Israeli military leaflets were dropped ordering evacuation from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, warning that an attack was imminent and anyone who stays “puts themselves and their family members in danger.” Text messages and radio broadcasts repeated the message.
God, I’d be so pissed if I got one of those leaflets. The audacity of someone who bombs a residential home to blame you for all the children that they murder
I suspect you would be even more pissed if you hadn’t received any prior warning. This is the least terrible option.
The least terrible option is not invading…
And then what? For how long is this war supposed to last?
Hamas needs to be defeated, the remaining living hostages liberated - and this requires boots on the ground. The sooner Hamas are out of the picture as a major threat to both Israelis and Palestinians, the sooner the war will be over. This is the best hope Palestinian civilians have. Once the organization has been dismantled to the point that nothing more than tiny, relatively easy to deal with splinter cells remain, international aid can pour into the strip without being disrupted by the fighting, without terrorists stealing it, without the whims of the current far-right government in Israel (whose days are numbered) limiting it. Then rebuilding can begin and the international community can start work on a sustainable post-war order - which needs to involve substantial changes to Palestinians society, governance, education and media (no more UN-funded schools teaching kids to murder Jews, for example) - that paves the way towards a two-state solution. A two-state solution has been pushed into the far future by the October 7 massacres, but the process can’t even begin for as long as Hamas are still in a position of power.
They literally cannot defeat Hamas. Not only are they not all located in Gaza, but murdering so many civilians makes the civilians want to strike back at Israel, which means more recruits.
This is not about defeating Hamas, this is about constructing a famine in order to drive Palestinians from Gaza (i.e. ethnic cleanse Gaza).
Hamas and their cause are considerably is less popular in Gaza than in the West Bank according to independent Palestinian polls. This more recruits talking point that I see repeated all the time has no basis in reality. The uncomfortable truth is that people in places that have been bombed by Israel are less likely to consider armed resistance a valid option and are instead dramatically preferring a two-state solution now:
https://i.imgur.com/gRNX0Qb.png
https://i.imgur.com/MgDk1PU.png
Source: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/973
I think that most Palestinians who have been unfortunate enough to be at the receiving end of Israeli weapons and lucky enough to survive are starting to realize just how enormous the disparity in capabilities has become.
The land in Gaza is near worthless to Israel. There are almost no natural resources, the soil is of abysmal quality and fresh water is highly contaminated by seawater. The only resources that exist in abundance are sunlight and salt water. It’s an awful place to settle, which is one of the reasons why Israel was willing to forcefully evict their remaining settlers in the Gaza Strip in 2005 and why today, only a far-right fringe wishes for Israelis to settle in the strip again. It is completely pointless to ethnically cleanse Gaza and has no majority within Israeli society.
There are other reasons for there being a famine in Gaza right now; it’s not some dastardly Israeli master plan:
- Israel had no plans for this war and it’s taking far longer than expected. Hamas attack caught them totally by surprise and the response is nowhere near as well thought out as it would have been if this war had been planned ahead.
- War obviously caused nearly all local food production to cease. Israel tanks driving straight through fields and orchards (avoiding main roads and creating their own in order to circumvent IEDs) doesn’t help. Israel unsurprisingly puts the safety of their soldiers above the concerns of local farmers.
- Since the war is continuing for so long, the food supply was inevitably going to collapse. Gaza is notoriously reliant on food imports, unlike Israel, having never built up the ability to be self-sustainable. Damage to infrastructure alone makes maintaining pre-war levels impossible right now - and it doesn’t help that every truck has to be screened for weapons beforehand, which takes a ton of time.
- Hamas is misappropriating a significant portion of the aid and hoarding it so that they can continue their fight. They know that this will result in more civilian suffering - but they are counting on it, because they know this will result in pressure against Israel, not them.
- The far-right government in Israel is unsurprisingly unwilling to allow in significant aid that gets stolen anyway in order to continue the fight.
- Aid that doesn’t disappear into the tunnels gets sold on the black market instead of being distributed to the people in need. Extreme local corruption, including within international aid organizations (which are overwhelmingly staffed by locals), hampers any and all aid efforts.
Before you think I’m some mindless defender of Israel (or, worse, a Hasbara), read this: I detest the current Israeli government with a passion, just like any other far-right government. I’m frequently horrified by public statements by leading Israeli politicians, I think that the war has exposed serious operational deficiencies within the IDF, I think that individual soldiers and officers who recklessly endanger civilians or, worse, commit war crimes need to be far more seriously punished than they already are and every nation that has friendly relations with Israel should never stop pressuring them to conduct themselves as best as they can in this war.
