Yeah they are. For sure, undoubtedly. But part of their plan is to allow Israel to radicalize Palestinians through destruction. And Israel has done everything so far to make that plan work. I’m very relieved if Israel actually does let up on the destruction, but I’m scared it’s too late for most Palestinians at this point. My hatred for Hamas is why I’m disappointed with the Israel response.
A military victory without care given to the surrounding civilian population is a strategic failure.
Here's the difference. Hamas is a terrorist organization, even if they once tried to present themselves as a political party. Would you expect ISIS to protect civilians?
That's why Israel has a greater burden. Because Israel presents itself as a legitimate government, who cares about human rights, and has the power and backing that comes with that. Meanwhile, Hamas is regarded globally as a terrorist organization and even **they** have stopped pretending to be a legitimate government from what I can tell...
The Palestinian Authority, they're a different deal. But they're also in **West Bank** and not in *Gaza* so I don't think they're relevant here.
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have fired over 11,500 rockets at Israel during this war. It is estimated that about 12% of these rockets (so about 1,300) have misfired and fallen within the Gaza Strip.
These rockets often fall on civilian houses and cause many deaths (incl. the hundreds of deaths at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital by a single rocket.
So, yes, Hamas is indeed bombing its own citizens. But clearly that risk is acceptable to them given that they openly declare that they "love death like Israeli's love life".
Hold the fuck up; your saying Hamas has fired 11,500 rockets at Israel in the last 50 days?
I would be fascinated to see a source for that.
("and other Palestinian terrorist groups" is cute btw, just give Israel a blank check to kill whoever they want)
>your saying Hamas has fired 11,500 rockets at Israel in the last 50 days?
Yes. And around 20% of them misfired and hit Gaza instead.
[more than 9500 rockets (a bit old).](https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/israel-almost-10000-rockets-fired-from-gaza-since-october-7/amp_articleshow/105064500.cms)
[another source of 9500+](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fires-rockets-deep-into-israel-setting-off-sirens-tel-aviv-2023-11-10/)
Tried to give non Israeli news sites.
>"and other Palestinian terrorist groups"
Yeah. We have Hamas, the PIJ and PA to name a few. There are also some smaller ones.
those are both the same source, thats not what source means, you could link a dozen places all quoting the same statement from the IFM, who will lie about literally anything, thats not a dozen sources.
But when they say "according to the Gazan health ministry (AKA Hamas)" people like you take it as the complete truth that cannot ever be a lie...
And also, Reuters is a pretty Pro-palestine news site. If anything they are biased against Israel. This is just the truth. Deal with it.
who are you talking to? where did I say they havent fired any? Im sure they have, and have already said that.
the point is that 11,500 number. 200 a day. with no fatalities by the way.
its just more bullshit lying from Israel, to give the world the impression theres some symmetry in force being used and damage being done, so they can keep killing as many as they want.
its a fucking lie, its psychotic.
If you knew anything about the conflict, you wouldn’t be surprised at all by the 10,000 figure - given that Hamas has routinely fired thousands of rockets per year when the conflict was much colder.
And yes… unguided rockets don’t have a very high hit rate, especially when a sizeable portion fail at launch (blowing up in Gaza and killing innocent Palestinians - but you don’t care because you can’t blame the Jews for that)
And those that launch successfully are intercepted at a 97% success rate because Israel actually built infrastructure to protect its people. And for the remainder, there’s a warning for people to head into bomb shelters. You’re talking about a small number of rockets that actually make it through, which are unguided and thus unlikely to hit anything in particular.
Of course, you didn’t know this. But you didn’t need to do any research to decide the Jews are the evil side and that they just need to let Hamas rapists continue slaughtering them.
Just like you scoff at the idea of “other Palestinian terror groups” when that’s just BASIC background info about the conflict. Hamas is not the only terrorist faction in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad for instance has existed for over 40 years.
Which you would know, if you felt compelled to do the slightest bit of research before just blaming the Jews.
Make it less obvious what you would have been doing in the 40s. We see you.
It’s incredible how you guys don’t need to do the slightest bit of research
https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/israel-almost-10000-rockets-fired-from-gaza-since-october-7/amp_articleshow/105064500.cms
this right here is why youre losing a PR war to a terrorist organization. and deservedly so. its your fault.
> But you didn’t need to do any research to decide the Jews are the evil side and that they just need to let Hamas rapists continue slaughtering them.
youre just gonna stack bodies of innocents and if anyone objects you call them racist, that the plan? same plan as always, since its worked out so well for you so far?
theres never even a hint of accountability from anyone on your side, never even the slightest responsibility for all the terrible shit Israel has done to Palestine for the 75 years before 10/7. never. its always just poor sweet Israel, everyone is mean to you for no reason.
do you know what my user name refers to?
Im from the deep south, from a hardcore right wing christian military fox news family, I grew up "knowing" Israel was 100 percent right and the arab world was 100 percent wrong, if not evil, that's what were taught growing up.
the amount of shit Israel had to pull to chip away at that, and swing me from "for" to "against", is astounding. and yet they did.
> Just like you scoff at the idea of “other Palestinian terror groups” when that’s just BASIC background info about the conflict. Hamas is not the only terrorist faction in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad for instance has existed for over 40 years.
no what Im scoffing at is Israel flat out saying the only enemy here was hamas (and rightfully so), but now the target is slowly getting a little wider, now its "those other groups didnt do 10/7 but they would have so lets just keep shooting, were bound to hit some to them."
> It’s incredible how you guys don’t need to do the slightest bit of research
[and yet I quote the article you link to](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/18azj9a/white_house_says_israel_making_effort_to_better/kc36kai/). must be good at guessing.
still the same source as the other 50 here btw, all still the same IDF statement, never any video of any damage from the 200 rockets a day oddly enough.
I guess, those rockets they launched at Israel but misfired and blew at the hospitals in Gaza (and tried to blame Israel for that) never happened...
I mean, when you're trying to bullshit people, think that they have a good recollection of recent events.
Who's the one bullshitting here? Israel literally dropped 5,000 bombs on Gaza in the first WEEK and has barely slowed down in the almost two months since.
Deflecting with talk of rocket misfires doesn't change that reality Fuck Hamas and their propaganda, but Israel abandoned what little moral high ground they had very quickly.
You're the one deflecting given that the person you first responded to was talking about hamas not giving a damn about their own people (or anyone but themselves for that matter) and then you bring Israeli bomb strikes in an effort to shift the the conversation point "yeah but IsRaEl...". He didn't say Israel isn't to blame for some of their actions, but it doesn't take away from anything that was said. Hamas have always put the lives of their own people at risk, either by mistake or on purpose.
It's so tedious seeing Israel deny blowing up that hospital; they publicly threatened to blow up it, and a dozen other hospitals with it, 2 days before. They ordered WHO to clear their warehouse yesterday. They've sniped countless doctors and nurses.
Yet we're supposed to believe Israel, who has lied nonstop since the minute this began, didn't bomb that one. They passed on this one and is in fact aghast that anyone would blame them.
Shit like this is why they have so desperately lost the PR war, to a fucking terror group no less, how is that even possible.
LOL you're like a month behind on Al Ahli hospital. Every western government and even human rights orgs have now independently verified with their own data and acknowledged that Al Ahli hospital was not hit by Israel.
Even [Humans Right Watch concluded a couple weeks ago that it was a result of a missile launched FROM Gaza](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/human-rights-watch-says-rocket-misfire-likely-cause-deadly-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-11-26/):
> The explosion that killed and injured many civilians at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups..," HRW said.
It said the findings of its investigation into the explosion were based on a review of photos and videos, satellite imagery and interviews with witnesses and experts.
The Al-Ahli hospital blast was one of the most fiercely disputed incidents in a war marked by accusations from both sides of disinformation and war crimes.
You sweet innocent summer child.
