Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War,

the children already injured and terrified may have been confused but their injuries were clear to the surgeon

What expertise does the surgeon have with this new technology? Until recently he was a transplant surgeon.

The poster I was replying to linked to the same article, which I quoted from.

Well no, not speculation, if you watch the documentary that this thread pertains to, IDF soldiers testified that they have shot Palestinians using drones.

For instance, in the documentary Neta Caspin, a major in the IDF, talks about how a drone operator used a drone to follow an unarmed civilian for half an hour and when he grew bored obtained permission to shoot the man and they all watched the drone shoot the man and watched the man fall on a screen far away from the murder they just committed.

Take this testimony by a surgeon in Gaza

I'm sorry, but the [retired] British surgeon is confused - I have posted about his testimony before.

(From the link) -
"We [were] operating on children who would say: 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.'
He added: "The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboid pellets and I fished a number of those out of the abdomen of small children.

The 'bullets' the surgeon was describing are not bullets but cuboid-shaped fragmentations or shrapnel from a larger missile/shell - there were several articles describing these fragmentations published last year. When the missile explodes, the cuboid fragmentations randomly disperse in all directions - in a radius of up to 20-metres (65-ft).

Therefore the 'cuboid pellets' retrieved by the surgeon would not have come from a quadcopter or 'sniper drone' firing bullets.

Was the surgeon, 'Prof Nizam Mamode, from Brockenhurst, Hampshire', able to converse with the children himself? The parliamentary committee did not ask him if he shared a common language with his young patients.

In fact, there doesn't appear to be concrete evidence that Israel is using 'sniper drones' or quadcopters 'firing bullets', only speculation that the technology exists.

Again, we condemn Hamas but we support Israel.

None of the twisted truths you wrote change that.

I don’t understand how people can watch a documentary where people said ‘we killed civilians and we killed them on purpose, many of our group have expressed that they just want to kill all people of that ethnicity. Many of our commanders told us to kill civilians and told us international law doesn’t apply to us’ and your response is ‘they have tunnels so it was all jusified’.

Apologies this paragraph should read:

Before Oct 7th Hamas was estimated to have 30,000 fighters and has recruited another estimated 15,000 during the war, so quite a lot more who are not lightly armed, The 600 mile (corrected) underground tunnel network, hostages and no rockets are further glaring differences.

Also Mosul is 4 times bigger than Gaza with a 20% smaller population in 2016 meaning there is no comparison in population density, and that the 600 mile tunnel network over a 141 square mile area, where buildings were often built on TOP of the tunnel tunnel network is very relevant to the way IDF operations were carried out and is unprecedented in an urban warfare environment.

Definitely explains the destruction on the surface as well with the booby traps in the tunnels and the IDF having to destroy as much as possible to disable Hamas movement, attacks and capture/neutralise Hamas operators.

I doubt Hamas employed building regulators to check the tunnels didn’t affect the integrity of the almost every building on the surface as they built them. Although they could have afforded to if they had a billion $ spare to build the tunnels with.

Do the armchair experts expect the tunnels could be been left intact and they weren’t a factor in thousands of Hamas being able to evade the IDF and plan/carry out ambushes? They should have been able to just pop out anywhere?

There’s 200 of them stuck in a bit of tunnel now who they are crying about (sincerely hope Israel does not give in on that). Doesn’t that give an indication of how many were down there and the size of them?

Not from my reading on Mosul:

In that battle, over 100,000 Iraqi Security Forces, backed by American advisors and U.S. and coalition air power, took nine months to clear a city of 3,000 to 5,000 lightly armed ISIS fighters.

There were very limited, shallow, house-to-house tunnels, but no tunnel networks, no hostages, no rockets.

Before Oct 7th Hamas was estimated to have 30,000 fighters and has recruited another estimated 15,000 during the war, so quite a lot more who are not lightly armed, The 600 mile (corrected) underground tunnel network, hostages and no rockets are further glaring differences.

Please direct me to any other reports from modern urban warfare experts that counter his opinion as I’d be interested to read them.

In fact, IMO the only way to obtain true facts on the ground about this war is from military experts like John Spencer which are largely and unsurprisingly absent from MSM and opinion.