However, I do not subscribe to the belief that Israel is guilty of committing a genocide in this war. Note that I am not denying individual war crimes - those are being committed by Israeli soldiers, there is no doubt about it - but I have seen no evidence of there being a master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it. The enormous lengths the IDF goes to warning Palestinian civilians alone - to the detriment of military operations - should put this hypothesis to rest. In my opinion, and you are free to disagree, this is merely a war and wars are universally terrible. Most of us, especially in the West, have been shielded from the realities of warfare, especially the fact that it’s civilians who are always and in every single war suffering the most, for so long that we are mentally unprepared for a war that is as heavily “televised” (outdated term, I know, but still appropriate) as this one.
Combine this with a shocking lack of knowledge of international law and international affairs among the wider population, even in reasonably educated circles like young academics, a massive multi-national disinformation campaign (Russia, Iran, China, Qatar as the four big players) finding fertile soil and it’s not difficult to see why a small number of easily debunked talking points are dominating public discourse. It’s incredibly frustrating to see idealistic, well-meaning people fall for this. It makes me fear for the future of the developed world, if I’m honest. How will they react to the likely coming war against Taiwan, for example? How easily could they also be manipulated into taking China’s side there or Russia’s side in a possible attack against the Baltics?
Sorry for the long diatribe. I don’t blame anyone for tuning out after the fifth paragraph or sooner.
However, I do not subscribe to the belief that Israel is guilty of committing a genocide in this war. Note that I am not denying individual war crimes - those are being committed by Israeli soldiers, there is no doubt about it - but I have seen no evidence of there being a master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it. The enormous lengths the IDF goes to warning Palestinian civilians alone - to the detriment of military operations - should put this hypothesis to rest. In my opinion, and you are free to disagree, this is merely a war and wars are universally terrible. Most of us, especially in the West, have been shielded from the realities of warfare, especially the fact that it’s civilians who are always and in every single war suffering the most, for so long that we are mentally unprepared for a war that is as heavily “televised” (outdated term, I know, but still appropriate) as this one.
i’m sorry, but putting the blame for war crimes on individual soldiers is just deflecting from the institution that is arming and deploying those soldiers. you don’t get to bomb hospitals, aid workers, mosques, and schools and then defer the blame from that kind of abhorrent destruction onto your soldiers. if they’re using IDF guns, bombs, and uniforms to kill tens of thousands of people, displace so many from their homes, and prevent food and humanitarian aid from entering the region to the point that famine is spreading, then the IDF, and by extension the Israeli government, is responsible for those deaths. as for there being no evidence of a “master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it”, if you’re genuine in that belief, actually look at what the people who are accusing Israel of genocide are saying. there is credible evidence of both a genocide in practice and in intent. israeli and jewish scholars of genocide and the holocaust disagree with you. the UN disagrees with you. the ICC disagrees with you.
Sorry, but you think that war crimes committed by “individuals” who just so happen to go on to not face any serious punishment, is not evidence of a concerted effort to commit genocide? The indiscriminate bombing of civilians, ordered by the Israeli military’s leadership is not genocidal?
How about comments from the Prime Minister himself comparing Palestinians to Amalekites, a group his religion said needed to be exterminated in their entirety
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass
1 Samuel 15:3
Or how about when another high-ranking member of his party says that Israel’s goal is
Erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.
Is that enough evidence that the goal here is genocide? Would anything suffice?
I find this comment disturbing in so many ways. I think an example that really sums up what’s wrong with it is
Israel unsurprisingly puts the safety of their soldiers above the concerns of local farmers.
“Concerns of local farmers” isn’t the main issue with crop destruction. Famine and starvation are.
And the binary between being blown up by ieds and destroying fields is a false dichotomy. A better way of phrasing it would be:
Israel puts expediency above the lives of local civilians.
The UN doesn’t declare famine until 30% of a population’s children are displaying physical signs such as muscle wasting. This is really serious. We saw it two years ago with the deliberate famine in Ethiopia and now we’re seeing it in Gaza.
Hamas isn’t a group, it’s an ideology*. An ideology created and reinforced by the actions of the Israeli government. And I mean that in the most literal way possible. Netanyahu himself is on record having helped prop up Hamas because having a more violent group helped to delegitimise the Palestinian democracy and weaken the parties they thought of as more likely to succeed.
The only acceptable response here is a total, unilateral surrender from Israel. For them to give back Palestinians all of their land to at least the 1967 borders (but ideally 1947) and to treat the nation of Palestine with the same respect they would give any other foreign country.
Anything less is just Israel continuing to perpetuate the violence that they created.
