Yeah, it's nuts.

But where is the evidence? :roll:

Under the current circumstances, I doubt we'll be seeing evidence any time soon if ever.

"In light of the overwhelming and vital American support for the war effort and in light of US President Biden's demand for basic humanitarian aid, the reduced cabinet unanimously decided:

1 - Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip as long as our abductees are not returned.

2 - Israel demands the Red Cross visits to our abductees and is working to mobilize extensive international support for this demand.

3 - In light of President Biden's demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted." — Manuel

Am I wrong in suggesting that, from the side of the Israeli citizen, and especially the relatives of the hostages, the following would be a better course of action? It is really hard to tell which actions are smarter than others simply because there are too many mistakes being made so far.

Suggested press release:

1. Temporary ceasefire with immediate release of hostages to the Red Cross, will be followed by humanitarian aid convoy.

(then we will end the ceasefire and kill all Hamas members including civilian Minister of Economic Affairs etc, later. But don't put that in the press release)

2. Visit to abductees? This is not a tour of the Hollywood for God's sake, you want the Red Cross to see them alive, and then leave them, amidst heavy bombing? Where would these visits take place? On location? Maybe the Gaza hospital since either it has been bombed or will not be bombed by Israel.

3.President Biden's demand? Not based on humanitarian reasons that Israel, as a modern nation, affords? President Biden's "demand"

"as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted"

No offence, but this strikes me as absolutely insane. How on earth is one to say these supplies will not reach Hamas?

What does this all mean? It all sounds like the nature of the entire Israeli military approach seems to be, as I made up my mind years ago is very 'heavy handed'. It has all the hallmarks of police brutality, in short.

My impressions is these people are dangerously limited in their thinking, which is not good for anyone.

Or something got lost in the translation.

Deleted repeated post. I really like that 'President Biden's Demands' Says a lot.

The Tweet or "X" in full, in case you don't want to click.

@HananyaNaftali
Earlier today I shared a report that was published on
@reuters
about the bombing at the hospital in Gaza which falsely stated Israel struck the hospital. I mistakenly shared this information in a since deleted post in which I referenced Hamas’ routine use of hospitals to store weapons caches and conduct terrorist activity. I apologize for this error.

As the IDF does not bomb hospitals, I assumed Israel was targeting one of the Hamas bases in Gaza.

It is known that Hamas is using civilians as human shields, it is a war crime and a crime against humanity. This should be the focus.
2:58 AM · Oct 18, 2023
·
2.3M Views — X

Hamas should be afraid, very very afraid, because they are dealing with an irrational, incompetent bunch of .. what did former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert call them...no disrespect here

I truly feel sorry for the people of Israel. They, too should be afraid.

If the government of Israel did its job of protecting you, none of this would have happened.

Your government is playing you like a fiddle.

I am beginning to feel the need to pray for Israel now.

1. Temporary ceasefire with immediate release of hostages to the Red Cross, will be followed by humanitarian aid convoy.

(then we will end the ceasefire and kill all Hamas members including civilian Minister of Economic Affairs etc, later. But don't put that in the press release) — FreeEmotion

Yes and I think Hamas said it was willing to release all hostages minus the IDF soldiers if the bombing stops. I think that exchange is reasonable.

Now if it so happened that it was one of your family members that was in the IDF captured by Hamas, this position may be problematic.

Israel has had a decent record doing counterintelligence and stuff like that. If they want to kill Hamas, infiltrating them and doing something from the inside might work. But, it's very very hard to pull off.

2. Visit to abductees? This is not a tour of the Hollywood for God's sake, you want the Red Cross to see them alive, and then leave them, amidst heavy bombing? Where would these visits take place? On location? Maybe the Gaza hospital since either it has been bombed or will not be bombed by Israel. — FreeEmotion

I also see this as being very reasonable. One can't be sure that the hostages aren't in an extremely dire situation, so it's very sensible the Red Cross (or a similar organization) to visit them.

