Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Loren Pechtel]

You don’t think thete is anything wrong with expanding settlements in the West Bank, making Gaza more uninhabitable every day and killing civilians by the score is not evidence of ethnic cleansing?

Many times I've said I don't like the settlements. But note:

1) It's a red herring. The problems predate the settlements.

2) The reality is that removing the settlements would be seen as weakness and thus cause more attacks.

3) Look at the political reality: the average Israeli knows that stopping them provides no benefit to Israel. But tolerating them provides political support from the fundies.

4) This is presented as "expanding" but it's really just recognizing reality that already exists.

Whether or not the problems predate anything or there are politics involved do mot excuse ethnic cleansing via expansion of the settlements nor allowing settlers to engage in ethnic cleansing with violence.

I was explaining why your opposition to the settlements isn't practical.

And they are not ethnic cleansing. And pay more attention to the alleged violence--when we get any details it's usually fairly clear that the Palestinians were the attackers.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

IDF ordered to stop Gaza-bound aid ship carrying Greta Thunberg

Alarm briefly sounds on vessel Madleen amid interception fears after Israeli defence minister tells military to ‘take all necessary measures’ to block humanitarian ship

www.theguardian.com

The whole mission is a stunt anyway (which would be on brand for Greta Thunberg).

Stunts do not require extremists with guns to remove them.

The amount of food and other supplies that a selfie boat like Madleen is minuscule, probably less than what's on a single truck. The problem with Gaza is distribution, not getting stuff into the Strip.

If the problem is distribution, then there is no issue with letting them deliver the food and supplies.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Israel vows to prevent an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza

Israel’s government has vowed to prevent an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching the Gaza Strip.

apnews.com

Well, duh!

Either they stop it or next time it's full of weapons.

Greta Thunberg is not going to deliver weapons.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

IDF ordered to stop Gaza-bound aid ship carrying Greta Thunberg

Alarm briefly sounds on vessel Madleen amid interception fears after Israeli defence minister tells military to ‘take all necessary measures’ to block humanitarian ship

www.theguardian.com

Israeli government refuses to allow Muslim terrorist supporters to enter the war zone created by previous Muslim terrorists to bring supplies.

Humanitarian aid...which is what is already being done, but not enough for the children.

No possible amount of aid will be enough because Hamas wants starving children. That's why Israel is taking it over directly. And why Hamas is attacking the Israeli distribution system.

Yeah, so?
Thunberg can swim back to Sweden when her yatch takes a hit in a war zone. Or not...

This callousness and downright evil just shows time and again that you people are not interested in saving the lives of innocent civilians. You just don't care.

She is knowingly trying to run a military blockade. Just because they haven't taken up arms doesn't make them not combatants.

Greta Thunberg is not a combatant. Rest snipped.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

By Hamas' own data there have only been 60 malnutrition deaths.

. “Only” 60 malnutrition deaths.

“Only” 60 malnutrition deaths.

“Only” 60 malnutrition deaths.

After all, to paraphrase the famous moral philosopher Jodi Ernst, “we all die”.

1) 60 is a drop in the bucket compared to areas that are actually facing starvation. And a drop in the bucket compared to what we would see if the dire warnings about the conditions in Gaza were true.

60 is 60 too many. It really is that simple.

And that ignores the longer run effects of malnutrition on the young.

2) You still are sticking your head in the sand about the fact that they can have medical causes. Remember my post in this thread linking to a box and asking what someone is supposed to do if they are anaphylactic to some of the ingredients? (And pointing to the two that would likely be the problem.) You didn't address it. And even if there's no anaphylaxis issue the people in Gaza aren't going to be able to afford stuff like that. Nor is it likely they would even have access as Hamas would take it and resell it elsewhere. Do you not realize that people can die of malnutrition while the doctors watch helplessly in first world hospitals?

There is nothing to address because the blockade included medical supplies. Add in the destruction of medical facilities and your excuses look more pathetic.

Obviously I need to upgrade my clue-by-4.

This isn't some video game where a healing potion can fix everything. There is an awful lot of specialized stuff. And if medical supplies would fix anything why do people ever die?

What is your magic formula for people who can't tolerate food? A quick search says there are about 40,000 people in the that rely on TPN. Scale that to Gaza, you're looking at about 400. In Gaza the number is probably zero--they would all show up as malnutrition deaths. There does not appear to be a good count on those using stuff like what I pictured, but I did find it's a $8B/yr market in the US. In Gaza I likewise suspect the number is zero, they're all dead of malnutrition. I have no information on the number that can't tolerate TPN, I do know the number is not zero as I have bumped into a guy on the web that lost his wife that way. And these categories do not cover the entire space.

 

[NoHolyCows]

No. It's "enemy uniform" = "enemy". Perfectly normal standard everywhere.

That might be a reasonable standard in a conventional war between uniformed armies—but Gaza is not that. And you know it.

There is no Palestinian army. There are no formal uniforms. There is no clear front line. You are applying the rules of state-on-state warfare to a densely populated civilian area under occupation, where “enemy uniform” might mean a scarf, a T-shirt, or simply being male and of fighting age. That’s not a legal standard—it’s a pretext.

The Geneva Conventions don’t allow you to presume enemy status based on appearance alone in a civilian context. Civilians retain their protections unless and until they take direct part in hostilities. That’s the legal threshold. If you lower it to “looks suspicious” or “wore the wrong color,” you’ve erased the civilian category altogether.

And that’s how massacres happen—how entire neighborhoods become “valid” targets in hindsight because someone nearby might have matched a profile. What you’re defending isn’t the law. It’s a rationale for abandoning it.

It's the marking of the enemy, that's all you need. Geneva requires soldiers to fight in readily distinguishable attire to prevent targeting mistakes, it says nothing about not shooting people in said attire. (It's not specifically uniforms, merely that they match. "Militia, we are expecting infiltrators. The uniform of the day is green over orange brassards.")

Then you’ve just proven the point—by flattening the legal standard into a visual cue, you’re erasing the entire foundation of civilian protection in asymmetric conflict.

Yes, combatants are required to distinguish themselves. But Geneva does not say that anyone who resembles a fighter—or wears something “green and orange”—can legally be shot. That’s a misapplication. The distinction goes both ways: if someone is not taking direct part in hostilities, then they retain full civilian protection—even if they’re dressed in a way you find suspicious.

Wearing a headband, carrying a flag, or even attending a funeral in militant colors is not sufficient under international humanitarian law to make someone a lawful target. That’s not “realism.” That’s precisely why the principle of distinction exists: to stop militaries from replacing evidence with assumption, from collapsing legal status into clothing, and from targeting based on affiliation rather than action.

So no—Geneva doesn’t hand you a free pass to shoot anyone wearing the wrong colors. It demands more: positive identification, direct participation in hostilities, and a real-time threat. If you can’t distinguish that, you can’t engage. That’s not a loophole. That’s the law.

That's relevant how??

The words you failed to quote: "because they live in Gaza, express political opinions, or wear a color associated with a group"

You are providing no evidence that they were targeted for any of these reasons. And you are providing no evidence one way or the other about those who were hit. Your argument simply amounts to "you didn't prove they were Hamas". You think Israel is going to reveal how it identifies people?! It's just their track record is very good--an awful lot of the "civilians" they kill later get Hamas funerals.

It’s relevant because it demonstrates a fundamental failure of the principle you’re defending—the requirement to distinguish between civilians and combatants, especially in pre-designated civilian safe zones. You can’t champion Israel’s “track record” while ignoring documented incidents where that track record collapses under scrutiny.

The Al-Mawasi strike isn’t just a tragic accident—it’s a case study in the failure of precautionary obligations under Article 57 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Israel instructed civilians to move to Al-Mawasi, designated it a humanitarian zone, then conducted lethal strikes within it. Whether or not Hamas fighters were present does not absolve the legal burden. Under international law, the presence of combatants among a civilian population does not negate civilian protections. The obligation is on the attacking party to either avoid the strike or delay it if the collateral damage would be disproportionate to the expected military advantage.

Furthermore, your assertion that many of those killed “later get Hamas funerals” is not a reliable legal or evidentiary standard. Funerary affiliation is not a legal test for combatant status. Under customary IHL and ICC jurisprudence, the definition of a combatant includes those directly participating in hostilities, not those whose bodies are later draped in flags or given symbolic honors. The ICRC and legal scholars have repeatedly emphasized that posthumous political framing does not retroactively convert a civilian into a lawful military target.

And no—states are not required to reveal operational intelligence, but that doesn’t exempt them from providing credible evidence that their strikes are lawful. Merely asserting “we believe a militant was there” without substantiation, particularly after civilians were directed to that location by the military itself, does not satisfy the legal threshold of distinction, proportionality, or precaution.

In short, your argument hinges on presumed legitimacy and post-hoc rationalizations rather than adherence to legal principles. The laws of war were created precisely to avoid this kind of ambiguity—where civilians are killed, responsibility is denied, and every corpse is presumed guilty by association. That’s not a defense. It’s the breakdown of lawful conduct in armed conflict.

Of course no real time evidence is offered before the strike. What are you smoking to think that they would do that??

