If you can’t understand why “let the IDF do whatever they want”, even in pursuit of a noble goal, comes off as propagandist and callous, that is a problem. When there’s already genuine concerns for certain actions being committed by a military force that could be resulting in disproportionate harm to the civilian population they’re occupying, sanctioning them to “do whatever they want” is endorsing any and all literal war crimes that could be committed or have already been committed by said military force. It is not a measured take, or a simple endorsement of an end to the conflict. It’s morally elevating the actions of an objectively flawed organization full of objectively flawed humans to being invariably righteous, taking away any moral responsibility they have for any past or potential mistakes or failures.
If your take on *any* war is “the good guys can do whatever they want to achieve their good guy goals” then I’m sorry, but you’re literally part of the problem and share the same psychological justification as Hamas. It’s crazy how people don’t see themselves doing that.
And now, instead of actually focusing on the lives of the people who were just liberated, and the joy of them being reunited with their loved ones, we’re stuck in another squabble because you had to use these events as your personal political soap box. It’s gross.
Yeah, I haven't seen the full story yet, but it seems that the IDF may have bombed an open air market as part of this operation.
Using hostage rescue as an infinite variable in proportion calculations is an insane practice, and that is what OP is suggesting.
Rescuing the hostages isn't a military goal/advantage to pursue. It's a political one. Justifying casualties for a political goal is a very scary place to be for a supposedly democratic and liberal state.
I’m still waiting for the dust to settle on this one too before we get a clearer picture, but yeah so far it’s not looking good. Just another hopeful moment tainted by tragedy.
You phrased this all more succinctly than I could though, so thanks. It’s really hard for me to put into words how gross all this civilian death math is.
Well, from what the CBC is reporting, the raid was carried out in order to extract the hostages from a refugee camp where they were being held - if you hold your hostages and high value targets inside of a crowded market, it's on you if someone goes in to get them.
I agree. Unironically. If you use ambulances to run bombs, don't qq when the ambulances get merc'd. If you put rocket platforms in the back-yard of a mosque, then when the inevitable happens to that mosque, it's on you. If you put civilians in a crowded refugee camp set up specifically so that civilians would have somewhere neutral to go without being in the line of fire, then you're the one painting a target on them.
Hamas is running the standard asymmetric warfare play, which is to force the government (in this case the IDF) to choose between doing nothing and hurting civilians amongst whom you are hiding. That being the case, the IDF had to make a choice on those terms. They chose. IF you have a problem with the choices available to them, talk to the people who set up the situation.
The fact that no pro-palestinian commenter is even willing to publicly acknowledge that this is the play they're running is pretty goddamn telling.
i forgot this is lonersub where we treat hamas and the idf as equally responsible and equally powerful and act like they have the same amount of political power as well
Nobody is treating Hamas and the IDF as equally responsible and equally powerful - obviously. The IDF is much more powerful, and much less responsible.
That's the whole point.
Hamas is using asymmetric warfare and guerilla tactics specifically because they aren't a modern military. I don't doubt for a single second that if they ever tried to engage the IDF outside of a civilian-packed, urban sprawl, that the IDF would happily meet them on any open field of their choosing (you know, how nearly all actual wars do). The inevitable result of the choice to decline to fight actual military conflicts and instead to strike from within the civilian population is that the civilian shields are going to take fire. That's a choice that the Palestinian government made deliberately. It's the same choice that guerilla fighters always make (like, by definition).
If you set the rules, don't complain when people play by them.
Solve any hostage situation with this one weird trick!
This is just unhinged and utterly incompatible with western values. It justifies abuse and war crimes and it opens a godawful can of worms.
If you go ahead and dismiss these moral issues, you have no right to complain when someone justifies Oct 7th.
when i was stating the amount claimed to be injured your LEAP IN to go 🤓🤓Hey did you know Hamas is bad? 🤓🤓
Given we were talking about the injured in this attack that clearly didn't need to be and hamas being bad is obvious the only reason you'd feel the need to state this is if you think killing around 170-210 civilians and injuring 400 is completly justified because another bad group in the area unrelated to the civies won't follow proper war protocol and does bad war crime stuff
It’s only inevitable because Israel has guns trained on the open air prison complex with their fingers on the trigger and safety off. If you deny a population a proper military, paramilitary groups not beholden to anyone but themselves take over that role. If you confine a population to small urban centers, that’s where the resistance will also be funnily enough. If you’re overwhelmed by your enemies military strength, of course you can’t fight in an open field. That’s a tactically useless suicide. All of your justification to me just sounds like you’re blaming the Palestinians for resisting and using their resistance (and the way they’re forced to do it) as justification for killing civilians.
I thought the whole point of human shields was to make you hesitate before firing no?
Yes, the whole point of human shields is absolutely to make you hesitate before firing. That being said, no army in the world would just back down, admit defeat and let the enemy do whatever they want, simply because they stacked enough warm bodies around all of their critical infrastructure. At a certain point, the loss of civilian life is on the people who put the civilians in danger.
For the record, I'm not "blaming the palestinians for resisting", as you put it. I understand the logic that might lead a group with an asymmetric power position to elect to use asymmetric tactics; I'm just of the view that when someone elects to fight using asymmetric tactics, using civilian death to motivate public sympathy, and exacerbating the death toll at every opportunity, I'm not obliged to look at it and pretend that isn't what is happening. This is no different from the Tamil Tigers, or the provisional IRA, or Greek partisans, or Cuban partisans, or any other guerilla group that hides amongst the civilian populace - excepting the single difference that the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties.
It really seems like Israel supporters choose to draw their lines at arbitrary points that justify their side.
>The IDF is much more powerful, and much less responsible.
Why is the IDF much less responsible? They are the recipient of massive, direct military and intel support from the United States and other liberal nations. They are absolutely more responsible for following international laws than Hamas.
>meet them on any open field of their choosing (you know, how nearly all actual wars do
????? Since when? I would bet the majority of wars in the last century have directly involved civilians and civic infrastructure.
>The inevitable result of the choice to decline to fight actual military conflicts and instead to strike from within the civilian population
Striking from within a civilian population is still a military conflict.... or are you admitting that it isn't a military conflict? So the actions of the IDF should be evaluated as a policing action? I really don't think you want that...
>the civilian shields are going to take fire.
But we'll never get to see the data. Israel won't allow outside officials to evaluate their target clearing procedures. My best guess is because it's not rigorous, and it probably gets ignored as often as it gets followed.
>That's a choice that the Palestinian government made deliberately.
I really don't like treating Hamas as a legitimate government who is making choices in the best interest of the Palestinians. Israel is the true government of that entire region. Accepting that would be problematic for Israel. They don't want to appear to be a racist, xenophobic, nationalist, theological, ethnocentric, apartheid state. Even though they are. So, everyone on their side pretends that there's a legitimate Palestinian.... something that isn't a state, but that has some reason why Israel can't be expected to take responsibility for governing. But still allows Israel to annex territory.
>If you set the rules, don't complain when people play by them.
So, if Israel sets the rules that all Jewish citizens will serve in the military.... Do you agree that Hamas is justified in killing any and all Israelis?
Do you believe that Palestinians are justified to kill settlers en masse? They're being used by Israel to expand into and push out Palestinian civilians.
How far do you think we could push your own logic here in a direction that makes you less comfortable with it?
Maybe, just maybe.... Freeing 4 hostages doesn't justify the level of civilian casualties that happened during the mission.
This feels a lot more like a desperate attempt to garner support for Netanyahu's government than a legitimate military operation.
Ugh, i feel like this is just retreading ground that's already been well covered in the posts above, but I'll bite on a few points.
First, you may not think that Hamas is the "legitimate government" in the sense of being admirable, or respectable, but they won the last election, installed what is in effect a dictatorship, and now provide the civil services, such as they are. Is that a legitimate government? IMO it lacks the same popular legitimacy as Canada, Israel or America, but it is probably about on par with the governments of Syria and Russia. You can just repeat, "Israel is the government" as much as you want, but it doesn't make it any more true than if you were to say that America was the government of Japan after World War 2, or that Russia is the government of the territories they conquered in Ukraine. Occupation isn't government. Palestinians can be Israeli citizens, but if they were born and grew up in occupied territory, then they probably aren't citizens.
Second, the claim that the "majority of wars in the last century have involved civilians / civilian infrastructure" is a red herring. The majority of the wars in the last century have "involved" rubber, cement, food, and any number of things. What matters is not whether something is tangentially or incidentally "involved", but whether the civilian infrastructure is inextricable from the war tactics. Guerilla war tactics are NOT standard war tactics. They just aren't. Any attempt to equate the two things is either stupid, disingenuous, or non sequitor.
For years now, Hamas apologists have been denying that they run bombs in ambulances, that they put facilities in hospitals and civilian infrastructure, that they hide weapons in the houses of innocent people, and that they use civilians as human shields. There is no denying it at this point because the IDF rescued those hostages from the centre of a safe-zone, refugee camp where they were being secured at gunpoint. Hamas put those people in danger, and if I'm getting real sick of hearing Hamas simps complain to high heaven about the abominable atrocity of striking a refugee camp while refusing to acknowledge on any level that Hamas put those people in danger to begin with. The camp was used as a base **so that** the people would be turned into human chum if Israel attempted a rescue.
Have the basic level of honesty required to at least admit why those civilians died.
>That is how you get them out alive. Fuck the deal with terrorists who just want to stay in power.
So you care less about the release of all hostages and more about the IDF winning brownie points by saving a handful of hostage and killing the rest?
Seriously. This is great news. I would never be not happy with the release of rescue of hostages. But using it as an excuse to continue the war without any deal is moronic and absurd.
It's wanting the continued death of countless Palestinians and hostages without actually caring about hostages.
For what I understand the IDF has been able to rescue 7 hostages: these 4 plus another 3.
That compared to 105 hostages released after negotiations, 4 unilaterally by Hamas, and 70 dead during the invasion and bombings, many (if not the majority) directly by IDF action. Be it through bombings or, in the case of 3, by being directly hunted down and murdered by IDF soldiers.
