Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[NoHolyCows]

Gaza has, since PA and then Hamas, took over been a dysfunctional shit show.

If the Gaza administration is a dysfunctional shit show during peace time, why would they now during a war, have any hope of accurately calculating who died.

Gaza is now overrun by the IDF. Making admin harder.

There's plenty of evidence that Hamas has been manipulating numbers.

There's been evidence that Hamas has been aquiring journalist accreditation for fighters just to manipulate the data of dead journalists.

Any Hamas official, is also a Hamas fighter.

The UNRWA aid administrators are Hamas fighters, some of which took part of the 7/10 attacks.

Any Hamas fighter, the moment they hit the ground, is made into a civilian casualty statistic.

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Another factor is that Gaza has no legal entry or exit point. They haven't had that for many years. Any entry or exit will therefore be undocumented. Making it impossible to know who lives there.

I have a Palestinian friend who told me how their family did. This was in 2015. They'd go to Egypt, go overland in a smuggler car, bribe border guards, and enter. They had to do this every time. In or out. They said it was safe. But just incredibly annoying.

My point is that there was no way, before 7/10 for Hamas to ever know who is actually living in Gaza. All they ever could do was guesstimate.

The medical system is not working now. There's no medical infrastructure with this information

You say Gaza has always been a dysfunctional shit show, so why trust its casualty numbers now. But here’s the problem with that framing: you’re using Gaza’s poverty, isolation, and destroyed infrastructure – conditions imposed in large part by the blockade and repeated bombardments – as proof that its people can’t even count their dead. That’s not an argument. That’s dehumanization masquerading as skepticism.

You say “there’s plenty of evidence Hamas manipulates numbers,” but you don’t cite any. You mention fighters getting journalist accreditation to pad dead journalist counts. Where’s your evidence? Because every major strike killing journalists has been confirmed by their employers and international press organizations. Are Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, and NBC all in on Hamas’ scheme?

You claim “any Hamas official is also a fighter.” That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda designed to erase the category of civilian altogether. Under international law, a civil administrator is not a combatant unless directly engaged in hostilities. Calling them fighters doesn’t make it true – it just justifies killing them in your mind.

You say UNRWA staff are Hamas fighters, some of whom took part in October 7th. Israeli intelligence alleged some staff involvement, but you generalize that to the entire organization, whose aid convoys are coordinated with Israel daily. If you actually cared about civilian welfare, you wouldn’t cheer the destruction of the only institution providing food, shelter, and education to children in Gaza.

You argue that Hamas “both lowballs and overshoots” death counts. Which is it? You’re claiming their numbers are too low and too high in the same breath to avoid acknowledging that mass death is happening. That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual evasion.

You say Gaza has no legal entry or exit, so no one knows who lives there. Yet the population is registered by UNRWA, Israel, and Egypt for aid, border permits, and family reunification tracking. Your anecdote about a friend smuggling through Rafah doesn’t erase the fact that population data is well established. It just shows how desperate people are under siege.

Finally, you say the medical system has collapsed so casualty counts are meaningless. But you ignore that the numbers are compiled not just by hospitals but by civil defense crews recovering bodies from rubble, by international aid organizations, and by satellite evidence of mass graves. Israel itself has never denied mass casualties – it just blames Hamas.

The reality is this: dismissing every death count as “just made up” is comforting if you don’t want to face the moral implications of what’s being done in Gaza. But bodies don’t vanish because you question paperwork. Parents burying their children aren’t statistics to them. They’re the final proof.

Because in the end, this isn’t about whether Hamas counts perfectly. It’s about the fact that there are too many bodies to count.

NHC

 

[DrZoidberg]

Gaza has, since PA and then Hamas, took over been a dysfunctional shit show.

If the Gaza administration is a dysfunctional shit show during peace time, why would they now during a war, have any hope of accurately calculating who died.

Gaza is now overrun by the IDF. Making admin harder.

There's plenty of evidence that Hamas has been manipulating numbers.

There's been evidence that Hamas has been aquiring journalist accreditation for fighters just to manipulate the data of dead journalists.

Any Hamas official, is also a Hamas fighter.

The UNRWA aid administrators are Hamas fighters, some of which took part of the 7/10 attacks.

Any Hamas fighter, the moment they hit the ground, is made into a civilian casualty statistic.

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Another factor is that Gaza has no legal entry or exit point. They haven't had that for many years. Any entry or exit will therefore be undocumented. Making it impossible to know who lives there.

I have a Palestinian friend who told me how their family did. This was in 2015. They'd go to Egypt, go overland in a smuggler car, bribe border guards, and enter. They had to do this every time. In or out. They said it was safe. But just incredibly annoying.

My point is that there was no way, before 7/10 for Hamas to ever know who is actually living in Gaza. All they ever could do was guesstimate.

The medical system is not working now. There's no medical infrastructure with this information

You say Gaza has always been a dysfunctional shit show, so why trust its casualty numbers now.

I don't. I don't trust any numbers.

But here’s the problem with that framing: you’re using Gaza’s poverty, isolation, and destroyed infrastructure – conditions imposed in large part by the blockade and repeated bombardments – as proof that its people can’t even count their dead.

Gaza is poor because Hamas cares more about maintaining control over it than the wellbeing of Gazans. They're willing to murder and terrorise any Gazan to maintain control. They're a truly vile, evil and psychopathic regime.

And have support by expat Palestinians. Which truly is mind blowing. Resistance to Hamas is low. Because Palestinians have a tribal thinking and do not criticise any organisation working for the destruction of Israel. Making it easy for an organisation like Hamas to control Gaza... no matter how much crazy, psychopathic shit they do to their fellow Palestinians. Palestinians seem to be too poisoned by hate of Israel to prioritise a sane government dedicated to their own welfare. That's the tragic reality of this conflict

That’s not an argument. That’s dehumanization masquerading as skepticism.

Adjective soup. You write as if you're a spoken word poet preparing to take to the stage.

You say “there’s plenty of evidence Hamas manipulates numbers,” but you don’t cite any. You mention fighters getting journalist accreditation to pad dead journalist counts. Where’s your evidence? Because every major strike killing journalists has been confirmed by their employers and international press organizations. Are Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, and NBC all in on Hamas’ scheme?