We look back at apartheid South Africa and say that yeah, violent resistance on the part of black activists was justified and fair. At the time they were called terrorists, same as Hamas today. The same is true of Irish independence movements, of American civil rights activists, and many other movements throughout history.
You can’t oppress people for decades and then act all surprised and indignant when they lash out against that.
* yes, it is actually a group and its members are awful people who, ideally, would be stopped. But it is a group formed with an ideology and even if every current member is killed, an identical group will spring up as long as the conditions creating it exist. The idea of stopping the group is a complete fantasy.
Excellent summary
The only acceptable response here is a total, unilateral surrender from Israel.
That is how you would respond to the terrorist attacks of October 7? Seriously? Have you even thought about this for more than one second?
The better question is why did the events of 7 October 2023 take place in the first place?
Again, you cannot put the blame on a victim of oppression for lashing out against that oppression. The blame lies squarely on the oppressor. Especially when the violent group which did the lashing out was propped up by the oppressor as a means to justify increasing that oppression.
You don’t lash out against oppression by massacring, raping and abducting civilians. Hamas are not resistance fighters. They deliberately attacked small, peaceful communities that were far-left and extremely pro-Palestine, the very opposite of the current Israeli government and its policies. One of the most well-known Israeli pro-Palestinian advocates was among the victims:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Silver
Read the article. She was the kind of exemplary human being that is instrumental in bringing Palestinians and Israelis together. Her death alone was a terrible blow to the peace process.
This is not a coincidence - Hamas targeted these communities in order to make peaceful coexistence unpopular in Israel, push voters to the right, because they know this would result in more heavy-handed reactions by the Israeli state. One of their many miscalculations was just how destructive to their organization this response would be.
Hamas relationship with the Israeli government in general is far more complicated than how you are trying to describe it. For starters, this off-shoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood began as a less militant religious alternative to the far more dangerous secular PLO, which is why there was initial clandestine Israeli support for them. The far more recent influx of Qatari cash that Israel signed off on happened after significant international pressure against Israel - and Netanyahu sold it to his power base as some kind of “divide and conquer” strategy after the fact. In reality, the Israeli government was under the delusion that Hamas were growing fat and lazy in power, that the billions in misappropriated aid money enabling a luxury lifestyle for the leadership would make this leadership less militant and thereby pacify Gaza. This was a foolish miscalculation.
You realize that they can’t defeat Hamas, right? By killing all these kids families, the are making the situation worse for future generations.
By “boots on the ground” do you mean killing children?
“Think of the children” has rarely ever been used rationally and your comment is no exception. No, that’s obviously not what I’m saying and you know that. The sooner the war is over, the fewer children will die.
So you mean “kill children faster”.
this is not “think of the children”. its “tens of thousands of children have died, and will die, as a result of the actions of the Israeli government”. we aren’t appealing to the potential harm that might come to children, we are recognizing the current and ongoing slaughter of children and adults happening in Gaza.
They would all be still alive if Hamas hadn’t massacred their way through Israel on October 7. Every single nation on Earth would have reacted to this with a full-on war - there is no other way any nation can react to this.
People are just under the delusion that somehow, clean wars with few or no civilian casualties are even possible. They are not, especially not against an enemy that does everything they can to increase the suffering of their own civilians.
“Think of the children” as a phrase is meant to satirize the fallacious appeals of “moral panic” arguments in support of conservative social values.
Your idea that it also covers arguments for literally not killing children is odd. There’s nothing necessarily fallacious about singling out children as a subset that it’s especially important to avoid killing.
In this case half the civilians are children and they are being killed, so it’s a reasonable thing to want to stop.
The implication of your use of the phrase here is that no one should consider children’s wellbeing even when real harm is being done to them. I find that idea dystopian and inhumane.
This would be slightly more believable if Rabin wasn’t assassinated and Netanyahu didn’t basically tear up the Oslo accords.
Also, Netanyahu marched about calling for Rabin’s death prior to his assassination. Important extra context.
This isn’t an evacuation from a natural disaster like a hurricane. They could , you know, just stop the disaster from happening by not bombing civilian infrastructure (which is a war crime)
No, it’s not a war crime to bomb civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes. This distinction appears to be entirely lost on people. I’ll let you think about why the Geneva Convention explicitly creates this exemption.
deleted by creator
The reason a ton of civilian infrastructure gets destroyed in Gaza has less to do with Israel being callous and far more with how Hamas are operating, how deeply they decided to embed themselves within civilians.
Read this:
https://stratcomcoe.org/publications/hybrid-threats-hamas-use-of-human-shields-in-gaza/87
I mean actually click on the PDF link and at the very least read the first few pages. It’s a thoroughly researched, yet accessible academic paper that shows just how systematic Hamas is in their use of human shields.
