On Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said in its latest update that Israel’s ban on entry of aid has continued for nearly a month and that no aid entered the enclave throughout this period. All requests by humanitarian agencies to coordinate access with Israeli authorities have been denied.
Helles recalled when the blockade was imposed. The shops were empty within hours, and what was left was too expensive, she said. Even the charity distributions, which once offered a variety of meals, have dwindled, now providing only small servings of rice at the time of Iftar.
After days of eating little more than rice, Huda couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from severe stomach pain and colic. She was diagnosed with a stomach infection two weeks ago.
Armed struggle != war crimes. One does not justify the other. The October attacks were like 5% achieving military objectives, the rest mindless slaughter, to the point where one can legitimately question whether the military objectives were not completely incidental. Hamas could have bee-lined for as many IDF outposts as they could, they didn’t, they shot up Hippie Kibbutzim of all places. (Which is also why Netanjahu and triply so the Kahanites don’t care about the hostages: They’re by and large lefties).
Same, of course, goes for the IDF and what they’re currently doing. If both sides kept to not even self-defence but only military objectives there might actually be peace in sight.
Hasbara. Hamas wanted hostages and had no incentive to commit “mindless slaughter” - they’re not mindless demons. It’s likely the majority of the deaths were from the Hannibal Directive, which is why Israel won’t let the UN conduct an investigation.
May be the case, we’ll probably see when the dust has settled. OTOH, it’s still a war crime to abduct non-combatants so my point stands. And no, reservists aren’t combatants.
The hostages aren’t even particularly valuable because the Israeli government couldn’t give less of a fuck about hippies who do things like protecting the Palestinian olive harvest from settler interference. Nab an in-service right-wing IDF commander off the street and you have something much more valuable and it’s a legitimate prisoner of war.
Or, differently put: Don’t get your strategic and tactical advise from the Russians of all people.
And yet Israel has kidnapped thousands of Palestinian children and holding them without access to lawyers or contact by their families.
There needs to be war crimes investigations and charges against both sides, and yet the US is sanctioning the international bodies that adjudicate this.
Israel doesn’t give a fuck about any of its people, whether they’re civilians or soldiers. There’d be no difference if the kidnapped were all soldiers.
Also the thing about international law is it has to apply to everyone or it doesn’t exist. Israel, by not following internatonal law, has forfeited its protections. Hamas simply followed the same rules of war that Israel does. Israel brought this on themselves.
The going rate is 1:1027 for an NCO.
Different administration controlled by a different party and before they reformulated the Hannibal Directive in 2016.
That said, Hamas probably did make a strategic mistake by thinking Israel would give a shit about its people, but in so doing they also achieved another strategic objective - the heightening of contradictions within Israeli society by showing Israeli citizens how little their government cares about them and how willing it is to kill them for a strategic advantage. They also managed to show the world that Israel is a rogue state and it has become more isolated than ever before as a direct result.
We’ll see how this works out in the long run, but don’t discount Oct 7th as a failure just yet.
The dust has very much settled and Israel is very much refusing to release the numbers.
The best illustration is probably this one. Why do you think all the holes are in the car roofs?
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Months? More like decades. We’re at more than half a century of this shit by now.
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No. The attacks were originally aimed at a military base; they had no idea that a music festival was going on. The death count is roughly 300 soldiers dead and 900 civilians. By Israel’s own logic, this ratio of civilian deaths is acceptable in war. (I disagree which is why it’s wrong for both sides) Hamas claimed they were taking enemy fire from these locations, and by Israeli logic it meant that these Kibbutzim were now legitimate military targets. (Again, Israel has done this to Arab towns using the same rationale). Israel doesn’t like hoisted on their own petard.
To be fair (???) they did need the hostages so they needed to go to the kibbutz anyway, but yeah too much mindless slaughter. I will note though that by casualty numbers alone we’re looking at 33% achieving military objectives rather than 5%. Same difference but yeah.