Journalists write what information they can get. People are interested. There's very little verifiable information. So they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pay attention to who they are quoting when presenting numbers.

There's a relationship between the data the journalist is using and what narrative the article is spinning.

You claim “any Hamas official is also a fighter.” That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda designed to erase the category of civilian altogether.

You're a loony. Hamas is a military islamofascist regime. They do not separate civilian from fighter. They follow no ethical code. They respect no one. They don't care about any lives.

They're also clinging to power in Gaza using terror and violence.

Stop being a tool of fascism

Under international law, a civil administrator is not a combatant unless directly engaged in hostilities. Calling them fighters doesn’t make it true – it just justifies killing them in your mind.

Hamas doesn't give a fuck about international law.

In the 7/10 attack Hamas used systematic mass rape as a weapon of war.

Do you seriously think Hamas would give any power in Gaza to anyone who wasn't a 100% loyal fighter?

You say UNRWA staff are Hamas fighters, some of whom took part in October 7th. Israeli intelligence alleged some staff involvement, but you generalize that to the entire organization, whose aid convoys are coordinated with Israel daily.

No. Early on in the conflict IDF sent the UN intel on verified Hamas fighters who took part in the 7/10 attack, who then were the civilian Hamas officials in charge of distributing UN aid.

That's when the UN shut down aid deliveries to Gaza. They refused to continue until those officials were replaced. Hamas was then unable to find a civilian Hamas official who the IDF didn't have verifiable evidence was directly involved in the 7/10 attacks. They eventually managed to sort this out. No, the evidence IDF presented was not made public. But the UN response made headlines, back then. It must have been true.

IDF has since managed to find information on that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas, and in practice a wing of the Hamas government. They did not make the information publicly available. That's when Israel shut down all aid into Gaza and decided to become the sole aid agency delivering aid to Gaza. Because they judge that other aid organizations are unable to control who gets aid, ie Hamas are in control of the aid.

If you actually cared about civilian welfare, you wouldn’t cheer the destruction of the only institution providing food, shelter, and education to children in Gaza.

Who is cheering? Not me.

You argue that Hamas “both lowballs and overshoots” death counts. Which is it?

Its both

You’re claiming their numbers are too low and too high in the same breath to avoid acknowledging that mass death is happening. That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual evasion.

No. Its acknowledging the reality. Hamas has no method with which to collect accurate information. They're just pulling numbers out of their ass

You say Gaza has no legal entry or exit, so no one knows who lives there. Yet the population is registered by UNRWA, Israel, and Egypt for aid, border permits, and family reunification tracking.

Yeah. Best efforts. Still not particularly accurate

Your anecdote about a friend smuggling through Rafah doesn’t erase the fact that population data is well established. It just shows how desperate people are under siege.

If you think the data is well established, that just means you don't care about reality. That makes it hard to have a serious conversation with you

Finally, you say the medical system has collapsed so casualty counts are meaningless. But you ignore that the numbers are compiled not just by hospitals but by civil defense crews recovering bodies from rubble, by international aid organizations, and by satellite evidence of mass graves. Israel itself has never denied mass casualties – it just blames Hamas.

I never said casualty counts are meaningless. There's just wide error margins

The reality is this: dismissing every death count as “just made up” is comforting if you don’t want to face the moral implications of what’s being done in Gaza. But bodies don’t vanish because you question paperwork. Parents burying their children aren’t statistics to them. They’re the final proof.

No, that's not why. Try having another guess

Because in the end, this isn’t about whether Hamas counts perfectly. It’s about the fact that there are too many bodies to count.

NHC

Which is a tragedy. One dead person is a horrific tragedy.

Let's just hope Israel wins this war ASAP. So more people won't die

 

[NoHolyCows]

Gaza has, since PA and then Hamas, took over been a dysfunctional shit show.

If the Gaza administration is a dysfunctional shit show during peace time, why would they now during a war, have any hope of accurately calculating who died.

Gaza is now overrun by the IDF. Making admin harder.

There's plenty of evidence that Hamas has been manipulating numbers.

There's been evidence that Hamas has been aquiring journalist accreditation for fighters just to manipulate the data of dead journalists.

Any Hamas official, is also a Hamas fighter.

The UNRWA aid administrators are Hamas fighters, some of which took part of the 7/10 attacks.

Any Hamas fighter, the moment they hit the ground, is made into a civilian casualty statistic.

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Another factor is that Gaza has no legal entry or exit point. They haven't had that for many years. Any entry or exit will therefore be undocumented. Making it impossible to know who lives there.

I have a Palestinian friend who told me how their family did. This was in 2015. They'd go to Egypt, go overland in a smuggler car, bribe border guards, and enter. They had to do this every time. In or out. They said it was safe. But just incredibly annoying.

My point is that there was no way, before 7/10 for Hamas to ever know who is actually living in Gaza. All they ever could do was guesstimate.

The medical system is not working now. There's no medical infrastructure with this information

You say Gaza has always been a dysfunctional shit show, so why trust its casualty numbers now.

I don't. I don't trust any numbers.

But here’s the problem with that framing: you’re using Gaza’s poverty, isolation, and destroyed infrastructure – conditions imposed in large part by the blockade and repeated bombardments – as proof that its people can’t even count their dead.

Gaza is poor because Hamas cares more about maintaining control over it than the wellbeing of Gazans. They're willing to murder and terrorise any Gazan to maintain control. They're a truly vile, evil and psychopathic regime.

And have support by expat Palestinians. Which truly is mind blowing. Resistance to Hamas is low. Because Palestinians have a tribal thinking and do not criticise any organisation working for the destruction of Israel. Making it easy for an organisation like Hamas to control Gaza... no matter how much crazy, psychopathic shit they do to their fellow Palestinians. Palestinians seem to be too poisoned by hate of Israel to prioritise a sane government dedicated to their own welfare. That's the tragic reality of this conflict

That’s not an argument. That’s dehumanization masquerading as skepticism.

Adjective soup. You write as if you're a spoken word poet preparing to take to the stage.

You say “there’s plenty of evidence Hamas manipulates numbers,” but you don’t cite any. You mention fighters getting journalist accreditation to pad dead journalist counts. Where’s your evidence? Because every major strike killing journalists has been confirmed by their employers and international press organizations. Are Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, and NBC all in on Hamas’ scheme?

