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"

How can you write this in good conscience?
These bombs obliterate anything nearby and causing a shockwave that is likely to trigger cave-ins of subterranean structures farther away than the intended target.

These are being used on one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

This is why the IDF asked civilians to evacuate.
Israel controls the borders and noone can leave. There is nowhere for civilians to evacuate to.

Now the North of Gaza has been cleared they are moving on to the South of Gaza The South of Gaza is where the Gazans "evacuated" to. The North has been "obliterated" by bunker busters so where do the population go now the south is under attack?

And this is why its becoming increasingly obvious that the IDF aren't "doing all they can" to protect civilians.

It's absolutely horrific and personally I think Israel have really damaged their international reputation because everyone can see what they are doing now. The Americans have even set up a "dedicated channel" to "discuss" the civilian deaths.

Exactly @AdamRyan these 'bunker buster' bombs are intended for battlefield not urban use - hence the high civilian casualties but also the large number of amputations as the shrapnel flies over several 100 metres

Even IDF admitted they had used the 'wrong weapon' when they killed 100 people at Al Magwazi on xmas eve

It's absolutely horrific and personally I think Israel have really damaged their international reputation because everyone can see what they are doing now.
I agree. I think Hamas were already “seen” for who they were but Israelis had been flying under the radar to some extent. Now the world has seen who they are and what they are capable of I think it becomes impossible not to conclude they are behaving in an acceptable way. I think most of the world would conclude they are not fit to rule and vote to remove their autonomy.
Nobody wants that, but what can you do in the face of such horror?

@AdamRyan How can you write this in good conscience?

What has my conscience got to do with this?

I was asked a question about what the situation with Hamas. I answered giving the military strategy used by the Israelis.

This. Sorry, the pretext to ANY form of peace agreement now needs to be the recognition of a Palestinian state. Israel’s game of continuous procrastination and obfuscation of the process for decades has led us to where we are today.

Maybe you should start marching with them, holding a placard asking Hamas to ceasefire and stop sending rockets. No one stops you.

@AdamRyan
In WW2 military deaths were 15 million.

Civilian deaths were 35 million.

(These figures don't include the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust BTW )

Would you say that this was an acceptable price to pay for defeating the Nazis?

"Remove their autonomy"? What does that mean?

@Lanabigbanana there's two issues with your argument of using bunker bombs in civilian areas.

1. The Geneva convention has strict rules on when those bombs can be used and only in extreme circumstances of self defence can be used in urban areas. Israel has used hundreds of these including in safe zones where they have asked civilians to move to

1. There are other methods of sealing up the tunnels that doesn't require the deaths of civilians as 'collateral damage' which is thousands of innocent civilians

"The Geneva Conventions spell out that heavy duty bombs like bunker busters could only be used in "extreme circumstance of self-defence." Dropping them in civilian neighbourhoods is strictly prohibited and perceived as inhumane."

Have you even read one word of what I wrote?

two issues with your argument of using bunker bombs in civilian areas.

I didn't argue for the use of 'bunker bombs' at all. I was asked a question and gave the military strategy used by IDF.

Please don't accuse me of saying things I didn't.

I didn't say whether it was 'right or wrong, just what was happening.

There are other methods of sealing up the tunnels that doesn't require the deaths of hundreds of civilians as collateral damage.

Maybe there are, maybe there aren't and as I'm not that au fait with methods of tunnel warfare (except knowing that the Americans used it in Vietnam) I can't agree or disagree.

I'm not arguing with you.

Do you want a rational discussion or have you just come here for an argument?

@Lanabigbanana sorry I didn't mean it to come across as you were arguing for it's use, but as a argument why it shouldn't be used

I’m sorry I’m not sure what you don’t understand? Do you think killing thousands of people is an acceptable way to behave? Israelis have demonstrated they are unfit to govern the region.

As I've said I'm not arguing with you, now please give it a rest.

Considering Hamas goal is to wipe out the Israelis I don't think they've been left with a great deal of choice.

I'm asking precisely what you mean when you are saying that the world should remove Israel's autonomy.

Who exactly are "the world"? And how do they go about doing this?

Previously you said you want a "peacekeeping" force to take over the running of Israel. Is this what you mean?

It's a discussion but seeing as you don't want to, i certainly won't engage with you again either.

But isn’t Hamas an ideology as well as a physical presence? Isn’t the current ongoing decimation of Gaza and its people serving to radicalise new generations of young men who are witnessing on a daily basis their friends and family members being killed?

HOW can Hamas be eradicated???

On the first day of retaliation towards Gaza, Netanyahu said he wanted to ‘raze Gaza to the ground’. He wants to obliterate the entire territory and its people.

I'm interested why you use WWII as a comparison.
The Nazis were in control of a country, with all the government machinery and money that comes with that. They had an army. And they had successfully invaded and taken over a neighbouring country. At the height of the war they controlled a large part of Europe.

I can't see how Hamas compares. It's a terrorist group in charge of a stateless territory without an army, that doesn't have the capability to take over its neighbour.

It comes across to me like you want to use the much larger death toll in WWII to suggest that Gazan deaths are unremarkable. I don't agree with that.

Yes I would imagine UN, followed by a babysitting interim government. It’s not at all what any of us would have chosen but better than sitting by and watching this horror unfolding.

There's been a lot of discussion about this on other threads. It isn't at all clear Hamas' goal is to "wipe out the Israelis". Their stated goal is a two state solution on 1967 boundaries.

But even of it were - they are a terrorist group. The Palestinians are not Hamas and don't deserve the destruction Israel is currently serving to them.

The closest analogy I can think of is George W Bush "war on terror" to remove the Taliban because they were a threat to the West. It looks like around 50,000 civilians were killed over ten years. Afghans could leave. So a less brutal war than what the Israelis are currently waging.

And who is in power now in Afghanistan, after the conclusion of the "war on terror"? The Taliban.

You can't bomb an ideology out of existence.

I'd just like to remind PP that the 2000lb bombs are manufactured in the USA and provided by the US government

No wonder the US government are using a back channel to put pressure on the Israeli government

So the UN say they want to take over the Israeli government and the government say no, then what? Invade the country? Storm the Knesset and arrest all MKs indefinitely? Cancel all elections? Who are this "interim government" made up of exactly?

I'm interested why you use WWII as a comparison.

Because it's one war I know something about.
If you can think of a better comparison to the Hamas/Israel conflict, please flag it up. I'll do some research and we can discuss it.

that doesn't have the capability to take over its neighbour.

Hmmm. I'm not so sure about that.

Iran has used its proxy army of more than a dozen militias and terror groups across the Middle East (Hamas, Hezbollah etc) with outposts around the world to help foment instability, carry out attacks, and expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution.
Those groups, some with their own political parties to infiltrate or take over local governments, answer to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a paramilitary body formed in 1979 to protect Iran’s fundamentalist regime.
Its special operations unit, the elite Quds Force, has provided arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East: Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Yemen.

It comes across to me like you want to use the much larger death toll in WWII to suggest that Gazan deaths are unremarkable. I don't agree with that.

I never intimated any such idea.

The title of the thread is "Eliminate Hamas at any cost", that's why I brought up the 'cost' of WW2.