They snuck in two trucks, disguised as the kind of trucks common in the area. (One is alleged to have resembled the trucks bringing aid. But Israelis deny it was disguised as an aid truck, which would be a war crime.)
Apparently the woman was held on one building and the three men in another. The commando team was able to get to the woman without raising an alarm, and hustled her to a nearby vehicle and then drove to a helicopter. But the team going for the men failed to take their guards by surprise, and a gunfight ensued that alerted the whole community. And THAT’S when Israeli forces in the air “started shooting to give them a corridor, a wall of fire”. And it wasn’t just shooting, they dropped bombs, too. That’s the attack that killed so many of the nearby refugees.
Most of the Palestinians killed weren’t killed in “crossfire” or from gunshot wounds. Most were killed by bombs. That’s why the Palestinian authorities say they haven’t yet removed all the bodies from the rubble and don’t actually know the death toll.
When you drop enough bombs in a refugee camp to create a “wall of fire” you kill a lot of innocent people.
The loss of life is tragic. Frankly I wouldnt expect a very different outcome if the US did it. The hostages were kidnapped from Israeli territory. If that happened to US citizens… kidnapped on US soil… I think we’d expect a pretty determined effort to get them out. And if youve got the hostages but are pinned down? You bet were getting out.
I also think its meaningful that this wasnt in southern Gaza where the refugees have fled / where the aid is / etc.
This is largely incorrect. Military (or similar like contractors) people in war zones from the US don’t get a blank check to kill non-combatants. This has always been the case. They have to answer for their behavior to a military or civilian tribunal. Having said that, in Israel there are now effectively no real consequences to killing non-combatants. Just look at what happened when the World Kitchen people were killed. The people involved only got a slap on the wrist (after some pretty serious political blowback).
What the IDF is doing claiming they are “investigating” many examples of problematic behavior and then simply running down the clock. Nobody really gets punished for killing Palestinian women and children.
If you want to see what happens when people decide to be trigger happy and just shoot everybody on their way out, here is a case from Iraq.
These contractors were convicted in a court of law. Trump then pardoned them.
Israel has literally gone off the reservation from a military standpoint when they started killing hundreds of women and children.
We are not talking about fighting your way out of a Somalian village here with hundreds of insurgents, the population is over 50% women and children, with only a few insurgents sprinkled in. Carpet bombing a market for a “diversion” is a war crime here because its clearly not warranted.
It is not possible to destroy Hamas. Bibi and the extremist right in Israel use the “But Hamas needs to be destroyed” excuse to keep the war going (in order to remain in power).
They have no plan whatsoever for “after Gaza”.
Its all BS. Thats clear to the entire international community at this point.
Its non-binding, but we are headed in the right direction.
I am not optimistic because the bloodlust that I am seeing on the Israeli side is simply still too high. I remember seeing the same problem during the Balkan War in the 90s when it first started out.
Unless the US and International community forces the peace by sheer economic and military power, I am not expecting the situation on the ground to get better.
It seems clear that the rescue operation was going south. But when the backup plan is “drop lots of bombs in a crowded refugee camp”, maybe there should have been better planning.
No one claims that every single person killed was passive in this. Surely some of the hostage guards were among the killed. But the photos of carnage sure look like they just dropped bombs into masses of people.
I am envisioning an urban war zone. Yes, lots of innocents, but at the same time others firing from the same buildings. again, sorry for the death toll, but I believe any military country’s operation would have gone for less response at that point
Israel accepted the terms. Hamas denied them. Your bias is showing again.
I’d put money down that if there is a cease-fire deal, it gets broken by the Palestinians, not by Israel.
There is a point a lot of people are missing here. Hamas put the civilians in harms way by:
Reigniting a shooting war
Taking hostages
Keeping those hostages in area with high civilian populations.
All of that was done before Israel ever planned this mission. If the Israeli’s were known to refuse to mount a rescue operation in dense civilian populations for fear of collateral casualties Hamas would NEVER PUT HOSTAGES ANYWHERE ELSE.
The Israeli’s tried to do this quietly and did for the female hostage. The mission didn’t go perfectly and the backup plan was to use overwhelming firepower in support of a retreating Spec Ops team. That is actually quite common as a backup.
Hamas is putting hostages in civilian areas because it knows that will prompt Israel to kill lots of civilians. And Israel killing lots of civilians makes Hamas stronger.
The settler leaders need to go, Bibi probably should too at this point. There has to be a day after plan for this mess or it just continues. I think everyone can agree on that, if not how to get there.
I think the tenor of the comments coming from the “international community” may change after the recent and pending elections in Europe. Wouldn’t you agree?
I think that one point people are ‘missing’ sort of is that this is a small operation in the grand scheme of this war, and it’s getting undue weight because there was a tangible benefit.
As evidenced by a slew of posts above discussing the questionable culpability of people who cooperate with Hamas because they know that they and their family will be killed by opposing them.
We know there are people willingly in Hamas. We know there are people uninvolved with Hamas. We know there are a lot of people who have no choice but to live alongside Hamas, because they cannot go elsewhere, and who don’t want to die.