Israel-Gaza war

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If they trade hostages, they should trade 1 for 1.

They should trade 150-200 Israeli hostages (presumably still alive) for the same amount of Palestinians.

Not 50 Israeli hostages for 150 imprisoned Palestinians.

That’s not how Israel’s detainment process works. Israel has a very loose detainment policy where they up and about arrest anyone within the path of the security forces, so a lot of random civilians not actually engaging in militant activities get swept up as well as low-value targets primarily made up of kids. Israel really can’t hold them up long term, especially now, because of the huge cost to their already overburdened prison network.

Yeah, a lot of children who were randomly throwing a rock.

[Meclazine for Israel]

The longer this goes on, the worse this gets for Hamas. I thought the Islamic terrorist saying goodbye to the little boy was incredibly bad PR. It actually illustrates how fake Hamas really is. It shows what Hamas thinks of Westerners who are watching it.

IDF Summary

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0EBRuboRmf/

Israel were amazingly defiant to attack very hard and still get hostages returned, the complete opposite of normal logic.

[Hnv1]

The longer this goes on, the worse this gets for Hamas. I thought the Islamic terrorist saying goodbye to the little boy was incredibly bad PR. It actually illustrates how fake Hamas really is. It shows what Hamas thinks of Westerners who are watching it.

IDF Summary

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0EBRuboRmf/

Israel were amazingly defiant to attack very hard and still get hostages returned, the complete opposite of normal logic.

I really don’t get why they think a child surrounded by 5 figures that look like textbook Muslim terrorists is in any way good press for them.

But then again I’m not part of a death cult that thinks civilian hostages are somehow comparable to underaged youth sitting in prisons for stabbing civilians because “meh fight the oppressor”

[Meclazine for Israel]

The luckiest father in the World.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-26/gaza-hostages-release-second-day/103151188


Sisters Aviv and Raz Asher and mother Doron react as they meet with their father and husband after returning to Israel.(Schneider Children's Medical Center Spokesperson via Reuters)

"The former hostages underwent medical checks before returning for emotional reunions with relatives in Israel, where happiness mingled with concern for those still held by militants in Gaza."

[Lief 🗽]

The luckiest father in the World.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-26/gaza-hostages-release-second-day/103151188


Sisters Aviv and Raz Asher and mother Doron react as they meet with their father and husband after returning to Israel.(Schneider Children's Medical Center Spokesperson via Reuters)

"The former hostages underwent medical checks before returning for emotional reunions with relatives in Israel, where happiness mingled with concern for those still held by militants in Gaza."

https://twitter.com/henmazzig/status/1728376804237553944?s=46&t=o2RmfeV6yYJk...

https://twitter.com/henmazzig/status/1728378526599172485?s=46&t=o2RmfeV6yYJk...

[oldtimer]

What do you guys think happens to Gaza City?  Israel has basically depopulated it at this point and half of the buildings are destroyed.  They hold it under military rule and there's not much international demand for them to leave.

Assuming they don't just resume hostilities next week and roll tanks into Khan Yunis, what's the next move?  Blow up all the tunnels and then leave?  Force new elections and then leave it in the hands of a more Fatah-esque Palestinian leadership?  Install a puppet Palestinian governor and operate it as an iron curtain type of territory?  Hold the city indefinitely as a buffer between the new Hamas command center and Israel?  Delegate governance to an international or Arab coalition?  At what point do you let people return?

A forever war until one religious group exterminates the other.

[pppolitics]

What do you guys think happens to Gaza City?  Israel has basically depopulated it at this point and half of the buildings are destroyed.  They hold it under military rule and there's not much international demand for them to leave.

Assuming they don't just resume hostilities next week and roll tanks into Khan Yunis, what's the next move?  Blow up all the tunnels and then leave?  Force new elections and then leave it in the hands of a more Fatah-esque Palestinian leadership?  Install a puppet Palestinian governor and operate it as an iron curtain type of territory?  Hold the city indefinitely as a buffer between the new Hamas command center and Israel?  Delegate governance to an international or Arab coalition?  At what point do you let people return?

Israel long running goal is to expel the Palestinians and steal their land.

Making Gaza unlivable for the Palestinians is another successful objective on the way to achieve that goal.

[pppolitics]

What do you guys think happens to Gaza City?  Israel has basically depopulated it at this point and half of the buildings are destroyed.  They hold it under military rule and there's not much international demand for them to leave.

