Eliminate Hamas……At any the cost ?

[Itoosurvive]

Israel’s aim is to eliminate Hamas’ fighters.

So far it has cost 25,000 Palestinian lives.
Approximately 300 members of the IDF have been killed.
According to US intelligence (Rad 4 news 18.00 21-1-2024) between 20% and 30% of Hamas' fighters have been killed.
Approximately 65% of buildings have been destroyed.

So, the IDF is about a quarter of the way through the task they have been set.
The following question is directed at anyone who supports the current campaign to remove Hamas.

When does the loss of life become great enough to call a halt to the operation, or should it carry on until Hamas is eliminated, regardless of the cost?

edit, Title should read "At any cost"

So if they were in Israel you would bomb Israel to try and hit them?

@niceandnew what's your answer to this question @TomeTome asked you?

This conflict was never going to be quick or short-lived. IIRC, before Israel began their operations in Gaza, I stated the conflict would be very ugly. It was obvious then and now it wasn't going to be short.

Demilitarisation of Gaza is the long term goal. Even Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has stated that demilitarisation of Gaza is important to future stability in the region.

If Israel had a governing body who was intent on wiping out myself and my people and they had already carried out an October 7th massacre actualising this, then yes I hope that my country would bomb the hell out of it.

See what? There's nothing to see !

Easy to be bloodthirsty when you identify with whoever is not on the receiving end of carpet bombing.

I do not support that hell on anyone for any reason.

It is inhumane (and illegal) to displace and bomb the hell out of 2.3 million people to get at a few thousand criminals.

So long as @niceandnew is on the side that is doing the bombing, she is alright Jack.

I don't think its blood thirsty to defend your country after your enemies declared war by initiated a horrific attack killing thousands!

If a foreign army of 3000 men came into your town, murdered and raped your neighbours you would want the UK to do everything it can to ensure it doesn't happen again. That's what Israel are doing. And instead of admitting defeat Hamas insist on jeopardising the Gazans by putting them in between themselves and the Israeli soldiers. If Hamas would return the hostages and give up fighting back Israel will ceasefire.

@MercanDede I'm not "on the side of the bombing". I'm on the side of the 1000+ who were murdered in their beds. I'm on the side of a democratic land trying to create a safe space for its citizens and I'm on the side of the 100+ hostages.

I would love for this to be resolved without violence but that was the situation on October 6th. There was no war on October 6th. Hamas spoilt it on Oct 7th and now we must get rid of them to prevent it from happening again.

@niceandnew
I meant on the side that is doing the bombing in the literal sense.

As in, if your country had a gang of terrorists that then attacked another country, would you be alright with bombs raining down on you and your children? Would you be ok with a 65% chance of your home being reduced to a pile of rubble? Fleeing with only what you can carry on foot? Living in a tent made of plastic and flooded with sewage? Perhaps dying in a bomb, or seeing a limb blown off or off your child? Spending all day on a search for food and clean water?

There was a war on October 6th, 2023, and the 75years leading up to it. This is one of the longest running conflicts in history. Getting close to the length of the 100yrs war. Pretending there wasn’t is like the USA pretending WWII didn’t start until Pearl Harbour.

you would want the UK to do everything it can to ensure it doesn't happen again. I wouldn’t EVER condone bombing thousands of civilians trapped starved and terrified, and I would never have children killed on the off chance of keeping me safer. I pray you find a better way.

But you would happily condone invading a country, violently overthrowing its elected government and non-government elected officials and subjecting its population to military rule. How many civilians do you think will die in that scenario? How do you think the children growing up in that will fare?

The U.K. did find and do a better way with the IRA. The GFA has ensured those kinds of terror attacks will never happen again. Bombing Belfast and Derry to rubble, killing tens of thousands, plus blockading to cause another Great Hunger would have had the opposite result. Israel’s actions are a lesson in what not to do, in how to perpetuate not prevent.

I wouldn’t condone this myself, but you have to know you are describing what Israel has done to the Palestinians since 1948.

Which government did they overthrow and now run?

In any case two wrongs don't make a right.

What are you talking about?

