Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[NoHolyCows]

If what you have learned is the above twaddle, I think you've done the wrong research.

Then let’s test that. Every major human rights organization—Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, UN OCHA—has documented widespread civilian casualties, destruction of infrastructure, denial of humanitarian aid, and violations of international law in Gaza. These aren’t fringe groups or Hamas mouthpieces. They’ve criticized both sides, and their findings are backed by satellite imagery, field investigations, eyewitness accounts, and data from international agencies.

You don’t get to dismiss all of that because it doesn’t fit your narrative. That’s not skepticism—it’s selective blindness. When your standard of “real research” is whatever absolves one side and demonizes the other, you’re not looking for truth. You’re looking for justification. And if you still think every fact that challenges your belief system is “twaddle,” then maybe the only ideology-shaped box here is yours.

You are so arrogant. What makes you think I am not well read?

I think your analysis of counter terrorism data is faulty.

What you seem to miss is that different cultures have different values. You're talking as if Arab culture is the same as western culture. That’s as arrogant as ignorant.

What makes me say it? The fact that you dismissed empirical findings from intelligence agencies and decades of counterterrorism research with nothing but, “I think your analysis is faulty.” No citations. No evidence. Just vibes. That’s not being well-read. That’s playing intellectual dress-up.

And your pivot to “different cultures have different values” doesn’t make your argument deeper—it makes it worse. Because if your implication is that Arab or Muslim cultures are somehow inherently more violent or less moral, then we’re not having a disagreement about tactics or data. We’re confronting bigotry dressed up as cultural realism.

Being well-read isn’t about reading what confirms your worldview. It’s about engaging with uncomfortable facts, checking your biases, and adjusting your conclusions when the evidence demands it. If you’re unwilling to do that, it’s not that you’re under-informed. It’s that you’ve chosen certainty over understanding.

Here you go again with your straw men.

I think you are the one incapable of nuance. I think you are the intellectual coward.

Your theories obviously doesn't match reality. Instead of taking a step back to try to see where you fucked up, you are doubling down

Then let’s test it. You claim my theories don’t match reality—but every major intelligence agency, counterterrorism think tank, and international human rights body backs what I’ve said: that dehumanizing language fuels radicalization, that overgeneralizing from the actions of a few creates blowback, and that civilian protections are the legal and moral backbone of any legitimate military campaign.

Meanwhile, your entire rebuttal is personal insults and vague claims that “reality disagrees” without citing a single verifiable source. That’s not nuance—it’s projection. And it’s not a debate—it’s a tantrum dressed in rhetoric.

You want to talk about cowardice? Cowardice is retreating into broad stereotypes because confronting complexity is too hard. Cowardice is waving away civilian deaths with “they deserved it” because you can’t admit moral failure on your side. Cowardice is calling reasoned disagreement a “fuck-up” because deep down, you know you haven’t got the facts to win the argument.

So no—I’m not doubling down. I’m just not backing down. And if that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it’s not because I’m wrong. Maybe it’s because you’re finally being forced to answer to a standard higher than your own bias.

Just stop with the straw men

Straw man? No—this is the actual structure of your argument, stripped of euphemism.

You’ve justified bombing civilian areas because Hamas embeds there. You’ve said male civilians can be presumed combatants. You’ve dismissed death tolls because they came from Palestinian sources. You’ve claimed that dressing like a civilian forfeits your protection under the law. You’ve repeatedly called skepticism of Israel’s conduct “propaganda” while demanding no equivalent scrutiny of their actions.

If that’s not reducing 2.3 million people to guilt-by-association and calling it justice, what is it?

Calling this a straw man isn’t a defense. It’s a dodge. And until you can answer for the principles your rhetoric implies, the only person arguing with imaginary opponents here is you.

Lol. You’re clearly not paying attention to what I am writing. Nor, I think, any of us who support Israel in this thread.

The world isn't as black and white as you seem to think it is

Then stop painting it that way.

Because every time you excuse mass civilian death as “Hamas’s fault,” every time you reduce complex political violence to “Muslim terrorism,” every time you dismiss documented atrocities as propaganda, you’re not making a nuanced argument. You’re making a binary one—good guys versus bad guys, our bombs versus their knives, justified force versus barbarism.

You claim to reject black-and-white thinking, yet everything you defend rests on exactly that: that one side’s lives matter more, that one side’s suffering counts less, and that one side’s guilt can justify anything.

So no—don’t lecture me on nuance while you erase it every time it challenges your comfort. If you truly believed in complexity, you’d stop treating atrocity as a strategy and moral scrutiny as betrayal.

NHC

 

[DrZoidberg]

Since Hamas fighters are dressed as civilians, I'd say that gives the IDF a moral free pass to shoot any male and adult civilians. They're not. They're being extremely cautious. But I don’t think they have any moral obligation to.

The moment Hamas fighters dressed as civilians they get 100% of the blame for Palestinian civilians accidentally getting killed by IDF

You really are grasping at straws in this discussion

Then you’ve just thrown out the entire foundation of the laws of war. If you think dressing like a civilian voids all protections for civilians, then you’re not making a moral argument—you’re just giving the green light to collective punishment. And that’s not just immoral. It’s illegal.

I don't think that is true.

You're not giving Israel any possible option to get their hostages back.

So what's your brilliant solution to the problem?

The Geneva Conventions are explicit: even when combatants violate the rules by disguising themselves, it does not erase the obligation of the opposing force to distinguish between civilians and fighters. Saying “they brought it on themselves” is the logic of reprisal, not of justice.

Hamas' is on purpose making it as difficult as possible for the IDF

Your fantasy scenario falls apart against an enemy as evil as Hamas

By your standard, any army could declare all civilians fair game so long as some fighters hid among them. That’s not caution. That’s license to kill—and it’s the exact mindset those laws were written to prevent.

Just stop with the straw men. I think this is the tenth time I have told you off.

You’re not defending restraint. You’re defending a war where civilian identity becomes a death sentence. And history already has a name for that.

NHC

Lol. Stop being an apologist for Hamas. Its distasteful

 

[DrZoidberg]

If what you have learned is the above twaddle, I think you've done the wrong research.

Then let’s test that. Every major human rights organization—Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, UN OCHA—has documented widespread civilian casualties, destruction of infrastructure, denial of humanitarian aid, and violations of international law in Gaza. These aren’t fringe groups or Hamas mouthpieces. They’ve criticized both sides, and their findings are backed by satellite imagery, field investigations, eyewitness accounts, and data from international agencies.

You don’t get to dismiss all of that because it doesn’t fit your narrative. That’s not skepticism—it’s selective blindness. When your standard of “real research” is whatever absolves one side and demonizes the other, you’re not looking for truth. You’re looking for justification. And if you still think every fact that challenges your belief system is “twaddle,” then maybe the only ideology-shaped box here is yours.

They're criticising Israel because

1) its their job

and

2) Hamas are islamofascist fanatics. There's no point criticising them. They have no respect for any human life

How about we all pull in the same direction and focus on removing Hamas from power in Gaza?

You are so arrogant. What makes you think I am not well read?

I think your analysis of counter terrorism data is faulty.

What you seem to miss is that different cultures have different values. You're talking as if Arab culture is the same as western culture. That’s as arrogant as ignorant.

What makes me say it? The fact that you dismissed empirical findings from intelligence agencies and decades of counterterrorism research with nothing but, “I think your analysis is faulty.” No citations. No evidence. Just vibes. That’s not being well-read. That’s playing intellectual dress-up.

I think you are talking shit. I don't believe your opinions are based on research. If they are you either haven’t understood them or taken them out of context

And your pivot to “different cultures have different values” doesn’t make your argument deeper—it makes it worse. Because if your implication is that Arab or Muslim cultures are somehow inherently more violent or less moral, then we’re not having a disagreement about tactics or data. We’re confronting bigotry dressed up as cultural realism.

Ha ha ha

Another straw man. These are your words. Not mine

Being well-read isn’t about reading what confirms your worldview. It’s about engaging with uncomfortable facts, checking your biases, and adjusting your conclusions when the evidence demands it. If you’re unwilling to do that, it’s not that you’re under-informed. It’s that you’ve chosen certainty over understanding.

You have a very windy glass house

Here you go again with your straw men.

I think you are the one incapable of nuance. I think you are the intellectual coward.

Your theories obviously doesn't match reality. Instead of taking a step back to try to see where you fucked up, you are doubling down

Then let’s test it. You claim my theories don’t match reality—but every major intelligence agency, counterterrorism think tank, and international human rights body backs what I’ve said: that dehumanizing language fuels radicalization, that overgeneralizing from the actions of a few creates blowback, and that civilian protections are the legal and moral backbone of any legitimate military campaign.

Meanwhile, your entire rebuttal is personal insults and vague claims that “reality disagrees” without citing a single verifiable source. That’s not nuance—it’s projection. And it’s not a debate—it’s a tantrum dressed in rhetoric.

You want to talk about cowardice? Cowardice is retreating into broad stereotypes because confronting complexity is too hard. Cowardice is waving away civilian deaths with “they deserved it” because you can’t admit moral failure on your side. Cowardice is calling reasoned disagreement a “fuck-up” because deep down, you know you haven’t got the facts to win the argument.

So no—I’m not doubling down. I’m just not backing down. And if that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it’s not because I’m wrong. Maybe it’s because you’re finally being forced to answer to a standard higher than your own bias.

