Israel #4

Russia...

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | Last edited 10:21 AM · Oct 12, 2023
Ukrainian patriot. Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Founder of the Institute of the Future. Official enemy of Russian propaganda

"Cover! Cover!" – evidence appeared that Russian-speaking instructors within the Hamas terrorist organization gave orders and coordinated the actions of mercenaries during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The order in Russian "Прикрывайте! Прикрывайте!" ("Cover! Cover!") can be clearly heard from 12 seconds onwards.

0:16 ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1712473612442276256 )
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Anton Gaia 🇺🇦 @AntonGaia |
Deliberist, engineer, designer, pillow maker(seriously, I design pillows). {Ukraine}

The original video is down-pitched.
It's a bit clearer when pitched up.

0:03 ( https://twitter.com/AntonGaia/status/1712485988529057845 )
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margd: Lots of questions from the twitterverse about authenticity of video.
My impression of Geraschenko is that he wants his audience to think well of Ukrainians and not well of Russians hurting his country. He has access in Ukraine, he does not lie, he corrects if, rarely, a post was incorrect?
Time will tell.

Visegrád 24 @visegrad24 | 9:49 AM · Oct 12, 2023:
Aggregating and curating news, politics, current affairs, history and culture from Central and Eastern Europe.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1712465490160050516

A few years ago, Gaza received new water pipelines thanks to foreign aid.
Hamas dug up the pipelines and turned them into rockets that they later fired at Israel
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1712465490160050516 )

margd: Lots of questions from the twitterverse about authenticity of video.

>1 margd: Even if authentic, the question is: is it indicative?
Mercenaries are drawn to conflict zones like flies to shit. Some mercenaries will have acquired their skills in Russia (perhaps hailing from its Muslim-majority regions, where they may or may not be on good terms with the present political dispensation) and speak Russian. It's rather a leap to draw the conclusion that because Russian was spoken in Gaza, therefore the Kremlin was behind the whole thing. I'm sure Gerashchenko wouldn't mind if people did, though. And if he had any substantive evidence to that effect, I'm sure he'd present it.

Sometimes countries don't share their best info so as not to reveal sources, methods?

>4 margd: Perhaps not. But think: would this be happening all the same, and along much the same lines, with or without Russian (or, at least, Russian-speaking) assistance? The answer is yes.
Ask the question again replacing the word "Russian" with "Iranian" and you actually have a more interesting case, in relative terms. Iranian assistance has been invaluable over the years to Hamas. But as we've already (I hope) established, that doesn't mean they were "behind this" either.
The "Russian connection" (to the extent that any exists) is going to be at best a footnote.

>5 davidgn: RFE/RL has a bit of a head-clearer on the issue. https://www.rferl.org/a/israel-hamas-invasion-russian-role-notte-interview-iran/...

Napolitano still invites Crooke around as well. And his questioning is more direct on the matter of the intelligence failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mN9u0p23fo

It's a pity he doesn't let Crooke get around to mentioning the Al-Aqsa point, though. The operation was only called "Al-Aqsa Flood"...

ETA:
Napolitano picks Mearsheimer's brain today as well on the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtkCbQpw-0

ETA 2:
To Crooke's anecdote (regarding the intelligence failure) about his friend at the US Army War College who finds that the present crop of students are entirely devoid of empathy or the desire to understand other cultures (particularly those in an adversarial relationship) -- it's inspired me to make a start adding these to the Awards/Honors/Lists. Maybe someone wants to pitch in.
https://www.librarything.com/award/13944/Read-for-Empathy-Collections
https://www.empathylab.uk/previous-collections
If there's a direct US equivalent, I'm not aware of it, though there are a few that aren't terribly far off.
e.g.
https://www.librarything.com/award/1548/Notable-Book-for-a-Global-Society (pretty much complete, but categories for some years may not have been captured)
https://www.librarything.com/award/1036/USBBY-Outstanding-International-Book (needs country of origin notes, as found on the bookmarks, etc. -- https://www.usbby.org/outstanding-international-books-list.html ; https://www.usbby.org/uploads/1/0/7/0/107064867/2023_oib_list_bookmark_.pdf )

I'm not sure if it helps, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

UK to send navy ships and spy planes to support Israel (Guardian)

Oh dear. What the region needs is international friends applying pressure on all parties to halt the current escalation of violence and begin meaningful negotiations for a long term peace, not to provide military support to one side or the other.

