Israel - Hamas War October 2023

of course it is Bullshit, but it also wasn’t 274 babies, it wasn’t 274 innocents.

these are hamas reports. it is all bullshit to some degree. claiming thay are all innocent is also bullshit

I’m with you. of all the things that Israel could be blamed for, a successful raid that recovered 4 hostages is not one of them.

Don’t want people around the hostages killed? Don’t keep the hostages around them.

Of course that gets back to Hamas shouldn’t even have the hostages in the first place but that can get a bit circular.

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the whole conflict is circular, actually linear, do you have time to discuss 3000?

So if it was really 274 and they’re all innocent, that’s acceptable … right?

What about 300?
What about 500?
1,000?
5,000?
50,000?
More?

Is there a limit, or is this truly “whatever the cost, it’s okay?”

I mean, what if it’s 150 killed, and another 300 maimed. And of the killed, 20 were active Hamas militants, and 30 were families that agree to hold the hostages but didn’t do anything else, and 50 hate Israel and Israelis but have never taken any action against Israel, and another 50 are children under 12 who don’t really have an opinion of their own and are innocent.

And the maimed are 100 children under 12, 150 adults who hate Israel but haven’t done anything, and another 50 who actively want peace with Israel.

Because that’s probably a realistic distribution of the casualties.

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What if it’s 999 kids all under 10 but their families were being paid $20,000 a day for the kids to hold the hostages at gunpoint?

Can we at least try to stick to some facts instead of making up details on what really happened and passing it off as fact?

I don’t think its going to be constructive to argue furher about the specific red lines.

His views are driven by ideology. I don’t think you will make a dent as when you view things as:

[Palestinians of any Age=Hamas]

You will rationalise just about any massacre.

The ICC is however watching, so I am sure they will be adding this to the list of war crimes they will be charging Bibi and Galant for.

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what about 1, 10, 53

speculate all day. 4 of the hostages are free, I’m happy, the rest is all speculation

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70% of the infrastructure has been destroyed.

There is zero probability of finding enough housing for the remaining population.

So, lets recap:

No housing
Food shortages
Limited potable water
Limited access to healthcare

Palestinians have large families (50% of the people in Gaza are under 18) so of course they would try to survive by bunching up into groups.

They also do this because the situation is so bad on the ground that you will get predatory behavior by the more criminal elements of the population. There is protection in numbers.

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Naw, we also know that the operation killed at least 100 Palestinians (Israel’s number) and maimed a great many more.

We can only speculate about the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of the dead. We don’t know how many were enemies of Israel. But we know that an awful lot of people were killed, and more were maimed.

On passover, we read that the Israelites danced when the Red Sea swallowed the Egyptian soldiers who had been chasing them. My family’s Haggadah goes on to say that the angels rejoiced, too. And God chastised the angels for rejoicing at the destruction of people God had created.

I’m finding it hard to rejoice in the face of so many dead.

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UN: Israel-Caused Famine to Encompass all Gaza by July, Killing as Many as 19,800 a Month (msn.com)
All Text below from article.

Anew joint report from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program warns that even as North Gaza is now facing famine, “it is highly likely that the rest of the Gaza Strip would be facing a risk of famine through July 2024, in a worst-case scenario.”

The International Medical Corps, an NGO working in Gaza alongside UNICEF and other organizations, reports this week that “According to a recent needs assessment by the Global Nutrition Cluster, the situation in Gaza is alarming: the ongoing conflict has significantly worsened child malnutrition from a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 0.8% to 16% in northern Gaza and 7% in the rest of Gaza.”

Amartya Sen argued that famines do not occur because there is no food. They happen because food becomes too expensive and isn’t distributed to the people who need it even as people lose the income necessary to purchase it. This point is an important reply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel is allowing enough food into Gaza for the population calorie-wise. This assertion is, according to UN and NGO aid organizations on the ground, a bald-faced lie. But even if it were true, having food in trucks at the border would not necessarily forestall famine if it cannot be distributed efficiently, if people cannot get to the distribution centers, etc.

The report says ominously:

Between mid-March and mid-July, half of the population of the Gaza Strip (1.1 million people) is expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), and the entire population of the Gaza Strip is expected to face Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above) levels of acute food insecurity.

Phase 3 malnutrition is defined as: “Phase 3 – CRISIS: At least 20 percent of households in an area are experiencing Phase 3 or worse outcomes, and acute malnutrition rates are expected to be between 10 and 15 percent.”

