Israel War Thread

[cesmonkey]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/egypt-rafah-crossing-gaza-palestinians-mime-intl/index.html
The last remaining exit for Gazans is through Egypt. Here's why Cairo is reluctant to open it | CNN

[Seedorf81]

I'm wondering how the Israeli army will cope with drone-attacks.

From what we've seen on the Ukraine-vids infantry and all vehicles are very vulnerable. Hamas must have seen that too, and they probably have a large supply of drones. (Would be pretty stupid if they haven't.)

And with a Stalingrad-like rubble-landscape drone-operators can hide with relative ease. I'm very curious to see if the Israeli's are prepared for a drone-storm.

If not, they are gonna suffer big time, I fear.

[Bulletpoint]

20 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Plus Hamas will probably hinder the movement as they (also) don't care about Palestinian lives

BBC is now reportiing on a "strike" on civilians fleeing in the designated escape route. Some blame Israel, but I doubt they would be that stupid. Seems more likely that it's Hamas bombing their own people to scare them from leaving.

The more civilians remain in northern Ghaza, the more difficult the Israeli ground invasion will be, and the more civilians killed in the fighting, the worse image for Israel in the world and especially in the Arab world.

[cesmonkey]

A reasonably insightful analysis/opinion piece from the American Yorktown Institute think tank arguing that Israel can't over- commit to a Gaza operation to the detriment of exposing it's northern flank.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4255065-israel-must-look-northward-and-resist-taking-irans-bait/
Israel must look northward and resist taking Iran’s bait
 

Quote

A Gaza operation would be immensely costly for the IDF. It would require somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 men, likely the majority of them active-duty soldiers — that is, the most effective maneuver forces of the IDF as it currently stands. It would also be a bloodbath. Urban operations require extensive planning and reconnaissance to map enemy strongpoints and mitigate casualties in ferocious close-combat. They are also long-term and manpower- and materiel-intensive, at least when they have more than limited objectives. 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by cesmonkey

[dan/california]

Nobody can line up like this in Ukraine and live. The fact that the IDF can do it with impunity is why Hamas has bitten off more they can chew. 

[dan/california]

Odds of a general war would seem to be increasing. I would say the odds of an Iranian nuclear test are rising by the second, as well. We wasted eighteen months of warning to really get munitions production in gear. we are going to regret that. Doesn't mean the contracts shouldn't go out Monday morning.

Edited October 14, 2023 by dan/california

[dan/california]

Nothing moves the tech along like a shooting war.

[MOS:96B2P]

18 hours ago, MHW said:

Glimpses of the early hours of the Hamas attack and the IDF response, in the New York Times. The attackers had planned carefully, which should be apparent. More surprisingly, IDF bases seem to have put little effort into local security, and the counterattack contained many serving soldiers, veterans, and volunteers self-dispatching to the south.  

+1.  Thanks for posting. Very interesting article.

It helps to explain some of the videos with the IDF taken off guard. It seems in one facility the IDF soldiers just locked the front gate and went to bed for the night. Then slept in the next morning? The terrorists blew open the unguarded front gate, entered into fortified buildings, through unlocked doors, and shot many of the soldiers while the soldiers were dressed in nothing more than their shorts and T-shirts. Some soldiers who were awake and on duty apparently weren't even armed. Many videos from both sides show these crazy scenes and the sickening aftermaths.     

This then partially explains while help was so slow in coming to the (mostly unarmed) civilian communities. How can the soldiers respond to frantic calls for help if they themselves are at the mercy of terrorists inside their own facilities? THEIR OWN FACILITIES!   

I hope the surviving soldiers are now awake, focused and have weapons prior to going into Gaza.   

[acrashb]

On 10/13/2023 at 2:04 PM, Splinty said:

Hamas is full of fanatics. No matter what concessions Israel or the West attempts to give them will only allow them to regroup and try all over again. Israel MUST render them completely ineffective in order to put this to rest for at least another decade.

 

Hamas is savage and evil.

For those who have been talking about LOAC, here's a tidy primer:

 

[dan/california]

25 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1.  Thanks for posting. Very interesting article.

It helps to explain some of the videos with the IDF taken off guard. It seems in one facility the IDF soldiers just locked the front gate and went to bed for the night. Then slept in the next morning? The terrorists blew open the unguarded front gate, entered into fortified buildings, through unlocked doors, and shot many of the soldiers while the soldiers were dressed in nothing more than their shorts and T-shirts. Some soldiers who were awake and on duty apparently weren't even armed. Many videos from both sides show these crazy scenes and the sickening aftermaths.     

This then partially explains while help was so slow in coming to the (mostly unarmed) civilian communities. How can the soldiers respond to frantic calls for help if they themselves are at the mercy of terrorists inside their own facilities? THEIR OWN FACILITIES!   

I hope the surviving soldiers are now awake, focused and have weapons prior to going into Gaza.   

There was a presumption of peace, it will presumably be ANOTHER fifty years before this lesson fades. 

[chris talpas]

Four days old but still good analysis of the situation by Ian Bremmer 

 

[chris talpas]

Looks like the US is adding additional deterrence to those external parties who might want to widen the Israeli conflict with a second carrier group 

https://abcnews.go.com/International/exclusive-us-send-2nd-aircraft-carrier-eastern-mediterranean/story?id=103984246

 

 

[sburke]

3 hours ago, acrashb said:

Hamas is savage and evil.