Just stop with the straw men

Straw man? No—this is the actual structure of your argument, stripped of euphemism.

You’ve justified bombing civilian areas because Hamas embeds there. You’ve said male civilians can be presumed combatants. You’ve dismissed death tolls because they came from Palestinian sources. You’ve claimed that dressing like a civilian forfeits your protection under the law. You’ve repeatedly called skepticism of Israel’s conduct “propaganda” while demanding no equivalent scrutiny of their actions.

If that’s not reducing 2.3 million people to guilt-by-association and calling it justice, what is it?

Calling this a straw man isn’t a defense. It’s a dodge. And until you can answer for the principles your rhetoric implies, the only person arguing with imaginary opponents here is you.

Lol. You’re clearly not paying attention to what I am writing. Nor, I think, any of us who support Israel in this thread.

The world isn't as black and white as you seem to think it is

Then stop painting it that way.

Because every time you excuse mass civilian death as “Hamas’s fault,” every time you reduce complex political violence to “Muslim terrorism,” every time you dismiss documented atrocities as propaganda, you’re not making a nuanced argument. You’re making a binary one—good guys versus bad guys, our bombs versus their knives, justified force versus barbarism.

You claim to reject black-and-white thinking, yet everything you defend rests on exactly that: that one side’s lives matter more, that one side’s suffering counts less, and that one side’s guilt can justify anything.

So no—don’t lecture me on nuance while you erase it every time it challenges your comfort. If you truly believed in complexity, you’d stop treating atrocity as a strategy and moral scrutiny as betrayal.

NHC

You're not the clear headed morally upstanding hero in this discussion

If I would try to lecture you on nuance, I doubt you'll manage to pay attention. It doesn't seem to be your strong suit

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not remotely inexplicable. Provide enough money, someone will take it and you will have violence. And note the pattern in the news--occasional attacks by Israel. But that's not even remotely an accurate picture--the thing is the Palestinians keep attacking. This doesn't get reported in the news because it's simply the norm, it's not news. Sometimes the news says what provoked Israel, when it does it's usually something small--no, it's actually because of the pattern. The other way around, though, you do see things out of the blue. A beachgoer in Gaza is killed by a Hamas booby trap, Hamas shoots at Israel--a clearly pre-planned attack. In other words, Hamas was simply waiting for some way to blame Israel.

Your entire response hinges on a double standard: when Palestinians retaliate, it’s a “pattern of aggression.” When Israel strikes, it’s defense—no matter the scale, the context, or the consequences. That’s not objectivity. That’s a moral filter that renders one side permanently guilty and the other permanently justified.

Just pay attention to what happens over there. Beware the bias caused by the fact that most Palestinian attacks are routine and thus not news. Peck, peck, peck, SLAM. Then the pecks die down for a while.

You say Palestinians “keep attacking,” but you ignore why. Gaza has been under blockade for over a decade, with no functioning economy, no freedom of movement, and no political sovereignty. That’s not a normal baseline. That’s structural violence. And when people are trapped, bombed, and denied basic rights for years, resistance—even in ugly forms—should not be surprising. It should be understood as the predictable result of ongoing conditions.

Once again, taking Hamas propaganda as true. The why is because they are paid vast sums to do so.

You dismiss Palestinian deaths as “just the norm,” but that’s the point. When a system makes daily oppression so routine that it stops being news, that’s not a justification for silence. That’s an indictment of the system.

You ignore that Palestinian attacks on Israel are just the norm.

You’re confusing political reality with propaganda. The PLO did recognize Israel in 1993. Yitzhak Rabin shook Arafat’s hand on the White House lawn. That wasn’t a rumor—it was a formal diplomatic recognition. The PLO also renounced terrorism as part of the Oslo Accords. These weren’t vague gestures—they were signed agreements, backed by the international community.

No. Just because they shook hands doesn't mean a deal was reached.

And while the PLO "renounced" terrorism they didn't actually do it. Their policies didn't change. Pay-for-slay remains their top priority.

Note that Olso was an interim agreement, it kicked the can on everything important.

If you now claim it was “fiction,” then you’re not disputing Palestinian sincerity—you’re revealing your refusal to accept any Palestinian initiative as legitimate. And that’s the problem.

No. I'm refusing to accept any "initiative" where they say yes, but not really. When it came down to the details Arafat walked away. That's what matters.

As for “pay-for-slay”—this is a deliberate misframing. The Palestinian Authority provides financial support to all prisoners in Israeli jails and their families, including many held without trial under administrative detention. If you call that terrorism, then you’ve declared anyone who resists Israeli policy—violently or not—as automatically a terrorist. That’s not analysis. That’s blanket criminalization of a people under occupation.

No. The Palestinian Authority provides financial support for those in Israeli jails because of attacks on Jews. They do not provide support for common criminals.

Meanwhile, Israel has funneled billions into illegal settlements, bulldozed homes, and maintained apartheid-level control over millions without rights. Yet you never call that “state-sponsored terrorism.” Why?

Israel has funneled?? No, some Israelis have. I don't like it, but I recognize that it's a red herring.

Bulldozed homes? You need the Paul Harvey version. It's a standard deception, they build something on a piece of land they don't own. Of course it gets bulldozed! Try building on your neighbor's lot here and see what happens! (Yup, it happens. There's a case out of Hawaii that just got resolved but the terms are confidential. Builder built a house on the lot next door. There's another one that I unfortunately do not recall enough details to search where a builder built across two lots, only one of which they owned.)

Yeah, Israel moved to sanction them. Look at why--they had announced their intent was to go to war. And so what if the divide helped Israel. Look at the reality: it has concentrated the problem in Gaza, making the West Bank much more peaceful. That kept the war smaller and thus kept down the death toll. Why do you think that's bad?

Because your framing treats engineered fragmentation as a stroke of peacekeeping genius—when in reality, it’s a tactic of control.

That says nothing about whether it improved the overall situation.

Yes, Hamas’s charter was extreme. But the response wasn’t to engage diplomatically or pressure reform—it was to immediately punish the population through siege, isolation, and economic strangulation. That wasn’t a reaction to war; it was a pretext to delegitimize an election the West didn’t like. You can’t call for democracy and then crush it when the outcome isn’t convenient.

It's not just the charter. It was their announced policy of going to war if they won. As with so much of this stuff all you need to do is actually listen to what they are saying, rather than paying attention to what they say they are saying.

And no—the West Bank being “more peaceful” is not proof of success. It’s under military occupation, with checkpoints, surveillance, mass arrests, and land confiscation. “Peace” under domination isn’t peace. It’s quiet desperation.

I consider "success" to be minimizing the death toll.

Saying the divide “helped Israel” reveals the game: this wasn’t about fostering Palestinian self-governance. It was about exploiting division to weaken any unified voice for sovereignty.

Of course it wasn't. But what you are missing is they absolutely do not want sovereignty. To actually become a state would require specifying what they are and that would leave them with an impossible choice. Either they admit they want all of Israel, or they in effect give up on conquering Israel. The latter is treason by their own laws.

You ask why I think that’s bad? Because when you engineer conditions that prevent a people from uniting, electing, and governing themselves—then blame them for being unfit for statehood—you’re not observing dysfunction. You’re sustaining it.

I'm not saying they are unfit for statehood. But rather that they want their state to be at war.

So, they are under blockade. That keeps out most weapons, it doesn't keep the people from functioning.

That response ignores both the scale and purpose of the blockade. It’s not just about “keeping out weapons”—it’s about controlling life itself.

Israel restricts not only arms but also fuel, electricity, building materials, medical supplies, food, and even how many calories per person per day enter Gaza. That’s not hypothetical—it was literally calculated in an Israeli policy document. This isn’t a surgical weapons embargo; it’s systemic deprivation designed to pressure a civilian population.

So? You calculate those things to ensure there's enough.

And no, people cannot “just function” when they’re cut off from clean water, medical care, job opportunities, and freedom of movement. Gaza’s economy has collapsed, its healthcare system is shattered, and unemployment is among the highest in the world—all direct outcomes of a blockade that predates the current war by over a decade.

And you continue to blame Israel for the actions of Hamas.

So yes, when you manufacture desperation, suppress elections, and isolate a population under siege for years, you bear responsibility for the political and humanitarian catastrophe that follows. To pretend otherwise isn’t realism—it’s complicity.

There was no humanitarian catastrophe until 10/7. But Iran wanted to prevent Israel and Saudi Arabia from making up and Russia wanted a distraction from what they were doing in Ukraine.

I see no flattened cities. Nor do I see starving civilians other than a few medical cases--and that can happen anywhere.

Then you’re not looking—or you’re choosing not to see.

I'm looking, I'm seeing what pretends to be.

Entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been reduced to rubble. Satellite imagery, UN reports, and on-the-ground footage all confirm this. More than half the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Schools, hospitals, and entire city blocks have been leveled. That’s not hyperbole. That’s documentation from sources including the UN, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of independent journalists and aid organizations.

I have yet to see a picture of an entire neighborhood reduced to rubble. The photos always follow the line of devastation caused by the tunnel collapses, there are always other buildings that didn't.

I do agree an awful lot of housing in Gaza has been destroyed. The fact that in some areas Hamas has booby-trapped basically everything has something to do with it. If Israel sees a booby trap they simply blow it up. No way they're going to try to defuse something that likely has an observer and command detonation. Blame the side that placed the booby traps.