And you realize that when an entire family is pulled from the rubble that almost always one of their senior commanders was in said rubble? There are typically fewer civilians around when someone is at home than when they are out somewhere.

And that’s precisely the danger of the logic you’re defending.

You’re saying that because Israel doesn’t want to disclose evidence in real time, we should take its word on trust—while simultaneously dismissing all independent reporting from humanitarian organizations, UN bodies, or even allied governments as unreliable if it contradicts that narrative. That’s not just selective skepticism—it’s a double standard that places one side above verification and the other beneath credibility by default.

And no, the presence of a “commander” in a building doesn’t automatically render every strike lawful. International humanitarian law, again, doesn’t say “kill the target no matter the cost.” It says do not attack if the expected civilian harm is excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (Article 51(5)(b), Additional Protocol I). You can’t just presume legality after the fact by discovering—or claiming—a target was there. That reverses the burden. Civilians aren’t acceptable losses in hindsight.

Your point about families being at home during a strike only reinforces the core problem: civilians are being killed in predictable, repeatable patterns because the rules of precaution and proportionality are not being meaningfully applied. If commanders are targeted in civilian homes, and the military knows that will mean killing their families, that’s not morally or legally neutral. That’s a decision to prioritize a single kill over an entire family’s life.

The law doesn’t say you can’t strike high-value targets. It says you must not do so in a way that knowingly causes disproportionate harm to civilians. And when strike after strike results in that exact outcome, it ceases to be “unfortunate.” It becomes policy.

I expect them to do what they feasibly can. I do not expect them to do the impossible. And I see them consistently being the world's best at avoiding civilian casualties. I also see the stuff with Hezbollah--human shield tactics aren't used much there, and we see 85-90% of deaths being combatants. Look at the beeper bombs--one death that was certainly civilian, but immediate family of the target. The other "civilian" deaths we get no details--nope, they weren't civilians.

Then what you’re defending isn’t law—it’s a moving target of excuses, defined by trust in one side’s claims and total skepticism toward any opposing evidence.

You “expect them to do what they feasibly can,” but ignore the legal definition of that standard. Feasibility isn’t whatever a military says it tried. It means taking all practicable precautions to verify the nature of the target, to choose means and methods that minimize civilian harm, and to refrain from the attack if that harm is excessive in relation to the anticipated military gain. That’s not opinion—it’s Article 57 of Additional Protocol I. And it’s binding.

You praise Israel as “the world’s best” at avoiding civilian casualties. But that’s not how legal accountability works. International law doesn’t say “do better than most,” it says follow the rules—always, and without exception. “We’re better than Russia or Syria” is not a defense under the Geneva Conventions.

As for Hezbollah: cherry-picking one front and one set of casualty ratios doesn’t prove anything about the legality of operations in Gaza. The terrain, density, and conditions are radically different—and so is the scale. Civilian death rates in Gaza aren’t some mystery. Over 70% of the reported dead are women and children, a claim now broadly accepted even by Israeli analysts. If you think that can be waved off by labeling them “immediate family of the target,” then you’re not applying international law. You’re dismantling it with euphemism.

And your dismissal of deaths where “we get no details” as not civilians is exactly the problem. Unknown is not guilt. Proximity is not guilt. Family is not guilt. If you reverse that burden—assuming civilian deaths are justified unless proven otherwise—you’ve erased the entire foundation of the law of armed conflict. That’s not justice. That’s rationalized brutality.

This is completely unrealistic.

Unrealistic doesn’t mean unlawful.

The laws of armed conflict aren’t designed around what’s most convenient for a military. They exist precisely because in war, the temptation to cut corners and justify assumptions is overwhelming. If the only standard is what a military thinks is reasonable in the moment, then there is no law—only discretion. And discretion without external accountability is how atrocities happen.

Saying “we can’t wait for certainty” doesn’t grant permission to act on guesses. The legal requirement is not perfect knowledge—it’s due diligence. That means real efforts to distinguish combatants from civilians before using lethal force. It means avoiding strikes where the expected civilian harm is excessive compared to the military gain. That’s the legal bar. Calling it unrealistic is just another way of saying you don’t want to be bound by it.

If law only applies when it’s easy, then it isn’t law. It’s theater.

Read it again. "Civilians". Not members of the group. Identifying group membership is enough to pull the trigger.

(And there's a reason we didn't ratify that part of Geneva. That piece you are referring to is protecting two of the 10/7 butchers because they simply joined the attack without being members of a terrorist organization. The words "and for such a time as" are an abomination that does not belong.)

Your interpretation dangerously rewrites the law to suit a rationale that strips civilians of protection by association—not by action. That’s not how international humanitarian law works, and it’s not a loophole the U.S. or any other state can simply invent by fiat.

First, Article 51(3) protects all civilians, regardless of affiliation or ideology. The only condition under which that protection is suspended is direct participation in hostilities—not mere identification, group membership, or political sympathy. That includes members of non-state armed groups, unless they are actively engaged in a military function at the time. This isn’t controversial—it’s the consensus view of the ICRC, the International Criminal Court, and military manuals around the world.

Second, saying the U.S. didn’t ratify Additional Protocol I doesn’t erase the principle. Much of it, including Article 51, has been recognized as customary international law—binding on all states regardless of ratification. The U.S. Department of Defense even follows the “direct participation” standard in its own Law of War Manual.

Third, your framing turns suspicion into a death sentence. If “group membership” is enough, then anyone in Gaza who looks the part—teenagers, political supporters, aid workers accused by proxy—becomes a lawful target. That collapses the entire foundation of distinction, which is what separates combat from slaughter.

The law doesn’t exist to make war easy. It exists to prevent it from becoming total. You don’t get to declare that because some parts are inconvenient, the civilians cease being civilians. If that’s the argument, then you’re not upholding international law. You’re erasing it.

Where??

The ICRC’s Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities makes clear that civilians remain protected unless and only while they directly participate in hostilities. Simply identifying someone with a group—through clothing, symbolism, or political alignment—is not sufficient grounds for targeting. The standard is conduct, not affiliation.

This principle has been reinforced by international tribunals. In Prosecutor v. Tadić, the ICTY affirmed that individuals must be targeted based on their active role in hostilities—not assumptions based on group membership or demographics. The law requires a functional assessment, not a symbolic one.

Even the U.S. Department of Defense, despite not ratifying Additional Protocol I, follows this logic. Its own Law of War Manual states that civilians cannot be targeted unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities. It also warns against targeting based on indirect signs or assumptions, acknowledging the legal and moral danger of doing so.

Customary international law, which binds all parties regardless of treaty ratification, affirms the same thing. Civilians are protected at all times unless their actions directly and concretely forfeit that protection. This is not a fringe interpretation—it’s foundational to modern laws of war.

So when you say identification is enough, you are arguing against the explicit standards laid down by international courts, humanitarian law, and even the military doctrines of states like the United States. That position isn’t just legally incorrect—it’s how civilian protections are eroded into justifications for atrocity.

The issue was whether it's possible for a "civilian" to be a combatant. It's relevant in that establishing that someone is a "civilian" isn't proof they are not a combatant. Multiple hostages were rescued that were being held by "civilians".

Then you’ve just illustrated the very principle you’re trying to sidestep.

Yes—some civilians may secretly engage in hostilities. That’s exactly why the law sets a high bar before lethal force can be used: it requires proof of direct participation, not assumption based on possibility. International humanitarian law accounts for the fact that conflict is murky—but it errs on the side of protection, not preemption.

The presence of a few civilians who violate their protected status does not justify treating all civilians as potential threats. That logic flips the burden of proof—turning a presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt by proximity or suspicion. That’s not how law works. It’s how massacres are rationalized.

So yes, a “civilian” can forfeit protection by taking up arms—but only for as long as they are actively doing so. You don’t get to rewrite that rule just because some hostages were guarded by people in plain clothes. That fact proves the need for care, not its abandonment.

t's not two out of a thousand. It's three out of four. (I'm looking at the situations where we have the most data--rescued hostages) And the point is simply about showing that "civilian" is not automatically "noncombatant".

And once again, you’re collapsing a legal distinction that exists precisely to prevent that kind of reasoning.

The existence of a few civilians who violate their protected status does not change the default legal presumption: civilians are not to be treated as combatants unless and until they directly participate in hostilities. That’s not optional, and it’s not conditional on anecdotal ratios from a handful of hostage rescues.

You say “three out of four”—but you’re extrapolating from an extreme, unrepresentative subset. Hostage rescues are not a neutral sample of Gaza’s population. They’re high-risk, targeted operations where Hamas specifically uses civilians as human shields, precisely to blur the lines. You can’t use the most manipulated, worst-case scenarios to redefine the entire civilian population as suspect.

International law draws a clear boundary for a reason: suspicion isn’t enough. Pattern isn’t enough. The threshold is direct participation, not guilt by association. If you abandon that, you’re not identifying combatants. You’re justifying the erasure of civilian protection altogether.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Any symbol of noncombatant status that is repeatedly misused ceases to be an indication of noncombatant status. And all of them have been widely misused in Gaza.

Then what you’re advocating is the erosion of the very system that distinguishes war from massacre.

