Hamas Military Leader Killed (Here we go again...)

[CaptainCrunch]

Except with all due respect, a ground invasion with house to house fighting would result in far far more civilian casualties then strikes from the air.

And the Israeili's are not randomly targeting houses with no clue who's in them, they are targeting buildings and infrastructure being used by Hamas or being occupied by members of Hamas.

They are not just randomly dropping bombs.

Remember that Israel has also been dropping pamphlets urging Palestinians not to mix with Hamas members since they are being targeted.

If you want someone randomly targeting houses without caring who's inside and not warning them first then look at Hamas and their rocket attacks.

[sureLoss]

Interesting stuff on "Iron Dome"
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/17/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1

Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system is figuring prominently in the unfolding aerial conflict with Hamas' military wing in Gaza.

Iron Dome is being credited with protecting Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities by blocking some of the rockets fired from Gaza.


Over the past three days, 737 rockets from Gaza were fired upon Israel: 492 landed, but 245 were intercepted by the system, Israel Defense Forces said Saturday.

[Ozy_Flame]

With Iranian-made rockets and American support for Israeli military technology being used in the conflict, I can't help but think this is a proxy war both the US and Iran are watching closely.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Except with all due respect, a ground invasion with house to house fighting would result in far far more civilian casualties then strikes from the air.

And the Israeili's are not randomly targeting houses with no clue who's in them, they are targeting buildings and infrastructure being used by Hamas or being occupied by members of Hamas.

They are not just randomly dropping bombs.

Remember that Israel has also been dropping pamphlets urging Palestinians not to mix with Hamas members since they are being targeted.

If you want someone randomly targeting houses without caring who's inside and not warning them first then look at Hamas and their rocket attacks.

I don't like any innocent civilian casualities on either side whether it be in Israel or in Gaza.

Well I mean what exactly does dropping bombs and killing these Hamas terrorists accomplish then? They're just going to keep getting bigger by recruitment if you don't capture them on the ground instead of dropping bombs on the Gaza people and causing more hatred for the other side.

For the record I do not condone what Hamas is doing nor do I like them as a political group or any group for that matter. This is about innocent civilians being killed.

[Flash Walken]

What an absurd notion that you should have to clarify that you're not in favour of cross border rocket attacks against civilians.

[WCW Nitro]

Originally Posted by Azure

Israel operates by their own ROE, but they don't intentionally target civilians. Hamas on the other hand does.

This always makes me laugh. Any country with advanced military capabilities can always say they are not targetting civilians. Any time civilians are killed by a direct hit, you can just say it was a mistake,something Israel has done hundreds of times during both the Lebanon and last Gaza war. If you remember those wars and all the ambulances, UN compounds, apartment buildings,etc that were hit you soon realize that Israel's claim of not targetting civilians is one big joke.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

This always makes me laugh. Any country with advanced military capabilities can always say they are not targetting civilians. Any time civilians are killed by a direct hit, you can just say it was a mistake,something Israel has done hundreds of times during both the Lebanon and last Gaza war. If you remember those wars and all the ambulances, UN compounds, apartment buildings,etc that were hit you soon realize that Israel's claim of not targetting civilians is one big joke.

What stuck in my head on my vacation to Lebanon this year was that almost every apartment building in Beirut was still riddled with bullet holes. Thousands and thousands of holes in the sides of buildings. I'm not sure how that's not intentionally targeting citizens.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

This always makes me laugh. Any country with advanced military capabilities can always say they are not targetting civilians. Any time civilians are killed by a direct hit, you can just say it was a mistake,something Israel has done hundreds of times during both the Lebanon and last Gaza war. If you remember those wars and all the ambulances, UN compounds, apartment buildings,etc that were hit you soon realize that Israel's claim of not targetting civilians is one big joke.

If you compare the ratio of civilians killed in those wars versus other examples of urban warfare, you'll see a marked difference. It's not possible to fight in urban areas without civilian casualties.

