Nearly all of the over 7k people killed in Gaza in the past few days are civilians. Sure Hamas, with the help of the media framing of this as a 9/11, gave them a good Casus belli, but Israel has always been good at finding Casus bellis.
When Israel again invaded Gaza in 2014, they killed 2,310 people, 70% civilians and lost 67 soldiers in return. Even more destructive was the 7-10k homes completely demolished and 87k homes severely damaged.
Since 2008 until before the recent invasion of Gaza, Israel has killed 6,407 Palestinians—mostly civilians—and lost only 308 Israelis in return.
> Nearly all of the over 7k people killed in Gaza in the past few days are civilians.
This number comes from Hamas, so I would take it with a grain of salt. Hamas intentionally uses its civilians as shields for their military equipment. Here is a quote from Hamas's 1988 charter:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." [1]
As I understand it, historically it's been fairly accurate and reliable. Does this guarantee they're accurate today? No. Do I blindly trust anything that's being said? No. But merely "it's Hamas, therefore the figures are false" also doesn't really cut it.
A week ago, when Hamas dropped a rocket on THEIR OWN hospital, the "Health Ministry" said Israel killed 500 people. Despite it not being Israel, and it not killing 500 people.
Hamas did not drop a rocket on a Gazan hospital. Not even Israel said that. And the case is still under investigation. No honest person could claim there's without a doubt enough evidence to accuse a specific party
No one claims that's what happened; there are claims that a misfire from Palestinian Islamic Jihad caused the explosion. This seems entirely plausible, perhaps even likely, but as of yet it's not 100% clear. Absolutely no one suggest that it was somehow an intentional attack on their own people.
Could just have been some yahoos firing a rocket from the bushes and getting it wrong, and that Hamas has just as much information as the rest of us do. That is, basically this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESOhN-SaH-s
I don't see why you put the "Health Ministry" in quotes. If you scroll prior to 7th oct you'd see content any normal health ministry in any country would produce.
What nonsense. You could sit 500 people directly on top of one of those Hamas rockets, detonate it, and it wouldn't kill 500 people. Those people are not dealing with state of the art military equipment.
Historically, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has provided accurate numbers of civilian deaths. Third-party estimates by the UN and NGOs have always matched their numbers within a 10% margin of error.
They did lie about 500 people dying due to a parking lot being blown up, though. It's a stain on their credibility. But how much of a stain? Do we disregard their previous track record because of it?
I mean, it's possible that they see this current moment as judgement day, so they have decided to use up all of their historically built-up goodwill and start lying for info ops purposes, which would be an understandable strategy. On the other hand, the numbers they're giving don't appear unrealistic, and John Kirby has said that the US does not dispute that it's "in the thousands". So some number between 1000 and 7000 appears correct, and I would err more towards 4000-7000.
> This number comes from Hamas, so I would take it with a grain of salt. Hamas intentionally uses its civilians as shields for their military equipment.
How can there be "most people in the know" when the Gaza strip is under the tight grip of Hamas? Israel has always published all the details of all causalities in all the conflicts, civilian and military. Hamas never did until this new list and has never broken the numbers by combatant vs. civilian. Who and how exactly verifies those numbers?
Your link even says: "International groups, even some operating in Gaza, and global media including Reuters are not able to verify the figures but reporters have seen large numbers of bodies.".
Hamas is motivated to inflate this number to make Israel look bad. You have to be incredibly naive to think they're above that. Maybe they do it a little, maybe they do it a lot.
Why are we even playing this numbers game in the first place?
> How can there be "most people in the know" when the Gaza strip is under the tight grip of Hamas?
If you read the article is says that in past conflicts Gaza Health Ministry numbers were within 10% of Israel reported numbers. In the past there haven't been issues with the numbers being wrong.
> Why are we even playing this numbers game in the first place?
I am unsure. It is quite likely that there is a massive amount of death in Gaza, more after this evening. I think those spreading FUD about the numbers are trying to minimize what is going on, sort of a way of deflecting guilt about it.
