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Conflict in the Middle East

Israeli security cabinet expected to approve Gaza takeover plan

604 replies

Twiglets1 · 07/08/2025 10:18

Sky News report that Israel is expected to approve Benjamin Netanyahu's plan for a takeover of Gaza when the security cabinet meets later today.

According to the Times of Israel, the full cabinet is due to convene at 6pm local time, 4pm in the UK.

Israeli media are reporting that the plan could potentially span over five months, and it is likely to be aimed at destroying Hamas and pressuring it to free remaining hostages.

While some ministers have been critical of the plan, reports suggest Netanyahu is likely to secure a majority of support.

https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-latest-hostages-famine-aid-hamas-idf-war-palestine-state-live-13398805

Gaza latest: Israeli security cabinet 'expected to approve' Gaza takeover plan - as aid trucks wait at Egyptian border

Israel's full security cabinet is expected to approve Benjamin Netanyahu's Gaza takeover plan when it convenes today, according to Israeli media. Pictures show aid trucks waiting at the border with Egypt amid growing fears about famine. Follow the late...

https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-latest-hostages-famine-aid-hamas-idf-war-palestine-state-live-13398805

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Dangermoo · 11/08/2025 12:59

Doctors without Borders is on my list. Some admirable work is done, granted. Too conveniently biased for my liking. I don't believe there's collective punishment and I do feel sorry for the women and children. If the children aren't raised to hate Israel, they are sent out as targets. Awful, all round for them.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:01

Dangermoo · 11/08/2025 12:59

Doctors without Borders is on my list. Some admirable work is done, granted. Too conveniently biased for my liking. I don't believe there's collective punishment and I do feel sorry for the women and children. If the children aren't raised to hate Israel, they are sent out as targets. Awful, all round for them.

But who kills the children?

Do you think that the moral dimensions of killing is a zero-sum game? That moral responsibility only applies to those who occasion the death of a person, not to those who kill the person?

Kakeandkake · 11/08/2025 13:08

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:01

But who kills the children?

Do you think that the moral dimensions of killing is a zero-sum game? That moral responsibility only applies to those who occasion the death of a person, not to those who kill the person?

I don't expect you will be receiving an answer.

Dangermoo · 11/08/2025 13:10

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:01

But who kills the children?

Do you think that the moral dimensions of killing is a zero-sum game? That moral responsibility only applies to those who occasion the death of a person, not to those who kill the person?

Those who set the children up as 'mercy' killings are repugnant.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:13

Kakeandkake · 11/08/2025 13:08

I don't expect you will be receiving an answer.

I expect you're right. And it is a shame, as this question is of vital importance vis the killing of human shields.

The misconception (outside of ethics of war scholarship) is that the moral responsibility for the killing of a human shield is laid at the feet of those who use the human shields.

This is not the whole story. Moral responsibility rests with both parties, and it is not "split"; moral responsibility is not zero-sum. The attacking party can be as morally responsible for the killing of human shield as they might be for the killing of an innocent bystander. Not in every scenario, but in the scenarios that get talked about with regards to Gaza (what Gordon and Perugini call "Proximate Shields" in their excellent book "Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire"), much more likely to be true.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:14

Dangermoo · 11/08/2025 13:10

Those who set the children up as 'mercy' killings are repugnant.

As are those who kill them.

PinkBobby · 11/08/2025 13:18

Dangermoo · 11/08/2025 12:59

Doctors without Borders is on my list. Some admirable work is done, granted. Too conveniently biased for my liking. I don't believe there's collective punishment and I do feel sorry for the women and children. If the children aren't raised to hate Israel, they are sent out as targets. Awful, all round for them.

So this is what I find hard: MSF are ‘too conveniently biased’ whilst random people on X whose whole feeds push one narrative are the ones to trust. I’m not meaning to single you out I just don’t understand. Is it only this conflict that you take this approach or for all news/events?

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:24

PinkBobby · 11/08/2025 13:18

So this is what I find hard: MSF are ‘too conveniently biased’ whilst random people on X whose whole feeds push one narrative are the ones to trust. I’m not meaning to single you out I just don’t understand. Is it only this conflict that you take this approach or for all news/events?

I think it largely stems from a misunderstanding in the difference between bias, neutrality, and impartiality. We would need to know what Dangermoo understands by the term bias in this context.