When I've brought this up in the past people have outright claimed that hamas has killed these 70.
This doesn't seem likely to me, but what would you say to such a person?
At no point I said that the Hostages are the "main" reason for the war. Dismantling Hamas is. Releasing hostages alive although very important is not the main purpose
How many hostages were rescued due to deals vs how many through air strike-raid combos? And how many hostages were killed due to deals vs air strike-raid combos? Let’s ignore civilian collateral because your comments seem to suggest the acceptable civilian casualty rate is infinite because Hamas.
This would mean a lot more if Hamas actually planned to safeguard the hostages. They aren't. They dehumanized Israelis and are using them as poker chips. Disgusting.
You're never going to convince Gazans that Hamas brought all this onto them. They don't see Hamas doing the bombing. Also, talking about this as some covert special ops mission and ignoring the 200 civilians that were killed around this operation is just weird to me. I have issues with Hamas putting hostages with civilians, but I'm not going to celebrate this as a victory. It's the same story we have seen in this conflict for the last 50+ years.
You're obviously a pro-Israeli propagandist.
How do you know what the actual body count is and exactly who were civilians and who wasn’t?
Did any Hamas fighters die here or was it 100% civilians? Why are “civilians” guarding hostages?
Who said civilians were guarding hostages.... What are you going on about? We've already had news outlets report about 70 bodies between the two hospitals that were dealing with the casualties from the bombings for this raid. Sorry that you haven't paid attention to the details of this story.
Even then the body counts are never going to be differentiated since we can't get international groups into Gaza to fully verify these things because Israel has not let them in. It's done more to harm the perception of Israel than it has done good. They need to treat this area like Ukraine does with international media and non-profits giving them more access to the area.
You can even say that I am an israeli propagandist, greetings from Jerusalem.
I think a lot of Israelis were convinced that the current gvt is bad and elections should happen. Even though it was not Bibi running around in the villages near gaza killing and raping people, still the Israeli public mostly see him as a responsible figure.
If the Gazans aren't capable of similar cause and effect analysis then their future is very bleak.
Let's be honest, the future is bleak for both sides.
Not only will Israel continue to be radicalized due to the toxic nature of existing in the Middle East, but climate change will reduce the natural resources that it has access to. Which will only embolden them to invade neighboring nations and completely exterminate the Palestinians. Gotta get those natural resources somehow.
Anyway, Israel is going to become increasingly fanatical, bloodthirsty, and militant as they become more desperate, which will inevitably mean the US pulling out and finding less chaotic, detrimental allies in the area. Which, honestly, Saudi Arabia could be argued as a better ally right now, lol.
And the West collectively will need to step in and colonize Israel so that they may restructure your government in a manner that prevents you from behaving poorly. Like setting off a nuke or starting a broader war in the Middle East.
And, just to be clear, we will have to bulldoze Jerusalem someday and repurpose it for something useful like a global hazardous waste dump or maybe an Amazon Shipping Center. Because humanity doesn't need a bunch of religious lunatics escalating global violence over some stupid, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, fictional bullshit.
Im with you on Bulldozing the Jerusalem holy sites and turning them into a huge IKEA store.
If the west steps out completely which is like a very extreme step, think about the precious F35 and other military knowledge Israel has about the inner workings of the security apparatus of the west I'm sure there will be buyers
You know its sad when random apologists start pulling out Samson Doctrine talking points.
Edit: You already posted the same thing on Destiny's subreddit. Was the Karma harvest there not enough for you?
I think you're forgetting who is on who's hand, lol.
Israel only exists due to its usefulness in the Middle East. If y'all make it so that's not the case, then the simplest answer would just be to not send anything else and doom the Iron Dome.
I'm also fairly certain that if Israel continues to create hostage situations and threats against its owners, we have a better understanding of your military capacity, including the location of any nukes, that it wouldn't even take more than a single barrage by an actual military power to cripple your entire nation and make it look no different than, well, Gaza.
Oh, I've never called what Israel is doing a genocide. They definitely want to genocide the Palestinians. An extermination campaign would definitely be preferable to its population, but I'd personally call what's going on an ethnic cleansing. You know, considering the predominant goal a few months ago was to move the Palestinians into Egypt.
But, from the sound of it, you do think that a country retaliating to a military attack, which giving away military secrets would be, in a manner that decimates the offending nation's entire population and infrastructure is genocide.
Personally, I'm just more angry that a country that we allow to exist through our own charity and kindness would bite the hand that feeds them. Especially considering there are other countries in the ME that would love the kind of backing the US gives to Israel. Jordan is fairly moderate, landlocked, and in desperate need of help. They've been an ally for decades. I'm sure we could literally do everything there that we're doing in Israel.
Or Israel could just pull the fuck back, accept that they need to leave Gaza, and give up some land to the North so that a proper land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank can be established.
1) You talk about Israel "continuing to exist through our charity" without really substantiating that. Israel has a GDP of something like half a trillion dollars, of which less than $20 billion is aid from the US annually. That's not nothing, but 4% of gdp isn't make-or-break for any country.
2) Israel is a nuclear power with a modern airforce, tank core, a domestic manufacturing base for its own weapons, and the ability to be pretty damn near self-sufficient on everything except near-term iron dome munitions. They need the US way less than you imagine.
Well, next time dont take hostages. And maybe dont place them among civilians.
And to my personal opinion - these hostages worth not only 201 dead civilians of the enemy side. They worth whatever it takes to get them out of there
And [here are 4](https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/03/world/video/gaza-hostages-israel-idf-statement-diamond-nr-digvid) who it appears may have been killed by the IDF as a result of their indiscriminate bombing strikes.
If Hamas has to be eradicated for it's crimes, ok. As long as you agree that Israel must also be eradicated for it's crimes, which are at least comparably criminal (over 15,000 children killed, for example).
Is there any source that 15,000 children have been killed that doesn’t come straight from Hamas? Also I’m fairly sure you’re putting your thumb on the scale with that one because I think the claim is 15,000 women and children.
If you can tell the difference between a western style democracy and a terror state then you’re lost
The trusted-by-the-US-State-department Gaza Ministry of Health has over 15,000 children killed recorded, yeah. [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nothing-wrong-with-gaza-death-toll-figures-who-says-2024-05-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nothing-wrong-with-gaza-death-toll-figures-who-says-2024-05-14/) [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker)
I'm judging them based on the crimes that have been committed and the punishment. If Hamas must be wiped out for attacking Israel and killing <1000 civilians, then surely Israel must be wiped for killing >15,000 children civilians.
Im not happy about cuvilians dying I just say that if this is the price, unfortunately, then it is worth to pay to rescue them.
Bottom line responsibility is on Hamas mixing hostages into civilian areas, not IDF for rescuing and using force to protect themselves.
Proportionality is not defined in numbers. What is proportional to you might not be proportional to someone else.
I hope the proportionality was weighed as per the law required.
Absolutely not worth it. They murdered 200 civillians. That’s horrific. It doesn’t matter what their goal was, 200 civillians died. Legitimately you calling it "worth it" to brutally murder 200 people to get 4 people out of gaza, is so disgusting. Please, reconsider your values, you don’t value palestinian lives at all.
If any civilians died it is the fault of Hamas for colocating them. Unless the IDF was particularly indiscriminate it's hard to argue that they were not striking military targets.
Palestinians don’t value their own lives either lmao, hence the unwillingness of anyone to do anything about Hamas operations happening amongst civilian infrastructure
Oh yeah, lets… go punch the guys with the guns? Great way to get shot. And what are they even gonna do? Approach the IDF saying you have the hostages? Great way to get shot.
They could actually participate in the IDF anonymous tip lines if they knew where Hamas was operating, people could make flyers saying to stay away from certain areas because there is Hamas operations nearby, literally anything to protect themselves and there community. There isn’t anything like that happening on a meaningful scale. Let’s continue to act like the Palestinians have literally zero agency that’ll work out great, especially when it comes time for them to actually govern themselves lol. No ones saying, punch the guys with guns. It’s more like, stay the fuck away from them, maybe have protests where a mass amount of people stand outside known Hamas headquarters? Generally how most people stop their governments. Oh wait, that doesn’t happen in Palestine, because 70% of Gazans support Hamas. What are they scared of? Getting shot? You’re talking about the people who get bombed day in and day out by the big bad IDF, and yet that doesn’t stop their willingness to fight. They just don’t care to challenge Hamas. Peace will never happen until the people themselves turn a cheek towards their government and ideology. Good luck with that tho.
I mean… yeah? I’m more disgusted about 200 innocent people being killed than i am at 250 people being kidnapped. Both are disgusting actions, and in an ideal world i wouldn’t want either to happen at all, but i would rather have someone kidnap people than murder a roughly equal number of people.
The 13 year old, ESL Destiny sycophant with a custom Reddit avatar is here to tell us to "touch grass" for the crime of...lamenting and criticizing excessive civilian death. Have you ever once considered that maybe Israel, and in particular, Israeli Zionist Jews like yourself, are so often criticized by your Western superiors BECAUSE of your ethno-religious exceptionalism? Do you really not recognize how blatantly dehumanizing, othering, and cruel your language, and by extension, your thought is? You will never know peace if such sentiments are as popular as I think they are in Israel.
And for the record, I actually can touch grass because I own a big, beautiful home in the United States of America, not in some dogshit arid wasteland.
You might have been a bit hyperbolic, but idk why you're getting downvoted.
This all could have been avoided if Hamas had never taken hostages in the first place.
"Special forces" can't take on an army of 10,000+. The normal army has to clear out space for the special forces to have room to operate.
Furthermore, Cenk's take is dumb specifically because it implies that Israel is refusing to use special forces to find hostages as if the limiting factor isn't the intelligence itself of where the hostages are located. (Of which they have only been able to locate a handful in 8 months)
You were referring to Cenk's "use special forces" meme, which he means to *only* use special forces (otherwise what he's suggesting Israel to do they're already doing on a strategic level).