Assuming they don't just resume hostilities next week and roll tanks into Khan Yunis, what's the next move?  Blow up all the tunnels and then leave?  Force new elections and then leave it in the hands of a more Fatah-esque Palestinian leadership?  Install a puppet Palestinian governor and operate it as an iron curtain type of territory?  Hold the city indefinitely as a buffer between the new Hamas command center and Israel?  Delegate governance to an international or Arab coalition?  At what point do you let people return?

A forever war until one religious group exterminates the other.

Ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, paid for by US taxpayers’ money.

[Former President tack50]

You know things are weird when you have Hamas explicitly congratulating the Spanish government lmao

https://twitter.com/ShehabAgency/status/1728370487317672060

(Also why the hell are they doing it? They must know that praise from them, even if they like what Sanchez and de Croo were saying, if anything will backfire

[LAKISYLVANIA]

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1728131580668047538

Good to see that my country is critical of Israël.

What does "didn't condemn Hamas" mean here? Did they just not bring it up or did they make an active, vocal decision against condemning it? The appropriateness of this changes enormously depending on the answer to that.

Honestly i'm not very sure about it.

Our PM did say: "they didn't listen well to what we said".

It's not that we have a pro-Palestine PM either and in an interview with our media, he said that he does condemn what Hamas has done and will invite Israeli ambassador on monday to again explicitly say what he did say...

I suppose Israel wasn't happy that we called for a pause and a humanitarian corridor.

[Meclazine for Israel]

17 Hostages released overnight by the Islamic terrorists. 13 Israeli's, 4 Thai hostages.


Second group of Israeli hostages released. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/17-hostages-released-second-group-israel-hamas-pause-fighting-gaza-rcna126651

Siblings Noam Or, 17, and Alma Or, 13, were also released. The brother and sister, along with their father, Dror, were taken from their home in Kibbutz Be’eri.

"Their mother Yonat was murdered and their older brother Yahli survived the inferno as he was at his post in northern Israel where he is doing a year of national service," the group said.

Netanyahu said amongst the hostages released were:

• Emily Hand, 9;
• Noam Or, 17;
• Alma Or, 13;
• Shiri Weiss, 53;
• Noga Weiss, 18;
• Sharon Hertzman Avigdori, 52, mother of;
• Noam Avigdori, 12;
• Shoshan Haran, 67;
• Haran's daughter Adi Shoham, 38 and her grandchildren;
• Neve Shoham, 8 and;
• Yahal Shoham, 3;
• Hila Rotem Shoshani, 12 and;
• Mia Regev Jarbi, 21.

No Americans released today.

[bilaps]

Netanyahu's spokeswoman at CNN right now.

Palestinians say delay today was because Israel wasn't upholding it's part of the deal regarding food trucks entering Gaza and a list of prisoners. She answers: "today entered more trucks than ever from the start of the war". So she basicaly confirmes it.

Out of 39 Palestinians released today, 33 are under 18 and 24, yes, twenty four are held without being accused and put on trial for a crime. S

So why are they not called hostages?

[Meclazine for Israel]

Netanyahu's spokeswoman at CNN right now.

Palestinians say delay today was because Israel wasn't upholding it's part of the deal regarding food trucks entering Gaza and a list of prisoners. She answers: "today entered more trucks than ever from the start of the war". So she basicaly confirmes it.

Out of 39 Palestinians released today, 33 are under 18 and 24, yes, twenty four are held without being accused and put on trial for a crime. S

So why are they not called hostages?

A better definition of hostages would be the 8,000 Muslim men of Srebrenica in July 1995 who were taken at gunpoint and placed on buses by Serbian forces.

https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/bosnia/srebrenica/

Oh wait, that' was a massacre of totally innocent people by gutless cowards.

Serbian military shooting Bosnian teenage boys on the side of the road in the back of the head.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Netanyahu's spokeswoman at CNN right now.

Palestinians say delay today was because Israel wasn't upholding it's part of the deal regarding food trucks entering Gaza and a list of prisoners. She answers: "today entered more trucks than ever from the start of the war". So she basicaly confirmes it.

Western sources act like there's ambiguity when it's clear what happened: the Israelis were refusing to allow aid to move into North Gaza despite having agreed to do so. Hamas held back the hostages and Israel relented probably under pressure from Joe Biden, who needs at least one freed American so he can call this a political win

Out of 39 Palestinians released today, 33 are under 18 and 24, yes, twenty four are held without being accused and put on trial for a crime. S

So why are they not called hostages?

