Israel has lied repeatedly countless times, like the tunnels under hospitals that never show up, or when they say the didn't kill the journalists they did end up admitting to. Or the claims of rape and beheaded babies that were all fake. You can not take anything they say as serious.

I love how their rationale for blowing up a hospital is that there were tunnels underneath it. As if that’s justification for blowing up a hospital.

Then thre's the time a former Israeli PM admitted they build the "bunker" under Al Shifa. Whoops. If anyone had been paying attention or properly reporting on that, it might have looked bad.

https://www.newsweek.com/israel-built-bunker-shifa-hospital-...

Israel hasn't blown up a hospital.

They have also been blowing up buildings in Lebanon because they claim that there is Hezbollah money and gold in them. Human life be damned.

To all appearances, it looks as if the US is allowing Israel to rewrite the rules of war. This is incredibly dangerous. Whether or not the US supports Israel's objectives should not be the deciding factor in supporting these kinds of justifications.

Not disputing general truthfulness of Israeli government, but specifically as to the latter two examples you listed: A) There is no direct evidence that Israeli government publicly stated that babies were beheaded. That claim came from a single journalist, spread like wildfire on social media (as did tons of videos and footage of the attacks), and was exacerbated by a statement Biden made.

B) there is very credible evidence that rape did occur as part of the atrocities Hamas committed on Oct. 7th attack. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-sexual-violence-...

Just wanted to point that out, because regardless of the moral standing of either side, I think the facts do matter if there is ever going to be a resolution. Obviously the actions committed by Hamas do not absolve Israel from following ethical rules of war, and there are plenty of issues with how Israel is waging war in the current conflict as well; for example using machine learning algorithms to track targets with what appears to be a reckless disregard for non-combatants: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

The bigger problem is that these lies spread “like wildfire” via Western media outlets - with zero fact checking or confirmation. These images were then used to justify the rampage in Gaza.

As far as I am aware, not a single Western media rag has issued an apology for this. In many of our eyes, never again will they be able to claim credibility or professionalism in their reporting.

In addition, Western rags took Israeli statements as gospel, platformed way more guests from the Israeli side, and intensively questioned all pro-Palestine guests on their position on Oct 7 (while treating Israeli guests with more respect than necessary for a media interview).

It’s better now - but that’s easy to do after a year of atrocities and 100k+ deaths. In the US at least, there still is a clear bias against inviting Palestinians on primetime slots, or allowing Palestinians to operate freely within news organizations.

But beheaded babies and babies in ovens portrays a different level of atrocities being committed. This kind of fictional atrocity dissemination is very similar to the approach used during the Gulf War[1].

More importantly, the point is that Western media outlets - who have always proclaimed to be arbiters of truth, objectivity & journalistic integrity - neither did the absolute basic fact checking required before publishing such information, nor apologized later for doing so once the dust settled.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

I'm not going to disagree with you about the media sucking, but for what it's worth, I think every side thinks that. I am pro-Israel and have the same feelings about other stories that were rushed, not vetted, wrong, and never apologized for.

Just one thing: you mentioned the "girls" (in fact soldiers) with "bloody pants" in your previous comment. It's quite a stretch to go from bloody pants to "victim of rape".

Indeed, this picture came out much later:

https://www.instagram.com/israelmfa/p/C7Q1v38tKql/

Shows what appears to be the famous "bloody pants" soldier sitting on the floor close to other presumably injured soldiers after some sort of combat. Isn't that the most obvious way of getting "bloody pants"? Why the leap from those to unfounded rape accusations?

What do you think the Israeli response to Oct 7 should have been?

Feel free to share your objections to what I wrote.

Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.

I did not say or imply that I have objections to what you wrote.

Your comment strongly implied that you think that Israel overreacted to Oct 7. So I am curious what you think their response should have been.

> Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.

Is curiosity "legitimate interest"?

I would expect any response to (among other things):

a) adhere to international law (which we now know is a complete farce thanks UNSC veto)

b) not involve ethnic cleansing/forced displacement of Palestinians for a 3rd time in the last 75 years - the only reason it didn’t work this time is because the Egyptians strongly pushed back

c) not involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, the mass punishment of a civilian population, and the denial of access to aid to a civilian population (under occupation no less)

d) not result in the highest proportion of children fatalities and injuries of any modern war - and not involve redefining or rewriting the meaning of the word “child” to give themselves some wiggle room

e) not involve the deliberate targeting of journalists, academics, aid workers, and hospital staff - even if the Israelis claim to have “proof” of them being Hamas members (imagine immediately defunding a UN organization because the Israelis claim a few dozen employees were Hamas members)

f) adhere to Israel’s responsibilities under IHL as an occupying force

Fighting a war against guerillas in an urban context is challenging. Mass & targeted bombing of a densely populated occupied territory containing an enemy with no air force and no air defenses is not only genocidal, but also outright cowardly behavior.

Israel has not overreacted to Oct 7, they have just applied the same policy that they have used for many decades "at least ten of theirs for each one of ours".

This policy is an effective deterrent against enemies, but it should be obvious that with such a policy it will never be possible to end any conflict unless absolutely all enemies and all their relatives or friends are killed.

