Israel Hamas War XI -- Foggier and Foggier

[Relic]

4 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

 They would *never*

 

I know you are parched, self righteous nationalism is thirsty work, but De Nile is a bit further West, sir. 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

Can someone explain to me what will happened to the hundreds of thousands displaced Palestinians who have fled to South Gaza when Israeli ground forces push towards Khan Younis? I'm unclear what the plan here is. 

There is a designated safe area just to the southwest, which as far as I know has seen no airstrikes or other military activity to speak of. It's an agricultural area, apparently, and I think it's where some field hospitals and aid distribution is being set up. It's marked on the maps on the leaflets the IDF drops. IF you want to look it up, it's the open area south of Al-Aqsa University and Nasr hospital.

I do think they need to figure out how to expand it, though,  or add an additional safe area within Gaza, or otherwise make more room for displaced peoples during the military operation. 

[Relic]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

There is a designated safe area just to the southwest, which as far as I know has seen no airstrikes or other military activity to speak of. It's an agricultural area, apparently, and I think it's where some field hospitals and aid distribution is being set up. It's marked on the maps on the leaflets the IDF drops. IF you want to look it up, it's the open area south of Al-Aqsa University and Nasr hospital.

I do think they need to figure out how to expand it, though,  or add an additional safe area within Gaza, or otherwise make more room for displaced peoples during the military operation. 

Thanks. And do we know how the Israeli army plans on telling Hamas from civilian once the refugees take shelter in this supposed safe zone? 

[kissdbyfire]

3 minutes ago, Relic said:

Can someone explain to me what will happened to the hundreds of thousands displaced Palestinians who have fled to South Gaza when Israeli ground forces push towards Khan Younis? I'm unclear what the plan here is. 

I can't. Several Israeli officials keep talking about tents in the Sinai Desert, but I hope other countries who are in a position to apply pressure on Israel will do so and not allow for that to happen. But what then, right? No idea, there doesn't seem to br any good options available. 

On "useful idiots", Netanyahu & co have plenty of those on their side, too. One example, just look at most social media platforms and you'll find tons of them.

[Kalbear]

32 minutes ago, Ran said:

Admitted, but that's not the measure of a war crime, so having someone tell me there's loads of evidence of war crimes just tells me they don't actually understand what these words mean. They are not helped by many experts being quick to shout war crimes while acknowledging that they don't have evidence. I'll note even Rippounet's article which alleges some 16-year-old alleged doctrine is at play without really having any evidence beyond supposition, has quoted experts saying just that: "the very high number of deaths in Gaza alone does not prove that Israel violated the laws of war, but it raises suspicion and places the responsibility on the military to explain and justify its actions."

Yeah, once again I'm not really caring about whether or not something is a war crime. It really doesn't matter on any level, especially since there is zero probability of this ever being prosecuted or any Israeli being found guilty of a war crime, or countries like the US changing their general policy toward Israel. It does raise suspicions and should put the responsibility on the military to be more open, but they won't. And I don't see there being any particular push from Israelis to change their government's policy on this, either. 

I still focus on it being a remarkably short-sighted policy that has shown itself again and again to not work at all. Terrorizing the other side (as @Rippounet's article indicates and other eyewitness and reporting has shown to be a major policy of Israel towards Palestinians) has not achieved their goals of keeping the peace. Containment has been shown to be absolutely not successful. It also is horrific, brutal, and vile - even if it is not a war crime. 

32 minutes ago, Ran said:

As to the residential blocks, I've already pointed out how Israel's military manual on the laws of armed combat treat civilian infrastructure that is dual-use differently than most other militaries (except Denmark, for some reason; I bring that up because the Danes are our neighbors, but also they are members of NATO, so it's interesting that that distinction is shared with Israel). It's also an after-effect of the paradox of precision, and Israel's efforts to warn people, giving the enemy a chance to move from a site. This means when you have new intelligence that some survived or moved caches elsewhere, you repeat the process.

Except they don't. At least not consistently. It is also increasingly hard to use this as a legitimate excuse when Israel is also responsible for destroying any and all infrastructure responsible for communication, and it is ridiculous to say that telling people to leave their homes is a viable deterrent when 1.7 million Palestinians are not at their homes any more. 

