At least 313 Palestinians have been killed as Israel struck 426 targets in Gaza, its military said, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions.
Among those killed in Gaza were 20 children. About 2,000 others are wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said more than 20,000 Palestinians left Gaza’s border region to head further inside the territory and take refuge in UN schools.
Nebal Farsakh, the spokesperson of the NGO Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRC), told Al Jazeera that their medical teams were facing “great challenges” in Gaza, adding that they had called on the international humanitarian community to open humanitarian corridors so that NGOs like them could safely carry out their work of helping people in the Gaza Strip.
On Saturday night, Energy Minister Israel Katz said Israel would halt the electricity supply to the besieged territory. The Palestinian enclave – home to some two million people – has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade.
Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed said humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip were in “constant deterioration”.
What used to be 120 megawatts of electricity has now decreased to only 20MW, provided by power plants that are paid for by the Palestinian Authority, ElSayed said.
Meanwhile, healthcare institutions had to rely on spare generators to continue operating through the night due to Israel’s decision to halt the electricity supply while residents were left to endure the darkness with the unsettling backdrop of explosions not far away.
At the end it is all politics and state media propaganda on both sides.
Both sides feel morally right and as a result more damage is done and more civilian population is killed. And it is the regular people who suffer the most.
I am just afraid that there would be a prolonged offensive from Israel deepening the humanitarian crisis and there would be a lot of pain inflicted on regular people. This won’t really help de-escalation of the tension in the region, and perhaps would strengthen the resolve.
So Israel responded to terrorism with terrorism.
ESH
Israel generally targets buildings that it’s identified as having military operations within them.
If Israel wanted to just destroy every mosque in Palestine, it could do it in a day. Hamas routinely runs operations out of civilian building precisely so that, when Israel retaliates, the news will run stories about how Israel is destroying mosques and schools and hospitals, while ignoring the context that those buildings are firing rockets and stockpiling weapons.
I’ve read news for years about horrible things done to Palestinian civilians. Even their children. By Israeli police and military. I’m not defending Palestine. But Israel also deserves no defense.
Israel, especially under Netanyahu, absolutely hasn’t acted in ways conducive to peace, and quite a lot of blame should be laid at his feet as well.
But if your response to this is to slaughter 200 citizens at a music festival, with many of the women having been raped before, I have absolutely zero sympathy for what happens to those responsible.
My heart is with those in the Palestine who do want peace and are going to pay the price for these actions.
300-400 people in Gaza were killed. Do you think those were just Hamas militants who had it coming? Including the 20 children? The kidnappings and wholesale murder of civilians were terrorism, but so is this. No one is proposing sympathy for Hamas, but whatever Israel claims about their “moral army”, they’re killing civilians.
Of course not, but it’s also absolutely impossible to conduct military operations in a city as denselt populated as Gaza without some amount of collateral damage. Hamas also intentionally conducts attacks out of civilian infrastructure so that when Israel retaliates, Hamas can point to headlines about Israel attacking schools and mosque.
Genuine question for you: if you’re Israel, and you know that attacks are coming from an apartment building or a mosque, and you know that if you do nothing, some of your people will die (by the way, one of my friends from Israel lost his house Saturday morning to a rocket attack), what would you do?
The IDF strategy of notifying civilians via messages and roofknocking missiles seems to me like the best that can really be done unless you think that they should simply do nothing and let Israelis be killed. But this is a genuine question: what would you actually propose they do given the situation?
I think you’re far too trusting when Israel says “we destroyed that because it was a clear and present danger”. It’s like the torture justifiers that jump to scenarios about dirty bombs with a ticking clock, when in reality it’s usually just used to see if they can learn something useful. The Israeli armed forces regularly destroy entire buildings for things that have nothing to do with the building itself being an immediate risk to life and limb, and assuming these 300+ people are just unfortunate and unforeseen casualties needed to save lives is giving a benefit of the doubt that isn’t earned.
