Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[ZiprHead]

Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian farmer on his own land, in front of his father. Yes, again

It's the third time in a month that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have murdered Palestinian farmers working their own land and in front of their families.

And what proof do we have of the events?

I note "B'Tselem" so I figure it should be taken with a grain of salt. But is there anything but their words? No. Note that the article says the land is privately owned, the article does not say who owns it. I find this quite damning.

What part of "on his own land" do you not get?

You are taking his word for it, completely ignoring the issue with this article.

He has no word. He's dead.

The article says the information in the registry says the land is privately owned--that means someone looked. But note that the article does not say that the registry says he owns it. This makes it likely that reality is that he doesn't own it.

Again, "on his own land". You're twisting yourself into a pretzel to defend the defenceless.

 

[laughing dog]

IDF accepts Gaza Health Ministry death toll of over 71,000 Palestinians killed in the war

Although many international experts have accepted the Health Ministry's data as reliable, and even conservative relative to the true death toll, Israel had refused to accept the Health Ministry's count until now

www.haaretz.com

So now Israeli govt is accepting it and so will people claim Israel is anti-Semitic, too?

And we are to take the word of Haaretz as to what Israel thinks?

How about Reuters?
Israel military reported to accept death toll of around 70,000 in Gaza

Citing a briefing on Thursday with senior military officials, Israel's Ynet news website and other leading outlets reported that the military had adopted a similar estimate.
"In our estimation, around 70,000 Gazans were killed during the war, not including missing persons," Ynet cited an official as saying.
"We are currently doing the work of distinguishing between terrorists and those who were not involved," the official was quoted as saying.

BTW - This is almost 4 months old.

Note that it says that they have not accepted this.

Are you Trump? The Gaza Health Ministry says around 70,000 and the IDF agrees.

No, the IDF doesn't agree. The IDF is saying that they aren't taking a position.

The part in boldface says

And note that this is something that can not realistically be proven one way or the other. Hamas has ensured no other answers can exist, thus getting their dubious answer accepted.

Your last sentence rebuts your first sentence.

This only makes sense if your objective is legal technicalities rather than truth.

The 70,000 number is unquestionably bad. But there's no way to come up with a better answer so a known-wrong answer is going to end up in the history books. That doesn't make it the correct answer.
[/QUOTE] You sound like a Holocaust denier.

What evidence do you gave that the 70,000 estimate is “unquestionably bad”?

 

[Derec]

How about Reuters?
Israel military reported to accept death toll of around 70,000 in Gaza

Note that even Gaza (aka Hamas) Health Ministry acknowledges that a disproportionate number of fatalities have been military-age men and older teenage boys (and Hamas, PIJ etc. routinely recruit minors). The data provided by the ministry lists sex and age in their data set. I made a graph of the data released around the time of 10/2025 ceasefire.

As you can see, the female curve tapers off in the manner of the standard population pyramid. Those are mostly accidental civilian fatalities - tragic, but unavoidable in dense urban warfare, esp. when the enemy does everything possible to make matters more dangerous for their own civilians, rather than try to protect them from dangers of war.

But there are a lot of excess military-age fatalities evident in the huge bulge in the graph. In fact, males between 16 and 65 account for 50.8% of fatalities on the MOH list despite being ~25% of the population.

 

[laughing dog]

How about Reuters?
Israel military reported to accept death toll of around 70,000 in Gaza

Note that even Gaza (aka Hamas) Health Ministry acknowledges that a disproportionate number of fatalities have been military-age men and teenage boys (and Hamas, PIJ etc. routinely recruit minors). The data provided by the ministry lists sex and age in their data set. I made a graph of the data released around the time of 10/2025 ceasefire.
View attachment 54254
As you can see, the female curve tapers off in the manner of the standard population pyramid. Those are mostly accidental civilian fatalities - tragic, but unavoidable in dense urban warfare, esp. when the enemy does everything possible to make matters more dangerous for their own civilians, rather than try to protect them from dangers of war.

But there are a lot of excess military-age fatalities evident in the huge bulge in the graph.

The topic is the estimate of total deaths, not the distribution.

 

[Derec]

We're talking about war crimes, here. Simply saying "there was this one time when a supposed journalist was found guarding a hostage" doesn't cut it. When did this alleged event happen, how was it discovered that the journalist was a guard or that the guard was a journalist, etc.

That is in reference to the very-well publicized hostage rescue in Nuseirat in June 2024.

