Israel - Hamas war XIII

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

The gunning down of three hostages by the IDF is the most recent example that the hostages more important for propaganda purposes then being any actually priority

Absolutely bonkers. The situation was fucked up, and the soldiers on the ground failed to uphold the rules of engagement even after a direct order. It was a failure of discipline during a completely unpredictable event, not a sign of what you claim.

IDF soldiers have died trying to rescue hostages, and even just in trying to recover the bodies of hostages that were executed by militants. 

[Crixus]

58 minutes ago, Zorral said:

War crimes, babee, war crimes.

During the first six weeks of the war in Gaza, Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html

 

You can keep posting such damning stuff from very trusted, credible sources but some on here will carry on with their blanket defence of Israel no matter fucking what, and keep bleating about how the IDF is the most moral, bestest army ever. 
 

As for the death toll numbers, the fucking US State Department thinks they’re quite accurate (along with many other respected organisations) yet some on here think they are experts or have access to some deeply reliable special secret information and thus keep banging on about ‘but Hamas numbers blah’. to which others have asked, what would be an acceptable death toll?? By how much does the number need to drop to make this ok? But no one seems able to answer, strangely enough. 

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic and infuriating. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Crixus

[kissdbyfire]

12 minutes ago, Crixus said:

the fucking US State Department

And their diplomats... I'm sick and tired of hearing that the US is engaging in bear-hug diplomacy when, in reality, it feels like bad faith diplomacy. Same bollocks w/ the current resolution... it's like Trump's legal strategies: delay delay delay. The excuse is the same as ever, we need to word it just right. Then all sides waste days on end to satisfy the world's top dog, who then proceeds to veto whatever they had been working on. Shameful, hypocritical, disgusting. 

But hey, business is booming so it's a win-win according to Blinken.

"One other footnote on this, and this is more for the American audience.  If you look at the investments that we’ve made in Ukraine’s defense to deal with this aggression, 90 percent of the security assistance we’ve provided has actually been spent here in the United States with our manufacturers, with our production, and that's  produced more American jobs, more growth in our own economy.  So this has also been a win-win that we need to continue.

 

[Tywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

The small figures in the far right U.S. were being openly enabled by many public figures. It would be foolish, IMHO, to ignore how the right wing Israeli coalition government, which includes far right parties, is likewise enabling this sort of rhetoric and behavior.  

Sure, if that person was in office and/or had a lot of power or influence. But citing someone who was the mayor of a very small town two decades ago who is also a nutjob isn't helpful, especially when you don't include that context. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[TheKitttenGuard]

30 minutes ago, Ran said:

Absolutely bonkers. The situation was fucked up, and the soldiers on the ground failed to uphold the rules of engagement even after a direct order. It was a failure of discipline during a completely unpredictable event, not a sign of what you claim.

IDF soldiers have died trying to rescue hostages, and even just in trying to recover the bodies of hostages that were executed by militants. 

The lack of discipline is indicative of individuals who think Rules of Engagement and Laws of War.do not apply to them and that views is endorsed in many levels of the Israel government. You cannot declare how prior restraints are off than act shock when people act unrestrained. 

The actions of Israel since 10/07 have shown hostages are less a priority then the need to punish the Palestinians.

[Conflicting Thought]

51 minutes ago, Crixus said:

but some on here will carry on with their blanket defence of Israel no matter fucking what,

that is the most dissapointing thing in these parts,  and its like they dont know or care that when another horrible conflict starts or gets the public attention they will have no leg to stand on to say anything.

like know i have a hard time taking them seriously when the talk about the crimes of rusia against ukrain.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Crixus said:

You can keep posting such damning stuff from very trusted, credible sources but some on here will carry on with their blanket defence of Israel no matter fucking what, and keep bleating about how the IDF is the most moral, bestest army ever. 

What's damning about this?

First, the NYT is misstating things when it said that the IDF promised people they would be "safe" anywhere except, later on, in very small and specific zones which I don't believe were indicated in the first weeks of the war. What the IDF said was that the north of Gaza was going to be the focus of operations, and would be where the most intensive bombing and the initial ground operation would take place -- this all happened to be true, and maps of air strikes from the first weeks of the war bear out the fact that the north was by far the greater focus of IAF activity.