Again, Israel has chosen to emphasize collateral damage to favor military ease, assuming that they're even correct at their word. They are almost certainly going to be dealing with an insurgent population for a decade at this rate - a population with a large amount of the world sympathetic to their causes and willing to arm them. This is a very stupid decision. 

[Zorral]

Killed for no reason, dead is dead, whether or not some people are deeply concerned that not all the criteria of 'war crime' have actually, literally, been fulfilled.

How about crime against humanity?

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Relic said:

Thanks. And do we know how the Israeli army plans on telling Hamas from civilian once the refugees take shelter in this supposed safe zone? 

They have been setting up checkpoints on the safe routes with, apparently, facial recognition cameras. I guess they've a list of known militants and are looking for them, and are also recording people so that if they catch militants afterwards they can perhaps associate them with who they were traveling with when they crossed the check points and so on. I think the security organization Shin Bet is involved in a lot of this.

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Except they don't. At least not consistently.

So they do, just not always. I think that's a more correct statement than "they don't."

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

when Israel is also responsible for destroying any and all infrastructure responsible for communication

At the point of ground operations, I don't know what means they use to communicate, but we have seen people being told to clear out hospitals even in the last days before the IDF moved in, and we've seen leaflets asking people to leave to other areas for their safety. That's a more general rather than targeted approach, but that's always been the case in this conflict that they've sent out general warnings.

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Again, Israel has chosen to emphasize collateral damage to favor military ease, assuming that they're even correct at their word.

Military advantage is the language of the laws of war, IIRC.

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This is a very stupid decision. 

More people going to die, then. Hamas is not getting out of this one in control of Gaza.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

How about crime against humanity?

What do the Rothschilds and the other well-heeled supporters of Israel have to tell us about crimes against humanity, Zorral? 

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

So they do, just not always. I think that's a more correct statement than "they don't."

At the point of ground operations, I don't know what means they use to communicate, but we have seen people being told to clear out hospitals even in the last days before the IDF moved in, and we've seen leaflets asking people to leave to other areas for their safety. That's a more general rather than targeted approach, but that's always been the case in this conflict that they've sent out general warnings.

K. Weren't you the one that chided me on semantics? Israel has largely given up on specific warnings in any case. Plus, as we've seen, the warnings have been to relocate to other areas that are also being targeted for bombings. 

In any case sending out general warnings is not particularly unique to Israel or even modern warfare. I guess it's a sign that Israel is not even worse than they could be, but it is not particularly noteworthy or indicative that Israel cares more about human life than other armies. 

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

Military advantage is the language of the laws of war, IIRC. 

Sure. Again, not interested in saying whether or not it is legal - though I will point out that there is a lot of language about the laws of proportionality that indicate that, say, bombing an armory that contains 4 rifles is not a legitimate use of force if you will kill civilians there. Israel absolutely has the legal basis to bomb the shit out of enemies and is not required to do alternate means of capturing things if they don't want to. They could in theory even drop a nuke, like one of their government officials suggested. That would potentially be legal. 

It is also a very stupid thing to do when there are other avenues that are not as damaging to the civilian population and not as damaging to the infrastructure.  

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

More people going to die, then. Hamas is not getting out of this one in control of Gaza.

Why do you do this? Israel does not need to do the exact things they're doing in order to beat Hamas. They do not need to kill more civilians in a month than the entire Afghanistan war did in 4 years. They do not need to beat Hamas as soon as possible, especially at the expense of civilian life. 

You keep framing this as the only thing that they can do - but we have examples, real world examples from other modern militaries that this is not remotely true. Hamas represents basically no immediate danger to Israelis after the first couple of days. The rockets have caused zero deaths since October 7th. There is no need to bomb these locations, especially ones with many civilians. Hell, we have an example of this in this war. Israel didn't bomb Al-Shifa basically at all. They took it with tanks and infantry, and did so with no real reported casualties. And this was supposedly a major base of operations! Are you telling me they can't do that in all the other places, too? 

No, they could. It would just take more time and possibly cost a bit more. Hamas would still not be in control of Gaza, but a whole lot more people would be alive. 

