Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[bilby]

You are so determined that Israel is bad and Hamas is doing good that you are blind to the truth.

I am in no way shape or form of the opinion that "Hamas is doing good", and the only way that anyone could have reched the conclusion, from my posting history, that I was, would be for that person to be so determined that Israel can do no wrong that he is blind to the truth.

Despite your simplistic desire for the conflict to be between good and evil, it is not. Like the vast majority of conflicts, it is between evil and evil.

I am horrified by your ability to treat it like a sports fan cheering for his team, blindly certain that only the opposing team ever cheats or commits a foul.

This is innocent people being killed. Everyone involved in the killing is in the wrong, regardless of their affiliation.

The reason that 10/7 was wrong is that innocent people were killed, raped or denied their liberty.

That's ALSO the reason why the IDF's accidental killing of hostages is wrong; AND why the IDF's killing of noncombatant Gazans is wrong.

Your double standard is sickening. Your belief that there's a "good" or "right" side in the conflict is incomprehensible.

Grow up.

 

[bilby]

we have a whole bunch of massacred Israelis. Is that not oppression? Why, because they are Jews rather than people?

No, it's because "oppression" has an actual meaning, and the latest Hamas evil doesn't fit that meaning. It isn't oppression, even if it is vile.

Do you even English?

Hamas considers all of Israel to be their territory. Thus they massacred Jews in what they consider their territory. Not oppression?

No, it's not oppression. To oppress, you must be in a position of power over your victims.

"Oppression" doesn't describe every possible act of violence or cruelty; It has a specific definition.

Just because Hamas is cruel and evil, doesn't imply that every verb for violent or cruel behaviour applies to every action they take.

 

[bilby]

And when a family dies at once it's Israel hitting a Hamas commander.

And his wife, children, cousins, neices, nephews, grandparents...

It's not OK to kill children for the crimes of their parents, Loren.

Not even if they are fans of the other team.

I can't belive I have to spell that out to a putative adult.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It doesn't say they were protecting terrorists.

But what you wrote was this:
"... the UN has been known to order people to act as human shields for Hezbollah."

So where are you getting information that the UN ordered people to act as shields for this incident?

It says that the claims of dozens of civilians being dead isn't supported.

No, it technically says that the claim that his extended family in particular had been killed could not be confirmed and that makes sense because who is left to identify bodies when your extended family is killed. OR if the people were not his extended family but other people, then immediate confirmation of identities isn't necessarily a thing. As to whether that also could mean that LESS people had been killed, I suppose it could be a possibility, but it isn't the only possibility.

What we do observe around here, though, is that you will jump to a particular interpretation consistent with what you already believe.

Of course the NY Times won't admit the original was disinformation but it almost certainly was.

Jeebus Christ, dude. Listen to yourself. You just said the NY Times is fake news. Are you really willing to go that extreme to support your belief system?

And when a family dies at once it's Israel hitting a Hamas commander.

Well, it could be. It also might not be. If, for example, you kill a random 100 Palestinians in Gaza, there is a high chance there is a member of Hamas in there. Even if you thought there was but were mistaken about the identity, you could still hit someone by chance. To look at numbers specifically and get a feel for the numbers, there are 2 million people in Gaza strip and there are 40,000 Hamas. 40,000 is 2% of 2 million. On average if you bomb 100 random people, there would be 2 Hamas members there.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Don't accuse me of twisting things. Argue against the point, not the person.

I'm getting tired of the eternal arguments about irrelevant details.

Then you should stop with the eternal arguments about irrelevant details. For example, in this case you accused me of twisting things. Then, I wrote back to you to argue against the point, not the person. You responded with something completely irrelevant--that you were tired of eternal arguments about irrelevant details. You didn't respond with an apology and you will not do it again which would be relevant. Nor did you respond with a "ok, I'll stop saying you are twisting things" or a "oops, sorry, that's not what I meant" or anything else relevant. You just responded with a "I'm getting tired of the eternal arguments about irrelevant details."

20,000 Gazans (which is probably in the ballpark of accurate as both Israel and Hamas give similar numbers), Israel figures about 8,000 Hamas--for combat in a built-up area that is an extremely good ratio.