The IDF never said that you would be "safe" going south, it said you would be "safer", which also turned out to be true, as statistics looking at deaths in the north vs. south showed.

Finally, the NYT does not discuss -- because it does not know -- anything about the approach the IDF took any of these targets in the southern half of Gaza, such as whether they did any of their "roof knocking", leaflet drops, phone calls, etc. to warn civilians.

This is "damning" for those who've already made up their minds that they know why the IDF does things. 

2 hours ago, Crixus said:

keep bleating about how the IDF is the most moral, bestest army ever. 

The only people who "bleat" this are you guys trying to be sarcastic -- seriously, every single usage of the "most moral army" line on this forum  comes from those opposed to the war.

I've no such illusions -- it's a nice PR line, and the IDF definitely does some extraordinary things to try and protect civilians, but it's just a PR line. An army is an army. Some are better, some are worse.

2 hours ago, Crixus said:

By how much does the number need to drop to make this ok? But no one seems able to answer, strangely enough. 

 

At some point, it just becomes a statistic. The health ministry claims 20,000, which may be broadly accurate, but they claim 20,000 civilians have died, and that's simply not true, since all militants are civilians in the eyes of the health ministry. The latest estimate of militants killed from the IDF is ~8,000, I saw earlier today, which means a 3:2 ratio of civilians to militants... which is, again, quite good when compared to any comparable scenario. The pace of militant deaths also seems to be increasing, which makes sense as the pace of IDF deaths is also increasing, showing that they're increasingly in close engagement with militants.

It is small comfort for those who have seen innocents killed in this conflict. But it was a conflict that Hamas started, and it's a conflict which the IDF has a right to end.

2 hours ago, Crixus said:

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic and infuriating. 

You could just not participate in this thread or forum if it troubles you so much. I know the feeling of impotence must bother you, but that's because you are in fact impotent in this matter (as are we all), and the sooner you accept that, the better for your mental health.

 

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

Shameful, hypocritical, disgusting. 

Yeah, many of the countries who have it out for Israel would be doing the exact same thing if the shoe were in the other foot. I mean, some literally are doing the same sort of thing, or have done so in their recent history. But the UN has a fairly clear anti-Israel bias.

 

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

that is the most dissapointing thing in these parts,

Is it, really? Despotic terrorist organization slaughters a thousand people and makes human shields of millions more, and the villain are the people who say, "No more." 

 

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

like know i have a hard time taking them seriously when the talk about the crimes of rusia against ukrain.

Yeah, that cuts two ways.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ran

[Zorral]

‘Not seen since Vietnam’: Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, analysis shows

https://www.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html

Quote

 

.... “You’d have to go back to the Vietnam war to make a comparison,” said Garlasco. “Even in both Iraq wars it was never that dense.”

The heavy munitions, mostly manufactured by the US, can cause high casualty events and can have a lethal fragmentation radius – an area of exposure to injury or death around the target – of up to 365 meters (about 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 soccer fields in area.

Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy weaponry, such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. According to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, about 20,000 people have been killed since October 7.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to those figures. ....

 

The US has so much blood on its hands.  And black people are overwhelmingly on the side of the Palestinians here -- and they are the base of Biden voters. So is the youth vote, and the higher percentage of that is on the side of the Palestinians here.  We USians are SO EFFED. From every direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~

US abstains as UN Security Council passes call for pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas to get more aid into Gaza

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/22/politics/un-security-council-resolution-israel-gaza-resolution/index.html

 

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

At some point, it just becomes a statistic. The health ministry claims 20,000, which may be broadly accurate, but they claim 20,000 civilians have died, and that's simply not true, since all militants are civilians in the eyes of the health ministry.

This is not at all true. They make zero claims about civilians vs military at all; they claim, solely, that 20000 Palestinians have died. They repeatedly point out that they make no distinction between military and civilians. 

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

The latest estimate of militants killed from the IDF is ~8,000, I saw earlier today, which means a 3:2 ratio of civilians to militants... which is, again, quite good when compared to any comparable scenario. The pace of militant deaths also seems to be increasing, which makes sense as the pace of IDF deaths is also increasing, showing that they're increasingly in close engagement with militants.