There have been times when the relations between the parties in this conflict had improved a lot and there was some hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Nevertheless on both sides, but especially in Israel, there are people who benefit a lot from the existence of the conflict, so any opponents have been removed by any means possible, including assassination, until the mutual relationships have become as bad as today, when no hope for any kind of peace remains.

Most people in Israel are quite nice, but they are deeply scared by the thought that that at any time someone coming from the neighbors of Israel could come and cut their throats, so they work continuously very hard at their jobs, believing that they must provide thus their individual contributions so that Israel will maintain its military and economic dominance over their enemies, in order to ensure their safety. The workers of Israel have worked all the time since WWII pretty much as hard as those of USA during its short participation to WWII.

Workers from other countries would be very unlikely to work willingly so hard as those of Israel. This is very profitable for the upper class of Israel, for whom an end of the conflict would have caused serious losses, when the workers could not have been motivated any more by patriotic slogans.

>This policy is an effective deterrent against enemies, but

Why do you consider this an effective strategy, when the same strategy has been used for decades yet the violence keeps getting worse?

> Israel has not overreacted to Oct 7, they have just applied the same policy that they have used for many decades "at least ten of theirs for each one of ours".

The interesting thing is that Hamas seems to share Israel's view that Israelis are more valuable than Palestinians. Whenever there is a prisoner exchange Hamas tends to demand an order of magnitude or more Palestinians be released for each Israeli released.

For example in 2011 Hamas got over 1000 in exchange for a single Israeli.

Or could it also have something to do with Israel having an order of magnitude more Palestinian prisoners (thousands of whom have yet to be charged for years) than Hamas has Israeli soldiers ? If Hamas has 10 Israeli hostages and while Israel holds 10,000, does asking for thousands in return mean you value your people less? Or is that just common sense? And I don't even know what the point of bringing this up is.

>Your comment strongly implied that you think that Israel overreacted to Oct 7. So I am curious what you think their response should have been.

How about a reaction that wouldn't lead the ICC issuing arrest warrants for the government officials leading the response for crimes against humanity ?

I'm not sure what people act so daft, pretending the Israeli response of the last year was just a totally normal and standard military operation and not a clinical live streamed genocide.

I think they could start with not destroying hospitals and schools and doing better than “at least 1/3 of the 40k people killed were militants.” Israel , the most moral army in the world /s, thinks that two citizens killed for every militant killed is an acceptable ratio, it’s not.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...

What's the acceptable ratio? I'm not claiming this reality isn't horrific I'm just not seeing many examples of wars fought better. Did the U.S do it better in Vietnam or Iraq? The U.S wasn't even fighting for its survival, it was fighting to "defeat communism" or to keep oil prices low because of the invasion of Kuweit or 9-11 etc etc. None of these reasons were as strong as what happened to Israel.

Vietnam and Iraq are two nation states and had populations between 25-30m at the time US waged war in those countries. Gaza is a narrow strip of 139 square miles of land with 2mn people packed together like sardines, who have no sovereignty, have been under an economic blockade since 2007, and whose rulers Hamas have no conventional military to speak of. These two are not comparable, I don't know why people keep pointing to the destruction of Nazi Germany and Japan as the benchmark of whats acceptable in Gaza, its quite insane tbh.

Why does the land area matter? Israel is also a tiny and crowded country and is threatened from all fronts. What was the threat against the U.S again , was Vietnam about to invade? was Iraq?

Hamas had enough weapons to kill 1200 Israelis in one day so it's not some helpless entity. It was armed to its teeth. It's only after almost 800 additional dead Israeli soldiers and a very bloody war that Hamas lost most of its power.

>Why does the land area matter?

Really, you don't understand why the total land area occupied by a population you are waging war against matters?

>Hamas had enough weapons to kill 1200 Israelis in one day so it's not some helpless entity. It was armed to its teeth.

I don't even think you believe this nonsense.

If you are trying to claim AK-47s and paragliders is 'armed to the teeth', you need to tell your commander at the Unit 8200 troll farm that he needs to give you better hasbara material.

>It's only after almost 800 additional dead Israeli soldiers and a very bloody war that Hamas lost most of its power.

Oh yes, it was such a tough and bloody fight! All those F-35 sorties pressing buttons to unleash 2000lb pounds on civilian targets, so bloody!

> you need to tell your commander at Unit 8200 troll farm that he needs too give you better hasbara material.

Not gonna engage you any further you seem deranged

What is deranged, is you trying pretend Israel is waging a war against a peer foe by grossly exaggerating the threat of Hamas.

Your government created Hamas. Literally. [1] They were considered an 'asset' right up until Hamas decided they wanted to be more than being Netanyahu's good little prisoners whose only purpose was to serve as a spoiler for genuine Palestinian aspirations.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-borrell-says-israel...

I think many people also forget the second intifada suicide bombings, and numerous rocket barrages over the proceeding decades after, to which Hamas was a major belligerent. Despite the more primitive designs of these rockets, without modern defense systems there would likely be more Israeli civilian deaths. I see this context missing from a lot of the discussions of the current iteration of this conflict. Israeli civilians have faced decades of risk (which I think also benefits the right wing of Israeli politics), and this is not a new conflict. October 7th comes on the heels of many other direct and indirect attacks on Israeli civilians. I cant help but think that the current military response might fall under a “never let a crisis go to waste” strategy by Netanyahu’s coalition, which had recently been receiving less support.