They aren't called hostages for the same reason Israelis who terrorize civilians aren't called terrorists, why under 18 Israelis are "children" while Palestinians are "people aged 18 and younger" and why Israelis are "killed" or "murdered" while Palestinians "die"

The general understanding of Israelis is that the lives of Palestinians are worth far less than those of "real people", and that's under normal circumstances.

https://twitter.com/OmarBaddar/status/1727415911676784777

In times of war they become so filled with hatred that they're even willing to bury their own kids under piles of rubble, the logical conclusion of the IDF's infinite tolerance for collateral damage applied to Israeli towns instead of Palestinian ones. This produced an outsized number of civilian casualties that were perversely used to justify the destruction visited upon the people of Gaza. Yet by their fascistic logic every Gazan family buried under their apartment and each Israeli incinerated by the IDF's indiscriminate use of Hellfire Missiles is the sole responsibility of Hamas.

https://twitter.com/MouinRabbani/status/1728123447534821479

For all the talk about how terrible it would be to be taken hostage by Hamas it's the Israelis who are known to torture their prisoners. But they're "civilized" or "democratic" or whatever the Boomer buzzword of the day is

[Meclazine for Israel]

Ohad Munder

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0FoA7PJEcE/

Reunited with his family. These hostage releases are a PR disaster for the Palestinian cause.

[bilaps]

Netanyahu's spokeswoman at CNN right now.

Palestinians say delay today was because Israel wasn't upholding it's part of the deal regarding food trucks entering Gaza and a list of prisoners. She answers: "today entered more trucks than ever from the start of the war". So she basicaly confirmes it.

Out of 39 Palestinians released today, 33 are under 18 and 24, yes, twenty four are held without being accused and put on trial for a crime. S

So why are they not called hostages?

A better definition of hostages would be the 8,000 Muslim men of Srebrenica in July 1995 who were taken at gunpoint and placed on buses by Serbian forces.

https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/bosnia/srebrenica/

Oh wait, that' was a massacre of totally innocent people by gutless cowards.

Serbian military shooting Bosnian teenage boys on the side of the road in the back of the head.

I think you missed a thread.

[Meclazine for Israel]

FoxNews and CNN are saying that 13 Israeli hostages set to be released on Sunday according to a list including one American.


Mother and daughter Raya and Hila Rotem, taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from their home in Kibbutz Be’eri. Hila was released on November 26, 2023. (Courtesy)

The Times of Israel has more details on the hostages released yesterday.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/13-israelis-including-8-kids-freed-by-hamas-after-50-days-as-gaza-hostages/


Emily Hand was abducted from a friend’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023. She was initially thought to have been killed. (Courtesy)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Look at the "warmth" for groups like Hamas and PIJ:



This was posted on Discord, and while it was posted by someone I trust I can't vouch for his own sources,* but if this is even remotely accurate it's yet more evidence for my belief that Israel's conduct of this war has made its (in itself richly justified) stated strategic goal slip even further away. These groups used to be almost as loathed by the Palestinian street as by the Israeli street.

*EDIT: It's from the Palestine-based research firm AWRAD.

[Hnv1]

Look at the "warmth" for groups like Hamas and PIJ:



This was posted on Discord, and while it was posted by someone I trust I can't vouch for his own sources, but if this is even remotely accurate it's yet more evidence for my belief that Israel's conduct of this war has made its (in itself richly justified) stated strategic goal slip even further away. These groups used to be almost as loathed by the Palestinian street as by the Israeli street.

That's indeed from a credible pollster AWRAD, though the sample from Gaza in the middle of the war might be skewed.

https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20Opinion%20Poll%20-%20Gaza%20War%202023%20-%20Tables%20of%20Results.pdf

[Vosem]

OSR, I'm afraid no amount of crosstabs will be able to convince me that 14-year-olds should be blown up with missiles. There is no use in trying.

Dule, I respect you and am moderately surprised at this position coming from you, so serious question: do you think that Israel should be prevented from attacking (...given that this will basically certainly lead to renewed power for Hamas, over the people of Gaza most critically) or that countries which obey international law should be forced to value the lives of bystanders as highly as the lives of their own soldiers (...given that this would be an incentive structure highly helpful to countries which don't obey international law)? I wouldn't normally associate your thought patterns as objecting to the conduct of the war.

Anyway, we live in a fallen world and sometimes there are justified wars against Nazi tweens. There is no use denying it; one can only cry and then act.

Here is the best summary of my views on this conflict that I can give.

On 10/6, Israel apparently had no idea that an attack from Hamas was coming. It did not know Hamas' positions or where the missiles would come from. On 10/7, Hamas attacked. Immediately after that attack, Israel conducted airstrikes that they said targeted Hamas compounds, command centers, tunnels, and other strategic targets.

