Do we actually know who bombed the hospital in Gaza yet?

[Ididivfama]

I keep seeing mixed reports. It’s really unsettling not to know.

According to the news and to chatter, the ground war will start at 1am UK tonight.

A lot more mothers are going to lose a lot more sons.

The sad fact is, when the corpses, on both sides, are counted, nothing at all will have changed and the hatred will still remain.

Yep, the Gazan work permits were upped to 20,000 just a couple of weeks before the Hamas attacks.

Which flies in the face of the detractors - fancy giving self proscribed sworn enemies permits to come and work in your country so their families could have a better standard of living!

Yes!

And, I have heard similar "chatter"! And, personally, I also currently have COVID for the first time, struggling to even stay awake and functioning for more than 2 hours at a time!

I am leaving you with one of my personally favourite anti-war songs as I go to sleep, dreading what will have been done when I wake up!

Israelis deserve fucking better! Palestinians deserve fucking better!

r

Also ...

CEASFIRE NOW!!!

The problem you will have with me is that the hate will remain because of the Arab nations surrounding Israel.

Sleep well and get well soon.

Maybe. Taking no sides and waiting for facts to emerge is a reasonable stance to take. But those posters definitely weren't suggesting that we wait and see. No, they were going "it was definitely Israel, they always lie" long after reasonable doubts formed about the original headlines. Sure, the IDF probably lie from time to time. Hamas aren't beacons of honest and transparency though.

I haven't seen the Channel 4 analysis, though I have just skimmed through the Guardian (on the basis that it definitely won't have any pro-Israeli bias) and there's no reference to evidence that it was an Israeli rocket.

Noicant I don’t think people understand how destabilising bad reporting has been here. People are going BATSHIT in the middle east, talks have been cancelled (you know those ones trying to stop escalation, allowing aid, saving lives, stuff that people in Gaza really really need right now). The morons defending this or blaming the IDF because they want their side to win rather than look at the evidence are making it worse not better for Gazans. All these delays to getting around a table costs lives

absolutely. I have been thinking a lot about who launched the missile, I have looked the news, twitter threads, read this thread on here, watched recordings showing what looks like a missile falling apart in the sky, although looking very much like it was headed away from where it is said to have landed, with a background noise that sounded like a an F16.....all very odd, and I have absolutely no opinion because I don't know what to think.

I have also tried to think about who would have gained from blowing up a hospital just hours before Biden landed. I don't think the Israeli's would gain much. Would the Hamas leaders calculate that the news of 500 dead in a hospital strike would change the outcome of the meeting with Biden or win them the propaganda war. Yes.

One of the reasons I am reading the links here about atrocities but not commenting or adding links to reports of atrocities on both sides is precisely because I don't think we can be 100% certain that all of these reports are true in the fullest and not biased. Plus I think it just stirs up anger and animosity. We all know that heinous acts are being perpetrated by both sides.

I am though very disappointed in Sunak that he should unequivocally offer the support of the Uk government, because he does not speak for me when he says "I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians, in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas" what sort of weird fucking double speak is this?! then trots off "but don't be too angry" in your very long war which I hope you win! unfukingbelievable, saying "I want you to win" as though it were a game of football. Of course he wants the Palestinians to have full bellies when they are bombed so that's ok. Sunak has refused to call for a cease fire because his puppet master the other side of the pond loves giving bombs away (making millions for its military industrial complex) to Israel. Its all so bloody sad and predictable.

But is Hezbollah now going to really start up? and do they really have the capability that is being reported?

Agree with you @MiniTheMinx same mistake as EU talking in the name of a whole country when clearly not everyone is happy with the actions that Israel is taking.

i want you to win. What does a victory look like ?
to me : they get rid of hamas. They don’t kill more Innocent people. They don’t kick people out of their houses and let them back to them without displacing them. Food / electricity and water is restored with no restrictions/control

I know too naive from my side that this will happen.

