IDF shoot hostages in Gaza after 'mistakenly identifying them as a threat'

[Struggggggling]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/idf-kill-israeli-hostages-mistakenly-identifying-hamas-gaza/

Previous hostages warned this would happen, tragic events. There is no winner in this conflict only losers.

Do you think Israel will now change tactics or if any histage swaps will take priority?

Yes, I said "It’s a crass calculation, but if indiscriminate genocide was really Israel’s goal the numbers would be much higher by now."

I wasn't complaining about anyone's comments.

HTH.

@Pizdietz

What do you think the ultimate goal is?

How is it being quantified so that they will know when it has been achieved?

Do you agree with the methods being used to achieve this goal?

@Anotherdayanotherdiet wrong way round, @Pizdietz was accused, rather bizarrely, of making a crass comment for using a common idiom.

It's true though. If Israel had wanted genuinely wipe out the Gazan population, it could have done by now. I'm not saying without repercussions, but militarily, yes.

The ultimate goal is to prevent Hamas having the capacity to strike again and again and again, repeating 7 October as they have promised to do.

As for determining when that's been achieved, I'm afraid I don't have access to the relevant military intelligence, and neither do you.

What do you mean, do I agree with the methods? Do I support war? No, of course not. Do I think Israel is doing what it can in an impossible situation? Yes.

I hope you're following the AMA thread, because my views on things are completely meaningless, whereas she has some useful and interesting things to say.

@Pizdietz

What do you mean, do I agree with the methods? Do I support war? No, of course not.

It's heartening to see you confirm that you don't agree with Israel's current methods and I appreciate you making that clear now.

My heart feels so heavy for everyone suffering. I have a newborn and I'll never forget the fact the world didn't utterly condemn the treatment of the babies in the hospitals left to die. It's horrifying. Utterly horrifying and disgusting.

Me saying that doesn't mean I think anything Hamas has done is any less horrifying.

One can think both 'sides' (by which I mean Hamas and the Israeli gov and military) have committed heinous acts.

Israel's goal isn't to kill all Palestinians, that would require death on an industrial scale, as the Nazi's found out, it took them many years to kill 6m Jews.

But their aim does seem to appear to drive the Gazan's into Egypt and they don't appear to care how many they kill to achieve this.

Of course they wont destroy Hamas, their leaders are safe n sound in many other countries and Iran will resume military and financial support once this is over.

@Pizdietz Well have a little read of this and give yourself a pat on the back with your figures and your proportionate response against these Gaza civilians . ETA tell me this is Hamas propaganda I’m a Palestinian Christian in Gaza. I want peace—for my homeland and my family. | America Magazine

I don't understand your post, sorry. Did you pick this because you assume I'd have more sympathy for Christian Gazans? Do you assume I have no sympathy for Gazans generally? Why would I give myself a pat on the back for anything?

War is horrible, and this war is more horrible than most.

Pizdietz, just to clarify it was this post I was thinking of.

”Ugh, I hate the “numbers game” because it’s so crass – reminds me of that “the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none”: I mean, just one death in a war is one too many. However, since you insist on playing this…”

I know you didn’t actually call anyone’s comments crass but you seemed to imply they were being crass all the same. Apologies if misunderstood.

No worries @Anotherdayanotherdiet 😊 I don't expect you to hang onto my every word, it's not really worth it!

Did you read the article? Would you call this a a proportionate response? Do you think this will make people in Gaza turn to Israel/trust the Israeli Govt.

Statistics are easy to wheel out but this article puts the human face to the statistics which is why I choose it. It recounts life in Gaza in an area where we currently have limited information and the people who stayed are criticised.

I posted it twice and on the other one I said it could be Muslim or any Gaza citizen. I didn't repeat that here as I didn't assume someone would read it and the only comment on the contents would be "Did you pick this because you assume I'd have more sympathy for Christian Gazans?"

Yes, I did read the article, and thanks for sharing it. I feel desperately sorry for them, but there were no surprises there - you'd have to be a bit thick not to understand how terrifying and difficult life must be for those attempting to survive from one day to the next in such abominable circumstances.

Sorry for being tetchy about the "Christian" aspect, but I've been asked some really weird questions on this thread!

Like I've said, war is horrible, and this is a particularly horrible war.

I'm not usually one to "wheel out statistics", and only did so earlier in response to a PP who said the number of deaths in Gaza proved beyond all doubt that Israel is deliberately slaughtering as many civilians as possible. I just don't agree.