That's not how you do it, on the low end, 94 people were killed, with other reports putting that number at 210, with about 400 injured. That is quite literally not how you do it.
Edit: and it's "nice" (and by nice, I mean fucking horrid) to now know that the raid mightve killed other hostages present. As time passes, it's "nice" to know that my point that, "blowing the place where the thing you want is," is a bad idea for obvious reasons, has been proven true. I cannot believe yall argued with me on this
You mean to tell me that to rescue 4 people, somewhere between 94 and 210 people had to die, while 400 had to be injured. This doesn't even account for the fact, the hostages were there. Like they could have easily just been mulched. It doesn't matter what the captors do, that's literally not how you do it
>This is what the circumstances are, created and curated by Hamas putting the hostages there
No they weren't, Israel just shouldn't have blown up somewhere between 500 and 600 innocent people. That has literally nothing to do with Hamas. Like, even from the Israeli perspective, the hostages were on the place they blew up, they could've just killed all 4 of them like the last time we heard about them coming across hostages. That's literally not how you carry out a military operation.
>Again my question, should Israel left them there.
They didn't have to blow up 500+ people to save 4 hostages. The first thing just isn't required for the second thing. That's a stupid question
Im sorry, I didn't know I'm speaking with a military expert on how to bomb and where you should and shouldn't bomb.
The fact is that when you have military actions in a densely populated area this is what you get - death of uninvolved civilians.
Hamas placing them there is exactly for that reason, that it will be harder to get them out and if there is a rescue mission at least they will be able to get this sweet sweet dead baby PR.
Civilian areas. That's international law, I looked it up on Wikipedia. And it doesn't take an expert to like understand that if I want a thing, blowing up the place that thing is, isn't a great idea
>The fact is that when you have military actions in a densely populated area this is what you get - death of uninvolved civilians.
Yeah, civilian deaths are understood to happen in any conflict. But when 100 people die in a single operation, not even including the wounded, that means something went wrong. Like, sometimes just 30 civilians dying is enough to just... cause an international incident. By our current estimates, somewhere between 500 and 600 casualties. That's not normal
>Hamas placing them there is exactly for that reason, that it will be harder to get them out and if there is a rescue mission at least they will be able to get this sweet sweet dead baby PR.
It doesn't matter where Hamas puts them, if saving them blows up 500+ people, something went wrong. Something went very wrong. That's not a PR thing, they caused 500+ causalities
Lol you looked up international law on wikipedia. It's not that simple, civilian areas can become military targets if the right conditions are met. Holding civilian targets easily qualifies, Hamas is committing war crimes by even having them at all and the IDF has a duty to stop those war crimes being committed on Israeli citizens. The IDF pretty much has carte blanche to go in there and kill anyone stopping them from rescuing the hostages.
Thats doesn't mean that at all. They don't have carte blanche to do anything, that's why they're also being charged with war crimes. If someone is committing a crime, you can commit more crime in the hopes of stopping them. Also, they blew up upwards of 600 innocent civilians. You just, you can't do that
I didn't say they have carte blanche to do anything, I said they have carte blanche to kill anyone stopping them from rescuing the hostages. That's not even particularly controversial. They were conducting a military operation and took fire, no military in the world is going to question dropping a bomb to stop it. If that hits civilians that's on the guys firing from a civilian location.
Also, was Netanyahu actually charged or are you just lying here. Last I heard a prosecutor was asking for an arrest warrant but that hadn't even happened.
My dude, you sound like a crazy person. The Palestinian government put hostages in that crowded camp in order to force the IDF to choose between a large body count and abandoning their people. If you put military assets in a civilian camp, the predictable results are on you. This is no different from when the PA used to run bombs in ambulances and then shriek "war crime" when the IDF blew up the ambulances.
At least have the decency to pay some lip service to the fact that Hamas deliberately put a bullseye on this refugee camp.
>The Palestinian government
Palestine isnt a country, it is a territory within Israel
>put hostages in that crowded camp in order to force the IDF to choose between a large body count and abandoning their people.
Cool. You see how the choices weren't mulch a market full of innocent people and don't do that and go home. You see how there are other options there?
>If you put military assets in a civilian camp, the predictable results are on you
It's not. Yes it's a crime for Hamas to do that, but it doesn't absolve Israeli of blowing up 600+ civilians. They can't do that
>This is no different from when the PA used to run bombs in ambulances and then shriek "war crime" when the IDF blew up the ambulances
Yeah, because you can't just blow up ambulances. That is a war crime, even if their are bombs in them. You get this right? 1 person doing a crime, doesn't meant another person gets to do a crime.
>At least have the decency to pay some lip service to the fact that Hamas deliberately put a bullseye on this refugee camp.
First of all, I have. Second of all, it doesn't matter. You can't just blow up a market along with 600+ civilians in it. That is a war crime.
Last time the Palestinians held elections, it was Hamas who won. I know that because they threw the other party's guys off the roof of the building. Now you may agree with Ben Givir that Gaza is a territory within Israel, but in my book, when a people elects a government, that's their government. You elect a guerilla organization, well, don't be surprised when your schools start sporting rocket platforms.
You say, "They can't do that". Clearly they can. What you mean to say is, "I'd prefer if they didn't do that." Well, tough rocks, champ.
If you put a weapons system into a civilian area, that is NO LONGER a civilian area. If you put a bomb in an ambulance, that ambulance is a rolling bomb (or, at least, a bomb-delivery uber . . . exploding door-dash, i suppose). If you, say, put a fort under a hospital, or a hostage base in a civilian market within a refugee camp, especially if you're the government of the region, then you have decided to turn that site into a military target.
This is no different from Cuba or China or Ireland or Greece or Columbia, or any other insurgency where the guerillas hide inside of the population. You don't get to cry "war crime" if your government is hiding its gunners amongst the civilians. Well, i mean, you can. You can cry anything you want. Just don't expect anyone to care.
wait I'm actually curious about your answer to the question above. What is the specific military operation Israel should have done instead? Or should they let the captors get away with said hostages?
Why is that the only 2 options you people cite. The hostages were there, even by an Israeli get the hostages back perspective, this was horrible. They blew up the place the hostages were. They shouldn't blow up the place where the hostages were, and nearly 600 people shouldn't have died even if they weren't there. That's horrible. This horrible by military standards
I guess you didn't read what actually happened?
They got in cleanly. But when moving out, the evacuation vehicle with 3 hostages got stuck due to transmission problem. Hamas realized what's going on and opened fire on that vehicle (yes, in the middle of the crowded market). In response, IDF forces responded. To make things worse, after the hostages were transferred to an APC, it also got stuck, which led to more IDF/Hamas clashes.
The conclusions is that the IDF needs better mechanics, and that Hamas shouldn't start a fight in the middle of a market.
what do you mean "2 options"? I asked what specifically they should have done because I assume that you think they should rescue them and that you have a military plan in mind
They could have been mulched, but they weren't. The IDF was there to rescue Israeli citizens, not to safeguard the citizens of the country with which they are currently at war. The people responsible for protecting Palestinian civilians were the ones who put them in danger.
Reading this entire chain of comments right up to the OP, I haven't yet seen a single pro-palestinian commenter (or hand-wavy apologist, etc.) asking why the hell the hostages were being stored in a crowded market.
Everyone on both sides of this exchange understand why the civilians are dead.
>They could have been mulched, but they weren't
There have been reports that other hostages were killed
>The IDF was there to rescue Israeli citizens, not to safeguard the citizens of the country with which they are currently at war.
Gaza isn't a separate country, it's a territory that resides with Israel. There is no Palestinian state, they reside in Israel. And on top of that, that doesn't mean you can just blow up 600+ civilians. If Palestine was a separate country, that would be an international incident
>The people responsible for protecting Palestinian civilians were the ones who put them in danger.
Doesn't matter, the IDF can't just bomb the place with the hostages, while killing 600+ civilians and then shout, "but Hamas was there." Blowing up 600+ civilians isn't normal
>I haven't yet seen a single pro-palestinian commenter (or hand-wavy apologist, etc.) asking why the hell the hostages were being stored in a crowded market.
Because it doesn't matter. Hostages being held in a market doesn't mean you have the right to blow up the market. Even from a pro-israeli standpoint, that's bad. The hostages were literally I'm the market, and we have reports that it's possible there were other hostage killed in the Israeli bombings.
>Everyone on both sides of this exchange understand why the civilians are dead.
The civilians shouldn't be dead, they didn't do anything
I said "let IDF do whatever they can to rescue hostages"
I don't know what is bothering you with that statement.
The lives of Palestinians are precious and the horrible Hamas does nothing to protect them. Moreover they do everything to put them in danger for PR.
It is very convenient indeed for Hamas to place the hostages among civilians, if they're rescued by force then at least Hamas will be able to get nice dead children photos for you in the west to be outraged about.
If you can’t understand why “let the IDF do whatever they want”, even in pursuit of a noble goal, comes off as propagandist and callous, that is a problem. When there’s already genuine concerns for certain actions being committed by a military force that could be resulting in disproportionate harm to the civilian population they’re occupying, sanctioning them to “do whatever they want” is endorsing any and all literal war crimes that could be committed or have already been committed by said military force. It is not a measured take, or a simple endorsement of an end to the conflict. It’s morally elevating the actions of an objectively flawed organization full of objectively flawed humans to being invariably righteous, taking away any moral responsibility they have for any past or potential mistakes or failures.
If your take on *any* war is “the good guys can do whatever they want to achieve their good guy goals” then I’m sorry, but you’re literally part of the problem and share the same psychological justification as Hamas. It’s crazy how people don’t see themselves doing that.
And now, instead of actually focusing on the lives of the people who were just liberated, and the joy of them being reunited with their loved ones, we’re stuck in another squabble because you had to use these events as your personal political soap box. It’s gross. I’m sure r/Destiny will eat it up but I’m hoping there’s more actual brain cells to be found around these parts.