The 8000 figure comes partly comes from IDF soldiers many of whom could be reckless just like we observe. Suppose the worst case hypothetical is one of profiling male Palestinians looking like 15 yrs old and above. Males above 18 alone out of 20K would be 6000 people just by chance. Add in 15-17 yr old males, you're pretty much almost at 8000 right there. Just due to chance of randomly killing 20,000 people.

Israel's numbers generally turn out to be pretty close to reality.

There's no way to independently verify that which should be scary when extremists are involved, but it doesn't scare you at all for some reason. When numbers can easily be close to randomness it should logically tell you something, though.

Based on that, how would you conclude that is "good" to use your word?

Compared to the rest of the world, yes.

I wouldn't call close to randomness good.

How also have you verified the 8000 were Hamas (the best case scenario)? In that case, you feel entitled to declare 12,000 civilian deaths are worth 8000 Hamas deaths, i.e. "good?"

For urban combat, yes.

I wouldn't use the word good in consideration of 12,000 civilians dead and tens of thousands more to come.

Have you considered 8000 is both a bit high and many >12,000 innocents' families and friends will become terrorists? That is how the Islamo-Judeo-Christian eye for an eye code has been creating this cycle of violence that you approve of.

It's not a cycle of violence. It's Iran stirring up trouble.

No, it's a cycle of violence. If someone killed your family and the system made it so that there was no legal recourse for justice, what is the probability you would want to respond with violence? What is the probability anyone would? Out of 12,000 innocent dead person's relatives, suppose only 1 in 10 family members might want to turn to violence to get some kind of justice. But you have multiple family members for each person who died. So, you are going to have thousands of people now who want to turn to violence, i.e. terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. So now out of thousands of people who turn to violence, someone will do something. Iran might provide some resources, but so might someone else. You even said that people will steal pipes and dig tunnels out of desperation and so Iran isn't even a necessarily logical component to the cycle of violence. Now these thousands of newly created terrorists will do something. And then Israel will respond against not only the terrorists but more innocent people...and so on. How exactly is that not an eye-for-an-eye cycle of violence?

Furthermore, if Israel's intent were simply to kill they would have killed a lot more. In practice they are killing approximately one person per bomb. For bombing a city lacking in civil defenses that's an incredibly low rate. It is obvious that most of their targets are not people.

Their bombing rate isn't low. It's quite high in comparison to past wars.

Compared to previous Israeli combat. Not compared to anyone else. Including us.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza is among the most destructive in history, experts say

A data analyst says that "Gaza is now a different color from space" as a result of the bombardment and shelling.

www.pbs.org

Note, also, that we have approximately 2,000 rockets that fell into Gaza. And we have multiple incidents that look like Hamas deliberately killing people to blame Israel. The latest I'm aware of:

New crime against humanity: Israeli army summarily executed 11 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza City on 19 December - Survivors - War on Gaza - War on Gaza

Palestinians described to Al Jazeera the grisly details of how the Israeli army summarily executed 11 unarmed Palestinian men in the Al-Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City in the early evening hours on 19 December.

english.ahram.org.eg

Really, now? Eyewitnesses don't normally have such radically different claims about what happened. And Israel has no record of troops in the area. However, Hamas does sometimes fight in IDF uniforms (part of what slowed the response to 10/7.) And note the bit of direct fire from mortars. Direct fire from artillery is a desperation measure (and likely not even possible with a mortar)--yet there's no hint that they had any reason to resort to desperate measures. These aren't witnesses, they are repeating what they were told.

IDF says it has virtual operational control. So it seems a bit far-fetched of you to claim that Hamas is able to wear IDF uniforms and steal tanks to frame IDF. As for myself, I am not familiar with the website, don't know if it is reliable, not even on my radar to consider. I suggest you should stick to more mainstream news sources.

I don't know the website, either--but it's blaming Israel. Thus I don't think it's Israeli propaganda.

You aren't addressing the point. You are claiming that Hamas is dressing up in IDF uniforms and pretending to be tanks or it could be inferred outright stealing them. It's completely far-fetched. Just how extreme are you willing to go here to support your beliefs? Where are you getting your info?

Here is a more reliable website than the one you gave:

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unlawful-killings-in-gaza-city-ohchr-press-release/

They are saying the incidents need to be investigated.

