Israel declares war on Hamas

[Nyah]

The videos coming out from Isreal are awful. The barbarity towards civilians, especially the elderly, women and children is brutal. These militants are animals.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

I lived in Israel from 91 to 2003. The rockets are fired from the local Palestinian population. There isn't a good way to stop rockets without striking launch locations and ammo storage locations back. When did Israelis go to Gaza for the sole reason of killing Palestinians for PR?

Just one recent example although it is a killing in West Bank and not Gaza:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...public-killing

[transplant99]

I really do not understand what the end game is in the minds of the Palestinian groups (Hamas in particular) who partook in this ambush.

I imagine the "peace accord" with the Saudis was the impetus for this, but how is this helping themselves at all?

Just goes on and on and on over there. So sad on so many fronts.

Bidens job just got a LOT more difficult as well.

Ugh.

[vegasbound]

I have a friend who's sister has lived in Israel the past couple years. Her parents went there to visit... two days ago. She's just a little freaked for all of them as they are in Ashkleon.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Just one recent example although it is a killing in West Bank and not Gaza:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...public-killing

Mufleh then appears to strike the soldier and attempt to take hold of his rifle before the soldier pulls out a handgun and shoots him several times as he falls to the ground.

So in your example they tried to detain the guy, during the arrest he tried to wrestle the weapon away from the soldier and got shot. That's the same way I would expect any cops/soldiers to react.

That's the same as shooting people cowering in a bomb shelter from rockets? That's the same as opening fire on a civilian vehicle that is moving past you, and then slicing the drivers throat for good measure?

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by vegasbound

I have a friend who's sister has lived in Israel the past couple years. Her parents went there to visit... two days ago. She's just a little freaked for all of them as they are in Ashkleon.

There was just an incident of blue on blue fire in Ashkelon

https://t.me/news_kodkodgroup/124688

Their going to explode the police station in Sderot, occupied by terrorists in a few mins.

[Manhattanboy]

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...b-abbfa4990000

"Survivors of Massacre at Israeli Outdoor Rave Describe 'Battlefield'
Hundreds of attendees were fired upon from all directions, scattering and hiding wherever they could, witnesses say

Among the dead in Saturday’s attack by Palestinian militant groups were attendees of an outdoor rave, with many still missing and in hiding. Witnesses reported terrorists on motorcycles opening fire on hundreds of people who had already begun to flee the party because of rocket fire, which wounded some participants."

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...b-abbfa4990000

"Survivors of Massacre at Israeli Outdoor Rave Describe 'Battlefield'
Hundreds of attendees were fired upon from all directions, scattering and hiding wherever they could, witnesses say

Among the dead in Saturday’s attack by Palestinian militant groups were attendees of an outdoor rave, with many still missing and in hiding. Witnesses reported terrorists on motorcycles opening fire on hundreds of people who had already begun to flee the party because of rocket fire, which wounded some participants."

They already found dozens of bodies, believed to be from that rave. Many are still missing.

Video of people running from that rave in the morning

NSFW!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1710561369391570980

[blankall]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I really do not understand what the end game is in the minds of the Palestinian groups (Hamas in particular) who partook in this ambush.

I imagine the "peace accord" with the Saudis was the impetus for this, but how is this helping themselves at all?

Just goes on and on and on over there. So sad on so many fronts.

Bidens job just got a LOT more difficult as well.

Ugh.

It's interesting to think about for sure. I wonder if some Palestinians still genuinely believe that there will be some kind of total victory against Israel and that Israel will cease to exist?

As for Biden, this will definitely have major implications on the US election, particularly if it skewers the Saudi deal. This is what Iran and Russia, who supply Hamas with their weapons, want.

Theoretically, Israel could parlay this whole thing into some kind of cooperative deal with the Arab League, where they unite against Iran and work to disarm Hamas. I don't see that happening with a war hawk like Netanyahu in power. Netanyahu is also crafty and extremely intelligent, so I guess you never know. But unfortunately, I think the end result of all of this is going to be a lot of dead Palestinians.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by blankall

It's interesting to think about for sure. I wonder if some Palestinians still genuinely believe that there will be some kind of total victory against Israel and that Israel will cease to exist?

As for Biden, this will definitely have major implications on the US election, particularly if it skewers the Saudi deal. This is what Iran and Russia, who supply Hamas with their weapons, want.

Theoretically, Israel could parlay this whole thing into some kind of cooperative deal with the Arab League, where they unite against Iran and work to disarm Hamas. I don't see that happening with a war hawk like Netanyahu in power. Netanyahu is also crafty and extremely intelligent, so I guess you never know. But unfortunately, I think the end result of all of this is going to be a lot of dead Palestinians.

Death begets death, begets death, begets death.

Unfortunately, this will never stop. Israel has already cut the power supply to Gaza. Hamas already fired ~5000 of their inventory of 15000 rockets. Either those estimates are off, or Hamas is banking on depleting the Iron Dome rockets before another front opens at the northern border. It simply doesn't look like there's an endgame unless this was just the opening move of a much larger war.

[gvitaly]

In Netanyau's speech right now. He's saying that Israel will hit Hamas until it is destroyed/pays a great toll. Urges the citizens of Gaza to leave, or stay away from Hamas gatherings, because they will be razed to the ground.

I translated it real time, so slightly paraphrasing.

[transplant99]

“This is Israel’s 9/11. Not since 1973 has there been such a catastrophic intelligence failure in Israel,” said Marc Polymeropoulous, who worked for the CIA for 26 years where he specialized in counterterrorism, the Middle East and South Asia.