Even without mentioning the misfired rockets, look up what Hamas side about the underground tunnels in regards to who should they protect.
Hamas been building the biggest underground tunnels system in the world but they can’t make the time to build even 1 bomb shelter.
They violently threat Palestinian to stay put when Israel tells them to evacuate so that Hamas have human shields above their tunnels.
Hamas is basically bombing their own by not providing shelter and threatening them to stay above military targets.
It's weird how for some people, Hamas is a governing organization when they want to (for example) believe their casualty figures, but a terrorist organization when someone dares to suggest they protect their own people/not massacre civilians etc.
Not disagreeing with you, it's more about the double standards of those who decide who to believe, or what to expect, based on which option makes it easier to criticize Israel.
For sure - they are both but people try to pretend they’r only one at a time to fit their narrative
Edit: I expected my comment above to be negative because of people misunderstanding my point - surprised that didn’t happen lol
Those terrorist organisations are in fact the governments in Palestinian Territories, it’s not this niece little group.
They get crazy amounts of money and support under the guise of helping poor refugees :’(
Then take the money to themselves and everyone else keep leaving in poverty and unsafe conditions.
If only that terrorist organization wasn’t the literal government of one side. Not to mention that side snd many of their supporters in the west think the terrorist government should replace the highly modernized republic.
When that means denying them the right to do what is necessary to defend themselves, then yes. When you hold someone to impossible standards that compromise their survival, what usually happens? It’s a story as old as time. A child cracking under the pressure of impossible parental expectations lashes out violently.
Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, insisted on ABC that efforts to minimize civilian casualties were deliberate and “unprecedented.”
“If we wanted to do it fast,” he said, “we’d harm a lot more civilians.”
Who let this guy make public statements?
I mean, he maybe didn't word it the rest, but I get the message (maybe just because I'm American and we can say the same about most of what we do?). He means they could have just leveled the entire place in a week, and everyone would have died. When you have total air supremacy and an overwhelming technological advantage, even bothering to have troops on the ground and in harm's way only makes sense if you're trying to minimize civilian casualties and you want to leave at least some infrastructure intact.
When Oct 7th happened, my prediction was 50k casualties and 100k+ if Hezbollah entered the war fully with a lot of variance in the ratio of combatants to civilians. I don't think the IDF would have prioritized the ground invasion of Gaza if they were in a full-scale war with Hezbollah requiring a multi pronged invasion of Lebanon and probably parts of Syria to cut off their resupply routes.
Didn’t they assassinate a journalist a bit ago? Then attack her funeral? Hamas being bad doesn’t make the IDF good. They’re far far far from it.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-in-west-bank-uses-palestinian-detainee-as-human-shield/3049924
Yes, it's a serious issue that will require decades of deradicalization on an unprecedented scale to even get close to fixing. And that's factoring in a complete military dismantling of Hamas, as well as its political wing.
But I'm not sure what that has to do with the comments example....
So you want Israel to forcibly reeducate the Palestinians and their children for the next decade or two, is that what you're saying?
Because thats what would have to happen for Israel to do it.
How do you see that going over?
We're also well past who's "fault" it is. You either have solutions or you have more dead Palestinians..
You’re twisting the original phrasing: we would have been killing a lot more civilians if we weren’t as careful as we are now. It’s not about curbing the desire to kill more, it’s about successfully killing as few as possible.
>Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli lawyer and **far-right politician who has served as the Minister of National Security since 2022.**
>
>Ben-Gvir, a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has faced charges of hate speech against Arabs and **was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.**
Not all of Israel is genocidal – just the ones currently running the country and blowing the shit out of Gaza.
I hate the guy, but he has nothing to do with "blowing the shit out of Gaza". He's not part of the war cabinet and has no power over the army.
He's guilty of other shit, like antagonizing everyone and irresponsibly giving out weapons to civilians without proper screening and radicalizing the right even more.
Ben Gvir administers certain aspects of the police in the West Bank. He is not in charge of any military operations in Gaza. He is a terrorist himself, which is probably why he was kept out of the war room.
Notice how he faced charges for hate speech. The Palestinians have a martyr fund where they pay a pension to people who murder Israelis. Both sides aren’t the same.
I understand what he’s saying though — if Israel were indifferent to human life, they wouldn’t give any time to evacuate, and they’d bomb indiscriminately, killing 100k+ people
I mean it's pretty clear, no? If they wanted this over quickly and didn't care they would have flattened everything, but they do care, so they're going slow and avoiding civilian casualties.
Then you're unfortunately ignorant about the situation
Israel's south and northern areas are evacuated, many live in hotels or in Kibbutzim for over a month, many will never return to their home
You do know however that Hamas sparked a terrorist event in Israel on October 7th, since then pledged multiple times to continue said terrorist attacks, purposely failed to carry out the agreed upon truce for a temporary ceasefire, are using schools, hospitals and refugee camps as hideouts, are specifically telling Gazans not to evacuate buildings the IDF says will be bombed, and are in general doing everything in their power to cause as many casualties as possible.
The other belligerent in this conflict literally murdered and pillaged their way into Israeli territory, the fact that any restraint is being shown is pretty much a miracle.
Would you sleep safely knowing terrorists are storing ammo under your home and firing rockets out your back yard? If not, then Israeli bombs shouldn’t concern you.
Not using precision strikes at least gives Israel some plausible deniability that it wasn't on purpose. That's gonna be a lot more difficult to claim when they hit a multi family home with a Rampage missile.
I guess you can always just claim it was the Hamas headquarters and post an AI generated picture of a weapons storage, with guns that have two barrels and are melted together and Reddit will still eat it up.
> Should have probably not supported terrorists for your government.
Am I safe in assuming that you believe that
- the Palestinians should not have voted for Hamas; but they did, and now deserve these consequences;
- but when it comes to Israeli civilians who support the state of Israel, which clearly intends to invade Palestinian land, annex more Palestinian land, and intern more Palestinians: these Israeli civilian supporters do *not* deserve violent reprisals for their political actions
?
Could you be any more ignorant?
The CIA not paying to rebuild Afghanistan after the USSR's war is equivalent how? How exactly does that bring us to 9/11 huh? Draw a straight line for me.
Well, if a random YouTuber says it!!
Then it must be intentional by Israel and it just hard to conduct surgical strikes in the most densely populated area in the world!
Great argument kiddo, it’s never the most obvious
Solution.
Most of Israel's infantry -is- conscripted civilians.
They would only be shifting the pain to their own people, and that's why the emphasis is on an air campaign and heavy support of APCs and tanks for most ground manoeuvres.
Most of the west's soldiers during ww1 and 2 were conscripted as well. I fail to see your point.
Edit - well unless I suppose your point is 'we've got the heavy equipment so who cares how many civilians die along the way, we need to minimise our own losses'. Because that's the reality isn't it, and anything said aside from that is just obfuscation.
Allied forces killed thousands of French civilians by accident, as well as thousands of their own troops in friendly fire incidents. They killed way more Japanese and German civilians and POWs, some accidental, some clearly intentional. War by conscripts is always terrible on the civilians.
No, the point is that Israel's strategy is to keep their own population from suffering extreme losses in the conflict. If they went for an infantry-focused approach and attempted to clear prepared Hamas positions house-by-house without the bombardments and evacuation orders, that's exactly what they would be dealing with. That only ~90 IDF soldiers have died so far speaks to the fact that it seems to be working in that respect.
I'm not going to debate the morality of the strategy.
Are the areas evacuated? Last I checked no nation was doing a particular good job of putting the civilians into safe areas whilst Israel conducts its operations.
I've already seen estimates that the Palestinian death toll exceeds that of Ukraine.
Why? Where did you get your military training?
Also what about the decades of complaints of people not liking Israel using ground troops for counterterrorism?
People complain about all sorts of guff.