How many civilian casualties is the right number so your friend’s house doesn’t get destroyed? 2? 5? 20? And if the problem is rockets fired by people from the roofs of buildings why are they responding by destroying the buildings? They’re no less able to evacuate from a building than the people living in it. Either the guys are gone and will just fire from another building or you know where they’ll be and could use an anti-personnel response. The real reason is that they want to make a statement. And if that statement kills some civilians, that’s ok and maybe even desirable. People would probably be pretty upset if more Israelis died than Palestinians.
And they’ve made those sorts of statements for decades. None of this is a sad but unavoidable step to create a safe and secure future. It’s just the same old same old, feeding an interminable cycle of death. (And that goes double to the Hamas terrorists who triggered this.)
For sure, I’m not at all saying that the IDF is blameless or has never done anything wrong. At the same time, it evidently is not their intention to simply wipe out all Palestinian buildings and people off the map, as they could very easily do it if they actually wanted to.
Ultimately, I do believe some manner of military response is justifiable when you’re being constantly subjected to rocket attacks intentionally targeting civilians. It’s deeply unfortunate that there’s no way to do that without risking civilian casualties, but Hamas could absolutely conduct attacks out of evacuated or military buildings. Hamas does absolutely nothing to prevent Gazans from dying, because every dead Gazan is a story they can use for propaganda. Given those circumstances, there are only so many options in response, and I can’t really blame Israel for not accepting “do nothing” as an answer.
Just to note, there are reports (I am following the Guardian’s blog) that IDF did not “roofknock” in at least one occasion yesterday, suggesting that maybe they stopped the practice. We have very little news from Gaza for obvious reasons though.
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised at that. I can’t imagine the IDF is feeling all that much restraint at the moment.
Instead they just bulldoze settlements so when Hamas attacks it looks like innocent ol Israel was just doing nothing, right?
War crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes in response to war crimes ×10^10000
An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.
But a life for an eye…
Are you a history professor? This seems very accurate.
Israel has been nothing but terror for decades
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Professional illegal occupies vs poorly organised freedom fighters.
Having said that, attacking helpless civilians and children is cowardly and cannot be considered acceptable no matter what the political situation.
Sounds like it was a bad move on the poorly organized side since they seem to be in severe disadvantage.
I don’t know if you can call it a consequence considering Israel would have done something like this on your average monday anyway.
There isn’t a good guy here to cheer for. Both sides act out atrocities like unthinking pre-schoolers in a fistfight hitting harder and harder, except there isn’t an adult in sight with the ability to safely break it up.
Both sides consider the other so evil, neither is able to consider any part of the other as undeserving of death.
True. There’s a long chain of cause and affect and at this point the original aggressor is basically mute. Both sides just keep ongoing hostilities because they refuse to (for financial or emotional or political reasons) to reach a compromise.
the original aggressor is basically mute
FYI mute is for your tv, but moot is when a point is of no practical importance or irrelevant.
I also don’t agree that the point is moot, one side has people being displaced and being refused the right to self determination via statehood. The other side is an apartheid regime intent on stealing the land of a native populace.
Stealing people’s homes and land then acting surprised when they retaliate by the only means available to them shouldn’t garner any sympathy.
And both combatant leaderships want the fight. It’s good for them. Hamas’s purpose for existence is killing Israelis and having Israelis kill innocent Palestinians. Bibi’s government is rushing authoritarianism so his corruption doesn’t bring him down. A good external threat and some holy fire rained on the enemies of Israel is great for him politically. The people making the decisions don’t give a shit about the people who die.
Have you ever actually read a bit of history on that region beyond the comments on reddit? Like the 3 days war, the Yom kippur war, the peace talks? Seriously? Palestine has had so many opportunities to form their own country. But won’t even start if it requires accepting Israel as an independent state as well.
Israelis have certainly become more cruel and jaded as the years have gone on. But this isn’t two kids on a playground. This is a stable adult trying to barter with a belligerent drunk cousin who says if he can’t inherit everything then he’ll just burn it all to the ground and take the ashes.
Literally the got there by help from UK amd eroupe. Got guns and form militia, anounce a nation with no borders stating “any historical land belong to jew” got recognized “6 minutes later” by US. Expanded, settlement, kick people out, killed people in camps, killed kid live on tv asking them to stop, constant money, militry equipment from US.
History is full of their atrocities.
Dont be selective of your history.