[WCW Nitro]

Originally Posted by Iginla

What stuck in my head on my vacation to Lebanon this year was that almost every apartment building in Beirut was still riddled with bullet holes. Thousands and thousands of holes in the sides of buildings. I'm not sure how that's not intentionally targeting citizens.

Israel doesn't target civilians, they target buildings that have civilians in them

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

This always makes me laugh. Any country with advanced military capabilities can always say they are not targetting civilians. Any time civilians are killed by a direct hit, you can just say it was a mistake,something Israel has done hundreds of times during both the Lebanon and last Gaza war. If you remember those wars and all the ambulances, UN compounds, apartment buildings,etc that were hit you soon realize that Israel's claim of not targetting civilians is one big joke.

I do feel at times that Israel plays loosely with the whole collateral damage thing, and they're more than willing to take out a few innocents if it means taking out a major bad guy (see Amos Harel's article here), but you have to consider the statistics, as well.

The civilian causality ratio is the ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths in any conflict. The IDF has the lowest civilian causality ratio in the entire world. It's varied at different times from 2005 until now, from between 1:20 to 1:30, but this is still an amazing number, one that should probably be quoted a lot more often by people in this debate.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

What an absurd notion that you should have to clarify that you're not in favour of cross border rocket attacks against civilians.

What I think is sad is that he had to.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Iginla

What stuck in my head on my vacation to Lebanon this year was that almost every apartment building in Beirut was still riddled with bullet holes. Thousands and thousands of holes in the sides of buildings. I'm not sure how that's not intentionally targeting citizens.

Israel hasn't had ground troops in Beirut since 1982. Since then there was the Syria and Iranian backed civil war. You think maybe at least some of those holes were not from the Israelis.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by blankall

Israel hasn't had ground troops in Beirut since 1982. Since then there was the Syria and Iranian backed civil war. You think maybe at least some of those holes were not from the Israelis.

The bullet holes were as high as 10 stories and higher in some places. That didn't come from the ground that came from an assault chopper.

I don't know what year they were from but fixing it would be too expensive.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

This always makes me laugh. Any country with advanced military capabilities can always say they are not targetting civilians. Any time civilians are killed by a direct hit, you can just say it was a mistake,something Israel has done hundreds of times during both the Lebanon and last Gaza war. If you remember those wars and all the ambulances, UN compounds, apartment buildings,etc that were hit you soon realize that Israel's claim of not targetting civilians is one big joke.

If you remember in the last Gaza war, Hamas was using clearly marked ambulances as troop transport, had moved their fighters into the UN compounds and put their rocket launchers in front of civilian hospitals and civilian occupied apartments.

Hamas fighters aren't there to protect civilians, they are not like a standard military who's primary mandate is to protect their citizens.

Their mandate is to antagonize Israel with rocket attacks and then create situations that create as many civilian casualties as possible. Like its been mentioned, Hamas is a death cult, they are a political organization that is not fighting for the benefit of Palestinians, they are not heroic freedom fighters with thoughts of freedom for their own people. They want things to be as bad as possible for Palestinians so they can use it to political ends.

They are a pirate organization run by scumbags.

There is no other way for Israel to deal with the rocket problem. Negotiation doesn't work because cease fire to Hamas means rearm and recruit and get bigger rockets and then start launching again.

so the only way for Israel to go is to try to remove the rocket launches and kill the people responsible for them since they can't negotiate them out of existence.

Even if by some miracle Hamas lost the election and a more beneficial government came into play and peace broke out all over, Iran would continue to arm Hamas who would continue with their activities.

Remember Hamas is so vile that they even went after and tried to wipe out the Fatah party when Abbas threatened to crack down on them for violating cease fires.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Iginla

The bullet holes were as high as 10 stories and higher in some places. That didn't come from the ground that came from an assault chopper.

I don't know what year they were from but fixing it would be too expensive.