“Fool me twice” may work in personal grudges—but international humanitarian law is not built on vengeance or trust. It’s built on standards—precisely because war is chaotic, manipulated, and filled with bad actors. The moment you say that a vest, a symbol, a hospital, or a designation “no longer counts” because it’s sometimes abused, you make every protected status conditional. And once protection becomes conditional, it becomes meaningless.

If a press vest no longer shields a journalist because others lied while wearing one—then journalists become targets. If a hospital loses protection because an enemy used one—then patients become targets. That’s not accountability. That’s collective suspicion turned into lethal policy.

International law doesn’t require you to be naïve. It requires you to distinguish. You hold individuals accountable when evidence supports it. But you don’t erase protections for everyone because of the actions of some. That’s not “shame on me”—it’s shame on the world if we allow it.

NHC

 

[ZiprHead]

My point was that a 2000# bomb in a tunnel was not too destructive for the environment it was used in.

‘Not seen since Vietnam’: Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, analysis shows

In the first month of its war in Gaza, Israel dropped hundreds of massive bombs, many of them capable of killing or wounding people more than 1,000 feet away, analysis by CNN and artificial intelligence company Synthetaic suggests.

Satellite imagery from those early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. Those are four times heavier than the vast majority of the largest bombs the United States dropped on ISIS during the war against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy munitions such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. The population of Gaza is packed together much more tightly than almost anywhere else on earth, so the use of such heavy munitions has a profound effect.

“The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover,” said John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at CIVIC, a DC-based group focused on minimizing civilian harm in conflict.

Marc Garlasco a former US defense intelligence analyst and former UN war crimes investigator, said the density of Israel’s first month of bombardment in Gaza had “not been seen since Vietnam.”

Garlasco, now a military adviser at PAX, a Dutch non-governmental organization that advocates for peace, reviewed all the incidents analyzed in this report for CNN.

“You’d have to go back to the Vietnam war to make a comparison,” said Garlasco. “Even in both Iraq wars it was never that dense.”

The heavy munitions, mostly manufactured by the US, can cause high casualty events and can have a lethal fragmentation radius – an area of exposure to injury or death around the target – of up to 365 meters (about 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 soccer fields in area.

Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy weaponry, such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. According to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, about 20,000 people have been killed since October 7.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to those figures.

CNN partnered with US AI company Synthetaic which used Rapid Automatic Image Categorization (RAIC) to detect craters, smoke plumes and damaged buildings in tasked satellite imagery over the Gaza Strip. The findings were manually reviewed by a member of Synthetaic, as well as by CNN journalists.

CNN and Synthetaic’s findings “reveal and emphasize the sheer intensity of the bombardment over a very short period of time,” according to Annie Shiel, US advocacy director at CIVIC.

The 2,000-pound bomb’s large 365-meter (about 1,198-ft) lethal fragmentation radius is evident in many videos reviewed by CNN, where several buildings are seen to have been flattened in a single strike.

On October 24, Israel struck a location less than 100 meters (about 328 ft) away from Wafa Hospital. In an interview with al-Jazeera almost immediately after the strike, the hospital’s director, Fouad Najm, said the attack had “terrified the patients and medics.” The hospital has since gone out of service because of sustained nearby strikes and fuel outages.

It is unclear whether the October 24 blast caused significant damage to the hospital.

CNN geolocated video of the blast and matched it to 12-meter and 15-meter craters, consistent with 2,000-pound bombs, in satellite imagery.

“Clearly the hospital is within the lethal fragmentation range of a 2,000-pound bomb. It would likely have caused damage,” said PAX’s Garlasco.

In one area near Beach camp, seven schools were within the lethal fragmentation zone of at least five craters. Satellite imagery captured on November 6 showed wide-scale destruction in the area. Those satellite images also showed Israeli armored vehicles in and around the schools.

 

[laughing dog]

You "condemn" Hamas terrorism but demand that no Gazan civilians be harmed in defending against it. Do you see why we don't believe your condemnation?

If you cannot produce evidence of support or excuses for violent Muslim terrorists, then you have no evidence that someone is an apologist for them.

You're not addressing the point. This is a case of actions speaking louder than words.

Which actions of pood are speaking louder than pood’s words? Be specific while recalling this is sn internet forum.

I already spelled it out. You're guilty of the same thing.

Demand impossible standards and then blame them when they fail to meet those impossible standards. That's exactly what Hamas wants you to do and exactly why Hamas is killing so many people.

What “impossible standards” are you imagining? Not blockading food snd medicine? Refraining from killing medics and the coveting it up (literally )? Refraining from using human shields? Not shooting their own people?

Be specific.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israeli Forces Board Gaza Aid Flotilla and Detain 12 Crew Members

Zeteo contributor Greta Thunberg was on board the ship.

zeteo.com

Israeli forces boarded the Gaza Aid Flotilla ship, the “Madleen,” early Monday morning local time and detained the 12 passengers on board, according to several reports.

The humanitarians on the ship, including globally-known humanitarian and Zeteo contributor Greta Thunberg, European Union Member of Parliament Rima Hassan, and several other volunteers, sought to deliver aid to Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition says it has lost connection with the vessel, which was carrying medical supplies, diapers, baby formula, children’s prosthetics, and other desperately needed aid in Gaza.

And water is wet.

If it had gotten through the next one would be full of weapons.

 

[NoHolyCows]

It's what you demand.

Nothing is good enough, therefore defense is impossible and they simply have to wait to be killed.

Then you’ve mistaken accountability for paralysis—and that’s the real danger here.

No one is saying defense is impossible. What I’m saying is that not all forms of defense are defensible. You can protect your population without inflicting collective punishment. You can pursue security without flattening refugee camps or starving children. That’s not weakness—it’s the difference between legitimate self-defense and disproportionate retribution.

The real binary isn’t between action and inaction. It’s between restraint and impunity. If your standard is “whatever it takes,” then you’ve already conceded that any atrocity can be justified if fear is high enough. That’s not how you preserve life. That’s how you lose your moral compass—and with it, any claim to be different from what you’re fighting.

Security without justice isn’t peace. It’s domination. And history has never mistaken the two.

A real solution does not exist. Yeah, I know, that's blasphemy to the left. Before I would have said taking down Iran would likely do it, but given how they have gotten into bed with Russia I no longer consider that a possibility.

You’re saying there’s no solution, only punishment. No diplomacy, only force. No endgame, only endurance. But if your strategy admits there’s no way out except perpetual war and civilian suffering, then you haven’t solved anything. You’ve institutionalized despair.

And no, calling that out isn’t “blasphemy to the left”—it’s a demand for moral clarity across the board. It’s entirely possible to condemn Hamas, reject Iranian influence, and still insist that a response rooted in legality and humanity matters. That’s not weakness. It’s the only path that doesn’t just repeat the cycle indefinitely.

Because if the only thing left is to escalate pain until someone breaks, then you’re not fighting for peace—you’re fighting for dominance. And nothing sustainable has ever been built on that.

You seem to think alternatives must exist.

No—I recognize that some situations have no easy alternatives. But that’s not the same as having no alternatives.

What I reject is the idea that mass civilian suffering is inevitable or acceptable simply because the options are difficult. That mindset doesn’t reflect hard realism—it reflects moral surrender. Restraint, diplomacy, international cooperation, surgical operations, pressure on external actors—none of these are magic solutions, but all of them have been used in other conflicts to reduce harm without abandoning justice.

The belief that cruelty is the only viable path isn’t pragmatism. It’s despair masquerading as strategy. And when that belief becomes policy, what you achieve isn’t peace or victory—it’s just a different kind of defeat.

Yes, I dismiss out of hand all of those who kept proclaiming imminent disaster that never

Then you’re not engaging in skepticism. You’re engaging in selective disbelief—where no amount of evidence will ever be enough unless it confirms your prior assumptions.

You say “imminent disaster never materialized,” while malnutrition rates among children have doubled, hospitals report starvation deaths, and aid organizations have lost staff trying to reach people trapped in bombed-out areas. Do you think these groups—often risking their lives—fabricate data for fun? Do you think every image of a starving infant, every intercepted convoy, every destroyed bakery is a global conspiracy?

The fact that you dismiss all of it out of hand tells me you’re not interested in data. You’re interested in protecting a narrative.

Disasters don’t stop being real just because you’re tired of hearing about them. And disbelief, repeated loudly enough, has never saved a single life.

You don't have to be skeletal to look underweight. To have a few starving children in a society that looks like it has enough to eat either means they can't eat or they aren't being permitted food.

And that’s exactly the issue—they aren’t being permitted food.

You’ve finally hit on the right conclusion but pointed the blame in the wrong direction. When trucks are delayed, when aid is blocked at crossings, when fuel is withheld so bakeries shut down, when safe zones are bombed and warehouses destroyed—that’s what cuts off food. That’s what turns acute food insecurity into child malnutrition. The World Food Programme and UNICEF don’t invent these outcomes—they track them. Clinically. Statistically. Repeatedly.

And yes, some children in Gaza are visibly underweight. Others are not yet—because starvation isn’t instant. It’s a progression, and right now, that progression is happening across a trapped population while the world argues over semantics.

