To think its not okay to great gazans as israel has been

[LethargicButAwesome]

Gaza has no food, no electricity and no water. On top of that they are being bombarded constantly
Israel has bombed the only escape route for refugees via Egypt, there is no way out
israel continues the blockage by air, land and sea - no aid can get in, no one can get out.
israel has said they will obliterate Gaza.

this is unprecedented, no matter what happens with governments or wars, you have refugee camps…safe havens…(often difficult) access to water - how are we even debating that this is acceptable? Am i the only person thinking this is the human race at its absolute worst? Its heartbreaking to watch, literally noone is doing anything - we are observing a genocide.

Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, occupying a tiny percentage of the land mass of the Middle East And is surrounded by well-funded, hostile, state-sponsored terrorist groups which, as we have seen, are willing to replicate Nazi-era atrocities. Therefore this is no time to be calling for Israeli restraint. Israeli self-defence requires the total removal of Hamas from Gaza.

There is never any justification for war crimes. Israel is as responsible for it's own conduct as any other nation or organisation. One atrocity does not condone another.

Really?

There are a great many Neville Chamberlain's on these threads.

Hamas has been built on the aggressive militaristic stance of the Israeli state towards the Palestinian people over the decades. Every bomb that is dropped and every bullet fired by Israel is creating the next generation of terrorists. Israel has the power to change the direction of this conflict. There is no doubt it will be a long, hard path, but it doesn't have to be littered with the dead bodies of innocent Palestinians and Israelis.

And none of them have a viable alternative solution to the problem....

Is that in respect of those suggesting appeasement of Hamas atrocities on the Israelis, or those suggesting appeasement of Israeli atrocities on Gazans?

@DownNative have you seen this CNN report?

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1713043391745851814

I do believe that terrorist organisations will indoctrinate children and will use them in war

I still however do not see that as a reason to kill children

Unlike your Ratko Maldic style solution

@SomeCatFromJapan , that report is terrible. These acts were carried out by a terrorist organisation. But when a democratic nation state carries out similar acts (the number killed by Israel now exceeds these killed by Hamas) they become a terrorist nation.

@TreadLight unfortunately that terrorist organisation rule and are based in Gaza, hence the incursion. And I don't think it's remotely a fair comparison to categorise the actions as similar - the first was a deliberate and particularly brutal series of terrorist attacks, the response is a military operation and while there are certainly civilian casualties, that is not the main intent.

The semantics there are ridiculous!

The first was a brutal and unjustified attack but it didn't come out of nowhere - Israel have occupied Palestine for decades and each year Israeli forces kill about ten times more Palestinians than the other way around - they see it as war not terrorism

Israel might see themselves as behaving legally and honourably but the UN doesn't

Whilst the main intent may not be civilians casualties the standard for the rest of the world is somewhat higher and rests on what actually happens rather than stated intent - actions not words define the impact on civilians. Ie you should not be attacking areas where high civilian casualties would be expected.

Ie you should not be attacking areas where high civilian casualties would be expected.

The whole of Gaza pretty much is densely populated so how does Israel then go after Hamas?

The response is to commit crimes against humanity against international law. We should all condemn this. There are no excuses.

The response is to commit crimes against humanity against international law. We should all condemn this. There are no excuses.

What would you suggest would be the correct Israeli response to the attacks?

Well something that doesn't involve committing crimes against humanity would be good

What would you suggest would be the correct Israeli response to the attacks

Anything that will actually remove Hammas from power. If they do that then maybe they’ve achieved something. Just bombing Gaza into oblivion didn’t work ten years ago and probably won’t now.

Well something that doesn't involve committing crimes against humanity would be good

Can you be more specific?
For instance if financial backing for Hamas were removed that would resolve the situation without the need for military conflict, unfortunately I dont see said backers making any announcements to that effect.

Far from it, the normalisation of relations between Saudi and Israel is now scuppered so they will have achieved the desired effect, and it only cost the lives of a few thousand innocent civilians.