[Craving Peaches]

48 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

 They would *never*

Sure, they could, but making up seven thousand fake identities takes considerably more effort than just claiming more people died. Each fake person needs a unique identification number, which not only is distinct from all the other fake identification numbers, but the identification numbers of all the real people, whether alive or dead. I don't think it is probable the doctors had time to make this all up, nor the Hamas fighters, so who exactly do you think fabricated seven thousand fake identities? Hamas PR in Qatar? 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[TrueMetis]

You know I hate modern media, I've been trying to find specifics on what exactly was claimed RE: whether doctors had denied Hamas brought in patients but not only am I having trouble finding older reports among the swathes of new ones about the CCTV footage, but none of the new ones I've seen have bothered to really give context to the situation like if doctors had previously denied any hostages had been in the hospital. Like the closest I've found is this: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/middleeast/israel-al-shifa-gaza-what-we-know-intl/index.html which says Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry, and hospital officials have denied the hospital is being used by Hamas and only patients are being treated, which could include the hostages it doesn't really say.

There's also this one: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-11-19-23/h_57a8417c26b58dc33df8879feaeb0f6e which says Hamas said Saturday that it brought hostages to be treated, which of course could just be preempting the release of the footage to disrupt the narrative.

Edited November 21, 2023 by TrueMetis
fixed a link

[Mudguard]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Oh, someone found part of the 2007 PBS documentary showing fighters all over the place and how they treated Shifa and its doctors:

Would love to see the full thing but doesn't seem to be up anywhere. Note that this was filmed in 2006, around the time that Hamas and Fatah were in a very tense situation following the elections that split power between them.

I posted earlier about watching that exact same PBS documentary trailer when I was digging for information about the alleged HQ at Al-Shifa.  It's clear that Al-Shifa and other hospitals have in the past and almost certainly are currently treating Hamas fighters, at least before they were shut down.  Also, it's not surprising to me that hostages were brought to the hospitals, such as Al-Shifa and the other hospital with the calendar.  But again, this isn't conclusive proof that an HQ is there.  

I personally haven't read any statements claiming that the doctors do not treat Hamas terrorists or do not treat hostages.  But it's possible someone made that claim and is being truthful for themselves based on their personal knowledge.  There are hundreds of doctors working at the hospital, and unless you witnessed the hostage or terrorist being brought in or were directly involved with their treatment, you might not ever know they were there.

The IDF can continue to post scraps of circumstantial evidence all they want, and it does make sense to do so because it probably buys them some more time, but ultimately, they are going to have to show us the actual HQ.  They've been searching for about a week, and so far nothing.  How much longer is this going to take?

The decades old rumor that the HQ was under Al-Shifa was based on exactly what was explained on CNN by Ehud Barak.  I came across the exact same explanation from articles written years ago when I was digging around online.  In short, Israel helped Al-Shifa expand their floorspace decades ago, which was intended to increase their capacity to provide medical services, by building downwards.  The Israeli's designed and helped construct an underground basement structure.  This basement structure was allegedly taken over by Hamas and converted into their HQ.

Well, the IDF would have been able to search these structures within the first couple days.  The location and architectural plans were known to them, so they knew exactly where they were.  Obviously, this basement structure didn't have any evidence of an HQ, otherwise we would have been shown it.  It's possible that Hamas built something underneath the basement structure built by the Israelis, but even it this is the case, I doubt it can be as extensive as claimed.  A large multilevel tunnel structure, as shown in the IDF animation, dug out beneath a building would be a major collapse hazard without extensive supports being somehow installed, and I think that is beyond their tunnel building capabilities.

Most of the denials from doctors that I've seen have been denials that an HQ exists under Al-Shifa, that they have never seen any evidence of such a thing.  Well, given the fact that the IDF can't find anything despite extensively searching for a week, I think the doctors are being truthful about that.  If the HQ is there, it is extremely well hidden and it's unlikely that anyone who wasn't supposed to know would know.

 

[Zorral]

It's so crazy, listening to the Israeli guy, a former Israeli Prime Minister, being interviewed right now on All Things Considered, say that the Hamas headquarters are in the south, and the utter word salad with which he responds to the utterly reasonable question then, of, "Why are you bombing northern Gaza then?"

[TrueMetis]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It's so crazy, listening to the Israeli guy, a former Israeli Prime Minister, being interviewed right now on All Things Considered, say that the Hamas headquarters are in the south, and the utter word salad with which he responds to the utterly reasonable question then, of, "Why are you bombing northern Gaza then?"

Man those headquarters sure do move around a lot, but are rather conveniently in a place the IDF wants to attack until they're suddenly somewhere else.