As for starvation: UNICEF, WHO, and the World Food Programme have all confirmed catastrophic hunger levels in Gaza. Children are dying of malnutrition. Parents are boiling weeds and animal feed to survive. Aid trucks have been blocked or looted, and the humanitarian infrastructure has been crippled. This isn’t a few “medical cases”—it’s systemic collapse.

None of them have the ability to actually confirm it, therefore their words are garbage. And note how we have month after month after month of report of catastrophic food conditions--yet only 60 deaths that can be blamed on malnutrition and we don't see a gaunt population. Just look at pictures from areas of actual famine.

You don’t have to agree with every claim made by every critic. But to say you see “no flattened cities” and “no starving civilians” isn’t skepticism. It’s denial. And denial in the face of mass suffering is how atrocity becomes normal.

No, it's not denial. It's looking at the claims and finding they contradict reality.

Gaza most certainly isn't powerless. Nor do I see what's going on even as punishment. Rather, it's Israel breaking everything Hamas it can find in order to make it longer before the next 10/7.

Then let’s call it what it is: indefinite collective targeting in the name of deterrence.

Collective targeting? The ratio of civilians and combatants makes it very clear that it is very precise targeting.

You say Gaza “isn’t powerless”—yet its population has no army, no air force, no escape, and no vote in the government that controls its borders, fuel, water, and electricity. Hamas may have weapons, but the people of Gaza are not Hamas. And when Israel “breaks everything Hamas it can find” by leveling civilian infrastructure, blocking aid, and producing a death toll overwhelmingly made up of women and children, that’s not targeted deterrence. That’s devastation that lands hardest on the people who had no power to stop October 7.

Continuing to repeat claims that contradict reality doesn't make them true.

But you are holding Israel "accountable" for Hamas propaganda.

No—I’m holding Israel accountable for documented actions, corroborated by international observers, independent journalists, satellite imagery, and humanitarian organizations. Not Hamas press releases.

There are no international observers. There are no independent journalists. There are no humanitarian organizations. All of that is a sham, if you operate in Gaza you report what Hamas wants you to report. The only thing that's valid is satellite imagery and note that it's nowhere near as detailed as you think it is. The best of them are now at 15cm resolution. That's a bit better than what Google typically offers over urban areas--enough to see structures, not enough to see most details about those structures. Any good imagery is coming from drones and there's no way reporters are getting independent drone images over Gaza. There's no way to distinguish a reporter drone from a spy drone, they'll be targeted. (And that's even assuming there's a difference. Al Jazeera got kicked out of Israel because they refused to stop running realtime reporting that would be useful to Hamas. Hint: Armies anywhere do not like realtime reporting of their activities!)

When hospitals are bombed, when aid trucks are blocked, when entire neighborhoods are razed and over half the dead are women and children, that’s not “propaganda.” That’s evidence. And when the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Court of Justice all raise red flags, you can’t just hand-wave it as a Hamas PR stunt.

You’re not objecting to misinformation—you’re objecting to accountability. Because deep down, the suffering only bothers you if it comes from “their” side. That’s not moral clarity. That’s tribalism dressed up as principle.

NHC

Repeating misinformation doesn't make it true.

 

[NoHolyCows]

I don't think that is true.

You're not giving Israel any possible option to get their hostages back.

So what's your brilliant solution to the problem?

The solution isn’t simple—but that’s not an excuse for making it barbaric.

The laws of war exist because war tempts people to abandon morality for expediency. You don’t get to flatten neighborhoods, bomb aid convoys, or treat every adult male as a combatant just because Hamas violated the rules first. That’s not justice. That’s revenge camouflaged as necessity.

And no—saying Israel should follow international law is not “giving Hamas a pass.” It’s holding everyone to standards meant to protect civilians—hostages included. Because once you accept that “anything goes” in the name of fighting terror, you’ve already conceded that terror wins. You’ve become it.

If you’re serious about rescuing hostages and preventing future attacks, then the path forward requires precision, intelligence, and restraint—not collective punishment. That’s not weakness. That’s the only strategy that doesn’t collapse your morality in the process.

Hamas' is on purpose making it as difficult as possible for the IDF

Your fantasy scenario falls apart against an enemy as evil as Hamas

Then you’ve admitted it—your argument isn’t that justice no longer applies, it’s that Hamas is so evil, you believe the rules should be suspended.

But that’s not how law or morality works. The Geneva Conventions weren’t written for wars between polite nations. They were written for exactly this—for wars against enemies who break every rule, hide among civilians, and weaponize suffering. The entire point is to hold your side to a higher standard, especially when the other side doesn’t.

If you abandon that standard because it’s hard, then your “justice” becomes a mirror of the very evil you claim to oppose.

Just stop with the straw men. I think this is the tenth time I have told you off.

It’s not a straw man. It’s a direct consequence of your claim.

You said Hamas disguising itself gives the IDF a moral free pass to shoot any adult male civilian. That’s not a distortion—it’s your words. And if you believe that, then yes, you are arguing for a framework where civilian protections vanish the moment combatants break the rules.

That isn’t moral clarity. It’s moral collapse. And repeating “stop with the straw men” won’t undo what you already justified.

Lol. Stop being an apologist for Hamas. Its distasteful

Calling out the mass killing of civilians isn’t apologizing for Hamas. It’s refusing to excuse war crimes just because the victims are on the wrong side of your politics.

If your defense of Israel requires turning every civilian into a suspect, every child into a shield, and every hospital into a target, then you’re not fighting terror—you’re echoing its logic. And that’s what’s truly distasteful.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

They're criticising Israel because

1) its their job

and

2) Hamas are islamofascist fanatics. There's no point criticising them. They have no respect for any human life

How about we all pull in the same direction and focus on removing Hamas from power in Gaza?

If it’s “their job” to criticize Israel, then it’s also their job to uphold international law—something you’re eager to dismiss when it applies to your side. And if you think Hamas is too fanatical to bother criticizing, then you’ve abandoned the very premise of accountability. You’ve replaced justice with fatalism: they’re monsters, so anything goes.

But here’s the thing—law doesn’t vanish because your enemy breaks it. If it did, there’d be no moral line left to defend. The Geneva Conventions were written precisely for wars like this, where one side commits atrocities. They don’t say, “Do what you want if the other guys are worse.” They say your conduct matters most when it’s hardest.

If your solution is “everyone just focus on removing Hamas,” then explain how mass death, starvation, and rubble deliver that. Because so far, what you’re calling a solution looks like collective punishment—not liberation. And if your answer to extremism is to act with impunity, then you haven’t defeated it. You’ve mirrored it.

I think you are talking shit. I don't believe your opinions are based on research. If they are you either haven’t understood them or taken them out of context

Then prove it. Show me the research I’ve misunderstood. Show me the context I’ve supposedly twisted. Because so far, all you’ve done is repeat “I don’t believe you” as if skepticism alone is an argument. It isn’t. It’s a substitute for one.

You keep accusing me of talking shit—but you haven’t once engaged with the actual evidence I’ve cited. FBI reports. RAND studies. UN assessments. Decades of peer-reviewed data on radicalization, terrorism, and conflict. You haven’t refuted a word of it. You’ve just declared it invalid because it doesn’t match your assumptions.

That’s not critical thinking. That’s intellectual laziness wrapped in arrogance. If you’re going to pretend you’ve got the better grasp of the facts, then bring facts. Until then, all you’ve offered is bluster.

Ha ha ha

Another straw man. These are your words. Not mine

Then let’s be precise: when you say “Arab culture has different values,” in the context of defending mass civilian death and dismissing universal human rights standards, you’re not making an anthropological observation—you’re making a moral argument. And the implication is clear, whether you admit it or not: that those lives operate under a different ethical worth.

That’s not a straw man. That’s a direct consequence of your logic. If your position is that international law should apply differently depending on cultural background, then you’ve abandoned any pretense of moral consistency. You’re not applying the law—you’re excusing its violation through the backdoor of cultural relativism. And that isn’t clarity. It’s cowardice.

You have a very windy glass house

And yet you haven’t shattered a single pane.

You keep accusing me of arrogance, bias, and straw men—but you haven’t rebutted a single fact. You haven’t challenged the data, the legal standards, or the principles I’ve cited. You just wave it all away with smirks and vague insults, hoping volume will pass for substance.

If that’s all you’ve got—rhetoric without refutation—then the glass house isn’t mine. It’s yours. And it’s cracking under the weight of its own evasions.

You're not the clear headed morally upstanding hero in this discussion

If I would try to lecture you on nuance, I doubt you'll manage to pay attention. It doesn't seem to be your strong suit

Then let’s test that—again.

Because every time I bring up law, precedent, or documented fact, you respond with tone policing and ego jabs. Not once have you meaningfully engaged with the substance. You dodge specifics. You ignore legal standards. You dismiss any evidence that implicates your preferred side, not because you’ve disproved it, but because it’s inconvenient.

If nuance were truly your priority, you’d be able to distinguish between critique of military conduct and support for terrorism. You’d know that holding a state to the standards it claims to uphold isn’t “heroism”—it’s accountability. And you’d realize that moral seriousness isn’t measured by how loudly you cheer for your team, but by whether your principles survive when your side is the one under scrutiny.