Phase 5 malnutrition is defined as: “FAMINE: At least 20 percent of households in an area are experiencing Phase 5 outcomes, acute malnutrition levels exceed 30 percent, and more than 2 per 10,000 people are dying each day.”

That is bad for North Gaza, but things get much worse, expanding to the whole Strip:

According to the IPC Famine Review Committee, as of March 2024, all evidence pointed towards a major acceleration of starvation-related death and malnutrition.

Food insecurity in Gaza is not moving along at a steady pace. It is speeding up alarmingly. And it has been speeding up for some time:

Malnutrition rates had doubled since January 2024 in the northern governorates, with 1 in 3 children under 2 years of age being affected. As of March 2024, famine was projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza governorates, in the absence of an immediate cessation of hostilities, unrestricted humanitarian access and a restoration of health, water, sanitation and electricity.

So, just this spring a third of toddlers and infants in North Gaza were visibly malnourished. Please note that children don’t come back from malnutrition. It has permanent cognitive and affective impacts. They will never achieve their full potential regarding intelligence and emotional regulation.

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I highly suspect that this scenario was something that the current Israeli Govt found desirable.

They know full well what the situation is on the ground. They can model the impacts just as well as the NGOs can.

Lets keep in mind that 50% of the population in Gaza is under 18. If you severely starve them, you also damage their future evelopment into adults.

Easier to exercise control of a population of physically damaged adults vs healthy ones. This is also why the ICC and ICJ have gone after Israel.

Using starvation as a weapon of war is a serious war crime.

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UN experts prevented from gathering evidence to declare a famine in Gaza as Palestinians starve | Milwaukee Independent

An independent group of experts warned on June 4 that it was possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it.

“It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, said about famine in Gaza.

Concerns about deadly hunger have been high in recent months and spiked after the head of the World Food Program said in April that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of war. Experts at the U.N. agency later said Cindy McCain was expressing a personal opinion.

An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they are too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.

That was according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collection of U.N. agencies, governments, and other bodies that in March warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

The June 4 report by FEWS NET is the first technical assessment by an international organization saying that famine is possibly occurring in northern Gaza.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development, FEWS NET is an internationally recognized authority on famine that provides evidence-based and timely early warning information for food insecurity. It also helps inform decisions on humanitarian responses in some of the world’s most food insecure countries.

But for a formal declaration of famine, the data must be there. Such a declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide.

The report cautioned that data collection would likely be impeded as long as the war goes on. It said people, including children, are dying of hunger-related causes across the territory and that those conditions will likely persist until at least July, if there is not a fundamental change in how food aid is distributed.

The report also cautioned that efforts to increase aid into Gaza are insufficient, and urged Israel’s government to act urgently.

The U.N. and international aid agencies for months have said not enough food or other humanitarian supplies are entering Gaza, and Israel faces mounting pressure from top ally the U.S. and others to let in more aid.

Israel has repeatedly denied there is famine underway in Gaza, while preventing independent verification of the situation, and rejected claims it has used hunger as a weapon against civilians in its war against the militant Hamas group.

Once the main hub of humanitarian aid operations, Israel has been expanding its brutal offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. That invasion has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine, and other vital humanitarian supplies to Palestinians facing hunger.

Your “views” are not good enough anymore. You don’t get to whitewash massacres by saying “But Hamas”.

This is what you are supporting:

Moderating:

Tone it down. You can attack the post, but don’t attack the poster.

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Fair enough. I will tone it down.

Looks like Benny Gantz has resigned.

Benny Gantz resigns from Israel government over Gaza - https://on.ft.com/45fCXaO via @FT

I’ve seen too many videos showing Palestinian children having makeup applied to make them look like they’ve been hurt, or having blood smeared on them. I don’t believe anything that comes from Palestinian sources anymore. I’m not saying they’re all liars, but once you’ve seen that they do it pretty often, you just can’t trust them with anything.
Even if it is true, as I’ve said many times, the blame falls on Hamas.

I did some more reading up, and unfortunately, this won’t make a difference. The coalition is still strong enough without Gantz to stay in power. He was only part of the emergency government, not the main ruling coalition.

do you mean “without gantz”?

i thought he was centralist, which i would believe actually strengthens Netanyahu

Begging the Question : Department of Philosophy : Texas State University.