‘He was a pious man’: The Gaza neighborhood shocked to find Israeli hostages in their midst

The Aljamal family was widely respected in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp. They were known as pious and prominent members of the community. While people knew they had connections to Hamas, neighbors say no one could have guessed how deep those links truly went.
When Israeli forces stormed the Aljamals’ building on June 8 they found Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, hostages who had been captured from the Nova music festival on October 7, cowering in a darkened room.
[...]
In the aftermath of last month’s rescue, neighbors in Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, told CNN they were shocked to learn that Ahmed Aljamal, a physician, and his family had kept hostages in their midst.
[...]
Dr. Aljamal’s son Abdallah, 36, was a freelance journalist who most recently wrote for the US-based Palestine Chronicle, for which he filed regular dispatches on the war in Gaza.

I am surprised you forgot about it. And note that the guy wasn't just a journalist, but his father was also a physician.

And remember, even if it did happen that one time or even a hundred times, that still would not justify an airstrike on a clearly marked press tent.

There were other incidents where supposed journalists were also terrorists.
IDF says Gaza documents prove 6 Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas, PIJ operatives

 

[Derec]

The topic is the estimate of total deaths, not the distribution.

The distribution is even more important than just a single total number.
What is also important is the context of both the topline number and of the distribution. For example Hamas operating from supposedly protected civilian areas like al-Mawasi.

This photo shows a rocket launcher installed among tents in al-Mawasi. It is on Hamas for placing military targets in a civilian area, not on IDF for taking it out.

 

[Arctish]

If they are going to run around killing civilians with drones, I think they should first announce that operating a drone to take photographs is a risk since they cannot determine the nature of the drone. And they could perhaps also name the regions of highest risk so that journalists can make decisions for their own safety.

Do we even know that these three were just journalists and that they were doing what is claimed they were doing with that drone?
We know that many Gaza journalists also moonlight as Hamas terrorists.

We know that Israeli military spokespersons often claim the journalists killed by the IDF were part of Hamas but have not provided credible evidence to substantiate those claims.

Israel has been targeting journalists in Gaza since the start of the current war.

Israel has found evidence that links about half of them to the terrorists. That is far, far above chance. And there's no reason to think that Israel would have an ID on everyone when they strike the propaganda people.

A study by Brown University in April found that Israeli attacks in Gaza since the war began in October 2023 have killed more journalists there than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says "Israel is engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented." Israeli attacks have also killed dozens of relatives of prominent journalists reporting in Gaza.

The smears are part of the strategy.

The problem is they call their propaganda people "journalists".

The latest major attack was Aug. 25, when an Israeli strike hit Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri during a live transmission from the open stairwell of a hospital, killing him on the spot. Israeli forces struck that same stairwell minutes later again, killing medics, first responders and four more journalists working for international media, including The Associated Press and Al Jazeera.

An initial finding by the military said troops targeted a camera positioned by Hamas, but the military provided no evidence and did not respond to further NPR questions. The military also said six militants were killed in the attack, but did not say if they were the intended target nor answer further questions.

And there is no question they are targeting journalists, which btw is a war crime, when they launch an airstrike on a clearly marked press tent.

Clearly marking a tent "press" doesn't make so.

And note that even a bona fide reporter who won't stop broadcasting stuff useful to the enemy is a valid target (say, the Al Jazeera people Israel threw out for refusing to stop broadcasting a live feed of Gaza.) You've already cooked your goose here: "camera positioned by Hamas". There is no need to show it was currently being used for hostile purposes.

And why does it not occur to you that someone operating a camera positioned by Hamas might very well be Hamas?

Two weeks before the Aug. 25 attack, on Aug. 11, six journalists were killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike on a press tent outside one of Gaza's main hospitals.

Israel's military said it was targeting Anas al-Sharif, Gaza's most well-known television reporter, who was killed while wearing a blue "PRESS" vest. The 28-year-old was Al Jazeera's correspondent in the north and had a massive online following. Before his death, he had denied Israeli allegations of affiliation with Hamas' military wing, and continued reporting despite the risks to his life. Early in the war, his home was bombed by Israeli forces and his father was killed.

Al Jazeera--as the organization that was left scrambling when Israel found one of their "reporters" guarding a hostage.

Why does it not occur to you that the failure to support your claims makes your posts appear to be complete bullshit?

Support your claims, Loren. Don't just say Israel has found evidence of something, link to the article from a reputable source that specifies what that something is and what specific evidence was found.

Think anything detailed is going to be in English?! Any evidence they present will obviously be in Arabic and there's a good chance the presentation is in Hebrew.

I know how to use Google translate and how to search on sites like the Jewish Virtual Library for articles that have been translated by professionals.

Where are you getting your information? Is it in English, Arabic, Hebrew, or some other language?

It doesn't matter what language your sources routinely use. Post the links so we can all confirm that you actually have sources.

Israel has published a list of those they have identified as having terrorist ties.

Good place to start. Post a link to the list so we can all see it.

