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NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. |
On November 19 2023 13:09 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2023 17:50 WombaT wrote:On November 18 2023 11:12 RvB wrote:The bodies of hostages found in the vicinity are just a coincidence I guess. Article from Reuters on what comes next and the risk of insurgency. Also looks at who might lead Gaza and why Arab states are hesitant to take over security for some time. Nov 17 (Reuters) - Israel risks facing a long and bloody insurgency if it defeats Hamas and occupies Gaza without a credible post-war plan to withdraw its troops and move toward the creation of a Palestinian state, U.S. and Arab officials, diplomats and analysts said.
None of the ideas floated so far by Israel, the United States and Arab nations for the post-war administration of Gaza have managed to gain traction, according to two U.S. and four regional officials as well as four diplomats familiar with the discussions, raising fears the Israeli military may become mired in a prolonged security operation.
from its chief ally, Washington.
As Israel tightens its control over northern Gaza, some officials in Washington and Arab capitals fear it is ignoring lessons from the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan when swift military victories were followed by years of violent militancy.
If Gaza's Hamas-run government is toppled, its infrastructure destroyed and its economy ruined, the radicalization of an enraged population could fuel an uprising targeting Israeli troops in the enclave's narrow streets, diplomats and officials say.
Israel, the U.S. and many Arab states agree that Hamas should be ousted after it launched a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 that killed some 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages. But there is no consensus on what should replace it.
Arab countries and Western allies have said a revitalized Palestinian Authority (PA) – which partially governs the West Bank – is a natural candidate to play a greater role in Gaza, home to some 2.3 million people.
But the credibility of the Authority – run by 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party - has been undermined by its loss of control over Gaza to Hamas in a 2007 conflict, its failure to halt the spread of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and accusations of widespread corruption and incompetence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekend that the PA in its current form should not take charge of Gaza. He said the Israeli military was the only force capable of eliminating Hamas and ensuring that terrorism did not reappear. In the wake of Netanyahu's comments, Israeli officials have insisted that Israel does not intend to occupy the Gaza Strip.
....
A proposal for a two-year transitional administration of technocrats in Gaza backed by U.N. and Arab forces has been floated by Western partners and some Middle Eastern states, diplomats said.
But there has been resistance from key Arab governments – including Egypt - to being drawn into what they regard as the Gaza quagmire, the diplomats said.
Regional powers fear that any Arab forces deployed in Gaza might have to use force against Palestinians and no Arab nation wants its military put in that position.
www.reuters.com May as well be as long as Israel refuses external arbiters to have a look around anything. A less trustful lot than even Hamas, heinous as they are, they arent perpetual bullshitters to this degree They've already embedded journalists from multiple independent outlets but more is better. The video with the tunnel and weapons has been geolocated by reuters. That Al Shifa is used for military purposes is also not a secret. See [1] [2] [3(6.48)] [4] at Al Shifa And [5] [6] [7] near Al Shifa. International humanitarian law requires you to be as far away from hospitals and the like as possible so firing from near the hospital is already a war crime. I did not even include sources from further back. That Hamas bullshits less has to be some kind of joke. This is the same organisation that intimidates journalists [1] [7], holds press conferences at hospitals [1] [7], stages scenes [1], funds 'journalists' to spread propaganda [8], uses hostages for propaganda [9], and denies using civilian areas for military purposes while at the same time claiming to detonate explosives in a tunnel near a mosque [10]. Their whole military strategy is based around using civilians as a shield and then showing the world the dead civilians.
I clicked all your links (although some were paywalled, and some I only skimmed). My main interest was in seeing what public justification Israel has given for targeting the hospital, considering they now control it and should be able to provide evidence it was, in fact, the valid military target they claimed it was.
First of all, most of your sources are from 2014 or earlier. Mostly those either take the form of “they launched missiles from near the hospital” reports, or “it’s an open secret they use it as a command and control node” reports. Pardon me, but I’m not gonna take “it’s an open secret” claims seriously. I’m sure that’s the rumor going around or whatever, but I’m gonna need actual evidence when the stakes are “bombing hospitals.”
I think it was the first link that showed a bit of video of a hole in the ground, apparently near the hospital, and said it was one of the tunnels (nothing further on that though). There was also a video where they apparently found a truck in the hospital loaded with a bunch of weapons. The IDF guy is explaining the truck was “intended to take part in the Oct 7th attacks” although I’m not sure any actual evidence of that was provided.