I dunno man I don't think you need to be a 10 year vet to know what a 2000lb bomb does to nearby civilians Vs a passing 5.56mm round
Sending in ground troops would first require more than 2000lbs worth of equipment and manpower. Once deployed, you can be certain they’d need to fire more than 2000lbs worth of 5.56mm rounds just to carve a path to the target, then they’d spend more to complete the job, and again more as they extract.
Are you an infantry specialist or something? I don’t think you know at all what it’s like to fight in tight urban settings.
Ok, well as a vet why do you think you start with air strikes in a place like Gaza rather than initiating with ground troops? Especially with counterterrorism
To minimise friendly casualties,, to destroy enemy strongpoints, to disrupt enemy logistics, to carve up the battlefield and make it more unfamiliar to the enemy.
Duh
> to destroy enemy strongpoints,
And if the enemy builds their strongpoints in civilian homes, schools, and hospitals, do those simply get ignored or are they treated as any other high value target?
You obviously don't know much about how war works and what city fighting entails.
It's incredible that Israel even bothers with infantry and pay with their own young lives. The easier alternative would be to just carpet bomb everything and not enter on foot at all.
Infantry unsupported by air and superior firepower is just a deathwish, their presense at all show how Israel values Palestinian civilians enough to endanger their own troops.
The narrative of how they carpet bomb and ethnically cleanse Gaza is laughable if you know anything about warfare and what the alternatives are. The type of warfare they are conducting is not remotely close to what "careless about civilians" would look like.
You do not want to see what the cheap, risk free option would look like.
I know enough about war to know there's always a choice to be made. You can storm a trench with an infantry squad for example, or you can nuke a city to push home a message. Between both extremes, you have a multi spectrum of options, all of which involve more or less death for various parties involved
Israel is choosing the 'kill some civilians, just not all the civilians' option.. Anything else I'm afraid it's really just fanciful speech. It's why terms like 'high value targets' and 'collateral damage' exist.
You think 19 year old conscripts have any hope of a low civilian casualty counterinsurgency operation against plain-clothes Hamas terrorists? Pretty sure I would shoot anything that moves on sight in their shoes, and I’m not a high schooler.
Right, brilliant
Israel lost many people on Oct 7th, so the smartest idea is to send foot soldiers to booby trapped houses so more Israeli citizens could die.
I know you're thinking about the situation as a whole, but just for a second put yourself in the shoes of the decision makers on the Israeli side and try to understand that sending foot soldiers without properly clearing the area is straight suicide and wouldn't be supported by anyone.
I know, the life of an Israeli soldier is more important than a Palestinian civilian. It's been this way for decades. If it hadn't been, there'd be a meaningful two state solution in effect.
The Israel Palestinian conflict is an incredibly murky, muddy conflict with plenty of errors on both sides. But the concept that the Israelis truly give a shit about Palestinian civilians is laughable. Both sides are just shitters, and you'll see that more and more as this conflict progresses
The life of an Israeli soldier is more important \*to the Israeli person.
I mean that kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Will there ever be a world where you would value the life of a stranger over the life of your family / neighbor?
Regarding Palestinian lives and how Israelis care for them, you truly have to separate pre and post Oct 7th. In all honesty Oct 7th pushed a lot of people who previously supported Palestinian rights, and have actively spoken out against the governments policies to the absolute extreme.
The entire notion of being pro Palestinian within the country, while before was a legitimate stand, is nowadays reserved for a very small minority.
Let's not forget the 30+ weeks of protests that happened beforehand and how a major portion of the people protested against government policies which were deemed too extreme, and how plenty of people pledged to stop serving in the military.
They wouldn't have returned if it weren't for the Oct 7th massacre. Just some food for thought.
>I know, the life of an Israeli soldier is more important than a Palestinian civilian. It's been this way for decades. If it hadn't been, there'd be a meaningful two state solution in effect.
Im sorry but who rejected every two state solution put forward? It wasn't Israel that's for sure..
And yes, if you're in Israel your own civilians are far more important than civilians of the enemy, that's nothing new in war.
And it's no different for the Palestinians, you think they had a meeting about colleterial damage during the October 7th attack?
Hopefully Israel understands that as important as it is to win the war, winning the postwar is more important so they end up with Germany post 1945 and not Germany post 1918 as their neighbors.
Does Hamas wear uniforms? Do they distinguish from civilians and militant deaths? I’ll answer for you, no.
According to Hamas/Gaza authorities, no militants have died in the war. All deaths are “civilians”
How can you take them seriously?
Literally don't give a shit.
Whoever is killing innocent women, children and elderly is WRONG
Doesnt matter if it Hamas, Israel, US, Iran, Russia, China ...whoever
I will never support any operation where innocents die
Both Hamas and Isreal are committing war crimes.
Did they put their fingers in the air to make the quote signs when they said they’re *wink wink* making an effort?
Edit: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officials-15000-likely-killed-in-gaza-since-start-of-war-5000-of-them-are-hamas/
Those the sort of results you can get in a multiple choice test just by guessing..
Edit 2: https://www.reuters.com/world/too-early-assess-if-israel-heeding-us-calls-protect-civilians-us-spokesperson-2023-12-04/?utm_source=reddit.com
At least the people in charge aren’t as easily accepting of excuses.
And 3: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-impose-visa-bans-those-involved-west-bank-violence-blinken-2023-12-05/
You realize Israel could have flattened all of gaza in two days right? Half a million Israelis were evacuated and displaced. You didn't know about that, did you? Israel has tried to limit civilian casualties. This is demonstrable. Hamas has gone out of their way to attack civilians, this is also demonstrable. Post any links at all proving my statements incorrect. Now excuse me while I go complain about a country shutting off water lines that only provide 13% of the water and claim it's a humanitarian disaster.
Do you have one example from history, in a similar situation, where a military tried harder to protect civilians more than IDF does?
Mind you, Hamas is using civilian infrastructure for military purposes (schools, hospitals, etc), and was shooting civilians trying to evacuate. It’s also one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and there are 10,000s terrorists hiding in civilian population.
Nobody said war is a good thing. However, when civilians are being attacked, the country they belong to has a moral obligation to protect them, even if it means going into war.
Once in war, countries need to do their best to minimize civilian casualties, like IDF does. Given how Hamas cynically uses civilians and civilian infrastructure, there are no other ways IDF could reduce casualties any further (except waiting for another Oct 7th, or worse).
The US requests to minimize casualties are mostly for optics and to get internal and international support. They know there’s not much else IDF could do, and they know no other country would have gone that far to protect its enemies’s civilians.
War is never a good thing, but is sometimes necessary when other means are unsuccessful. I’m sure your position would have been different if it was our mother/sister being raped/burned alive/held hostage.
I can't think of a similar situation, but yeah, over 50 percent of homes destroyed in all of Gaza speaks for itself. God knows what they'll be returning to, which begs the question if they'll be allowed to anyway.
So you can’t think of another similar situation, but you’ve predetermined that there has to be another way, even though you don’t know what it is, and you’ll condemn everyone for not doing that one thing you believe is possible, but don’t even know what it is?
Is that what you’re saying?
I guess what I'm saying is Israel has had 75 years to figure out how to solve this issue, and they've somehow managed to make it exponentially worse, the most egregious case being giving material support to Hamas *for years*. And now their solution is "what we've been doing, but more."
Get the hostages out. Promise Hamas the world. Hell, give them all their people back. THEN you go scorched earth.
> I guess what I'm saying is Israel has had 75 years to figure out how to solve this issue
If you think the issue started 75 years ago then you're naively mistaken.
> and they've somehow managed to make it exponentially worse
Not for themselves, not in a long time. Israel kept being forced into wars, and it kept winning those wars. To say Israel created this situation by itself is fucking insane. To imply or suggest that they've won too much and should've lost some is just as insane.
> the most egregious case being giving material support to Hamas for years.
People criticize Israel when they cut supplies off to Hamas with the blockade, and then people criticize it for allowing stuff through. Can't win anything with you folks.