Journalists write what information they can get. People are interested. There's very little verifiable information. So they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pay attention to who they are quoting when presenting numbers.

There's a relationship between the data the journalist is using and what narrative the article is spinning.

You claim “any Hamas official is also a fighter.” That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda designed to erase the category of civilian altogether.

You're a loony. Hamas is a military islamofascist regime. They do not separate civilian from fighter. They follow no ethical code. They respect no one. They don't care about any lives.

They're also clinging to power in Gaza using terror and violence.

Stop being a tool of fascism

Under international law, a civil administrator is not a combatant unless directly engaged in hostilities. Calling them fighters doesn’t make it true – it just justifies killing them in your mind.

Hamas doesn't give a fuck about international law.

In the 7/10 attack Hamas used systematic mass rape as a weapon of war.

Do you seriously think Hamas would give any power in Gaza to anyone who wasn't a 100% loyal fighter?

You say UNRWA staff are Hamas fighters, some of whom took part in October 7th. Israeli intelligence alleged some staff involvement, but you generalize that to the entire organization, whose aid convoys are coordinated with Israel daily.

No. Early on in the conflict IDF sent the UN intel on verified Hamas fighters who took part in the 7/10 attack, who then were the civilian Hamas officials in charge of distributing UN aid.

That's when the UN shut down aid deliveries to Gaza. They refused to continue until those officials were replaced. Hamas was then unable to find a civilian Hamas official who the IDF didn't have verifiable evidence was directly involved in the 7/10 attacks. They eventually managed to sort this out. No, the evidence IDF presented was not made public. But the UN response made headlines, back then. It must have been true.

IDF has since managed to find information on that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas, and in practice a wing of the Hamas government. They did not make the information publicly available. That's when Israel shut down all aid into Gaza and decided to become the sole aid agency delivering aid to Gaza. Because they judge that other aid organizations are unable to control who gets aid, ie Hamas are in control of the aid.

If you actually cared about civilian welfare, you wouldn’t cheer the destruction of the only institution providing food, shelter, and education to children in Gaza.

Who is cheering? Not me.

You argue that Hamas “both lowballs and overshoots” death counts. Which is it?

Its both

You’re claiming their numbers are too low and too high in the same breath to avoid acknowledging that mass death is happening. That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual evasion.

No. Its acknowledging the reality. Hamas has no method with which to collect accurate information. They're just pulling numbers out of their ass

You say Gaza has no legal entry or exit, so no one knows who lives there. Yet the population is registered by UNRWA, Israel, and Egypt for aid, border permits, and family reunification tracking.

Yeah. Best efforts. Still not particularly accurate

Your anecdote about a friend smuggling through Rafah doesn’t erase the fact that population data is well established. It just shows how desperate people are under siege.

If you think the data is well established, that just means you don't care about reality. That makes it hard to have a serious conversation with you

Finally, you say the medical system has collapsed so casualty counts are meaningless. But you ignore that the numbers are compiled not just by hospitals but by civil defense crews recovering bodies from rubble, by international aid organizations, and by satellite evidence of mass graves. Israel itself has never denied mass casualties – it just blames Hamas.

I never said casualty counts are meaningless. There's just wide error margins

The reality is this: dismissing every death count as “just made up” is comforting if you don’t want to face the moral implications of what’s being done in Gaza. But bodies don’t vanish because you question paperwork. Parents burying their children aren’t statistics to them. They’re the final proof.

No, that's not why. Try having another guess

Because in the end, this isn’t about whether Hamas counts perfectly. It’s about the fact that there are too many bodies to count.

NHC

Which is a tragedy. One dead person is a horrific tragedy.

Let's just hope Israel wins this war ASAP. So more people won't die

You say you don’t trust any numbers. Fine. But understand what that really means: if you refuse to believe any data, you leave yourself with nothing except assumptions shaped by your own fears and loyalties. That’s not realism. It’s intellectual surrender dressed up as skepticism.

You blame Gaza’s dysfunction entirely on Hamas, ignoring the blockade, bombings, economic strangulation, and decades of occupation that created the vacuum Hamas exploited. Yes, Hamas is brutal and corrupt. But your narrative pretends they emerged in a void, not in a cage built by external powers and filled with despair.

You brush off the accusation of dehumanization with “adjective soup.” It’s not poetry. It’s calling out the mindset that erases real people into collective blame. When you write off two million people as tribal, hate-poisoned sheep unworthy of sympathy, you’re not analyzing. You’re just justifying indifference to their deaths.

You say journalists are scraping the barrel for data, implying they’re complicit in falsehoods. But you provide no evidence that major newsrooms are inflating deaths. You dismiss their verification processes because acknowledging them would undercut your claim that no one knows anything.

You call me loony for distinguishing fighters from civilians. Under international law, that distinction isn’t optional. Hamas ignoring it doesn’t mean Israel can. Otherwise, we abandon every principle of proportionality and non-combatant immunity. You call that naive. I call it the line between war and slaughter.

You bring up 10/7 rapes to prove Hamas’s evil. No argument there. But war crimes by Hamas don’t erase legal obligations from Israel. That’s the foundation of humanitarian law: you are bound to it even when your enemy isn’t.

You cite unverified Israeli intelligence about UNRWA infiltration as proof the entire organization is a Hamas front. Meanwhile, Israel itself continues to coordinate with UNRWA for aid distribution even during this war. Your narrative overwrites reality to preserve a clean villain without complication.

You say “who is cheering” the destruction of UNRWA. You are. Every time you call them a Hamas wing without evidence, you lay rhetorical groundwork to justify targeting the only institution feeding children under siege.

You claim Hamas both overcounts and undercounts deaths. That’s not logic. That’s an all-purpose excuse to deny any number they produce, no matter what it is. It’s not intellectual rigor. It’s an escape hatch from moral responsibility.

You argue Gaza’s population data is inaccurate because of smuggling and border chaos. Of course it’s imperfect. All warzone data is. But you treat imperfection as license to dismiss all quantification, because counting deaths risks confronting what you’ve chosen not to see.