PaxAeterna · 11/08/2025 13:28

I can completely understand someone standing with Israel. I don’t really understand how they would sleepwalk behind Netanyahu and his government into hell insisting that only the Israeli government speak the truth.

Compassion is not a limited resource. If you call for food for the starving, if you are against the loss of so much innocent life and if you speak against the destruction then it doesn’t reduce the compassion and concern that you may feel for Jewish people around the world, Israeli citizens and the hostages.

Kakeandkake · 11/08/2025 13:35

Someone above i think it was @Twiglets1 that commented on the UK stance.

Keir Starmer has just "The UK government is “gravely concerned” by the killing of Al Jazeera journalists and other media in Gaza by Israel.
Speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's official spokesman says Israel should ensure journalists can work safely and report without fear.
He also called for an independent investigation into the killing of Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues."

Kakeandkake · 11/08/2025 13:36

I think Starmer's 'grave concern' of Israel targeting and killing journalists is quite the understatement.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 13:38

PaxAeterna · 11/08/2025 13:28

I can completely understand someone standing with Israel. I don’t really understand how they would sleepwalk behind Netanyahu and his government into hell insisting that only the Israeli government speak the truth.

Compassion is not a limited resource. If you call for food for the starving, if you are against the loss of so much innocent life and if you speak against the destruction then it doesn’t reduce the compassion and concern that you may feel for Jewish people around the world, Israeli citizens and the hostages.

I'm not sure that I would call it sleepwalking when one of the most recent studies finds that 56% of Israelis support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and 47% agreed with the statement that it would be permissible to kill all inhabitants of a city when conquering it. This is not Netanyahu's war alone, and it would be a mistake to lay the blame solely at his feet, and excuse the widespread support for things that are happening under his leadership. Not everything, of course, but enough that it needs to be borne in mind.

Speaking purely anecdotally, about 1/4 of my extended family is Israeli, and the above percentages track with their own feelings.

Study by way of Genocide Watch, initially reported in Haaretz: https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/poll-show-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans

Poll Shows Majority of Israelis Support Expelling Gazans

A Grim Poll Showed Most Israelis Support Expelling Gazans.Haaretz.comDahlia ScheindlinJun 3, 2025In 2014, when Jewish Israelis kidnapped and immolated Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem, many Israelis were shocked and asham...

https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/poll-show-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans

HellsBalls · 11/08/2025 14:04

Hamas can end the killing today, by handing back the hostages, and disbanding.

PinkBobby · 11/08/2025 14:07

HellsBalls · 11/08/2025 14:04

Hamas can end the killing today, by handing back the hostages, and disbanding.

Whilst I understand this argument, there is so much more to the conflict than Hamas’s violence. See my earlier article about settlers in the West Bank. Hamas could surrender today and Palestinians would still be victims tomorrow.

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 14:20

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 11:11

Well, let us say, as our point of departure, that Anas al-Sharif celebrated the attacks of Oct. 7th while they were ongoing and thus he is a member of Hamas - and I'm going to set to one side for a minute whether or not I dispute that, and whether or not one follows the other.

Is that a death sentence? Are we really saying that writing the words "9 hours and the heroes are still roaming the country killing and capturing... God, God, how great you are" is a justification for killing a person? There is no account of the ethics of war - legal or discursive - under which a person becomes liable for expressing in words support for an act (even ones which are war crimes) within an IAC.

If your account of liability in war is so broad that you would include demonstrations of support as being grounds for liability, then all that any government ever needs to do to kill someone is make a plausible case that they were a supporter of terrorism. (And indeed, here we are, at the point where the wholesale destruction of Gaza finds its justification in the necessity to prevent and punish terrorism - this, as an aside, is an example of the doctrine of Kriegsraison, which was previously laid to rest by the judgements of the Nuremberg trials, but which has seen an operational re-emergence since the second Iraq war)

This is a very dangerous and slippery slope, wherein terrorism (defined, as it can be and is, unilaterally by states - and, as Chomsky notes, terrorism is usually used to describe violence which isn't approved of by the west, e.g. British proscription of PA) can be used as a justification to kill outside of the norms of liability in IAC.

Being a supporter of, or indeed even a member of, a proscribed organisation does not alone confer liability. And the reason for that should be obvious: were war to break out tomorrow between Palestine and the U.K., then the proscription of Palestine Action would allow the U.K. military to kill all of the people, mostly pensioners, who were arrested on Saturday for holding up signs expressing their support for the proscribed organisation.