> there is very credible evidence that rape did occur

> FIRST ACCOUNT PANTS PULLED DOWN

>But it turns out that what Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.

> SECOND ACCOUNT: EVERYTHING WAS CHARRED

> Yossi Landau, a longtime ZAKA volunteer, was also working in Be’eri when he entered a home that would produce the second debunked story

I urge people to read the article rather than take the parents claim that it presents evidence of rape on October 7th at face value. It presents no evidence for such a claim through the entire article. It covers debunked claims of sexual violence on October 7th, it does contain a reference to one hostage who was sexually assaulted during her kidnapping who was since thankfully successfully released

From the article:

“The United Nations and other organizations have presented credible evidence that Hamas militants committed sexual assault during their rampage. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said Monday he had reason to believe that three key Hamas leaders bore responsibility for “rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.”

I’m not going to dig up and post links to videos showing Hamas parading female captives with blood on their pants, or partially disrobed bodies. Videos which were filmed by Hamas members themselves I might add. Here is an article instead from BBC with testimony from survivors: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181.amp

I don’t want to assume that you are arguing in bad faith, but there are numerous reputable sources showing that other atrocities occurred beyond the murder of civilians. It’s bad enough that Hamas directly targeted and killed over 700 civilians.

That article you linked does not support your claims at all. The UN was pressured by Israel to send a delegation, but they would not cooperate fully and refused a full investigation.

From the UN report [1]:

>In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.

>The mission team examined several allegations of sexual violence. It must be noted that witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously. Some also stated to the mission team that they no longer felt confident in their recollections of other assertions that had appeared in the media.

>It was determined by the mission team that the crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family. Allegations of objects found inserted in female genital organs also could not be verified by the mission team due in large part to the limited availability and low quality of imagery.

How does any of this information from the report lead you to believe that the allegations of mass rape are 'very credible'?

See this interview from Pramila Patten who is the special representative that wrote this report [2]

>“May I just ask, why not put the responsibility and blame the atrocities quite simply on the perpetrators and say, ‘it was Hamas who did it?’” the host demanded.

>Patten replied that the mission of her visit to Israel was “only for the purpose of gathering and analyzing information,” not for attributing alleged crimes to any perpetrator.

>“It is pretty clear who did it, after talking to survivors who returned – it wasn’t the Belgians who did it,” chortled the host.

>“I think it’s up to your government to give access, and that was one of my first recommendations,” Patten responded.

I would suggest you stop peddling these baseless allegations as these lies are being used to justify civilian massacres to this day.

[1] https://tinyurl.com/2px6tp6v

[2] https://tinyurl.com/bddbu29s

You are cherry picking text out of the report, and removing it from the overall context. The UN investigators visited multiple locations, some of which did not contain evidence, and some of which did. See sections 58/60/61/66/68.

The conclusion of the report itself reads: “Overall, based on the totality of information gathered from multiple and independent sources at the different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was also gathered.”

At this point I don’t see any further point in discussing this subject. I’m only replying in case someone reads these comments, and doesn’t dig deeper into the report. I find it concerning that you glossed over those sections and the conclusion of the report, while only presenting text that supports your viewpoint. It’s bad enough that ~700-800 civilians were murdered in the first place, and it’s horrible that civilians continue to die in Gaza through the present. Please have a good day.

Of course you don't want to talk about it, when you have zero evidence to back up any of your claims. You wrote all that but you could not produce a single piece of evidence besides a few sentences to indicate unproven rapes might have occurred based on very selective information given to them by the Israelis during guided propaganda tours. The claims are "mass rapes" have occurred (not that there were no instances of SA), not a single piece of evidence has been produced, every testimony that came out was proven to be fabricated and here you are trying to peddle your unsubstantiated propaganda as if its something already proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Don't forget that it's been extensively documented that Israel uses human shields:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-human...

https://www.btselem.org/topic/human_shields

Even the NYT took time away from repeating Israel's lies to report on it! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-g...

As opposed to the sterling individuals on the other side.

What strikes me after 50 years of this little spat getting top billing in geopolitical circles because of oil is that...

Change is coming. Global warming will make the region hotter and dryer. EV and alt energy (and the US oil independence with shale) will sap oil of its value and geopolitical primacy.

Israel's enemies are about to learn what it is like being a world afterthought like the tigray war and innumerable other hotspots.

The Palestinians are 8 million people without a functional economy, surviving on oil money. If that oil money dries up, the world will let them starve to death.

Lebanon is of course in a bit better position, but I lu by a bit. If, uh, when world attention wanes, nothing stops Israel from unrestricted military force.

There is no chance of this happening with the radicalization, but Lebanon and Palestinians need to make peace, it they are seriously fucked.

Whataboutism. But yeah I agree, Israel and Hamas should be treated similarly. And what oil money exactly?

>And what oil money exactly?

He's probably referring to how Iran props up these places, and Iran's main source of funding is oil.

Nope, Iran does not really prop up Palestinians. Maybe Saudi Arabia and their donations sure but Iran does not fund more than military assets, and mostly in Lebanon

Unifil has been there since the '70s, apparently. Their role was to monitor Israel's withdrawal and to assist the Lebanese government, to patrol the Blue Line and various humanitarian tasks. They're not a counterinsurgency force or an occupying army - as I understand it, they're a tripwire for treaty enforcement.

Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields. It's still immoral to kill noncombatants, just as it's immoral to hide behind noncombatants. You don't gain moral high ground, you're just sinking to the level of the enemy.

“You don’t get to shoot through human shields.” I don’t have a POV w.r.t. this conflict, but I’d like to understand what you mean by this statement generally. In the extreme it seems to imply, “if you have a human shield you are invincible.”

It’s a messed-up calculus to have to make but I feel like there must be some middle ground.

My view is the ethnicity of the human shields in question shouldn't factor into your decision making. You shouldn't shoot through an Egyptian aid worker or Lebanese child if you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place.

> you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place

Well actually, to give Israel some kind of credit, they have also done that, as hostages have indeed been killed in their attacks. In general they have shown a similar disregard of human life towards their own people who have been hostages, so there's that.

I suppose you're suggesting that one shouldn't value "us" over "them". Is a logical extension of this that you shouldn't shoot someone else if you wouldn't shoot yourself?

I'm suggesting we should value civilian casualties equally. You're free to shoot at soldiers.

I mean, you can also just value all human life equally, and not shoot at soldiers unless there's a really good reason to do so. You really shouldn't target civilians, almost ever, cause there's never a good reason to do so by definition.

In extreme situations it might be acceptable to involve innocents, but that's a very far cry from what has been happening

Is it? Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately place their military infrastructure among civilians.

Wait till you find out where the mossad HQ is located!

It's a fair target to hit then — on both sides, military operations are fair to hit. It just hasn't happened to the Mossad HQ, despite attempts.

you think that's the narrative Israel and its allies would go with? Never.

Israel and its allies would cry and whine as if a second holocaust occurred. They would pretend like they haven't done something similar thousands of times before to their enemies and that this retaliation on the Mossad HQ is some sort of uniquely evil and unprecedented event in human history.

Israelis always prefer using the most absurd victim narratives possible. Only Israel can be the biggest bully while also roleplaying as the biggest victim, but it's not surprising considering that even the mossad's motto[0] is "By way of deception you shall engage in war."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Way_of_Deception

I don’t think speculating on how you think Israel would react is helpful or productive.

Of course Israel would “cry and whine.” I agree with you.

Obviously, Palestine also “cries and whines” — they have a narrative when their military operations are hit, too, and it’s not “fair play.”

War is an ugly, awful thing. I wouldn’t expect anybody involved to treat it so rationally. Hopefully we can view things more objectively and fairly given our distance.

> Is it? Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately place their military infrastructure among civilians.

I'm not eager to defend Hamas or Hezbollah, but for Gaza, is there a lot of free space?

Using human shields anyhow, does NOT mean it's the other's fault if you bomb then.

It's entirely your own decision, if you know that they're there.

Do you really think there was no other way, to deal with the problem?

Personally, for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.

However good a person is, and however quiet by nature, they wouldn't be human if a percentage of them wouldn't look for revenge, after having all their relatives killed, endured surgeries without anesthetics, and seen there was no good justification for that.

Which is what some Israeli politicians would probably like, anyhow, to give them arguments for the future elections.

Nothing will be solved. Unless you kill them all? Well, I think there would be a lot of Arabs who'd seek revenge for them, if so.

By the way, with using shields the Israeli might well just mean mean having a tunnel passing under a condo, or that an Hamas member sleeps there rather than, where? Hamas barracks? Along with your family, forever, with a target on your back?

CNN [1] today said:

> There is ample evidence for it: weapons located inside homes, tunnels dug beneath residential neighborhoods and rockets fired from those same neighborhoods in the densely packed territory.

I don't think that's what people think about, when hearing about human hostages.

Furthermore, the IDF seems to wait for the targets to be at home, just because there they're easier to target [2] .

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h... [2] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

> I don't think that's what people think about, when hearing about human hostages.

Indeed, they think more about something like this: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/6/23/israeli...

> for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.

This has become a very common argument, and is indeed true, but it's also hypocritically incomplete.

You're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas of the future and they will be right in fighting you. Exactly as the current Hamas members are right in fighting you today.

The straightforward thing with UNFIL would be to negotiate change at the UN

It's unlikely that Israel decided just now to go attack Hezbollah, and even if they did, it's not like there's been any big status quo change, so they could go to the UN first, if they think the UN is in the way

Israel is always accusing people of what Israel itself does already.

Tons of Israeli military bases and weapons manufacturing his placed directly under or very close to civilian domiciles.

Close to? Yes, to some extent that's unavoidable in countries as small as Israel.

But under? Do you have a source for that?

> Tons of Israeli military bases and weapons manufacturing his placed directly under or very close to civilian domiciles.

This is nonsense propaganda that keeps getting repeated.

Israel has some army bases in or close to civilian areas, as do most countries - e.g. the Pentagon. The reason is that some army bases are used for intelligence, software development or other administrative tasks, which usually involves older officers and many civilians, so it makes sense to have these be in cities.

But note key differences between this and what Hamas is accused of doing:

1. These are administrative buildings. These are not weapons storage facilities, combat factilities, etc. And it's especially not where missile launch sites or things of a similar nature are located.