I’m not selective. They had firm borders offered to them by the country in control of the territory at the time. Then they were attacked by bordering countries multiple times. Those countries lost. And yes Israel received help. Just like Ukraine now. And you should really look at how that military aid works. None of what I said was untrue.
Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia article about the Gaza strip. The truth is that you can’t really expect a reconciliation mood from people treated like this. Creating buffer zones, and a de-facto open-air prison isn’t a recipe for peace. Yes, what Hamas is doing is horrible, but refusing to admit faults on the other side is equally repelling.
And perhaps an unpopular opinion but Israel to a big extend led to the rise of Hamas. If people living there were happy and were not feeling oppressed they would have never voted for them in the first place.
Lmao you clearly don’t know the history of the region. If that’s your summary, don’t pretend you haven’t gotten youre information from some obviously biased source like Reddit or Facebook.
Show me where I was wrong then.
If someone came and took half ur house you wouldn’t agree to it either. Prior to 1948 all that land was recognized as Palestine.
The Bible even says the cannaanites were there first.
Palestine has never been a recognized country. You are showing your ignorance. Prior to 1948 it was controlled by the British. Prior to that, controlled by the surrounding countries.
That’s not true. Palestine has not been recognized as a state. Prior to 1948 none of that property was recognized as israels in any way ever. But that area was identified as Palestine. Again the Bible says you are wrong.
You’re reading into an analogy as if it needs to illustrate the complex geopolitical history of an entire part of the world, rather than describe the emotional right-now of “just one” war.
Step one in achieving piece, is to forgive. The hard part is doing so right when the other guy is ready to do it, too. And then you have to keep doing it, every day, until you don’t remember any of the evil stuff they did to you, and they don’t remember any of the evil stuff you did to them. You also can’t then go back to doing evil to the other guy, like displacing them from their homes.
Both sides are guilty of failing to forgive, and of doing plenty of evil for the other to remember, pushing peace farther and farther out of reach. The second you decide that the only way out is for the other guy to cease to exist, you’re the bad guy. And it seems to me, both sides in this particular conflict, at least the people in charge, feel this way.
And yes, the way you get to that point is with the logic of a child. Responding to a punch with a harder one, failing to recognize that the obvious response will simply be another, harder, punch.
If you really want to take issue with analogy comparison then the real problem is the original was fucking stupid. This isn’t punching. This is life and death. And the terrorists in Gaza are choosing death. What should Israel’s response be, in your opinion? Palestinian governments have consistently walked away from peace talks. Hamas has consistently used human shields. Used hospitals and mosques as bases for rocket launches. What do you think is a proper response?
Perhaps Israel should unilaterally define the borders, ask the world to recognize them, and hope that the group that has the destruction of Israel in it’s platform will accept that and stop attacking Israeli civilians?
Analogies, by definition, can’t describe things down to every detail. Like your stable adult and drunkard analogy, which should probably also mention that the “stable” adult engages in physical beatings when the drunkard becomes too much for them. But a drunkard relative needs therapy, not a beating.
That you think my speaking about the matter using analogies means I don’t know or care about the details, is your assumption. One which I made an attempt to let you backtrack from, but here you are, still shoving your idea of what you think my opinion is, at me. Asking me hard questions as if I ever claimed to have answers.
This plus Ukraine, plus India and Canada, plus China and several things, plus the US being in chaos and deeply divided. This is gonna turn out great for everyone I’m sure
Dont forget Taiwan and the south china sea!
I kinda lumped that into the China and several things
Don’t worry China does it too.
The Palestinians probably shouldn’t have started a war and then let combatants hide behind civilians.
Palestinians didn’t start this war. Not even close. Saying this shows a pretty clear ignorance of the history of Israel and Palestine.
They attacked a fucking music festival and slaughtered civilians. That’s a beginning.
Dude the Palestinian-Israeli conflict didn’t begin last week….
This war did. Last week, Gaza was at peace.
Lmfao. Tell me u have no clue without telling me you have no clue.
No it was not. Has not been since 1948.
There’s been a series of wars, generally started by Arabs, since 1948. But last week, there wasn’t a war.
Simply wrong on all accounts. Wow.