The important point here is not whether he was a member of Hamas, or - as is being suggested here - spoke in support of the al-Qassam brigades (the militant wing of Hamas, bearing in mind that Hamas is primarily a civil and administrative body, not a military body). The important point is whether being a member of Hamas, or even speaking in support of the al-Qassam brigades, makes killing you allowable or justifiable under the rules of war. Alone, it does not. Not under any account of the ethics of war, legal or discursive.

Yes, three decades of scholarship in counter-insurgency and asymmetrical warfare has laid the groundwork for the killing of non-combatants who are members of terrorist groups. But even within the broadest frameworks, and here I would point to the reductive individualists (e.g. J. McMahan, H. Frowe) who reject the principle of separation (that the rules of war and the rules of the conduct in war are logically separated), mere membership of a group does not confer liability.

He wasn't killed just for saying words though was he? He was targeting due to the fact the IDF considered they had enough evidence that he was a member of Hamas in addition to being a journalist. Your post is a long one but the point is simple: the IDF are committed to destroying Hamas so it was logical that they would put him on their hit list and kill him when they got the opportunity.

Palestine Action in the UK do not have a goal of killing British people so it's not really comparable to Hamas being committed to killing Israeli people. Our army wouldn't kill members of Palestine Action for holding up placards, neither do the IDF kill people for holding up placards against them. Unfortunately, Hamas went rather further than that with their killing and sexual violence, so it's not a good comparison.

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Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 14:22

HellsBalls · 11/08/2025 14:04

Hamas can end the killing today, by handing back the hostages, and disbanding.

Israel has rejected every proposal which has included an end to Israeli hostility in Gaza.

Hamas has been demanding (not just offering) that they, Hamas, step down as the governing body in Gaza since December 2023, according to one of the Israeli negotiators. Israel has rejected this demand every time it has been made.

The returning of the hostages still held in Gaza would not end the killing. This is why Israel resumed the war on Gaza after the first stage of the last ceasefire: the proceeding stages, which would have seen the release of all the remaining hostages, would have required Israel’s withdrawal, and would quite possibly have secured an end to the killing.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 14:25

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 14:20

He wasn't killed just for saying words though was he? He was targeting due to the fact the IDF considered they had enough evidence that he was a member of Hamas in addition to being a journalist. Your post is a long one but the point is simple: the IDF are committed to destroying Hamas so it was logical that they would put him on their hit list and kill him when they got the opportunity.

Palestine Action in the UK do not have a goal of killing British people so it's not really comparable to Hamas being committed to killing Israeli people. Our army wouldn't kill members of Palestine Action for holding up placards, neither do the IDF kill people for holding up placards against them. Unfortunately, Hamas went rather further than that with their killing and sexual violence, so it's not a good comparison.

The post I made was about membership of an organisation and whether it confers liability. Which it does not. The comparative severity of the terrorist organisations in question is not relevant to whether or not membership makes killing lawful or unlawful according to the rules of war.

This is precisely the point: no matter how much evidence you might have on whether someone supports a terrorist organisation, liability is founded in active participation in combat.

edit: rules of war, not rules of law

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:02

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 14:22

Israel has rejected every proposal which has included an end to Israeli hostility in Gaza.

Hamas has been demanding (not just offering) that they, Hamas, step down as the governing body in Gaza since December 2023, according to one of the Israeli negotiators. Israel has rejected this demand every time it has been made.

The returning of the hostages still held in Gaza would not end the killing. This is why Israel resumed the war on Gaza after the first stage of the last ceasefire: the proceeding stages, which would have seen the release of all the remaining hostages, would have required Israel’s withdrawal, and would quite possibly have secured an end to the killing.

Israel wants Hamas to disarm, Hamas leadership to leave and be replaced with a new civilian government and for the complete demilitarisation of Gaza.

It's not enough for Hamas to just offer to step down as the governing body in Gaza. They need to be destroyed totally or they could rebuild and repeat 7/10.

OP posts:
Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:09

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 14:25

The post I made was about membership of an organisation and whether it confers liability. Which it does not. The comparative severity of the terrorist organisations in question is not relevant to whether or not membership makes killing lawful or unlawful according to the rules of war.