So no, I’m not claiming to be a hero. But I’m not the one dodging the hard questions behind cheap condescension. You are.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Just pay attention to what happens over there. Beware the bias caused by the fact that most Palestinian attacks are routine and thus not news. Peck, peck, peck, SLAM. Then the pecks die down for a while.

Then you’ve just described a cycle—but only condemned one half of it.

You say Palestinian attacks are routine and underreported, but you ignore why that “routine” exists: occupation, blockade, displacement, and decades of unresolved injustice. You frame the Israeli response as a justified “slam,” but forget that every slam involves real people—flattened homes, starving children, entire families erased. That’s not pecking back. That’s devastation—and it doesn’t disappear because the headlines fade.

If you want to talk about the full picture, start including the cost. Because when the only violence you frame as meaningful is the one that comes from your side’s enemy, what you’re offering isn’t clarity. It’s selective amnesia.

Once again, taking Hamas propaganda as true. The why is because they are paid vast sums to do so.

Then prove it.

Show the “vast sums.” Show a financial paper trail that explains why a population under siege, living in rubble, drinking contaminated water, and burying thousands of dead would need to be paid to resist. You’re not offering analysis—you’re offering cartoon logic: that people with nothing somehow need a cash incentive to be angry, desperate, or violent.

The reality is far more uncomfortable than your fantasy of mercenaries. This isn’t about payouts—it’s about powerlessness. When you reduce generational trauma and systemic oppression to a payroll, you’re not exposing propaganda. You’re swallowing your own.

You ignore that Palestinian attacks on Israel are just the norm.

No—I’m pointing out that if both sides are locked in a cycle of violence, the moral responsibility lies most with the side that holds overwhelming power, control, and capacity to de-escalate. Saying “it’s just the norm” doesn’t excuse it. It condemns the conditions that made it normal. And if your answer to a decades-long pattern of occupation, blockade, and despair is to shrug and say “they started it,” then you’re not describing a war. You’re excusing its permanence.

No. Just because they shook hands doesn't mean a deal was reached.

And while the PLO "renounced" terrorism they didn't actually do it. Their policies didn't change. Pay-for-slay remains their top priority.

Note that Olso was an interim agreement, it kicked the can on everything important.

Then you’ve just proved the point: when Palestinians make formal diplomatic moves—like recognizing Israel, signing Oslo, renouncing terrorism—they’re dismissed as meaningless gestures. But when Israel demands recognition, it’s treated as nonnegotiable.

Yes, Oslo was interim. But that’s exactly the problem. Every time Palestinians conceded, the process stalled. Settlement expansion accelerated. Final status issues were postponed indefinitely. And now, decades later, people like you pretend it was all just a handshake.

You can’t say Palestinians never tried diplomacy while rejecting every example of it as insincere. That’s not a critique of Oslo. That’s a refusal to ever allow peace to begin.

No. I'm refusing to accept any "initiative" where they say yes, but not really. When it came down to the details Arafat walked away. That's what matters.

And yet when Israel walked away from Camp David, continued building settlements during negotiations, and imposed facts on the ground while “talks” stalled—none of that, in your view, invalidated their sincerity.

You’re not applying a standard. You’re applying a veto. When Palestinians say yes, you say “not really.” When they compromise, you call it deception. When they resist, you call it terrorism. And when they’re silent, you call it complicity.

This isn’t about what Arafat did. It’s about making sure no Palestinian answer is ever the right one—because the goal isn’t peace. It’s permanent blame.

No. The Palestinian Authority provides financial support for those in Israeli jails because of attacks on Jews. They do not provide support for common criminals.

Then you’ve just proved the point.

You’re not objecting to the act of providing support—you’re objecting to who receives it. And the category you’ve defined includes anyone imprisoned by Israel for acts deemed “against Jews,” regardless of whether those acts were part of organized resistance, armed conflict, or political dissent. In other words, you’ve taken the occupying power’s definition of guilt as absolute, and condemned even the families of those detained—many without trial—for simply existing on the wrong side of that definition.

This isn’t a moral position. It’s a colonial logic: resistance is criminal, prisoners are terrorists, and supporting them is a crime. By that standard, every liberation movement in history—from Algeria to South Africa—would be painted as illegitimate.

So let’s be clear: calling it “pay-for-slay” isn’t about justice. It’s about erasing the context of occupation and framing all resistance as barbarism. That’s not clarity. That’s propaganda.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Israel has funneled?? No, some Israelis have. I don't like it, but I recognize that it's a red herring.

Bulldozed homes? You need the Paul Harvey version. It's a standard deception, they build something on a piece of land they don't own. Of course it gets bulldozed! Try building on your neighbor's lot here and see what happens! (Yup, it happens. There's a case out of Hawaii that just got resolved but the terms are confidential. Builder built a house on the lot next door. There's another one that I unfortunately do not recall enough details to search where a builder built across two lots, only one of which they owned.)

Then let’s give the rest of the story, since you brought up Paul Harvey.

This isn’t about a zoning dispute or someone accidentally pouring concrete on the wrong lot. The Israeli government—not just “some Israelis”—has officially authorized and subsidized settlement construction across the West Bank for decades, in clear violation of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention. These aren’t rogue contractors; they’re government-backed expansions into occupied territory, complete with military protection, roads barred to Palestinians, and legal systems that separate two populations based on ethnicity.

As for home demolitions, the “they built illegally” excuse collapses under scrutiny. In Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control, Palestinians are denied over 98% of building permit applications. So what you’re calling “illegal construction” is often the only way families can build a home at all. Then those homes are demolished—not because of a mistake, but because the system is designed to make Palestinian presence unviable. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements—built without permits or in defiance of court orders—are routinely retroactively legalized.

This isn’t about enforcing property rights. It’s about using bureaucracy as a weapon of displacement. So if your defense is “well, they didn’t have a permit,” you’ve missed the point entirely—or chosen not to see it. Either way, it’s not the Paul Harvey version. It’s the propaganda version.

That says nothing about whether it improved the overall situation.

What it says is that you’re measuring “improvement” by how much quieter it got for the occupier—not how much worse it got for the occupied.

Splitting Palestinian leadership between Hamas and the PA wasn’t some incidental development—it was actively leveraged to weaken Palestinian political unity, stall negotiations, and entrench the status quo. You call that concentrating the problem. But the only reason Gaza became “the problem” is because it was isolated, blockaded, and punished collectively.

So if your standard of success is fewer disturbances in the West Bank while Gaza descends into rubble and starvation, then you’re not judging the situation by human dignity or justice. You’re judging it by how manageable the crisis became for Israel.

And no, that’s not peacekeeping. That’s containment. With a body count.

It's not just the charter. It was their announced policy of going to war if they won. As with so much of this stuff all you need to do is actually listen to what they are saying, rather than paying attention to what they say they are saying.

Then apply that same standard to both sides. Because if we’re judging legitimacy by what parties say they’ll do, Israel has long announced its refusal to accept a Palestinian state with full sovereignty. It has declared intentions to expand settlements, annex land, and impose “eternal” control over Jerusalem—all open, unapologetic policies. And yet, no one argues that Israel forfeits its legitimacy because of those positions.

But when Hamas—before taking office, under pressure, with no functioning state apparatus—expresses militant rhetoric, you use that as grounds to blockade an entire civilian population indefinitely.

You say, “Just listen to what they say.” I am. I’m also listening to what the blockade has done: decimated an economy, crippled hospitals, poisoned water supplies, and reduced over 2 million people—half of them children—to a life of permanent emergency.

So let’s be clear: this wasn’t about protecting peace. It was about punishing democracy the moment it didn’t go the way Western powers and Israel wanted. And if you think the ballot only counts when it favors your preferred party, you’re not defending democracy. You’re dressing authoritarianism in the language of self-defense.

I consider "success" to be minimizing the death toll.

Then you should be the first to condemn policies that inflame violence rather than contain it. Because the occupation of the West Bank hasn’t minimized the death toll—it’s created a pressure cooker. Arbitrary arrests, child detentions, home demolitions, land seizures—these aren’t peacekeeping. They’re systemic humiliation. And humiliation doesn’t breed peace. It breeds resentment, radicalization, and the very violence you claim to oppose.

If the goal is truly to minimize deaths, then justice has to be more than force without resistance. It has to be equity, dignity, and the ability for people to live without the daily threat of displacement or dehumanization. Otherwise, what you’re calling “success” is just the temporary silencing of a people with no voice left to resist. That’s not peace. It’s pressure before the next explosion.

Of course it wasn't. But what you are missing is they absolutely do not want sovereignty. To actually become a state would require specifying what they are and that would leave them with an impossible choice. Either they admit they want all of Israel, or they in effect give up on conquering Israel. The latter is treason by their own laws.

And this is exactly the kind of self-justifying loop that ensures permanent conflict. You claim Palestinians “don’t want sovereignty” based on the impossible conditions imposed on them—conditions created and maintained precisely to prevent them from achieving it. You frame their political paralysis as intrinsic, rather than the result of decades of occupation, manipulation, and externally enforced fragmentation.

Sovereignty has been dangled and withdrawn every time a serious attempt was made. The Oslo process ended in assassinations, settlement expansion, and unilateral actions. Democratic elections were punished with blockade. Negotiations were used to buy time while land was carved away piece by piece. And now, after stripping Palestinians of political agency and geographic unity, you point to the ruins and say, “See? They never really wanted a state.”