Whatever happens, Hamas is winning the propaganda war, so no, I doubt Israel will be winning hearts and minds any time soon.

Thank you for sharing this. I have been reading a lot of stories like this one and follow a few civilians on the ground in Gaza on Instagram. These are not just unfortunate casualties of war, they are people with lives, hopes and aspirations. Absolutely devastating and I hope some of the posters on here and other threads take the time to see the real human cost of this conflict.

Israel had all the hearts n minds it could ever have needed, the world was with them after the 7th Oct attack.
But then they set about going after Hamas (1000% justified) but without little or no concern for the civilian population.

UN say 500,000 Palestinians are starving, with no sign of any additional aid coming in & unless there is, that number will grow to 2,000,000.

The situation can be changed by Israel in a moment, they should have the moral high ground to do this and not put it on Hamas, who have zero morals.

I don’t agree that is true, after all, the Nazis could have killed Jews in the Holocaust a lot faster than they did too. The argument that a genocidal progrom could be or could have been executed faster, and therefore it can’t genuinely be genocide is rubbish not worth trotting out.

“Israel had all the hearts n minds it could ever have needed, the world was with them after the 7th Oct attack.”

They certainly had mine. It was when they chose their current path that they lost me. The use of 2,000lb bunker buster dumb bombs on civilian refugee camps after telling Palestinians to evacuate to those same refugee camps as safe zones was where and when Israel lost my support for their invasion of Gaza.

I would have supported similar to the battle of Raqqa against ISIS, which would have done the job of defeating Hamas without all the completely avoidable daily massacres of hundreds of civilians, especially considering that 40% of Gaza are children! You’d think that would mean take extra care, not this, not what has been done and is being done.

I don’t think the two are really comparable- the Gazans are a vastly smaller population in an vastly smaller space. The actual destruction of the Gazan people could have been achieved cheaply and easily by now with relative ease. The spread of the Jews amongst the general German population made that a very difficult logistical problem. The destruction of the Jewish people was achieved through a number of means in the most expeditious manner possible- first of all in the work camps, the Nazis extracted what labour they could. Then in the extermination camps they wanted to kill the largest number of Jews they could in the least affective way- they realised early on that having soldiers just shoot them caused a great deal of psychological problems for the soldiers. The death camps were an exercise in exterminating large populations in the most remote, industrial way they could devise- real works of evil.

The destruction of the Gazan peoples could have been effected almost completely by now if that was the intention. ACTUAL carpet bombing (not the hyperbole people are referring to when they complain about the use of “dumb” bombs) would do the job.

As to whether or not it’s rubbish- well I don’t think so. If we operate on the basis that actions do infer intentions then the failure to effect an actual genocide, and the relatively low death rate when compared to historical examples of genocide indicate that this is NOT genocide.

It wasn’t in the most expeditious manner possible, that is my point, it could have been done faster than it was actually done. Work camps, ghettos, slave labour, starvation all were much slower than the methods available and were used for many years of the Holocaust.

This doesn’t mean there was no intent to commit genocide or no genocide by the Nazis because there obviously was.

as some cat Japan said If Israel had wanted genuinely wipe out the Gazan population, it could have done by now.

Yep they could have dropped a nuclear warhead on Gaza as one Israeli minister publicly announced was an option.

The fact it could have been done by now, doesn’t mean it’s not genocide.

Imagine someone saying what cat from Japan said but about the Nazis in 1939 when it was still in the work camp, massacres in the woods and starving/raiding the ghettos stage that had gone on since 1933,. Imagine someone saying, oh it’s been six years and the Nazis haven’t actually accomplished genocide yet, and they could have by now, so they can’t genuinely intend to. Then the death camps open in 1940. Do we wait for death camps? Is never again about waiting until genocide has happened very very fast?

“If we operate on the basis that actions do infer intentions then the failure to effect an actual genocide, and the relatively low death rate when compared to historical examples of genocide indicate that this is NOT genocide.”

Gaza doesn’t have a low death rate compared to historical genocides and it also clearly has stated intent from the aggressor.

No what I’m saying is actually the Nazis, given the limitations they faced, did choose the most expeditious means of extermination. It’s just the population was far more disparate and presented much greater logistical challenges. Further, the problems of simply having soldiers shoot the Jews meant they had to devise complex industrial methods in order to preserve the psychological well being of their soldiers.

the IDF have far more expeditious methods available and aren’t using them. In fact historically they have been very restrained in their responses to Hamas aggression. This indicates that they are not genocidal. There is no concrete evidence of mental states as such, and so we must infer from the evidence at hand, but that’s what it appears to be.

