Israel - Hamas War X

[Ran]

That's literally a single building, folks, on a compound of fourteen buildings and unknown amounts of additional tunnels that, so far as I know, have not been investigated.

Here is a useful thread from former head of USAID, Dave Harden, just another voice confirming what everyone knew about Al-Shifa:

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Mudguard]

Maybe there is more evidence that they will release later.  I saw a mention of another building, and maybe that was the alleged command and control center. I'm just confused right now why they would  lead with the first video.

But if there is no HQ in the basement, despite a bunch of people claiming that it was so well known and that the IDF claimed that they had so much evidence of and even produced an animated video of it, it would again call into question the quality of their intelligence.  If this is wrong, how can you believe the intelligence that provides justification for the thousands of targets that they have bombed?

[Mudguard]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's literally a single building, folks, on a compound of fourteen buildings and unknown amounts of additional tunnels that, so far as I know, have not been investigated.

Here is a useful thread from former head of USAID, Dave Harden, just another voice confirming what everyone knew about Al-Shifa:

 

After 15 hours, they show us the MRI building?  Why?  Why not show us the HQ?

Edited November 15, 2023 by Mudguard

[TrueMetis]

Isn't it being a single building the problem? They claimed, complete with shitty CGI render, a massive network of tunnels and rooms, even beyond what we know the IDF created in the 80's. Show us that or don't bother.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

After 15 hours, they show us the MRI buildingg?  Why?  Why not show us the HQ?

As far as I know, they entered a single building and it's taken hours to explore just that one, and they found kit from what seem to have been several Hamas members, kit that as Harden notes should not actually be there in a building that is supposed to have protected status.

Given reports from the IDF that as much as 80% of buildings they've entered in Gaza have had booby-traps, I will imagine it will be a long and slow process.

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Craving Peaches]

If that is what the hospital was being attacked over, I don't think Israel's response was proportionate at all. I'm not even convinced if it is real or not (coming off the back of the obviously fake nurse video and the 'list of terrorist names' being a calendar). For all we know, they could have planted the guns there. 

What is needed is for a third party to verify these claims. I believe the Hospital Management has said they are happy to let the UN take a look? Israel doesn't seem to want that though. Makes one wonder why. If they have good intelligence that the hospital was indeed a key Hamas base, why not let the UN take a look? Could it be that:

• The intelligence was wrong?
• The importance of the hospital was exaggerated?

Edited November 15, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

As far as I know, they entered a single building and it's taken hours to explore just that one, and they found kit from what seem to have been several Hamas members, kit that as Harden notes should not actually be there in a building that is supposed to have protected status.

Given reports from the IDF that as much as 80% of buildings they've entered in Gaza have had booby-traps, I will imagine it will be a long and slow process.

 

That makes zero sense.  Along with the HQ in the basement, they thought that there might be hostages there too.  The first place they would search is the basement and HQ.  They wouldn't spend the first 15 hours searching random buildings that they never suspected of being part of the Hamas HQ, while hostages, weapons, and equipment could potentially be removed from the HQ, if it was actually there.

The hospital is packed with thousands of people.  You really think that it's booby trapped?  Has there been one hospital that has been booby trapped?  

[Ran]

Pretty sure I saw US and Israeli intelligence believe the hostages are actually down in the south, somewhere or other.

ETA: Misrecalled slightly -- it's a report about hostages having been spread among several groups besides Hamas, including a group in the south holding a few hostages.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Fragile Bird]

I don’t think the hospital is still packed with thousands of people. And you’d have fools for a military if you didn’t check every room on every floor of each building before moving on to the next one. Fourteen buildings will likely take a couple of days.

[TrueMetis]

In other news, Israel apparently has a special unit to retrieve sperm from its dead soldiers.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/health-ministry-cuts-red-tape-for-sperm-retrieval-from-sons-killed-in-war/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/sperm-from-39-men-killed-in-war-has-been-extracted-for-future-fertilization-knesset-committee-says/

This is fucking weird right? Like if you're going to do this for whatever reason, definitely don't talk about it and let people point out how this makes you like the Imperium from Warhammer 40K.

[Ran]

The US has been doing this at least as of 2008.