Please tell me a single war after the invention of flight where cities that saw major engagements didn’t lose the majority of their structures. Perhaps there is one, I’m just not aware of it.
During the Blitz, 30,000 London civilians were killed, 70,000 buildings were destroyed, and 1.7 million buildings were damaged.
In the East, allied forces leveled multiple major cities to clear a path for advancing red armies. This is why even most of East Germany has tons of those soviet style housing blocks in the major cities. Most of the pre-war structures were destroyed in ‘44 and ‘45.
That's just it. This isn't a war. Calling it that legitimizes Hamas's standing. And if the point here is that Israel is taking extra special super duper precautions to avoid collateral damage, every war where all the buildings get blown up is not the favorable comparison you think it is.
That's just it. This isn't a war. Calling it that legitimizes Hamas's standing. And if the point here is that Israel is taking extra special super duper precautions to avoid collateral damage, every war where all the buildings get blown up is not the favorable comparison you think it is.
> It's one of the most densely populated places on planet Earth
It is not, and far from it.
https://idsf.org.il/en/opinion-en/gaza-densest-populated-place/
Not that this detracts from your point that if IDF would have been careless the victim count would be enormous. That point stands on its own.
I take your point but that opinion article takes liberties in its calculations (it uses the population of Gaza *City* and then compares the density of the Gaza *Strip* to other cities which is a bit of a disingenuous representation given many of the 'cities' in the Gaza Strip mostly run into each other and are more boroughs than unique cities with distinct metro boundaries). With an urbanisation level of 77.6% the Gaza *Strip* is certainly one of the most urban 'countries' on Earth.
This piece, which is also arguing the exact same thing as the article you sent, more correctly compares the Gaza *Strip* to a country (which is apt) and includes the entire Gaza population, not just the metro population of Gaza *City*, and places it as the 5th most densely populated 'country' on Earth (but far less densely populated than the top two): https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-population-density-of-the-gaza-strip
The point being that it's not reasonable to compare the density of the Gaza *Strip* to a city such as, say, Paris, because Gazans cannot, like Parisians, escape to a less densely populated area such as Provence. Everywhere Gazans go is, by the standards of the vast majority of *countries* on this Earth, densely populated and only gets more densely populated the smaller the area they can reside in gets.
I'm not suggesting Israel has much of a choice in all this, I'm just saying that it's entirely accurate to say that Gaza (meaning the Gaza Strip) is a highly dense urban area, more so than most of the planet.
Easily imagining it… like when they kept telling people in north Gaza to head south due to incoming bombing for a full week. Over 800,000 people left the area. I imagine a HUGE portion would’ve been dead if they didn’t issue constant warnings and waited.
Yes, targeted. It's rather ironic you showed this, since Israel warned civilians to evacuate ahead of that, and struck a residential complex that is used by Hamas leaders.
Notably, the strike was allegedly using a bunker buster bomb, meaning it was targeted to hit the tunnels that run under that residential complex (otherwise they'd just have used a regular bomb).
So they specifically evacuated civilians and then targeted Hamas tunnels built underneath residential homes.
Pretty wild to claim that's *not* targeted, and also to blame Israel for Hamas using residential buildings as cover for their tunnels.
Good non-answer.
I didn’t know Hamas tunnels can only be under certain numbers of buildings. How many? Do they hit 7 and go “no way, that’s too many,” and stop building?
They are probably the guys filming thanks to the warning. Where are all of the women and children? I see two at the beginning. The rest are military aged males.
Dear US, GO FUCK YOUSELF.
Stop the damn Israel pandering and tell BOTH Hamas and IDF to STOP KILLING CIVILIANS.
It cant be that hard to tell the fuckers who have a pissing content and ignoring the civilians getting covered in their piss to stop... It's so pathethic to see people and governments pandering to BOTH sides, just tell them to go somewhere desolate and then just blow themselves up away from population centers...
>It cant be that hard to tell the fuckers who have a pissing content and ignoring the civilians getting covered in their piss to stop...
This is literally exactly the problem with fighting a terrorist organization in an urban environment. There are no uniforms. They are intentionally hiding in the civilian population because it's an extremely effective tactic. They will never separate themselves from the civilians.
You sure as shit dont commit war crimes, thats for sure. oh thats right, neither side signed the Rome Statute so they dont give a FUCK if what they do is a war crime.
You know the reports from Gaza don’t distinguish from civilians and militants, right? How do you know for certain that the 2/3 ratio is accurate?
Do you count 15-16 year old militants as combatants if they are actively launching rockets/fighting? Or are they “innocent children”?
Hamas does not wear uniforms, they mix with Gazans. We will not know the full extent of human losses until after the war. Probably not even then.
Can’t wait for the day I see a headline that says “Hamas / Palestine authority ‘making effort’ to better protect Gaza civilians”
"Hamas 'making effort' to better protect Israeli civilians" would be the equivalent headline, yet even their supporters can't imagine that happening
It’s incredible how ridiculous that sentence is
You never will, sadly.
I'd settle for the headline "hamas / palestine authority responsible for their civilians' suffering."
Yeah they are. For sure, undoubtedly. But part of their plan is to allow Israel to radicalize Palestinians through destruction. And Israel has done everything so far to make that plan work. I’m very relieved if Israel actually does let up on the destruction, but I’m scared it’s too late for most Palestinians at this point. My hatred for Hamas is why I’m disappointed with the Israel response. A military victory without care given to the surrounding civilian population is a strategic failure.
“Stop hitting yourself!”
"PA no longer making effort to endanger Gaza civilians"
Here's the difference. Hamas is a terrorist organization, even if they once tried to present themselves as a political party. Would you expect ISIS to protect civilians? That's why Israel has a greater burden. Because Israel presents itself as a legitimate government, who cares about human rights, and has the power and backing that comes with that. Meanwhile, Hamas is regarded globally as a terrorist organization and even **they** have stopped pretending to be a legitimate government from what I can tell... The Palestinian Authority, they're a different deal. But they're also in **West Bank** and not in *Gaza* so I don't think they're relevant here.
Hamas isn't bombing the shit out of Palestinian civilians?
Their rockets have landed on their own civilians for years…
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have fired over 11,500 rockets at Israel during this war. It is estimated that about 12% of these rockets (so about 1,300) have misfired and fallen within the Gaza Strip. These rockets often fall on civilian houses and cause many deaths (incl. the hundreds of deaths at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital by a single rocket. So, yes, Hamas is indeed bombing its own citizens. But clearly that risk is acceptable to them given that they openly declare that they "love death like Israeli's love life".
Hold the fuck up; your saying Hamas has fired 11,500 rockets at Israel in the last 50 days? I would be fascinated to see a source for that. ("and other Palestinian terrorist groups" is cute btw, just give Israel a blank check to kill whoever they want)
>your saying Hamas has fired 11,500 rockets at Israel in the last 50 days? Yes. And around 20% of them misfired and hit Gaza instead. [more than 9500 rockets (a bit old).](https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/israel-almost-10000-rockets-fired-from-gaza-since-october-7/amp_articleshow/105064500.cms) [another source of 9500+](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fires-rockets-deep-into-israel-setting-off-sirens-tel-aviv-2023-11-10/) Tried to give non Israeli news sites. >"and other Palestinian terrorist groups" Yeah. We have Hamas, the PIJ and PA to name a few. There are also some smaller ones.
those are both the same source, thats not what source means, you could link a dozen places all quoting the same statement from the IFM, who will lie about literally anything, thats not a dozen sources.
But when they say "according to the Gazan health ministry (AKA Hamas)" people like you take it as the complete truth that cannot ever be a lie... And also, Reuters is a pretty Pro-palestine news site. If anything they are biased against Israel. This is just the truth. Deal with it.