If you’re willing to admit children are starving, then the next question isn’t, “Are they being permitted food?” It’s who is in charge of permitting it. And when the borders, airspace, and supply lines are all controlled by one side, the responsibility isn’t hard to trace.

Cite?

Why would an inspection delay keep it from entering Gaza?

And what's being denied? I think you're mixing it up with events of long ago, there was a period where Israel was not permitting Hamas to import anything. The result was "arbitrary" denials to a lot of Hamas puppets.

Border crossings? Yeah, it happens. Hamas shells a border crossing, Israel closes it for a while. Quit shelling it, end of problem. Same as they shelled that stupid pier we tried to build.

Then let’s be clear.

The claim that Israel isn’t obstructing aid doesn’t hold up—not when U.S. officials themselves have said otherwise. Samantha Power, head of USAID, testified that trucks loaded with food and medicine were sitting for days or being turned away without explanation at Israeli-controlled crossings. Secretary of State Blinken echoed the same, stating that Israel must do more to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza and that delays were “unacceptable.” These are not fringe opinions—they’re statements from Israel’s closest ally.

As for the idea that “inspection delays shouldn’t matter,” it ignores how aid works. Perishable goods expire. Bottlenecks mean fewer convoys make it in per day. Some shipments are rejected outright for including batteries, solar panels, water filters, or even medical kits—items that inspectors label “dual-use” with no real evidence that they’re a threat. Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies—WFP, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders—have consistently documented that only a fraction of the necessary aid has been allowed through. And it’s not just them. UN logistics reports track daily entry rates and confirm the same.

You say Hamas shelled crossings and therefore Israel closed them. But that’s not the full picture. Closures often happen in the absence of active shelling, and in some cases, after Israeli airstrikes damaged the access roads themselves. Kerem Shalom and Rafah have been closed for extended periods—not hours, but weeks. The result isn’t hypothetical: babies in incubators without power, people drinking contaminated water, breadlines that stretch for hours.

Yes, Hamas bears responsibility for diverting aid and exploiting suffering. But when the power to open the gate lies with one party, the primary responsibility to allow food, water, and medicine through lies there too. That’s not politics. That’s humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions don’t say “unless your enemy is terrible.” They say civilian survival is not negotiable.

No. There is no requirement of exclusively. And remember Israel has actually taken some hospitals--and found weapons all over the place. And that's only the stuff the defenders didn't manage to get out.

Then let’s actually look at what the law says—not the version shaped to justify any strike, but the actual legal text.

Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that civilian hospitals “may in no circumstances be the object of attack” and retain their protections unless they are used to commit acts harmful to the enemy. Even then, an attack is only permitted after due warning has been given, and a reasonable time has passed without cessation of those acts. The ICRC’s Commentary makes it clear: presence of armed individuals alone is not enough—there must be hostile acts, and even then, the principle of proportionality still applies.

So no, you don’t lose legal protection just because combatants passed through or because weapons were allegedly found afterward. And even if a hospital is used for dual purposes, the law doesn’t simply give a green light to bomb it—it demands careful assessment, feasible alternatives, and advance warning to protect the wounded and medical staff.

As for “Israel found weapons”—even if taken at face value, that’s not a blanket justification for every strike on every hospital. You don’t get to retroactively justify an attack by saying, “We found something later.” That’s not law. That’s post-hoc rationalization.

If we accept your standard—where mere suspicion, partial use, or a vague Hamas “presence” voids all civilian protection—then we have abandoned not just the Geneva Conventions, but the very idea of civilian immunity in war. And that’s not just legally wrong. It’s historically dangerous.

It's not "they might be hijacked". It's "they have been taken".

Then let’s be honest: “they have been taken” is still not a lawful justification for striking aid convoys.

Even if Hamas has seized aid in the past, that does not give carte blanche to target future convoys unless you have specific, verified intelligence that a given shipment is being used for military operations—not merely that it might be diverted later. The standard under international humanitarian law—as laid out in Article 52 of Additional Protocol I and reinforced by the ICRC and Rome Statute—is concrete and direct military advantage. That means current, actionable evidence of military use.

Once aid is in transit and under the control of humanitarian agencies, it retains civilian protection. You can’t bomb it on the assumption it will fall into the wrong hands. That’s collective punishment. And again, even if Hamas has taken aid, the solution isn’t to destroy humanitarian convoys. It’s to coordinate better delivery mechanisms, secure distribution lines, and ensure compliance—not obliterate the food supply and claim legality by proximity.

If you normalize destroying humanitarian infrastructure because the enemy might misuse it—or even has misused it in the past—you’ve erased every protection aid workers, civilians, and international law are meant to provide. That’s not security. That’s scorched earth.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

'm not saying that.

I'm saying that if you function in Gaza you have to do what Hamas tells you to. Not that that means membership in Hamas. (Although there's quite an overlap between UN and Hamas.) There are no independent journalists there. Journalists either are actually Hamas, or are reporting what Hamas tells them to report. Not obeying is liable to get you killed.

Then you’re still making the same fundamental error—just with a softer label.

Saying that journalists or UN workers “have to do what Hamas tells them to” is not a rebuttal. It’s an assumption dressed up as analysis. You’re asserting that every report, every photo, every statement from Gaza is compromised unless it comes from Israeli sources or aligns with your narrative. That’s not discernment. That’s blanket dismissal.

Yes, Hamas exerts control. No one is denying that the environment is dangerous and restrictive. But that’s precisely why multiple independent agencies—including those with no ties to Gaza or Hamas—use verification mechanisms: satellite imagery, eyewitness triangulation, cross-border interviews, third-party audits. These aren’t just “Hamas press releases.” They’re vetted, cross-referenced reports by international bodies whose credibility doesn’t vanish just because the context is complex.

If your position is that every journalist and every humanitarian is either lying or coerced unless they echo the Israeli line, then you’ve eliminated any neutral ground. That’s not healthy skepticism. That’s epistemic nihilism—and it conveniently erases every civilian account of suffering, obstruction, and devastation.

If Hamas truly controls all information, then the moral burden falls even heavier on those with access, resources, and power to verify and report—because they have the tools to act transparently. But instead, you’re using the fog of war to dismiss every inconvenient truth as “propaganda,” while treating every unverified assertion of military success as gospel.

That’s not a double standard. It’s the abandonment of standards entirely.

Thousands??

Yes—thousands.

According to the World Health Organization, as of spring 2024, over 400 health workers in Gaza had been confirmed killed. But that’s just confirmed staff—many more unregistered volunteers, paramedics, and support staff are included in broader counts. The Gaza Health Ministry (whose raw casualty numbers have often been corroborated by UN agencies and independent human rights monitors) reported that well over 1,000 healthcare workers had been killed by that point. And that number has since grown.

Moreover, dozens of hospitals and clinics have been bombed, raided, or rendered inoperable due to direct strikes, siege conditions, or lack of fuel. These are not just buildings—they’re protected medical zones under international law. Their destruction, and the killing of doctors and nurses, cannot simply be brushed aside unless you believe medical personnel lose their protected status by default just for being in Gaza.

So yes—thousands, when you include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, paramedics, technicians, and all medical staff killed in or around hospitals and ambulances, many of which were targeted or hit repeatedly. And if you’re surprised by that number, it only shows how effective the minimization effort has been.

I'm saying duress, not guilt.

Then you’ve admitted something crucial—because duress doesn’t undermine the legitimacy of a role. It underscores the urgency of protecting it.

If journalists, aid workers, and medical staff are operating under duress, that doesn’t invalidate their status—it makes it even more important that they not be treated as combatants by default. You don’t solve coercion by removing protections; you reinforce them to prevent exactly the abuse you’re describing.

And if duress is the norm in Gaza—as you suggest—then you’re not just arguing against Hamas. You’re implicitly acknowledging that civilians are trapped in a system they didn’t choose, with no safe exit, no real autonomy, and no way to meet your standards of innocence. That doesn’t absolve Hamas. But it also doesn’t justify treating every civilian and civil servant as expendable collateral. That’s not justice. That’s surrendering to the logic of siege warfare—where everyone becomes a target because no one can escape.

And you have still not established that they failed in those precautions.

But that’s not how the burden works under international law. The obligation to demonstrate that all feasible precautions were taken—and that the anticipated military gain justified the foreseeable harm—rests with the actor conducting the strike, not the observer questioning it.

And when thousands of civilians are killed in densely populated areas, including in designated safe zones, refugee camps, schools, and hospitals, the question isn’t whether I can “prove” they failed. The scale and recurrence of harm demand justification—not blind trust. Repeated patterns of high civilian death, lack of transparency in target assessment, and post-strike silence don’t suggest due care. They raise serious red flags.

You’re treating absence of evidence as evidence of absence. That’s not a legal standard. That’s a loophole for impunity.

You were critical of my pointing out that it's less than one dead per bomb, yet that makes it very clear that warning and evacuation was happening.