You concede casualty counts have wide error margins, then use that uncertainty to imply there may be no mass death at all. But error margins don’t erase the baseline. They just acknowledge warzone reporting isn’t precise to the last digit.

Finally, you say “One dead person is a horrific tragedy. Let’s hope Israel wins ASAP so more people won’t die.” But if one death is too many, why cheer a strategy guaranteeing thousands more? That’s not hope. That’s just resignation wrapped in moral theater.

Because in the end, refusing to trust any number is comforting only if the alternative is facing what those numbers represent: an entire population ground between rockets and bombs, and the fact that no ideology justifies burying children under rubble.

That’s not spoken word poetry. That’s reality. You don’t have to like how it sounds to admit it’s true.

NHC

 

[Gospel]

And you have fallen for the Hamas line. "Amount of civilian suffering" as a yardstick is surrender to whoever is the most evil. Make your own people suffer to deceive the world is right out of the playbook.

You're misrepresenting the argument. As usual. Acknowledging the scale of civilian suffering doesn't mean falling for Hamas propaganda, it means recognizing the real-world consequences of military actions. The idea that prioritizing civilian lives is "surrender" is all in your imagination.

Yes, avoiding civilian casualties does make it harder to root out Hamas, but that’s the burden of fighting asymmetric warfare while claiming moral high ground. You can wage war with restraint without falling for your enemy's narrative. Pretending those goals are mutually exclusive is how atrocities get normalized.

Completely nonresponsive.

Goodhart's law. In practice you reward bad acts on the part of Hamas.

Loren, quoting Goodhart’s Law like it's some mic-drop moment doesn’t change the reality on the ground, it just gives your apathy a vocabulary. Civilian suffering isn’t a manipulated metric; it’s a moral alarm. The idea that we should ignore that alarm because “bad people might exploit it” is the same logic white supremacists use when they dismiss racism statistics by saying, “Well, anyone can fake oppression for attention.” It’s a way to invalidate real harm by accusing the harmed of weaponizing their pain.

If someone burns down your house, and you scream for help, this line of thinking would say, “They’re just using their victimhood to control the narrative.” That’s not analysis, that’s deflection. You don’t get to pretend to care about truth and justice while treating actual human lives as disposable noise in your ideological spreadsheet.

Calling it moral alarm is not a rebuttal at all.

You are using dead bodies as a metric of wrong. Therefore they respond by making more dead bodies so you'll apply pressure to Israel.

You’re not actually addressing the argument, just reframing it to avoid accountability. Saying I’m “using dead bodies as a metric” ignores the main issue: we’re talking about human lives, not propaganda tools. You’re so focused on how Hamas might exploit civilian deaths that you’ve dehumanized those civilians entirely. By your bullshit, the mere fact that a bad actor benefits from outrage means we should shut our eyes to the outrage itself. That’s moral cowardice, not clarity. It's the same excuse white supremacists use to dismiss police brutality 'Oh, they’re just stoking outrage to manipulate the system.' You’re not standing for principle; you're rationalizing indifference. When the moral cost of war becomes inconvenient, your response is to blame the people pointing it out. That’s not analysis. That’s just white supremacy garbage dressed up as strategy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You realize you are spewing implausible reasons without regard to a single fact.

Are you saying any of those causes of malnutrition deaths are not real???

You spew conjectures.

You are evading the fundamental issue: that death by malnutrition doesn't need to be caused by a blockade, thus is not proof that the blockade is causing starvation.

So far we have Hamas claiming 60. But, strangely, not pictures of anywhere near that many and they resorted to AI to produce one. That says they don't have real ones. Same thing as always--bunch of shitty evidence with no good evidence generally means false.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Under normal conditions the actions of the soldier who fired would be in the insane category. But everyone on the Israeli side seems to regard it as an understandable mistake--which only makes sense if this was a rare real one amongst a sea of fakes. In other situations Israel has definitely condemned misdeeds, so it's not a coverup.

Translation:

"It's not a coverup; We know this from the fact that the people who might be covering it up, and their allies and supporters, all seem to think it's fine and dandy".

The point is they have a history of admitting when their people fuck up. Your argument would be valid if they had a history of covering things up, but they don't.

How would anyone know about successful coverups? They have a history of unsuccessful coverups because they only admit fuckups when they are caught.

Coverups don't last forever.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you keep pointing to Israeli actions to explain Hamas you are saying that 10/7 was justified and thus that all the horrors of it were justified.

Now you're being blatantly dishonest.

I have presented no argument that makes the case that the 10/7 terror attack was justified. I have said it was predictable that Hamas would use terrorism in an attempt to force Israel to make changes in policy. I said it was predictable that when Israel supported Hamas in order to weaken the PLO, that decision would eventually bite Israel in the ass. I have said it was predictable that Gazans would resent the State that built and maintains the walls surrounding them, the naval blockade that prevents aid from reaching them, and kills people on the street and children sleeping in their beds with impunity, and that the resentment makes it easier for Hamas to gather recruits.

If 10/7 is entirely because of what Israel did then it's inherently a justified action.

And when you say the response to 10/7 should be to remove the things you blame, you again are indirectly saying it's justified.

You "blame" Hamas but want no consequences, that's not really blame.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Pretty simple really. You and your ilk keep complaining Hamas et al use Gazans as human shields. What do you expect to happen when you support them all being locked up together in a tiny area with one of the highest population densities in the world? Let the innocent Gazans go free to Israel proper. Then no more human shields.

And when the war is over what happens? They would be executed if they were to return to Gaza.

Why would they need to be returned to Gaza?

So what becomes of them? Give them citizenship and Hamas gets it's genocide after all?

So you are assuming guilt therefore they belong in Gaza. You must be clairvoyant.

No, simply not utterly blind.

You have this fantasy of coexistence that none of the people there think is going to happen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am asking for your evidence that something you say happened really did happen, and that it happened often enough often enough to justify the killing of barefoot shirtless men trying to surrender to IDF soldiers in Gaza.

You have provided no evidence that supports your claims, despite repeated requests. So at this point I'm calling shenanigans.

Just look at the discussion of why the hostages got shot.

I am asking for your evidence that something you say happened really did happen.

I am also asking for your evidence that this thing you say happened, happened often enough to justify the killing of barefoot shirtless men trying to surrender to IDF soldiers.