I can’t help but ask at the end of all this: if the hospital was this all-important command-and-control node, and the IDF control it now, why not show us proof? They’re willing to point a camera at a random calendar on the wall and lie about what it says, why not take a camera through some of the tunnels? If there’s some confidential intelligence that would reveal, then let international observers inspect the scene and vouch for your claims.
Perhaps that evidence is still incoming. But I think we have to say the burden of proof is on the IDF here. The evidence should be in their hands if their claims are true; without that evidence the most likely scenario in my view is that the military significance of this hospital was massively overestimated. They thought this was an “open secret” but when they actually got in there it was pretty much just a hospital. At risk of stating the obvious, one truck worth of military supplies being parked there is not sufficient justification to remove a hospital’s protection under international law.
———
A couple other asides: your source [4] appears to be in the regrettable genre of “articles written entirely on the basis of a single tweet.” The tweet in question:
The tweet has an 11 second video in Arabic with no translation, and the comments seem to be mostly people requesting some AI chatbot translate it. The AI translation is almost certainly pretty poor but as far as I can tell the exchange is something like:
Interviewee: “This is happening because Hamas is hiding among us! They need to go to hell!”
Interviewer: “These are testimonies of citizens because of this.”
To me, it sounds more like the guy is saying “this humanitarian crisis is happening because Hamas is hiding among the population,” not “Hamas is hiding in this specific hospital.” And the interviewer sounds like he’s just trying to throw back to an anchor, not cut off an interview for speaking a forbidden truth.
Also, I wasn’t that interested in source [8] because it wasn’t directly relevant to the hospital, but I think it’s a bit credulous to believe the Jerusalem Post that “these ‘journalists’ are actually just Hamas-paid propagandists.” Maybe I skimmed too fast and missed something, because otherwise the evidence provided seemed to be “the IDF says so” and “they spread the lie about 1000 people dying at the al-Ahli hospital.”
You may recall we spent a while on that hospital strike in this very thread, and I’d hardly call reporting the official death tally in the immediate aftermath “propaganda.” It turned out to be much lower but that was hardly obvious at the time. In fact, contrary to what that article says nothing about the cause of that was “quickly proven.” Most of the videos purporting to “prove” it was a PIJ rocket have since been debunked; I think most analysts would still say that explanation is most likely based on analysis of the actual damage caused, but it’s still a little murky.
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Obviously Hamas lifted their command center from under the hospital and floated it to the corner of the map so they wouldn't be revealed.
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There is, to me, also a massive difference between some fighters hiding in a hospital (which they shouldn't be I imagine most people will readily accept that it happens) and the hospital being a Command Post.
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On November 19 2023 13:09 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2023 17:50 WombaT wrote:On November 18 2023 11:12 RvB wrote:The bodies of hostages found in the vicinity are just a coincidence I guess. Article from Reuters on what comes next and the risk of insurgency. Also looks at who might lead Gaza and why Arab states are hesitant to take over security for some time. Nov 17 (Reuters) - Israel risks facing a long and bloody insurgency if it defeats Hamas and occupies Gaza without a credible post-war plan to withdraw its troops and move toward the creation of a Palestinian state, U.S. and Arab officials, diplomats and analysts said.
None of the ideas floated so far by Israel, the United States and Arab nations for the post-war administration of Gaza have managed to gain traction, according to two U.S. and four regional officials as well as four diplomats familiar with the discussions, raising fears the Israeli military may become mired in a prolonged security operation.
from its chief ally, Washington.
As Israel tightens its control over northern Gaza, some officials in Washington and Arab capitals fear it is ignoring lessons from the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan when swift military victories were followed by years of violent militancy.
If Gaza's Hamas-run government is toppled, its infrastructure destroyed and its economy ruined, the radicalization of an enraged population could fuel an uprising targeting Israeli troops in the enclave's narrow streets, diplomats and officials say.
Israel, the U.S. and many Arab states agree that Hamas should be ousted after it launched a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 that killed some 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages. But there is no consensus on what should replace it.
Arab countries and Western allies have said a revitalized Palestinian Authority (PA) – which partially governs the West Bank – is a natural candidate to play a greater role in Gaza, home to some 2.3 million people.