3.President Biden's demand? Not based on humanitarian reasons that Israel, as a modern nation, affords? President Biden's "demand"

"as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted"

No offence, but this strikes me as absolutely insane. How on earth is one to say these supplies will not reach Hamas?

What does this all mean? It all sounds like the nature of the entire Israeli military approach seems to be, as I made up my mind years ago is very 'heavy handed'. It has all the hallmarks of police brutality, in short. — FreeEmotion

I would imagine that it is very hard to distinguish who is Hamas and who is not if the aid gets through. I assume they won't be wearing guerilla warfare clothes.

It seems to me that the government is reacting this way because they are extremely embarrassed by how they colossally failed to protect Israeli civilians. To cover up, or attempt to make people overlook this, they are going in guns blazing, to keep postponing serious accountability.

But with what I've read, people in your country are extremely pissed at Netanyahu and they will not forget his failure even after this is all over.

I feel sorry that you guys may have to go through yet another election(!) to get some competent leaders in the government.

And yes, I think if this continues, others will get involved, Hezbollah and maybe Iran. It's a spine-chilling situation to find yourself in.

This may sound empty, but I can do nothing else: stay safe.

I really like that 'President Biden's Demands' Says a lot — FreeEmotion

It sounded like, "We don't have any common decency, but since we need American support, we'll let some water in to the southern side."

Netanyahu is such a butthead.

The US has an independent assessment that it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad group rocket that misfired and hit the hospital in Gaza, two senior officials have told our US partner network NBC News.
It would match what Israel has said caused the blast.
Palestinian health officials and Hamas have blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion, which they said killed almost 500 people.
White House national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson also told NBC News that US analysis of "overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information" suggests Israel is not responsible for the blast.

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-war-latest-hamas-palestine-sky-news-live-blog-12978800

I'm not sure what the assessment is independent of exactly, or who will credit it. Still, 'death goes on', as they say.

Just looking at the BBC report from the scene, I'm not seeing a big crater, and I'm not seeing lots of demolished buildings and damaged buildings. Rather it looks like a lot of people camped in the hospital courtyard, and a rather modest explosion in a crowded place. So it does rather look to me as if it was more likely a palestinian missile gone horribly wrong.

We've also yet to see an impact site, the absence of which could imply the use of airburst munitions.

So the absence of a crater does not absolve Israel, though the use of airburst munitions would be properly ghastly, because those are meant specifically to harm people as opposed to buildings or materiel.

It would explain the extraordinarily high death toll, though it remains to be seen whether that's the actual death toll or if it is being heavily exaggerated.

If he does go into Gaza, I don't see Hezbollah not acting. Maybe Iran too. That would be a disaster. — Manuel

Well, then we have two USN carrier strike forces in the Mediterranean Sea ready to pounce the Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon. To help Israel, which cannot deal with far weaker enemies than before. :smirk:

And of course, there is always the option to bomb Iran. Last time the US came to blows with Iran (and Iran attacking US forces), Trump didn't do much else than declared that no servicemen died and left it that. Hence there actually is no desperate desire for the US to extend this war. Iran of the present is much stronger than before, but old examples of these limited conflicts show historically how these exchanges have gone:



What history tells us is that a) The US sees any military operation of this kind as an extension of foreign policy and hence will try to make a "proportionate" strike. If it comes to using military force, the priority is political thinking, not military thinking. The US will b) try to not escalate the war too much. Joe Biden has no intension to engage in a large war in the Middle East. What this means, that the US won't try to do an all out attack on Iran's military capability (something that Israeli doctrine would want), but will try to do something "proportional".

And let's remember that US engagement is still quite hypothetical here. Apart from sending arms to Israel.

Last time the US sent forces to defend Israel was during Operation Desert Storm. Then the earlier Patriot missiles were in truth a disappointment, unlike the media back then made them to be. Only later the dismal performance of the early Patriots was unveiled.

They do and that strategy of being proportional with Iran is more levelheaded than a full out war.

