The aftermath

[Auvergne63]

All wars end. I use the term "war" very loosely as I don't view this as a war.
What will happen to the Gazans? How can live in such devastation? How can they deal with so much trauma? Will they ever recover?
Gaza faces a massive reconstruction challenge. Here are key facts and figures | Reuters
The former Israeli prime minister Olmert thinks that Netanyahu has no plan for after the war. He has been a strident critic of his actions.
Ex-Israeli PM makes devastating condemnation of Netanyahu’s war in Gazan | The Independent
Here is a link to his peace proposal in collaboration with Nasser al-Kidwa
Former Israeli PM and former Palestinian foreign minister lay out joint plan to end Israel-Hamas war | CBC News

Genuine questions here.
Why do you feel the need to defend other posters?
What do you think I do?
The UN rightly condemned the horrors of 07/10 on the same day they happened.
UN officials strongly condemn deadly attacks in Israel | UN News
Regarding the rapes, an investigation would have needed to take place before issuing any findings.
Let's not forget that it took the IDF 7 hours to stop Hamas' barbarity. Why?
Why was the intelligence of an eminent attack ignored by the Israeli government? All these questions need to be answered.
Where was the IDF intelligence and why did it take so long? All the difficult questions – www.israelhayom.com

How strange to object to people defending other posters. I don't do it so much because its a nice thing to do actually (though it is) but because if you twist someone's words its a way of disinformation creeping into the threads, or a way of setting up strawmen, which doesn't help anyone.

Again, noone said the UN didn't condemn tbe attacks but its undoubtedly true that condemnation was slow, full of equivocation, or absent from some quarters.

There was absolutely no need to wait for an investigation to condemn the obvious horror of sexual violence on that day even if exact details of the sort that would stand up in court were not available riggt away (obviously). Did the world wait for an investigation before condemning tbe murder of George Floyd? Of course not. The protests began immediately Have you waited for investigations before condemning Israel's violence in Gaza? No.

I am wasting my time answering your posts.
Believe what you want and defend who you want.
Before I stop engaging with you I hope you have condemned the actions of the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon ( which country is next?) as fast as I have condemned Hamas'.
I will carry on to do so. Will you?
I will never defend the indefensible may it be the murders of the innocent Israelis or the murders of the innocent Palestinians and Lebanese.
I believe that human life is sacred. Every religion teaches this.
Make of this what you want.
Finally, it is interesting that you ignored the failings of the Israeli government and the IDF on that horrid day.
As Shakespeare wrote, "I wish we could become better strangers.'"

@SharonEllis meanwhile the support for Israel has been loud and clear. That's their condemnation.

They condemn the attacks so harshly that they're sanctioning an entire country to death. They're bombing vaccine centres. Bombing schools and food distribution centres.

You must listen to different news outlets to me. I hear pretty regular criticism of Israel.

Indeed. And the west will continue to do so as long as Israel remains their only foothold in the region. But as a PP said, Israel can't bomb their way to victory without a significant cost to their 'people' both in Isreal and other parts of the world. They have too many enemies now and the US can't continue to fund this war indefinitely. It will end and when it does, i hope justice is served.

Exactly

This.

And it's why some of us support other posters comments. We value accuracy.

Have you waited for investigations before condemning Israel's violence in Gaza? No.
It will be too late by then

What a stupid assumption to make. More inaccuracies.

I was reading an article about the numbers of Israelis emigrating. It is at record high.
Israel faces record emigration as thousands leave the country - Israel News - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
Meanwhile the Israeli economy is struggling.
Israel faces a looming financial crisis if it fails to act, former chief economist warns | The Times of Israel
"Swamped mental health services, a semi-functioning education system, economic decline, collapsing businesses, troubling gun accidents and a rise in crime. Even if most Israelis won't oppose the war for the sake of Gazans, they better start looking at the huge toll it is taking on their own lives."
No my words but those from an Haaretz's journalist.

Indeed. What hamas unleashed on both Israel and Gaza is appalling.