But the credibility of the Authority – run by 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party - has been undermined by its loss of control over Gaza to Hamas in a 2007 conflict, its failure to halt the spread of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and accusations of widespread corruption and incompetence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekend that the PA in its current form should not take charge of Gaza. He said the Israeli military was the only force capable of eliminating Hamas and ensuring that terrorism did not reappear. In the wake of Netanyahu's comments, Israeli officials have insisted that Israel does not intend to occupy the Gaza Strip.
....
A proposal for a two-year transitional administration of technocrats in Gaza backed by U.N. and Arab forces has been floated by Western partners and some Middle Eastern states, diplomats said.
But there has been resistance from key Arab governments – including Egypt - to being drawn into what they regard as the Gaza quagmire, the diplomats said.
Regional powers fear that any Arab forces deployed in Gaza might have to use force against Palestinians and no Arab nation wants its military put in that position.
www.reuters.com May as well be as long as Israel refuses external arbiters to have a look around anything. A less trustful lot than even Hamas, heinous as they are, they arent perpetual bullshitters to this degree They've already embedded journalists from multiple independent outlets but more is better. The video with the tunnel and weapons has been geolocated by reuters. That Al Shifa is used for military purposes is also not a secret. See [1] [2] [3(6.48)] [4] at Al Shifa And [5] [6] [7] near Al Shifa. International humanitarian law requires you to be as far away from hospitals and the like as possible so firing from near the hospital is already a war crime. I did not even include sources from further back. That Hamas bullshits less has to be some kind of joke. This is the same organisation that intimidates journalists [1] [7], holds press conferences at hospitals [1] [7], stages scenes [1], funds 'journalists' to spread propaganda [8], uses hostages for propaganda [9], and denies using civilian areas for military purposes while at the same time claiming to detonate explosives in a tunnel near a mosque [10]. Their whole military strategy is based around using civilians as a shield and then showing the world the dead civilians.
Yes my comment on Hamas was hyberbolic in the extreme, too many beers were had that day. I retract.
I don’t think it’s in dispute that Hamas generally employ these tactics, which your sources do confirm.
Just Israel is making rather specific claims about this specific hospital, which Christian has already alluded to much more thoroughly and elegantly than I can.
There’s not really a negative, at least from a humanitarian/vetting process from having some kind of consistent feet on the ground in terms of international observers
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Ive seen several israeli politicans speaking and acting clearly in a way that doesnt even hide the fact that they think humans in Gaza are expendable..
I have a question to the "Pro Israel" faction here (JimmiC, RvB, RenSC2 e.g):
1) Have you watched a couple of israeli politicans speak on this issue? NO -> u cant answer ofc
If yes -> 2) Do you agree? 3) How does it make you feel?
(please spare me the whataboutism with "hamas is inhumane too"..we are already 100% in agreement that Hamas is a inhumane terrible terrorist organization as far as Im concerned)
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On November 20 2023 02:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2023 01:40 GreenHorizons wrote:
Obviously Hamas lifted their command center from under the hospital and floated it to the corner of the map so they wouldn't be revealed. What a pointless and unintelligent post, shocking number of them with low content and less thought. If you think about this from Netanyahu point of view he needs some massive wins, which in his world and big command Centers or sprawling networks of tunnels they can film being destroyed. He was in a precarious position before Oct 7th because if he is not in power he could very well end up in jail. His big “appeal” is that he is a strong man leader who can keep people safe This tells you Israel, who is internationally famous for their intelligence network is not nearly what it once was or maybe ever was. Oct 7th was a massive intelligence blunder. And things like this do not help as there is no big victory to parade on TV and the internet just another over promise and under deliver. The only good that might come from all of this is a reckoning in the internal politics of Israel that pushes them away from these strongmen types. (And no before I get strawmanned to death I’m not saying it has been “worth” it.)
Omergahd, GH made a joke. A Starcraft themed joke at that! So pointless and unintelligent. I MUST RESPOND IN RAGE!!1111
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On November 20 2023 02:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2023 01:40 GreenHorizons wrote:
Obviously Hamas lifted their command center from under the hospital and floated it to the corner of the map so they wouldn't be revealed. What a pointless and unintelligent post, shocking number of them with low content and less thought. If you think about this from Netanyahu point of view he needs some massive wins, which in his world and big command Centers or sprawling networks of tunnels they can film being destroyed. He was in a precarious position before Oct 7th because if he is not in power he could very well end up in jail. His big “appeal” is that he is a strong man leader who can keep people safe This tells you Israel, who is internationally famous for their intelligence network is not nearly what it once was or maybe ever was. Oct 7th was a massive intelligence blunder. And things like this do not help as there is no big victory to parade on TV and the internet just another over promise and under deliver. The only good that might come from all of this is a reckoning in the internal politics of Israel that pushes them away from these strongmen types. (And no before I get strawmanned to death I’m not saying it has been “worth” it.)