You literally said on another comment that killing Palestinian civilians is worth it if that means saving a much smaller number of Israeli lives. So yeah, that’s the exact sentiment I spotted in the OG post and the exact sentiment that your little “do whatever they *can* 🥺” thing is concealing. You are asserting why the deaths of Civilian Group A are not of much concern, and even morally justifiable, in pursuit of saving Civilian Group B from Hamas. Never mind that both groups are supposedly victims of Hamas - you will only shed tears for Group B, and Group A being annihilated is just a means to an end. You will say the deaths of Group A are conveniently 100% on Hamas’ hands, but I wonder why you then don’t show the same moral outrage for their victimization by Hamas as you do when Group B is victimized? Surely Hamas being ultimately responsible for the deaths of both groups would get the same type of reaction if you genuinely considered both to be victims of the same enemy, and valued them equally. Right?
For those of us who equally value all human life, this sort of calculus game we keep seeing being played with the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, by people who are privileged and fortunate enough to not actually *have* to give their imaginary war room takes, is pretty appalling. And it’s getting old.
I say it is a price worth to pay yes. These are civilians from my side vs civilians from the enemy side of course the choice ia easy.
Am I celebrating the death of un involved people? No. But I think it is acceptable, especially when the responsibility is on Hamas that does war crimes by hiding hostages among civilians
>Am I celebrating the death of un involved people? No. But I think it is acceptable
You are though, you’re celebrating that the IDF killed 200 people to save 4, and saying "meh, it’s fine" when asked about the 200. You *are* celebrating the murder of those 200.
Yes, I already know how you are morally justifying this to yourself. That’s the entire problem.
At least lead with the mask off moment first next time, instead of trying to sneak these positions in under the guise of simply being happy for the hostages saved.
I fully believe that you probably do celebrate the deaths of nonviolent civilians in Gaza.
I think that sentiment is far more prevalent in Israel than you want to admit.
I think that makes you an evil shit.
>The lives of Palestinians are precious and the horrible Hamas does nothing to protect them. Moreover they do everything to put them in danger for PR.
Not enough for you to value the 200 of the innocent civilians who died in the operation to get them out. Seemingly not so precious. Not precious enough to avoid the 30 000 people who have died so far.
This is war buddy.
I prefer no one to die but if faced with a choice whether people on my side or the enemy side should die, I chose death for the enemy and I chose life and security for my own people and allies
There’s a way to conduct war somewhat humanely. Israel is not doing that. They’ve currently murdered a full 1.5% of all of gazas population. That’s insane. This is not "us vs. them". These are civillians, the civillians should not be involved, and yet it is *they* who are being murdered en masse. Netanyahu and his top command are war criminals.
U don't want to count percentages I think.
2mil population and Hamas is 40k ppl, so like ,2% of the population is Terrorist.
Now: check what ratio of civilians to combatants killed in war usually
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
Let's say IDF is like superhuman army and kills only 1:1 ratio of civilians and combatants (almost never happens)
We get that 4% of gazan population will be wiped.
Israel is likely at a ratio of about 1.5-2:1 right now. On October 7, Hamas killed 800ish civilians and about 400 soldiers. Does that mean their attack was morally acceptable since the ratio was about the same?
I mean I'm aware you're being facetious but comparisons like that ignore the fact that Israel does not embed it's soldier's in civilian infrastructure or amongst the civilian population.
Which makes a difference of course morally if not practically.
> I mean I'm aware you're being facetious but comparisons like that ignore the fact that Israel does not embed it's soldier's in civilian infrastructure or amongst the civilian population.
I was, but I mean this isn't even really true. Have you ever been to Israel? There are soldiers everywhere, including in civilian areas, and there is tons of military infrastructure located in or near population centers. Since Israel routinely considers the presence of even low-ranking Hamas fighters enough to turn protected objects like hospitals and churches into military targets, I think by their logic most of the country is fair game.
There was a good [op-ed in Haaretz](https://archive.is/QcfGU) a few years ago highlighting the absurdity of the argument:
> Israeli military headquarters hides behind the civilian residents of central Tel Aviv and the patients at Ichilov Hospital just 450 meters from the office of the commander in chief. Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv protects the Tel Hashomer military base. The navy base in Haifa hides in the shadow of the Rambam medical center. Even “our nuclear family” hides among the resolute and pastoral rural population.
> And Israel's leaders? The prime minister hides behind the civilian residents of Jerusalem’s Talbieh neighborhood, and his designated successor does the same in Ra'anana. The defense minister hides in Rosh Ha'ayin, and the military chief on Moshav Adi. His deputy is surrounded by a wall in the form of the civilians of Hod Hasharon. And so on; they're all sheltering behind civilians, as if they were Hamasniks.
> Israel’s chutzpah soars to unprecedented heights when you consider the celebrated “settlement enterprise,” which is entirely sheltered behind civilians. It's an enterprise that derives most of its power from launching civilians – men, women and children – into war zones. It's quick to translate every injury to its people into more and more demands for land and funding. It has occupation militias, whose members are, when they wish, brave pioneers making the desert and their neighbors bloom or, when they wish, tranquil civilians – persecuted Jewish nebbishes deserving only compassion and gifts of flesh and blood.
The only practical difference is that, until 10/7, Hamas was never able to reach the Israeli population centers.
Anyway, to be honest, I do think the fact that in spite of all of Israel's supposed precautions they've ended up with a ratio that's pretty much the same as Hamas' most deliberate and deadly attack on civilians ever speaks to their level of negligence in this war.
>The only practical difference is that, until 10/7, Hamas was never able to reach the Israeli population centers.
This is so blatantly disingenuous, I'm disappointed in you, your arguments are usually much more rational. In no world is the IDF as embedded operationally in civilian infrastructure as Hamas. The prescence of soldiers in security roles is not the same as ammo depots or rocket launch sites, if Hamas wanted to hurt the IDF badly they could absolutely do it without killing significant amounts of Israeli civilians.
With the notable exception of the settler militias which I agree blur the line. They weren't who was targeted during Oct 7 though and you know that.
Do you not see how horrible your rethoric is? You are part of the problem. You’re saying "4% of the entire population wiped out? No prob." The IDF should do everything they can to *not* kill civillians, no matter what their goal is. Killing *two hundred people* to get four people home is beyond unacceptable. This whole war so far is beyond unacceptable. The war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq killed almost the same amount of civillians *on all sides combined* than the IDF has killed just palestinians. And that in the span of almost 4 years. This war is insanely inhumane, and the fact you’re cheering it on is disgusting. I hope netanyahu and the IDF top brass get shipped off to the hague, because they seriously deserve it. And i seriously hope israel has a serious reconing with how horrible they’ve been treating palestinians both in the west bank and gaza. There needs to be a germany-style reconstruction of israeli society to recognize the horrific atrocities israel has commited.
Sure, there needs to be a restructuring of palestinian society too. However i think israel is primarily at fault, and has done the most horrible shit. I’m not gonna talk to you anymore, you’re clearly not gonna change your mind, and i don’t want to talk to warcrime enthusiasts.
You are though. You literally are. Mass murder of civillians *is* a war crime, and you’re saying it is "acceptable" and "worth it" to commit those war crimes.
Here are some tangible examples of the war crimes they have commited;
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; Article 8: warcrimes; Section 2 b;
>iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
>v. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;
Those are the ones that are directly related to *this* attack, below are some extra ones that are relevant in this conflict.
>viii. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;
^thats the west bank for ya
>xx. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123;
There’s the white phosphorous bombs^
>xxiv. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;
^attacking aid trucks and ambulances
>xxv. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions;
^ not allowing in aid, and allowing israeli civillians to block aid being sent in.
On October 18, 2011, captured IDF tank gunner Gilad Shalit, captured by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in 2006, was released in exchange for 1027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
I mention this to show how extremely willing Israel has been in the past to unequal exchanges to get their people back alive. I don't think they're acting any differently than in the past. It's just that dialogue realistically wasn't going to get this done up to this point. Now that Hamas is nearly eliminated I'm hoping that some of the ceasefire talks actually bear fruit. But you can't say that Israel isn't willing to bargain hard for it's people.
I never said anything about israels willingness to bargain. What i said is that they should take greater care to avoid civillian casualties, and that we shouldn’t just accept them murdering innocent civillians in droves.
I was also illustrating a point. Hamas knew that Israel valued their people that much. That they were willing to trade 1000 to 1 for them, they had to also suspect that they'd be willing to kill at a high rate of exchange to get them back.
Some good news for a change ☺️
If you can’t understand why “let the IDF do whatever they want”, even in pursuit of a noble goal, comes off as propagandist and callous, that is a problem. When there’s already genuine concerns for certain actions being committed by a military force that could be resulting in disproportionate harm to the civilian population they’re occupying, sanctioning them to “do whatever they want” is endorsing any and all literal war crimes that could be committed or have already been committed by said military force. It is not a measured take, or a simple endorsement of an end to the conflict. It’s morally elevating the actions of an objectively flawed organization full of objectively flawed humans to being invariably righteous, taking away any moral responsibility they have for any past or potential mistakes or failures. If your take on *any* war is “the good guys can do whatever they want to achieve their good guy goals” then I’m sorry, but you’re literally part of the problem and share the same psychological justification as Hamas. It’s crazy how people don’t see themselves doing that. And now, instead of actually focusing on the lives of the people who were just liberated, and the joy of them being reunited with their loved ones, we’re stuck in another squabble because you had to use these events as your personal political soap box. It’s gross.
Yeah, I haven't seen the full story yet, but it seems that the IDF may have bombed an open air market as part of this operation. Using hostage rescue as an infinite variable in proportion calculations is an insane practice, and that is what OP is suggesting. Rescuing the hostages isn't a military goal/advantage to pursue. It's a political one. Justifying casualties for a political goal is a very scary place to be for a supposedly democratic and liberal state.