My initial reaction to this was of course pro-Israel, as it should be for anyone seeing Hamas' atrocities on the news. But as these airstrikes continued, I had to ask myself: Am I supposed to believe that in those 48 hours, Israel went from knowing nothing whatsoever about Hamas' bases and plans to suddenly knowing enough to carry out targeted strikes against them?  This was a massive failure of Israeli intelligence under Likud. What is more likely: That those intelligence failures were patched up within a few hours and that enough information was assembled to accurately strike Hamas, or that Netanyahu was being equally sloppy in his response so he could look like he was doing something?

The comments from Israeli government officials over the past month, coupled with the actual results on the ground, have confirmed my suspicion that the latter is the case. If Israel were using our money to go after Hamas surgically, I would not have a problem with its response. But the facts do not indicate that this is the case. Israel has killed over 10,000 civilians in one month. Israeli politicians, media figures, and settlers routinely make comments about how Gaza must be "obliterated" or "depopulated." Pro-Israel protesters in the US have openly and gleefully stated that this gives Israel an opportunity to "kill all Palestinians." Likud cabinet ministers have floated the idea of nuking Gaza. They have called Gaza a "city of evil" with "no innocents." Israeli government officials have suggested that because IDF soldiers supposedly found copies of Mein Kampf in "children's rooms" in Gaza, this means that even Palestinian children are legitimate targets. They have bombed churches, hospitals, mosques, homes, and businesses without issuing any apologies. They ordered the mass evacuation of northern Gaza, and then they bombed the evacuees.

I have known for a long time that Netanyahu was an evil monster, but the tidal wave of genocidal rhetoric currently spewing from the Israeli government is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I'm well aware that supermajorities of Gazans supposedly support Hamas, but given the demographics of the strip, I cannot condone the murder of teenagers who were socialized into antisemitism. It is a basic liberal principle that no matter how vile someone's views are, they should not be killed for them-- hence why I am so disgusted by smoothbrained OSR and his crosstabs on "public opinion" in Gaza. What exactly is the implication behind that data? That we should kill 77% of Palestinians because they support Hamas? That they're all legitimate military targets? That their lives don't matter? If OSR thinks that 77% of Gaza is the moral equivalent of Nazis, then what exactly does he mean when he says Gaza needs to be "denazified?"

I have always supported Israel in the past because I thought the Israelis were still willing to work towards a two-state solution or a more secular, inclusive version of the Israeli state. With Likud in charge, this simply isn't true anymore. Netanyahu has unleashed the settlers on Palestinian land, illegally bulldozing Palestinian businesses and seizing their homes. Now he is planning more land grabs by forcibly depopulating Palestinian territory in response to 10/7. Until Netanyahu is removed from power and Likud is purged from the Israeli government, Israel will be an apartheid state.

Extremely fundamentally, I don't think it is true that this conflict has a disproportionate death toll, even if we take the official Gazan numbers. The Battle of Mosul had 80,000 civilian casualties across 9 months, but that was in a metropolitan area significantly smaller than Gaza. Both Hamas and Daesh used human shields to try to gin up sympathy, and calls for ceasefires, in the West: I don't know which did this more. If the tactic works, you can expect it to continue to be used in battles everywhere (and it has actually been spreading; the more that Hamas is successful, the more that militants the world over will try to maximize casualties in order to achieve the desired result of calls for ceasefires).

Even more generally, Israel maintains a giant bureaucracy whose goal is warning Gazan civilians to flee before bombs strike; there is no general requirement to maintain this. Regardless of statements from politicians, the actual Israeli policy is to try to minimize civilian casualties beyond the actual obligation of a party in a war, and the actual Gazan policy is to try to maximize them. (Part of the reason why I think everyone on Earth should care about the war and support an Israeli victory is that a victory for Hamas would mean ever more organizations adopting Hamas-ian human shield tactics; in that sense this really is a war for all of humanity). More generally, a victory for any current Palestinian liberationist organization in the broader conflict means an enormous genocide (and not just of Jews), and while Israeli extremist organizations do exist, they haven't set the current policies nor do they seem likely to be setting policies in the future. (Even more generally, it strikes me as interesting -- particularly after Wilders won -- that very extreme stances among politically pro-Israel people are more common outside of Israel than within it.)