This is precisely the point: no matter how much evidence you might have on whether someone supports a terrorist organisation, liability is founded in active participation in combat.

edit: rules of war, not rules of law

Edited

I think the IDF were completely justified in targeting someone they had evidence was a member of Hamas. I welcome a full investigation into this journalist and if the IDF made a mistake about his Hamas affiliations, they need to be held accountable but I do think they had strong evidence.

Obviously you won't agree with that but in my opinion they were not targeting him as a journalist but rather as someone that supported and helped Hamas in their goal to destroy Jews.

What I don't agree with - and someone else raised this point - is that other people got killed in the attack on him. This is where IDF actions look morally wrong to me because I agree with people who say their response is disproportionate (not just in this particular example but generally).

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Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 15:11

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:02

Israel wants Hamas to disarm, Hamas leadership to leave and be replaced with a new civilian government and for the complete demilitarisation of Gaza.

It's not enough for Hamas to just offer to step down as the governing body in Gaza. They need to be destroyed totally or they could rebuild and repeat 7/10.

Hamas is a symptom of Israeli occupation. Hamas, or some other organisation like it, will always emerge from the environment of subjugation. If you believe that Israel's main goal these past (nearly) two years has been to destroy Hamas, then even the wholesale destruction of Gaza has been unable to do so. If this hasn't worked, then what will?

For that, there is an answer.

Hamas exists because Israel has brutally occupied, subjugated, displaced/dispossessed, and replaced/erased Palestinians for nearly a century. Hamas do not exist in a vacuum, and their brand of terrorism will not go away with being dismantled. The only way to achieve the destruction of Hamas is through ending the occupation, delivering Palestinians from subjugation, giving all the people of the land, Israelis and Palestinians alike, equal human rights - including honouring the right of return for refugees, and establishing a program of reparations.

It runs counter to reason to expect that in destroying Hamas through the means Israel has been attempting for these past 20 odd months, Israel will have ended the threat to it from terrorism.

There is a way to end Hamas, and it happens to also be what is required by morality. This should be an easy decision.

SomeWomanSomewhere · 11/08/2025 15:16

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 15:11

Hamas is a symptom of Israeli occupation. Hamas, or some other organisation like it, will always emerge from the environment of subjugation. If you believe that Israel's main goal these past (nearly) two years has been to destroy Hamas, then even the wholesale destruction of Gaza has been unable to do so. If this hasn't worked, then what will?

For that, there is an answer.

Hamas exists because Israel has brutally occupied, subjugated, displaced/dispossessed, and replaced/erased Palestinians for nearly a century. Hamas do not exist in a vacuum, and their brand of terrorism will not go away with being dismantled. The only way to achieve the destruction of Hamas is through ending the occupation, delivering Palestinians from subjugation, giving all the people of the land, Israelis and Palestinians alike, equal human rights - including honouring the right of return for refugees, and establishing a program of reparations.

It runs counter to reason to expect that in destroying Hamas through the means Israel has been attempting for these past 20 odd months, Israel will have ended the threat to it from terrorism.

There is a way to end Hamas, and it happens to also be what is required by morality. This should be an easy decision.

Well ... or maybe not Hamas. But before Hamas, there was the PLO. And before the PLO, there were the Fedayeen.

It might even - at an extreme cost - be possible to end Hamas as an organisation. But even if that happens resistance will emerge in a different shape.

This is not particularly unique to Palestine, by the way.

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:19

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 15:11

Hamas is a symptom of Israeli occupation. Hamas, or some other organisation like it, will always emerge from the environment of subjugation. If you believe that Israel's main goal these past (nearly) two years has been to destroy Hamas, then even the wholesale destruction of Gaza has been unable to do so. If this hasn't worked, then what will?

For that, there is an answer.

Hamas exists because Israel has brutally occupied, subjugated, displaced/dispossessed, and replaced/erased Palestinians for nearly a century. Hamas do not exist in a vacuum, and their brand of terrorism will not go away with being dismantled. The only way to achieve the destruction of Hamas is through ending the occupation, delivering Palestinians from subjugation, giving all the people of the land, Israelis and Palestinians alike, equal human rights - including honouring the right of return for refugees, and establishing a program of reparations.

It runs counter to reason to expect that in destroying Hamas through the means Israel has been attempting for these past 20 odd months, Israel will have ended the threat to it from terrorism.

