Israel-Gaza war

[Birdish]

I imagine internal pressure will ramp up significantly for another hostage deal after this. There have been fears about hostages being killed by bombs or more recently, being drowned in the tunnels. But this is another level of horror that I don't think the Israeli populace will tolerate.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

IDF killed three of their own hostages after they ran out for help and were mistaken as a threat. Casualty of just going around and shooting civilians as has been reported by Arab media outlets.

Or someone genuinely mistook them for a threat Palestinian civilians.

ftfy



Incompetent, murderous, cowardly, bloodthirsty savages. Yet Genocide Joe continues to send them weapons to pursue their campaign of ethnic cleansing despite the fact that he could end it tomorrow if he wasn't a worthless senile puppet.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

I don't think that Netanyahu would have been able to do anything like what he has without Hamas handing him a casus belli on a plate.

This whole thing feels like a desperate attempt to save his legacy. Netanyahu knows he's doomed in the next election because of the worst security failure in Israeli history. Might as well take out Hamas while he's still in power and be remembered for something other than letting Hamas sneak in and kill 1200 people.

Even if the IDF manages to eliminate every single active member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the collateral damage will be so fierce that every person under 25 who's still alive will be jumping at the chance to join whatever group fills the vacuum left behind by Hamas.

Children in Gaza have no memory of the pre-2005 occupation. Their first experience with Israelis was them dropping bombs on their apartment blocks and doing things like planting an Israeli flag in the town square, carving a giant Star of David into the ground with a bulldozer, and leading Jewish prayers in a local mosque.

Compare to, say, postwar Japan where children mostly thought of US soldiers as the funny looking men who gave them candy when they asked.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

IDF killed three of their own hostages after they ran out for help and were mistaken as a threat. Casualty of just going around and shooting civilians as has been reported by Arab media outlets.

I’m honestly surprised the IDF publicly admitted it too. I would’ve expected them to try and spin it to say they were moving in to rescue them and either the hostages were killed in the crossfire or were killed by the hostage takers as they moved in. Not “yeah we f**led up and killed them”

[pppolitics]

IDF killed three of their own hostages after they ran out for help and were mistaken as a threat. Casualty of just going around and shooting civilians as has been reported by Arab media outlets.

IDF killed the wrong civilians.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Does anyone know what the Arabs Israelis citizens think of this conflict?
At the same time they are culturally close to the Palestinians but on the other hand they are being targeted as well but Hamas terrorist attacks.

Good question. I would like to know as well.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If Biden was a leader, he'd be sending a massive food shipment to Gaza whether Israel wanted that or not.

[NOVA Green]

snip

Appreciate the response, going through it section by section

IDF casualties (1-4, 9)

"Clash Report" isn't the actual source, that's just the twitter aggregator. The numbers originally came from Ynet, an Israeli news outlet, but the original article was pulled by the military censors

Fortunately an article that wasn't pulled by the censors came out at around the same time from Haaretz, and their estimates fall within the same range. The whole article is informative but some key points:

An examination conducted by Haaretz with the hospitals where the wounded soldiers have been and are treated shows a considerable and unexplained gap between the data reported by the military and that from the hospitals. The hospitals' data shows that the number of wounded soldiers to be twice as high as the army's numbers.
For example, Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon alone reports treating 1,949 soldiers hurt in the war since October 7 (out of 3,117 injured people treated there during the war), whereas the army reports a total of 1,593 wounded soldiers.

The gaps between the army's data and the hospitals' data also comes into sharp relief in light of Health Ministry statistics maintained on its website. This website displays general casualty data – civilians and soldiers alike. According to the Health Ministry's data, 10,548 soldiers and civilians who were wounded in the war have been admitted between October 7 and December 10.

Another obscure figure, not reported to the public, has to do with wounded security establishment personnel who do not belong to the military, and were wounded in the course of wartime duty. These personnel includes special reconnaissance fighters and members of SWAT units, the police, Border Police, Shin Bet and emergency and rescue units like Magen David Adom.

It's undeniable that the IDF is hiding casualties, the only question is how many and whether they're also hiding deaths.

Palestinian civilian casualties & Israeli military doctrine (5-6) & General Brick

Initially I would have agreed with you that the priority was protecting soldiers at any cost but there's mounting evidence that there's more to it than that.

So the Yitzhak Brick quote came from this article, specifically the summary at the very end. To be clear about the context, he was saying this over a year prior to the attacks and has since gained notoriety and fame in Israel for the accuracy of his predictions.

Gen Brick's proposed strategy was basically the exact plan you'd follow if your top priority was the lives of your citizens and soldiers above all else:

1. Negotiate an immediate "everyone for everyone" exchange right from the start. You can kidnap or assassinate ex-detainees later but this removes a huge political issue from the Israeli perspective
2. Move in and establish fortifications surrounding cities and towns, evacuate the civilians out and put them under siege. No need to engage in urban combat and take casualties or to storm prepared positions, just wait for Hamas to run out of supplies.

Yet instead the IDF is pushing into urban combat and evidently taking some pretty severe losses, which doesn't exactly match with the "every soldier's life matters" justification even if they might occasionally use that rhetoric as a shield. So what's the real explanation?