Shooting missiles from within houses, as e.g. Hezbollah does, or from under refugee camps, as Hamas does, is a different thing entirely - because to stop the actual rockets being shot at Israel, Israel has to shoot at them, which kills civilians. That is not what Israel does with those bases.

2. Israeli bases are not built under civilian buildings. Yes, the same army HQ or intelligence etc bases that are built in cities have sections underground, for obvious reasons - but under the bases, not under people's houses!

Don't you just love how the brave soldiers of the IDF fight all their wars remotely. 2000lb bombs dropped from the skies, Lavender AI to remove accountability. The kids in the IDF go directly from video games at school to a real war turned into another virtual reality. Without their US-funded military superiority those IDF zombies wouldn't stand a chance in one-on-one combat with a Palestinian resistance fighter.

the israeli "human shields" narrative is pure hasbara and israeli projection anyway

"The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, soldier and former detainees say" [https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h...]

"Over the years, the israeli military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields" [https://www.btselem.org/topic/human_shields]

"Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level" [https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/20/israel-has-tak...]

> the israeli "human shields" narrative is pure hasbara and israeli projection anyway

Saying this is, frankly, ridiculous. There is massive, extensive documentation of the vast tunnel networks and terrorist infrastructure hiding beneath and as part of civilian areas in Gaza (and in Lebanon, now). There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.

You don't have to like Israel or how it's acting, and you disagree with the legitimacy of the war or how it is conducted, but you should at least be grounded in reality. If you're just wholesale denying the well-documented evidence of how Hamas acts, you're not really criticizing the IDF, because you're not connecting with reality. You're criticizing an imaginary IDF fighting an imaginary Hamas that acts completely differently to how it's acting, and that makes your criticisms meaningless.

(And for the record, the cases of the IDF using human shields in the manner you linked above are pretty well documented too, as far as I can say, and I personally think they should be condemned and the IDF has to answer for that. I do try to be centered in reality and see things as they really are.)

> There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.

Correct, this is how guerrilla forces have always worked. Either their fighters get protection, or the colonial/occupying (from their perspective) power gets loads of bad PR.

I mean, when you look at the relative arms strength of the two forces, they'd be crazy not to do this.

Is this moral? 100% not. Is it understandable? Strategically, again 100%. yes.

Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.

If there are insurgents among civilians, they either have logistics and communication networks to conduct operations, or they're unable to operate effectively. Weapons do not materialize from nowhere, they must be smuggled into the country and distributed. Operations do not materialize from nowhere, they must be coordinated.

If they have logistics, we can leverage that against them. We saw this when Israel expected their pager attack. They've already proven that they can exercise their creativity to conduct effective attacks with great precision.

If they lack logistics and communication networks - then they can't conduct effective operations against us. There's little to fear and no reason to shoot through human shields.

This is some armchair strategy a nonexpert came up with on the spot. Consider that real military strategists and intelligence agencies are better at coming up with ways to find and kill their enemies than we are.

Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.

> Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.

No, you're the one making imaginary false dichotomies. See your last paragraph:

> Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.

You're now making a false dichotomy - Israel can choose to prosecute the war differently, but it doesn't, implying that they are choosing to kill human shields on purpose.

The reality is that you're coming up on the spot with a dozen ways to defeat an insurgency, without taking into account that they are just as smart and just as motivated as you, and planned for years to make them impossible to hit without significant civilian casualties. This is incredibly well documented.

Sure, you can pretend there is always a secret third option - and there sometimes is. And there sometimes isn't. And the more you let militants using civilians as human shields deter you, the more the militants are incentivized to use human shields, so even in a best case scenario, you're kicking the can down the road.

None of this is to say that Israel's actions are perfect or even good - that's a separate argument. But imagining that Israel has a magic way to do what it wants to do and eliminate Hamas - which many people support it doing and agree it has a right to do - imagining there is some magic way this could get done without hurting civilians is, frankly, incorrect.

>None of this is to say that Israel's actions are perfect or even good - that's a separate argument. But imagining that Israel has a magic way to do what it wants to do and eliminate Hamas - which many people support it doing and agree it has a right to do - imagining there is some magic way this could get done without hurting civilians is, frankly, incorrect.

The way isn't "magic" or "secret". It's a combination of the following:

1. Restrict the types of ordnance used to prosecute air attacks on Gaza. Emphasize cannon fire and Hellfires from AH-64s attack helicopters, as well as UAVs. These are utilized to engage insurgents on the surface, in dynamically-tasked missions with timely and accurate observation of insurgent heavy armaments.

2. Employ proper usage of restrictive fire support coordination measures to protect sensitive sites such as aid distribution locations, hospitals, and places of worship. Bombing them is bad publicity. Reference No-Fire Areas and Restrictive Fire Areas, page B-7, here: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCWP%203-25%2...

3. Establish a large number of checkpoints along the Gazan-Israeli border. Establish refugee areas INSIDE OF ISRAEL for the Gazan population. Distribute leaflets, social media messages, etc...welcoming the entire Gazan population into Israeli borders, provided they come to the checkpoints unarmed and only with the belongings they can personally carry.