No, it doesn’t. A statistic like “less than one dead per bomb” is not a substitute for evidence of effective warnings or lawful precautions. It’s an average—an abstraction—pulled from a battlefield where reality plays out in specific, devastating incidents. You can drop a bomb that kills no one and another that kills 50, and still have your average look clean. That doesn’t prove compliance with the law. It hides what the law is designed to examine: proportionality, distinction, and foreseeability on a case-by-case basis.

International humanitarian law doesn’t evaluate morality through statistics. It evaluates it through context. Did they know civilians were there? Was the target clearly military? Were precautions taken to minimize harm? Was the civilian death excessive compared to the military gain? Those are the questions the law asks—not whether someone ran a favorable kill/death ratio after the fact.

If you want to prove legal and ethical conduct, cite evidence of the precautions taken before the bomb was dropped—not the body count after.

And if my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.

And that response is exactly the problem—it dismisses serious legal obligations and humanitarian consequences with a joke. But war crimes aren’t hypothetical. They’re documented, investigated, and prosecuted based on patterns of conduct, not witty deflections.

You don’t get to brush aside civilian deaths, hospital bombings, and refugee camp strikes as rhetorical fluff. These aren’t punchlines—they’re matters of international law, human suffering, and moral responsibility. If the argument you’re making can’t be defended without mockery, maybe it’s not the civilians who should be questioned.

It was fabricated--by Saddam's people, not by us. There was some stuff we managed to capture early on and beyond that we had report after report after report from commanders who managed to keep the stuff away from the inspectors. We didn't realize the stuff had never existed in the first place other than on paper.

And that doesn't change the fact that had Iran not been able to subvert the country the end result of our invasion would be better for the people overall after only a year.

Then let’s take your framing seriously: if Saddam’s regime fabricated WMD capabilities, and the U.S. acted on that disinformation, the conclusion doesn’t shift from “fabricated justification” to “justified war.” It only changes who crafted the fiction. And it still indicts the decision to launch a full-scale invasion based on unverified intelligence, without a functioning international consensus, and despite massive civilian risk.

That’s not hindsight bias—it’s what weapons inspectors on the ground, like Hans Blix, were saying in real time. And if the argument becomes “we thought it was true,” then the threshold for war has been lowered to suspicion—something international law was specifically designed to prevent.

As for the claim that the invasion would have worked “but for Iran,” that collapses under the weight of history. The U.S. dismantled the Iraqi state apparatus, disbanded the army, and imposed a sectarian interim government—inviting the very instability that Iran later exploited. Blaming Iran for chaos after the U.S. created a vacuum isn’t accountability. It’s deflection.

If we want to learn anything from Iraq, it’s not that better post-war management would have saved it—it’s that wars launched on shaky intelligence, with no clear exit strategy and no local legitimacy, do not lead to peace. They lead to exactly what we saw: death, displacement, and the birth of new extremisms.

Part of the requirement of the cease fire of the first round of the turkey shoot would be that he would hand over all WMD. Failure to comply with the terms of a cease fire means the shooting can resume. And Saddam sure waddled and quacked non-compliance--because he believed he still had WMD. Threaten a cop with an empty gun and see how it goes.

That analogy fails for one key reason: international law is not governed by the same logic as a cop responding to a perceived threat. The ceasefire terms after the Gulf War required Iraq to disarm and submit to inspections—terms that, while repeatedly contentious, were being enforced through the UN inspection regime. By 2003, those inspectors were active, and Hans Blix was publicly requesting more time because they had found no evidence of active WMD programs. The process was working.

Yes, Saddam bluffed. But bluffing is not the same as violating in a way that justifies war. That’s why the U.S. didn’t get UN Security Council authorization for the invasion. The legal threshold for resuming hostilities wasn’t met. You can’t claim legal justification while bypassing the very mechanisms designed to determine compliance.

Saddam’s own misunderstanding of his arsenal doesn’t retroactively create a legitimate casus belli. That’s not how ceasefire enforcement—or just war theory—works. The standard isn’t “he looked suspicious” or “he acted guilty.” It’s verified breach. And when the inspectors on the ground were saying the opposite, the U.S. chose war anyway.

That’s not enforcement. That’s a unilateral decision, driven by policy goals—not clear legal necessity. And that’s why history hasn’t vindicated it, no matter how much effort is spent trying to retrofit justification after the fact.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is you continue to believe Hamas propaganda.

Then show me the lie. The bombed hospitals? The malnourished kids? The blocked aid? Those aren’t Hamas press releases—they’re documented by international observers. Dismissing it all as “propaganda” isn’t a rebuttal. It’s a refusal to look.

Take the latest hospital. They got one of the senior commanders and they got secondaries. In structures that supposedly did not exist.

The malnourished kids--it has never been established that it's not medical cases.

Blocked aid--where?

No, I'm not excusing atrocity. I'm recognizing that Hamas claiming atrocity doesn't make it so.

Then stop dodging: it’s not just Hamas making the claims. It’s UN agencies, doctors, journalists, and aid workers—many with no ties to Hamas. When every source but your own side is dismissed, you’re not seeking truth. You’re shielding power from scrutiny.

No. Any source in Gaza is not credible. Any source parroting any source in Gaza is not credible. That doesn't mean it's not possible to have a credible source, but to date we have none.

Most documented" because so much effort is directed at Jew-bashing.

Gaza is small potatoes compared to the real collapses going on now.

If Gaza is “small potatoes,” then you’ve already conceded the argument—because you’re not measuring morality, you’re minimizing it. Civilian suffering doesn’t shrink because you change the subject. It only disappears when you choose not to see it.

You said "most documented" as if it meant something. First, all the "documentation" is from Hamas. And second, there is a huge reporting bias here that you are letting influence you. Fake famine: 60 over nearly two years. Some of them known to be medical, no indication that the rest are not. Real famine--Sudan, reaches that 60 number in 15 hours.

Almost all of these wouldn't know a war crime if it jumped up and bit them. It's always referring to a supposed pattern of behavior--because there's nothing they can point to that's a war crime. A war crime is a specific act, not a general pattern.

That’s simply false. War crimes can be individual acts, but they are also defined by patterns—especially when those acts are systematic or widespread. That’s exactly how the Rome Statute and Geneva Conventions define crimes against humanity and grave breaches. You don’t get to bomb hospitals over and over and claim each strike is isolated. When the pattern is the policy, it is the crime.

Where is there a definition of a pattern as a war crime?? A pattern may suggest war crimes, but it's not evidence.

I accept that I have no power to stop Tehran from engineering the devastation in Gaza.

You're falling into a standard psychological manipulation trap:

1) Present horrible situation that has no easy answers.
2) Propose "solution". Every objection to the solution is "rebutted" by pointing to how horrible the situation is.

Just look at what has happened with MAGA and The Felon. He offered a false solution, people flocked to it. The same thing is happening with Israel, people are flocking to the "answer" of blaming Israel and demanding they don't defend themselves.

What you’ve described isn’t a rebuttal—it’s deflection. Blaming Tehran may be politically convenient, but it doesn’t erase Israel’s responsibility for how it wages war. Saying “I have no power to stop Iran” doesn’t justify what’s being done to civilians in Gaza, just like blaming “MAGA” doesn’t excuse trampling rights in response.

If your only defense is “someone else made this unavoidable,” then you’ve surrendered moral agency. And when entire neighborhoods are turned to rubble, when starvation spreads, when humanitarian aid is blocked—that’s not a trap. That’s a choice.

Yes, it's a choice. A choice made by Hamas.

You fail to understand. You claim razed neighborhoods. I see collapsed tunnels--when a tunnel collapses it generally takes out the foundation of anything above it, collapsing the building. Especially since most of the construction seems to be concrete and masonry--very strong against most forces from above, very vulnerable to most forces from below.

Collapsed tunnels don’t explain everything. When entire residential blocks are reduced to rubble by repeated airstrikes—well beyond the scope of a single structural failure—that’s not just secondary damage. That’s deliberate, wide-area bombardment. You can’t blame the soil for what precision-guided munitions decide to hit.

How much reinforcing a tunnel needs is a function of the weight above it--thus you are going to run tunnels under the lightest stuff if possible. Mostly, streets. Bomb hits the tunnel, the tunnel collapses, probably every building along it fails because it's foundation shifted. Thus you get a whole block collapsed from an airstrike that might not even have caused any blast damage to the area. We repeatedly saw collapse radiating away from the blast point as tunnels failed. I can't imagine how you think collapsing a tunnel would damage only one building.

And I'm not blaming the soil. I'm saying that when you collapse the tunnel the soil above falls into it--which means it falls away from the foundations of the buildings along the tunnel. Any soil would do this.

And if a tunnel runs under a school, a clinic, or a crowded apartment building, that raises the burden of caution—not lowers it. The law doesn’t say “bomb deeper.” It says “protect civilians.” Collateral collapse is still collapse. Civilian death doesn’t become acceptable just because the blast came from underneath.

Remember the data about kills per bomb? The vast majority of those structures were empty.

The first two don't ring a bell, I do recall the last one. Israel dropped on a meeting of some commanders. Turns out there was a lot of boom in the building. Everyone's pretending they hit the camp, the reality is they hit a completely valid target nearby and got unexpected secondaries. (And when you watch the Israeli bombs it's often quite clear they were fused to explode underground--most of the blast goes up, little damage around.)