IDF's claims are VERY likely to be wrong. For instance, they claimed two old women in a church were militants that they later sniped. They changed that claim, but that's how their official reports work - any killing they want to consider legitimate they start with marking those deaths as combatants. 

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

Is it, really? Despotic terrorist organization slaughters a thousand people and makes human shields of millions more, and the villain are the people who say, "No more." 

Pretty sure that this is not why they're being called villains. How you call for 'no more' is kind of the sticking point. I don't think a whole lot of people in this thread would be upset with Hamas being removed forever; I do think a whole lot of people would be upset if Israel did so by nuking Gaza. As the old joke goes we're now just haggling over the price. 

The thing that bothers me most is the repeated insistence on accepting anything that happens as long as it is within the legal basis of the laws of war. The idea that something is just if it is legal is something I've long had a problem with. But that's just me though. 

[Clueless Northman]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Sure, if that person was in office and/or had a lot of power or influence. But citing someone who was the mayor of a very small town two decades ago who is also a nutjob isn't helpful, especially when you don't include that context. 

Would you consider someone like Ben-Gvir an irrelevant nutjob whose opinion is of no importance? I mean, that would've been reasonably accurate description of the guy merely 3 years ago.

 

2 hours ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

The lack of discipline is indicative of individuals who think Rules of Engagement and Laws of War.do not apply to them and that views is endorsed in many levels of the Israel government. You cannot declare how prior restraints are off than act shock when people act unrestrained.

Worth repeating that the military leadership (Gallant himself iirc) said right after the 7 Oct. attack that the rules wouldn't apply anymore in Gaza and that the soldiers wouldn't face prosecution, whatever they did there.

That said, I hope the military hierarchy has put the soldiers involved in the hostage shooting on suicide watch.

 

39 minutes ago, Ran said:

The health ministry claims 20,000, which may be broadly accurate, but they claim 20,000 civilians have died, and that's simply not true, since all militants are civilians in the eyes of the health ministry. The latest estimate of militants killed from the IDF is ~8,000, I saw earlier today, which means a 3:2 ratio of civilians to militants... which is, again, quite good when compared to any comparable scenario.

Yeah, many of the countries who have it out for Israel would be doing the exact same thing if the shoe were in the other foot. I mean, some literally are doing the same sort of thing, or have done so in their recent history. But the UN has a fairly clear anti-Israel bias.

Well, since Ukraine has basically claimed at least 11.000 civilian deaths, then it basically means that IDF has killed just as many civilians in 2 months and a half as the Russian troops in 22 months.

As for "anti-Israel bias", if Israel really wants to label Thailand, Guyan and Zambia as antisemite countries/governments - and any country who voted the last UN resolution -, they're free to do it. They just shouldn't hope to be taken seriously anymore except in a handful of Western countries.

 

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The thing that bothers me most is the repeated insistence on accepting anything that happens as long as it is within the legal basis of the laws of war. The idea that something is just if it is legal is something I've long had a problem with. But that's just me though. 

Any law scholar worth his salt knows that we've gone way beyond what is legal and that there are war crimes being committed, and investigations for crimes against humanity would be a given - investigations, not proof or trials, for now. Though it took them more than a year to go after Putin, so this can go quite slowly. The real issue is that, depending on how investigations turn out and the kind of international warrants are eventually delivered, this opens an insanely huge can of worms against some US and European officials, politicians, Congressmen, media people.

[Ran]

24 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Well, since Ukraine has basically claimed at least 11.000 civilian deaths

I believe Ukraine says that least 25,000 civilians were killed in the 2 month siege of Mariupol alone. Late last year, the AP came out with a report suggesting the number could be as much as three times higher. Mariupol's population is about 20% of Gaza's, and there was a partial evacuation to boot. 20,000 dead (per the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry), with as many as 8,000 being enemy combatants (per the IDF), seems suggestive of much greater effort to protect civilians than Russia provided to the people of Mariupol. A low bar, some may say, but that's a bar you wanted to use.