It's already been posted--the discussion of why the solider made the mistake.

If you had any interest in getting your facts straight you could have done a bit or research, not just made up stories about what happened to Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim, and Samer Talalka. You would know it wasn't just one soldier who opened fire. You would know Haim's death is especially appalling.

You might not know it was a war crime. You don't seem to be able to identify those. But you at least would know how easy it is to spot your bullshit.

I'm saying it would be hard for Israel to do and they would have no reason to, it would be easy for Hamas to do and very beneficial. Which explanation makes more sense? Don't blindly decide it must be Israel because they're the bad guys, look at which scenario makes more sense.

You are saying it would be hard for Israeli snipers to kill Palestinians, or to set up video surveillance of the bombed out areas they control? Don't be ridiculous.

Pretty hard for snipers to be set up in hostile territory. Someone would note the shots and backtrack the snipers. You can snipe from the wilderness, sniping from within a hostile population is very difficult. Look at what actually happens when someone tries it--they're always promptly backtracked even by an unarmed population. (Although said unarmed population will not engage they can still point.) And we are to believe that Israel does it successfully over and over? And why are there no other kills attributed to said "snipers"?

Look for the answer that leaves the fewest things that don't fit.

Your rebuttal is that it's pretty hard for the IDF to set up snipers in Gaza?

I never said it was a cakewalk, but are you seriously claiming the IDF can't do something if it's "pretty hard"?

Pretty hard to set up snipers in Hamas-controlled parts of Gaza and have them slip away unnoticed. And for what, to play Dr. Evil? Because we see nothing else attributed to them.

I agree there was nothing going on that made it necessary for a sniper to shoot. I disagree that there was nothing going on that would have caused one to shoot:

Israeli Soldiers Ordered to Shoot at Unarmed Palestinians Waiting for Aid

'No Civilians. Everyone's a Terrorist': IDF Soldiers Expose Arbitrary Kilings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor

Both of these trace to Haaretz. They are not a credible source.

Haaretz is quite liberal in its editorial content, but that does not impact the accuracy of its factual reporting. It is far more credible than whatever source you use for the majority of your claims.

Why is ‘Haaretz’ consistently anti-Israel?

Embracing reports without question or proper fact-checking seems to be the standard practice.

www.jns.org

Note that other reporting on the situation said the soldiers were ordered to fire "towards" the crowd. Not "at" the crowd. That is a very important distinction--in a military context firing towards means warning shots into the air.

Is that really your argument? Hamas knows the Israelis will commit war crimes so it sets up cameras to catch IDF forces in the act?

The point is that without any contact with them we have no evidence that they're actually IDF. And it makes a hell of a lot more sense if they're Hamas.

We do have evidence. We have reporters and satellite images indicating who was in control of those parts of Gaza at the time of the killings, and we have responses from the IDF when questioned about the events.

It makes sense to you that it was Hamas' doing because Hamas is all powerful and the IDF their hapless dupes whenever it suits your argument.

The sniper claims all involve things where Israel didn't control the area.

Bullshit.

Post your evidence about the circumstances surrounding the killing of Hala Kheris and then we will talk about it.

I'm not going to waste my time if all you're going to do is make up stories and tell lies.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/hala-khreis-white-flag-shooting-gaza-cmd-intl

Note there's not even a claim that it was Israel, it's just being treated as a must-be-so. That's how it always is--simply assume it must be Israel. No sighting of the shooter, no ongoing situation to make a mistake.

The thing is we have some supposed Israeli attacks on the people moving south that make no sense for Israeli weapons, but make perfect sense as roadside bombs by Hamas. But you refuse to consider that Hamas is killing people for the cameras.

"Long ago"? As in, there is no evidence it has happened recently but maybe 5-10 years ago an ambulance transported a wounded man to a hospital and he might have been a member of Hamas?

No, ambulances hauling combatants to the battle, not taking the injured away. I don't even care about recent--so long as the Red Crescent doesn't change it's position there's no reason to reevaluate.

Oh, yeah, you forgot about that, didn't you? That the ambulances are notifying the IDF of their planned route of travel and waiting for the IDF to greenlight the rescue attempt but are still being killed by IDF forces along with the injured civilians they are trying to reach.

Apparently you think Israel is committing this type of war crime is also predictable.

And why do you automatically assume it's true? Plenty of other claims have been proven false.

You have no evidence I automatically assume anything is true, and quite a bit of evidence I check my sources and don't use the ones that post lies and exaggerations.

Did you read either of the news stories I linked to? Care to discuss them? Or are you just going to bullshit, make vague references to events you say happened, fail to support your assertions, and lie about me?

Your "news" is from Hamas.

Did you follow the links? Did you do any supplemental research? Or are you simply refusing to learn anything and justifying your ignorance by scaring yourself with thoughts of being tricked by an all powerful Hamas public relations department?

You have no source other than what Hamas wants said. It's not that they are all powerful, but that it is extremely dangerous to cross them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If Hamas actually were trying to feed the people why this:

Sada News - The Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip and the National Security warned on Thursday against dealing or cooperating, directly or indirectly, with the American organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or with any of its local or foreign agents, under any name or circumstance

Lots of ominous words but the penalty isn't spelled out.

Well, you've got us there. There is absolutely no possible reason to warn against cooperating with a foreign agency from a nation that is allied to your enemy during wartime.

No such agency has ever, in the history of warfare, been used to infiltrate spies or saboteurs, and the very idea that anyone might try to do that under cover of humanitarian assistance is unthinkable.

Geneva says the IDF gets to dictate how aid distribution works. And most people involved are locals.

But if the aid goes through the GHF rather than Hamas then Hamas can't use it to control the people and to make payroll.

I answered your question.

You didn't even address my answer.

I showed it didn't matter. Geneva allows the IDF to dictate how aid is provided.

But you're going to blame Israel if they just go home and seal the border.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm saying any claim that events after 1948 are the cause of the conflict is inherently wrong.

Let's both calm down a bit. Forget for a moment, if you can, your hatreds; and let's just review logic, common-sense and English language.

(A) True or False: Most complex situations have multiple causes.
(I'll assume you succeed in answering this question correctly. If not, I give up.)