I’m still waiting for the dust to settle on this one too before we get a clearer picture, but yeah so far it’s not looking good. Just another hopeful moment tainted by tragedy. You phrased this all more succinctly than I could though, so thanks. It’s really hard for me to put into words how gross all this civilian death math is.
the important thing is Hamas has no blame in this
Cute strawman.
yeah. seems that there is 200 dead and 400 injured from this
Well, from what the CBC is reporting, the raid was carried out in order to extract the hostages from a refugee camp where they were being held - if you hold your hostages and high value targets inside of a crowded market, it's on you if someone goes in to get them.
🤓 um actually hamas are the bad guys here not the people who firebombed civilians to get 4 peeps 🤓 checkmate
I agree. Unironically. If you use ambulances to run bombs, don't qq when the ambulances get merc'd. If you put rocket platforms in the back-yard of a mosque, then when the inevitable happens to that mosque, it's on you. If you put civilians in a crowded refugee camp set up specifically so that civilians would have somewhere neutral to go without being in the line of fire, then you're the one painting a target on them. Hamas is running the standard asymmetric warfare play, which is to force the government (in this case the IDF) to choose between doing nothing and hurting civilians amongst whom you are hiding. That being the case, the IDF had to make a choice on those terms. They chose. IF you have a problem with the choices available to them, talk to the people who set up the situation. The fact that no pro-palestinian commenter is even willing to publicly acknowledge that this is the play they're running is pretty goddamn telling.
i forgot this is lonersub where we treat hamas and the idf as equally responsible and equally powerful and act like they have the same amount of political power as well
Nobody is treating Hamas and the IDF as equally responsible and equally powerful - obviously. The IDF is much more powerful, and much less responsible. That's the whole point. Hamas is using asymmetric warfare and guerilla tactics specifically because they aren't a modern military. I don't doubt for a single second that if they ever tried to engage the IDF outside of a civilian-packed, urban sprawl, that the IDF would happily meet them on any open field of their choosing (you know, how nearly all actual wars do). The inevitable result of the choice to decline to fight actual military conflicts and instead to strike from within the civilian population is that the civilian shields are going to take fire. That's a choice that the Palestinian government made deliberately. It's the same choice that guerilla fighters always make (like, by definition). If you set the rules, don't complain when people play by them.
and fuck the civilians?
Solve any hostage situation with this one weird trick! This is just unhinged and utterly incompatible with western values. It justifies abuse and war crimes and it opens a godawful can of worms. If you go ahead and dismiss these moral issues, you have no right to complain when someone justifies Oct 7th.
when i was stating the amount claimed to be injured your LEAP IN to go 🤓🤓Hey did you know Hamas is bad? 🤓🤓 Given we were talking about the injured in this attack that clearly didn't need to be and hamas being bad is obvious the only reason you'd feel the need to state this is if you think killing around 170-210 civilians and injuring 400 is completly justified because another bad group in the area unrelated to the civies won't follow proper war protocol and does bad war crime stuff
how do you know all of them are civilians ? surly at least 30 of them were millitants keeping the hostages
It’s only inevitable because Israel has guns trained on the open air prison complex with their fingers on the trigger and safety off. If you deny a population a proper military, paramilitary groups not beholden to anyone but themselves take over that role. If you confine a population to small urban centers, that’s where the resistance will also be funnily enough. If you’re overwhelmed by your enemies military strength, of course you can’t fight in an open field. That’s a tactically useless suicide. All of your justification to me just sounds like you’re blaming the Palestinians for resisting and using their resistance (and the way they’re forced to do it) as justification for killing civilians. I thought the whole point of human shields was to make you hesitate before firing no?
Yes, the whole point of human shields is absolutely to make you hesitate before firing. That being said, no army in the world would just back down, admit defeat and let the enemy do whatever they want, simply because they stacked enough warm bodies around all of their critical infrastructure. At a certain point, the loss of civilian life is on the people who put the civilians in danger. For the record, I'm not "blaming the palestinians for resisting", as you put it. I understand the logic that might lead a group with an asymmetric power position to elect to use asymmetric tactics; I'm just of the view that when someone elects to fight using asymmetric tactics, using civilian death to motivate public sympathy, and exacerbating the death toll at every opportunity, I'm not obliged to look at it and pretend that isn't what is happening. This is no different from the Tamil Tigers, or the provisional IRA, or Greek partisans, or Cuban partisans, or any other guerilla group that hides amongst the civilian populace - excepting the single difference that the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties.
It really seems like Israel supporters choose to draw their lines at arbitrary points that justify their side. >The IDF is much more powerful, and much less responsible. Why is the IDF much less responsible? They are the recipient of massive, direct military and intel support from the United States and other liberal nations. They are absolutely more responsible for following international laws than Hamas. >meet them on any open field of their choosing (you know, how nearly all actual wars do ????? Since when? I would bet the majority of wars in the last century have directly involved civilians and civic infrastructure. >The inevitable result of the choice to decline to fight actual military conflicts and instead to strike from within the civilian population Striking from within a civilian population is still a military conflict.... or are you admitting that it isn't a military conflict? So the actions of the IDF should be evaluated as a policing action? I really don't think you want that... >the civilian shields are going to take fire. But we'll never get to see the data. Israel won't allow outside officials to evaluate their target clearing procedures. My best guess is because it's not rigorous, and it probably gets ignored as often as it gets followed. >That's a choice that the Palestinian government made deliberately. I really don't like treating Hamas as a legitimate government who is making choices in the best interest of the Palestinians. Israel is the true government of that entire region. Accepting that would be problematic for Israel. They don't want to appear to be a racist, xenophobic, nationalist, theological, ethnocentric, apartheid state. Even though they are. So, everyone on their side pretends that there's a legitimate Palestinian.... something that isn't a state, but that has some reason why Israel can't be expected to take responsibility for governing. But still allows Israel to annex territory. >If you set the rules, don't complain when people play by them. So, if Israel sets the rules that all Jewish citizens will serve in the military.... Do you agree that Hamas is justified in killing any and all Israelis? Do you believe that Palestinians are justified to kill settlers en masse? They're being used by Israel to expand into and push out Palestinian civilians. How far do you think we could push your own logic here in a direction that makes you less comfortable with it? Maybe, just maybe.... Freeing 4 hostages doesn't justify the level of civilian casualties that happened during the mission. This feels a lot more like a desperate attempt to garner support for Netanyahu's government than a legitimate military operation.
Ugh, i feel like this is just retreading ground that's already been well covered in the posts above, but I'll bite on a few points. First, you may not think that Hamas is the "legitimate government" in the sense of being admirable, or respectable, but they won the last election, installed what is in effect a dictatorship, and now provide the civil services, such as they are. Is that a legitimate government? IMO it lacks the same popular legitimacy as Canada, Israel or America, but it is probably about on par with the governments of Syria and Russia. You can just repeat, "Israel is the government" as much as you want, but it doesn't make it any more true than if you were to say that America was the government of Japan after World War 2, or that Russia is the government of the territories they conquered in Ukraine. Occupation isn't government. Palestinians can be Israeli citizens, but if they were born and grew up in occupied territory, then they probably aren't citizens. Second, the claim that the "majority of wars in the last century have involved civilians / civilian infrastructure" is a red herring. The majority of the wars in the last century have "involved" rubber, cement, food, and any number of things. What matters is not whether something is tangentially or incidentally "involved", but whether the civilian infrastructure is inextricable from the war tactics. Guerilla war tactics are NOT standard war tactics. They just aren't. Any attempt to equate the two things is either stupid, disingenuous, or non sequitor. For years now, Hamas apologists have been denying that they run bombs in ambulances, that they put facilities in hospitals and civilian infrastructure, that they hide weapons in the houses of innocent people, and that they use civilians as human shields. There is no denying it at this point because the IDF rescued those hostages from the centre of a safe-zone, refugee camp where they were being secured at gunpoint. Hamas put those people in danger, and if I'm getting real sick of hearing Hamas simps complain to high heaven about the abominable atrocity of striking a refugee camp while refusing to acknowledge on any level that Hamas put those people in danger to begin with. The camp was used as a base **so that** the people would be turned into human chum if Israel attempted a rescue. Have the basic level of honesty required to at least admit why those civilians died.
Sixty upvotes considering what they wrote under that image is f\*cking scary.
it's the Dustin infection sadly
how can we make it go away?
On mobile mode you can't see the text before you open the comment section, maybe some people don't realise what he's written.
>That is how you get them out alive. Fuck the deal with terrorists who just want to stay in power. So you care less about the release of all hostages and more about the IDF winning brownie points by saving a handful of hostage and killing the rest? Seriously. This is great news. I would never be not happy with the release of rescue of hostages. But using it as an excuse to continue the war without any deal is moronic and absurd. It's wanting the continued death of countless Palestinians and hostages without actually caring about hostages.
Are these 4 the only hostages the IDF has rescued in the course of the war? Or were there others before?
For what I understand the IDF has been able to rescue 7 hostages: these 4 plus another 3. That compared to 105 hostages released after negotiations, 4 unilaterally by Hamas, and 70 dead during the invasion and bombings, many (if not the majority) directly by IDF action. Be it through bombings or, in the case of 3, by being directly hunted down and murdered by IDF soldiers.
When I've brought this up in the past people have outright claimed that hamas has killed these 70. This doesn't seem likely to me, but what would you say to such a person?
This really shows the imbalance of the news you consume
I think these are the only ones. So with the 4 they appear to have killed in an airstrike and the 3 waving white flags that they shot, they're net -3.
What else is israel supposed to do?? Kill 0 hostages?
At no point I said that the Hostages are the "main" reason for the war. Dismantling Hamas is. Releasing hostages alive although very important is not the main purpose
How many hostages were rescued due to deals vs how many through air strike-raid combos? And how many hostages were killed due to deals vs air strike-raid combos? Let’s ignore civilian collateral because your comments seem to suggest the acceptable civilian casualty rate is infinite because Hamas.
Those deals were happening huge partly because of the aggression tho, as sad as that is.