That’s not an argument. That’s a trap. You’re demanding they abandon their aspirations before they’re even allowed to define them—then blaming them for being trapped inside the box you helped seal shut. Sovereignty isn’t something you get because your occupier believes you deserve it. It’s something denied when that occupier believes it’s in their interest to keep you weak and divided. And your logic is the clearest evidence of that.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, Geneva Conventions allow targeting of military objectives, even if they are embedded in civilian infrastructure. But what you’re ignoring—or deliberately omitting—is that the burden doesn’t stop there. Even when targeting legitimate military assets, Parties to a conflict are still obligated to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and refrain from attacks if the expected civilian harm outweighs the anticipated military advantage. That’s not some fringe legal theory—it’s Article 57 and 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. It’s binding customary international law.

And the fact that they have a much lower ratio of dead civilians than anyone else says to me they are honoring the requirement to take all feasible precautions.

So no, you cannot collapse a hospital, refugee camp, or residential block and just point to Hamas and say “they made us do it.” That’s not a loophole. It’s a violation. The obligation to distinguish and to avoid excessive civilian harm is not waived just because your enemy violates the law first.

It's not a loophole, it's not a violation. It's simply reality that you don't like.

And as for your idea that “everything is disguised,” that’s the oldest excuse in the book. It’s also how every state justifies overreach—from Fallujah to Grozny to Gaza. But the presence of an enemy does not erase the rights of civilians. That’s not a misunderstanding of proportionality. That’s the whole point of having it.

The thing is when we get a look inside they're always military. Or look at the recent strike. "Hospital". But the bomb exploded underground in tunnels that "didn't exist" and caused secondaries of weapons that "didn't exist" inside tunnels that "didn't exist." And got a commander that certainly wasn't there. As with so many of these things there's no need for complete information to discern the truth. Hamas says "X". Israel says "Y". Look at the facts on the ground--do we know anything that contradicts either of these claims? If so, the other is probably the right one. The bomb hit something, not just dirt. Therefore the claim there was nothing there is false. Thus I'm going to accept the Israeli claim of what was there.

Let's examine what it actually says:

1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

3. The prohibitions in paragraph 2 shall not apply to such of the objects covered by it as are used by an adverse Party:

(a) as sustenance solely for the members of its armed forces; or
(b) if not as sustenance, then in direct support of military action, provided, however, that in no event shall actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.

Since Israel isn't doing that your objections are irrelevant.
1) They aren't hitting any foodstuffs in civilian hands in the first place.
2) The objective is to keep Hamas from using them as a source of revenue.

What you're actually after is

Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases.

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

And there is an extreme pattern of (a) and thus no obligation to permit it.

Your legal cherry-picking doesn’t hold up—and here’s why.

You quoted Article 54 of Additional Protocol I, which prohibits starvation as a method of warfare. But you then ignore the most critical clause: “in no event shall actions be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation.” That clause is absolute. No matter how food is being used, or who might profit, you still cannot reduce access to the point of starvation. That’s not just a guideline—it’s explicit black-letter law.

You're the one cherry-picking. The words you cite are referring to the destruction of food in civilian hands--but where's there any evidence of that happening? Israel has struck hijacked aid--but that's no longer in civilian hands. You're trying to apply it to a situation that it doesn't address at all.

Now to your second move: you cite Article 23 of Geneva Convention IV, which allows for restriction of humanitarian aid if there’s a risk of diversion. That’s true—but it does not override the obligation to ensure civilian survival. Article 23 is about neutral aid shipments, not an occupying power controlling the entire flow of food and medicine into a population it governs. Israel, as the occupying power under international law, has a positive duty to ensure the welfare of civilians. Blocking aid under the guise of “security concerns” does not absolve it of that responsibility—especially not when UN agencies, humanitarian NGOs, and health experts on the ground are documenting widespread malnutrition, dehydration, and catastrophic hunger.

It doesn't say what you want it to say. It makes no mention of the source of the shipments. And it specifically says they may be blocked if they are being diverted. Which is exactly what was happening.

In fact, the Rome Statute of the ICC (Article 8(2)(b)(xxv)) defines as a war crime:

“Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival.”

That’s what we’re seeing. Fuel restrictions block bakeries. Food trucks are halted. Humanitarian convoys are turned back or bombed. Aid workers are killed. That’s not just a tragic side effect. It’s a pattern, and patterns matter in law.

Once again, it doesn't say what you think it says.

It does not permit starvation of civilians as a means of attack. If Hamas won't let them have the food that's the fault of Hamas, not Israel. I'm reminded of a tweet from earlier in the war, a response to "where's the fuel?" that was an IDF picture of a tank farm. In Gaza. (And, yes, you can remotely measure approximately how much is in a tank. The thermal response of the tank walls that are over contents will be different than the thermal response if there's air behind.)

So no—you can’t wave off starvation by saying “we’re only targeting Hamas revenue.” The intent doesn’t erase the impact. The legal threshold isn’t your motive—it’s whether civilians are starving as a result. And they are.

1) It only is prohibited as a means of attack. That does not prohibit it as an incidental effect. WWII--we bombed the Japanese rail yards to deny them for military use. But it would have also meant the crops wouldn't get where they needed to be, the winter of 1945 would have been a horror. Not a war crime.

2) Hamas is the one limiting the food. You continue to blame Israel for atrocities committed by Hamas. And in doing so you encourage Hamas to commit more atrocities.

So your attempt to hide behind legal technicalities fails on its own terms—and worse, it reinforces the exact kind of moral logic international law was written to restrain.

Except we aren't seeing the starving that supposedly exists.

Then you’re ignoring the data—or dismissing it because it contradicts your narrative.

The World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNRWA, and countless independent humanitarian groups have documented acute malnutrition, wasting in infants, and famine-like conditions across Gaza. Aid agencies report children dying of hunger and dehydration. Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, and the UN’s own field assessments confirm: this isn’t speculation. It’s on record. It’s happening.

None of them are capable of documenting this. All reports from the ground are either spontaneous (Israel often points out videos posted by people in Gaza) or by Hamas' will and thus meaningless. But once again we have two claims and a fact that contradicts one of them. Why does everyone in the photos from Gaza look like they are getting enough to eat?

You don’t get to erase that by saying, “we aren’t seeing it.” You’re not on the ground. You’re not in Rafah, in Jabalia, in northern Gaza where bakeries are rubble and water is undrinkable. The people documenting this aren’t partisan bloggers—they’re the same agencies the world relies on to identify famine in Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan. You either trust the data or admit your argument isn’t about facts—it’s about protecting power.

And let’s be clear: pretending starvation isn’t happening because it’s not televised to your liking is exactly how atrocity denial begins.

NHC

Look at the photos from the areas of actual starvation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There Loren. Everything you’ve been told over and over again and then some put in a succinct and eloquent manner by NoHolyCows.

Still gonna fight for your team?

He's making the same mistake as the rest of you: accepting Hamas propaganda as truth. And blaming Israel for Hamas' actions.

 

[NoHolyCows]

I'm not saying they are unfit for statehood. But rather that they want their state to be at war.

Then you’re not describing a people. You’re describing a caricature.

Saying “they want their state to be at war” flattens millions of individuals into a monolith of violence—as if every Palestinian wakes up thinking about armed struggle, rather than survival under occupation, displacement, and blockade. It ignores the decades of polling, protest, diplomacy, and negotiation where the majority have supported a two-state solution, even after repeated betrayals. It erases the people who’ve tried to build institutions, run schools, raise families, and vote for change—only to be punished when the results weren’t convenient for foreign powers.

If war is all you see, maybe it’s because peace was never given room to grow. When elections are invalidated, borders are sealed, leadership is imprisoned or assassinated, and civil infrastructure is systematically undermined, what do you expect to remain? You can’t suffocate a people’s options and then fault them for gasping.

So no—the desire for statehood doesn’t equal a desire for war. But treating their every political movement as a threat ensures that peace is the one thing perpetually off the table. That’s not a reflection of Palestinian intent. It’s the result of a strategy built to deny them both sovereignty and a future.

So? You calculate those things to ensure there's enough.

No—you calculate calories to limit them when your goal isn’t just security, but coercion. And that’s exactly what Israel did. In 2012, following a court petition, Israel was forced to release documents showing that its military planners had literally calculated the minimum caloric intake required to keep Gaza’s population just above malnutrition—about 2,279 calories per person per day—not to ensure health, but to “put the Palestinians on a diet,” as one official phrased it. This wasn’t about humanitarian management. It was about collective pressure.

That’s not aid planning. That’s weaponizing subsistence.

The blockade doesn’t just restrict weapons. It chokes fuel needed for hospitals, building materials for reconstruction, and permits for medical evacuations. It bars students from leaving to study, splits families, and prevents economic development. You’re pretending it’s a logistical tool. But every credible humanitarian organization—from the UN to the Red Cross—calls it what it is: collective punishment.

So no, it’s not about “ensuring there’s enough.” It’s about ensuring there’s just enough not to be accused of intentional starvation, while still using deprivation as leverage over a civilian population. That’s not security. That’s siege warfare dressed in bureaucratic terms. And the fact that you’re trying to justify it shows just how far from principle your position has drifted.

And you continue to blame Israel for the actions of Hamas.