No it wasn’t. Last week it was under Israeli occupation and blockade. That is not peace
Blockade, yes, for obvious reasons. But Gaza hasn’t been occupied since 2005.
Dude just… no https://www.ochaopt.org/poc/5-18-september-2023
This war is a part of a almost century long conflict. You cannot ignore that.
That is horrific, inexcusable, and unjustifiable, but it is not a beginning.
Yes, it is. Last week, Gaza was at peace. They planned and executed this attack.
Oh, right. Yes, I forgot that peace was achieved between Israel and Hamas until Saturday.
Last week, they weren’t shooting each other. This week, Hamas unilaterally decided to end that by murdering hundreds of civilians.
Not true. Gaza was not “at peace”.
Yes, they were.
Only according to Israel.
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Western media is full of it. Check a news aggregate and put US as your country and you’ll see news media orgs across the map today talking about the evils of hammas and how the poor isrealutes were attacked. Conservative and liberal news alike sticking their noses so far up Israel’s grundle without shame or remorse.
They didn’t huh? Ignorant huh? So wait, when the area was partitioned by the British, and the Zionists said “yep, we’ll take it.” But the Palestinians said no, because all these surrounding countries have said they’ll drive all the Jews in the sea to kill them all, and those countries did attempt that, twice, and failed, and then in all of the peace talks, the Palestinians said no to any plan that required Israel also be recognized as a state, that was Israel starting it? Stfu. You know nothing. Go look up the three days war and the Yom kippur war. See why the “disputed” territories are under Israeli control. Go read about which side walked out on the peace talks. Or read about the many years those territories were controlled by Egypt and Jordan and could have easily been formed as independent countries then by Jordan and Egypt. But they wouldn’t permit it.
The truth is, Israel has had to fight for survival from the moment of its inception.
Then, ask yourself what would happen if Mexico fired rockets into California at civilians on a regular basis. Or if Albania fired rockets into Italy or Greece.
And let us not ignore that Gaza is the territory that Israel demobilized from and left entirely in the hands of the Palestinian people. And look at how that worked out.
If someone walked into your house, forced you into your bathroom, said that they owned the rest of the house now, would you be willing to go to peace talks if it means that they get to own half your house? Think about that for a second. Who do you think started the war in this context? Why exactly do you think that Israel had to keep fighting for its survival?
Just because Israel won a few wars, and is backed by other western imperialistic countries doesn’t mean they are right.
Gaza is under a barricade from both land and sea. Many don’t have access to clean water, a home or food. Meanwhile Israel is far more technologically advanced, and consistently has arms, and money being sent from western allies. The state of Gaza is 100% the fault of the Israeli occupation.
Perhaps if the government of Gaza spent more on food and water than rockets and guns then the people would have more of it. They have the money to pay families of suicide bombers. They have money for arms. Yet it is Israel who is at fault. Israel withdraw from Gaza in an offering of peace and all Gaza did was become worse. And they didn’t storm an inhabited place. Look at the actual history of that region.
Hell even the al aqsa mosque that is “the third holiest site” was ignored and not maintained. Israel exist. It has a right to exist. Until Hamas and the PLO are willing to agree to that, their can be no peace. They are the ones who refused to accept any agreement that required them to accept Israel as a nation.
Gaza is blockaded by air,and abs sea. It’s an open air prison. Most don’t have water, electricity, access to healthcare, etc. there is no government because Israel won’t let them organize. Hamas and other terrorist organizations don’t represent all Palestinians. You don’t know the history of the region, you’re a dumbass who thinks that they are a geopolitical expert.
The British had no authority to decide who gets to rule where. It’s kind of the root of most of the problems around the middle east. “The British said” isn’t a justification for anything.
They literally did have the right. Just because you don’t like the way the world works didn’t make it not work that way.
Conquerors and colonizers (the British, but it applies to Israel as well) do not have inherent right to rule. No one voted for them to make decisions. Having the power to dominate is not the same thing as having the right to decide what the people they oppress must accept.
This must be a neat little world you live in where world history doesn’t exist and norms of a time period weren’t real and didn’t matter. Hell, by your method of accounting, I suppose Europe needs to import about 330 million Americans.