@MiniTheMinx Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at Center for Strategic and International Studies, had this to say about Hezbollah:

"Hezbollah feels it has a lot to lose. The Lebanese economy is in crisis. Lebanon went from being a middle-income state to a state where 80 to 85 percent of the population is below the poverty line. There is no question that an all-out war with Israel would result in the complete destruction of the south and large-scale destruction in other parts of Lebanon, and Hezbollah does not know if it could survive that outcome. Lebanon is very vulnerable now, and the last thing it needs is another war with Israel.....

Israel’s instinct is not to get into a spiral of escalation with Hezbollah that can turn this into a two-front war, especially because Hezbollah is much better armed than Hamas. Hezbollah has up to 150,000 rockets and missiles, many of which were supplied through Syria. It is spread over a much larger area than the Gaza Strip. And Israel does not control all the access points to Lebanon the way it controls the access points to the Gaza Strip."

Link: https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamas-and-israel-current-situation-and-looking-ahead

Right now, Hezbollah is doing the equivalent of chest beating, but it's not certain if they'll actually become actively hostile.

A very interesting read that was. Thank you. 😊

I'm just musing here but if the ground war starts tomorrow morning, surely this will lead to a lot less Civilian casualties? Hamas cowards will be on their own with no schools to hide under and no civilians to protect them, hopefully.

I can't imagine they've slept properly in a week and I think they know what's coming for them.

They asked for this.

DownNative thank you, I will have a read. I don't know why I'm going to make it my bedtime reading.....I haven't slept properly for a few nights. Dreaming about this whole sorry situation.

EasterIssland I agree what would look like a victory to the Israeli's now?

EasterIsslandI agree what would look like a victory to the Israeli's now? - Not a single Hamas member left alive?

I think that's their aim, to be fair.

yes, ground war=less civilian casualties in Gaza. A lot more casualties for IDF.

@FreeCoathangers while killing every single Hamas member is impossible I guess killing enough of them to reduce the threat level they are right now.

Yup, you're right about casualties, but I don't think there's been a more motivated force ready to go and face whatever awaits them for a long time.

That is NOT how "ground war" works!

You are rightly assuming that "ground war' means "more IDF casualties". This us probably true!

You are also, mistakenly, assuming that it means "fewer civilian casualties". That is NOT true!

"Ground war", in theory, is meant to mean "we only shoot at the enemy".

In practical reality, it means "whatever enters my field of vision might be the enemy - and I might just live if I shoot them first!"

"Ground war" also means booby trapping any tactical location you control for long enough to pull it off

I have seen and lived through - on nothing like the scale of Gaza 2023 level - bombardment from the air. I have also seen and lived through a ground invasion - as a British citizen, whom nobody intentionally wanted to harm!

The latter was a lot scarier!

I remember us running out of food and - see above: I was the one that was at least not going to be killed on purpose! - leaving the house, with my passport in my hand and raised above my head, shouting "British citizen! Civilian! PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT!" all the way to and from the baker's. Just to go get some bread!

This may have been the most terrifying moment of my life!

No, "ground war" is not an improvement for civilians! "Ground war" means: you may now be personally targeted for running to the shops - because you were alive and moving in the midst of a military operation".

Also:

CEASEFIRE NOW!!!

Ground war means more deaths on both sides

Everyone will have a shoot or be killed mind set.

Israel soldiers will have better training.

Israel soldiers will be wary of teenage and female fighters. These have been used in the past.

Hamas will have set up traps and basically have the advantage of knowing the area and best places to shoot from.

Total blood bath!

Um, I was in the military for 14 years, I know full well what I'm talking about.

The IDF will concentrate on the tunnels. If anyone is down there that is not Hamas, I don't have any sympathy for them.

They'll need to find and infiltrate the tunnels, as the Americans did in Viet Nam. The Americans had a nightmare, as the Viet Cong had simple, but effective gas traps and blast doors, so each component had to be cleared individually.

I don't know if Hamas have a similar setup.

Not as extensive as the Vietcong, I think, however, it's going to take some very brave men to go and do what needs to be done but as previously mentioned, they couldn't be any more motivated.

Kinell.

That's how it was IN NAM

I was going to - flippantly! - say "that sounds nice for you"! But, no, it probably is NOT nice for you. At all!

Judging by "how much therapy I required to get back to sort of functioning again" as a mere civilian, caught up in an intense but short episode of my life"!