No—I’m blaming Israel for its own actions. That’s the part you keep dodging.

Hamas didn’t create the blockade. Israel did. Hamas didn’t restrict fuel, building supplies, or medical evacuations. Israel did. Hamas didn’t enforce a land, sea, and air closure that made it impossible for Gazans to leave even for cancer treatment. Israel did.

You want to reduce this entire catastrophe to “Hamas did X,” as if that justifies anything Israel chooses to do in response. But that’s not how responsibility works. Even if Hamas commits war crimes—and they do—that doesn’t grant Israel a moral or legal blank check to punish everyone else.

Gaza’s suffering didn’t start on October 7th. The UN was calling it unlivable back in 2015. The economy, infrastructure, and public health system were already in collapse before this war. That didn’t happen because of rockets. It happened because of a systematic policy of isolation and control over 2 million people, half of whom are children.

This isn’t “blaming Israel for Hamas.” It’s refusing to let the crimes of one side erase the obligations of the other. If you believe in justice, you don’t abandon it the moment your side has the power.

There was no humanitarian catastrophe until 10/7. But Iran wanted to prevent Israel and Saudi Arabia from making up and Russia wanted a distraction from what they were doing in Ukraine.

That’s simply false—and historically indefensible. There was a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza long before October 7. The United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and countless humanitarian agencies had been sounding the alarm for over a decade. By 2012, the UN was already warning that Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020 due to collapsing infrastructure, undrinkable water, failing sewage systems, and electricity blackouts. By 2015, over 80% of Gaza’s population depended on humanitarian aid just to survive. That crisis wasn’t the result of Iranian plots or Russian diversions. It was the direct outcome of a long-standing blockade, repeated military assaults, and a deliberate policy of restriction that targeted the civilian economy.

And no, the period before October 7 wasn’t some calm, functioning society suddenly thrown into chaos by foreign meddling. In the years leading up to that date, Gaza’s economy had all but collapsed. Unemployment was among the highest in the world. Movement was tightly restricted, not just for goods but for people—students, patients, and workers alike. Medical care was crippled by permit denials and equipment shortages. Families went days without electricity. Homes destroyed in previous wars couldn’t be rebuilt because Israel blocked construction materials. None of that required Iran or Russia to fabricate. It was all happening in plain sight.

So the idea that October 7 marked the beginning of humanitarian disaster is a convenient fiction. What changed after 10/7 wasn’t that suffering began—it was that the suffering stopped being slow and became cataclysmic. Blaming Iran or Russia for that spiral is not an explanation. It’s a distraction. The reality is simpler, and harder to stomach: a civilian population was pushed past its breaking point after years of siege, isolation, and despair. You don’t get to erase that suffering just because acknowledging it makes your narrative harder to defend.

I'm looking, I'm seeing what pretends to be.

Then maybe the issue isn’t your eyesight—it’s your filter.

Because satellite imagery doesn’t “pretend.” Entire neighborhoods in Gaza—Shujaiya, Jabalia, Khan Younis—have been leveled. That’s not activist spin; it’s confirmed by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and independent analysts using open-source data and high-resolution satellite scans. Hospitals reduced to rubble. Schools turned to ash. Camps for the displaced struck multiple times. These aren’t stories whispered in the shadows—they’re documented with timestamps and GPS coordinates.

As for starvation, multiple UN agencies and the World Food Programme have issued formal warnings of famine. Malnutrition rates among children have soared. Aid convoys have been blocked or attacked. When doctors are performing surgeries without anesthesia and children are dying of dehydration, that’s not “a few medical cases.” That’s systemic collapse.

So if you still claim you “see nothing,” then you’re not seeing reality. You’re clinging to a version of events where evidence is always suspect if it implicates your side. But facts don’t go away just because you choose not to believe them. What you’re seeing isn’t a lack of destruction—it’s your own refusal to let the facts in.

I have yet to see a picture of an entire neighborhood reduced to rubble. The photos always follow the line of devastation caused by the tunnel collapses, there are always other buildings that didn't.

I do agree an awful lot of housing in Gaza has been destroyed. The fact that in some areas Hamas has booby-trapped basically everything has something to do with it. If Israel sees a booby trap they simply blow it up. No way they're going to try to defuse something that likely has an observer and command detonation. Blame the side that placed the booby traps.

Then let’s be honest about what you’re defending. Because what you’re describing isn’t precision—it’s devastation rationalized after the fact. “Following the tunnel line” doesn’t mean damage is limited. It means it’s concentrated and destructive, collapsing everything above and around it. Entire sections of Khan Younis, Gaza City, and Jabalia show mile-long stretches of pancaked buildings, many far beyond the tunnel line. That’s not a surgical strike. That’s urban collapse on a massive scale, confirmed by Maxar satellite imagery, UN OCHA assessments, and international humanitarian reports.

And blaming booby traps as justification for razing blocks misses the legal and moral point: if a military objective—like a tunnel or a rigged structure—can only be neutralized by leveling an entire neighborhood, then the strike is not lawful. Proportionality is not suspended just because the enemy fights dirty. If it were, every war crime could be excused by the other side’s tactics.

You say “blame the side that placed the booby traps”—fine. But that doesn’t absolve the side that knowingly bombs where civilians live. International law doesn’t allow you to declare urban centers free-fire zones because the enemy is ruthless. That’s the exact kind of spiral the Geneva Conventions were written to prevent. And ignoring that—like you’re doing here—isn’t realism. It’s complicity with impunity.

None of them have the ability to actually confirm it, therefore their words are garbage. And note how we have month after month after month of report of catastrophic food conditions--yet only 60 deaths that can be blamed on malnutrition and we don't see a gaunt population. Just look at pictures from areas of actual famine.

That’s not how evidence—or suffering—works.

You dismiss findings from UNICEF, WHO, and the World Food Programme as “garbage” because they don’t align with your worldview. But these are organizations that operate on the ground, with access to hospitals, aid networks, and field data. They’ve documented acute malnutrition, wasting in children, and collapsing food systems. You don’t get to hand-wave that away with internet image searches and anecdotal skepticism.

And your fixation on “only 60 deaths” betrays a grotesque misunderstanding of what famine and starvation look like. Malnutrition doesn’t always kill immediately—it stunts growth, weakens immune systems, increases susceptibility to disease, and causes long-term damage. Children dying from infections because they’re too weak to fight back aren’t counted in your “malnutrition death” stat—but they’re victims of hunger all the same.

As for your claim about how people “should look” in famine: that logic failed in Yemen, it failed in Somalia, and it fails here. Starvation isn’t a Hollywood trope with skeletal figures lining the streets. It’s a creeping breakdown, made worse when aid is blocked, infrastructure is destroyed, and desperation becomes normalized. And pretending it’s not real because it doesn’t fit your chosen imagery isn’t just denial—it’s complicity in whitewashing a humanitarian disaster.

No, it's not denial. It's looking at the claims and finding they contradict reality.

And repeating my words back at me doesn’t make them less true—it just shows you’ve run out of your own.

You say you’re looking, but all your responses reveal is a refusal to see what the world has already documented. This isn’t about agreeing with every critic—it’s about recognizing reality when thousands of civilian deaths, collapsed neighborhoods, and credible famine warnings are staring you in the face.

If your only defense is to mirror my argument without refuting it, then maybe it’s because deep down, you know the facts aren’t on your side. Denial isn’t a counterpoint. It’s just the last refuge when there’s nothing left to stand on.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Iran and Hamas are the ones making millions suffer.

Then answer this: Who is dropping the bombs? Who is blocking the aid? Who controls the airspace, borders, fuel, electricity, and food access?

Who is hoarding the food.

If you believe Hamas causes suffering, fine—so do I. But if your response is to inflict suffering on everyone under their rule, then you’re not solving a problem. You’re multiplying it. That’s not justice. That’s collective punishment. And history won’t remember it as anything else.

The response is what we are seeing: Israel taking over direct distribution.

You have a magic wand to wave? Because nobody's provided a meaningful proposal for how to get rid of them.

No magic wand. Just the hard truth that being unable to remove a threat cleanly doesn’t make doing it brutally acceptable.

You keep asking for an alternative—as if the absence of a perfect plan somehow justifies flattening cities, starving civilians, and shattering international law. But that’s not how morality—or legality—works. “We didn’t know how else to do it” is not a defense for war crimes. It’s how they’re excused.

And if your only proposal is total war on a trapped civilian population because the enemy is embedded—then the real problem isn’t Hamas. It’s the belief that some lives are expendable when justice gets hard.

No, you're demanding a perfect plan. I'm saying none exist.

I don't like what's happening but Hamas started it with the intent of causing such devastation. They continue to fight. They are responsible for what is happening. The devastation is a Hamas weapon.

After the resistance ceased. The resistance continues in Gaza.

(And I'm sure you're not going to like the reality that dropping the bombs on Japan unquestionably saved a lot of lives on all sides.)

Then let’s be honest about what you’re arguing: that mass death is acceptable if it shortens the war. That flattening cities, starving civilians, and targeting infrastructure are justified if it “saves lives in the long run.” That’s not a moral principle—that’s a moral loophole. And it’s the same logic that’s been used to excuse every atrocity ever framed as “necessary.”

Once again, trolley problem. Both paths are horrible, do you intervene to choose the less horrible?