4. After conditions are set (which needs to be determined, how much of the population Israel will allow to remain in place/not cooperate before it attacks)....then go into Gaza with a drastically larger (easy given Israel's ability to rapidly mobilize) but primarily light-infantry / dismounted force, slowly moving house-to-house with small arms in an incremental clear & hold approach. This is SIGNIFICANTLY less destructive on both the civilian population AND the urban infrastructure, but does incur much higher casualties for the attacking force.

This would probably cost thousands of additional Israeli (military) lives.....but save tens of thousands of Palestinian lives. And also save Israel's international reputation.

I can't speak to the more military/combat aspects of this - I honestly know very little about it personally. I'm leaning on analyses done by people who do know, and have spoken about what Israel is doing.

Regarding your point of putting refugees inside of Israel - I don't know if there's any practical way to do this. It is impossible to tell apart Hamas militants and normal civilians. Even if you somehow made a vast area inside of Israel to house the refugees, you're all but guaranteeing thousands of Hamas operatives getting into Israel as well.

Do you similarly support the idea of letting the refugees into Egyp in a similar manner? Cause that seems like the obvious solution to the problem from my perspective (and is the "usual" solution in urban war situations). Except Egypt absolutely refused to allow this, and almost no one pushed them on this, often claiming it was an attempt at more ethnic cleansing from Israel. (Apparently sacrificing Palestinian lives to prevent ethnic cleansing, without asking them, is somehow moral?)

> I can't speak to the more military/combat aspects of this - I honestly know very little about it personally. I'm leaning on analyses done by people who do know

While it's been over a decade since I've controlled live aircraft or built an Air Tasking Order, I've managed rather complex dynamic airspaces in exercises within the past few years. Points #1 & #2 are basic stuff that would be incorporated into how the USMC and Joint Services conduct air operations. I haven't worked with the IAF but I assume their approach to battlespace management is roughly analogous to a NATO nation.

The sheer amount of ordnance dropped in the first few weeks after October 7th was indicative of a completely permissive air campaign. In other words, it was conducted with NO concern for collateral damage, probably against a bunch of pre-planned targets from a Prioritized Target List that was refined over a period of years prior. And almost certainly with little or no terminal control (i.e. nobody looking at the targets on the ground minutes/seconds prior to ordnance release to ensure there were no civilians at the target, or to even verify that they destroyed what they meant to destroy).

> Even if you somehow made a vast area inside of Israel to house the refugees, you're all but guaranteeing thousands of Hamas operatives getting into Israel as well.

Yes, there are some risks involved. Saving lives is a hard decision. But even if Hamas operatives end up inside new Israeli camps, you are separating them from their military infrastructure, heavy ordnance, and logistics supply chains. You are also extending an olive branch in a very real and tangible way, which would make inroads in giving them a different perspective of Israel besides "these are the people who have killed my relatives/destroyed my home".

> Do you similarly support the idea of letting the refugees into Egypt in a similar manner? Cause that seems like the obvious solution to the problem from my perspective

No. Why should Egypt be forced to allocate resources to mitigate the consequences of a disaster that entirely derives from Israeli actions? The Palestinians were not driven out of homes in Egypt, they were driven out of homes in Haifa, Jaffa, Ashkelon, etc. Gaza is starving and without healthcare because the Israeli Air Force, not the Egyptian Air Force, has bombed the place back to the stone age.

Israel could at any moment decide "Hey you know what we're just gonna honor the 1967 borders and recognize a two-state solution too. From now on we expect to diplomatically deal with the Palestinian State via your capital in Eastern Jerusalem. Also we are lifting our maritime blockade so you can conduct international trade via ports in Gaza once you build them....and once you start exporting gas from your Gaza Marine 1/2 offshore gas fields....lemme know if you want to hire some Israeli engineers to help build all that though." You don't have to give them hand-outs, make them borrow money (probably from Qatar or Iran, but still...) to pay for Israeli services like any other trade deal...but normalize their economic opportunities. That would radically change the circumstances of the Palestinian people....regardless of Egypt's position on the matter.

The Palestinian refugee problem is entirely a creation of Israel; it is Israel's burden to bear. Under no circumstances should the neighboring countries reward Israel with what the far-right in the Likud Party want: to be the sole inhabitants and controllers of what was originally "Mandatory Palestine".

You may consider these actions a complete non-starter. At some point Israelis will need to come to terms with reality: their state in its current incarnation is dependent on maritime trade imports, even to keep their most pivotal military branch (the Air Force) supplied with munitions. That munitions supplier and principal political benefactor is also beginning a period of pretty severe imperial decline. You are surrounded by increasingly well-equipped adversaries who are refining their skills at modern protracted/attritional warfare....a style of warfare that Israel does not have the population to sustain. It is likely that continuing to "massacre your way to security" will no longer be a viable course of action. As the timeline extends further to the right....prognosis negative.

It's an interesting variation on the "iron triangle" problem: distinctly Jewish state, liberal democracy, multi-ethnic/multi-religious population. Pick two. I think Israelis would lean towards the first two....but that requires either killing or expelling almost the entire Palestinian population, which obviously the rest of the planet is no longer interested in tolerating.

> The sheer amount of ordnance dropped in the first few weeks after October 7th was indicative of a completely permissive air campaign. In other words, it was conducted with NO concern for collateral damage, probably against a bunch of pre-planned targets from a Prioritized Target List that was refined over a period of years prior.