 

[Swammerdami]

This criminal near-genocide is too painful for me to follow. Nor even to peruse this thread. So; have Derec or any others in the "For every dead Israeli, ten innocent Palestinian children must die" camp responded to news stories like this one?:

Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said the death toll at the Maghazi refugee camp was likely to rise.
“What is happening at the Maghazi camp is a massacre that is being committed on a crowded residential square,” he said.
Bodies have been piling up at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Dozens more are reported to be injured, and several houses have been destroyed in the attack. Families have been digging through the rubble in an attempt to find survivors. The bombs fell on homes and buildings, reported Hani Mahmoud from Rafah in southern Gaza, destroying neighbourhoods and infrastructure, such as roads leading in and out of the refugee camps.

With the Bureij refugee camp also pounded overnight, some 100 people have been killed in the last 12 hours, he added. The vast majority of the victims are women and children. “We were all targeted,” said Ahmad Turokmani, who lost several family members, including his daughter and grandson. “There is no safe place in Gaza anyway.”

 

[Swammerdami]

Jabalia, Gaza Strip – Bodies were piled up instead of books in the classroom. Bullet holes pockmarked some walls. Others were charred, apparently by fire.

Displaced families were sheltering in the United Nations-run Shadia Abu Ghazala School west of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza when Israeli soldiers entered the building. What followed was a massacre, according to witnesses and families of those who were killed in the early December assault.

Witnesses said several people, including women, children and babies, were killed execution-style by Israeli forces while they were sheltering inside the school. A father of one of the victims said he was asleep with his wife and six children when Israeli soldiers “suddenly stormed” the school. “They entered the classroom we were in and fired directly at those present without uttering a word,” he said.

... Jumaa said he was able to return to check on his relatives in the school several days later when Israeli forces left, but was “shocked to find that everyone in it had been executed in a brutal manner”. “In the room were my sister’s husband and next to him, their sons Maysara and Ahmed. My sister in the corner was hugging her remaining children,” Jumaa said. Israeli forces killed them by “firing at them point-blank”, he said. Their bodies were “swollen and filled with worms”, he added. According to Jumaa, Israeli soldiers had “written something in Hebrew” on his nephew’s face.

Nearly 1.9 million people of Gaza’s total 2.3 million population have been displaced across the Strip since the start of the war, according to the United Nations.

Israel’s relentless attacks have killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials. Most of those killed are children and women.

But be sure: If one of these victims attacks an Israeli, Derec will be quick to label that another "unprovoked attack."

 

[Gospel]

Why not simply assert that Hamas militants disguised as Israeli soldiers were responsible?

 

[steve_bank]

Israel says it will occupy Gaza for an indefinite period. Any other country and we'd be calling for sanctions.

From this time on there will be a Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jews passed down from generation to generation that will never go away.

 

[Derec]

Israel says it will occupy Gaza for an indefinite period. Any other country and we'd be calling for sanctions.

A temporary occupation may be necessary after a war like that. Even Germany was occupied by the Allies for a time.
But Germany quickly showed they could run their affairs. Palestinians were given some autonomy in 1993 and they have failed in that, by for example murdering many Israelis in terrorists attacks during the 2nd Intifada.

From this time on there will be a Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jews passed down from generation to generation that will never go away.

They already hate Jews. Hamas has been shooting rockets at Israel ever since they took over Gaza. Before that they preferably engaged in suicide bombings. And the supposedly moderate Fatah is not innocent of this hatred either, as they have their own terrorist outfit - the so-called "Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades".

 

[lpetrich]

From over a month and a half ago:

IDF strikes an ambulance convoy. Gaza health officials says it was carrying the wounded, Israel says they were militants. - "It was a harrowing scene of chaos that left several people killed and dozens wounded outside the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City."

Israel bombs ambulance convoy near Gaza’s largest hospital – POLITICO - "UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was ‘horrified’ by the attack."