You say the resistance continues in Gaza. Yes—and do you think bombing children makes it end sooner? Do you think shattering families breaks extremism, or breeds it? The lesson from post-war Germany wasn’t “crush them until they stop.” It was: when the war ends, don’t let vengeance write the peace.

I do not expect the bombing to end it sooner. I expect the bombing to make it longer until the next 10/7.

And I consider "breeding extremism" to be Hamas water-carrying. It's the money, not the actions.

And as for Hiroshima—if you’re invoking that as a moral model, then you’ve already conceded everything. Because that wasn’t a triumph of justice. It was the moment the world learned how easily horror can be rationalized when you believe the victims don’t count.

You clearly did not understand. You are blinded by the horrors of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and are missing the fact that they saved a hell of a lot of lives. Despite the efforts of the revisionists the reality is that of the set <American soldiers, Chinese soldiers, Japanese soldiers, Chinese civilians, Japanese civilians>, every group ended up better off in the path where the bombs were dropped. The only groups that might have suffered net harm were <Hiroshima civilians, Nagasaki civilians>.

And, yes, I am considering the fantasyland scenario of simply stopping shooting. (Fantasy because it wouldn't have ended the Japanese atrocities in China.) Still worse than dropping the bombs.

You "assign" guilt but say nothing should be done.

No—I say something must be done, but not anything. Justice without restraint is just vengeance in uniform. If your solution to guilt is mass death, then you’re not pursuing accountability. You’re pursuing annihilation dressed up as moral clarity.

The difference between us isn’t whether Hamas should be stopped. It’s whether stopping them means abandoning every principle we claim to stand for. You’ve chosen to make atrocity negotiable. I haven’t.

NHC

Yes, you have. Your approach ensures many repeats of 10/7. This isn't a game where you are guaranteed there's a good path.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They were setting up the Gazans for the current situation. By ignoring the military installations under and adjacent to civilian infrastructure, they knew that they were setting up Gazans for destruction when they attacked Israel. Which they did. Gazans using their own people for human shields is the humanitarian disaster going on here. That and rich Muslims funding the leadership doing it. And the international media and demonstrators blaming Israel instead of the Gazans Who Matter.
Tom

Look who’s blowing shit now with evidence- free conspiracy theory.

Evidence-free conspiracy??

You really think the fact that Iran is funding it is evidence free??

No.

Is it possible for you to base your response on the actual context of a discussion instead of a projected straw man?

Is it possible for you to not blame your opponent when left with no good response?

TomC and I both blame outside funding, although he specified "rich Muslims" and I specified "Iran." The exact source isn't relevant to the point so this does not matter. You're calling that evidence free and somehow calling it a strawman.

<Thwack with a clue-by-4>
(Yes, I consider Wikipedia horrendously biased about such matters--but it's always biased towards the terrorists.)

Iranian support for Hamas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ah, the “every accusation is a confession”. Maybe if you’re not sure what yo say, you should shut up.

Bullshit.

I'm absolutely certain that the Egyptian military had Intel and Clout. You are the one who doesn't know what you are talking about.

Really??? You don't seem to know that Egypt has been cracking down on tunnels between Egypt and Gaza for years?

Egypt has been pretending to crack down--but they were not actually doing much. Unquestionably the local officials were in on it, whether Cairo was or not remains unproven. But look at how Egypt has reacted to the Philadelphia Corridor. That actually stopped the smuggling (the tunnels come out in IDF-controlled territory) and Egypt hates it.

Prove it.

What are you asking for proof of?

 

[NoHolyCows]

Collective targeting? The ratio of civilians and combatants makes it very clear that it is very precise targeting.

No, the ratio doesn’t make that clear—it obscures it. A statistic doesn’t prove precision. It just averages destruction. When you level entire city blocks to hit a tunnel or drop bombs knowing civilians are sheltering nearby, it’s not “surgical.” It’s calculated risk at best, collective punishment at worst.

Precision isn’t about the bomb’s coordinates—it’s about the decision to drop it knowing who’s likely to die. And if the result is tens of thousands of civilian deaths, decimated infrastructure, and a humanitarian system in collapse, then the math doesn’t exonerate you. It indicts the method behind it.

Continuing to repeat claims that contradict reality doesn't make them true.

Then show me the reality you’re defending.

Because the one documented by satellite imagery, confirmed by UN agencies, and witnessed by thousands of journalists and aid workers includes bombed-out hospitals, collapsed schools, and children pulled from rubble. It includes a death toll where over half are women and children, and an aid blockade that leaves people starving and drinking contaminated water. That’s not propaganda. That’s data.

If you want to call that “not reality,” then the burden is on you—not to scoff, but to disprove it. And unless you can refute the mountains of independent evidence with something more than denial, all you’re doing is burying facts beneath personal disbelief. That’s not truth-seeking. That’s shielding comfort with contempt.

There are no international observers. There are no independent journalists. There are no humanitarian organizations. All of that is a sham, if you operate in Gaza you report what Hamas wants you to report. The only thing that's valid is satellite imagery and note that it's nowhere near as detailed as you think it is. The best of them are now at 15cm resolution. That's a bit better than what Google typically offers over urban areas--enough to see structures, not enough to see most details about those structures. Any good imagery is coming from drones and there's no way reporters are getting independent drone images over Gaza. There's no way to distinguish a reporter drone from a spy drone, they'll be targeted. (And that's even assuming there's a difference. Al Jazeera got kicked out of Israel because they refused to stop running realtime reporting that would be useful to Hamas. Hint: Armies anywhere do not like realtime reporting of their activities!)

So let me get this straight—every journalist is compromised, every humanitarian organization is a puppet, every UN agency is a fraud, and the only acceptable source of truth is…your personal skepticism?

That’s not critical thinking. That’s conspiracy logic.

When Human Rights Watch, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Médecins Sans Frontières, the World Food Programme, and dozens of independent journalists all report the same patterns of devastation, starvation, and civilian death—across months, locations, and languages—that’s not Hamas stage-managing the global narrative. That’s converging evidence from professionals risking their lives to document war.

You don’t get to wave all that away by claiming Gaza is a blackout zone of lies while insisting your version of events—untethered to fieldwork, firsthand testimony, or verified reporting—is the only truth. That’s not skepticism. That’s faith in your own bias masquerading as insight.

And if your standard is “I’ll only believe it if I see drone footage I personally approve of,” then no amount of evidence will ever be enough—because you’ve already decided the only valid reality is the one where Israel can’t be held responsible.

Repeating misinformation doesn't make it true.

Then prove it’s misinformation—with something more than your personal disbelief.

Because what you call “misinformation” has been investigated, corroborated, and published by institutions with decades of experience documenting war crimes—often in conflicts where they’ve condemned both sides. You don’t get to dismiss all of that as fake just because it contradicts your preferred narrative. That’s not discernment. That’s denial.

You’ve offered no counter-evidence. No citations. No data. Just a reflexive rejection of anything that implicates Israel, no matter how widely reported or carefully documented. That’s not a defense of truth—it’s an escape from it.

If you want to challenge the facts, then bring something verifiable. Otherwise, what you’re really repeating isn’t truth or skepticism. It’s propaganda with a flag on it.

NHC

 

[pood]

You're not the clear headed morally upstanding hero in this discussion

If I would try to lecture you on nuance, I doubt you'll manage to pay attention. It doesn't seem to be your strong suit

Your nasty accusations are your confessions, and all your rhetoric is filled with violence.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But you continue to confuse civilians being hit with attacks on civilians.

No—I’m distinguishing between civilians being accidentally harmed and civilians predictably, repeatedly harmed because you choose to bomb where they live, sleep, and seek shelter.

And why do you insist 7 days is less than a week?

When you know an area is full of civilians—children, families, displaced people—and you bomb it anyway because there might be a militant target, that’s not collateral damage. That’s foreseeable harm. And under international law, foreseeability matters. The law doesn’t say “don’t intentionally target civilians”—only. It says you must take all feasible precautions to avoid them, and when you consistently don’t, it becomes deliberate by neglect, not by accident.

You keep saying "might be". Israel has an extremely good record at hitting the right thing.

And your repeated assertion that they aren't taking feasible precautions doesn't make it so.

So no—I’m not confused. I’m pointing out the legal and moral line you keep stepping over, and pretending it isn’t there.

Once again, look at what it actually says.

I have. And here’s what it says—clearly, unequivocally:

Article 51(8) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions states:

“Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians.”

But you need to establish that there is a violation in the first place for this to be relevant.

Cameras were set up--which means warning was given. Which means the expected death toll is zero, and if it's not it's because Hamas wanted people to get hit.

That argument collapses under both logic and law.

Setting up a camera or issuing a warning does not give you legal or moral clearance to bomb a densely populated area. The Geneva Conventions do not say, “If you warn civilians, then any deaths are on them.” In fact, Article 57 of Additional Protocol I makes clear:

“Effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.”

The presence of the camera (I'm not sure the second is deliberate) clearly shows that advance warning was given. If it wasn't effective it's because Hamas forced people to stay. (Yes, they have a track record of shooting people who try to escape when given warning.)

But it also says:

“An attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life… excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”

So Hamas can protect anything by parking enough civilians on it and not let them leave.

So let’s say the camera shows the launcher in a tent city. If you bomb it anyway—and you know civilians will die—the warning doesn’t absolve you. It only matters if the civilians are actually able to evacuate, and the expected harm remains proportionate.