Yes, this seems accurate. And this caused a large amount of the civilian deaths.

However, I think this is actually one of the most defensible actions Israel took. This started after an invasion of Israel in which thousands of militants roamed around inside the country and literally took over towns, a military base and a police station. It also happened while Israel was being daily bombarded with rockets multiple times a day.

Israel was literally shut down for a couple of weeks because of the massive rocket fire. The economy was completely shut down, schools were shut down, etc, as we ran into safe rooms 3-5 times a day.

And in the background, for the first three weeks, we waited to hear if Hezbollah would join in the action, which was clearly the goal of Hamas. Had they done so, we suspected it could lead to a massive war with huge losses. We've since seen that the situation was even worse than most of us suspected - if you're following along with what the IDF is uncovering in Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah apparently had stockpiles of weapons and massive tunnels primed to attack Israel, in a move that could've made October 7th look like a picnic.

This is a situation that no country in the world would countenance. You can't invade and shut down a country without a massive retaliatory strike. And it is entirely possible, and I would say likely, that only the massive Israel strike on Gaza prevented Hezbollah from joining in the war. Had they done so, I have little doubt the death toll in all countries would be much higher.

> Yes, there are some risks involved. Saving lives is a hard decision. But even if Hamas operatives end up inside new Israeli camps, you are separating them from their military infrastructure, heavy ordnance, and logistics supply chains. You are also extending an olive branch in a very real and tangible way, which would make inroads in giving them a different perspective of Israel besides "these are the people who have killed my relatives/destroyed my home".

I think there was no realistic way to do this inside of Israel logistically. We're talking about a massive population here - how in the world would you be able to secure this.

I think Israel should've done a lot of other things to earn good will among Gazans, like being the ones securing and giving out aid to the people ASAP, etc.

> Why should Egypt be forced to allocate resources to mitigate the consequences of a disaster that entirely derives from Israeli actions? The Palestinians were not driven out of homes in Egypt, they were driven out of homes in Haifa, Jaffa, Ashkelon, etc.

I was talking about a temporary solution that could save lives.

> Israel could at any moment decide "Hey you know what we're just gonna honor the 1967 borders and recognize a two-state solution too. From now on we expect to diplomatically deal with the Palestinian State via your capital in Eastern Jerusalem. Also we are lifting our maritime blockade so you can conduct international trade via ports in Gaza once you build them....and once you start exporting gas from your Gaza Marine 1/2 offshore gas fields....lemme know if you want to hire some Israeli engineers to help build all that though."

We've seen that this does not work. Israel tried the route of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza - "honoring the '67 borders" - and they elected Hamas, which promptly started shooting rockets at Israel and spent the billions they receive in aid money building up attacks against Israel.

Had Israel done the equivalent of the Gaza withdrawal in the West Bank, deciding to unilaterally leave all Palestinians lands without any negotiation, without any agreements on what things would look like the day after... we'd have just had October 7th, but much worse.

There is no alternative to a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Unfortunately most Israelis believe that it can't happen, since the last time Israel sincerely made the effort to achieve peace, those efforts were met with terrorism (and in Gaza, the election of Hamas).

But I agree with you completely - a negotiated two state solution is the only viable way forward. I just have no idea if it can actually be done.

> This is a situation that no country in the world would countenance. You can't invade and shut down a country without a massive retaliatory strike.

The most difficult and perhaps most important skill for a soldier is knowing when NOT to pull the trigger. Here's an interview with Delta operator Dale Comstock, when he had an opportunity to shoot a gunman but didn't because he knew he'd hit the civilian BEHIND him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSUUWl8nes

"You have to make good decisions, because you have to live with them."

The problem isn't the "What" Israel is doing, it's the how. We know Israel has the tools at its disposal to conduct an air campaign differently. It has the aviation platforms, the munitions, the surveillance assets, the AI models to assist with information processing. All of that can combine to produce a Master Air Attack Plan and supporting Air Tasking Orders, managed by an Air Operations Center with a robust Fires Cell that should be capable of significantly suppressing Hamas's rocket artillery without rendering Gaza uninhabitable.

But that isn't what the IAF did. So they are either incompetent, or malevolent. Given that the IAF has a multi-decade reputation for being VERY competent, that kinda narrows it down.

> And it is entirely possible, and I would say likely, that only the massive Israel strike on Gaza prevented Hezbollah from joining in the war.

Israel's munitions stockpile is not large. It is quite possible that at the tail end of surged bombing missions against Hamas, the IAF would not have had enough ordnance to be decisive against Hezbollah. I think Iran is adroitly avoiding putting Israel into a situation where it feels existentially threatened until Iran has some sort of solution to the Samson Option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

Hezbollah didn't initiate a massive cross-border invasion because Iran doesn't want Israel to panic and nuke the entire Middle East. The overwhelming violence unleashed against Gaza doesn't impact that decision space in Tehran.

>I was talking about a temporary solution that could save lives.

We've seen "temporary" displacement of Palestinians turn into permanent displacement often enough that no one is willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this again.

>We've seen that this does not work. Israel tried the route of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza - "honoring the '67 borders" - and they elected Hamas, which promptly started shooting rockets at Israel and spent the billions they receive in aid money building up attacks against Israel.