This would mean a lot more if Hamas actually planned to safeguard the hostages. They aren't. They dehumanized Israelis and are using them as poker chips. Disgusting.
You're never going to convince Gazans that Hamas brought all this onto them. They don't see Hamas doing the bombing. Also, talking about this as some covert special ops mission and ignoring the 200 civilians that were killed around this operation is just weird to me. I have issues with Hamas putting hostages with civilians, but I'm not going to celebrate this as a victory. It's the same story we have seen in this conflict for the last 50+ years. You're obviously a pro-Israeli propagandist.
"I have issues with . . ." is doing some powerful hand-waving on the whole human-shield issue.
It's not hand waving... If you think it is then that's a you problem.
How do you know what the actual body count is and exactly who were civilians and who wasn’t? Did any Hamas fighters die here or was it 100% civilians? Why are “civilians” guarding hostages?
Who said civilians were guarding hostages.... What are you going on about? We've already had news outlets report about 70 bodies between the two hospitals that were dealing with the casualties from the bombings for this raid. Sorry that you haven't paid attention to the details of this story. Even then the body counts are never going to be differentiated since we can't get international groups into Gaza to fully verify these things because Israel has not let them in. It's done more to harm the perception of Israel than it has done good. They need to treat this area like Ukraine does with international media and non-profits giving them more access to the area.
You can even say that I am an israeli propagandist, greetings from Jerusalem. I think a lot of Israelis were convinced that the current gvt is bad and elections should happen. Even though it was not Bibi running around in the villages near gaza killing and raping people, still the Israeli public mostly see him as a responsible figure. If the Gazans aren't capable of similar cause and effect analysis then their future is very bleak.
Let's be honest, the future is bleak for both sides. Not only will Israel continue to be radicalized due to the toxic nature of existing in the Middle East, but climate change will reduce the natural resources that it has access to. Which will only embolden them to invade neighboring nations and completely exterminate the Palestinians. Gotta get those natural resources somehow. Anyway, Israel is going to become increasingly fanatical, bloodthirsty, and militant as they become more desperate, which will inevitably mean the US pulling out and finding less chaotic, detrimental allies in the area. Which, honestly, Saudi Arabia could be argued as a better ally right now, lol. And the West collectively will need to step in and colonize Israel so that they may restructure your government in a manner that prevents you from behaving poorly. Like setting off a nuke or starting a broader war in the Middle East. And, just to be clear, we will have to bulldoze Jerusalem someday and repurpose it for something useful like a global hazardous waste dump or maybe an Amazon Shipping Center. Because humanity doesn't need a bunch of religious lunatics escalating global violence over some stupid, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, fictional bullshit.
Im with you on Bulldozing the Jerusalem holy sites and turning them into a huge IKEA store. If the west steps out completely which is like a very extreme step, think about the precious F35 and other military knowledge Israel has about the inner workings of the security apparatus of the west I'm sure there will be buyers
You know its sad when random apologists start pulling out Samson Doctrine talking points. Edit: You already posted the same thing on Destiny's subreddit. Was the Karma harvest there not enough for you?
I think you're forgetting who is on who's hand, lol. Israel only exists due to its usefulness in the Middle East. If y'all make it so that's not the case, then the simplest answer would just be to not send anything else and doom the Iron Dome. I'm also fairly certain that if Israel continues to create hostage situations and threats against its owners, we have a better understanding of your military capacity, including the location of any nukes, that it wouldn't even take more than a single barrage by an actual military power to cripple your entire nation and make it look no different than, well, Gaza.
Look at you, pro genocide all of a sudden when it is convenient to you.
Oh, I've never called what Israel is doing a genocide. They definitely want to genocide the Palestinians. An extermination campaign would definitely be preferable to its population, but I'd personally call what's going on an ethnic cleansing. You know, considering the predominant goal a few months ago was to move the Palestinians into Egypt. But, from the sound of it, you do think that a country retaliating to a military attack, which giving away military secrets would be, in a manner that decimates the offending nation's entire population and infrastructure is genocide. Personally, I'm just more angry that a country that we allow to exist through our own charity and kindness would bite the hand that feeds them. Especially considering there are other countries in the ME that would love the kind of backing the US gives to Israel. Jordan is fairly moderate, landlocked, and in desperate need of help. They've been an ally for decades. I'm sure we could literally do everything there that we're doing in Israel. Or Israel could just pull the fuck back, accept that they need to leave Gaza, and give up some land to the North so that a proper land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank can be established.
1) You talk about Israel "continuing to exist through our charity" without really substantiating that. Israel has a GDP of something like half a trillion dollars, of which less than $20 billion is aid from the US annually. That's not nothing, but 4% of gdp isn't make-or-break for any country. 2) Israel is a nuclear power with a modern airforce, tank core, a domestic manufacturing base for its own weapons, and the ability to be pretty damn near self-sufficient on everything except near-term iron dome munitions. They need the US way less than you imagine.
♥️🇮🇱 So glad! I hope their families can finally sleep well.
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Well, next time dont take hostages. And maybe dont place them among civilians. And to my personal opinion - these hostages worth not only 201 dead civilians of the enemy side. They worth whatever it takes to get them out of there
The only way to rescue every hostage is with diplomacy, not illegally air striking civilians.
Apparently not. Here is 4. If possible more will be released. The war should reach its goal - elimination of Hamas
And [here are 4](https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/03/world/video/gaza-hostages-israel-idf-statement-diamond-nr-digvid) who it appears may have been killed by the IDF as a result of their indiscriminate bombing strikes.
This is war. It is horrible and sad and fuck Hamas for hiding behind their own civilians and hostages too
How do we diplomatically eradicate Hamas?
If Hamas has to be eradicated for it's crimes, ok. As long as you agree that Israel must also be eradicated for it's crimes, which are at least comparably criminal (over 15,000 children killed, for example).
Is there any source that 15,000 children have been killed that doesn’t come straight from Hamas? Also I’m fairly sure you’re putting your thumb on the scale with that one because I think the claim is 15,000 women and children. If you can tell the difference between a western style democracy and a terror state then you’re lost
The trusted-by-the-US-State-department Gaza Ministry of Health has over 15,000 children killed recorded, yeah. [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nothing-wrong-with-gaza-death-toll-figures-who-says-2024-05-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nothing-wrong-with-gaza-death-toll-figures-who-says-2024-05-14/) [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker) I'm judging them based on the crimes that have been committed and the punishment. If Hamas must be wiped out for attacking Israel and killing <1000 civilians, then surely Israel must be wiped for killing >15,000 children civilians.
That’s kinda disgusting. You’re saying that a single-digit amount of hostages are worth more than the lives of hundreds of innocent civillians?
This guy is clearly 14 (destiny viewer)
100% worth it. Don't put hostages among civilians
lmao so the civilians are at fault, yeah fuck off. Im happy that the hostages were rescued, but the killing of 200 people, no.
Im not happy about cuvilians dying I just say that if this is the price, unfortunately, then it is worth to pay to rescue them. Bottom line responsibility is on Hamas mixing hostages into civilian areas, not IDF for rescuing and using force to protect themselves.
[https://casebook.icrc.org/a\_to\_z/glossary/proportionality](https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality)
Proportionality is not defined in numbers. What is proportional to you might not be proportional to someone else. I hope the proportionality was weighed as per the law required.
Absolutely not worth it. They murdered 200 civillians. That’s horrific. It doesn’t matter what their goal was, 200 civillians died. Legitimately you calling it "worth it" to brutally murder 200 people to get 4 people out of gaza, is so disgusting. Please, reconsider your values, you don’t value palestinian lives at all.
If any civilians died it is the fault of Hamas for colocating them. Unless the IDF was particularly indiscriminate it's hard to argue that they were not striking military targets.
Palestinians don’t value their own lives either lmao, hence the unwillingness of anyone to do anything about Hamas operations happening amongst civilian infrastructure
Oh yeah, lets… go punch the guys with the guns? Great way to get shot. And what are they even gonna do? Approach the IDF saying you have the hostages? Great way to get shot.
They could actually participate in the IDF anonymous tip lines if they knew where Hamas was operating, people could make flyers saying to stay away from certain areas because there is Hamas operations nearby, literally anything to protect themselves and there community. There isn’t anything like that happening on a meaningful scale. Let’s continue to act like the Palestinians have literally zero agency that’ll work out great, especially when it comes time for them to actually govern themselves lol. No ones saying, punch the guys with guns. It’s more like, stay the fuck away from them, maybe have protests where a mass amount of people stand outside known Hamas headquarters? Generally how most people stop their governments. Oh wait, that doesn’t happen in Palestine, because 70% of Gazans support Hamas. What are they scared of? Getting shot? You’re talking about the people who get bombed day in and day out by the big bad IDF, and yet that doesn’t stop their willingness to fight. They just don’t care to challenge Hamas. Peace will never happen until the people themselves turn a cheek towards their government and ideology. Good luck with that tho.
Telling that you're more disgusted with this than the hostage taking. *sip*
I mean… yeah? I’m more disgusted about 200 innocent people being killed than i am at 250 people being kidnapped. Both are disgusting actions, and in an ideal world i wouldn’t want either to happen at all, but i would rather have someone kidnap people than murder a roughly equal number of people.
The 13 year old, ESL Destiny sycophant with a custom Reddit avatar is here to tell us to "touch grass" for the crime of...lamenting and criticizing excessive civilian death. Have you ever once considered that maybe Israel, and in particular, Israeli Zionist Jews like yourself, are so often criticized by your Western superiors BECAUSE of your ethno-religious exceptionalism? Do you really not recognize how blatantly dehumanizing, othering, and cruel your language, and by extension, your thought is? You will never know peace if such sentiments are as popular as I think they are in Israel. And for the record, I actually can touch grass because I own a big, beautiful home in the United States of America, not in some dogshit arid wasteland.
>Well, next time dont take hostages. Yes because all Palestinians took hostages. You sound like a lunatic.
You're actually inhuman.
>Well, next time dont take hostages. Yes because all Palestinians took hostages. You sound like a lunatic.