That’s the problem—what’s framed as a “valid target” ends up being a known shelter zone, packed with families, aid tents, or evacuees. Even if the bomb was aimed at a meeting, if it was surrounded by civilians—and if intelligence knew that—then it still fails the legal standard of precaution and proportionality.

You don’t get to say, “We meant to kill the commanders” and then shrug when the fireball kills women and children sleeping nearby. That’s not a tragic accident. That’s foreseeable harm, and when it keeps happening, the excuse wears thin.

1) Israel is responsible for the boom from their weapon. Hamas is responsible for the boom from whatever was in that warehouse.

2) Even then my memory is the boom didn't kill anyone, it just spilled fuel. The fire killed. Fluke, not something that anyone can reasonably anticipate. But even then, the fault of Hamas.

Yeah, Hamas has blocked, looted and shot at aid trucks. Yet you assume it's Israel doing it.

If Hamas interferes with aid, that’s absolutely a violation—and should be condemned. But here’s the difference: when Israel controls the borders, coordinates the crossings, and bombs the routes, it’s not an assumption—it’s documented responsibility.

You still don't seem to be able to understand about Hamas taking the stuff. And typically presenting downright laughable "evidence" of Israeli guilt. I keep seeing pictures that don't make sense for any weapon anybody uses. Hint: missiles have a fair mass traveling at a quite a clip. If a missile is small enough that the vehicle is mostly intact then it wasn't a big enough boom to destroy the missile. The missile body would have continued through the vehicle. There should be something corresponding to the entry hole, although probably nowhere near as neat. And there should be the mangled remains of the missile body. And I've seen a lot of stuff where the pieces don't match properly--AI failure.

Humanitarian agencies, the UN, and even U.S. officials have confirmed Israeli restrictions on aid delivery. You don’t get to deflect by pointing at Hamas while ignoring who holds the keys. Both can be guilty—but only one controls the siege.

The list of every major international body monitoring the Gaza casualties is <None>. There is no independent confirmation whatsoever. There have been some things which have pretended to be independent. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of a study in The Lancet that used a capture/recapture approach to validating data--but capture/recapture absolutely requires that the recapture be independent and they based it on an attempt to count deaths not in the main database. Either they were as stupid as The Felon or they knew they were coming up with fake data.

Then let’s walk it back to basics.

You don’t need to accept every figure from Hamas. But if you reject all external verification—from OCHA, WHO, UNRWA, HRW, Amnesty, Doctors Without Borders, and independent media—then what’s left? You’ve built an echo chamber where only the party executing the strikes gets to define reality. That’s not critical thinking. That’s epistemic collapse.

If no civilian death toll is credible unless confirmed by the IDF, then you haven’t just questioned the data—you’ve made truth conditional on power.

The problem is how is an independent source supposed to actually get data? You operate in Gaza, you say what they tell you to say. You're not in Gaza, how can you actually count the dead? I very much doubt that even Hamas has a truly accurate count as some have no doubt died and been buried in the tunnels. We do know that what they are reporting is garbage.

And here you get it completely wrong. You do get to endlessly kill combatants that have not surrendered. (And individual surrender is typically recognized by discarding all weapons and complying with all instructions. And, yes, in Gaza those instructions will normally involve a requirement to strip--necessary to ensure they aren't wearing a bomb.)

Then we agree—combatants who pose an ongoing threat can be lawfully targeted. But that’s not what’s at issue here. What’s being challenged is not Israel targeting armed fighters—it’s the massive, repeated civilian death toll, including women, children, and people who never held a weapon or had a chance to surrender.

And you continue to expect miracles in targeting.

You keep shifting the conversation to what’s lawful against combatants. But the law you’re ignoring is the one that governs what happens when civilians are present. That’s not semantics—it’s the very core of the Geneva Conventions. And no, you don’t get to kill “endlessly” if civilians are dying in the process. That’s where legality ends and atrocity begins.

Civilians do not get the sort of protection you think they do.

Typical performance is 10x civilians vs combatants, it is not considered a war crime when this happens. Thus it makes no sense to say that when Israel turns in a far better performance that they are going too far.

Technical jargon?? I was using the minimum of math to make my point.

Then let’s drop the math for a moment and speak plainly: if your strategy predictably kills civilians by the thousands, destroys shelters, flattens neighborhoods, and leaves children starving, the problem isn’t the math—it’s the method.

No formula justifies that outcome. If the inputs are “target militants,” but the result is mass civilian death, then something is fundamentally wrong. And whether you call it a miscalculation or a tactic, international law still calls it what it is: unlawful.

NHC

And therein lies the problem: you are taking the Hamas propaganda "outcome" as automatically wrong. Thus you are saying that it's impossible to stop groups like Hamas and we have to bow down to them.

Sorry, but Israel is far exceeding the bar set by Geneva. The only way they are violating it is not sending advance notice of misuse, but that exists to avoid mistakes. We don't see them striking protected targets and coming up empty.

It's just Geneva was written as guidelines for avoiding inadvertent harm to civilians, it didn't envision the deliberate harm to civilians that Hamas engages in.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Yeah, the no viable plan was a horrendous fuck-up.

Then we agree on something fundamental—because that horrendous fuck-up wasn’t just a tactical oversight. It was the inevitable outcome of launching a war based on faulty premises with no coherent strategy for what would come next. The lack of a plan wasn’t a side note—it was the war.

Toppling a regime is the easy part. What followed was a power vacuum filled by chaos, militias, and outside influence—especially from Iran, which gained enormous leverage precisely because we dismantled Iraq’s institutions and disbanded its army without any credible replacement. That wasn’t an accident of war; it was a failure of vision on every level.

So when people defend the invasion on the grounds that Saddam was evil or that the “intentions were good,” it misses the point: a war without a viable postwar plan isn’t just irresponsible—it’s destructive by design. Good intentions don’t excuse bad outcomes when the risks were obvious, the warnings ignored, and the consequences catastrophic.

But you are not presenting an alternative beyond handwaving.

The alternative is not handwaving—it’s restraint grounded in law, strategy rooted in reality, and a vision of security that doesn’t depend on mass suffering.

Here’s what that looks like: targeted operations based on verifiable intelligence, not area bombardment based on proximity. It looks like preserving civilian infrastructure, even when the enemy abuses it, because the law doesn’t dissolve under pressure. It looks like humanitarian corridors that aren’t riddled with delays, denials, and explosives. It looks like diplomacy backed by multilateral pressure, not unilateral destruction. And above all, it looks like distinguishing between Hamas and the people of Gaza—not collapsing them into one because it’s more convenient.

Is it perfect? No. Nothing in war is. But pretending there’s no alternative to siege and saturation bombing isn’t realism—it’s moral fatigue. It’s mistaking brute force for inevitability. If you believe in rules at all, you don’t abandon them when the enemy breaks them. You uphold them because that’s what separates security from savagery.

It's a proxy war. And proxy wars are horrible for the country they are being fought in. But that doesn't mean there's a magic answer to solve it.

No one’s asking for a magic answer. What’s being asked for is accountability.

Yes, proxy wars are brutal. But calling it a proxy war doesn’t exempt anyone from the laws of war. It doesn’t turn war crimes into collateral strategy. And it doesn’t make starvation, mass displacement, or indiscriminate strikes “unfortunate necessities.” If anything, proxy conflicts demand more vigilance—because civilians are caught between powers who are often less invested in protecting them than in outmaneuvering each other.

The fact that it’s a proxy war isn’t an excuse. It’s a warning: if we don’t hold all actors accountable, we normalize the idea that entire populations can be sacrificed in the name of strategic leverage. And once that becomes acceptable, there is no line left to hold.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Yeah, the no viable plan was a horrendous fuck-up.

Then we agree on something fundamental—because that horrendous fuck-up wasn’t just a tactical oversight. It was the inevitable outcome of launching a war based on faulty premises with no coherent strategy for what would come next. The lack of a plan wasn’t a side note—it was the war.

Toppling a regime is the easy part. What followed was a power vacuum filled by chaos, militias, and outside influence—especially from Iran, which gained enormous leverage precisely because we dismantled Iraq’s institutions and disbanded its army without any credible replacement. That wasn’t an accident of war; it was a failure of vision on every level.

So when people defend the invasion on the grounds that Saddam was evil or that the “intentions were good,” it misses the point: a war without a viable postwar plan isn’t just irresponsible—it’s destructive by design. Good intentions don’t excuse bad outcomes when the risks were obvious, the warnings ignored, and the consequences catastrophic.

But you are not presenting an alternative beyond handwaving.

The alternative is not handwaving—it’s restraint grounded in law, strategy rooted in reality, and a vision of security that doesn’t depend on mass suffering.

Here’s what that looks like: targeted operations based on verifiable intelligence, not area bombardment based on proximity. It looks like preserving civilian infrastructure, even when the enemy abuses it, because the law doesn’t dissolve under pressure. It looks like humanitarian corridors that aren’t riddled with delays, denials, and explosives. It looks like diplomacy backed by multilateral pressure, not unilateral destruction. And above all, it looks like distinguishing between Hamas and the people of Gaza—not collapsing them into one because it’s more convenient.