It must be shit, and I am sorry!

But also: NOT sorry for the folllowing take:

You know who the most scared people I have ever met in my entire life have been? IDF conscripts! I was around 22, they were just around 20! They seemed, for the most part, terrified, OF ME! Just a blond British girl around their own age. Not a Palestinian, not one of theirs, not one of those activists you can label [I literally just ended up there at the exact wrong time because I was going to get married and the idea was for me to meet the future in-laws ... and I had some seriously poor timing!].

When - and I do quite often online but almost never IRL - speak about "how I accidentally ended up in a literal war", I always make sure to point out just how AFRAID those young soldiers seemed! Afraid of literal children! Afraid of, literally just me, too [for the record: I am a petite and slender blonde! I am not even remotely physically scary! With M-16s in their hands, but: terrified!

You know, if I was that afraid, I might shoot first, too! I feel for those kids, and, on some level, being utterly terrified myself, I did even then, even as they were sticking the business end of an assault rifle in my face. I remember phoning my mum, sobbing "you know, I am not afraid they WANT to kill me - I AM afraid they might shoot me just in case ... they are so scared, and they have assault rifles!"

I am not blaming the "not actual kids anymore - since the day before yesterday!". I am blaming the fucking system!

Just also: I am saying: nobody is safer when terrified people with assualt weapons take any peripheral vision movement as "shoot first - or risk dying!".

ALSO: CEASEFIRE NOW!!!

Heidi,

You seem like a really nice person, I used to know a blonde haired girl called Heidi in West London during the 90s but anyway....I can assure you that it's not going to be fresh faced nervous kids going in with the first waves. It will be special forces units like Oketz.

War is shit and normally it would be grunts like me who went in to do the dirty work for countries, governments and or corporations, but this is different, these soldiers have an actual cause. They may die scared but they won't be alone and they know they're doing it for the survival of their people. Which is just.

You call it "just". I call it "really pointless and really fucked up!"

To use a really tired old chiché: "fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity!"

To put it into more "standard IR discourse" language: "Peace for security" has been ... not working for Israel for decades! "Mowing the lawn" has not only not been working - it has also led to their security services sleep-walking into the complete intelligence failure that meant 7/10 was even possible - as Bibi sent off the IDF to go protect religious extremists so that they could terrorise Huwwara village!

Hamas was founded in the 1980s an an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood! You know, the same 1980s (and 1970s before that) that had "Palestinian Terrorism" broadly and vaguely associated with notions such as "the PLO [actually, a broad tent, that included, among others ...], the PFLP, Fatah, Arafat! Abducted airplanes!"

Arafat is dead! The PLO is a shadow of its former self. The PFLP is arguably about to die out on the grounds of "average human life expectancy". Instead, you have Hamas!

My point stands: "peace for security" just does not work! Even Sharon - not a pacifist, not a nice person! - ultimately recognised and said that indefinite occupation was not going to be tenable!

After decades of it failing, dare I hope that we, as a species, and specifically our leaders, are smart enough to be capable of "basic pattern recognition"?

No, I have no answers! I am merely a woman - no longer a girl! - who watches and can tell it is pointless!

And, yes, I am sort of nice! Probably! In any case, I do try to find it in myself to have empathy for my fellow humans!

I do not want solidiers to die for something that - and there you are wrong! - will do precisely nothing, long-term (see: peace for security has failed). I do not want CHILDREN to die for any reason at all!

Also (totally keeping this one up): CEASEFIRE NOW!

@HeidiInTheBigCity 👌hear hear. Although some have swallowed the zionist Israeli Govt Kool Aid so hard they won't hear and will just push and push for war, destruction, ethnic cleansing like they have for years. Let's not forget who is the ultimate oppressor here and has been for decades. Let's not forget who has caused the most suffering, most deaths, opportunistic land grabs and kept millions of people in an open prison, making their lives a misery for decades here. Despite the despicable actions of Hamas, the real truth about the Israeli govt is conveniently forgotten by many unfortunately.

You can't make a comment like that without mentioning the Arab nation states in the Area.

Talk about taking the Kool Aid.........