For those who have been talking about LOAC, here's a tidy primer:

 

yeah they are, but this isn't like this came out of the blue.  we are talking close to 100 years where both sides have disregarded the concept of civilians.  Granted that is a fairly alien concept in a conflict where civilians on both sides are active participants.  I had a buddy while living in DC who had been living in a refugee camp in Lebanon during the 82 Israelis invasion.  He had been pretty messed up with what he'd gone through.  At one point throwing babies into garbage bags to evacuate a child care center before the Phalangist allies of Israel raided the camp.  The situation is F'd up all the way around with no end in site to the misery of both sides.  If there is a hell I expect it looks a lot like this area.

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

yeah they are, but this isn't like this came out of the blue.  we are talking close to 100 years where both sides have disregarded the concept of civilians.  Granted that is a fairly alien concept in a conflict where civilians on both sides are active participants.  I had a buddy while living in DC who had been living in a refugee camp in Lebanon during the 82 Israelis invasion.  He had been pretty messed up with what he'd gone through.  At one point throwing babies into garbage bags to evacuate a child care center before the Phalangist allies of Israel raided the camp.  The situation is F'd up all the way around with no end in site to the misery of both sides.  If there is a hell I expect it looks a lot like this area.

I disagree with that statement.  The total civilian casualties caused by the Israelis since 1948 don't hold the tiniest candle to the number of their own people Killed by the Assad Government, Saddam Hussein, or great many others. 

Edit: It is certainly a crap neighborhood though...

Edited October 15, 2023 by dan/california

[chris talpas]

Today’s Perun video is about the IDF

 

[dan/california]

 

22 hours ago, dan/california said:

Nothing moves the tech along like a shooting war.

 

Quote

https://www.threads.net/@mx_ukraine/post/CybgaXBP1GZ

This may, and I emphasize may, be video of the laser working. It doesn't look like anything  else I have seen. If it really works they can't be built fast enough, for both Ukraine and Israel.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-15-2023/

Herzog displays guide carried by terrorists on how to kidnap and torture people.

 

 

When they tell you who they are, believe them

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/i-only-knew-that-from-the-nazis-what-israeli-forensics-have-been-seeing-for-days/

‘I only knew that from the Nazis’: Israeli forensic experts identify tortured and burned bodies

 

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/15/israel-gaza-war-updates-hamas-palestine/

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian that the “fundamental reason the Palestinian-Israeli situation has developed to its current level is that the Palestinian people’s right to statehood has been shelved for a long time.” Wang made the remarks in a call Sunday, during which Amirabdollahian said Iran hoped to resolve the current situation through political means, according to a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry.

 

Somebody should ask him about the Taiwanese Peoples long shelved right to statehood. My bet is that steam comes out his ears.

[Bulletpoint]

 

On 10/14/2023 at 11:38 PM, acrashb said:

Hamas is savage and evil.

For those who have been talking about LOAC, here's a tidy primer:

 

Mark Goldfeder is the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, so maybe not completely impartial in this conflict. Pretty sure if you ask a Palestinian advocate, you'd get the opposite answer. I'd like to read a take on the legality from a more neutral observer.

[Bulletpoint]

Here is what seems to me to be a more balanced and impartial take on whether the siege of Ghaza should be considered a war crime.

https://www.justsecurity.org/89403/the-siege-of-gaza-and-the-starvation-war-crime/

It's a long read, but the bottom line is that Goldfeder is wrong and AOC is correct, because it doesn't matter whether you are starving a civilian population in order to target enemy forces or not:

 

Fifth, article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the ICC Statute is explicit in affirming that the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare can be perpetrated through the denial of relief supplies. Criminal liability attaches when a perpetrator deprives civilians of objects indispensable to their survival with the intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare (ICC Elements, p.21). The deprivation of objects to a civilian population is clearly underway.

In assessing intent, it is important not to confuse mens rea with motive. Even assuming the ultimate goal is to coerce or starve out Hamas, those undertaking this siege are pursuing that goal through purposively starving the civilian population as a whole. As such, they are intending to engage in the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, whether they desire or lament the civilian suffering that will ensue.

 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[BornGinger]

It's a bit strange that there's this conflict now without Battlefront making a game about it first.

USA must be in a dilemma now. They're accusing Russia of bad behaviour when they are bombing civilians in Ukraine but they don't seem to do the same when Israel is doing it to the people in Gaza. Or have I missed something because not having watched the latest news?

The claims about Hamas slaughtering babies and more, is that to be taken seriously or is it just as true as the fake claim that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait which triggered the Desert Storm mission, or what it was called?

Edited October 16, 2023 by BornGinger

[Billy Ringo]

Probably missed the fact that Ukraine didn't go into Russia and massacre civilians at a music festival, cut off the heads of babies, torture, burn, etc.   That might have something to do with it.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Billy Ringo said:

Probably missed the fact that Ukraine didn't go into Russia and massacre civilians at a music festival, cut off the heads of babies, torture, burn, etc.   That might have something to do with it.

true mostly but the beheaded babies one is as far as I know not actually confirmed yet.

[dan/california]

But regardless of the details of Hamas atrocities, what they did would be sufficient to start a full scale war at literally any point in human, between any two countries/tribes/entities you care to name. There is nothing to be done now except hammer them so hard most of the other crazies remember the lesson for the best part of a century. That seems to be as long as humaanity is capable of remembering anything.