On the whole, given the far greater populace, the much denser urban landscape, and the far more wicked enemy who has entrenched itself to deliberately encourage civilian deaths, the numbers in Gaza seem perfectly in line with the IDF's goal of eliminating Hamas's military capability and control of Gaza, and the type of military power that would have to be brought to bear to make that happen, while observing the laws of armed combat and making efforts to protect civilians as far as is practicable in a combat zone of the enemy's making.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ran

[Tywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Would you consider someone like Ben-Gvir an irrelevant nutjob whose opinion is of no importance? I mean, that would've been reasonably accurate description of the guy merely 3 years ago.

Yes, because he's a current elected official in the Knesset and leader of a party. What he says matters. However, making a big deal about what a council member of a town with a population of under 2,000 or a long retired mayor of a town with a population of 5,000 says is ridiculous and counterproductive. Google these nobodies first before posting.

[Kalbear]

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

I believe Ukraine says that least 25,000 civilians were killed in the 2 month siege of Mariupol alone. Late last year, the AP came out with a report suggesting the number could be as much as three times higher. Mariupol's population is about 20% of Gaza's, and there was a partial evacuation to boot. 20,000 dead (per the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry), with as many as 8,000 being enemy combatants (per the IDF), seems suggestive of much greater effort to protect civilians than Russia provided to the people of Mariupol. A low bar, some may say, but that's a bar you wanted to use.

That doesn't appear to be accurate, or at least it's not the commonly used numbers. The 'official' death toll by the UN is around 11k civilians so far. Same with Ukraine's official numbers. I get that Ukraine has said that up to 20000 might have been killed but that hasn't been verified; if you want to use unverified numbers for Gaza as well, we could be looking at 100k.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

Much like Gaza the actual death toll will likely be significantly higher once a full accounting has taken place, but the numbers @Clueless Northman cited are pretty much on the money. 

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

On the whole, given the far greater populace, the much denser urban landscape, and the far more wicked enemy who has entrenched itself to deliberately encourage civilian deaths, the numbers in Gaza seem perfectly in line with the IDF's goal of eliminating Hamas's military capability and control of Gaza, and the type of military power that would have to be brought to bear to make that happen, while observing the laws of armed combat and making efforts to protect civilians as far as is practicable in a combat zone of the enemy's making.

It also appears to be perfectly in line with Russia's patterns of attacking urban areas - using large scale fragmentation and thermobaric weapons, deliberately targeting schools, hospitals and other shelters, denying civilians food or water, and terrorizing the population afterwards. 

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

if you want to use unverified numbers for Gaza as well, we could be looking at 100k.

I've not seen anyone seriously put forward that 100,000 have died in Gaza, I've only seen that here and without sources. The health ministry claims some 6,000 are missing or otherwise unaccounted for, so if you want to say those are dead, then the unverified number is ~26,000, not 100,000.

The only reason the Mariupol numbers are unverified is that Russia seized Mariupol and isn't allowing verification. I'm not even sure that Ukraine's number for civilian deaths includes Mariupol, because they can't verify them, yet over 10,000 new graves there are uncontestable.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

The IDF never said that you would be "safe" going south, it said you would be "safer", which also turned out to be true, as statistics looking at deaths in the north vs. south showed.

Also this bugged me. This is what the IDF said publicly to news agencies - but it is NOT what they said to the actual Palestinians on their fliers and the QR code. What was said there was (translated from Arabic):

Quote

To the residents of the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis Al-Qarara Governorate, Khuza’a, Bani Suhaila and Abasan
The actions of Hamas and terrorist organizations force the IDF to act against them in your area of residence. The IDF is not interested in harming you or your families.
For your safety, you must evacuate your place of residence immediately and go to known shelters
Anyone who is near terrorists or their facilities puts his life in danger, and every home used by terrorist organizations will be targeted.
Acting according to IDF instructions prevents you - the civilians - from being harmed
the Israeli Defense Army

 

[Ran]

"Known shelters" sounds like language from the later period where they were identifying specific safe zones. There was one today that both indicated where people should evacuate from, and pointed to a safe spot where they could evacuate to.