I’m pressing you on reading the above report, because I highly doubt you actually ever read the Geneva Conventions (so many people I’ve debated are using them in a vague manner, never able to name any specific sections), because there are explicit exemptions contained within that you would be familiar with if you had actually read them. If for example a hospital is being used for military purposes, it loses its protection under international law:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-19?activeTab=undefined
Guess what Hamas have been doing? Example:
An older report:
As well as carrying out unlawful killings, others abducted by Hamas were subjected to torture, including severe beatings with truncheons, gun butts, hoses and wire or held in stress positions. Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital. At least three people arrested during the conflict accused of “collaboration” died in custody.
If Hamas wasn’t using their own population as human shields and shooting rockets from next to the refugee camps then perhaps there would be no need for it. I also find it quite ironic how they’re yet again criticized for bombing civilians while there’s a perfect example right there of to which lenghts they’re going to warn them beforehand. I doubt Hamas did that before shooting rockets at the aid delivery corridor a few days back. Again, 350 meters from a civilian campsite.
This “warning them beforehand” fig leaf only works if you think of everyone as fit healthy and mobile.
Anyone with disabled people, chronically ill people, terminally ill people and elderly people in their own lives knows it’s not that simple.
Most of us don’t have people physically weakened by famine in our own lives but it doesn’t take Einstein to know this is a problem too. And from NGOs we know there’s a lot of parentless children and a disproportionate number of child amputees in the mix as well.
If your response to this many civillians being killed is “it’s their fault for not getting away” you need to examine your logic, I think.
I brought up the roof knocking because it’s what Israel does aswell as dropping leaflets and sending text messages and making phone calls before the strikes. This goes against all the accusations about genocide and intentionally targeting civilians. It would be quite cynical to think that this all is just a cover up so that they can continue with their plan of murdering every single Palestinian. I’m just not buying that. The high number of civilians in that area are a huge inconvenience for Israel and killing them is extremely bad PR. They know this and Hamas knows it aswell.
For the high number of civilians killed I think the most simple explanation is also the most likely to be true; it’s urban warwafe on a country with extremely tiny land area and a population of millions. You could blindly drop a bomb quite literally anywhere there and you’re likely to hit someone. This is what war looks like.
No, it’s really not necessarily what it looks like at all, though you could be forgiven for thinking it. I think perhaps this is the difference between those who focus on this issue because they’re interested in Israel, versus those who focus on it mainly because they’re interested in human rights.
You could blindly drop a bomb quite literally anywhere
Blindly dropping bombs on densely populated areas is a war crime.
Yes, killing this many people this fast is a consequence of the choices the IDF is making. No, they are not inevitable choices.
For instance, in its entire war against Islamic State the US dropped just one 2,000lb bomb. Israel is dropping hundreds of them.
Roof knocking and leaflets are a fig leaf - a fiction with the aim of avoiding international condemnation, a bit like the peculiar interpretations of “occupying force” and international law we see from them.
I’ve seen footage of those leaflets raining down on innocent people in Gaza, the panic and despair. It’s not humanitarian at all. Ironically some of the people best equipped to get away in time are Hamas fighters, which is probably why the IDF uses “Where’s Daddy” to kill suspected Hamas leaders when they are at home.
continue with their plan
Israeli politicians and public figures have been pretty clear in their national discourse about what their plans are. I don’t think we need to speculate further than that.
Wait until you hear about what happened in Baghdad
This isn’t an Israeli proposal.
Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari proposal, which Israel is examining.
This isn’t some sort of completed deal yet.
They’re examining it for way that they can accept and still bomb the shit out of Rafah
They are examining it and evaluating how much this is just for Hamas to regroup and rearm. But I suppose most here would cheer unabashedly for yet another Hamas rocket attack on Israeli homes.
whose rockets have been raining down on whose homes? the appeal of a potential future threat to Israeli lives outweighing the current, present threat towards magnitudes more Palestinian lives is played out. people here aren’t ride or die for Hamas, they just acknowledge that leveling cities, hospitals, and schools, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and preventing them from getting food is both not likely to lead to less rockets on Israeli homes, and is in itself an act of genocide. when did appeals to not killing innocent Palestinians become support for Hamas to you? when did persistent, unending violence against the Palestinian people become “self-defence”?