Gaza: Israeli Ambulance Strike Apparently Unlawful | Human Rights Watch - "Medical Transport Has Special Protections Against Attack"

The Israeli military’s strike on a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital on November 3, 2023, was apparently unlawful and should be investigated as a possible war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. Video footage and photographs taken shortly after the strike and verified by Human Rights Watch show a woman on a stretcher in the ambulance and at least 21 dead or injured people in the area surrounding the ambulance, including 5 children.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said in a televised interview that day that: “Our forces saw terrorists using ambulances as a vehicle to move around. They perceived a threat and accordingly we struck that ambulance.” International humanitarian law applicable to the armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed forces provides that ambulances used exclusively for medical transportation must be respected and protected in all circumstances, and only lose their protection if being used to commit acts harmful to the enemy.

Israel/Palestine: Videos of Hamas-Led Attacks Verified | Human Rights Watch - "ICC Has Mandate to Probe Attacks as War Crimes"

(Jerusalem, October 18, 2023) – Human Rights Watch has verified four videos from the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas-led gunmen, showing three incidents of deliberate killings, and presents this analysis in a video published today. The attacks should be investigated as war crimes.

Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza | Human Rights Watch - December 18, 2023 - "Evidence Indicates Civilians Deliberately Denied Access to Food, Water"

 

[lpetrich]

Israeli forces close in on al-Shifa Hospital, trapping thousands | Gaza News | Al Jazeera - 11 Nov 2023

Israel’s military has closed in on the front gates of Gaza’s biggest hospital, where thousands of injured and displaced people are trapped amid intensive Israeli bombardment.

Israeli forces had fully encircled the al-Shifa Hospital as of early on Saturday morning, preventing ambulances from entering or leaving the facility, where medical supplies and food are running low.

Arab and Muslim leaders demand immediate end to Gaza war | Reuters - November 11, 20237:25 PM PST

The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique.

Saudi Arabia has sought to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, gathered Arab and Muslim leaders to reinforce that message.

Blinken says 'far too many Palestinians have been killed' in Israel-Hamas war | The Times of Israel - 11 November 2023, 1:25 am - "Top American diplomat calls for more humanitarian aid and fuel to enter Gaza, praises Israeli decision to implement daily pauses in fighting: ‘These steps will save lives’"


Israel-Gaza War, Hamas Attack, Hezbollah: Macron's Ceasefire Call Gets A Defiant Response From Israel's Netanyahu - November 11, 2023 3:43 pm IST - " The war in the densely populated coastal territory, which is effectively sealed off, has prompted repeated calls for a ceasefire to protect civilian lives."

Thousands sheltering at Gaza City’s hospitals flee as war closes in | AP News - Updated 5:39 PM PST, November 10, 2023

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of Palestinians sheltering from the Israel-Hamas war at Gaza City’s main hospital fled south Friday after several reported strikes in and around the compound overnight. They joined a growing exodus of people escaping intense urban fighting in the north — including near other hospitals — as Gaza officials said the territory’s death toll surpassed 11,000.

Also from back then: Thousands of civilians flee northern Gaza hospitals as Israeli troops close in - YouTube - PBS NewsHour

 

[lpetrich]

More Gaza hospitals suspend operations as Israel hunts Hamas | Reuters - November 12, 20233:06 PM PST - "Two more major hospitals in Gaza closed to new patients on Sunday, with staff saying that Israeli bombardment plus lack of fuel and medicine meant more babies and others could die."

Israel is bombing hospitals in Gaza with Israeli doctors’ approval | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera - "We, Palestinian doctors in Israel, are forced to watch in silence massacres unfolding, which some of our Israeli colleagues are encouraging."

Gaza doctors say hospitals are failing. US medical groups are scrambling to help | CNN - Updated 8:39 PM EST, Sat November 11, 2023

Dahiya Doctrine: The punishing military doctrine that Israel may be using in Gaza - The Washington Post

A few days after Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel, a top Israeli military official was blunt about his nation’s military response. Israeli security officials repeatedly stress the steps they take to minimize civilian harm and claim they are only striking legitimate military targets. In recent days, Daniel Hagari, spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces, accused Hamas of “cynically” deploying its assets in civilian areas and near critical infrastructure, like hospitals. But when speaking in the offensive’s early stage, Hagari revealed that the “emphasis” of the IDF’s reprisal was “on damage and not on accuracy.”

