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?

They're doing as much as the US will let them away with without withdrawing support.

All the analysis on the war in the last week from New York Times and others disagrees with what you're saying.

Do you think what's happening in Gaza is acceptable?

It’s quite possible that people on here are like me, conflict avoidant in normal life, but feeling driven to comment. It’s interesting to compare notes on why we feel how we do.

What moves me to write is that I can’t bear to see Israel and the Jewish people being bullied. When 7 October happened I was busy moving countries, and didn’t venture onto MN until a while later. I was appalled to find that the dominant narrative here was: Well, they deserved it. Let’s just look at how bad Israel/the IDF are. In fact, let’s gloat over their tragic mistakes. Besides, they’re lying about what happened. It wasn’t as bad as all that. And if it was, they probably did most of the killing.

All kinds of people are popping up who confidently declare war crimes and indiscriminate bombing, without any of us having access to any real information about what is actually going on behind the scenes (even if we had the military expertise to analyse it usefully).

The survivors of 7 October talk about withholding details of what happened, out of respect for the families and loved ones of those who were slaughtered or kidnapped. Still, little snippets of the horror are gradually leaking out, and just those little glimpses are quite literally beyond my worst nightmares.

Yet I’ve seen threads here saying that these acts of obscene sadism are just Israeli propaganda. There was even a long-running thread literally saying that 7 October just gave Israel the “excuse” it needed, as though it’s all just been a false-flag exercise.

Just saying that Israel has a right, in fact a responsibility, to protect itself from further Hamas attacks is met with “So how many babies do you want to see die?” and “Is a Palestinian life worth less than an Israeli one, because look how many more have died?” – as though I’m sitting here gloating over the casualties and applauding the war.

Not since COVID have I seen such adversarial hostility on MN, but at least then the only possible harm was to ourselves and our own families. In this conflict, the stakes are much higher. Hamas are playing the social media game and apparently winning, if MN is anything to go by.

At this stage it's hard to listen to people defending the ongoing slaughter of children and civilians. My tolerance is low, especially after the nonsense yesterday at the UNSC.

Hmm
It has been described as one of the worst bombing campaigns in history to the extent that from the sky Gaza now looks a different colour.
So whether you think it's a genocide or not they are doing a great job at destroying Gaza in plain sight

What do you think the right word would be for a country purposefully imposing famine on a population? I live in a country where this happened, an occupying power purposefully starved our population. We call what happened genocide. What do you think the right phrasing is?

What do you think the right word would be for a country purposefully imposing famine on a population? I live in a country where this happened, an occupying power purposefully starved our population. We call what happened genocide. What do you think the right phrasing is?

But again, this is based on your views, your claims. The Israelis for instance are saying that they are allowing aid trucks in and the delays are not at their side at present. They are also pointing out that armed groups hijack the trucks and sell the goods on.
Again, I'm not claiming that I 100% believe everything the Israelis say 100% of the time, I'm just trying to add some balance to the prevailing view that they are 100% lying 100% of the time, which seems... unrealistic.

So assuming they are telling the truth in this case, they are not purposefully imposing famine and there is no need to find the right word.

Very few if any (on MN) has said Israel deserved 7th Oct, you have just made that up.
..and who has said that the horrors of the Hamas attack are all Israeli propaganda? no one.

Social media game? wtf? is 20k deaths not enough for you, 50k terrible injuries, 1000s more missing, buried under rubble?

Yes i do think you re sitting there gloating (& being goady) you ve expressed zero sympathy for the deaths in Gaza, instead just like Corbyn, you decry all deaths, unable to criticise Israel.
You also cannot see (or don't care) that what Israel is doing will not lead to greater security for Israel, it'll make matters far far worse for them and for everyone else too.

So Israel have made it safe for aid to enter Gaza? I have to admit I've been very busy of late so haven't been keeping a close eye on things but last time I checked aid workers said it was Israel making it unsafe for aid to be delivered. Given the fact that Israel have killed scores of aid workers I don't think that that can be disputed unless Israel have changed tactics and now promising the safety of aid workers? More UN relief workers have been killed in this short conflict than in any other conflict in the history of the UN. Workers from the red crescent and save the children have also been killed by Israel. If you are telling me that Israel have changed tactics and aid workers are being given safe passage by Israel to deliver aid I will believe you though. If Israel are not promising safe passage then I'm afraid it can't be denied that Israel is preventing aid from reaching people thereby purposefully creating famine.