I’m not supporting imperialism. It was an awful thing. The genocide of the natives in the Americas was absolutely despicable. The impact around the world was by and large awful for those being colonized. But Israelis are not colonizers in Israel. They have had a population there even under Muslim rule.
To actually want to find a peaceful resolution, you must start with an understanding of how the world actually works.
Country borders have been built. Having might did allow you to expand your empire since time immemorial. And the modern form of Israel came from fighting and diplomacy with the British, who had conquered that land. Israel legally established itself with firm borders just as the Palestinians were offered.
That is the real world. And that is the situation you must work with. Whether you think it is fair or not.
And whether or not you like it, both the west bank and Gaza (and much more) were ceded to Israel by the countries controlling those territories prior to the war. And Israel has also been willing to make land for peace agreements as it did with Egypt and the Sinai peninsula. Jordan and Egypt withdrew their sovereignty. Up until that time they could have also made Palestine an independent state. They didn’t.
With all of that being said, after many years of war of war and fighting and disagreements, Israel has become less diplomatic. Especially after the total demobilization of Gaza. Them leaving Gaza is what allowed this current attack to happen.
And the harsh truth is that the Palestinians could have a country rather quickly, but it would just be less than what they demand and want. They are in a weak bargaining position. Made weaker by the repeated attacks. But for all intents and purposes, Gaza has been a sovereign territory for 18 years. And they have done nothing in the name of peace.
It is long, complicated, and difficult. And I support the Palestinians getting their own sovereignty and nation. I support land swaps. But I also acknowledge the reality of the situation requires that the Palestinians give up on some things they have sworn to not give up on. Israel has not kept Muslims from visiting their holy sites, the way Jews were denied in spite of the agreements Jordan made with the UN. In fact, it was Jordanian(I believe) troops that would not allow me to visit inside the temple mount, because I’m not a Muslim.
Negotiations require flexibility. And while Israel has shown that flexibility with land swaps in exchange for the settlements, the other side doesn’t even want to be required to acknowledge Israel as having a right to exist. Border disputes happen all the time and are worked out in different ways, but very often one side can end up with less than they want. But isn’t that worth taking over the current situation?
Look up Martín Garcia island. Or the Andes boundaries. The Sverdrup islands. Hanish islands. The Baltic sea with Poland and Denmark.
LOL. Ain’t no one reading that. Not in a “I read it, but don’t want to work on a response” way, but “I don’t think any opinions you’ve expressed thus far warrant reading a wall of text about ‘how the world really works’”.
They’re talking about the current round, not the whole thing
hamas is an arm of Iran. the Palestinians getting killer don’t deserve this. it’s a proxy war by a terrorist state using militants against a people’s who of course are going to fucking retailiate
Israeli strikes flatten buildings, mosques in Gaza
Nothing new, Israel has been doing that for decades now.
Flattening places that are used to bomb them? I’d say just about any country is guilty of that. If Russia starts launching missiles from hospitals will we then be angry at Ukraine for taking out that hospital? Or is this a lifehack that all generals should take note of?
Only one of the two is an occupying force that illegally took land and build their own settlements there.
Other party is a terrorist group,
however in past we called them by another term that seems to be unimaginable now: freedom fighters.Hamas attacked civilians and took women and children as hostages. This isn’t permitted by any law including Islamic rules of war. I must condone their actions which is nothing but terrorism.
Hamas is far more anti Israel than pro Gaza. Yes, Israel is anti Gaza, but Hamas does not represent what we want, or the waymost of us in Gaza want Israel or Jews to be treated. They are not freedom fighters, they are terrorists who have the same enemy as us.
In polls, they do seem to have the support of Gaza dwellers though. First link I found: https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87 Quote:
The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party.
Yes, of course. If the two most powerful groups in your area are both acting like terrorist organizations, and one wants to kill you, and the other want to kill them, few people are going to dare to question Hamas. Hamas does nothing to help us, and nothing to better owr lives.
Illegally took land given to them by the countries in control of that land after said countries lost a war against them? Do you even know the history of how Israel was given control over the territories?
If your freedom fighting is slaughtering two hundred people at a music festival, fuck your freedom.
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