(B) True or False. It is usually wrong-headed to write "THE cause." More appropriate is "Some of the causes."

(C) We can now rewrite the above sentence to have the form

"It is wrong to claim that some of the causes of the XXX occurred after 1948."​

I've replaced "conflict" with "XXX" in the (vain?) hope that you can overlook your prejudices and hatreds long enough to treat this as purely a problem in English composition.

I guess we'll agree to disagree on the truthiness of that statement, but at least it is more sensical now.

The war started in 1948. What has changed since that would make those conditions (remember, the only condition was the existence of Israel--war was instantly declared before it did anything) no longer result in war? Whether you can find additional causes since does not change this basic problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel was hit by 21 000 rockets over the past month.

These rockets don't make it into the news. Because it's not news. It just keeps going.. on and on and on. And has, with short breaks, for decades.

And this is what people keep ignoring.

News reports the unusual. Not the horrific normal.

Your news is IDF “news”.

Fabricating a rocket attack over a built up area is... let's call it... difficult.

They can, and are, tracked by a multitude of international satelites. Many are publicly funded and accessible through any university. These satellites track almost anything moving through the air.

Here's a privately funded app, using publicly available sources, tracking rocket attacks as if it is the weather. Why? Because this is a basic and necessary service in Israel. This is just the reality of living in Israel. And has been for decades. This service is a practical tool, and not propaganda.

Rocket Alerts in Israel

Real-time rocket alerts in Israel

rocketalert.live

Is that acceptable as a source?

Thank you for the information. An alert may represent more than one rocket. The data for the alerts is taken from the IDF.

Of course it's taken from the IDF, they're the only ones with the tracking to plot impact points. Why does that matter one iota? If they were putting out bogus stuff the people would soon catch on--rocket alerts aren't just a casual thing, they're a dash for the shelters thing, complete with timer. Most alerts will turn into either a boom on the ground or a boom in the sky when the rocket is intercepted.

Or are you just trying to create doubt where there isn't any?

 

[Arctish]

When you keep pointing to Israeli actions to explain Hamas you are saying that 10/7 was justified and thus that all the horrors of it were justified.

Now you're being blatantly dishonest.

I have presented no argument that makes the case that the 10/7 terror attack was justified. I have said it was predictable that Hamas would use terrorism in an attempt to force Israel to make changes in policy. I said it was predictable that when Israel supported Hamas in order to weaken the PLO, that decision would eventually bite Israel in the ass. I have said it was predictable that Gazans would resent the State that built and maintains the walls surrounding them, the naval blockade that prevents aid from reaching them, and kills people on the street and children sleeping in their beds with impunity, and that the resentment makes it easier for Hamas to gather recruits.

If 10/7 is entirely because of what Israel did then it's inherently a justified action.

And when you say the response to 10/7 should be to remove the things you blame, you again are indirectly saying it's justified.

You "blame" Hamas but want no consequences, that's not really blame.

I told you long ago that I'm not going to pretend I think you're stupid or a little kid who wandered into a discussion the adults were having. And while I understand you are prone to either-or, black/white, yes/no thinking, you have been discussing issues with people who don't share your mindset long enough for you to at least grasp the concept of "better or worse".

There are things that can be done to make a situation better, and things that will make it worse. I believe we should always choose the "make things better" option.

If 10/7 is entirely because of what Israel did (that's a mighty big "if"), the terrorism of 10/7 is not therefore justified. I don't believe terrorism is ever justifiable. It's murder and destruction aimed at the most vulnerable and least culpable members of a society. It makes things worse, usually for people who deserve that "worse" the least.

And honestly, Loren, you can take that "[y]ou "blame" Hamas but want no consequences" and stuff it right back up the orifice you pulled it from. Stop lying about my posts and my opinions.

 

[laughing dog]

You are evading the fundamental issue: that death by malnutrition doesn't need to be caused by a blockade, thus is not proof that the blockade is causing starvation.

Malnutrition is the result of a lack of food. Isreal blockaded food.

You’ve got no evidence but conjecture. Regardless of your opinion of the quality of the evidence is not a rebuttal but a denial. One case of malnutrition from the blockade, even if it does not cause death, is one too many.

 

[laughing dog]

Israel was hit by 21 000 rockets over the past month.

These rockets don't make it into the news. Because it's not news. It just keeps going.. on and on and on. And has, with short breaks, for decades.

And this is what people keep ignoring.

News reports the unusual. Not the horrific normal.

Your news is IDF “news”.

Fabricating a rocket attack over a built up area is... let's call it... difficult.

They can, and are, tracked by a multitude of international satelites. Many are publicly funded and accessible through any university. These satellites track almost anything moving through the air.

Here's a privately funded app, using publicly available sources, tracking rocket attacks as if it is the weather. Why? Because this is a basic and necessary service in Israel. This is just the reality of living in Israel. And has been for decades. This service is a practical tool, and not propaganda.

Rocket Alerts in Israel

Real-time rocket alerts in Israel

rocketalert.live

Is that acceptable as a source?

Thank you for the information. An alert may represent more than one rocket. The data for the alerts is taken from the IDF.

Of course it's taken from the IDF, they're the only ones with the tracking to plot impact points. Why does that matter one iota? If they were putting out bogus stuff the people would soon catch on--rocket alerts aren't just a casual thing, they're a dash for the shelters thing, complete with timer. Most alerts will turn into either a boom on the ground or a boom in the sky when the rocket is intercepted.

Just “most”?

Or are you just trying to create doubt where there isn't any?

Just pointing out the IDF - a group you claim is inaccurate - is the source.

 

[Arctish]

I am asking for your evidence that something you say happened really did happen, and that it happened often enough often enough to justify the killing of barefoot shirtless men trying to surrender to IDF soldiers in Gaza.

You have provided no evidence that supports your claims, despite repeated requests. So at this point I'm calling shenanigans.

Just look at the discussion of why the hostages got shot.

I am asking for your evidence that something you say happened really did happen.

I am also asking for your evidence that this thing you say happened, happened often enough to justify the killing of barefoot shirtless men trying to surrender to IDF soldiers.

It's already been posted--the discussion of why the solider made the mistake.

Link to it.