Well, frankly I think it’s absolute bollocks the Nazis thought mass shootings of Jews were not good for the mental health of their soldiers, so had to come up with another way of doing it just for that reason. I think they found the best way they could to kill as many Jewish people as possible whilst also getting as much work out of them as possible and making them suffer as much as possible, all while denying what they were really up to to the rest of the world. I also think Israel is currently killing absolutely as many Palestinians as it possibly can in the circumstances and making them suffer absolutely as much as it possibly can given that the whole world is watching and the US is getting jittery. With famine, disease and no infrastructure and Israel apparently having no desire to stop its current actions unless the rest of the world gets its act together, I’m seeing a very genocidal desire in Israel’s actions - it’s killing as much as it thinks it can possibly get away with, knowing that many more will die of untreated injuries, disease and starvation. There is nothing clinical in Israel’s reaction, it is all bloody rage and the dehumanisation of anyone living in Gaza.

Also, with illegal settlement in the West Bank, a refusal to consider a two state solution and a clear “us not them” mentality, it’s hard to see what they intend other than wiping out the competition for land which extremists in the current Israeli government have made patently clear they believe they should be entitled to themselves.

😅🤣 You posted a photo of a B-52 doing a practice run with the usual complement of 45 M-117 750lb dumb bombs that are being dropped in the countryside as your example of true carpet bombing.

You are right, your photo doesn’t equate to at least 500 MK-84 2,000lb dumb bombs dropped on a very small, densely populated urban area (as identified from craters in satellite imagery) plus unknown hundreds to potentially thousands of smaller dumb bombs (same size and larger than the M117s in your photo) and artillery shells dropped on Gaza

Absolutely your photo of what you think is true carpet bombing doesn’t equate to Gaza, because it is far less of a carpet bomb because it’s with much fewer and vastly smaller dumb bombs.

So, if you look at your photo, you are right that single run over an urban area would be de facto carpet bombing, what has happened to Gaza already is much much worse. It is eleven of those photos only with dumb bombs each of which are four times more powerful than the dumb bombs in your photo.

Dropped the Bosnian genocide have we? Now that you have learned that Gaza’s death rate is not comparatively low compared to historic genocides.

I see too you are conveniently implying the Rwanda genocide was done by a state, rather than by instigating the civilian population to murder. So the size of the area doesn’t really matter as it was not done by deploying a military.

Another attack on people carrying white flags

Who are “they”? The ones doing it?

I was appalled to find that the dominant narrative here was: Well, they deserved it. Let’s just look at how bad Israel/the IDF are. In fact, let’s gloat over their tragic mistakes. Besides, they’re lying about what happened. It wasn’t as bad as all that. And if it was, they probably did most of the killing.

That wasn’t the dominant narrative on the threads I read. I hope you reported anything antiSemitic.

Social media game? wtf? is 20k deaths not enough for you, 50k terrible injuries, 1000s more missing, buried under rubble?

Exactly, it’s not a game and for what it is worth, the IDF have a many more personnel doing info-warfare than Hamas does.

No, they have not made it safe for aid to be delivered throughout Gaza. In fact, they have stepped up attacks on medical aid by just yesterday destroying a PRC ambulance dispatch centre, all the ambulances and detaining dozens of Red Cross/Crescent workers. A few released and not taken out of Gaza for “further interrogation” have alleged beating and torture.

That was very informative thank you
Although I'm shocked that it's comparatively worse than what you replied to.

The war analysts say Gaza is not only a different colour from the sky but also looks a different texture

The campaign is being compared to the combined bombing of Germany during the war, yet we still have the posters saying its not as bad as it is made out to be

I read in the financial Times that there are some bombing campaigns in history which people refer to only by the name of the place ie Dresden and the bombing of Gaza will go down in history as that too.