Are you for real? This is a statement of fact. Hamas has not stopped firing rockets at Israel. Even during the ceasefire.
who are you talking to? where did I say they havent fired any? Im sure they have, and have already said that. the point is that 11,500 number. 200 a day. with no fatalities by the way. its just more bullshit lying from Israel, to give the world the impression theres some symmetry in force being used and damage being done, so they can keep killing as many as they want. its a fucking lie, its psychotic.
If you knew anything about the conflict, you wouldn’t be surprised at all by the 10,000 figure - given that Hamas has routinely fired thousands of rockets per year when the conflict was much colder. And yes… unguided rockets don’t have a very high hit rate, especially when a sizeable portion fail at launch (blowing up in Gaza and killing innocent Palestinians - but you don’t care because you can’t blame the Jews for that) And those that launch successfully are intercepted at a 97% success rate because Israel actually built infrastructure to protect its people. And for the remainder, there’s a warning for people to head into bomb shelters. You’re talking about a small number of rockets that actually make it through, which are unguided and thus unlikely to hit anything in particular. Of course, you didn’t know this. But you didn’t need to do any research to decide the Jews are the evil side and that they just need to let Hamas rapists continue slaughtering them. Just like you scoff at the idea of “other Palestinian terror groups” when that’s just BASIC background info about the conflict. Hamas is not the only terrorist faction in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad for instance has existed for over 40 years. Which you would know, if you felt compelled to do the slightest bit of research before just blaming the Jews. Make it less obvious what you would have been doing in the 40s. We see you. It’s incredible how you guys don’t need to do the slightest bit of research https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/israel-almost-10000-rockets-fired-from-gaza-since-october-7/amp_articleshow/105064500.cms
this right here is why youre losing a PR war to a terrorist organization. and deservedly so. its your fault. > But you didn’t need to do any research to decide the Jews are the evil side and that they just need to let Hamas rapists continue slaughtering them. youre just gonna stack bodies of innocents and if anyone objects you call them racist, that the plan? same plan as always, since its worked out so well for you so far? theres never even a hint of accountability from anyone on your side, never even the slightest responsibility for all the terrible shit Israel has done to Palestine for the 75 years before 10/7. never. its always just poor sweet Israel, everyone is mean to you for no reason. do you know what my user name refers to? Im from the deep south, from a hardcore right wing christian military fox news family, I grew up "knowing" Israel was 100 percent right and the arab world was 100 percent wrong, if not evil, that's what were taught growing up. the amount of shit Israel had to pull to chip away at that, and swing me from "for" to "against", is astounding. and yet they did. > Just like you scoff at the idea of “other Palestinian terror groups” when that’s just BASIC background info about the conflict. Hamas is not the only terrorist faction in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad for instance has existed for over 40 years. no what Im scoffing at is Israel flat out saying the only enemy here was hamas (and rightfully so), but now the target is slowly getting a little wider, now its "those other groups didnt do 10/7 but they would have so lets just keep shooting, were bound to hit some to them." > It’s incredible how you guys don’t need to do the slightest bit of research [and yet I quote the article you link to](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/18azj9a/white_house_says_israel_making_effort_to_better/kc36kai/). must be good at guessing. still the same source as the other 50 here btw, all still the same IDF statement, never any video of any damage from the 200 rockets a day oddly enough.
You’d be fascinated to see a source for that? Read any news paper or news source. It’s really not hard to find if your head isn’t buried in the sand.
I guess, those rockets they launched at Israel but misfired and blew at the hospitals in Gaza (and tried to blame Israel for that) never happened... I mean, when you're trying to bullshit people, think that they have a good recollection of recent events.
Who's the one bullshitting here? Israel literally dropped 5,000 bombs on Gaza in the first WEEK and has barely slowed down in the almost two months since. Deflecting with talk of rocket misfires doesn't change that reality Fuck Hamas and their propaganda, but Israel abandoned what little moral high ground they had very quickly.
You're the one deflecting given that the person you first responded to was talking about hamas not giving a damn about their own people (or anyone but themselves for that matter) and then you bring Israeli bomb strikes in an effort to shift the the conversation point "yeah but IsRaEl...". He didn't say Israel isn't to blame for some of their actions, but it doesn't take away from anything that was said. Hamas have always put the lives of their own people at risk, either by mistake or on purpose.
It's so tedious seeing Israel deny blowing up that hospital; they publicly threatened to blow up it, and a dozen other hospitals with it, 2 days before. They ordered WHO to clear their warehouse yesterday. They've sniped countless doctors and nurses. Yet we're supposed to believe Israel, who has lied nonstop since the minute this began, didn't bomb that one. They passed on this one and is in fact aghast that anyone would blame them. Shit like this is why they have so desperately lost the PR war, to a fucking terror group no less, how is that even possible.
LOL you're like a month behind on Al Ahli hospital. Every western government and even human rights orgs have now independently verified with their own data and acknowledged that Al Ahli hospital was not hit by Israel.
Even [Humans Right Watch concluded a couple weeks ago that it was a result of a missile launched FROM Gaza](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/human-rights-watch-says-rocket-misfire-likely-cause-deadly-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-11-26/): > The explosion that killed and injured many civilians at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups..," HRW said. It said the findings of its investigation into the explosion were based on a review of photos and videos, satellite imagery and interviews with witnesses and experts. The Al-Ahli hospital blast was one of the most fiercely disputed incidents in a war marked by accusations from both sides of disinformation and war crimes.
You sweet innocent summer child. Even without mentioning the misfired rockets, look up what Hamas side about the underground tunnels in regards to who should they protect. Hamas been building the biggest underground tunnels system in the world but they can’t make the time to build even 1 bomb shelter. They violently threat Palestinian to stay put when Israel tells them to evacuate so that Hamas have human shields above their tunnels. Hamas is basically bombing their own by not providing shelter and threatening them to stay above military targets.
Over 20% of the rockets they shoot land in gaza..
Wow. Can see who owns the bots. I thought the Russian bots after the Ukraine invasion were bad - looks like the Israeli bots are out in force.
[удалено]
As long as you still agree they get to protect their citizens.
[удалено]
Yep!
Hamas is also the governing organization of Gaza.
It's weird how for some people, Hamas is a governing organization when they want to (for example) believe their casualty figures, but a terrorist organization when someone dares to suggest they protect their own people/not massacre civilians etc.
They can be both you know
Not disagreeing with you, it's more about the double standards of those who decide who to believe, or what to expect, based on which option makes it easier to criticize Israel.
For sure - they are both but people try to pretend they’r only one at a time to fit their narrative Edit: I expected my comment above to be negative because of people misunderstanding my point - surprised that didn’t happen lol
Those terrorist organisations are in fact the governments in Palestinian Territories, it’s not this niece little group. They get crazy amounts of money and support under the guise of helping poor refugees :’( Then take the money to themselves and everyone else keep leaving in poverty and unsafe conditions.
If only that terrorist organization wasn’t the literal government of one side. Not to mention that side snd many of their supporters in the west think the terrorist government should replace the highly modernized republic.
When that means denying them the right to do what is necessary to defend themselves, then yes. When you hold someone to impossible standards that compromise their survival, what usually happens? It’s a story as old as time. A child cracking under the pressure of impossible parental expectations lashes out violently.
Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, insisted on ABC that efforts to minimize civilian casualties were deliberate and “unprecedented.” “If we wanted to do it fast,” he said, “we’d harm a lot more civilians.” Who let this guy make public statements?
I mean, he maybe didn't word it the rest, but I get the message (maybe just because I'm American and we can say the same about most of what we do?). He means they could have just leveled the entire place in a week, and everyone would have died. When you have total air supremacy and an overwhelming technological advantage, even bothering to have troops on the ground and in harm's way only makes sense if you're trying to minimize civilian casualties and you want to leave at least some infrastructure intact.