Some people say that the numbers are not real, others say that Hamas brought it upon the civilians, or others say that all civilians are responsible since they didn't over throw Hamas, etc. All I know is that it will probably get worse.
I agree it will get worse. The playbook is to use the number of casualties to create international pressure on Israel to stop. Then once Israel stops the Hamas is going to emerge from its tunnels and celebrate its win over Israel.
Let's agree that no innocent civilian on any side deserves to die. I think the best hope for that is that Israel has some magical success in getting to the Hamas leadership and hostages in the tunnels under Gaza. Very unlikely that Israel will yield to international pressure at this point.
EDIT: It's also theoretically possible that Hamas would surrender and/or free all the hostages. I think that's pretty unlikely but we'll see.
> EDIT: It's also theoretically possible that Hamas would surrender and/or free all the hostages. I think that's pretty unlikely but we'll see.
My best case would be that Hamas exchanges their hostages as they have many times before. Preferrable Hamas releases all the hostages, and in exchange the Hamas leadership (the top leadership, 100s maybe) gets safe passage to somewhere else - go to a Qatar or somewhere not directly adjacent. And then the PA takes over Gaza with international peacekeepers and we drive towards a 2-state solution aggressively.
We would need Netanyahu sidelined for that as well - that guy has long boosted Hamas just to weaken Palestinian moderates and has aggressively expanded the settlements as well as opposed multiple US presidents when the pushed for a solution.
If you think any other country with a massively more powerful army would put up with a neighbor intermittently terrorizing them and then hide behind civilians and not respond similarly, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Doesn't make it right. But there's no easy way out of this.
Look at the US response to 9-11 to see what other countries would do...
I'm not following the logic. Lebanon is much larger yet Hezbollah also embeds rocket launchers in with civilian infrastructure. Ukraine is vast yet cities are getting bombed all the time and are used as cover. Would you suggest to Ukraine that they should refrain from attacking Russian soldiers when they're in a city?
Is your theory that if the Hamas had more land on which to place rockets they fire at Israeli civilians then they would take more care to place them ("operate out of") away from civilians?
To answer your question, they're not supposed to "operate out of" anywhere in the first place.
Israeli civilians and cities are under more or less constant attack or threat of attack.
The Palestinians are not intermittently but continuously oppressed. Israel can stop it at any time but chooses not to, hence the retaliation by the Palestinians. What Israel is doing now is not retaliation but doubling down on their standard M.O.
- Israel is not intermittently but continuously under attack since 1948 for its mere existence.
- Since when does being "oppressed" give anyone the right to launch rockets on civilians and commit suicide bombings? There are many people in this world who are much worse off than Palestinians who would never imagine engaging in these sorts of acts.
Sorry, this will not work anymore. More and more people now are learning about the massacres in '47/'48, Nakba, ethnic cleansing, violations of UN resolutions, or even the original partition plan, war crimes, constant illegal settler harrasment and land grabs, and the disgusting nature of the oppression, political machinations of the Israel's ruling class, etc.
Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either, will just keep working only on the most gullible.
Israel is powerful, and has well established PR machine and lobbying, but the tide of public opinion can turn against it eventually, if it will push too hard.
More and more people are learning nothing and are just repeating propaganda and promoting hate.
I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side. It is not right but it also does not justify. If you're going to be stuck in 1947/1948 (and the picture isn't as simple as you're trying to paint it, conveniently forgetting the surrounding counties attacking Israel or the attacks of Arabs against Jews) then this is not going to get resolved. If the dialogue from the Palestinian side is stuck on their historic injustices, some of them are true, some of them maybe less true (to put mildly), without acknowledging the other side and without looking at how they might have contributed to where we stand they are going to lose more.
Israel's PR sucks and it's not that powerful. Public opinion changes on a dime.