...
The so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” took shape in the wake of the bruising 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahiya refers to the southern Beirut suburbs where Hezbollah maintained its strongholds and which were pummeled by Israeli jets after hostilities began when Hezbollah fighters abducted two Israeli soldiers. The onslaught then took Hezbollah by surprise, whose senior leadership had not expected to see their headquarters turned into rubble nor had planned for such a relentless bombardment. “I said that we shouldn’t exaggerate, that Israel will just retaliate a bit, bomb a couple of targets and that would be the end of it,” a Hezbollah operative told former Washington Post reporter Anthony Shadid in 2006.

The doctrine that emerged out of the conflict was most famously articulated by IDF commander Gadi Eisenkot. “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases,” he told an Israeli newspaper in 2008. “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.”

Around the same time, former Israeli colonel Gabriel Siboni wrote a report under the aegis of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies that argued the necessary response to militant provocations from Lebanon, Syria or Gaza were “disproportionate” strikes that aim only secondarily to hit the enemy’s capacity to launch rockets or other attacks. Rather, the goal should be to inflict lasting damage, no matter the civilian consequences, as a future deterrent.

Disproportionate Force: Israel's Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War | INSS

With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy's actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes.

Though its author also states "Punishment must be aimed at decision makers and the power elite."

Microsoft Word - A HRC 12 48 FOR PROCESSING _250909_ cleared by CL, FM & GC.doc - G0915866.pdf

is in these circumstances that the Mission concludes that what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability

In effect, terrorism.

 

[lpetrich]

About Israel's attacks on Gaza in the fall of 2014,
The Dahiya Doctrine, Proportionality, and War Crimes | Institute for Palestine Studies

Not only was the strategy precisely the one Israel used in Lebanon in 2006, it is the very same that has now been deployed against Gaza for the third time in the past six years. Israeli military correspondents and security analysts repeatedly reported that the Dahiya doctrine was Israel's strategy throughout the war in Gaza this past summer. [7] Let us be frank: this is actually less of a strategic doctrine than it is an explicit outline of collective punishment and probable war crimes. Not surprisingly, one found little mention of the Dahiya doctrine whether in statements by U.S. politicians, or in the reporting of the war by most of the mainstream American media, which dwelt on the description of Israel's actions as “self-defense.”

Back to the present.

A top Iranian general is killed in Israeli airstrike in Syria : NPR

An Israeli airstrike Monday in a Damascus neighborhood killed a high-ranking Iranian general, Iranian state media said.

The killing of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a long-time adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, comes as clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel continue to intensify with fears of the Israel-Hamas war sparking a regional spillover with Iran-backed groups. The Israeli strikes killed two other generals earlier this month in Syria.

This reminds me of the US  Assassination of Qasem Soleimani on 2020 Jan 3.

Is Israel trying to pick a fight with Iran and then pose as a victim? Like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

 

[lpetrich]

Investigating the assault on al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital - The Washington Post - December 21, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. EST

The claims were remarkably specific — that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities; that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels that were used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters; and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. The assertions were backed by “concrete evidence,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said as he laid out the case in an Oct. 27 briefing.

After storming the complex on Nov. 15, the IDF released a series of photographs and videos that it said proved its central point.

“Terrorists came here to command their operations,” Hagari said in a video published Nov. 22, guiding viewers through an underground tunnel, illuminating dark and empty rooms beneath al-Shifa.

But the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center, according to a Washington Post analysis of open-source visuals, satellite imagery and all of the publicly released IDF materials.

...
The Post’s analysis shows:

• The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
• None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
• There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.

Attacking hospitals is a war crime, pure and simple. Or is it only a war crime when someone one doesn't like does it?

 

[lpetrich]

Exclusive: Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ US intelligence assessment finds | CNN Politics - Updated 11:31 AM EST, Thu December 14, 2023

Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment.

The assessment, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it, says that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided. The rest have been precision-guided munitions, the assessment says.

Unguided munitions are typically less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in such a densely populated area like Gaza. The rate at which Israel is using the dumb bombs may be contributing to the soaring civilian death toll.

Rifts between Biden and Netanyahu spill into public view | CNN Politics - Updated 4:51 PM EST, Tue December 12, 2023

Biden said right now Israel “has most of the world supporting it,” but said “they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”

Back to the first one.

But experts told CNN that if Israel is using unguided munitions at the rate the US believes they are, that undercuts the Israeli claim that they are trying to minimize civilian casualties.