The fact that the holes were 10 stories up doesn't mean that they came from assault choppers.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Iginla

The bullet holes were as high as 10 stories and higher in some places. That didn't come from the ground that came from an assault chopper.

I don't know what year they were from but fixing it would be too expensive.

The kind of rounds that are fired from assault choppers don't just leave holes. They destroy buildings. If there were bullet holes in concrete walls they would have come from small arms. They could have been fired from the ground or from adjacent buildings.

Beirut has spent about 20 of the last 30 years since the 1982 Israeli invastion locked in full out civil war. They've also had ongoing military conflict with the PLO, Hezbollah, etc.. since then. There hasn't been an Israeli held arm in Beirut for 30 years. I sincerely doubt all of those holes came from Israelis.

[WCW Nitro]

For everyone going on and on about Hamas and how if they were to just lay down their weapons everything would be ok, West Bank is not run by Hamas and what do the Palestinians over there get as a reward? Illegal settlements!Here's just the latest construction plans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8A50I820121106

Reuters - Israel has announced plans to press ahead with construction of 1,213 homes on annexed West Bank land, defying international opposition to its settlement policies.

The Israel Land Administration on Monday published notices inviting bids from contractors to build on plots in Ramot and Pisgat Zeev, urban settlements that Israel has declared part of Jerusalem.

The plans call for the building of 607 new homes in Pisgat Zeev and 606 in Ramot. Tens of thousands of Israelis already live in the two areas.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said on Tuesday that an additional tender for the construction of 72 homes in the West Bank settlement of Ariel was reissued on Monday after a previous notice failed to attract winning bidders.

Palestinians want to create a state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital but they say Israeli settlement building will cripple the viability of any future country.
Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank, which it captured in a 1967 war. Some 500,000 settlers and about 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Most countries consider settlements Israel has built in occupied territory as illegal under international law.

Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the central committee of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, said the decision to expand settlements "is another reason why Palestine must go to the United Nations" to seek an upgrade of its status to non-member state.
"We call upon the world to respond to this systematic Israeli policy with an overwhelming vote of support for the enhancement of Palestine's observer-state status," Shtayyeh said, accusing Israel of trying "to thwart international efforts to achieve peace".

Israel and the United States oppose the unilateral Palestinian move, and have called on Abbas to return to peace talks that collapsed in 2010 over the settlement issue.

A status upgrade at the United Nations would grant the Palestinians access to bodies such as the International Criminal Court, where they could file complaints against Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of top cabinet members on Tuesday to discuss possible Israeli punitive measures against Abbas's Palestinian Authority in response to the U.N. bid.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by Iginla

That's rich coming from the resident Israeli defence minister. You and Nage Waza are as bias as they come.

Israel doesn't intentionally target civillians? What do you call dropping bombs from the sky on houses that you have no clue who is inside? I know...I know they're hiding within the civilian population, well so what? Start a ground offensive, gather up who you want instead of being cowards from the sky and killing innocent civilians.

You respond to everyone else, I feel left out. That is, of course, because I am still waiting on your response to my post above, specifically my question, which read:

Second of all, why would having "Iran supply the Palestinian side" give them a "great chance"? Do you think Iranian weapons tech is anywhere close, anywhere even in the same realm or universe as USA weapons tech?

So, were you simply talking out your a**, do/did you not understand the respective powers of the US and Iranian militaries or do you actually believe the ridiculous statement you made? If so, please defend it.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by wcw nitro

israel doesn't target civilians, they target buildings that have civilians, and islamic "militants" that hide amongst the citizens, in them

fyp

[dammage79]

The middle East seems more and more likely to implode these days. Too much happening in the war department to conclude otherwise. If I was israel, Id keep my stockpile for a couple more months before stirring up quite possibly the biggest hornets nest they have seen, ever. And to think the Muslim Extremeists are just licking their chops right now concerns me even more. Isnt the UN right now in debate about Iran going nuclear as well? This could fly off the handle right quick.