Shocking. What the Israeli government have done to its people and the people of Palestine is just awful

We value accuracy.
I nearly spat my tea out when I read this.
Voicing an opinion without verified facts to back it up is meaningless.
Providing links from respected and unbiased sources to support your argument is what makes people take others seriously.
It's called debating.

Sorry I think you meant what the Israeli government unleashed on Gaza?
The argument "they made us do it" won't stand in a court of law.

People don't seem to realise that many IDF soldiers will come back with PTSD.
Some have already committed suicide.
Sending young men and women to fight battle hardened terrorists in Lebanon, the same who fought against Isis, is criminal.

Absolutely.
Plus so many have been identified and named on social media due to TikTok videos etc that their names are out there forever.

OP, this is a genuine, respectful and curious question. No sarcasm or spin in it at all:

What would you have had Israel do, as its response, in the aftermath of 7/10?

Holdup, what Hamas did to Israel was indeed appalling but don't pretend for even one second that Israel have no responsibility for the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

If you value accuracy you might want to edit George Floyd comments, his murder was absolutely not universally or quickly condemned.

100% this 👆

I feel that the Israeli government should have used a focused counterterrorism strategy, By this I mean that they should have targeted Hamas leaders ( wherever they are) as well as their foot "soldiers". They have shown that they can do this, multiple times. Their intelligence agency is one of the best, if not the best, in the world.
i am no military expert but the IDF appears to be the most powerful army in the ME and has advance military technology too.
Of course, I am not saying that sending special forces into a densely populated place would be without serious risks to them. I believe that they are trained for these types of operations though. These are elite troops.
But the Israeli response would have had to be delayed and well planned.
Targeted air raids on weapon cash would have been needed too , which would have kept civilian casualties down.
The problem is, in my view, is that the failure to take heed of the warnings of an eminent attack by Hamas and the slow response to said attack by the IDF has led Netanyahu to make the decisions he has made.
I think he has actually been played by Hamas, in the sense that they wanted him to react the way he has, in the hope that other terrorists would join in and the conflict would broaden, which it has.
But before all this, I think he should have agreed to the deal that Hamas put on the table on the 09/10 offering the release of the hostages.
Finally, I believe that Israel has the right to self defence and a duty to protect its citizens but within the international laws the Israeli government signed up to.
Carpet bombing, starving a population and depriving civilians of the basics for life will not, in my mind, increase the security of Israel. Quite the contrary.
Anyway, this is my opinion, only an opinion, so of no more value than any others.
I just wish that the suffering of any innocents stopped.

Israel should have lined up its tanks and artillery along the border to prevent any repeat, and then sat down and negotiated a hostage release, as a first stage towards negotiating an end to a conflict that has been festering for decades.
Surely that would have been better than this.
Until November the Israelis didn't even try to negotiate the hostages out of Gaza.

I think he (Netanyahu) has actually been played by Hamas, in the sense that they wanted him to react the way he has, in the hope that other terrorists would join in and the conflict would broaden, which it has. @Auvergne63

But Hezbollah did not join in. Up until about a month ago, their contribution was relatively harmless. There were exchanges of artillery and rockets across Israel's northern border ( mostly directed at the other sides military positions) but in the grand scheme of things, they were relatively unimportant. Few people were killed in the 11 months since Oct 7 and the main result was that there were lots of brush fires and 60,000 Israelis had to evacuate.

The only really devastating weapon that Hezbollah have is their "doomsday launch" in which they simultaneously send thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel. They were estimated to have anything up to 120,000 before the conflict, though a good proportion of these will have been destroyed in the past 3 weeks.

Iron dome ( a battery of 20, which takes time to reload) , David's sling and Arrow 2 and 3 would be unable to cope with this onslaught and enough Hezbollah missiles would get through to cause extensive death and destruction. Hezbollah have held back on this option, because it would be a major escalation that could drag Iran and the US in on more than just the token "we're here to help.. up to a point" that they have done so far.

So whilst you might think what is happening at the moment is bad, it could get far, far worse.
Of course the whole thing could stop now if certain parties would entertain the idea of a ceasefire.... but they won't.