Gaza does have a low death rate comparatively: as compared to the Tutsi genocide in 1994, some 1 million killed in 3 months, across a country some 5,000x the size of Gaza, with a population fantastically less dense. If we were to suggest that the 20,000 dead are all civilian (this could be disputed, I’ve read as high as 7,000 Hamas fighters killed but such numbers are very hard to verify), this still represents around 1% of the population in 3 months, as opposed to 16% killed in the same sort of time period, with none of the military advantages and none of the location advantages.

Even the Bosniak genocide was around 20% of the population over the course of 3-4 years, and this was resisted, again over a much greater area and not such a disparity of arms. The current death rate in Gaza is comparatively low

“ACTUAL carpet bombing (not the hyperbole people are referring to when they complain about the use of “dumb” bombs) would do the job.”

I don’t know why you are referring to dumb bombs as hyperbole, can it be you do not know what a dumb bomb is? A dumb bomb is a bomb that has no guidance, it is by modern definition not precision bombing when you use a dumb bomb but indiscriminate bombing- which is the technical term for what is colloquially called “carpet bombing”.

Here are a few bits and bobs from a CNN report which being US would be more likely to be biased towards Israel, so you can depend on the things listed as facts to be facts.

“CNN
—
In the first month of its war in Gaza, Israel dropped hundreds of massive bombs, many of them capable of killing or wounding people more than 1,000 feet away, analysis by CNN and artificial intelligence company Synthetaic suggests.

Satellite imagery from those early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. Those are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, during the war against the extremist group there.

But 2,000-pound bombs are normally used sparingly by Western militaries, experts say, because of their potential impact on densely populated areas like Gaza. International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate bombing….

The heavy munitions, mostly manufactured by the US, can cause high casualty events and can have a lethal fragmentation radius – an area of exposure to injury or death around the target – of up to 365 meters (about 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 soccer fields in area.

Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy weaponry, such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. According to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, about* *20,000 people have been killed since October 7….

The US dropped a 2,000-pound bomb only once during its fight against ISIS – the most recent Western war on a militant group in the Middle East.

Last week, US intelligence sources told CNN that 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-surface munitions dropped on Gaza by then were so-called dumb bombs, unguided munitions that can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in densely populated territories like Gaza.

Some of these are likely to be the 2,000-pound bombs detected in the satellite imaging of the craters. Israel has a large arsenal of the big bombs, known as MK-84s. When a GPS-guided kit is attached to the MK-84, the bomb becomes known as a GBU-31.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the US has provided Israel with more than 5,400 MK-84s since October 7.”
https://edition.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html

No, they could have done it faster. That is just fact.
No, IDF have not historically been restrained at all.
Yes, there is concrete evidence of intent based on public statements by the PM, the War Cabinet and other government officials

The Bosnian genocide was not 20% of the population over the course of 3-4 years.

The Bosnian genocide refers to the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in Sebrenica in 1995. The overall Bosnian war had 25,000-30,000 forcibly displaced and a total of 100,000 killed between 1992-1995 which is 2,777 killed a month out of a population of 4.3 million compared to a much higher minimum of 8,000 killed per month in Gaza, and 2 million forcibly displaced out of a much smaller population of 2.3 million.

yes I am fully aware of what a dumb bomb is, but the use of unguided munitions does not equate to this:

I don't think "the genocide I support isn't quite as bad as other famously heinous genocides" is the flex you think it is.

Sometimes I can't actually believe what I read on this website. I can't believe people are still justifying this.

I mean that’s not what I’m saying at all…

I’m trying to point out that given the relative logistical challenges, military disparity, that if Israel were bent on genocide it would look far, far worse. That judging by incidents actually declared genocides the rate of death is low. If you compare the 800-1,000k Tutsis murdered, in a similar time frame, in a land area some 5,000 times larger, with a relative parity of force, then if the IDF are being genocidal, they’re doing a pretty piss poor job. SO poor a job as to indicate either gross and total incompetence, or actually that this isn’t what they’re aiming for, and they have a different intent and strategy.

Have you, by chance, heard of the strawman fallacy?

I don't think "the genocide I support isn't quite as bad as other famously heinous genocides" is the flex you think it is

They are saying that what is happening in Gaza is not a genocide, is the point. It is you calling it that.