Why is it always someone else's fault that Israel breaks international law?

"He made me do it" doesn't work on the playground and it doesn't work in the Haig.

Yes, some countries are funding Hamas. It doesn't take much digging to discover the USA is funding the Israeli military machine.

Is Netanyahu really not capable of coming up with an alternative solution? Even after seeing that attacks from both sides over the decades simply result in more deaths?
We aren't politicians, but you'd think someone running a country could come up with something other than "destroy an entire city and most/all of its trapped civilians".
He must know that even if they kill a lot of Hamas fighters (who unfortunately will probably be the most likely people to be able to escape Gaza), more civilians will die. Many government members have made it clear they don't care, one very publicly called for collective punishment (the siege) on ALL Gazans. I'm not sure they want an alternative at the moment.

I know that if the UK suffered a similar attack, I wouldn't want Sunak to order an attack on their country of origin, I didn't support the Iraq or Afghanistan wars (and look at the resulting destabilisation and mess left behind from those). Politicians have been elected to power to come up with better than "war". Governments should be able to come together to intervene and help and support the Israeli government instead of voicing support for further killing and doing little, if anything, else.

Israel have a whole military, scores of people to come up with a plan that doesn't involve crimes against humanity.

I agree that hamas need to go but the Palestinian people do need someone on their side to help end Israels illegal occupation and apartheid without killing. 2million plus people can't be locked up on a slither of land forever. It isn't enough for the fighting to end and for the status quo to continue indefinitely.The UN(or somebody) need to help the oppressed fight their colonisers by peaceful means.

@Reallifelurker so what do you think can remove Hamas from power?

Vague statements such as "Anything that will actually remove Hamas from power" doesn't actually tell us anything about your thoughts.

As for bombing, the purpose of it is to destroy Hamas tunnels right underneath civilian buildings, including private residences. If these aren't destroyed, Hamas can either escape from the Israeli Defence Force OR draw them into a bottleneck which would be like shooting fish in a barrel for Hamas as that would give them the advantage.

See attachment showing the tunnel network.

Bombing is NOT going to the sole military action. Its a prelude.

I'm sorry to inform you that even major military powers can and do have very limited sets of actions they can meaningfully take against specific threats. The Western response to 9/11 shows us that.

The range of possible action is even more limited by the Islamic Jihadist martyr ideology Hamas possesses in addition to their absolute willingness to use civilians as human shields. See NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence 2019 report entitled "Hamas' Use Of Human Shields In Gaza 2008-2014".

The fact that you said, "The UN(or somebody) need to help the oppressed fight their colonisers by peaceful means", shows you haven't understood the situation very well.

The Jewish and Palestinian populations are both from the same region. The problem is they both see themselves as the rightful owners of the very land itself as shown below:

"A vast majority among both groups (93%) see themselves as rightful owners of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river. While a third of Israeli Jews are willing to accept some ownership right of the Palestinians, only 7% of Palestinians are willing to accept such idea about the Jews."

Source: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

This isn't an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist conflict. It is a conflict about rightful ownership of land, Nationalism and who should govern.

It's striking that Palestinians are LESS likely to want to accept that the Jewish people do have some ownership rights than the Jews are willing to accept of the Palestinians.

Just because we can't easily think how to remove Hamas from power doesn't mean we should do things that will make things worse . Illogical .

It's rather obvious that in the long term you need to avoid presenting yourself as an enemy- once you have killed someone their whole family will view you as enemy and so much easier for Hamas to recruit

Once you mistreat people and keep them in poverty and invade their land , you cast yourself as their enemy and make it easier for Hamas to recruit them

Treat people as subhuman and they will think not nice things about you

So
Stop killing
Get out of Gaza and the West Bank
Provide strong financial support to the Palestinian people to rebuild
Sit with them, drink tea with them , show the hand of friendship to reduce the pool of potential recruits

I suspect all that will be more effective long term and a lot less bloody