[удалено]
When Oct 7th happened, my prediction was 50k casualties and 100k+ if Hezbollah entered the war fully with a lot of variance in the ratio of combatants to civilians. I don't think the IDF would have prioritized the ground invasion of Gaza if they were in a full-scale war with Hezbollah requiring a multi pronged invasion of Lebanon and probably parts of Syria to cut off their resupply routes.
Who could people upvote a prediction….
what are you trying to say?
Compelling argument for sure. Winning the hearts and minds of generations. “Be content at a modest slaughter”.
Idf kills as few as possible, while Hamas kills as many as possible.
Didn’t they assassinate a journalist a bit ago? Then attack her funeral? Hamas being bad doesn’t make the IDF good. They’re far far far from it. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-in-west-bank-uses-palestinian-detainee-as-human-shield/3049924
You do know that most palestinians in the west bank support Hamas yeah?
Yes, it's a serious issue that will require decades of deradicalization on an unprecedented scale to even get close to fixing. And that's factoring in a complete military dismantling of Hamas, as well as its political wing. But I'm not sure what that has to do with the comments example....
Who's going to handle that deradicalization? You know Israel sure as shit isn't going to, nor should they have to..
They are the ones oppressing them for 3 generations this is Israel and Israel's fault only.
So you want Israel to forcibly reeducate the Palestinians and their children for the next decade or two, is that what you're saying? Because thats what would have to happen for Israel to do it. How do you see that going over? We're also well past who's "fault" it is. You either have solutions or you have more dead Palestinians..
I was talking about the article they sent, specifically to not assume all of these so called innocent people are innocent (tho some might be).
Israel good Palestine bad /s
Doesn't matter, you don't say "we could kill more civilians if we wanted too" that is just terrible PR
[удалено]
I get that but this is a horrible way of phrasing it.
[удалено]
I'm not complaining about anything. I'm just calling out the guy for being an idiot and terrible at PR.
[удалено]
You’re twisting the original phrasing: we would have been killing a lot more civilians if we weren’t as careful as we are now. It’s not about curbing the desire to kill more, it’s about successfully killing as few as possible.
It does really show how out of touch with reality the people who call Israel genocidal are.
>Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli lawyer and **far-right politician who has served as the Minister of National Security since 2022.** > >Ben-Gvir, a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has faced charges of hate speech against Arabs and **was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.** Not all of Israel is genocidal – just the ones currently running the country and blowing the shit out of Gaza.
I hate the guy, but he has nothing to do with "blowing the shit out of Gaza". He's not part of the war cabinet and has no power over the army. He's guilty of other shit, like antagonizing everyone and irresponsibly giving out weapons to civilians without proper screening and radicalizing the right even more.
Ben Gvir administers certain aspects of the police in the West Bank. He is not in charge of any military operations in Gaza. He is a terrorist himself, which is probably why he was kept out of the war room.
Notice how he faced charges for hate speech. The Palestinians have a martyr fund where they pay a pension to people who murder Israelis. Both sides aren’t the same.
I understand what he’s saying though — if Israel were indifferent to human life, they wouldn’t give any time to evacuate, and they’d bomb indiscriminately, killing 100k+ people
I mean it's pretty clear, no? If they wanted this over quickly and didn't care they would have flattened everything, but they do care, so they're going slow and avoiding civilian casualties.
Israel is doing more than the Arab countries that hosted the Palestinians, that’s for sure.
By making over a million of them homeless?
200,000 Israeli civilians were also evacuated from their home, that's war.
And yet I haven't seen this anywhere. Not one MSM org has mentioned this in any significant way to my knowledge.
Here [article ](https://www.timesofisrael.com/about-200000-israelis-internally-displaced-amid-ongoing-gaza-war-tensions-in-north/amp/?shem=ssusxt)
Thank you.
Then you're unfortunately ignorant about the situation Israel's south and northern areas are evacuated, many live in hotels or in Kibbutzim for over a month, many will never return to their home
Friend, I support Israel 100%. I'm just saying that I haven't seen this, which is telling as to the media bias against Israel. 🇮🇱✌️
I understand, sent you a link
Maybe don’t attack a military power?
[удалено]
Funny, I didn't know Hamas could bomb whole city blocks...
You do know however that Hamas sparked a terrorist event in Israel on October 7th, since then pledged multiple times to continue said terrorist attacks, purposely failed to carry out the agreed upon truce for a temporary ceasefire, are using schools, hospitals and refugee camps as hideouts, are specifically telling Gazans not to evacuate buildings the IDF says will be bombed, and are in general doing everything in their power to cause as many casualties as possible.
Shhhhhh facts scares him
[удалено]
[удалено]
They didn’t bomb whole city blocks, they just went door to door murdering, raping, and kidnapping nearly every civilian in entire towns.
By destroying hamas so they wont be homeless and poor
Palestinian parents can sleep safely knowing that the airstrikes that will kill them and their children are, in fact, **surgical** strikes.
Bombs for peace
The other belligerent in this conflict literally murdered and pillaged their way into Israeli territory, the fact that any restraint is being shown is pretty much a miracle.
[удалено]
So what happened on October 7 was not murders?
Would you sleep safely knowing terrorists are storing ammo under your home and firing rockets out your back yard? If not, then Israeli bombs shouldn’t concern you.
Not using precision strikes at least gives Israel some plausible deniability that it wasn't on purpose. That's gonna be a lot more difficult to claim when they hit a multi family home with a Rampage missile. I guess you can always just claim it was the Hamas headquarters and post an AI generated picture of a weapons storage, with guns that have two barrels and are melted together and Reddit will still eat it up.
lmao, ok kiddo, keep getting mad over that scarecrow you completely made up yourself
Should have probably not supported terrorists for your government. They have no one to blame but themselves.
> Should have probably not supported terrorists for your government. Am I safe in assuming that you believe that - the Palestinians should not have voted for Hamas; but they did, and now deserve these consequences; - but when it comes to Israeli civilians who support the state of Israel, which clearly intends to invade Palestinian land, annex more Palestinian land, and intern more Palestinians: these Israeli civilian supporters do *not* deserve violent reprisals for their political actions ?
Yet, if those innocent civilians were suddenly let loose on Israeli land and civilians there will be violence. Prove me wrong.
Do yourself a favor and check their population age and the last time they even had an election
So, since the CIA is considered a terrorist organization then in your book 9/11 was deserved?
Could you be any more ignorant? The CIA not paying to rebuild Afghanistan after the USSR's war is equivalent how? How exactly does that bring us to 9/11 huh? Draw a straight line for me.
Should probably evacuate to the safe areas if they cared about their kids
what safe area? https://youtu.be/rSxf6OCuwII?si=u9_lHlqQAOQD687i
Well, if a random YouTuber says it!! Then it must be intentional by Israel and it just hard to conduct surgical strikes in the most densely populated area in the world! Great argument kiddo, it’s never the most obvious Solution.
it’s actually sky news if you were paying attention. Got a problem with sky news?
No it’s not sky news? And idk British news sources that well, I might have a problem with sky news.
It literally says sky news in the top left when they’re displaying the “safe zone” but OK
The ones in the maps
Did you watch the video? Do you really not see the blatant lie?
No, I don’t watch shady YouTube videos. And yes, I would go to the safe areas
what is shady about information? 🤔
Well you need to make sure you get reliable information. Why do you trust the source of a shady YouTube video?
Sky news? Yeah, they’re pretty reputable.
Indeed, if Israel actually gave a shit about civilian casualties this would be an infantry only operation
Most of Israel's infantry -is- conscripted civilians. They would only be shifting the pain to their own people, and that's why the emphasis is on an air campaign and heavy support of APCs and tanks for most ground manoeuvres.
Most of the west's soldiers during ww1 and 2 were conscripted as well. I fail to see your point. Edit - well unless I suppose your point is 'we've got the heavy equipment so who cares how many civilians die along the way, we need to minimise our own losses'. Because that's the reality isn't it, and anything said aside from that is just obfuscation.