And note the percent of "reporters" with known terrorist ties is higher than the percent of combatants with known terrorist ties. (Remember that leak of the identified dead terrorist database? It got reported on because people tried to pretend that everyone not in it was not a terrorist.)

We'll see about that when you post the link.

We're talking about war crimes, here. Simply saying "there was this one time when a supposed journalist was found guarding a hostage" doesn't cut it. When did this alleged event happen, how was it discovered that the journalist was a guard or that the guard was a journalist, etc.

It's not my job to be your memory. It was discussed on here more than once.

Oh, wow. You're claiming my memory is at fault here, not your habit of posting unsupported claims and bullshit?

Link to one of the posts where we discussed it. That can be our reminder. I do it for you often enough.

And remember, even if it did happen that one time or even a hundred times, that still would not justify an airstrike on a clearly marked press tent.

You (and most of the rest on here) have a very mistaken notion of the Geneva protections. You look at Geneva and see that X is protected. You are treating this as members of X are protected, but what it actually means is that which is entirely X is protected. You see reporters are protected, but in reality they are only protected so long as they are only reporters, serving no military function. And broadcasting information of military use is a military function. A reporter doing so unknowingly would probably be warned. Doing so knowingly--enemy scouts are valid targets even if they are wearing a "press" badge.

Who makes the determination of what information is of military use, and when reporters can be killed for filing their reports? And what do you mean when you say a reporter would "probably" be warned if they unknowingly reported sensitive information? Are you talking about an investigation and the reporter being duly informed of the results? Or are you just making up bullshit excuses for the IDF targeting reporters?

 

[Arctish]

We're talking about war crimes, here. Simply saying "there was this one time when a supposed journalist was found guarding a hostage" doesn't cut it. When did this alleged event happen, how was it discovered that the journalist was a guard or that the guard was a journalist, etc.

That is in reference to the very-well publicized hostage rescue in Nuseirat in June 2024.

‘He was a pious man’: The Gaza neighborhood shocked to find Israeli hostages in their midst

The Aljamal family was widely respected in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp. They were known as pious and prominent members of the community. While people knew they had connections to Hamas, neighbors say no one could have guessed how deep those links truly went.
When Israeli forces stormed the Aljamals’ building on June 8 they found Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, hostages who had been captured from the Nova music festival on October 7, cowering in a darkened room.
[...]
In the aftermath of last month’s rescue, neighbors in Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, told CNN they were shocked to learn that Ahmed Aljamal, a physician, and his family had kept hostages in their midst.
[...]
Dr. Aljamal’s son Abdallah, 36, was a freelance journalist who most recently wrote for the US-based Palestine Chronicle, for which he filed regular dispatches on the war in Gaza.

I am surprised you forgot about it. And note that the guy wasn't just a journalist, but his father was also a physician.

Thank you for providing the link.

It may have been well publicized at the time but when I searched this forum for posts about it, all I came up with was one brief mention in 2024 with no subsequent discussion, a mention in a thread I wasn't following, again with no subsequent discussion, and your post today.

So we now have a link to evidence of one time a reporter was also acting as a guard keeping hostages imprisoned.

https://iidb.org/search/1860130/?q=Aljamal&o=relevanceAnd remember, even if it did happen that one time or even a hundred times, that still would not justify an airstrike on a clearly marked press tent.

There were other incidents where supposed journalists were also terrorists.
IDF says Gaza documents prove 6 Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas, PIJ operatives

And with this other link we have a report that the IDF claims six Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, a claim their network calls "fabricated" and "a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region".

So, one confirmed Hamas operative who was also a reporter and six reporters who are accused of being Hamas or PIJ operatives.

None of ^this^ justifies the airstrike on the press tent.

I suppose I should point out that like most adults, I am aware that spies, scammers, and other bad actors sometimes pretend to be reporters, medical personnel, social workers, etc. so there's good reason to be wary of strangers asking questions or suspicious of persons looking around in restricted areas like the vicinity of military outposts. And I know that a report going out in real time that the sounds of fighting can be heard coming from a particular place can be operationally significant. An argument can be made for updating the Geneva Conventions to take the capabilities of modern technology into account. But that is not what posters like Loren are doing. They are arguing for ignoring and/or violating the Conventions at will, but only if Israel is doing it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Islamism is a recent trend in the Islamic world. It's a trend that started as an anti-colonial movement, that morphed into Soviet supported communism and the after the fall of Communism (because that well of money dried up while oil money flowed in) became a fascist movement. And that's a shame, and is just an accident of history.

Right now it fucking sucks to have to deal with Islamists. I am sure they'll get over it. But at the moment they're dominated by histerical fanatics that cannot be reasoned with. Which to put it mildly, is a shame.