You really need this to be able to form on opinion on a war IMO otherwise you’re just talking shit which I try not to do.

His stance hasn’t changed btw.

This podcast is from last month. It’s almost an hour long but immensely valuable in getting an understanding of the mechanics of this war. That’s if you actually WANT an understanding of course, instead of just to demonise the IDF!

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project-podcast-the-tunnels-of-gaza/

The 2000 figure is straight from the UN report, look it up for yourself.

Of course I wouldn't force uninvolved civilians to be trapped in Gaza. Don't put words into my mouth please. It was an absolutely ridiculous suggestion of yours that Israel allow Gazans to flee into Israel- its ok to just walk it back.

My suggestion would have been for Hamas not to commit 7 October in the first place, and put all those innocent people at risk in the first place. Failing that, surrender sooner so less people died.

Unfortunately Hamas don't take orders frome me, sorry.

Eh?

Why do people keep harping on about tunnels in response to a documentary where IDF soldiers admit to blowing up and shooting civilians that they admit they knew were civilians. There are tunnels in Bath, Exeter - would that be relevant if someone went around those cities shooting kids in the head?

Given that approximately 2000 Gazan civilians took part in

First, if they took part they weren’t civilians because it wasn’t just Hamas that attacked but all these other splinter groups. But let’s assume your often repeated baselsss figure is correct and there were 2k ‘involved’ civilians, you’d deliberately force at gunpoint 99.9% of 2.3 million civilians, 40% of whom are children, to be trapped as Hamas human shields because 0.1% may have participated in Oct 7th?

That is exactly what the coalition did for civilians fleeing ISIS controlled areas.
It worked out pretty damn good. Tens of thousands fewer dead children and only 9-10 months to victory.
International reputation intact.
No allegations of genocide.

In hindsight it was a bad decision to help Hamas hold on to their human shields by using a death zone perimeter around the Gaza Strip.

good grief, this guy actually agrees with me on the facts.
His opinion isn’t the only expert opinion going and judging by the date of the opinion he wrote was in 13 Feb 2024, I doubt very much he feels the same way today

All he said about the difference between Mosul wnd Gaza was there werent nearly as many tunnels in Mosul as Gaza. ISIS exploited the underground subway tunnels in Mosul, just because tunnels were not purpose built for terror that doesn’t make them any less useful in war, albeit less secret.

pretty minor difference.

He said nothing about “glaring differences”

Cross post.

Amazing suggestion.

‘Palestinians in Gaza should have been allowed to flee from Gaza into Israel ‘

Yet you call me ridiculous.

Gee, Israel was apparently carrying out a genocide on Palestinians but you think they should have fled to Israel.

I bet you didn’t type that with a straight face.

"Palestinians in Gaza should have been allowed to flee from Gaza into Israel or the West Bank."

You cannot be serious.

Given that approximately 2000 Gazan civilians took part in 7 October, Hamas don't wear uniforms, and the absolute sky high level of hatred amongst sections of both Palestinian and Israeli society, you honestly think Israel should have allowed Gazans to flee into Israel? You think that would have worked out well? For either side?

You know better than one of the world’s leading experts in urban warfare do you? You may think so but I agree with you I’m afraid.

The writer of the article I posted at 13.39:

John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, national security and military analyst, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading experts on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy.

Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast.

He is the co-founder and executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the study of urban environments, urban operations, and urban warfare.

He also serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum, a New York based think-tank. He is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.

His research, spanning over a decade, focuses on military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, urban and subterranean warfare and includes cutting-edge field research into ongoing or recently concluded wars and battles from Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Israel, to Gaza.

He is the author of three books: Understanding Urban Warfare, (Howgate Publishing, 2022), Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War (Potomac Books, 2022; Winner of the 2023 Gold Medal Award, Best Military History Memoir, Military Writers Society of America), The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender (John Spencer, 2022).

His over 140 book chapters, case studies, and professional articles have appeared in the Time Magazine, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, NY Daily News, Wired Magazine, Politico, The Hill, Foreign Policy Magazine, Defense One, Army Magazine, and many other publications. Spencer is also a regular military analyst and commentator for CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC, and numerous news and media organizations.