“I’m extremely surprised and concerned,” said Brian Castner, a former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer who now serves as Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser on arms and military operations.

“It’s bad enough to be using the weapons when they are precisely hitting their targets. It is a massive civilian harm problem if they do not have that accuracy, and if you can’t even give a benefit of the doubt that that the weapon is actually landing where the Israeli forces intended to,” Castner added.

 

[lpetrich]

Gaza: Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs, analysis shows | CNN - Updated 3:50 AM EST, Fri December 22, 2023

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 largest bombs the United States dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, during the war against the extremist group there.

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.

US rebukes Israel for more than 30 attacks on Lebanese military amid concerns of Gaza conflict widening | CNN Politics - Updated 5:26 PM EST, Fri December 15, 2023

Israel’s military has repeatedly attacked the US-backed Lebanese army to the north over the past two months, prompting alarm in the Biden administration and sharp rebukes from top US officials to Israeli leadership.

The Israelis have struck Lebanese Armed Forces positions more than 34 times since October 7, including with small arms and artillery fire, drones and helicopters, according to US officials, a regional security source, and a list of the incidents compiled by the US and reviewed by CNN.

Fears are rising of a widened Middle East war and US troops are in the firing line | CNN Politics - Updated 12:19 AM EST, Wed December 27, 2023

 

[lpetrich]

Gaza’s hospitals, humanitarian buildings are focus of Israeli assault - The Washington Post - Updated November 13, 2023 at 5:14 p.m. EST

For each side, hospitals have become a symbol of the enemy’s inhumanity — with Israelis accusing Hamas of using the sick and injured as human shields and Palestinians accusing the Israeli army of targeting medical facilities to exact revenge on a beleaguered civilian population.

On Sunday, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that without electricity for three days, Shifa “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.” He insisted that health facilities should be havens and not “scenes of death, devastation and despair.”

Al-Quds Hospital, the second largest in the enclave, was surrounded Monday by Israeli forces and unable to evacuate its 300 remaining patients and medical workers because of Israeli bombardments and gunfire, Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which runs the hospital, said from the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The hospital has been almost entirely cut off for six days, Farsakh said. The team had communicated with al-Quds workers on radios connected to the hospital’s ambulance system but lost touch Monday morning, she said.

Back to the present.

Egyptian officials tout a preliminary plan to end the Israel-Hamas war : NPR - December 25, 202311:39 AM ET

noting
Israel-Hamas war: Egypt plan to end war gets cool reception | AP News - Updated 7:04 PM PST, December 25, 2023
Back to NPR.

According to Israeli and Egyptian news reports, the plan calls for a weeklong cease-fire. Hamas would release about 40 Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for about 120 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Another phase would lead to the exchange of the bodies of Israelis and Palestinians killed during the war.

A third phase would lead to a permanent cease-fire and include the exchange of any remaining Israeli hostages for all Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli detention. A new governing body of Palestinians would be put in place to oversee the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. That leadership would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza and possible future elections to create a unified Palestinian government.

The plan is the first to be led by Egypt rather than Qatar, which helped broker the first weeklong cease-fire of this war in November. During that pause in fighting 105 Israeli hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners were released.

 

[Bomb#20]

They have been pushed right by the actions of the Palestinians.

^^^^ This ^^^^
Israel used to be a left wing nation. The voters stopped going for that because the left's land-for-peace deals kept not getting them any peace.

Which land for peace deal was enacted?

if the answer is none, then how do the Israelis know the deal would not have improved matters for them?

Well, I don't mean to pick on my young friend Bomb#20!; But Israel traded land for peace with both Egypt and Jordan. And this peace has held.

I meant getting them peace from the Palestinians. And if you think I'm young you must be like a hundred.

 

[Bomb#20]

They have been pushed right by the actions of the Palestinians.

^^^^ This ^^^^
Israel used to be a left wing nation. The voters stopped going for that because the left's land-for-peace deals kept not getting them any peace.

Which land for peace deal was enacted?

if the answer is none, then how do the Israelis know the deal would not have improved matters for them?

Which land for peace deal was offered? All the Israelis got from the left's years of talking to Arafat was offers of temporary peace for permanent land. According to Clinton the Camp David Summit failed because Arafat wouldn't budge on "right of return".