EDIT: I just want to address a few more points:
- "Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either". There is no equivalency here and there are important details that are intentionally left fuzzy in this statement. The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents. There is no piece of land on this earth that is not built on "occupied" territory. What is different about the west bank is that its status has never been resolved after it was won from Jordan in 1967. Some refer to the entirety of Israel + West bank + Gaza as occupied territory which is factually wrong. The fuzziness here is not random, it is intentional.
- "original partition plan". Can you be more specific on the partition plan? It's generally the Arab side who avoids mentioning it and avoids mentioning that the Arabs rejected it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_... "Arab leaders and governments rejected the plan of partition".
- "war crimes". Generally speaking Israel is not committing war crimes. There is a vast legal apparatus in the IDF that advises on the legality of various actions. You may not like those those actions, and it's true that the Palestinians and some others label them as war crimes, but technically they are not. This is just more demonizing rhetoric justifying violence. It's basically blood libel. What most Arab PR calls a war crime is allowed under law of war. I'm sure there are some exceptions. The Israel-Arab situation is somewhat unique but if you compare to many other wars the Israelis are fighting relatively within the allowed legal frameworks. I think if you point out to specific actions, that are clearly war crimes, that's fine. If you just say "war crimes" that's propaganda.
> Israel's PR sucks and it's not that powerful. Public opinion changes on a dime.
Not really. It's pretty rabidly pro genocide and pro Israel in my country. I don't know what would have to happen for this to change. Minister of defense even suggested leaving UN after the last UN GA vote.
> I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side.
So the violence of one side doesn't justify the violence on the other side? Then we agree.
> The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents.
That's just some cherry-picked example. I can just as well tell you that shooting children into knees or heads over the fence is not equivalent to throwing some rocks, etc. This random cherry picking will lead nowhere.
Anyway, this is just a mirror argument to the one above. Either rights apply to both side, or to none of them.
Current example of a war crimes would be usage of starvation of civilian population as a means of warfare. Or attacking hospitals - eg. current attack on Al-Quds hospital https://twitter.com/PalestineRCS/status/1718660055883514087 making it barely inhabitable, and endangering patients there, just because Israel wants the people there to leave.
I'm curious what country you're from and what's your connection to the conflict if any. For what it's worth I live in Canada (you might call me a refugee from this conflict which isn't far from the truth) and I have family in that region.
I agree random cherry picking leads nowhere.
Violence on one side doesn't justify the violence on the other is a bit of a tricky statement. Sometimes violence is justified so context matters. What Hamas did on Oct 7th is never justified. There are possibly (EDIT: actually likely) some examples of Israeli violence that is also unjustified. Rocks kill by the way. What would be your proposal of how Israel should respond to Hamas's attack? If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
Under international law hospitals cease to be protected if they are used by enemy combatants and if ample warning is given (which Israel has definitely given, the combatant use I'm not sure). The population of Gaza is also not starving. If Israel were to attack hospitals that are not involved or used in any way by enemy combatants or if the population of Gaza indeed ends up starving then those would be war crimes. There is still food in Gaza. I've heard there is agreement to increase the amount of aid flowing into Gaza significantly. At the same time Israel isn't responsible for feeding Hamas fighters or for how Hamas distribute their provisions in Gaza or does not. I don't think Israel benefits from violating international law (many other countries don't even blink at doing that, but that's beside the point) and should not.
I also disagree that either rights apply to both sides or apply to none. Right always apply to both sides.
I find everything going on right now very deeply disturbing on many levels. Whenever there's any glimmer of hope that something better can happen in the middle east there's always some player that's going to literally blow everything up. I do think the truth matters (vs. the untruthful narratives from almost everyone) as there's no path forward on top of lies. Too many people are just brainwashed. So yes, the truthful events of 1948 (mostly discussed by Israeli historians that Palestinians are happy to quote) are important but so is the Jewish history of the region in modern and ancient times.
EDIT: btw I watched the images on that Twitter video. There is war going on outside and so yes- there is very likely some impact on the hospital. At least the video itself seems to show that it's not a place I'd want to be but also people are still alive and uninjured there.