In February 2022, Spencer wrote a guide, The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender, for the citizens of Ukraine on how to defend their cities. The manual was translated into Ukrainian and spread widely across all of Ukraine. It is now available in sixteen separate languages with many other translations in the works.

Serving over twenty-five years in the active Army as an infantry soldier, Spencer has held ranks from Private to Sergeant First Class and Second Lieutenant to Major while serving in elite and storied military units from the 75th Ranger Regiment, 173rd Airborne, to the 4th Infantry Division. His assignments as an Army officer included two combat deployments to Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander, a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and Co-Founder, Strategic Planner, and Deputy Director of the Modern War Institute at West Point. While teaching at West Point, he received the West Point Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching.

After active duty, Spencer serves as a Colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard as the Director of Urban Warfare Training where he cofounded, designed, and instructs in the world’s only course specifically designed to improve the ability of Division and Brigade commanders and staff to successfully plan, conduct, and sustain large scale urban operations.
Spencer holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.

I typed up some quotes by IDF soldiers from various different ranks within the IDF. These quotes were taken from the first section of the documentary (the first 20 minutes), might be useful to those of you that want to argue that it is just a "few bad eggs" without actually watching it. I will try and type up more later on.

“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can."

"There are certainly soldiers and officers in the IDF who really, really want to kill all the arabs. Really. That's the reason why they put on their uniforms."

"I think the use of force on Gaza is probably unprecedented in combat, in terms of the number of explosives dropped per square mile."

"You can justify a lot in the name of destroying Hamas. You can push the red line very, very far."

"Teenagers would sometimes walk there. The company commander really wanted us to kill them. My platoon commander just told him, "No." Later, the company commander really gave it to him. There's no one above the company commander, and if he tells you to shoot, it's not like you'll be prosecuted for it."

"We fired quite a few warning shots, but we also killed at least one person."

"Every man of fighting age is supposedly a terrorist. And must be killed. No matter if he has weapons or not."

"We saw two teenagers pushing some sort of cart. And the first shot fired was directly to the head. And I was like, "Woah, that's not exactly what I would have done.""

"I didn't shoot at any unarmed Palestinians myself, but I did see it happen with my own eyes."

"If you want to shoot without restraint, you can. One time, there was a building that was being used for humanitarian purposes. One of the commanders really, really wanted to target this building. But we told him very clearly, "Mate, this building is off limits." Then he fired a shell at it anyway. And he said, "I saw an anti-tank weapon aimed at me." Now go prove him wrong. Prove him wrong"

“Life and death isn’t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It’s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides.... If they’re walking too fast, they’re suspicious. If they’re walking too slow, they’re suspicious. They’re plotting something. If three men are walking and one of them lags behind, it’s a two-to-one infantry formation – it’s a military formation.”

"I personally witnessed a relatively high-ranking officer order a tank to take down a building. The building was on the side of the line where they [Palestinians] were "allowed" to be. A man was standing on the roof, hanging laundry, and the officer decided that he was a spotter. He’s not a spotter. He’s hanging his laundry. You can see that he’s hanging laundry. Now, it’s not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600-700 metres away. So unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded. . . . This kind of thing happened every week. And that's just my unit, there are dozens of units on the ground at any given moment."

"If you want to, you can always find a reason to incriminate someone. The question is, what are your standards? How much effort does it take to incriminate a human being? If I wanted to, I could incriminate the entire Strip. Is this building too big, do you find it threatening? Go ahead, shoot."

"At the end of our deployment in the Strip, we submitted a report. The commander's summary. And it said that we "took down [killed] 112 terrorists." I can confidently say that only one of them... Only one! Was even suspected of being armed. That is, the 111 other people we killed, no one even claimed they were armed."

On being asked by the interviewer how many civilians is it legitimate to kill to kill a Hamas battalion commander, Lieutentent Colonel B, replies initially stating they act in accordance with international law but then ending with: "I am far-right in my views. I think there's no limit. If you ask me, I would have pushed them all into the sea with D9s [bulldozers] on October 7, given them snorkels, and let them swim to Egypt."