David Friedman, former U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Trump administration, said, “In the 40 or more years that I’ve been following Israel one way or another, I’ve never seen this happen. I’ve never seen the border breached in this manner. Usually, even one person from Gaza gets close to the border, they’re intercepted and neutralized long before they can do anything. This is just something I’ve never seen before. It’s of course a large intelligence failure.”

How no one knew something was brewing is tacitly curious especially on the Israeli side of things.

Particularly with the 50th anniversary of the 73 attacks squarely in focus.

Something aint quite right.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investi...ing-rcna119335

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by transplant99

How no one knew something was brewing is tacitly curious especially on the Israeli side of things.

Particularly with the 50th anniversary of the 73 attacks squarely in focus.

Something aint quite right.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investi...ing-rcna119335

That was a huge miss. Especially since in the debrief a week ago the Shabak told the Israeli government that Hamas is not interested in an escalation right now.

[CliffFletcher]

Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and in particular the expansion of settlements and the settler movement, bears a lot of responsibility for the intransigence of the conflict.

However, equivocation between the behaviour of the state of Israel on one hand and Hamas and Hezbollah on the other, is odious. The deliberate targeting of civilians is an entirely different kind of crime than the death of civilians resulting from military operations. Israel has the means to kill 100 Palestinian civilians a day if they chose to. Or 1000. But they don’t. If the leadership of Hamas had the ability to press a button every day that would kill 100 Israelis, does anyone think they would hesitate to push it?

[Huntingwhale]

What an absolute #### show. Just what the world needs in addition to unrest in Africa, a russian invasion in Ukraine, right win authoritarianism on the rise and world still not recovered from a gobal pandemic. Just awesome . Attacks from multiple front and thousands of rockets launched. Insanity. I guess that puts to rest the notion that having nuclear weapons guarantees you safety from attacks like this.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and in particular the expansion of settlements and the settler movement, bears a lot of responsibility for the intransigence of the conflict.

However, equivocation between the behaviour of the state of Israel on one hand and Hamas and Hezbollah on the other, is odious. The deliberate targeting of civilians is an entirely different kind of crime than the death of civilians resulting from military operations. Israel has the means to kill 100 Palestinian civilians a day if they chose to. Or 1000. But they don’t. If the leadership of Hamas had the ability to press a button every day that would kill 100 Israelis, does anyone think they would hesitate to push it?

I think everyone is going to be terrified now. Israel is going to fight with the gloves off and I think the high emotions will cost a lot more innocent lives. Unfortunately, most of the terrorists responsible will be comfortably dug in underground beneath the civilian population.

I still find it surprising how much #### Israel gets. Most of the Palestinian population wasn't even born in 1948. The Israelis built that country through hard work, it was mostly dessert and swamp beforehand. The land belongs to the people born there, and ones that pour their blood and sweat into it.

I don't agree with the policy regarding the settlements, and a lot of the Israeli's don't like them either(50/50 split). That said painting Israel as an evil tyrant is very misleading. If Israel didn't care about what happened to innocent people it would just cut off the power, water, food, and building materials supply into the Gaza strip.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s almost like this conflict has been going on long enough that people understand this didn’t occur in a vacuum and that Israel’s actions before and their actions after are going to be nothing to celebrate or side with either.

But thanks. Terrorism is bad. Mind blown.

This is true in any conflict really. People arbitrarily choose a convenient point in history and draw their opinions from that point. In Europe, that point is usually WW2. If your country was on the wrong or losing side, it doesn't matter what happened before that in their minds. Just recently, there was a big deal about the Ukrainian Nazi in Canada which highlighted Ukraine's collaboration with Nazi's in WW2. Very few people cared that the collaboration didn't happen in a vacuum. It was just that there were Nazis and Nazis are bad, which isn't unreasonable, but that involvement didn't come from nowhere.

It's a similar situation with Israel. The Palestinian terrorists are no different than Nazis. Yes, their extremism didn't develop in a vacuum, but their position is still completely genocidal and evil. Sure, you can point to Israel's hard handed approach, but that approach also wasn't born in a vacuum. It just depend where people want to conveniently cut off history and say that nothing before that point matters.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Can it be justified when pro Israeli?

Took till page 2 for this to show up.

I get that Israel has lots of policies that increase provocation, tension, etc. I don't agree with them all. But you simply cannot equate intentional targeting of innocent civilians with strikes on military targets resulting in civilian casualties, ESPECIALLY when those military targets are intentionally set among the civilian population. They are not the same thing.

Unfortunately I think Israel has been sitting on their hands with too much infighting and political stupidity, and this will likely unite them and I wouldn't be surprised if Gaza is bombed into the stone age and then occupied again.

What did the people of Palestine think would happen? What do people think Israel should do here?

Whoever posted it earlier is 100% correct. If you believe in an independent Palestine as a state, then this is state action, and therefore Israel is justified to take ruthless action against Palestine the state and its governing bodies that support and sanction these actions.

Will be a sad time coming up watching this unfold.

[fotze2]

Those images/vids are disturbing wow. So ghastly that you know what is coming back is gonna be insane. The trauma and hate seems like it will never end. So fataing depressing. It’s hard to comprehend. I wonder if the amoeba race looks at us and thinks how goddamn stupid we are.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I really do not understand what the end game is in the minds of the Palestinian groups (Hamas in particular) who partook in this ambush.

I imagine the "peace accord" with the Saudis was the impetus for this, but how is this helping themselves at all?

Just goes on and on and on over there. So sad on so many fronts.

Bidens job just got a LOT more difficult as well.

Ugh.

Difficult in a way, but a more clear path forward.

Support the Saudi / Israel peace deal as the only way to stabilize the region again. Let everyone else they they better be on board or else.
Full support for Israel going forward, including military support for a ruthless retaliation.
Iran needs to be held accountable in a similar fashion.

Pretty clear how this needs to play out.