International law is complicated. It allows comingling of combatants and health care workers if the combatants are not engaging in hostilities, but are just assisting the workers. There's also issue of proportionality. You can't bomb hospital with 10000 people if you see 10 people with guns there. You'd still be required to attempt to target combatants and avoid civilian harm. I'd leave it to the lawyers.
I'm in Czechia, a country that supports Israel unconditionally, without an ounce of sympathy for Palestinians. Vast majority of comments on news articles that allow commenting just call for genocide, for leveling the place, justify killing children, call Gazan's not human, express excitement when they are being killed, etc. (yes we have laws against genocide and incitement to genocide) Politicians are not much better, except they're just acting out callous disregard for human beings on the "other side". Media is not showing or describing the human toll in Gaza pretty much at all. A country that sold a lot of planes and weapons to Israel in 47/48 during the arms embargo.
You can show people videos like these, and they'd still tell you it's Palestinian's own fault, and they'd still vote even against an unenforcible, largely symbolic resolution calling for a meaningful ceasefire and distribution of aid, so that there's at least an anesthetic, and safe route to get these patients transfered outside of Gaza.
Or who can scroll a few weeks back through this this https://t.me/s/eyeonpal and think that killing, maiming and terrorizing these people in such horrendous ways, and continuing to opress them after the war, will not make them susceptible to even more radical views than what Hamas have now in the future.
Or the news like:
"Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he ordered a halt to transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority as a result of, what he says, their “support” for Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” Smotrich said in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoted by the Israeli media."
a day after warnings about "explosive situation in West Bank" from security services. It all almost seems designed to trigger as much mayhem as possible, just to guarantee some uprising there. Defunding PA will not make it stronger. It's guaranteed to make it look impotent and useless in people's eyes and make them turn elsewhere.
Anyway, I cope by reading books and learning, so I can confront the ignorance in my country.
> If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
My country was occupied twice. It didn't fight back, and just accepted the fate. (aside from people joining foreign legion or partisans, during WW2)
Lots of nasty stuff. I obviously won't defend the Nazis but Czechs didn't exactly play by the rules of law against the Nazis who also didn't play by the rules of law.
The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
Maybe it's not a good analogy, I'm totally ignorant of European history like most are about middle eastern history, point is that without context you can't make a moral judgement.
Smotrich is an idiot. The PA has no interest in making peace. But Israel and the PA do collaborate because the PA corrupt officials want to remain in power and their people will slaughter them without Israel's protection just like they did to the Fatah in Gaza.
EDIT: So why aren't Europeans killing each other all the time when basically every inch of land there was stolen from someone in some war not too long ago? They were for a long time. Because at some point you move on and you stop thinking that you're going to solve the problem by killing your neighbor. The Palestinians are just not willing to move on. Israel has been willing to move on a long time ago but its neighbors want to kill it. Those neighbors also don't generally share the values of the west at all. Just look at the human right situation in the middle east and how neighboring countries (unrelated to Israel) treat each other. It's not Western Europe.
> The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
People would be pissed, but that's about as much as they could do. Czech would have to negotiate.
I can certainly make a judgement that killing 100x more children than were killed during Oct 7 is more immoral. Don't need any history for that.
First of all I don't believe "people would be pissed". Unless you guys over there are made of a different kind of human vs. the rest of us. True pacifists who would rather die, or see their family mutilated and tortured, than hurting an ant.
A 17yo Hamas combatant counts as a child btw.
It is terrible that children are dying. Most of that is on the Hamas. Hamas intentionally aimed their attacks at children. Hamas kidnapped babies. Executed children in front of their parents. Israel asked people to evacuate and at least in theory is targeting Hamas in an extremely densely populated area where Hamas is using population as human shields.
I can't deny that seeing images of dead children on the Palestinian side is deeply disturbing. Not getting to those Hamas terrorists is not an option. What is the option? Another by the way there is that this monstrosity of Hamas was created with international help and pressure on Israel and now somehow it's all Israel's fault. There's also a clear propaganda war going on here as well and what I'd call double standards.