You have not established that there were any civilians on the target. All movement we see in the scene is far enough away that the blast poses little hazard.

In other words: a camera and a “knock on the roof” don’t erase the law. If civilians die in large numbers from a strike you knew would kill them, it’s still a war crime—no matter how many cameras were rolling.

<Thwack with a clue-by-4>
We are not saying the camera in any way alters the morality of the action! Rather, we are saying that the presence of the camera proves that advance warning was given--people don't point video cameras at static scenes unless they are expecting the scene not to remain static. It's proof that Israel followed the rules.

Hamas is getting what Hamas intended to get.

And that’s exactly the problem.

If you think mass civilian death is simply “Hamas getting what it wanted,” then you’ve stopped seeing the difference between consequences and intentions. You’ve accepted atrocity as inevitable—because it fits your narrative. But war isn’t supposed to fulfill the enemy’s goals. It’s supposed to stop them—without becoming what they are.

Saying Hamas wanted this doesn’t absolve what’s being done. It indicts it further. Because if your strategy plays directly into the hands of a terrorist group—while killing tens of thousands of innocents in the process—then the moral failure isn’t just theirs.

The point is not that Hamas wanted it but that Hamas engineered it. They seek the destruction as a weapon to pressure Israel with. Israel has no way of preventing this as failing to take action will just mean more atrocities until a government that will take action comes to power.

It’s yours, too.

Hamas is the majority of the GDP of Gaza.

And that proves exactly nothing about the morality of mass civilian punishment.

You still are fixated on punishment. No, this is about making it harder for Hamas to repeat 10/7.

Neither are remotely independent. Our only source for the Gaza death toll is Hamas. The only stuff that doesn't simply parrot the Hamas numbers is Israeli stuff--and that's entirely a matter of pointing out errors they can detect in the Gaza data (this person died years ago. That block of people are a cut and paste, simply incrementing the ID number etc.), not an actual count.

That’s false—and telling. You claim that the only source for Gaza’s death toll is Hamas, but that’s simply not true. The United Nations, World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the International Committee of the Red Cross all operate independently on the ground. They gather data from hospitals, morgues, aid workers, and satellite imagery. They cross-reference names and events. They verify incidents through eyewitness testimony, forensic analysis, and third-party review. You can dispute details, but you don’t get to pretend all of it comes from a single, biased source.

None of them are independently on the ground, if they say they are they're full of shit. Anyone reporting from Gaza says what Hamas tells them to say.

In the past we have had pretty "accurate" lists of all the dead and the circumstances. (I use quotes because while the identities appear accurate the circumstances are often deceptive, blaming Israel for explosions caused by rockets falling short, treating people as non-combatants when they were right next to a combatant that got hit etc.)

Even Israel’s own government has acknowledged high civilian casualties. IDF spokespeople have openly called the toll “tragic” and admitted that children are dying in large numbers. And human rights organizations—Israeli, Palestinian, and international—have documented these patterns for years, long before this war.

Sure they are high. You persist in using that as proof of wrongness. And proof that Israel did it--we have plenty of situations where Hamas is the primary suspect.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Even Israel’s own government has acknowledged high civilian casualties. IDF spokespeople have openly called the toll “tragic” and admitted that children are dying in large numbers. And human rights organizations—Israeli, Palestinian, and international—have documented these patterns for years, long before this war.

Sure they are high. You persist in using that as proof of wrongness. And proof that Israel did it--we have plenty of situations where Hamas is the primary suspect.

In some posts you try to deflect that Israel actions led to the deaths of children.

In some posts you say this is needed to save Israeli lives from an imminent threat of attack from Hamas.

This seems almost equivalent to your support of firearms. Effectively, "People are going to die, so we can be safer."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is the norm. Israel averages well under one kill per bomb. To drop a bomb into a suburban environment without killing someone takes skill. And it takes sending warning ahead to get people off the X.

That number—“under one kill per bomb”—is not proof of moral restraint. It’s a statistic stripped of context.

It's very relevant. You drop a bomb on an urban area and don't kill anyone, clearly they did a very good job of getting people away from the target.

I do understand Geneva—and more importantly, so do the legal scholars, human rights organizations, and international courts that have spent decades interpreting and applying it.

The Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I don’t leave room for ambiguity here. Article 51(2) states plainly: “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.” Article 57 requires all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian harm. These aren’t suggestions—they are binding rules of customary international law.

And you continue to ignore the step of demonstrating that that wasn't followed.

He's not saying "might be fighters". He's saying that the excess mortality observed amongst military age males goes down into the teen years. And the excess mortality is presumably combatants.

Then he’s still making the same moral error—just with a statistical mask.

If you argue that excess mortality among teen boys suggests they were combatants, and therefore their deaths are less concerning, you’ve already blurred the line between civilian and combatant based on demographic assumptions, not confirmed behavior. That’s not how international law works, and it’s not how morality should work either.

Why should I think the line has been blurred? His data says nothing about who was a combatant, just that clearly many were.

A 15- or 16-year-old is not a “presumed combatant” just because they’re male and Palestinian. That’s profiling, not analysis. It’s exactly the kind of logic that legitimizes indiscriminate violence—on either side. And if we go down that road, we’re not defending human rights. We’re dismantling them.

His graph does not identify individuals, thus this is irrelevant.

So no, excess mortality doesn’t prove guilt. It proves intensity of violence in a demographic. If anything, it demands closer scrutiny, not looser standards.

If they aren't combatants why are they being selectively hit??

Amazing how many are on the edge of dying yet do not seem to ever die. That "wolf!" has been cried a hundred times.

That response isn’t skepticism—it’s deflection.

It's skepticism. We see repeated claims that if true would have resulted in a big pile of bodies. Yet the bodies didn't appear, therefore the claim must be false. And false, and false, and false. Why in the world should I think that this time around it's true?

When the UN, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme all report systematic malnutrition, blocked access, and imminent risk of death in children, dismissing that as “crying wolf” doesn’t make you more rational. It makes you complicit in ignoring credible, internationally verified evidence of human suffering—suffering that is preventable.

How long can death be imminent without happening???

This isn’t about hypotheticals. This is about real children, right now, wasting away while trucks full of food sit at closed borders. And if that doesn’t move you, the law still applies—whether you feel anything or not.

No, while truckloads of food sit on the Gaza side of the border because by not taking them to the warehouse they can pretend they weren't delivered.

Aid agencies operating in Gaza are doing what Hamas tells them to.

That claim is as cynical as it is unfounded.

Recognition of unpleasant reality isn't cynical. Every so often someone actually comes out and says the reality of what's happening. It's always from small sources because telling the truth ensures you can never go back there so no large news organization will do it.

Aid agencies like the UNRWA, WFP, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Borders operate under strict mandates, international oversight, and constant scrutiny—not Hamas control. They’ve issued public, documented warnings about aid obstruction, famine conditions, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. These aren’t Hamas mouthpieces—they’re humanitarian professionals, many of whom have risked and lost their lives trying to deliver food and medicine to starving civilians.

"Documented"?? By what?? So far every "scientific" report I've seen on the situation is garbage.

And when U.S. and European officials—Israel’s own allies—confirm that Israel has delayed, denied, or destroyed aid convoys, that’s not a Hamas narrative. That’s reality, reported by credible, independent actors with no allegiance to Gaza’s leadership.

Delayed--of course it happens. No way to ensure everything operates smoothly in a war zone.
Denied--where? Something to keep in mind here: there are repeated attempts to send things in in a fashion where Israel can't inspect them. Those are of course denied. Doesn't mean the shipment is prohibited, just that the method is.
Destroyed--when they have been taken by Hamas they are no longer aid, but military tools.

Dismissing their warnings as mere parroting of Hamas is not just factually wrong—it’s a way to silence accountability. If every critical voice is labeled compromised, then nothing is left but propaganda—and that’s exactly how atrocities go unanswered.

Which doesn't address the fact that everything in Gaza is compromised.

Hiroshima/Nagasaki saved Japanese civilian lives. It's Dresden that's questionable.

That argument—Hiroshima and Nagasaki “saved lives”—has been debated for decades, but even if you believe it prevented a bloody ground invasion, that’s not a model for modern warfare. It’s a tragedy, not a template.

You're looking at one facet. Even if the US didn't fire another shot the outcome would be worse.

And what about the China front? I'm not aware of a timeline breakdown on that, but it was averaging at least 4k civilians/day. Or do you not care because it was the Japanese doing the killing, not us?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Important point: The cameraman was filming a scene with no action. This is a human operator, not a security camera. Thus the only reasonable conclusion is that he knew the bomb was coming. And that means Israel gave warning and the death toll from this should be zero.

The first video was a stationary camera and you have no idea how far away that camera was from the target. It quite easily could have been an Israeli observation and surveillance camera observing and monitoring the rocket launcher and was used to aid in targeting.

And no one near the target seemed to have knowledge the attack was coming so there was obviously no warning.

Look at the camera position--very low to the ground. And handheld, not fixed. That's someone standing there with a camera. And IDF strike footage is always from up in the sky. It's also a bad position to be targeting from because you have so little indication of range.

And just because warning was given doesn't mean everyone over a very large area is notified. The people in the frame are startled, but you don't see debris hitting them--they weren't in danger and there's no reason to evacuate them.