Well, the first is that the doctrine being imposed here is the Dahiya Doctrine, which justifies intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and homes with the goal of provoking the civilians to rise up against the government. As "Mass assassination factory" puts it:

Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).

The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.

Several of the sources, who spoke to +972 and Local Call on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed.

Of course anyone familiar with the history of strategic bombing would know that this "strategy" has literally never worked once in history. If anything blowing up civilian infrastructure pushes them to support their regime to get revenge on the attackers. But whether it works or not isn't the point; the IDF hasn't won a ground war in decades and the excuse they've come up with is that it's because they just cared too much about collateral damage. The alternative would be to admit that the IDF just isn't very good at fighting. But blowing up apartment buildings and sewage plants is easy and comprehensive military reform is hard.

The other goal here is to satisfy the bloodlust of the Israeli public through the constant production of atrocity footage regardless of military value. I know this sounds like some crazy idea but once again, Haaretz has confirmed that the IDF is literally running a gore porn Telegram:

An October 11 post read: "Burning their mother ... You won't believe the video we got! You can hear the crunch of their bones. We'll upload it right away, get ready." Images of Palestinian captives and the bodies of terrorists were captioned "Exterminating the roaches ... exterminating the Hamas rats. ... Share this beauty." The following text accompanies a video of an Israeli soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat: "What a man!!!!! Lubricates bullets with lard. You won't get your virgins." And: "Garbage juice!!!! Another dead terrorist!! You have to watch it with the sound, you'll die laughing."

The channel administrators didn't stop at images from Gaza. On October 11, hundreds of Israelis, including members of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team's violently racist fan club La Familia, rioted at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, following a rumor that Hamas terrorists who had invaded Israel were being treated there. People roamed the hospital, cursing out and spitting on medical professionals. Within an hour, a video of the riot was uploaded to 72 Virgins with the title, "My brothers, the heroesssss, La Familia fans, love you!!!!!!! What heroes, came to screw the Arabs."

The IDF was utterly humiliated on October 7th and up to this point they haven't achieved any major objectives: they haven't rescued the hostages (except dead ones), they haven't stopped Hamas from firing rockets or ambushing their forces and the top leaders of Hamas in Gaza seem to be fine despite the intense bombing campaign and ground invasion. So instead they've had to resort to PR stunts to raise the public's confidence, ranging from blowing up the Gazan parliament building and surrounding Sinwar's house to faking "mass surrenders". The clear priority isn't to protect the lives of soldiers and hostages but to project an image of victory regardless of the reality on the ground. The IDF is willing to do basically anything to project that image, even if it requires extreme collateral damage or explicit war crimes.

7.) I am not convinced about your line of "covering up Putinesque losses", since I suspect that many Israeli's are likely aware of the significant uptick on casualties (mostly WIA thus far), and are willing to accept that as a price.

Maybe, but the IDF clearly doesn't agree if they're hiding casualties instead of announcing them openly as they come out. Also if they're hiding the number of wounded then it's hardly out of the question that they're also hiding the number of fatalities.

8.) What might be a bit more damning is how many of these IDF casualties which have occurred within Gaza are from "friendly fire" incidents.

Weirdly enough this is one area where I don't think IDF incompetence is the cause.

On the one hand, Hamas used IDF uniforms on Oct 7 to launch surprise attacks and it stands to reason that they'll do the same thing on the defensive. Add in a few Hebrew speaking commandos and you have a recipe for some serious Operation Greif-style chaos in an already confusing urban combat environment. Additionally, Hamas seems to be replicating the tactics pioneered by Hezbollah in 2006: sudden, extremely close range urban ambushes where the IDF has to choose between hitting their own troops with their fire support or abandoning it entirely. As one Israeli commander put it,

“They emerged from tunnels, surrounding us, launching rocket-propelled grenades at us, and attempting to approach our armoured personnel carriers to set explosives,” said the battalion’s commander, Lt Col Tomer Greenberg, speaking to Israeli media after the engagement.

In that sort of situation it's very difficult to avoid friendly fire. There's also a less generous explanation: the Hannibal Directive, which authorizes the IDF to use deadly force against their own captives to prevent them from being used as bargaining chips. While the directive has been officially revoked there are growing indications that it has been applied more than once over the course of this war even if not by name. In the PR centric war being fought, it's hard to imagine an event more calamitous to the IDF's "image of victory" than a soldier sent to Gaza getting captured, and before any significant hostage rescue at that. In such a situation they'd rather obliterate the entire area with as much firepower as possible rather than allowing Hamas to drag fresh hostages into a tunnel to be put on camera.

Thank you sir for your detailed response...

Also appears to be inadvertently topical with your last paragraph where the IDF has basically confessed to having killed (3) Israeli hostages in Northern Gaza, within an area that has effectively become a "Shoot to Kill" zone, where Israeli military doctrine basically assumes anybody within the zone is most likely a hostile combatant.

Still, Israeli public opinion is likely be a bit more accepting of military casualties than in previous conflicts after the events of 10/7/23 than in previous recent military adventures.