IF Israel continue to bomb a trapped civilian population then they should be stopped from doing that. The people responsible for that should be tried for war crimes if it is applicable and they should be held responsible. The country should be supported until it can govern itself.

Thousands of civilians are already dying and thousands of children will never grow up already.

The IRA are no comparison to Hamas. Their terror didn't come close to the barbarism of the October 7th massacre. The IRA weren't intent on wiping out all of Britain. Their charters didn't call for the killing of every Brit.

I'd rather take the example of what UK and US did to Dresden. They bombed out a city to get rid of the Nazis.

The level of terror and evil that is Hamas is on a very different league to the IRA and it must be treated as such.

Their government was overthrown before it could get off the ground and has been repeatedly suppressed by military occupation. The most recent one, the PA has been living this reality for decades.

I agree two wrongs do not make a right. However, democratic nations are known to invade, militarily occupy and even colonise other countries. Democracy isn’t synonymous with moral superiority when it comes to this aspect of geopolitics.

Which is exactly what happened this past Friday.

Last week the IRC were intent on exposing Israel's war crimes and brought Israel to court for this.
Alas the outcome was that Israel were not told to stop the war and do not have to ceasefire yet. This war is not illegal. It is a very just war with Israel doing its best to get rid of the terror that is Hamas whilst still providing aid to Gazan civilians.

@TomeTome you said "The country should be supported until it can govern itself." Hamas must be removed before the country can govern itself.
Instead of constantly condemning them, perhaps support Israel for doing this job for the Gazan people.

@niceandnew how anyone could support Israel bombing Gaza is beyond me, and to suggest you are doing this for the Gaza’s people is frankly revolting.

None of this makes what the PP was suggesting any less horrifying.

The IRA of 1973 are comparable to the Hamas of 1988.

The difference between the two now is, in my opinion, predominately due to Israel’s incompetence in handling Hamas over the years.

The Hamas charter doesn’t call for the killing of every Israeli (or Jew).
Hamas is not intent in wiping Israel off the face of the planet.

What the US and U.K. did to Dresden would be a war crime today. It was a horror that the newly formed UN agreed should never again happen to civilians, and it was made a crime against humanity, one of the most serious war crimes. Comparing Gaza to Dresden is spot on, because Israel is breaking international law by treating Gaza like Dresden.

Your assessment of how “evil” a gang of terrorists is doesn’t justify collective punishment of all human beings that share the same skin tone, religion, or place of origin as the terrorists. The evil is in your thinking that the end justifies a by any means necessary attempt. I say attempt because all that suffering and death of tens of thousands of innocents won’t work. It won’t destroy Hamas. It is ensuring more terrorism. More terrorists.

I quite agree, but I was hoping you would agree that a real and present horror is a bit more compelling than a hypothetical will never happen horror?

That wasn’t what happened Friday at the ICJ.

The ICJ doesn’t try anyone for war crimes, that is the ICC.

The ICJ did rule that there is real risk of genocide having happened or about to happen in Gaza and after determining there is urgency, they invoked preliminary measures binding Israel to following the international laws of conflict.

Israel has repudiated the ruling and is flouting the ICJ ruling. The UNSC is meeting to discuss enforcement.

Sorry, am I not talking about what I'm allowed to talk about?

Pardon? I thought you must have had an idea that your shock and horror of a hypothetical scenario being proposed:

“invading a country, violently overthrowing its elected government and non-government elected officials and subjecting its population to military rule”

could be applied directly to the current conflict within Israel and the Palestinian Territories, which is the topic of this thread? The PA is a democracy and Israel has been doing just that (as it did to their predecessors).

The poster who proposed this has a fine sense of the ironic.

(Apologies, I meant ICJ not IRC.)

Quoted from Reuters "The ICJ ruling required Israel to prevent and punish any public incitements to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and to preserve evidence related to any allegations of genocide there. Israel must also take measures to improve the humanitarian situation for Palestinian civilians in the enclave.... The ICJ called on Hamas and other armed groups to immediately release them without conditions."

Israel is currently giving much aid to Gaza to improve the humanitarian situation, how about asking Hamas to keep their side of the ruling?