Now, as for the US ships - yeah, they may be used to bomb Lebanon. This issue is, if Israel continues to fire into Lebanon, either as a reply to attacks or for wanting to defend its northern border, it seems strange to me that Hezbollah would happily stay while Israel strikes.

In short, I do not know how long the "proportional" part of the Exhange of missiles can stay this way.

They do and that strategy of being proportional with Iran is more levelheaded than a full out war. — Manuel

But that's not actually the other side of the coin. It isn't either WW3 or this. It's either peace through deterrence or war. I'll try to explain what I mean here.

The basic problem is that "proportionality" in using war doesn't make sense, because it militarily does nothing. It simply lowers the threshold of military action and creates an environment for on/off war: a low intensity conflict. It's ruinous for what militaries should do to enforce peace: to create a deterrence that nobody dares to make any military attacks.

Likely people will get my point wrong. They will think that it's better to have a "proportional" response than an "all out attack" to the bitter end. Yet this isn't the case. The "proportional" response is usually a political response with either with no or simply very vague military objectives. If there would be a clear military objective, that objective is either achieved with limited resources or everything you have.

Just think if during the Cold War both sides, blaming each other, would have every once in a while lobbed artillery rounds to the opposing sides of Germany. Or East Germans would tried to snatch tourists or West German civilians that came too close to the border. And this would have gone on for decades. It would have made living quite miserable in West Berlin, if there would have been the occasional mortar of artillery fire every now and then. But if you are a proponent of the "proportional" war, this could have easily happened. Once it's OK to bomb someone every once a while, or like Trump enjoyed it: launching cruise missiles to Syria and bragging about it to the Chinese premier while eating the most nicest chocolate cake.

Hence the idea of "proportional" military response sucks. The worst example is how the Vietanam war was micromanaged by the White House. But also the Israeli strategy of dealing with the insurgency by "mowing the lawn", simply having these military every now and then to decrease the ability of Hamas/Hezbollah/whoever simply creates this low intensity conflict, which once a while blows up like it has now. Basically the leaders of Israel have decided that a small shooting war every decade or so is OK. It doesn't hurt much. And it keeps up the spirit and doesn't inflict true war weariness.

I understand what you mean and that risk will always lurk. But look at for instance, what happened to Soleimani. I'm not saying that it was good to kill him, that almost took us to the verge of a full out war. But it didn't get to that point. It could have, had anyone decided to make just a slightly different calculation.

It's less harmful in terms of numbers of deaths involved than a war. Nonetheless, what you say is correct, which is that such situations end up escalating because there are no clear objectives in mind, so they just continue shooting at each other until someone decides to end this silly game.

You could say that Soleimani was a clear objective- maybe, but they knew the tremendous risks involved.

There is no good solution, unless a ceasefire is declared and implemented. Short of that, anything that can, for the moment, delay something much worse, should be tolerated as a lesser evil.

But I agree that in principle it is a sign of a lack of clear thinking from those involved.

Some history, fwiw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-x-cRReI1A

But I agree that in principle it is a sign of a lack of clear thinking from those involved. — Manuel

Or the simple fact they can do it. The US can strike at Soleimani as they can strike at various targets in the Iranian nuclear program. Yet an overall war isn't fruitful: trying to march to Teheran is beyond question. Yet the US won't take out a Russian general... or Putin. Then what they can do is to put them on a sanctions list or hope that the ICC takes attention of them.

The fact is that with Russia, just as with China, the deterrence of those countries works. Even Israel is very nice to Russians, even if otherwise they bomb Syria nearly at will. Here the deterrence works and basically any "proportional" strike is out of the question.

Yet it's not obvious that it is so: that the Cold War could have been similar to the DMZ in Korea, where you still basically have only a armstice. That the US has lost quite many killed during the decades there, which isn't well known. Hence it's totally possible for a Cold War to be violent, once the politicians get accustomed to "proportional" military responses.



Basically Israel should have on it's borders everywhere a country like Egypt, which does have a peace agreement, yet is powerful enough for guard it's borders and make any Israeli government to think twice before being reckless with it. Yet as Israel enjoys military dominance over it's neighbors and has the nuclear deterrence (which it's neighbors don't), a leader like Netanyahu can do basically whatever he wants.