Aid money != domestic economic independence. It's the difference between teaching a man to fish, and giving him fish. These two things are not the same, so it is fallacious to say that this has been tried already. Would Hamas have been pissed off enough to shoot rockets into Israel if they were instead enriching the population by collecting revenue from...say...the Gaza Airport Terminal, which was the pride of the Palestinian people? Gee, what ever happened to the Gaza Airport? Oh right, it was completely razed by the IDF. With no indications there was any military necessity to doing so.

>But I agree with you completely - a negotiated two state solution is the only viable way forward. I just have no idea if it can actually be done.

Perhaps a massive UN peacekeeping force needs to man DMZs between Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, with large contributions from India and China (non-US, non-Muslim states interested in burnishing their global influence). Then implement a regional Armament Treaty for all involved parties/states. I would emphasize that all parties can maintain robust air-defense arsenals but are restricted on offensive strike systems: so the masses of Hezbollah rocket artillery needs to go away....but so does most of the IAF's fixed wing aircraft and large bombs. Israel needs to formally declare its nuclear arsenal and join the NPT. Basically make it so everyone doesn't really have the ability to do anything more than annoy each other. People will still die but we've got to get the violence back down to manageable levels so that economic development solutions can have an opportunity to bear fruit.

Even this is probably an unpalatable solution....I don't think Iran will tolerate a nuclear-armed Israel without having SOME means to make Israel think twice about using it. But it's a start.

What seems more relevant today is that UNIFIL was supposed to support the implementation of UNSC 1701, which was a complete failure, with Hezbollah ignoring it outright and the Lebanese army not doing much to stop them.

In war, you care more about losing/winning than a moral high ground - an imaginary prize for the “superior” nation who chooses to appear weak.

> Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.

I am not saying it’s morally correct but from a war crime standpoint, I think you actually do. As longs as it’s proportional, you can attack combatants hiding under civilians, even if you kill civilians by doing that. At least that’s my understanding.

Yes, that seems correct: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." - https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule97

> “Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.”

When the human shields are serving willingly as human shields, I will say that yes, you get to shoot through them and keep your moral high ground.

Not only those UN troops have no reason to be there, but there are numerous reports that several of their members are working together and aiding Hezbolah.

It's all on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_i...

There's absolutely no evidence of UN forces being used as human shields. There's clear evidence, including that cited in the article, of the situation being very different from the claims/report of the IDF.

The most credible reason for Israel wanting Unfil to vacate is less impartial observers.

The most credible reason for Israel to want UNIFIL to vacate is that UNIFIL’s mission is to help keep unauthorized military forces out of South Lebanon, and Israel’s invasion force is decidedly unauthorized.

Given they targeted observation posts and monitoring cameras first, I suspect they don't want witnesses observing war crimes. Local witnesses are outright killed or smeared with accusations of belonging to militant groups, as it's being done to journalists in Gaza. They just put targets on the backs of the few surviving journalists that are still documenting the siege of northern Gaza. See: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/10/24/wh...

That trick is harder to pull when the witnesses are external UN observers.

Well, UNIFIL for the last twenty years pretty much ignored the other unauthorized military force in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, so why they should care about IDF?

Hezbollah is part of the elected government within the in internationally recognized borders of Lebanon. It might be illegal for them to fire at Israel, but it's not illegal for them to be present. It is illegal for Israel to be present within Lebanon's borders.

Being part of the government doesn’t usually grant you the right to maintain your own army. Imagine if every political party had an army.

Shouldn't that be an internal political problem for Lebanon to solve?

> Imagine if every political party had an army.

Well, the People's Liberation Army is not technically the army of the nation of China....it is actually the armed wing of the Communist Party of China. Just the PRC is a de-facto one-party state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army

Hezbollah's presence might not be illegal under Lebanese law, but it is illegal under UNSC 1701.

Israel's current presence might technically also be illegal under UNSC 1701, but Israel has a very strong casus belli from self-defense, having been bombarded for the past year.

The whole reason the UN is there was to assist the Lebanese government in disarming Hezbollah....

They care about Israel Bulldozing UN's bases (walls and towers)

Israel is being openly threatening UNIFIL, and they aren't retailating in any way. I am 100% sure the white hats have never had any capacity to do anything beside being witness. Hezbollah was ok with that, Israel is not ok with that.

So Hamas is authorized?

I would think that a people that was close to extinction through genocide only 80 years ago, cares little about what other people authorizes them to do in order to protect themselves.

They were attacked from Lebanon, they retaliate. It’s quite simple.

> Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace?

They're basically observers when there are any other armed troops present. They have small arms, everybody else has rockets, missiles, or tanks.

UN peacekeeper should be treated as civilians - even when armed.

Why are they there then? Seems they are willingly serving as human shields to prevent Israel from retaliating against Hezbollah attacks.

Judging from your other comments it seems you’ve bought into the narrative that anyone who would ordinarily be protected by the laws of war is not when their presence inconveniences the IDF. I don’t think I can help you.

> What is the point of the troops being there?

Let's assume they are completely useless at peacekeeping - does this justify them being attacked?

> Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace?

They’re outnumbered by 10:1.

By Hezbollah?

"Israel has also said.."

Come on..!?