed plan that Netanyahu agreed to, but at this point Palestinians don't have a lot of options and their choices aren't getting much better. Is it better to keep holding out while Israel slowly squeezes the West Bank and pushes Palestinians out to mostly numb acknowledgement by the international community? Never mind if it is fair or just - should they actually take some statehood instead?

I know it's a real bitter pill to swallow - accepting the unfairness of the situation and the unjustness that has happened - but that still may be better than the alternatives ahead. 

That said, I don't think that Israel is going to offer that any time soon anyway, so it probably doesn't matter. 

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

why should what happened a decade ago mean that you should just refuse to have a state now

Get it through your heads that I said NOTHING about a state.  I am talking about the atrocities.  Which can be stopped by Israel any old time, fer pete's sake.  What's so difficult about that you can't understand that?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Zorral said:

Get it through your heads that I said NOTHING about a state.  I am talking about the atrocities.  Which can be stopped by Israel any old time, fer pete's sake.  What's so difficult about that you can't understand that?

But Ran did, and you responded to it. So...that was part of the conversation. Why quote him if you don't care? 

[Craving Peaches]

I still haven't seen any evidence provided by Israel that the Red Cross and UN approved ambulance convoy transporting wounded to the Raffah crossing had Hamas fighters in it. Has anyone else seen anything?

[Zorral]

Just now, Kalbear said:

But Ran did, and you responded to it. So...that was part of the conversation. Why quote him if you don't care? 

I was rebutting silly rabbit with what I just said though I used different words.  The rebuttal to him was that the West Bank doesn't matter, and I responded that the Palestinians being tortured and killed and pushed out of the homes on the West Bank RIGHT THIS FUCKING MINUTE disagree.

And in the meantime Israel allows no journalists into Gaza, including Israeli ones, so nobody can report on what it is doing.  There is no other war like that right now or hardly even in the pasts, as journalists right now on public radio are discussing.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Craving Peaches said:

I still haven't seen any evidence provided by Israel that the Red Cross and UN approved ambulance convoy transporting wounded to the Raffah crossing had Hamas fighters in it. Has anyone else seen anything?

Nope. Then again I wasn't expecting to see any. 

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Has anyone else seen anything?

One of the reasons doubtless Israel won't allow journalists into Gaza.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Zorral

[Craving Peaches]

Question for anyone well-versed in the subject:

If Israel says they have proof that Hamas was using the ambulances but continues to not provide any, is it possible for anyone to rule whether it is a war crime or not, or will the question be left unresolved indefinitely?

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I was rebutting silly rabbit with what I just said though I used different words.  The rebuttal to him was that the West Bank doesn't matter, and I responded that the Palestinians being tortured and killed and pushed out of the homes on the West Bank RIGHT THIS FUCKING MINUTE disagree.

So...your rebuttal to him saying that one way that Palestinians could deal with these sort of thing is having their own country and forgetting some of these bad things is that...the things are happening?

Again, don't get the logic here. If you're against Israel committing atrocities against a population they occupy and control, one real easy solution would be to not have Israel occupy and control that population. 

 

[Craving Peaches]

I am very concerned by the reports that al-Shifa hospital is running out of power and could be targeted next. There are thousands of wounded and displaced people in there, as well as premature babies. The solar panels were attacked and destroyed, but Israel denies doing this. 

However, it is hard to see who else would. Hamas, if they have a base under there as Israel says, wouldn't do it as the panels would be powering the base, no? So surely either Israel did it or there is no base under the hospital?

Edited November 6, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Mudguard]

Regarding the accuracy of the death and injured numbers, the numbers that are reported by the Ministry of Health, which yes is controlled by Hamas, is the best that we have.  There have been numerous opportunities to corroborate or disprove death tolls of many highly publicized strikes that have been well covered by the media.  To the best of my knowledge, no media organization or NGO that has people in Gaza has found any evidence of systematically inflated numbers.  It has been an ongoing issue of interest since the beginning of the bombardment, so if no credible evidence has been found yet of systematically inflated numbers, then it's reasonable to assume the number are accurate.  

The repeated assertions that the numbers have to be inflated without providing any evidence reminds me of Trump's baseless claims of massive voter fraud, which he continues to make without any evidence.  If people can find some credible evidence that the death numbers are systematically inflated, then sure, let's talk about it.  But absent such evidence, it's a waste of time to keep bringing it up.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

If Israel says they have proof that Hamas was using the ambulances but continues to not provide any, is it possible for anyone to rule whether it is a war crime or not, or will the question be left unresolved indefinitely?

Probably indefinitely, unless someone in Gaza manages to corroborate from sources in the know, or other agencies who have been read into the intel Israel had comment on it.

5 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

To the best of my knowledge, no media organization or NGO that has people in Gaza has found any evidence of systematically inflated numbers.

None of the intelligence agencies that have looked at the Al-Ahli explosion believed the official figure from the Ministry of Health of 471 deaths, so I feel like looking closely at that day and the deaths they list there may be the place to find evidence of inflation. It's entirely possible that they batched together deaths from the prior day or two and decided to list them all as happening that day to give cover to that figure after the fact, which they've never renounced, as far as I know.

To me, the main issue is that there's really no independent press or NGO that is actually able to verify the numbers that were given. Yes, the ministry's numbers have been reasonably accurate in the past, but also the past conflicts were less all-encompassing, for the most part, and agencies had more access thereby to verify. This is a very different conflict and there are obvious incentives for why they might inflate numbers now in a way they haven't in the past.

I'm sure we'll have more clarity in the future on it. Thousands have still died, regardless of inflation, although it's unclear how many militants have died vs. civilians (remember, as far as the Ministry of Health is concerned, all people killed in Gaza are civilians, including "children" of 17-18 who are militant fighters killed in combat operations.)