If Israel could get at Hamas without hurting a single child that would definitely be preferable. You're asking Israel to sit back and be slaughtered. This isn't only about the Israeli children already murdered and taken hostage, it's also about the safety of the rest of the children.
EDIT: just in case you say the option is to "negotiate" this current state is a result of the historical negotiations. How do you negotiate with a brutal enemy that wants you dead? The theory was that they've given up on wanting Jews dead.
EDIT2: Another thought experiment to engage in is if the Hamas was even more successful in their attack, and the other settlements and towns where they were repelled failed, and they killed 10000 Israeli children would there be a different morality? I don't think the ratio of dead people is necessarily a morality factor at war. That does not mean it's good that people (including children) are getting killed.
It's really not that simple at all. Israel pulled out of gaza and gazans immediately voted for a party whose main goal is the extermination of Jews. ending the oppression of palestinaisn would immediately lead to massive terrorist attacks against israelis, why would they let that happen?
> Yes, let's let this terrorists who killed babies cold blooded
This is a completely made up fake story that's oft repeated by the Netanyahu administration. No basis in reality
And you should really learn about the history of Palestine and all the attempts at peace. Israel has occupied Palestine for decades and has murdered thousands. In 2014 alone they killed 2,300 Palestinians. 70% of those being civilians. In return Israel lost 87 soldiers in their invasion.
If you lost your brother, mother, sister, etc, wouldn't that push you to... doing something? Anything?
Hamas is NOT Palestine. But their existence ONLY makes sense if you read even a little bit of the history of this occupation.
Maybe take a brief timeout. When you start cherry picking stats and throwing out statements like a camp guard and prisoner are the same... you've taking in too many social media posts and you’re triggered. Take a deep breath and go outside. Whatever war you are waging on here is not working
Bubble? Oh dear. You show your ignorance in this comment.
> have an airport
There's no airport in Gaza. Yasser Arafat airport was bombed and the runway destroyed in 2001 by Israel 22 years ago.
> a port
Since 2007, the Port of Gaza has been under an Israeli-imposed naval blockade as part of a blockade of the Gaza Strip, and activities at the port have been restricted to small-scale fishing.
> unchecked import
Where are these unchecked imports coming from? Through the closed Egyptian border? Or through the closed Israeli border?
Yes, yes, and every country in the world beside old evil Israel would allow it.
China would allow Taiwanese extermists to regularly sneak into China and brutally murder, rape, and torture 600,000 people without obliterating Taiwan.
Russia wouldn't do anything if Ukrainian extremists launched rockets at them regularly - they'd just accept their crazy neighbors for who they are!
And the US would definitely let 9-11 happen, and not invade and occupy two countries (one of which had literally nothing to do with anything) for a decade after.
It is Israel that has been terrorizing Palestine. Between 2005-2008, 1,754 Palestinians and 117 Israelis have lost their lives due to the ongoing occupation. Between 2008-2023 2,329 more Palestinians and 308 more Israeli people lost their lives. The vast majority of Palestinian casualties are civilians. The vast majority of Israeli casualties are soldiers.
The one country that still supports the far right genocidal Netanyahu administration is the United States. The US has used its veto power in the UN 34 times since 1954 to block resolutions that would've otherwise passed and led to some peace in the area. Instead the US is ensuring Israel is never held accountable for its crimes
The entire rest of the world is up in protest currently. Americans are in an incredibly absurd denialist bubble:
If the Palestinians had the same war machinery as the Israelis, do you think they’d be mindful of the ratios, or would they carry out their claims of erasing it and its population from the geography of the region?
I believe if they could the Hamas leadership would not only want to destroy the Israeli military and any collateral civilians but would, if they could also destroy all civilians.
Also realize many Palestinian civilians are victims of their own government who intentionally use them as human shields.
If this thing that has never and will never happen actually happened, do you think a thing that didn’t happen would be like a thing that is happening right now?