The bombing of Gaza, per the analysis done at the beginning of December, was at that point much much worse than the damage of the bombs from @Hiddenmnetter photo she posted of the B-52 doing the carpet bomb exercise which is with 45 M-117 750lb dumb bombs. If you want to see the damage that exact carpet bomb run from her photo does, here is a YouTube video of one such exercise on an uninhabited island.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HP7tDJNbefE

Additionally, the B-52 is the oldest bomber in the USAF and the M-117 bombs date from Vietnam (over 50yrs old technology). What carpet bombing looks like in 2023 is very different, but it is still carpet bombing (which is colloquial term for indiscriminate bombing which is illegal and a war crime under international law).

Yes, there are comparisons to WWII and Dresden, which would be a war crime today. Dresden is only not recorded or considered to be a war crime because in WWII there was no such thing as smart bombs so precision bombing vs indiscriminate bombing had a much more lax definition due to the antiquated technology of 85 yrs ago. Tzipi Hotovely is inadvertently admitting to the war crime of indiscriminate bombing by saying the bombing of Gaza is just like Dresden because the standard isn’t the standard we had 85yrs ago, it’s been updated accordingly to reflect military and intelligence technological advances that mean the conduct of war can be done with much lower civilian casualties.

Thanks. I thought as much tbh. I find the narrative that aid agencies are sitting around twiddling their thumbs instead of delivering aid really quite offensive. So many aid workers whose lives should be protected have been killed by Israel whilst doing their jobs or just sleeping with their families. It's horrible to suggest that they should be doing more when they are literally giving their lives and the lives of their families in some cases.

@SomeCatFromJapan

The Israelis for instance are saying that they are allowing aid trucks in and the delays are not at their side at present.

Who do you think is more likely to be lying - a power currently engaged in warfare with accusations of war crimes, or aid agencies trying to get aid to civilians in need?

It's a really bad example to pick when it comes to suggesting the Israeli government / military are not misleading people. Because it's patently obvious which party, in this example, is more likely to be lying.

And it's not the aid workers who have been losing colleagues to the violence happening.

It’s a backlash defensive narrative and deployed rather late to have much of an effect on the historical record as the UN have been documenting since the start the blocking of humanitarian aid by Israel. There is also the not so small matter of Israel PM and Minister of Defence public announcements using words like “total siege” and “no humanitarian aid goes in”

Who do you think is more likely to be lying - a power currently engaged in warfare with accusations of war crimes, or aid agencies trying to get aid to civilians in need?

Honestly hard to say in this case, the Red Cross hasn't behaved in an impartial way regarding the hostages (refusing to attempt to get them medication, berating family members that "Palestinians have it worse"), and given that much of the staff will be made up of local people they will have their views.

Again, I can't say for certain who is or isn't telling the truth. The point is that none of us can, but many posters offer their views with the kind of certainty that would suggest otherwise. They have a particular opinion of Israel and everything is seen through that lens.

Goodness me.

refusing to attempt to get them medication, berating family members that "Palestinians have it worse"

What's the source for this? That hostages' family members are being berated by Red Cross volunteers, I mean?

I'm shocked you say it's 'hard to say' who is more likely to be lying in this specific instance tbh.

It suggests that you yourself are looking at the situation through a very biased lens.

I have no skin in the game. I can, however, see the mass destruction and huge loss of civilian lives. Hamas 7.10 attack was heinous. Disgusting. Abhorrent. So too are Israel's actions.

To defend Israel both causing mass civilian casualties in the tens of thousands, and excuse them not allowing aid to those they are injuring and killing, is baffling to me.

With respect, your whole post here illustrates how we are all projecting our own narrative (because that's all we can do, as outside observers). You tell me I've imagined or invented the threads many of us here have been contributing to over the past few weeks. You misinterpret (I won't say "twist": I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you genuinely misunderstand me) what I say about social media. You insist that you know better than I do how I feel about the current situation, and what I care about. You assume I don't share your fears for the future.

I'm not "unable to criticise Israel" at all. I just find your criticism questionable. Apparently that makes me "goady"?

Setting aside all the arguments we keep going round in circles on, I'd have thought Israel is treading more carefully than you think it is, not least because Hamas aren't the only Jihadi organisation to want Israel off the map.

The level of projection you use with me here seems to be the level of projection you use when assessing the actions of Israel as devious, moronic and heartless.