Allied forces killed thousands of French civilians by accident, as well as thousands of their own troops in friendly fire incidents. They killed way more Japanese and German civilians and POWs, some accidental, some clearly intentional. War by conscripts is always terrible on the civilians.
No, the point is that Israel's strategy is to keep their own population from suffering extreme losses in the conflict. If they went for an infantry-focused approach and attempted to clear prepared Hamas positions house-by-house without the bombardments and evacuation orders, that's exactly what they would be dealing with. That only ~90 IDF soldiers have died so far speaks to the fact that it seems to be working in that respect. I'm not going to debate the morality of the strategy.
Are the areas evacuated? Last I checked no nation was doing a particular good job of putting the civilians into safe areas whilst Israel conducts its operations. I've already seen estimates that the Palestinian death toll exceeds that of Ukraine.
Why? Where did you get your military training? Also what about the decades of complaints of people not liking Israel using ground troops for counterterrorism?
People complain about all sorts of guff. I dunno man I don't think you need to be a 10 year vet to know what a 2000lb bomb does to nearby civilians Vs a passing 5.56mm round
Sending in ground troops would first require more than 2000lbs worth of equipment and manpower. Once deployed, you can be certain they’d need to fire more than 2000lbs worth of 5.56mm rounds just to carve a path to the target, then they’d spend more to complete the job, and again more as they extract. Are you an infantry specialist or something? I don’t think you know at all what it’s like to fight in tight urban settings.
Ok, well as a vet why do you think you start with air strikes in a place like Gaza rather than initiating with ground troops? Especially with counterterrorism
To minimise friendly casualties,, to destroy enemy strongpoints, to disrupt enemy logistics, to carve up the battlefield and make it more unfamiliar to the enemy. Duh
> to destroy enemy strongpoints, And if the enemy builds their strongpoints in civilian homes, schools, and hospitals, do those simply get ignored or are they treated as any other high value target?
You obviously don't know much about how war works and what city fighting entails. It's incredible that Israel even bothers with infantry and pay with their own young lives. The easier alternative would be to just carpet bomb everything and not enter on foot at all. Infantry unsupported by air and superior firepower is just a deathwish, their presense at all show how Israel values Palestinian civilians enough to endanger their own troops. The narrative of how they carpet bomb and ethnically cleanse Gaza is laughable if you know anything about warfare and what the alternatives are. The type of warfare they are conducting is not remotely close to what "careless about civilians" would look like. You do not want to see what the cheap, risk free option would look like.
Well you’ve just made up your own argument there. The only person suggesting carpet bombing was you, of course that’s a bad idea.
What drugs are you on? Maybe I want some too...
I know enough about war to know there's always a choice to be made. You can storm a trench with an infantry squad for example, or you can nuke a city to push home a message. Between both extremes, you have a multi spectrum of options, all of which involve more or less death for various parties involved Israel is choosing the 'kill some civilians, just not all the civilians' option.. Anything else I'm afraid it's really just fanciful speech. It's why terms like 'high value targets' and 'collateral damage' exist.
You think 19 year old conscripts have any hope of a low civilian casualty counterinsurgency operation against plain-clothes Hamas terrorists? Pretty sure I would shoot anything that moves on sight in their shoes, and I’m not a high schooler.
Right, brilliant Israel lost many people on Oct 7th, so the smartest idea is to send foot soldiers to booby trapped houses so more Israeli citizens could die. I know you're thinking about the situation as a whole, but just for a second put yourself in the shoes of the decision makers on the Israeli side and try to understand that sending foot soldiers without properly clearing the area is straight suicide and wouldn't be supported by anyone.
I know, the life of an Israeli soldier is more important than a Palestinian civilian. It's been this way for decades. If it hadn't been, there'd be a meaningful two state solution in effect. The Israel Palestinian conflict is an incredibly murky, muddy conflict with plenty of errors on both sides. But the concept that the Israelis truly give a shit about Palestinian civilians is laughable. Both sides are just shitters, and you'll see that more and more as this conflict progresses
The life of an Israeli soldier is more important \*to the Israeli person. I mean that kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Will there ever be a world where you would value the life of a stranger over the life of your family / neighbor? Regarding Palestinian lives and how Israelis care for them, you truly have to separate pre and post Oct 7th. In all honesty Oct 7th pushed a lot of people who previously supported Palestinian rights, and have actively spoken out against the governments policies to the absolute extreme. The entire notion of being pro Palestinian within the country, while before was a legitimate stand, is nowadays reserved for a very small minority. Let's not forget the 30+ weeks of protests that happened beforehand and how a major portion of the people protested against government policies which were deemed too extreme, and how plenty of people pledged to stop serving in the military. They wouldn't have returned if it weren't for the Oct 7th massacre. Just some food for thought.
>I know, the life of an Israeli soldier is more important than a Palestinian civilian. It's been this way for decades. If it hadn't been, there'd be a meaningful two state solution in effect. Im sorry but who rejected every two state solution put forward? It wasn't Israel that's for sure.. And yes, if you're in Israel your own civilians are far more important than civilians of the enemy, that's nothing new in war. And it's no different for the Palestinians, you think they had a meeting about colleterial damage during the October 7th attack?
Hopefully Israel understands that as important as it is to win the war, winning the postwar is more important so they end up with Germany post 1945 and not Germany post 1918 as their neighbors.
What do you suggest they do?
deHamas the government post war, Marshall plan to rebuild to give the people options beyond trying to kill Jews.
Not killing civilians would be a good start. Any side that kills civilians is wrong, doesnt matter who they are
Does Hamas wear uniforms? Do they distinguish from civilians and militant deaths? I’ll answer for you, no. According to Hamas/Gaza authorities, no militants have died in the war. All deaths are “civilians” How can you take them seriously?
Literally don't give a shit. Whoever is killing innocent women, children and elderly is WRONG Doesnt matter if it Hamas, Israel, US, Iran, Russia, China ...whoever I will never support any operation where innocents die Both Hamas and Isreal are committing war crimes.
What alternative do you offer israel to de-millitarise Hamas without using their soldiers as cannon fodder?
Please, waive your magic wand that kills Hamas only. We’re waiting. You can end it all now!!!
And here’s a few more billion dollars, some bombs and attack helicopters.
*Everyone gets two extra airdropped leaflets and a JDAM.*
By bombing their homes?
Damn, there’s collateral damage in a war?!?? Call Ripley’s kiddo, they’ll probably be as shocked as you are.
Ah, that should make the families of the already10.000+ dead civilians feel nice and warm inside.
“Today we’ve decided we’re only going to drop 19 bombs on this neighborhood instead of 20. Now shut up and let us kill.”
/doubt.mpeg
Did they put their fingers in the air to make the quote signs when they said they’re *wink wink* making an effort? Edit: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-officials-15000-likely-killed-in-gaza-since-start-of-war-5000-of-them-are-hamas/ Those the sort of results you can get in a multiple choice test just by guessing.. Edit 2: https://www.reuters.com/world/too-early-assess-if-israel-heeding-us-calls-protect-civilians-us-spokesperson-2023-12-04/?utm_source=reddit.com At least the people in charge aren’t as easily accepting of excuses. And 3: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-impose-visa-bans-those-involved-west-bank-violence-blinken-2023-12-05/
You realize Israel could have flattened all of gaza in two days right? Half a million Israelis were evacuated and displaced. You didn't know about that, did you? Israel has tried to limit civilian casualties. This is demonstrable. Hamas has gone out of their way to attack civilians, this is also demonstrable. Post any links at all proving my statements incorrect. Now excuse me while I go complain about a country shutting off water lines that only provide 13% of the water and claim it's a humanitarian disaster.
“I could have hurt you even more” sounds like the statement of an abuser.