So far as I know, no one has ever said the IDF has struck at a named safe-zone.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

"Known shelters" sounds like language from the later period where they were identifying specific safe zones. There was one today that both indicated where people should evacuate from, and pointed to a safe spot where they could evacuate to.

So far as I know, no one has ever said the IDF has struck at a named safe-zone.

Yeah, about that

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/21/middleeast/israel-strikes-evacuation-zones-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html

Quote

 

Israel has struck at least three locations in Gaza to which it had ordered civilians to evacuate since the breakdown of a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas earlier this month, CNN analysis has found.

On December 1, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a map of Gaza – divided into 623 numbered blocks – indicating areas the military would imminently strike, and areas to which civilians should flee. It was made accessible online via a QR code printed on leaflets dropped over the strip.

The map, a vestige of the short-lived plan from the 1970s to rebuild Gaza in the early years of Israel’s occupation of the coastal strip, was described by the IDF as “a safe way to preserve your security, your lives, and the lives of your families.”

...

The IDF also claimed that they struck the areas identified in this report after “intelligence indication that these places were safehouses for commanders of the Rafah Brigade of the Hamas terror organization.”

“The IDF continues to operate against Hamas infrastructure and terrorists wherever they are located in the Gaza Strip,” the statement continued.

 

In particular many of their messages indicated on maps to flee to Rafah and marked Rafah as a designated safe zone, which they then proceeded to strike. 

So CNN has said that the IDF has. So did the New York Times. 

[Clueless Northman]

45 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That doesn't appear to be accurate, or at least it's not the commonly used numbers. The 'official' death toll by the UN is around 11k civilians so far. Same with Ukraine's official numbers. I get that Ukraine has said that up to 20000 might have been killed but that hasn't been verified; if you want to use unverified numbers for Gaza as well, we could be looking at 100k.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

That's what I checked right before commenting, indeed, assuming this wouldn't be pro-Russian low-ball numbers. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the final civilian death toll is above 30.000 in Ukraine.

The key difference here, alas for Gazan people, is that Gaza Strip is basically one vast urban area and they have nowhere to go - many people managed to flee Mariupol before it was too late, if only because Ukraine is vast and they had other places to go. With Gaza, we're basically at siege level since the beginning of the Hamas war. To an extent, that should still be taken into account when planning military interventions, specially when the goal is, understandably and for good reason, to destroy Hamas' power: is it even possible without destroying most of the area, and if not, where to stop, at which point the civilian annihilation becomes too high to be justifiable, and at which point does it become genuinely counter-productive? This is such a fucked up situation for both peoples involved, both civilian populations, that I can't think for too long how they must feel and what future awaits them, if I don't want to be depressed.

[Ran]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In particular many of their messages indicated on maps to flee to Rafah and marked Rafah as a designated safe zone, which they then proceeded to strike. 

So CNN has said that the IDF has. So did the New York Times. 

So, first, I can see evidence of one verified strike, the one with the large plume, because that's obviously bomb. The second, just aftermath is reported without any apparent evidence provided that it was a bomb, and the third, just a report of a water tower. Neither of the latter two provide visual evidence as to whether this was a bomb, a militant rocket, an accident, whatever. I'm not saying CNN is acting in bad faith, but as experts say, you want forensic evidence to prove that something was an airstrike or a rocket or what have you, it's not enough to just say, "Something exploded and people died, must be an IAF strike." Perhaps they have more evidence than they've shown.

While the IDF is marking out safe zones, this doesn't mean that they would refrain from striking if someone was using structures there to launch attacks. Not that I know that explains that one strike that is verified, or the other two, but the IDF certainly suggests in its response that the safe zones are safe so long as Hamas treats them as places where they do not launch attacks. 

I'm definitely concerned by how confusing their map system is, with its number blocks. Tried to look at the linked site, and yeah, that's rough. That's something that should be improved.

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

they claimed two old women in a church were militants that they later sniped. They changed that claim,

Including claiming there are no churches in Gaza.  Which now, of course, is true. But nevermind.

 

3 hours ago, Ran said:

the far more wicked enemy

You are saying the sociopaths that Putin's taken out of prison and released now back into population and committing the same crimes back home as they did before -- and then upon Ukrainians -- aren't as wicked as Hamas.