Is it perfect? No. Nothing in war is. But pretending there’s no alternative to siege and saturation bombing isn’t realism—it’s moral fatigue. It’s mistaking brute force for inevitability. If you believe in rules at all, you don’t abandon them when the enemy breaks them. You uphold them because that’s what separates security from savagery.

It's a proxy war. And proxy wars are horrible for the country they are being fought in. But that doesn't mean there's a magic answer to solve it.

No one’s asking for a magic answer. What’s being asked for is accountability.

Yes, proxy wars are brutal. But calling it a proxy war doesn’t exempt anyone from the laws of war. It doesn’t turn war crimes into collateral strategy. And it doesn’t make starvation, mass displacement, or indiscriminate strikes “unfortunate necessities.” If anything, proxy conflicts demand more vigilance—because civilians are caught between powers who are often less invested in protecting them than in outmaneuvering each other.

The fact that it’s a proxy war isn’t an excuse. It’s a warning: if we don’t hold all actors accountable, we normalize the idea that entire populations can be sacrificed in the name of strategic leverage. And once that becomes acceptable, there is no line left to hold.

NHC

Let’s take your points one at a time:

You say, “The hospital strike got a commander.” Fine—show the evidence. Because even if true, it still doesn’t justify bombing a medical facility under international law unless it was being used exclusively for military operations. Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention protects hospitals, and Article 19 only removes that protection if misuse is sustained, not speculative. One alleged commander and “secondaries” don’t cut it—especially when Israel offers no public proof.

On malnourished children, you dodge again. UNICEF, WHO, and the World Food Programme aren’t relying on press releases. They’re reporting clinical malnutrition. You hand-wave it as “medical cases” without evidence—then demand evidence from everyone else. That’s not skepticism. That’s selective denial.

As for blocked aid, you ask “where?” Try Kerem Shalom. Try Erez. Try the northern checkpoints that were closed for weeks. Try the World Central Kitchen convoy that was bombed. You want to pretend these are all Hamas operations too? The IDF controls the crossings. It controls the airspace. If aid can’t reach people, you don’t get to point fingers only at the besieged.

You claim no source in Gaza is credible. Then you immediately admit that no source is credible—unless it agrees with your position. That’s not how evidence works. That’s how authoritarian logic functions. Either the world is full of liars, or the one narrative you’re defending is just unaccountable.

You dismiss “most documented” war because “Sudan is worse.” That’s moral misdirection. Yes, Sudan is horrific—and should be addressed. But bringing up another crisis doesn’t negate this one. That’s like arguing you can’t care about murder in your city because genocide exists somewhere else.

Next, your claim that “patterns aren’t war crimes” is legally false. Read Article 8 of the Rome Statute: systematic or widespread attacks against civilians are crimes against humanity. Repeatedly bombing hospitals, shelters, and schools is evidence—not just of error, but of policy.

You keep invoking Iran as the real culprit. But Iran isn’t the one pulling the trigger in Rafah. Iran doesn’t decide to bomb a refugee camp. Saying “Iran’s influence is the problem” is like blaming fire for the arsonist’s match.

Then you say the buildings collapse because of tunnels. Sure, that may happen once, even a few times. But you’re talking about entire blocks, hit by dozens of airstrikes. That’s not a chain-reaction from underground. That’s saturation bombing. And when a tunnel runs under civilian infrastructure, the burden of caution increases—not disappears.

Your next argument is telling: “Most of those structures were empty.” Then where are the 15,000+ reported child deaths coming from? You can’t have it both ways. Either buildings were populated and the strikes killed people, or they weren’t and the death toll is fabricated. But you never prove fabrication. You just assert it.

And when I bring up that strikes often hit known shelter zones, your answer is “the commanders were there.” Great—then where was the proportionality? The legal standard isn’t “did the bomb hit the guy we wanted,” it’s “did the expected civilian harm outweigh the military advantage.” You don’t get to incinerate a tent camp and call it lawful because someone important might have been nearby.

Then there’s the deflection about aid. You insist Hamas steals it. Fine—condemn that. But that doesn’t absolve the party controlling the ports, the checkpoints, and the airstrikes. Israel is the gatekeeper. If it blocks aid preemptively, destroys convoys, or limits access arbitrarily, that is its responsibility under international law.

You say independent media isn’t real, that photos don’t make sense, that wreckage doesn’t look right—yet offer no forensic rebuttal, no qualified analysis, no alternative data. Just vague appeals to intuition and “AI failure.” That’s not argument. That’s conspiracy.

You repeat, “You can’t count the dead.” And yet you also claim the civilian-to-combatant ratio is 1:10 worldwide, and that Israel’s is better—based on what data, if you think all the death tolls are fake? You want the numbers when they suit you, and you dismiss them when they don’t.

Finally, your whole argument rests on an inversion of burden: unless a dead civilian can be proven innocent, they’re presumed guilty—or Hamas-affiliated, or miscounted. That is not law. That is not ethics. That is a framework built to justify whatever happens, no matter the outcome.

And no, civilians don’t need to perform “miracles” to survive. The military does. That’s why the Geneva Conventions exist—to impose restraint especially when the enemy doesn’t.

NHC

 

[DrZoidberg]

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.

If your main priority isn't getting Hamas out of power in Gaza... you're hardly trying to stop violence.

I suggest you also get off your moral high horse. You're not one of the good guys.

 

[DrZoidberg]

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

When Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, your response isn't to do whatever it takes to remove Hamas from power. Instead your response is to encourage Hamas' tactic by playing into their hands. Well done. So much for your moral position. That's neither in the Palestinian civilians best interest... nor Israels. You are the enemy of both sides. Well done.

I'm for any side that can offer long term peace. It's not Hamas right now. Nor any other Palestinian alternative. The only hope for peace and stability in the region is Israel. We can debate all day why Palestinians in Gaza suck at valuing peaceful coexistence with Israel. But they just don't. For whatever reason. As long as that's the situation we need to find another solution. The best, (and only workable option) available is to let Israel rule it.

Politics is the art of the possible.

We're just different you and me. I think it's important to stand up for what's right and if any player is imcompatible to peace, we all get together and remove the problem. We did it in World War 2. We did it in the Iraq war... twice. I think we should do it this time again. Allowing Hamas to stay in power... I don't think it's a viable option. Not for any side. Certainly not the Palestine people. You clearly do. I don't know how anyone could be so cold hearted. But here we are.

 

[NoHolyCows]

When Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, your response isn't to do whatever it takes to remove Hamas from power. Instead your response is to encourage Hamas' tactic by playing into their hands. Well done. So much for your moral position. That's neither in the Palestinian civilians best interest... nor Israels. You are the enemy of both sides. Well done.

I'm for any side that can offer long term peace. It's not Hamas right now. Nor any other Palestinian alternative. The only hope for peace and stability in the region is Israel. We can debate all day why Palestinians in Gaza suck at valuing peaceful coexistence with Israel. But they just don't. For whatever reason. As long as that's the situation we need to find another solution. The best, (and only workable option) available is to let Israel rule it.

Politics is the art of the possible.

We're just different you and me. I think it's important to stand up for what's right and if any player is imcompatible to peace, we all get together and remove the problem. We did it in World War 2. We did it in the Iraq war... twice. I think we should do it this time again. Allowing Hamas to stay in power... I don't think it's a viable option. Not for any side. Certainly not the Palestine people. You clearly do. I don't know how anyone could be so cold hearted. But here we are.

If standing up for civilian life makes me “the enemy of both sides,” then so be it—because I’ll take that over being the apologist for mass death in the name of “removing the problem.”

You say I’m playing into Hamas’ hands because I refuse to endorse war crimes. But that’s exactly the trap: the idea that condemning collective punishment somehow aids terrorism. No—it’s the opposite. The more civilians are bombed, starved, and humiliated, the more power you hand to extremists. You don’t defeat Hamas by validating its narrative. You feed it.

Let’s get something straight: I’ve never argued that Hamas should stay in power. I’ve argued that civilians shouldn’t be slaughtered under the pretext of removing them. You conflate opposing mass civilian suffering with supporting Hamas because you need that binary to justify atrocities. But that’s not morality—it’s militarized fatalism dressed up as principle.

You talk about peace, yet endorse a plan that guarantees perpetual war: indefinite occupation by a foreign military force over a stateless population that already resents it. That’s not a path to peace. That’s a pressure cooker. The idea that “Israel should just rule Gaza” ignores decades of history, resistance, and the plain truth that domination is not stability.

And no, politics is not just “the art of the possible.” It’s the art of what we choose to make possible. You invoke World War II and Iraq as if they’re models of success. But WWII ended in reconstruction, not vengeance. And Iraq? It was a disaster of false premises, shattered governance, and endless insurgency—ironically, much like what you now advocate for Gaza. We did remove the “bad guys”—and unleashed chaos that birthed even worse ones. You want to run that playbook again?

What’s cold-hearted is pretending that this only becomes a moral issue after the war is over—after the dead are buried, after the homes are gone, after the children are maimed. You talk about standing for what’s right. Then start by recognizing that killing thousands of civilians is not a side effect—it’s a failure. A disgrace. A policy choice. One you’re defending.