[Mudguard]

20 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Question for anyone well-versed in the subject:

If Israel says they have proof that Hamas was using the ambulances but continues to not provide any, is it possible for anyone to rule whether it is a war crime or not, or will the question be left unresolved indefinitely?

Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC over it's citizens, so even if the ICC found a war crime was committed in this instance or in other instances, they would be unable to do anything about it.  The only check is the court system in Israel itself.

[Craving Peaches]

2 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC over it's citizens, so even if the ICC found a war crime was committed in this instance or in other instances, they would be unable to do anything about it.  The only check is the court system in Israel itself.

I know they wouldn't be able to do anything, but it would mean people couldn't deny that it was a war crime, wouldn't it?

[Mudguard]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Probably indefinitely, unless someone in Gaza manages to corroborate from sources in the know, or other agencies who have been read into the intel Israel had comment on it.

None of the intelligence agencies that have looked at the Al-Ahli explosion believed the official figure from the Ministry of Health of 471 deaths, so I feel like looking closely at that day and the deaths they list there may be the place to find evidence of inflation. It's entirely possible that they batched together deaths from the prior day or two and decided to list them all as happening that day to give cover to that figure after the fact, which they've never renounced, as far as I know.

To me, the main issue is that there's really no independent press or NGO that is actually able to verify the numbers that were given. Yes, the ministry's numbers have been reasonably accurate in the past, but also the past conflicts were less all-encompassing, for the most part, and agencies had more access thereby to verify. This is a very different conflict and there are obvious incentives for why they might inflate numbers now in a way they haven't in the past.

I'm sure we'll have more clarity in the future on it. Thousands have still died, regardless of inflation, although it's unclear how many militants have died vs. civilians (remember, as far as the Ministry of Health is concerned, all people killed in Gaza are civilians, including "children" of 17-18 who are militant fighters killed in combat operations.)

Again, I see a lot of allegations of inflation, but zero actual evidence.

I do believe that's is reasonable to assume that the death toll includes Hamas fighters.  But the numbers of women and children are the bulk of the people killed.

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

I know they wouldn't be able to do anything, but it would mean people couldn't deny that it was a war crime, wouldn't it?

They could just disagree with the ICC's findings, assuming the ICC actually went forward with an official case.  Israel is clearly not going to provide evidence to a court it doesn't recognize as having jurisdiction, so they could argue that any such finding by the ICC is based on incomplete information.

[Mudguard]

I don't know if a Palestinian who suffered an injury from an alleged war crime would have standing in Israel to bring a lawsuit asserting that Israel committed a war crime against him and others.  No idea if such a cause of action exists.  But if it did, it would force Israel to provide evidence to justify the attack.  My gut feeling is that they couldn't bring such a suit, otherwise the military would be forever tied up in litigation.

But maybe this type of thing can only be brought up internally in the military court system, assuming that such a court system exists.  In this case, I doubt any of these cases would proceed to trial under the current climate in Israel.  But really, I have no idea how such matters are brought up in Israel.

Maybe there is someone on the board that is familiar with the Israeli legal system.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

Again, I see a lot of allegations of inflation, but zero actual evidence.

Alas, the agencies have the evidence that they assessed from.

That said, just figuring out how many people were all at the site of the explosion is difficult. The parking lot itself did not contain any people, that's clear enough (footage of the fire illuminates that there wasn't anything but cars there),  that's very clear, so all the casualties were allegedly on the two adjacent grassy areas (one about 20x20m, the other about 15x20m, with some trees and hedges taking up space) in size. But there's one video from one of those sites as someone runs out of an adjacent building very shortly after the explosion, and it's terrible the number of dead children and people... but it's very clear people weren't all packed together, there are knots of people here and there, presumably family groups, suggesting that the people sheltering there simply weren't packed like sardines. 

I liked the idea that they suggested there were 500 people dead and injured, but again, they say the official number is 471, so... who knows.

 

 

[Mudguard]

12 minutes ago, Ran said:

Alas, the agencies have the evidence that they assessed from.

That said, just figuring out how many people were all at the site of the explosion is difficult. The parking lot itself did not contain any people, that's clear enough (footage of the fire illuminates that there wasn't anything but cars there),  that's very clear, so all the casualties were allegedly on the two adjacent grassy areas (one about 20x20m, the other about 15x20m, with some trees and hedges taking up space) in size. But there's one video from one of those sites as someone runs out of an adjacent building very shortly after the explosion, and it's terrible the number of dead children and people... but it's very clear people weren't all packed together, there are knots of people here and there, presumably family groups, suggesting that the people sheltering there simply weren't packed like sardines. 

I liked the idea that they suggested there were 500 people dead and injured, but again, they say the official number is 471, so... who knows.

 

 

This type of hindsight reconstruction is essentially bullshit.  Some so called experts used this reasoning to claim a dozen or so people could have died.  Others claimed it could be up to 300.  How precise can this type of analysis be?  Hint - not precise at all. 

Last thing I read from the US was that they believe the rocket warhead is what caused the blast damage.  Is it possible that people in the parking lot where blown away from the parking lot as a result of the blast?  Also, are you certain of the time after the blast the footage was taken?  Could some people have been moved by the time the footage was taken?  Does the video where the guy runs out the hospital capture both the blast audio and then him running outside in a continuous video so that you can tell how long it took him to run out?  In that time, could people who could still move have moved the fuck away from the explosion site?  There are way too many assumptions you need to make, based on very incomplete information, to say with certainty that 471 people could not have been killed in that blast.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Mudguard