That's.. interesting. When others say they will do things people take them for their word that they will do those things (if Putin stated, hey, I'm going to interfere in lections, for example --oh, we don't know, let's stick to what we know now...). But here, we have equivocation and uncertainty? Huh!
If a government initiates an unannounced attack on neighboring one, specifically seeking out and killing civilians without any restraint whatsoever and moreover mercilessly kills the most vulnerable of a population in personal and gruesome ways, I usually come to the conclusion they would not hesitate to undertake their stated purpose and promises.
Do you see the irony, you believe one's statements, but the other, you equivocate. Above you were arguing you have to wait and see if they really actually mean it in reality.
You keep missing the fact that Israel is actually, right at this moment, following through with their words. It is reality. Hamas doing a genocide is conjecture.
>Sure Hamas, with the help of the media framing of this as a 9/11
By what possible metric was it not a 9/11-magnitude event? Proportionally, on a per-capita basis, this attack was to Israel the equivalent of killing 50,000 people out of the US' much larger population. And one in ten people in the US personally knew someone that was killed or wounded on 9/11. Almost certainly far higher, in Israel.
And the videos of people's parents, children, grandchildren being murdered were posted on social media by the perpetrators themselves.
Comparisons to 9/11 are certainly not "played up". The opposite, if anything.
I'm not saying it's not proportionally equivalent. But look at the political blank check 9/11 gave the US to do some insane things. This is why that line is being repeated over and over again in Israeli news. They want that same blank check. Never mind the fact that the amount of Israeli lives lost during that surprise attack pales in comparison to how many Palestinians have been killed in the last decade. Or even just a single year! Look at how many Palestinians (civilians only, even) were killed in 2015
Would you mind doing the calculation of what the Palestinian casualties corresponds if they were happening in the US? or this does not serve your point?
Good point. But it's a little tricky considering the vast majority of Palestinians (~7 million) are refugees that have been displaced from their homeland. So are we talking about the half a million left in Gaza or the entire diaspora?
These are definitely valid criticisms against Hamas, But how does that even remotely justify Israel? How does armed gang storming your house and killing you is different than bombing? Will it be less painful death?
You want to take the claims about rape and mutilation though there weren't any proofs given till date, but doubt the number of people killed on Gaza despite all the names are published?
If your only solution to beat a "terrorist" organization is to be bigger evil than them talks about the weakness of your government, not a blanket justification to commit genocide.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. That Hamas can commit a raid into Israel and then stay in Gaza with impunity because Israel is not allowed to bomb Gaza? That makes no sense. What do you propose Israel do with this "terrorist" (why the double quotes?) organization?
The word genocide is used way to often in this conflict. My dictionary says "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.". There is no genocide.
Used double quotes because neither IDF nor Hamas are declared as terrorist organisation by UN. That doesn't the actions of these organisations though.
If Israel can kill someone in Iran with targeted missile, they are capable of doing the same in Palestine as well. Instead of doing that, they are carpet bombing Palestine, and they are totally aware that only handful of "Hamas" members gets killed in their attack.
They also de-humanise entire Palestinians, not just Hamas stright from Hitlar's playbook and that makes it genocide. It is not a fancy word, it is an unfortunate reality.
Also you are shifting blame of a failed government in Israel to people of Palestine
I would disagree that Israel is dehumanizing all Palestinians. Examples? I have heard the Hamas referred to as sub-human (I don't recall where). Unfortunately they are very human. De-humanizing is not genocide and genocide is not a reality. What it is is propaganda. But yes, Germans and Hitler did dehumanize the jews to support their genocide.
How did we get to Iran? It's easier for Israeli intelligence to operate in Iran than in Gaza. Iranians generally don't hide behind their citizens or in tunnels (that I've seen). I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to or how it is relevant.
No doubt there's huge swaths of destruction in Gaza. That said the media will show you some drone shots going over and over the same building and not show you some nearby areas that have not been hit. Israel is being somewhat selective, it's not carpet bombing. But yeah, large destruction definitely, partly to remove cover for when its forces go in. It's definitely pretty terrible. Wars are. Have you seen Mariupol?