And link to the source that says only one soldier fired.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You keep wrapping your evasions in philosophical language, but it’s just a shell game. You’re not clarifying the data; you’re dismissing it wholesale because it’s inconvenient to your position. You say you’re treating Gaza’s death toll as “unknown,” but you’re not treating it as unknown – you’re treating it as irrelevant. Every time the figures are raised, you pivot to claiming they’re fabricated or worthless, yet you never present an alternative accounting, only blanket dismissal. That’s not skepticism; it’s deliberate fog.

There's nothing to clarify, all along I have been saying we don't know as every source failed badly. Which is completely separate from the fact that I'm also treating it as basically irrelevant--proportionality is measured in combatants vs civilians, not in total numbers. War continues, casualties continue, duh!

You argue “some errors = the whole dataset is untrustworthy,” but that’s not logic, it’s motivated reasoning. Wartime death counts are always imperfect, from Dresden to Aleppo to Mosul. Nobody requires zero error to establish human toll. Your demand for absolute certainty is just a backdoor to absolve Israel of any responsibility by insisting no number is high enough unless it’s been hand-counted under ideal lab conditions in a war zone. You’re setting a standard no conflict in human history could meet.

Once again, you fail to understand. Errors in raw data are to be expected and it would mean nothing. Blatant errors in verified data make it clear it wasn't verified.

You then hide behind the idea that it’s “not your job to find solutions.” Fine. But if your entire posture is to reject every proposed ceasefire, diplomatic initiative, monitoring plan, or humanitarian corridor as unworkable, then admit it: you’re not interested in peace. You’re interested in justifying endless war. And you reveal that openly when you frame any ceasefire as a “big win for Hamas,” as though Gazan civilians are acceptable collateral to prevent Hamas from feeling emboldened. That’s not analysis. That’s moral surrender disguised as toughness.

I'm not going to reject everything. But I'm going to reject things that have failed. And I'm going to reject meaningless collections of buzzwords.

I am interested in the war ending--but ending because the hostages are returned. I see no reason for it to stop when the fundamental goal hasn't been met.

Finally, you pivot to rejecting the Arab Peace Initiative because it demands withdrawal from occupied territories and refugee rights under UN resolutions. Call it suicidal if you wish, but don’t pretend it was never a real proposal. It’s only “ludicrously stupid” to those for whom permanent occupation is the baseline. And your dismissal of it as Israel’s “suicide” exposes everything: to you, peace itself is a mortal threat if it requires equality, dignity, and land rights for Palestinians.

It was a "real" proposal as in somebody made it. It was not a proposal that could realistically be accepted.

And you fail to understand. That proposal gives Hamas the next election. The genocide follows soon thereafter. It would be the peace of the dead.

So no, this isn’t standard logic. It’s standard avoidance: dismiss the data, dismiss the solutions, dismiss the humanity of the victims, and then claim the moral high ground. That’s not truth-seeking. That’s choosing comfort over reality.

You keep failing to address what I'm actually saying.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You keep calling out “evasions” when the only one evading here is you. You cite Geneva Convention IV Article 33 as though it’s some open license to declare everything Israel does illegal. But you’re twisting its meaning beyond recognition. Collective punishment, as you know, refers to deliberately punishing civilians for acts they did not commit — executing them in retaliation, bulldozing entire towns as retribution. It does not prohibit military action against combatants just because civilians are tragically in harm’s way. Pretending otherwise isn’t moral clarity; it’s moral grandstanding.

You correctly define collective punishment but do nothing to establish that it's happening.

You also cherry-pick Protocol I’s “excessive harm” clause but ignore proportionality analysis entirely. “Excessive” is measured relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. That is the law you keep citing but refuse to grapple with, because acknowledging it undermines your entire posture of legal absolutism.

The problem is how do you measure military advantage? I'm using the closest reasonable proxy--civilian/combatant casualty ratios.

Your next move is the tired moral relativism accusation: “You’re racing to the bottom by comparing Israel to other Western armies.” No, Lauren, that’s exactly how proportionality has always been judged. You’re the one erasing legal nuance to moralise from your perch, while ignoring that your preferred standard would criminalise every single NATO or US operation in modern urban warfare. You just don’t care, because consistency isn’t your goal — condemnation is.

Once again, you have the reasoning backwards. You are taking it as a given that Israel's actions are not acceptable and thus you say I'm wrong in saying that that means all US & NATO operations are wrong by the same standard.

You then trot out the “rules only matter when your enemy ignores them” platitude, which sounds poetic but collapses under reality. You think Hamas following no laws while using hospitals and schools as shields creates no legal complexity for Israel? That the Conventions were designed for two uniformed state armies facing off on an open field? You’re moralising in a vacuum. And you know it.

And you still don't get it. In honorable war neither side uses hospitals for military purposes and nobody hits them because of that. When they get used for military purposes they get hit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You say “We only hear about the terrorist prisoners.” That’s precisely the issue. You’re relying on what you’re told by the party doing the imprisoning, ignoring that “terrorist” is a label they can slap on anyone—kids with rocks, activists posting online, journalists exposing corruption. In your framework, accusation becomes guilt. That isn’t justice. That’s authoritarianism rebranded as security.

One-sided? No--we know which ones because they're the ones that Hamas wants returned. Hamas isn't asking for the others.

Then you dismiss Mandela by calling him a terrorist. That’s not an argument. That’s rote historical amnesia. The powerful always call the powerless who resist them terrorists until they’re forced to rewrite the narrative decades later. You’re just reciting the party line of every regime that ever faced an independence movement.

He was a terrorist, but for the right cause so a lot on the left loved him. And it's not a matter of who writes the narrative--it's usually quite easy to tell them apart.

Terrorist: the intended target of the weapon is believed to be civilian in nature.
Freedom fighter: the intended target of the weapon is believed to be military or government in nature.
Look at the pattern.

Your targeting “test” collapses under its own hypocrisy. Israel’s record isn’t theoretical—it’s visible in burned-out aid convoys, medics in body bags, and children dug out of rubble. You say you won’t demand investigations because you “know there’s no way to conduct one.” That’s convenient. If you refuse to examine evidence, of course you’ll find none. Your approach isn’t truth-seeking. It’s a preemptive excuse to absolve your side no matter what.