The underdog isn’t automatically in the right. This seems to be lost on so many people.
you’re constantly trying to frame opposition to Israel as a failure to understand. i’m sorry, but you’re just wrong. we understand the conflict. we understand the players. we understand that Hamas is a far-right organization, and would do harm if they were to come to greater power. we just don’t think that justifies the kinds of violence being leveled at the Palestinian people. i’m not pro-Palestine because i don’t understand the stakes, because i’m blindly following the underdog. i’m doing it because i object to the death of innocent people, because i oppose war, apartheid, displacement, and destruction in all its forms.
Idealism on its own is admirable, but it doesn’t solve any problems. Yes, I want there to be no war, no injustice, no suffering in the world as well, but that’s not how this wretched planet works. I’ve learned to strive for and support the least terrible realistic options instead of unobtainable fantasies. It’s painful and uncomfortable, I’m constantly questioning myself about it, but I really don’t see alternative to it.
“idealism” is a funny way of saying “opposition to war”. you are making excuses for a country raining death on a civilian population. you are drawing a line in the sand, saying that we cannot have a better world than this, and actively defending an organization that is killing children. war is the problem i want to solve, and your “solution” doesn’t solve that problem.
the world is not “wretched”, it does not “work” in some predefined way you expect it to. you have just decided not to advocate for a worthy cause, because it falls outside the bounds of what you have arbitrarily decided it is possible for the world to be, even as larger and larger groups of people fight to obtain that which you call a “fantasy”. there is no use in accepting the world as it is, in presuming that things cannot change for the better. we can’t know if its impossible without trying, again and again, as many times as it takes. progress was never made by accepting the status quo. it was never made by limiting the scope of our ambition.
stop speaking as though deflecting blame from the IDF, deflecting responsibility onto a terrorist organization, and making excuses for why a famine should continue are the “realistic” outer bounds of what we can do. the world you say you want doesn’t come about by aligning yourself with forces that are currently driving war, injustice, and suffering in Gaza. it doesn’t come about by abdicating the IDF of the responsibility of the war crimes you admit its soldiers are committing. you are seeing the alternative, you are seeing a principled opposition to war unfolding around you, and deciding that it is unobtainable, deciding that it foolish, and aligning yourself with the war-makers.
I will not do the same. I recognize the history of anti-war movements, the ways in which they have failed to achieve their goals. I do not have delusions that war is easy to kill. I just don’t have the arrogance to assume I know what the outcome will be. Even if we fail to create a world without suffering, at least I can know that we tried. Free Palestine.
Why would you say that? Do you think everyone is just really jazzed about death? I think you seem to have missed the point of the outcry.
They shouldn’t have to accept anything less than Statehood.
If what Israel brings to the table “we’ll stop committing war crimes if you X”, then they haven’t brought anything to the table.
You can’t bargen on stopping genocide. It doesn’t work like that.
Hamas’ idea of statehood is a global Islamic caliphate, according to their own words. For obvious reasons, this won’t ever be on the table.
I mean Statehood for Palestine. There will never be peace until Israel stops occupying and invading their neighbors
Uhh you might want to provide a link for that bc their 2017 policy document says very, very differently.
Tons of examples here, including several that are newer than from 2017:
Yes, I’m aware that Memri has a pro-Israel bias (to say the least), but all of these examples are literally from the horse’s mouth, just collected in one place here.
By the way, I hope you are not naive enough to believe in the milder language of that 2017 charter. Among other things, it claims that Hamas believes in pluralism and democracy. That’s obviously a lie and so are most of the rest of the revised points.
Maybe Netanyahu should have thought about that before he funded Hamas.
Weird to see a non-biased post about this conflict with a respectable news source on Lemmy.
/s
Certainly beats the likes of https://officialhamasfanclubandfakenewsfactory.ir (URL only slightly exaggerated) that are usually posted around here.
Lemmy has a serious sourcing issue, just across the board.
And people get really angry with you if you point out that their sources are awful. It’s kind of eye-opening, proving that the far-left can be just as susceptible to blatant misinformation and resistant to rational thinking as the far-right.
It’s human nature!
That’s why there’s a downvote button
There is no downvote button on Beehaw.
So another instance then?
Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
First lines of the article. Very misleading title
It says “after” not “before”
deleted by creator
There is already a deal that has been negotiated and signed off by Isreal. I’m wondering if the phrasing from the article suggest hamas has signed off on something completely different essentially resetting peace talks.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army on Monday ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to begin evacuating, signaling that a long-promised ground invasion could be imminent.
Israel has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said they need to carry out a ground invasion to defeat the Islamic militant group.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi.
Shoshani said Israel published a map of the evacuation area, and that orders were being issued through leaflets dropped from the sky, text messages and radio broadcasts.
They live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing U.N. shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
But even as the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a cease-fire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated last week that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group.
Saved 65% of original text.
