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.

@Alltheprettyseahorses most people attacking Israel are attacking Netanyahu and his radical apartheid regime. Let me splash some water on your face to wake you up and remind you that the Jewish people are opposing to this as well before you pull out anti semitic card ever again.

This sort of thing, of course, never happens in the UK. Nobody, and especially not non-UK citizens, are ever paid less than the legal minimum wage, have unsafe conditions etc.etc. And we definitely have no slave labour.
https://www.freedomunited.org/news/modern-slavery-uk-care-sector/?gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsp6pBhCfARIsAD3GZubqn-nsM1hU7VGaK4I7HIzGUHM0y7MhF8sMLAwesmw4JOlnF1FrZHsaAoD0EALw_wcB
Between 10,000 (the UK government estimate) and 100,000 (the expert estimate) people are held in modern slavery in the UK right now. 1.5 million workers are paid at or below the legal minimum wage. Some of the biggest companies in the country have been caught paying illegal wages https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-than-200-companies-named-for-not-paying-staff-minimum-wage

That doesn't excuse any country for allowing it's own laws to be broken, but we aren't in a position to preach to others.

No defence system is impenetrable, especially if you saturate it.

As far as intelligence goes somebody was asleep at the wheel but probably the only almost inexplicable miss is Israel intelligence possibly not noticing the stockpiling of rockets (possibly via the tunnel system), or if they saw it not recognising the reason.

As far as everything else goes we are not talking about Hamas having to move up tanks, APC's to staging areas, which is one of the standard indicators that something is about to happen.

We don't know what happened in detail but it's possible mostly all Hamas leadership had to do was to tell their militia, at the last minute, only by word of mouth, to go to such and such a street corner at the north end of Gaza and when they got there, and only then, tell them to crash out of the border at a certain time and kill any Israeli's they could find.....

I think it's a fair bet there was some foreign involvement with regard to timing and maybe some of the assets (e.g. the paragliders) but this could very well have been mostly homegrown..

Do you honestly believe this will
stop Hamas? It will be incredibly easy to recruit future members from a population who has been treated like the Gazans are currently. Do you think fewer people will die in this military operation than would die if Israel did not react in this way? (which is usually the argument about the nuclear bombs). Or just that although a fuckton more will die, they won’t be Israelis so that’s ok?

I don’t have an answer. Hamas doesn’t want a 2 state solution, nor does this israeli government and its despicable settlements. But this blockade feels rather more like revenge than anything that will make Israel safer going forwards.

And yes, I did oppose the war in Iraq to whoever was calling people hypocrites.

This was your post @SomeCatFromJapan at 10.41 wasn’t it? Where you claimed that the Palestinians couldn’t build new infrastructure?

Do you know that due to the oppression from Israel on Gaza that the Palestinians right to work is heavily restricted and that they cannot build new infrastructure. A Palestinian can't just start working and contribute to their economy. It doesn't work like that. Even those who have jobs are unable to get there on time as they have to pass the IDF checkpoints and get held back. It is impossible for them to build an economy.

@Jerabilis No that was me quoting someone else, my reply was at the bottom where I pointed out that Gaza was in fact a separate country so I too was disagreeing with that post.

Israel has said they will turn the electricity and water on as soon as hamas release the hostages. Thats good news as long as Hamas decides that more suffering can be avoided here.

Ah, I’m so sorry @SomeCatFromJapan ! I use assistive tech because I’m visually impaired. Normally it’s pretty good distinguishing between quotes and replies but clearly not in this case!

I think it's a fair bet there was some foreign involvement with regard to timing and maybe some of the assets (e.g. the paragliders) but this could very well have been mostly homegrown..

Hamas are funded by Iran.

@Jerabilis No worries at all, it was sloppy formatting on my part, far too long a quote section compared to my short reply.

I'll bear that in mind for future if it causes problems for assistive tech, thanks for highlighting it.

I can’t bear what those hostages must be going through, children some of them! I desperately want them safely returned to their families. I don’t think Hamas will do so sadly. I think those murderous scumbags will see Gazans starve before they give in.

More likely Hamas will execute hostages in response to military action.

If the israeli bombing doesnt kill them first - is there any thought for the hostages with the wave after wave of bombing?

Thank you @SomeCatFromJapan . I’m only scrolling mumsnet at the moment as my work’s IT have screwed up the assistive techno my work laptop and I’m waiting for them to fix it, so your response of trying to make things easier for me in the future is really appreciated.

I suspect the Israeli govt is under huge pressure to get them back safely and trying to work out a strategy for that is possibly why the operation hasn’t really got going yet.

Netanyahu seems far more interested in obliterating Hamas by any means necessary than to worry too much for any civilian of any creed.

This would be a good plan were Israel not constantly moving those borders by evicting Palestinians and building on their land. This has been happening for the past 30 years.

Agree with this

A Hamas spokesperson said yesterday that the attack had been more than 2 years in preparation so it's possible that there was an awareness of 'something' going on for a while without knowing exactly what or when

The [denied] warning by Egypt could have been something for example like we've noticed a lot of wealthier children going on term-time holidays out of Gaza and we think it's a bit odd - so more preparatory stuff without a clear what where or when

Also a significant part of the surveillance system was destroyed ?hacked in the very early stages of the attack

Of course there is. Those thoughts will include whether they are even still alive. But the first rule of any state faced with a hostage situation is that you do not negotiate with hostage takers. If it is possible to dictate future actions by taking hostages, you encourage more hostage taking. That's the reality. If Hamas genuinely thought that taking hostages would protect them from the consequences of mass murder, then they are more insane than I thought they were. They should have remembered who Netanyahu's older brother was.

I have never noticed a hostage situation being dealt with by turning off the power and water to a building and bombing it

This is evil feeding evil

Israel has said they will restore electricity, etc. when Hamas returns the hostages, so if there's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza it's Hamas' fault, not Israel's.

Nobody sensible is absolving Hamas of blame, but there is no planet on which attributing fault for the conditions which Gazans have been living in to only one side or the other.

I don't think anyone has ever successfully and rationally negotiated with terrorists.

This member has had their 03:39am post deleted for an anti-semitic tirade that I personally reported. Seems they're being a bit more careful since.

What is the current narrative about the Good Friday agreement - did that not involve negotiations with terrorists ?

You break the cycle both side must talk to each other

YANBU I haven’t been moved and utterly sad by any conflict as much as I am by what’s unfolding here. I heard very testimonies of Gazans on the BBC World Service yesterday and sobbed. One interviewee had to leave the interview as there was a call to evacuate. I wonder if those were her last words. She said she’d didn’t fear death but feared damage to her body and the loss of her left hand as she wouldn’t be able to create art.

There will be a demo on Saturday organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. It won’t change anything, I know.