It seems Israel is doing what the Assyrians and Romans did to them over a thousand years ago...

Countless visions/visitations later and here they are doing the same thing to the Palestinians.

How long before we hear a Palestinian refugee/survivor who suddenly has visions/visitations from god/angels telling them about returning to their homeland and expelling the unholy infidels?

The river of blood and tears flows round and round.

Under the current circumstances, I doubt we'll be seeing evidence any time soon if ever. — Tzeentch

Well, now that there is more photos from the site, it seems that the explosion happened at the parking lot, which was full of people. People aren't excavated from under rubble as in many other videos from Gaza after obvious IDF attacks. Hence it seems that the hospital wasn't demolished. And the crater shown is quite tiny, which is quite similar to what rockets fired from Gaza typically leave behind. Also the cars in pictures are burnt, don't have markings of shrapnel. This leaves out the more powerful HE ordnance.



If it was a rocket and it had fuel, there ought to have been the trail that a rocket leaves, or then the motor stopped for some reason with fuel still left. Hence there is the possibility that indeed this was a stray rocket. But also, there are many kinds of munitions that can be used in Gaza. Proof that will make it clear will be hard to come by.

Some interesting context on the missile striking the hospital.

https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation



And have backing from the US, which doesn't hurt.

Some interesting context on the missile striking the hospital. — Manuel

An air-burst ordnance could easily also do this. Or something else than air-to-ground bomb. And as the Channel 4 remarks, the Israeli spin media presentation is confusing at times.

[img]http://https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fc1wndrip9zub1.jpg[/img]

The pictures show extremely lack luster damage at the impact zone, almost no crater, and none of the concentric circles of damage you'd expect from an airburst bomb. Whatever it was, it was likely not a weapon that worked as intended. The most impacted area has a small crater and the cars are still in tact and in rows, neatly parked. Windows are blown out but there is no visible shrapnel damage.

The idea of it being a defective rocket is credible from that respect, because if it was even a 500lb JDAM you'd have much more damage. Or, alternatively, Israel air dropping some special low yield carbon fiber bomb that wouldn't leave material that could be traced back to them so they could blame it on a rocket. But that seems a little much, they don't really seem to have problems with letting the electricity run out, and that will kill more people. Maybe some sort of older rocket they have for their rotary wing craft, but I don't know why they'd even be using that in the first place.

I have to imagine the casualties are being vastly overstated unless the parking lot was packed with people.

By way of contrast:






A malfunctioning munitions impact isn't necessarily going to look like a functional one. If it still had fuel left and dumped it, that could explain the significant fire damage and scorch markets relative to shrapnel.

Or it might be consistent with some of the smaller unguided rockets like the Hydra 70, but those generally aren't used individually, in part because they rely on accuracy through volume. You'd be extremely lucky to get your target at night, in an urban enviornment, especially since I would assume they wouldn't be flying low.

Edit: and I guess there is video of what appears to be a failing rocket? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061

Just looking at the BBC report from the scene, I'm not seeing a big crater, and I'm not seeing lots of demolished buildings and damaged buildings. Rather it looks like a lot of people camped in the hospital courtyard, and a rather modest explosion in a crowded place. So it does rather look to me as if it was more likely a palestinian missile gone horribly wrong. — unenlightened

The twitter thread posted earlier on with the sub-titled comments from Hamas operatives, says that it was a missile that had launched from the cemetery immediately behind the hospital, and that it malfunctioned and hit the hospital immediately after firing. The implication being that, apart from whatever explosive charge it carried, it also would have been full of rocket fuel, which would explain the massive fireburst that was captured on video. Here it is again:



Whoever was responsible, whatever the cause, the suffering on the ground is absolutely heart-breaking. (It should be noted that Islamic Jihad denies this account. The authenticity of the recording will also be questioned.)