There is a way to end Hamas, and it happens to also be what is required by morality. This should be an easy decision.

I don't care to get into a discussion about what caused Hamas.

I'm a pragmatist and prefer to look at solving problems than to keep going back over the past and trying to apportion blame which both sides will never agree on anyway (we can't even agree on MN, let alone expect Israel & Hamas to).

Realistically, Israel are never going to agree to let Hamas remain in Gaza after 7/10. You're wasting your time dreaming of that outcome because it just won't happen even if you were right about it being the most moral outcome.

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BelleHathor · 11/08/2025 15:19

Exactly, due to the ongoing occupation Israel does not get to dictate whether Hamas disarms or not.

Armed resistance to illegal occupation is written in International Law and affirmed by several UN resolutions.

Netanyahu and his ilk know this (as do Government lawyers in Europe, America and the Arab states that signed the declaration at the UN recently) that's why they've added it as a condition as they know it will never be agreed to and will lead to an unsolvable impasse.

Also see the armed groups in other countries where Israel currently illegally occupies.

Besides watching the atrocities being committed currently in Syria to the Alawites, Christian and others who disarmed in good faith who would trust an entity such as the IDF who doesn't even pretend to follow International Law or America who bombs countries whilst negotiating.

Cinnyris · 11/08/2025 15:20

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:09

I think the IDF were completely justified in targeting someone they had evidence was a member of Hamas. I welcome a full investigation into this journalist and if the IDF made a mistake about his Hamas affiliations, they need to be held accountable but I do think they had strong evidence.

Obviously you won't agree with that but in my opinion they were not targeting him as a journalist but rather as someone that supported and helped Hamas in their goal to destroy Jews.

What I don't agree with - and someone else raised this point - is that other people got killed in the attack on him. This is where IDF actions look morally wrong to me because I agree with people who say their response is disproportionate (not just in this particular example but generally).

Then your moral judgement runs counter to what is lawful. Which is not necessarily a condemnation: I also believe that the view of liability in its codification in law is incomplete, but for different reasons from you.

The issue, then, is in terrorism legislation. If membership of a terrorist organisation can be grounds for killing (according to your position), with some qualification that might look something like "when the acts perpetrated by the terrorist organisation are sufficiently objectionable", then what decides whether or not someone is liable to killing is the proscription.

This is the slippery slope that I mention. Once we start going outside of the rules of war to seek justification for killing, we end up leaving the judgement in the hands of, say, a government, who may unilaterally decide that a political enemy is too much trouble to deal with legally, and so proscribe and kill them extra-judiciously.

If you accept that killing on the grounds of membership of a terrorist organisation is reasonable, then you place the deciding vote in the hands of the state.

There are many reasons that this might be a bad idea, but suffice it to say, that the Geneva Conventions and the structure of IHL are designed precisely to prevent this sort of killing, and the slippery slope that it introduces to IAC. It would be perfectly possible for Israel to have killed that journalist according to the rules of law (without the need to step outside of it), had he been an active combatant. The fact that we are even having to debate this is a telling indictment on Israel's conduct.

PinkBobby · 11/08/2025 15:21

Twiglets1 · 11/08/2025 15:09

I think the IDF were completely justified in targeting someone they had evidence was a member of Hamas. I welcome a full investigation into this journalist and if the IDF made a mistake about his Hamas affiliations, they need to be held accountable but I do think they had strong evidence.

Obviously you won't agree with that but in my opinion they were not targeting him as a journalist but rather as someone that supported and helped Hamas in their goal to destroy Jews.

What I don't agree with - and someone else raised this point - is that other people got killed in the attack on him. This is where IDF actions look morally wrong to me because I agree with people who say their response is disproportionate (not just in this particular example but generally).

Re the evidence for the journalist/Hamas operative (depending on what side you fall), is this based on the fact that you don’t think they’d target him unless they had pretty solid evidence or because the evidence you’ve come across is, in your opinion, very convincing?

I only ask because I feel like if there was truly compelling evidence, the international community wouldn’t be so vocal about him being a journalist. Maybe you think I’m naive but I don’t think leaders would speak out if there was a decent chance they were Hamas. It would be a total sh*t show when the ‘truth’ came out - they’d avoid that at all costs. Equally, why would well respected journalists say the evidence was weak? They still have their reputation (and therefore their career or even legacy) to think about/protect and wouldn’t ignore solid evidence.

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