In many ways the Hostage crisis is likely a more potent theme within Israeli public opinion than casualties, and in this case there's a bit of back eye for the IDF unit (And perhaps by broader extension IDF "rules of engagement" which effectively killed hostages just as they would have any other civilian within their zones of control).

[Logical]

IDF killed three of their own hostages after they ran out for help and were mistaken as a threat. Casualty of just going around and shooting civilians as has been reported by Arab media outlets.

Or someone genuinely mistook them for a threat.

Israel killed four hostages at Entebbe during the rescue; they ordered all the hostages in Hebrew to stay on the floor when they stormed the terminal so they could shoot the terrorists. Three of them didn't comply and a fourth didn't speak Hebrew.

Like how Yuval Castleman was a threat after he put his gun down, threw his wallet, knelt and raised his hands up? You can support Israel or whatever without denying that the IDF has serious trigger happy discipline problems as a result of recruiting from certain extremist elements of Israeli society (which was not always the case).

[CumbrianLefty]

Whatever the facts of this incident, it is a total PR disaster for Netanyahu. If outside powers have any nous at all, they will be doing their best to use it as leverage right now.

[Logical]

New horrific details on the hostage incident. They were shirtless, unarmed and waving a white cloth when they were shot. Two were killed immediately. The survivor was executed against orders even after he begged for his life in Hebrew.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67732895

[pppolitics]

Hostages killed by Israeli troops were waving white flag, military says

[Horus]

The Israeli populace is absolutely pathetic for not demanding new elections.

[pppolitics]

Now, remember that IDF reported their killings because they were Israeli civilians.

Imagine how many Palestinian civilian killings go unreported.

[Silent Hunter]

Now, remember that IDF reported their killings because they were Israeli civilians.

Imagine how many Palestinian civilian killings go unreported.

Possibly not that many considering how many Palestinian civilians have access to mobile phones these days. Indeed, Israeli networks cover much of the West Bank.

Israel has actually used mobile phone data to track the movement of civilians:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/world/middleeast/gaza-invasion-israel-cellphone-data.html

With access to the Israeli-controlled areas of Gaza heavily restricted, we are probably missing quite a few now, but there will be efforts to find missing people once this war is over.

[GP270watch]

IDF killed three of their own hostages after they ran out for help and were mistaken as a threat. Casualty of just going around and shooting civilians as has been reported by Arab media outlets.

Or someone genuinely mistook them for a threat.

Israel killed four hostages at Entebbe during the rescue; they ordered all the hostages in Hebrew to stay on the floor when they stormed the terminal so they could shoot the terrorists. Three of them didn't comply and a fourth didn't speak Hebrew.

Seems like the indiscriminate killing by the IDF killed their own people in this case.

Hostages were carrying white flag on a stick when Israeli troops mistakenly shot them dead in Gaza, IDF says

[Birdish]

Netanyahu has a press conference in about 2 hours. I doubt he says anything new, but I've read that it's quite damaging he wasn't the one who announced the hostage deaths.

[Birdish]

Also rumors going around that Hamas' condition for another hostage release is a comprehensive ceasefire. I wonder if Israel would be more amenable to that after this recent hostage debacle. That would be the endgame I suppose, although I assume Netanyahu would prefer to get Sinwar first.

[pppolitics]

Now, remember that IDF reported their killings because they were Israeli civilians.

Imagine how many Palestinian civilian killings go unreported.

Possibly not that many considering how many Palestinian civilians have access to mobile phones these days. Indeed, Israeli networks cover much of the West Bank.

Israel has actually used mobile phone data to track the movement of civilians:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/world/middleeast/gaza-invasion-israel-cellphone-data.html

With access to the Israeli-controlled areas of Gaza heavily restricted, we are probably missing quite a few now, but there will be efforts to find missing people once this war is over.

Israel shut down mobile networks in Gaza

[pppolitics]

Netanyahu has a press conference in about 2 hours. I doubt he says anything new, but I've read that it's quite damaging he wasn't the one who announced the hostage deaths.

It’s not his fault.

Nothing is ever Bibi’s fault.

It’s always someone’s fault.

[oldtimer]

Whatever the facts of this incident, it is a total PR disaster for Netanyahu. If outside powers have any nous at all, they will be doing their best to use it as leverage right now.

I guess they don't call him "Genocide Joe" for nothing these days.

[jaichind]

IDF missiles have names of what they consider their political enemies across the USA political spectrum.

[Silent Hunter]

Looking some of those names, most seem to have expressed antisemitic views:

https://gnasherjew.com/danish-medical-doctor-anastasia-maria-loupis-promotes-antisemitism-and-supports-terrorism/

[All Along The Watchtower]

So…a rather underrated motivation for Hamas attacking Israel when they did wasn’t a looming Israeli-Saudi deal per se but the Saudis providing a substantial amount of money to the Palestinian Authority as part of said Israeli-Saudi deal.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

What does the killing of 3 unarmed hostages imply about how the IDF is engaging with civilians in Gaza? It seems pretty unlikely that this is a one-off. Of course, I would fully expect Hamas terrorists to try to wave a white flag and then attack.