Hey if you don’t laugh sometimes you’ll cry
Aye that could be one positive development in the medium/longer term if things move in that direction.
Which way the winds are blowing I’m unsure, someone more knowledgeable can correct/fill me in. Certainly Netanyahu is getting a lot of flak, but is that for him failing to live up to his strongman credentials or a rejection of that approach in a more wholesale sense?
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On November 20 2023 02:10 Gorsameth wrote:
There is, to me, also a massive difference between some fighters hiding in a hospital (which they shouldn't be I imagine most people will readily accept that it happens) and the hospital being a Command Post.
Israel provided an "Intelligence based illustration video" for a visual of what they haven't found yet. (EDIT: Note they don't call it a "node" or a "post" but "the main headquarters")
+ Show Spoiler +I would note that fighters needing medical attention going to a hospital doesn't make it a legitimate target either. It could account for discovering some Hamas related stuff in hospitals though. Not saying that's what we've seen, but it's another reason why these things need to be independently verified (which is distinct from being broadcast by ostensible independent media with the disclaimer that the reports aren't independently verified by the media reporting it or anyone else)
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On November 20 2023 02:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2023 01:40 GreenHorizons wrote:
Obviously Hamas lifted their command center from under the hospital and floated it to the corner of the map so they wouldn't be revealed. What a pointless and unintelligent post, shocking number of them with low content and less thought.
After we had the IDF claiming that Al-Shifa had a command center, bunker, and labyrinth of tunnels all in use by Hamas as a pretext to effectively disable and destroy an in-use hospital, I think it's a pretty appropriate bit of satire. Maybe they'll claim that the kids are refining Uranium in the school labs next.
Tweet for context:
+ Show Spoiler +
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Footage of a tunnel has been posted. It contains one cut at 1:13 probably because the first part was filmed with a drone and the second part handheld.
I think this counts as good evidence in addition with the weapons discovered previously.
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how credible is the stuff I keep on hearing that Israel built this facility and thus might have known beforehand what is under it?
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On November 20 2023 05:02 MaGic~PhiL wrote:
how credible is the stuff I keep on hearing that Israel built this facility and thus might have known beforehand what is under it?
I have absolutely no idea. I tried figuring it out but I'm honestly at a loss.
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It’s like clockwork. As soon as there is irrefutable video proof of hostages being brought to Al-Shifa, the goal post is moved to some kinda “yes but the Hamas equivalent of the pentagon was not present in Al-Shifa, so it was all a lie.”
Video proof of specific hostages being brought to Al-Shifa on the day of the attack and wee are still going to have folks saying Hamas is some kind of victim or freedom fighter. And after a couple of weeks, we’ll be told the video was fake because of AI or whatever and an Israeli helicopter was the one who actually brought the hostages there
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Mohdoo's reaction exemplifies why I don't think it's a very good strategy to talk about specific events. If the IDF somehow manages to stop lying at some point, the people on his side will be vindicated, and if the IDF is shown to be lying they won't care at all. I don't think there's a good outcome with this strategy, we either lose ground or break even.
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On November 20 2023 06:00 Nebuchad wrote:
Mohdoo's reaction exemplifies why I don't think it's a very good strategy to talk about specific events. If the IDF somehow manages to stop lying at some point, the people on his side will be vindicated, and if the IDF is shown to be lying they won't care at all. I don't think there's a good outcome with this strategy, we either lose ground or break even.
Just to be clear, are you saying you view the video footage of the hostages being brought to Al-Shifa to be an IDF lie?
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On November 20 2023 06:04 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2023 06:00 Nebuchad wrote:
Mohdoo's reaction exemplifies why I don't think it's a very good strategy to talk about specific events. If the IDF somehow manages to stop lying at some point, the people on his side will be vindicated, and if the IDF is shown to be lying they won't care at all. I don't think there's a good outcome with this strategy, we either lose ground or break even. Just to be clear, are you saying you view the video footage of the hostages being brought to Al-Shifa to be an IDF lie?
No
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EPT