It's worth pointing out that because of the nature of conscription, the vast majority of the IDF soldiers killed in action are very young. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Kalbear]

46 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's literally a single building, folks, on a compound of fourteen buildings and unknown amounts of additional tunnels that, so far as I know, have not been investigated.

 

I think you missed my point. 

Let's say what we've already seen in the children's hospital constitutes what Israel characterizes as 'an armory'. Israel has publicly said that some of their air strikes were against armories, and that justification was used to characterize those targets as legal military goals. 

If that is what an armory is, does that justify use of bombs as we have seen and the civilian casualties we have seen?

[Craving Peaches]

UN Security Council Resolution calling for extended humanitarian pauses has passed.

[Ran]

Also calls for hostages to be immediately released. Hopefully Hamas will show they respect the council!

(UN website absolutely sucks for showing people the text of resolutions. Why aren't their own news  pages linking it?)

Also,  I saw this floating around, that Iran's leadership has explicitly told Hamas they're not jumping into the fight. I don't think Hezbollah is going to push much more than they have.

  

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

If that is what an armory is, does that justify use of bombs as we have seen and the civilian casualties we have seen?

We've gone over what an "armory" is, but all those bombs weren't dropped to get Al-Shifa -- they were part of a the wider goal of dismantling of Hamas and their operational capability, such that Gaza's future will no longer be one beholden to Hamas,.

They've been destroying tunnel networks, killing Hamas fighters, seizing Hamas munitions, etc -- exactly what you'd expect as part of that strategy. They'll continue doing this for awhile.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Craving Peaches]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

Hopefully Hamas will show they respect the council!

I doubt it, given they are a terrorist group. I am not optimistic that Israel will comply either, based on the previous UNSC resolutions they have violated.

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I doubt it, given they are a terrorist group. I am not optimistic that Israel will comply either, based on the previous UNSC resolutions they have violated.

Finally finding an image of the text, I think Israel will argue that they are already been providing "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip", if not exactly to the duration the UN wants, and they'll suggest maybe Hamas should ante up some significant portion of the hostages as an interim step.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ran

[Craving Peaches]

Well, the Israeli ambassador to the UN has said the Resolution has 'no meaning' and is 'disconnected from reality' so...

[Zorral]

Sure am not seeing happy reporting in the msm about pauses, the successes of the humanitarian corridors and rescued babies, which makes one wonder as nobody can claim the msm is anti-Israel.  Well, yes, plenty of the usual suspects can and do, but you know what I mean.

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, Ran said:

We've gone over what an "armory" is, but all those bombs weren't dropped to get Al-Shifa -- they were part of a the wider goal of dismantling of Hamas and their operational capability, such that Gaza's future will no longer be one beholden to Hamas,.

They've been destroying tunnel networks, killing Hamas fighters, seizing Hamas munitions, etc -- exactly what you'd expect as part of that strategy. They'll continue doing this for awhile.

The 'armory' wasn't found in Al-Shifa either. I'm not talking about Al-Shifa. I'm talking about the children's hospital. 

I don't know how one seizes a Hamas munition with a bomb, either. To be really clear, again: Israel has said that they have been doing air strikes to destroy Hamas armories and weapons caches. I don't want to talk about the other things like killing Hamas fighters or destroying tunnel networks - just that one characterization of using bombings to destroy Hamas weapons caches and armories. 

We now have evidence of what Israel calls an 'armory' - 4 guns and maybe some explosives.

Do you believe that that is reasonable justification for the use of bombs in a civilian area for any number potential civilian deaths? Do you believe that this would be a legal justification? 

[Ran]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We now have evidence of what Israel calls an 'armory' - 4 guns and maybe some explosives.

Did you wake up today deciding that a game of semantics was somehow going to be persuasive? Just because they call one thing an armory hardly means that all the things they call armories are minor. I'm sure they call buildings stuffed full with arms and munitions armories as well.

Without knowing the details behind each and every strike decision and the underlying intelligence, I've no idea whether they decided bombs were reasonable to take out a minor armory or if they were reserved for more substantial targets.

That said, there has been plenty of footage of secondary explosions following a bombing to show that at least some number of their strikes did indeed hit larger stockpiles of armaments, but not all their strikes have been aimed at larger stockpiles of armaments and munitions, so the lack of secondary explosions is not itself evidence of.... well, anything.