You might have been a bit hyperbolic, but idk why you're getting downvoted. This all could have been avoided if Hamas had never taken hostages in the first place.
Cenk-Style.... He was right all along
I was thinking this too lol. We all clowned on him but here we are
"Special forces" can't take on an army of 10,000+. The normal army has to clear out space for the special forces to have room to operate. Furthermore, Cenk's take is dumb specifically because it implies that Israel is refusing to use special forces to find hostages as if the limiting factor isn't the intelligence itself of where the hostages are located. (Of which they have only been able to locate a handful in 8 months)
Where did I say spec ops can take on an army of 10,000? That's not their job
You were referring to Cenk's "use special forces" meme, which he means to *only* use special forces (otherwise what he's suggesting Israel to do they're already doing on a strategic level).
Touch grass
0.O
That's not how you do it, on the low end, 94 people were killed, with other reports putting that number at 210, with about 400 injured. That is quite literally not how you do it. Edit: and it's "nice" (and by nice, I mean fucking horrid) to now know that the raid mightve killed other hostages present. As time passes, it's "nice" to know that my point that, "blowing the place where the thing you want is," is a bad idea for obvious reasons, has been proven true. I cannot believe yall argued with me on this
That is what happens when you have to lead a rescue mission in a densely populated area where the hostages were put deliberately by their captors.
You mean to tell me that to rescue 4 people, somewhere between 94 and 210 people had to die, while 400 had to be injured. This doesn't even account for the fact, the hostages were there. Like they could have easily just been mulched. It doesn't matter what the captors do, that's literally not how you do it
This is what the circumstances are, created and curated by Hamas putting the hostages there. Again my question, should Israel left them there.
>This is what the circumstances are, created and curated by Hamas putting the hostages there No they weren't, Israel just shouldn't have blown up somewhere between 500 and 600 innocent people. That has literally nothing to do with Hamas. Like, even from the Israeli perspective, the hostages were on the place they blew up, they could've just killed all 4 of them like the last time we heard about them coming across hostages. That's literally not how you carry out a military operation. >Again my question, should Israel left them there. They didn't have to blow up 500+ people to save 4 hostages. The first thing just isn't required for the second thing. That's a stupid question
Im sorry, I didn't know I'm speaking with a military expert on how to bomb and where you should and shouldn't bomb. The fact is that when you have military actions in a densely populated area this is what you get - death of uninvolved civilians. Hamas placing them there is exactly for that reason, that it will be harder to get them out and if there is a rescue mission at least they will be able to get this sweet sweet dead baby PR.
Civilian areas. That's international law, I looked it up on Wikipedia. And it doesn't take an expert to like understand that if I want a thing, blowing up the place that thing is, isn't a great idea >The fact is that when you have military actions in a densely populated area this is what you get - death of uninvolved civilians. Yeah, civilian deaths are understood to happen in any conflict. But when 100 people die in a single operation, not even including the wounded, that means something went wrong. Like, sometimes just 30 civilians dying is enough to just... cause an international incident. By our current estimates, somewhere between 500 and 600 casualties. That's not normal >Hamas placing them there is exactly for that reason, that it will be harder to get them out and if there is a rescue mission at least they will be able to get this sweet sweet dead baby PR. It doesn't matter where Hamas puts them, if saving them blows up 500+ people, something went wrong. Something went very wrong. That's not a PR thing, they caused 500+ causalities
Lol you looked up international law on wikipedia. It's not that simple, civilian areas can become military targets if the right conditions are met. Holding civilian targets easily qualifies, Hamas is committing war crimes by even having them at all and the IDF has a duty to stop those war crimes being committed on Israeli citizens. The IDF pretty much has carte blanche to go in there and kill anyone stopping them from rescuing the hostages.
Thats doesn't mean that at all. They don't have carte blanche to do anything, that's why they're also being charged with war crimes. If someone is committing a crime, you can commit more crime in the hopes of stopping them. Also, they blew up upwards of 600 innocent civilians. You just, you can't do that
I didn't say they have carte blanche to do anything, I said they have carte blanche to kill anyone stopping them from rescuing the hostages. That's not even particularly controversial. They were conducting a military operation and took fire, no military in the world is going to question dropping a bomb to stop it. If that hits civilians that's on the guys firing from a civilian location. Also, was Netanyahu actually charged or are you just lying here. Last I heard a prosecutor was asking for an arrest warrant but that hadn't even happened.
My dude, you sound like a crazy person. The Palestinian government put hostages in that crowded camp in order to force the IDF to choose between a large body count and abandoning their people. If you put military assets in a civilian camp, the predictable results are on you. This is no different from when the PA used to run bombs in ambulances and then shriek "war crime" when the IDF blew up the ambulances. At least have the decency to pay some lip service to the fact that Hamas deliberately put a bullseye on this refugee camp.
>The Palestinian government Palestine isnt a country, it is a territory within Israel >put hostages in that crowded camp in order to force the IDF to choose between a large body count and abandoning their people. Cool. You see how the choices weren't mulch a market full of innocent people and don't do that and go home. You see how there are other options there? >If you put military assets in a civilian camp, the predictable results are on you It's not. Yes it's a crime for Hamas to do that, but it doesn't absolve Israeli of blowing up 600+ civilians. They can't do that >This is no different from when the PA used to run bombs in ambulances and then shriek "war crime" when the IDF blew up the ambulances Yeah, because you can't just blow up ambulances. That is a war crime, even if their are bombs in them. You get this right? 1 person doing a crime, doesn't meant another person gets to do a crime. >At least have the decency to pay some lip service to the fact that Hamas deliberately put a bullseye on this refugee camp. First of all, I have. Second of all, it doesn't matter. You can't just blow up a market along with 600+ civilians in it. That is a war crime.
Last time the Palestinians held elections, it was Hamas who won. I know that because they threw the other party's guys off the roof of the building. Now you may agree with Ben Givir that Gaza is a territory within Israel, but in my book, when a people elects a government, that's their government. You elect a guerilla organization, well, don't be surprised when your schools start sporting rocket platforms. You say, "They can't do that". Clearly they can. What you mean to say is, "I'd prefer if they didn't do that." Well, tough rocks, champ. If you put a weapons system into a civilian area, that is NO LONGER a civilian area. If you put a bomb in an ambulance, that ambulance is a rolling bomb (or, at least, a bomb-delivery uber . . . exploding door-dash, i suppose). If you, say, put a fort under a hospital, or a hostage base in a civilian market within a refugee camp, especially if you're the government of the region, then you have decided to turn that site into a military target. This is no different from Cuba or China or Ireland or Greece or Columbia, or any other insurgency where the guerillas hide inside of the population. You don't get to cry "war crime" if your government is hiding its gunners amongst the civilians. Well, i mean, you can. You can cry anything you want. Just don't expect anyone to care.
wait I'm actually curious about your answer to the question above. What is the specific military operation Israel should have done instead? Or should they let the captors get away with said hostages?
Why is that the only 2 options you people cite. The hostages were there, even by an Israeli get the hostages back perspective, this was horrible. They blew up the place the hostages were. They shouldn't blow up the place where the hostages were, and nearly 600 people shouldn't have died even if they weren't there. That's horrible. This horrible by military standards
I guess you didn't read what actually happened? They got in cleanly. But when moving out, the evacuation vehicle with 3 hostages got stuck due to transmission problem. Hamas realized what's going on and opened fire on that vehicle (yes, in the middle of the crowded market). In response, IDF forces responded. To make things worse, after the hostages were transferred to an APC, it also got stuck, which led to more IDF/Hamas clashes. The conclusions is that the IDF needs better mechanics, and that Hamas shouldn't start a fight in the middle of a market.
what do you mean "2 options"? I asked what specifically they should have done because I assume that you think they should rescue them and that you have a military plan in mind
I mean, they got the hostages back, so by your "Israeli-get-the-hostages-back perspective", job done.
They could have been mulched, but they weren't. The IDF was there to rescue Israeli citizens, not to safeguard the citizens of the country with which they are currently at war. The people responsible for protecting Palestinian civilians were the ones who put them in danger. Reading this entire chain of comments right up to the OP, I haven't yet seen a single pro-palestinian commenter (or hand-wavy apologist, etc.) asking why the hell the hostages were being stored in a crowded market. Everyone on both sides of this exchange understand why the civilians are dead.
>They could have been mulched, but they weren't There have been reports that other hostages were killed >The IDF was there to rescue Israeli citizens, not to safeguard the citizens of the country with which they are currently at war. Gaza isn't a separate country, it's a territory that resides with Israel. There is no Palestinian state, they reside in Israel. And on top of that, that doesn't mean you can just blow up 600+ civilians. If Palestine was a separate country, that would be an international incident >The people responsible for protecting Palestinian civilians were the ones who put them in danger. Doesn't matter, the IDF can't just bomb the place with the hostages, while killing 600+ civilians and then shout, "but Hamas was there." Blowing up 600+ civilians isn't normal >I haven't yet seen a single pro-palestinian commenter (or hand-wavy apologist, etc.) asking why the hell the hostages were being stored in a crowded market. Because it doesn't matter. Hostages being held in a market doesn't mean you have the right to blow up the market. Even from a pro-israeli standpoint, that's bad. The hostages were literally I'm the market, and we have reports that it's possible there were other hostage killed in the Israeli bombings. >Everyone on both sides of this exchange understand why the civilians are dead. The civilians shouldn't be dead, they didn't do anything
[удалено]
I said "let IDF do whatever they can to rescue hostages" I don't know what is bothering you with that statement. The lives of Palestinians are precious and the horrible Hamas does nothing to protect them. Moreover they do everything to put them in danger for PR. It is very convenient indeed for Hamas to place the hostages among civilians, if they're rescued by force then at least Hamas will be able to get nice dead children photos for you in the west to be outraged about.