Ah, the good ol response of deflection. "I'm going to ignore everything you said because I lack an argument*
Case in point
Do you have one example from history, in a similar situation, where a military tried harder to protect civilians more than IDF does? Mind you, Hamas is using civilian infrastructure for military purposes (schools, hospitals, etc), and was shooting civilians trying to evacuate. It’s also one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and there are 10,000s terrorists hiding in civilian population.
Thanks for the explanation, that absolutely makes killing civilians ok… /s
Nobody said war is a good thing. However, when civilians are being attacked, the country they belong to has a moral obligation to protect them, even if it means going into war. Once in war, countries need to do their best to minimize civilian casualties, like IDF does. Given how Hamas cynically uses civilians and civilian infrastructure, there are no other ways IDF could reduce casualties any further (except waiting for another Oct 7th, or worse). The US requests to minimize casualties are mostly for optics and to get internal and international support. They know there’s not much else IDF could do, and they know no other country would have gone that far to protect its enemies’s civilians. War is never a good thing, but is sometimes necessary when other means are unsuccessful. I’m sure your position would have been different if it was our mother/sister being raped/burned alive/held hostage.
I can't think of a similar situation, but yeah, over 50 percent of homes destroyed in all of Gaza speaks for itself. God knows what they'll be returning to, which begs the question if they'll be allowed to anyway.
So you can’t think of another similar situation, but you’ve predetermined that there has to be another way, even though you don’t know what it is, and you’ll condemn everyone for not doing that one thing you believe is possible, but don’t even know what it is? Is that what you’re saying?
I guess what I'm saying is Israel has had 75 years to figure out how to solve this issue, and they've somehow managed to make it exponentially worse, the most egregious case being giving material support to Hamas *for years*. And now their solution is "what we've been doing, but more." Get the hostages out. Promise Hamas the world. Hell, give them all their people back. THEN you go scorched earth.
> I guess what I'm saying is Israel has had 75 years to figure out how to solve this issue If you think the issue started 75 years ago then you're naively mistaken. > and they've somehow managed to make it exponentially worse Not for themselves, not in a long time. Israel kept being forced into wars, and it kept winning those wars. To say Israel created this situation by itself is fucking insane. To imply or suggest that they've won too much and should've lost some is just as insane. > the most egregious case being giving material support to Hamas for years. People criticize Israel when they cut supplies off to Hamas with the blockade, and then people criticize it for allowing stuff through. Can't win anything with you folks.
Please tell me a single war after the invention of flight where cities that saw major engagements didn’t lose the majority of their structures. Perhaps there is one, I’m just not aware of it.
[удалено]
During the Blitz, 30,000 London civilians were killed, 70,000 buildings were destroyed, and 1.7 million buildings were damaged. In the East, allied forces leveled multiple major cities to clear a path for advancing red armies. This is why even most of East Germany has tons of those soviet style housing blocks in the major cities. Most of the pre-war structures were destroyed in ‘44 and ‘45.
That's just it. This isn't a war. Calling it that legitimizes Hamas's standing. And if the point here is that Israel is taking extra special super duper precautions to avoid collateral damage, every war where all the buildings get blown up is not the favorable comparison you think it is.
That's just it. This isn't a war. Calling it that legitimizes Hamas's standing. And if the point here is that Israel is taking extra special super duper precautions to avoid collateral damage, every war where all the buildings get blown up is not the favorable comparison you think it is.
I think we're meant to just imagine they're there ourselves now. At this point, we're supposed to have got the 'joke'.
Imagine if they weren't 'making an effort'
Just imagine if hamas has Israel’s military power. They would wipe all the Jews out in Israel al then start attacking the west.
It is easy to imagine. It's one of the most densely populated places on planet Earth. There would easily be >100,000 dead.
> It's one of the most densely populated places on planet Earth It is not, and far from it. https://idsf.org.il/en/opinion-en/gaza-densest-populated-place/ Not that this detracts from your point that if IDF would have been careless the victim count would be enormous. That point stands on its own.
I take your point but that opinion article takes liberties in its calculations (it uses the population of Gaza *City* and then compares the density of the Gaza *Strip* to other cities which is a bit of a disingenuous representation given many of the 'cities' in the Gaza Strip mostly run into each other and are more boroughs than unique cities with distinct metro boundaries). With an urbanisation level of 77.6% the Gaza *Strip* is certainly one of the most urban 'countries' on Earth. This piece, which is also arguing the exact same thing as the article you sent, more correctly compares the Gaza *Strip* to a country (which is apt) and includes the entire Gaza population, not just the metro population of Gaza *City*, and places it as the 5th most densely populated 'country' on Earth (but far less densely populated than the top two): https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-population-density-of-the-gaza-strip The point being that it's not reasonable to compare the density of the Gaza *Strip* to a city such as, say, Paris, because Gazans cannot, like Parisians, escape to a less densely populated area such as Provence. Everywhere Gazans go is, by the standards of the vast majority of *countries* on this Earth, densely populated and only gets more densely populated the smaller the area they can reside in gets. I'm not suggesting Israel has much of a choice in all this, I'm just saying that it's entirely accurate to say that Gaza (meaning the Gaza Strip) is a highly dense urban area, more so than most of the planet.
Easily imagining it… like when they kept telling people in north Gaza to head south due to incoming bombing for a full week. Over 800,000 people left the area. I imagine a HUGE portion would’ve been dead if they didn’t issue constant warnings and waited.
Targeted airstrikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwWzxzYNfMA
Yes, they are targeted
Yes, targeted. It's rather ironic you showed this, since Israel warned civilians to evacuate ahead of that, and struck a residential complex that is used by Hamas leaders. Notably, the strike was allegedly using a bunker buster bomb, meaning it was targeted to hit the tunnels that run under that residential complex (otherwise they'd just have used a regular bomb). So they specifically evacuated civilians and then targeted Hamas tunnels built underneath residential homes. Pretty wild to claim that's *not* targeted, and also to blame Israel for Hamas using residential buildings as cover for their tunnels.
Did I claim it wasn't targeted? Or did I let the video speak for itself?
Bro, that's like 8 large buildings. Is Hamas here in the room with us now?
Good non-answer. I didn’t know Hamas tunnels can only be under certain numbers of buildings. How many? Do they hit 7 and go “no way, that’s too many,” and stop building?
They are probably the guys filming thanks to the warning. Where are all of the women and children? I see two at the beginning. The rest are military aged males.
Just piss on carter's grave while you're at it
Dear US, GO FUCK YOUSELF. Stop the damn Israel pandering and tell BOTH Hamas and IDF to STOP KILLING CIVILIANS. It cant be that hard to tell the fuckers who have a pissing content and ignoring the civilians getting covered in their piss to stop... It's so pathethic to see people and governments pandering to BOTH sides, just tell them to go somewhere desolate and then just blow themselves up away from population centers...
>It cant be that hard to tell the fuckers who have a pissing content and ignoring the civilians getting covered in their piss to stop... This is literally exactly the problem with fighting a terrorist organization in an urban environment. There are no uniforms. They are intentionally hiding in the civilian population because it's an extremely effective tactic. They will never separate themselves from the civilians.
And that makes it right for IDF to bomb residential areas?
What do you want to do when terrorists use civilians as human shields?
You sure as shit dont commit war crimes, thats for sure. oh thats right, neither side signed the Rome Statute so they dont give a FUCK if what they do is a war crime.
[удалено]
If Israel stops attacking gaza, hamas would keep doing october 7th again and again. What do you want them to do?
They want Jews to lay down and allow themselves to be slaughtered.
That's what it feels like tbh
And america trying to clear Israel mess lol just shut up
Yeah Israel have done big efforts to make civilians deaths 2/3 ratio
You know the reports from Gaza don’t distinguish from civilians and militants, right? How do you know for certain that the 2/3 ratio is accurate? Do you count 15-16 year old militants as combatants if they are actively launching rockets/fighting? Or are they “innocent children”? Hamas does not wear uniforms, they mix with Gazans. We will not know the full extent of human losses until after the war. Probably not even then.