And yes, I think if this continues, others will get involved, Hezbollah and maybe Iran. It's a spine-chilling situation to find yourself in. — Manuel

I find it very depressing. The Israeli and Hamas governments have been very bad at PR, but good at killing civilians on the other side. To what end? If this was a direct democracy, what would have hapenned?

But also the Israeli strategy of dealing with the insurgency by "mowing the lawn", simply having these military every now and then to decrease the ability of Hamas/Hezbollah/whoever simply creates this low intensity conflict, which once a while blows up like it has now. — ssu

Apparently they have given up this strategy, they are going to eliminate Hamas. Very good, but not a word about the other terrorists organizations, will the let them be, and have them take over, or provide some fresh grass for moving?

For now, I am going to assume it was an attack by Israel. Hitting the parking could be a 'warning' strike since the hospital had been asked to evaluate. I can excuse them for avoiding the hospital and hitting a parking lot at night, they may not have known that there were people there, as I said, they were warned.

To my untrained eye, it looks like an explosion happened in the air, burning the cars evenly for some radius.

In any case, it does not excuse the bombing of buildings and cutting off supplies, which is deliberate, and will cause possibly more painful deaths.

I am going to assume it was an attack by Israel — FreeEmotion

Without wanting to get involved in a big argument over it, I think that an unsafe assumption. The emerging story of a failed missile launch from the cemetery behind the hospital, by a group called Islamic Jihad (not Hamas, but allied with them) was the likely cause. As others have pointed out above, if it had been a bomb dropped from an aircraft, there would have been far greater structural damage and a crater. What the pictures show is consistent with a firestorm caused by an exploding missile.

If there is an official investigation, carried out by an NGO, we may get a definite answer. Or we may soon forget about as more massacres happen in Gaza. It could be that it was a misfire, but, given how many lies they've said before, it's hard to take them at their word.



You have a keen eye for this stuff. If it was a misfire, damn that's horrific. If it's not, it's also horrific.

Ideally we'd want an NGO doing the research. But, I'll keep your skepticism in mind.

I find it very depressing. The Israeli and Hamas governments have been very bad at PR, but good at killing civilians on the other side. To what end? If this was a direct democracy, what would have hapenned? — FreeEmotion

The end? Hamas for revenge in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel for revenge and to make up for the fact they did not prevent the attacks.

A direct democracy, involving Palestine and Israel? Impossible to say. It would cease to be a Jewish majority state, though one could imagine having different laws - those for Muslims, those for Jews. It needn't be terrible, but I do understand how losing national identity would be very tough.

If you mean something else by direct democracy, I don't know. My impression is that, when people are cool and level headed, they get along perfectly fine. It's when the state gets involved in matters, removed from direct control by the people, that these problems tend to arise of get magnified.

Sure, it's a generalization and there are exceptions. But it's what I've seen.

It’s the inability to compromise for moderates, and the inability to control the radicals. Almost all of it stems from that.

Which makes one question how moderate they are. As for radicals, plenty.

Which makes one question how moderate they are. — Manuel

Correct which seems to contradict

My impression is that, when people are cool and level headed, they get along perfectly fine. It's when the state gets involved in matters, removed from direct control by the people, that these problems tend to arise of get magnified. — Manuel

What if it’s turtles all the way down?

I can’t picture moderate Pals using force to suppress radicals. Also a compromise means you don’t just get 100% of what you want. It especially doesn’t mean that one doesn’t take a deal and live in squalor out of spite for not getting 100% of what you want.

But Israel should have somehow tried to find the moderates in Gaza and help them with a coup or whatnot instead of just containing and ignoring. Allowing various outbursts every year or so.

The lack of a real crater continues to imply to me some form of airburst weapon, though alternative explanations are imaginable.

Could it have been a Hellfire?

AGM-114N Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) Thermobaric Hellfire

Or maybe another Hellfire variant.

To be honest, I find the Israeli defense of "there is no crater!" a very strange argument, since their arsenal is full of weapons which do not produce craters. :chin:

Gaza hospital: What video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital blast
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061