The government of Israel has plenty of blame. But the blame for the horrific attacks on Israel lies squarely on Hamas.
This is an opinion piece and I would say biased. Just to picks some random piece: "For years, Israeli leaders have advocated ethnic cleansing, euphemistically called “transfer” " is totally false. We're talking about some fringe crazies, no Israel leader has ever advocated for this.
The article talks about how schools in Israel view Arabs. Well, you should see how schools in Gaza or the West Bank view Israelis:
I would agree there's likely some stereotyping of Arabs and some "freedom" with the historical narrative. But there's also lots of teaching of principles of free society, equal rights, etc. The evidence is the large number of Israeli who have been trying to work towards some sort of peace, helping Palestinians, fighting against injustice.
"Other Israeli political, military and religious leaders have at different times described Palestinians as “a cancer”, “vermin”, and called for them to be “annihilated”. They are frequently portrayed as backward and a burden on the country." -> references?
If you ask a mother whose child has been killed or kidnapped what that mother thinks about the killers or kidnappers you might get "animals" as an answer. Emotions are definitely running high right now everywhere and you're going to get some of that coming out. As a rule though Israel does not de-humanize all Palestinians, there are many Palestinian Israelis (> 1 million) living side by side with Israelis. That's just a false narrative.
Israel killed nearly twice that in 2014 alone. Also the beheading of babies fake news has never been proven despite the Netanyahu administration's insistence on repeating it.
Over 70% of Palestinians killed in the last decade are civilians. It is Israel that is killing indiscriminately. The entire world has tried over and over to pass UN resolutions to hold Israel accountable. The US has used its veto power to overrule these 34 times since 1954
Are you reading anything. Nobody is in denial of events. People are simply trying to add important context. The fact that in 2014 Israel destroyed or damaged 100k homes and killed 2,300 people (70% civilian) and lost 87 soldiers in return is IMPORTANT CONTEXT for why things are the way they are.
The fact that this is THE SECOND TIME Israel has invaded Gaza in the past decade is IMPORTANT CONTEXT.
This is basically an insane comment. It's very clear that you just don't think Palestinians and their lives matter at all.
> It's not Israel's fault that Hamas hides among civilians. The deaths of those civilians are on Hamas, not Israel. And Israel is doing what it reasonably can to give Gazan civilians a chance to survive.
Are you really so obtuse so as to not understand how fucked this logic is and how it does a disservice to your side to behave and think this way?
> The deaths of those civilians are on Hamas, not Israel.
Again, you have the language of genocide going on. Basically any deaths in Gaza no matter how they occur are at the hands of Hamas in your opinion. You do realize that you've become radicalized right?
In several of your comments in this discussion you seem to be suggesting that all Palestinian civilians are guilty and fair game for retribution.
Reminder that the large majority of Palestinians never voted for Hamas. Even in the last election, which was now 17 years ago, most Palestinians didn't vote for them. Any Palestinian adult who came of age after 2006 didn't vote for them. And not a single Palestinian child has ever voted for Hamas.
Sometimes you have to seek a solution when someone commits an act of war, like murdering 1400 civilians--brutally--and taking over 200 people hostage. The goal is to make sure this never happens again.
> like murdering 1400 civilians--brutally--and taking over 200 people hostage.
Was there any prior cause for this, or did this just happen "out of the blue" with no prior provacation and no warning from various citizens of Israel that such an event was inevitable if the state continued down certain paths of action?
He's not confused, he's deliberately conflating them because he wants violent retribution against a civilian population. It seems all the wrong lessons were learned from WW2. Instead of "never again" it seems to be "this time by us."
When Israel again invaded Gaza in 2014, they killed 2,310 people, 70% civilians and lost 67 soldiers in return. Even more destructive was the 7-10k homes completely demolished and 87k homes severely damaged.
Since 2008 until before the recent invasion of Gaza, Israel has killed 6,407 Palestinians—mostly civilians—and lost only 308 Israelis in return.