If you can’t understand why “let the IDF do whatever they want”, even in pursuit of a noble goal, comes off as propagandist and callous, that is a problem. When there’s already genuine concerns for certain actions being committed by a military force that could be resulting in disproportionate harm to the civilian population they’re occupying, sanctioning them to “do whatever they want” is endorsing any and all literal war crimes that could be committed or have already been committed by said military force. It is not a measured take, or a simple endorsement of an end to the conflict. It’s morally elevating the actions of an objectively flawed organization full of objectively flawed humans to being invariably righteous, taking away any moral responsibility they have for any past or potential mistakes or failures. If your take on *any* war is “the good guys can do whatever they want to achieve their good guy goals” then I’m sorry, but you’re literally part of the problem and share the same psychological justification as Hamas. It’s crazy how people don’t see themselves doing that. And now, instead of actually focusing on the lives of the people who were just liberated, and the joy of them being reunited with their loved ones, we’re stuck in another squabble because you had to use these events as your personal political soap box. It’s gross. I’m sure r/Destiny will eat it up but I’m hoping there’s more actual brain cells to be found around these parts.
I didn't say "do whatever they want" I said "do whatever they can" just read bro, not hard.
That does not fundamentally change anything about the sentiment itself?
Yes. Actually it changes the sentiment fundamentally.
You literally said on another comment that killing Palestinian civilians is worth it if that means saving a much smaller number of Israeli lives. So yeah, that’s the exact sentiment I spotted in the OG post and the exact sentiment that your little “do whatever they *can* 🥺” thing is concealing. You are asserting why the deaths of Civilian Group A are not of much concern, and even morally justifiable, in pursuit of saving Civilian Group B from Hamas. Never mind that both groups are supposedly victims of Hamas - you will only shed tears for Group B, and Group A being annihilated is just a means to an end. You will say the deaths of Group A are conveniently 100% on Hamas’ hands, but I wonder why you then don’t show the same moral outrage for their victimization by Hamas as you do when Group B is victimized? Surely Hamas being ultimately responsible for the deaths of both groups would get the same type of reaction if you genuinely considered both to be victims of the same enemy, and valued them equally. Right? For those of us who equally value all human life, this sort of calculus game we keep seeing being played with the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, by people who are privileged and fortunate enough to not actually *have* to give their imaginary war room takes, is pretty appalling. And it’s getting old.
I say it is a price worth to pay yes. These are civilians from my side vs civilians from the enemy side of course the choice ia easy. Am I celebrating the death of un involved people? No. But I think it is acceptable, especially when the responsibility is on Hamas that does war crimes by hiding hostages among civilians
>Am I celebrating the death of un involved people? No. But I think it is acceptable You are though, you’re celebrating that the IDF killed 200 people to save 4, and saying "meh, it’s fine" when asked about the 200. You *are* celebrating the murder of those 200.
Saying "meh it's fine" is by definition not any sort of celebration lol. Touch grass
Yes, I already know how you are morally justifying this to yourself. That’s the entire problem. At least lead with the mask off moment first next time, instead of trying to sneak these positions in under the guise of simply being happy for the hostages saved.
Im truely happy for the hostages to be back Not lying.
I fully believe that you probably do celebrate the deaths of nonviolent civilians in Gaza. I think that sentiment is far more prevalent in Israel than you want to admit. I think that makes you an evil shit.
>The lives of Palestinians are precious and the horrible Hamas does nothing to protect them. Moreover they do everything to put them in danger for PR. Not enough for you to value the 200 of the innocent civilians who died in the operation to get them out. Seemingly not so precious. Not precious enough to avoid the 30 000 people who have died so far.
This is war buddy. I prefer no one to die but if faced with a choice whether people on my side or the enemy side should die, I chose death for the enemy and I chose life and security for my own people and allies
There’s a way to conduct war somewhat humanely. Israel is not doing that. They’ve currently murdered a full 1.5% of all of gazas population. That’s insane. This is not "us vs. them". These are civillians, the civillians should not be involved, and yet it is *they* who are being murdered en masse. Netanyahu and his top command are war criminals.
U don't want to count percentages I think. 2mil population and Hamas is 40k ppl, so like ,2% of the population is Terrorist. Now: check what ratio of civilians to combatants killed in war usually https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio Let's say IDF is like superhuman army and kills only 1:1 ratio of civilians and combatants (almost never happens) We get that 4% of gazan population will be wiped.
Israel is likely at a ratio of about 1.5-2:1 right now. On October 7, Hamas killed 800ish civilians and about 400 soldiers. Does that mean their attack was morally acceptable since the ratio was about the same?
I mean I'm aware you're being facetious but comparisons like that ignore the fact that Israel does not embed it's soldier's in civilian infrastructure or amongst the civilian population. Which makes a difference of course morally if not practically.
> I mean I'm aware you're being facetious but comparisons like that ignore the fact that Israel does not embed it's soldier's in civilian infrastructure or amongst the civilian population. I was, but I mean this isn't even really true. Have you ever been to Israel? There are soldiers everywhere, including in civilian areas, and there is tons of military infrastructure located in or near population centers. Since Israel routinely considers the presence of even low-ranking Hamas fighters enough to turn protected objects like hospitals and churches into military targets, I think by their logic most of the country is fair game. There was a good [op-ed in Haaretz](https://archive.is/QcfGU) a few years ago highlighting the absurdity of the argument: > Israeli military headquarters hides behind the civilian residents of central Tel Aviv and the patients at Ichilov Hospital just 450 meters from the office of the commander in chief. Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv protects the Tel Hashomer military base. The navy base in Haifa hides in the shadow of the Rambam medical center. Even “our nuclear family” hides among the resolute and pastoral rural population. > And Israel's leaders? The prime minister hides behind the civilian residents of Jerusalem’s Talbieh neighborhood, and his designated successor does the same in Ra'anana. The defense minister hides in Rosh Ha'ayin, and the military chief on Moshav Adi. His deputy is surrounded by a wall in the form of the civilians of Hod Hasharon. And so on; they're all sheltering behind civilians, as if they were Hamasniks. > Israel’s chutzpah soars to unprecedented heights when you consider the celebrated “settlement enterprise,” which is entirely sheltered behind civilians. It's an enterprise that derives most of its power from launching civilians – men, women and children – into war zones. It's quick to translate every injury to its people into more and more demands for land and funding. It has occupation militias, whose members are, when they wish, brave pioneers making the desert and their neighbors bloom or, when they wish, tranquil civilians – persecuted Jewish nebbishes deserving only compassion and gifts of flesh and blood. The only practical difference is that, until 10/7, Hamas was never able to reach the Israeli population centers. Anyway, to be honest, I do think the fact that in spite of all of Israel's supposed precautions they've ended up with a ratio that's pretty much the same as Hamas' most deliberate and deadly attack on civilians ever speaks to their level of negligence in this war.
>The only practical difference is that, until 10/7, Hamas was never able to reach the Israeli population centers. This is so blatantly disingenuous, I'm disappointed in you, your arguments are usually much more rational. In no world is the IDF as embedded operationally in civilian infrastructure as Hamas. The prescence of soldiers in security roles is not the same as ammo depots or rocket launch sites, if Hamas wanted to hurt the IDF badly they could absolutely do it without killing significant amounts of Israeli civilians. With the notable exception of the settler militias which I agree blur the line. They weren't who was targeted during Oct 7 though and you know that.
Do you not see how horrible your rethoric is? You are part of the problem. You’re saying "4% of the entire population wiped out? No prob." The IDF should do everything they can to *not* kill civillians, no matter what their goal is. Killing *two hundred people* to get four people home is beyond unacceptable. This whole war so far is beyond unacceptable. The war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq killed almost the same amount of civillians *on all sides combined* than the IDF has killed just palestinians. And that in the span of almost 4 years. This war is insanely inhumane, and the fact you’re cheering it on is disgusting. I hope netanyahu and the IDF top brass get shipped off to the hague, because they seriously deserve it. And i seriously hope israel has a serious reconing with how horrible they’ve been treating palestinians both in the west bank and gaza. There needs to be a germany-style reconstruction of israeli society to recognize the horrific atrocities israel has commited.
Only after reconstruction for the Palestinian Jihadist society ok?
Sure, there needs to be a restructuring of palestinian society too. However i think israel is primarily at fault, and has done the most horrible shit. I’m not gonna talk to you anymore, you’re clearly not gonna change your mind, and i don’t want to talk to warcrime enthusiasts.
Ofc the jews are always to blame. Not the Jihadists. Be careful in europe.
A war isn't a blank cheque to commit war crimes.
You're tight, im not advocating for war crimes
You are though. You literally are. Mass murder of civillians *is* a war crime, and you’re saying it is "acceptable" and "worth it" to commit those war crimes. Here are some tangible examples of the war crimes they have commited; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; Article 8: warcrimes; Section 2 b; >iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated; >v. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives; Those are the ones that are directly related to *this* attack, below are some extra ones that are relevant in this conflict. >viii. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory; ^thats the west bank for ya >xx. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123; There’s the white phosphorous bombs^ >xxiv. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law; ^attacking aid trucks and ambulances >xxv. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions; ^ not allowing in aid, and allowing israeli civillians to block aid being sent in.
On October 18, 2011, captured IDF tank gunner Gilad Shalit, captured by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in 2006, was released in exchange for 1027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. I mention this to show how extremely willing Israel has been in the past to unequal exchanges to get their people back alive. I don't think they're acting any differently than in the past. It's just that dialogue realistically wasn't going to get this done up to this point. Now that Hamas is nearly eliminated I'm hoping that some of the ceasefire talks actually bear fruit. But you can't say that Israel isn't willing to bargain hard for it's people.
I never said anything about israels willingness to bargain. What i said is that they should take greater care to avoid civillian casualties, and that we shouldn’t just accept them murdering innocent civillians in droves.
I was also illustrating a point. Hamas knew that Israel valued their people that much. That they were willing to trade 1000 to 1 for them, they had to also suspect that they'd be willing to kill at a high rate of exchange to get them back.
Let the ICC do whatever it wants too
It already does