The reason I am surprised at you taking this position -- beyond just others I know with beliefs similar to yours usually supporting Israel -- is that people with your views normally find arguments from incentives to be persuasive, and the incentives of any outcome other than pretty total Israeli victory strike me as incredibly bleak.

~~

Nobody deserves to be bombed. Not for their beliefs, not for any other reason. But there are governments which deserve to be destroyed, and in the very recent past bombing has been an effective way to do this. Critiques of Israel's bombing campaign have always called for a ceasefire (and never for the obvious remedy, an unconditional surrender on the part of Hamas and an agreement to carry out Israeli directives), and they do not propose a different way to get Hamas to unconditionally surrender.

The public polling is dispiriting. For the foreseeable future it appears that the conflict will continue unless a Palestinian political party rises to reject the concept of ethnically cleansing Israel, and accepts a state which does not have outstanding territorial claims against Israel. I think that this won't happen without a pretty radical restructuring of society (which I assume is what OSR means by 'denazified'), along the lines of what the Soviet Union did in East Germany; much as the Day of Liberation from National Socialism is a holiday in certain German states today, I think peace with Palestine will come only when some parts of Palestine celebrate the Israeli victory (including the one in this war), permitting others not to think about it. We aren't close to that point, and I think the settlement after this war will not result in a government that will restructure the education system and media environment in that way (even if that government is just 'full Israeli occupation as pre-1988'). But there can't be a two-state solution if one of the states is dedicated to wiping out the other, and the shifts in Israeli public polling since the 2000s are a recognition of that obvious reality.

[Coldstream]

I’d be wary of reading too much in to Hamas’s popularity now, rally round the flag effect + Gazan civilians may feel like Hamas are all that stands between them and the IDF’s iron fist. If - somehow - this ends with Hamas remaining in power, fairly quickly people will revert to despising them.

[dead0man]

if you're a Palestinian (or a supporter of Palestinians) and you support Hamas for any reason other than "they will murder me and mine if I don't show support" you're an idiot

[Meclazine for Israel]

Emotions running hot with more hostage returns. 17 total hostages returned on Sunday.


Top row, from left: Chen Goldstein Almog, Gal Goldstein Almog, Tal Goldstein Almog, Agam Goldstein Almog and Abigail Edan. Middle row, from left: Ofry Brodutch, Oria Brodutch, Yuval Brodutch, Hagar Brodutch and Adrienne (Aviva) Siegel. Bottom row, from left: Alma Avraham, Dafna Elyakim and Ela Elyakim. Hostages and Missing Families Forum/AP

Channel 4 News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ulTn2FQRm0

These hostage releases are a big PR win for Israel, with a national euphoria developing as more young children are released back to their families, reminding the World of what happened in the first place.

It's hard to watch Irishman Thomas Hand re-united with his 9 y.o. daughter, Emily, especially after he was told she was most likely killed. Emily went to the southern Kibbutz for a sleep over on the eve of the Islamic terror attack.

Intelligence from the released hostages is helping the Israeli's discover the truth about who is alive and how they are doing.

ABC (US) News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn4pLwCixgA

There are children who are still hostages. There are children returning whose relatives and friends were murdered in front of them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/26/abigail-edan-american-hostage-released-hamas/

President Joe Biden spoke on the case of 3 y.o. Abigail Edan (Avigail Idan), whose parents were massacred on the day she was kidnapped.

“The proof that this is working and worth pursuing further is in every smile and every grateful tears we see on the faces of those families who are finally getting back together again,” Biden said.

“The proof is little Abigail. More than 20 other children, 18 years and younger, have been released. They’ve been released through this deal as well.”

Biden said the girl “has been through a terrible trauma.”

Biden said that Avigail's Mother was shot in front of her, so she ran to her Father who shielded here from the Hamas terrorists. Biden went on to say that after the terrorists killed the Father, Avigail ran to her neighbours house. The 3 year old was then taken hostage and moved to Gaza where she remained for 49 days.

Avigail Idan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLvPKT3R6k


US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the release of hostages from Gaza, on November 26, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

"I wish I were there to hold her," he said.

"Today she's free, and Jilly [first lady of the US Jill Biden] and I, together with so many Americans, are praying for the fact that she is going to be alright"

[GeneralMacArthur]

Continuing the now six-weeks long trend, there is some truly sick and disturbing stuff being posted by Hamas-supporting progressives on social media about the Israeli hostages being returned as well as tons of disinformation.  Be careful out there folks and remember to maintain your humanity.  If you wouldn't say it in the presence of the family members of the returning hostages, consider whether it's something you're actually proud to be posting on the internet for the entire world to read.