[Rippounet]

52 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Again, Israel has chosen to emphasize collateral damage to favor military ease, assuming that they're even correct at their word. They are almost certainly going to be dealing with an insurgent population for a decade at this rate - a population with a large amount of the world sympathetic to their causes and willing to arm them. This is a very stupid decision. 

We now know (not beyond a reasonable doubt, but with a high degree of certainty), that these words could have been written years ago.
To my eyes, that's what knowledge of the Dahiya doctrine changes: the fact that what has happened this year is both the consequence and the continuation of the policies of the past. It also tells us it would be naive to expect anything much different in the near-future, despite the direction taken being so obviously disastrous for everyone involved.
I'm not certain that removing Netanyahu (still a hypothetical at this point) would be enough to reverse course.

On a different note: it's kind of crazy that even when policies are shown to be disastrous, the evidence that they are in fact disastrous will be used to defend or argue for more of the same. It's a pattern we see far beyond this conflict, and it's a trend that is terrifying.

[Mudguard]

13 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It's so crazy, listening to the Israeli guy, a former Israeli Prime Minister, being interviewed right now on All Things Considered, say that the Hamas headquarters are in the south, and the utter word salad with which he responds to the utterly reasonable question then, of, "Why are you bombing northern Gaza then?"

That is a really interesting shift.  I had not heard of this claim before.  Thanks for sharing.  Did some digging, and found this article:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/17/israeli-ex-pm-claims-hamas-command-centre-is-in-the-south-of-gaza-not-al-shifa-hospital

Quote

Olmert also claimed Hamas' underground command centre was based in Khan Yunis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip. 

For the past week, Israeli troops have been raiding the al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex and central hospital north of the strip, with intel, they say, that the command centre is there. 

The military said late on Thursday it had uncovered a Hamas "tunnel shaft" and a vehicle with weapons there.

But according to Olmert, "we haven't yet even come to the heart of this operation". 

"Khan Younis, which is in the southern part of Gaza Strip, is the real headquarters of Hamas. 

Also interesting is that this claim was made after a couple days of searching at Al-Shifa.  I think it's likely that he and others have concluded that the likelihood that they are going to find the HQ at Al-Shifa is now low.  They have also floated the idea that Hamas evacuated and moved the HQ in advance of their arrival at Al-Shifa, in order to explain why they can't find anything.

And after they bomb the shit out of Khan Younis, how long before the HQ moves further south to Rafah?

[TrueMetis]

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/11/20/an-open-letter-on-the-misuse-of-holocaust-memory/

Quote

There is no military solution in Israel-Palestine, and deploying a Holocaust narrative in which an “evil” must be vanquished by force will only perpetuate an oppressive state of affairs that has already lasted far too long.

I've mentioned before I don't think this use of military force can possibly defeat Hamas, but the thing is, it doesn't matter. Since even if by some miracle Hamas is defeated, the conditions that allowed for Hamas to have come to exist will still be there, and another group will simply take their place.

[kissdbyfire]

30 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

On a different note: it's kind of crazy that even when policies are shown to be disastrous, the evidence that they are in fact disastrous will be used to defend or argue for more of the same. It's a pattern we see far beyond this conflict, and it's a trend that is terrifying.

I think it's worse than that. It's like the argument is, it didn't work in '08 or 14 because it wasn't executed thoroughly enough, so let's double down and triple down and quadruple down, and then it will definitely work. 

[Zorral]

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I think it's worse than that. It's like the argument is, it didn't work in '08 or 14 because it wasn't executed thoroughly enough, so let's double down and triple down and quadruple down, and then it will definitely work. 

That's what the fascists are doing here; see Abortion, as a single example among many.  The problem is not that people dislike and disagree with our determination of forced birth, it's that we're not forcible enough!

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

Sure, they could, but making up seven thousand fake identities takes considerably more effort than just claiming more people died. Each fake person needs a unique identification number, which not only is distinct from all the other fake identification numbers, but the identification numbers of all the real people, whether alive or dead. I don't think it is probable the doctors had time to make this all up, nor the Hamas fighters, so who exactly do you think fabricated seven thousand fake identities? Hamas PR in Qatar? 

Not saying they're making up every death, but creating a ton of false identities is pretty easy. Just for example, Madden (the most popular NFL game) 20 years ago could generate thousands of fake people with more details than we're seeing here to simulate a fantasy draft.