And finally, you say you’re for “any side that can offer peace.” Then why not call for elections? For a UN administration? For regional diplomacy backed by ceasefire guarantees and reconstruction incentives? Why is your only “solution” a permanent military boot on the neck of a population that’s already endured decades of siege?

You don’t have to excuse Hamas. I don’t. But if your answer to terrorism is to flatten neighborhoods and declare that any alternative is naïve, then your real goal isn’t peace. It’s dominance.

And no, we’re not just “different.” You’ve chosen to normalize civilian suffering as a price worth paying. I haven’t.

That’s the difference.

NHC

 

[DrZoidberg]

When Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, your response isn't to do whatever it takes to remove Hamas from power. Instead your response is to encourage Hamas' tactic by playing into their hands. Well done. So much for your moral position. That's neither in the Palestinian civilians best interest... nor Israels. You are the enemy of both sides. Well done.

I'm for any side that can offer long term peace. It's not Hamas right now. Nor any other Palestinian alternative. The only hope for peace and stability in the region is Israel. We can debate all day why Palestinians in Gaza suck at valuing peaceful coexistence with Israel. But they just don't. For whatever reason. As long as that's the situation we need to find another solution. The best, (and only workable option) available is to let Israel rule it.

Politics is the art of the possible.

We're just different you and me. I think it's important to stand up for what's right and if any player is imcompatible to peace, we all get together and remove the problem. We did it in World War 2. We did it in the Iraq war... twice. I think we should do it this time again. Allowing Hamas to stay in power... I don't think it's a viable option. Not for any side. Certainly not the Palestine people. You clearly do. I don't know how anyone could be so cold hearted. But here we are.

If standing up for civilian life makes me “the enemy of both sides,” then so be it—because I’ll take that over being the apologist for mass death in the name of “removing the problem.”

You say I’m playing into Hamas’ hands because I refuse to endorse war crimes. But that’s exactly the trap: the idea that condemning collective punishment somehow aids terrorism. No—it’s the opposite. The more civilians are bombed, starved, and humiliated, the more power you hand to extremists. You don’t defeat Hamas by validating its narrative. You feed it.

Let’s get something straight: I’ve never argued that Hamas should stay in power. I’ve argued that civilians shouldn’t be slaughtered under the pretext of removing them. You conflate opposing mass civilian suffering with supporting Hamas because you need that binary to justify atrocities. But that’s not morality—it’s militarized fatalism dressed up as principle.

You talk about peace, yet endorse a plan that guarantees perpetual war: indefinite occupation by a foreign military force over a stateless population that already resents it. That’s not a path to peace. That’s a pressure cooker. The idea that “Israel should just rule Gaza” ignores decades of history, resistance, and the plain truth that domination is not stability.

And no, politics is not just “the art of the possible.” It’s the art of what we choose to make possible.

No. That's the difference between the pragmatic and the fantisist. Unless you accept reality as it is, you will fail.

You invoke World War II and Iraq as if they’re models of success. But WWII ended in reconstruction, not vengeance. And Iraq? It was a disaster of false premises, shattered governance, and endless insurgency—ironically, much like what you now advocate for Gaza. We did remove the “bad guys”—and unleashed chaos that birthed even worse ones. You want to run that playbook again?

It's funny how you say that WW2 ended in reconstruction. As if there were alternative scenarios. WTF are you smoking? How about you're grateful we're not having this conversation in German?

Iraq was a success. We removed Saddam. Is Iraq a mess now? Yes. But at least Saddam is not in power. Iraq is no longer a tool of evil. I'd say that's a huge success.

With people like you in charge the good guys will be perpetually hamstrung giving evil a free reign. Evil needs people like you in order to flourish.

What’s cold-hearted is pretending that this only becomes a moral issue after the war is over—after the dead are buried, after the homes are gone, after the children are maimed. You talk about standing for what’s right. Then start by recognizing that killing thousands of civilians is not a side effect—it’s a failure. A disgrace. A policy choice. One you’re defending.

Yes, I'm defending it. Because it's the less destructive, long term. Yes, I think you are cold hearted and you don't seem to care about people's suffering. Instead you get caught up on slogans. Just my impression.

And finally, you say you’re for “any side that can offer peace.” Then why not call for elections? For a UN administration? For regional diplomacy backed by ceasefire guarantees and reconstruction incentives? Why is your only “solution” a permanent military boot on the neck of a population that’s already endured decades of siege?

What chances does any of those have to work unless Hamas is first gone, and their network of power is gone?

I'm not sure you are aware of it, but the moment ISIS fell apart, Muslims, generally, stopped talking about global Jihad. We can kill fascism with force. We have done so repeatedly, with success. I think it's the way to go in the case of Hamas as well.

You don’t have to excuse Hamas. I don’t. But if your answer to terrorism is to flatten neighborhoods and declare that any alternative is naïve, then your real goal isn’t peace. It’s dominance.

I'm fine with dominance. As long as the dominance comes with respect for human rights and democracy

Yes, of course, the free and democratic western powers were just as bad as Hitlers Germany or communism under the thumb of USSR. <- sarcasm

And no, we’re not just “different.” You’ve chosen to normalize civilian suffering as a price worth paying. I haven’t.

Dude. You're the one normalizing civilian suffereing. Not me. You're the Hamas apologist. You've come up with no solution in getting rid of Hamas. Which makes me think you don't want to get rid of them.


Hamas ideology is on par with Nazi Germany. Arguably it's the same ideology. Via Italy, Turkey and first Napoleon the thirds France. The fascist way of thinking is very seductive. Which is why it's so damn hard to combat.

At no point has fascism ever been defeated by nice words. In every case it was was ultimately defeated with violence. That's the only language (Islamo-)fascists understand. These fascist ideologies were all removed at great cost of civilian human lives. Because fascists tend to view any life as expendible. They're complete bullshit to defeat. But worth it. I think.

I get the impression you would label any action against Hamas as war crimes. That's just my impression of you. Yes, I think you are a Hamas apologist. You seem to oppose any method with which to disempower Hamas.

 

[ZiprHead]

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?

That Egypt has been pretending to crack down.

Floods and bombs: This is how Egypt handled Hamas’ smuggling tunnels – www.israelhayom.com

For two weeks, Egypt has been stepping up its rhetoric with Israel, warning against an influx of Gazan refugees arriving in the Sinai Peninsula. Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi lamented what he said was a lack of...

www.israelhayom.com

As such, el-Sissi dealt a great blow to Hamas. Since his rise to power, approximately 1,900 tunnels have been destroyed.

Egypt did not hold back: the tunnels were shelled from the air, destroyed with controlled explosions on the ground, and flooded with sewage water or water pumped directly from the Mediterranean Sea. Some reports said even chemical substances were used, which, if true, turned the tunnels into death traps.

Such reports embarrassed Cairo, and an official was quick to accuse Hamas of transporting chemical weapons to terror groups in Sinai.

October 2014 saw another turn in the war on the tunnels. Thirty-three Egyptian soldiers were killed in an ISIS terror attack, and as far as the country's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was concerned, the die was cast.

Over the next three years, Egypt destroyed 3,000 residential buildings in Rafah near the border. Satellite footage showed entire neighborhoods turned to rubble.

A mere year later its goal was achieved. According to Arab sources, the Egyptian military managed to destroy 97% of the smuggling tunnels. After that, Cairo turned its focus to the terror groups in Sinai.

 

[DrZoidberg]

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?

That Egypt has been pretending to crack down.

Floods and bombs: This is how Egypt handled Hamas’ smuggling tunnels – www.israelhayom.com

For two weeks, Egypt has been stepping up its rhetoric with Israel, warning against an influx of Gazan refugees arriving in the Sinai Peninsula. Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi lamented what he said was a lack of...

www.israelhayom.com

As such, el-Sissi dealt a great blow to Hamas. Since his rise to power, approximately 1,900 tunnels have been destroyed.

Egypt did not hold back: the tunnels were shelled from the air, destroyed with controlled explosions on the ground, and flooded with sewage water or water pumped directly from the Mediterranean Sea. Some reports said even chemical substances were used, which, if true, turned the tunnels into death traps.

Such reports embarrassed Cairo, and an official was quick to accuse Hamas of transporting chemical weapons to terror groups in Sinai.

October 2014 saw another turn in the war on the tunnels. Thirty-three Egyptian soldiers were killed in an ISIS terror attack, and as far as the country's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was concerned, the die was cast.

Over the next three years, Egypt destroyed 3,000 residential buildings in Rafah near the border. Satellite footage showed entire neighborhoods turned to rubble.

A mere year later its goal was achieved. According to Arab sources, the Egyptian military managed to destroy 97% of the smuggling tunnels. After that, Cairo turned its focus to the terror groups in Sinai.

Egypt is strongly Islamic. And as such they can't openly support Israel. But they do. What Egypt (ie the Al Sisi regime) wants is stability. They know that they only hope for peace and stability in Israel/Palestine is if Israel is in charge. So they support Israel. Any support for Hamas (or Palestinians at this point) will just lead to perpetual war