But people like winning. Eventually Muslims in the Middle-East, just like the Germans and Italians, will learn that fascism is a dead end

The thing is it's a strategy that has to a large degree worked. Radical Islam has gotten them a fair degree of control of many countries.

You get more of that which works. And you get more of what you reward--every time you condemn the horrors in Gaza you're actually asking for more of them. But that's too horrible, better to just don't look up.

Well, it's just the oil. Winning means regular people getting their emotional and practical needs met. People don't like being poor. If it hadn't been for oil money flowing in, radical Islam would be dead now.

It's magical thinking. Since Muslims are super fanatical therefore God gave them oil, therefore be more fanatical.

But kleptocracies are just that. Kleptocracies. The grunts will continuosly be fucked. People don't like that.

 

[laughing dog]

How about Reuters?
Israel military reported to accept death toll of around 70,000 in Gaza

Note that even Gaza (aka Hamas) Health Ministry acknowledges that a disproportionate number of fatalities have been military-age men and older teenage boys (and Hamas, PIJ etc. routinely recruit minors). The data provided by the ministry lists sex and age in their data set. I made a graph of the data released around the time of 10/2025 ceasefire.
View attachment 54254
As you can see, the female curve tapers off in the manner of the standard population pyramid. Those are mostly accidental civilian fatalities - tragic, but unavoidable in dense urban warfare, esp. when the enemy does everything possible to make matters more dangerous for their own civilians, rather than try to protect them from dangers of war.

But there are a lot of excess military-age fatalities evident in the huge bulge in the graph. In fact, males between 16 and 65 account for 50.8% of fatalities on the MOH list despite being ~25% of the population.

So disparate outcomes are evidence!

 

[Arctish]

Israeli minister orders West Bank hamlet evicted after hearing he may face arrest warrant overseas

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s finance minister has ordered the eviction of a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that has long been a target of Israeli authorities, saying the measure is a response to reports that he may be a target of international war crimes prosecutors.

“From today, any economic or other target that I have the power to harm within the framework of my powers as Minister of Finance and as a minister in the Ministry Defense will be attacked,” he said.

 

[Tigers!]

There are truly some whackers in that Israeli cabinet.

 

[DrZoidberg]

There are truly some whackers in that Israeli cabinet.

What government doesn't?

 

[DrZoidberg]

There are truly some whackers in that Israeli cabinet.

What government doesn't?

The difference is that when someone on the whacky fringe says something in the Israeli cabinet, this is spread around the world as if it's a mainstream opinion. The only countries, I can think of, that the media does this to is Israel and Poland. Every other country the statement is accompanied with an explanation that the person belongs on the whacky fringe.

 

[laughing dog]

There are truly some whackers in that Israeli cabinet.

What government doesn't?

The difference is that when someone on the whacky fringe says something in the Israeli cabinet, this is spread around the world as if it's a mainstream opinion. The only countries, I can think of, that the media does this to is Israel and Poland. Every other country the statement is accompanied with an explanation that the person belongs on the whacky fringe.

Yeah, there is nothing to see when a gov't minister threatens ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

 

[Arctish]

There are truly some whackers in that Israeli cabinet.

What government doesn't?

The difference is that when someone on the whacky fringe says something in the Israeli cabinet, this is spread around the world as if it's a mainstream opinion. The only countries, I can think of, that the media does this to is Israel and Poland. Every other country the statement is accompanied with an explanation that the person belongs on the whacky fringe.

Yeah, there is nothing to see when a gov't minister threatens ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Cabinet members aren't fringe. They are at the nexus of political power.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It's been more than 15 months. Has it happened yet?

 

[Derec]

So disparate outcomes are evidence!

They are certainly not evidence of discrimination. Just like disparate arrest/conviction statistics in the US are not evidence of law enforcement discriminating against blacks but are rather due to differences in crime rates, so disparate outcomes here are not evidence that IDF discriminates by age or sex. Rather, the disparate outcome can be better explained by IDF targeting terrorists and they just happen to predominately be military age males.

 

[Derec]

It's been more than 15 months. Has it happened yet?

Not even any bearded belly dancers.

But seriously, any reconstruction is dependent on Hamas giving up power and disarming. Instead, they are actively trying to rebuild their capabilities. You can't expect the World to spend >$70G on rebuilding Gaza (with or without a Trump Gaza resort) when there is a strong possibility that Hamas will attack Israel again in 10 or 15 years and all the money spent will go up in smoke. Again.

 

[Derec]

In some good news, the new head of Hamas in Gaza (for all of eight days!) has been eliminated.
Hamas confirms Israel killed its military wing chief in Gaza strike
Mohammed Odeh, we hardly knew thee!