You aren't giving any means to conduct the investigation. Hamas will lie. Israel is going to consider what they based their decision on a military secret unless there's something blatant.

Then you flip international law on its head. You argue it’s fair to assume people are combatants unless proven innocent. No. That is exactly what the Geneva Conventions exist to prohibit. The burden of proof is on the attacker to establish a military target—not on the corpse to prove it didn’t deserve to die. Your inversion of this standard isn’t just grotesque; it’s legally and morally bankrupt.

No, you still have a problem with the category "unknown". I'm saying that in a situation with that much perfidy a "civilian" label means basically nothing. Actions, not labels.

You scoff at mass grave data because “paperwork didn’t survive an airstrike.” The coldness of that logic is staggering. Entire families are being buried under collapsed homes, and your first instinct is to dismiss their deaths because Hamas didn’t submit notarized casualty forms to meet your selective standard of proof. That’s not skepticism. That’s deliberate blindness.

What in the world are you talking about???

I'm saying the biggest mass grave I recall Israel pointed to a photo of the open grave long before the IDF occupied the area.

You rewrite history by claiming the occupation began with Arab armies attacking Israel in 1948. You ignore what preceded that: land purchases riddled with evictions, British colonial partitioning against local wishes, decades of Zionist militias driving Palestinians from their homes. History didn’t start the day you choose. Violence didn’t appear in a vacuum.

The Jews bought up a lot of land from absentee landowners. Perfectly legal, why do you have a problem with it?

As for that colonial partitioning--it was against the wishes of one group, but supported by the other group. And the partition pretty much was dividing the area up with each group getting the areas they were a majority in, with some edge smoothing in both directions.

You blame Arafat for peace collapsing, ignoring the context of settlements expanding, borders tightening, and negotiations designed to produce surrender, not sovereignty. One man walking away doesn’t erase decades of structural injustice.

You keep citing irrelevancies. Arafat was offered almost everything he asked for. The sane thing to do is either accept or counteroffer. You don't walk unless the negotiation was a sham.

And your final cartoon claim that Palestinians are violent for a paycheck betrays the emptiness of your worldview. You reduce an entire people’s rage, grief, and desperation to mercenary greed. No one straps themselves into hopelessness for cash. They do it because they’ve been cornered, generation after generation, until death becomes cheaper than life.

You don't realize what it's like. You don't do what Hamas wants, what are you going to do? Hamas controls the jobs. It's a standard tactic for raising cannon fodder and the people have no realistic option but to cooperate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You say “they voted for Hamas, so they chose war” is justified. That’s collective punishment by definition. You’re holding two million people responsible for a single election under siege, where the alternative was a corrupt Fatah government propped up by the occupier. Imagine applying that standard anywhere else in the world: punishing an entire civilian population for the ballot they cast under duress. That isn’t justice. It’s retribution with a bureaucratic veneer.

No, it's the logical consequence. They chose war, they got war.

You pivot to your anecdote about parents in India crippling their children to beg, as though this horror justifies treating Palestinians as complicit in their own slaughter. It’s a grotesque analogy that reveals more about your contempt for their humanity than it does about Hamas’s cruelty. You’re essentially saying: because Hamas is evil, every child under its rule forfeits their right to life. That’s not logic. That’s collective damnation.

It's a matter of showing what horrors parents will inflict in order to survive.

You insist “history starts in 1948 with Arab invasions.” Convenient. You erase the dispossession, the expulsions, the massacres like Deir Yassin that preceded the declaration. You erase the British colonial engineering that set this up. Your history starts where it suits your narrative and ends wherever Israeli accountability might begin.

Deir Yassin--prime example of why Geneva requires fighting in uniform. Soldiers shoot at that which looks like what shoots at them.

You claim Palestinians never offer real peace. Yet Israel’s own archives confirm it walked away from negotiations while expanding settlements, moving goalposts endlessly. And when Arafat walked, you froze history there forever to avoid asking why the “peace process” was structured to preserve domination, not end it.

Where did Israel walk???

Note that refusing to make concessions for talks is not walking.

Your contempt for B’Tselem and UN data is telling. You dismiss them not because they’re wrong but because their findings inconvenience you. You never apply the same scrutiny to IDF statements or settler organizations. Your skepticism is selective, weaponized, and fundamentally dishonest.

I dismiss B'Tselem because I've seen too many of their deceptions.

And the UN is simply repeating Hamas data.

You argue that minors aren’t necessarily civilians because demographics show Hamas uses teens. That’s an admission that you’re comfortable treating all youth as potential combatants. International law says children are protected. You say demographics override that. That is not the law. That is profiling. You’ve inverted Geneva to suit your security dogma.

No. It's an indication that I consider combatant status more important than age. We deduced that they are using children based on the demographics of the dead. And since then they've indirectly admitted it on occasion.

You rationalize sniping medics, journalists, and wheelchair users by conjuring conspiracies that Hamas fakes it all. It’s the same rhetorical move as every power that kills civilians and then calls them enemy actors. You demand impossible proof for their innocence, but accept rumor and insinuation as enough for their guilt.

You continue to blindly trust everything Hamas says.

I say things are fake when by far the most logical explanation for the data is that Hamas faked it. We catch them often enough (the fakes do not need to be good to get the world to baa) that we consider fake to be a possible explanation.

And then your final claim: “They’ve always chosen war.” That’s not analysis. That’s your refusal to see their choices beyond violence. They’ve tried elections—Israel blockaded them. They tried diplomacy—Israel stalled and expanded settlements. They tried international appeals—ignored. They tried mass nonviolent protest—snipers met them at the fence. You call it a choice when it’s a corridor with every exit sealed.

Lauren, you’re not defending law. You’re defending a structure that strips agency, dignity, and humanity from an entire people, while calling it security. That’s why your worldview isn’t moral clarity. It’s moral anesthesia.

Tried elections? What election?? That's purely an internal matter, Israel doesn't control Palestinian elections.

Diplomacy? You keep acting as if it's some magic spell. There needs to be a reasonable offer. Hamas has never even offered peace, it's always been about peace for now.

Yes, snipers met them at the fence. Had they not Hamas would have used it to invade. And Hamas did use sending civilians against the fence to die as part of the preparation for 10/7.