I went looking, and Graham Fuller did have a blog post out.
https://grahamefuller.com/the-ongoing-blindness-and-tragedy-of-events-in-israel-...

One might hope that this massive shock to Israeli society and government might serve as a wake up call to bring about a reconsideration of the wisdom of Israel’s ever harsher apartheid policies against the Palestinians. That would be the most fruitful outcome of these brutal events. But sadly, it is more likely to strengthen the hand of the powerful and dominant ultra-right wing forces in Israel, increasingly under the ideological control of the powerful settler movement. It’s hard to see how even international horror at these events could effectively move international organizations to fruitfully impose greater rationality and justice upon Israel’s treatment of its captive and opressed Palestinian population.

Brother Rachid الأخ رشيد @BrotherRasheed | 10:37 PM · Oct 10, 2023:
Moroccan, Berber, Ex-Muslim, follower of Christ, author, apologist, BA in comparative religions, MA in national security (ME politics), TV host

Khalid Mashal the leader and founding member of Hamas gave a speech today {from Doha, Qatar, where the govt has hosted Hamas leadership for years} asking Muslims all around the world to do the following:

1. To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood”, he said this will send a message of rage to Zionists and to America

2. He asked for financial help from all Muslims around the world; to help with their money, he called it “Financial Jihad”. He asked Muslims to give to the fighters of Gaza in order to compensate them for the destruction

3.He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza

4.The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa.
He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means. He said: This is the time for Jihad to be applied on the ground rather than just in theory. He asked the Mujahedeen to go in long caravans to spell their blood on the land of Palestine.

These are his final words:

Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls to be sacrificed for Palestine

Photo ( https://twitter.com/BrotherRasheed/status/1711933917098316276/photo/1 )
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Congress boosts security over Middle East tensions
Andrew Solender | 12 Oct 2023

...Hamas leadership's call for a global "Day of Rage" on Friday, which also has the Israeli government on high alert

...The House sergeant-at-arms' office, Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies are increasing security for lawmakers at D.C.-area airports, McFarland's notice said.

Capitol Police officers will be stationed at at the airports and escorts for members will be available on request.
Both offices also said certain areas of the Capitol will be restricted to lawmakers, staff and official business visitors...

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/12/capitol-security-hamas-israel

Israel-Palestine War Undermining “pursuit of global peace”: Nigeria’s Christian leaders (ACI Africa)

Christian leaders in Nigeria are concerned about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violent conflict saying it is weakening the push towards global peace... “The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is deeply concerned about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has resulted in the loss of countless lives, destruction of infrastructure, and deepened the humanitarian crisis in the region,” representatives of Christian leaders in Nigeria say in the statement that CAN President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, signed...

Israel wants 1.1 million Gazans to move in next 24 hours, says UN (The Star)

The UN says it has been told by Israel that everyone in north Gaza should relocate to the south in the next 24 hours. The area includes densely populated Gaza City and will affect about 1.1 million people - around half of the Gaza Strip's population. The UN says it is "impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences" and has called on Israel to rescind evacuation orders...

UNRWA UNRWA | 6:47 AM · Oct 11, 2023:
{The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. Wikipedia}

9 of our UN staffers have been killed in airstrikes in📍#GazaStrip since Saturday.

“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict. They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.” https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates*

Photo ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1712057424394207326/photo/1 )
United Nations and 3 others
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I can't see how 1.1 million civilians can be evacuated in 24h, esp. with dwindling food, water, fuel, and electricity...

*"Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The directive came on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning they received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza within 24 hours.

The Israeli military pulverized the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and blocked deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity ahead of a possible ground invasion as Palestinians tried to stock up on supplies..."

International aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis after Israel prevented entry of supplies from Egypt to Gaza’s 2.3 million people..."

BBC expert on debunking Israel-Hamas war visuals:
“The volume of misinformation on Twitter was beyond anything I’ve ever seen”
“You have to be 100% certain before publishing and show the audience why something is false,”
Eduardo Suárez | 13th October 2023

...{journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh} In the first couple of days of the conflict, the volume of misinformation on X was beyond anything I've ever seen. But I think the platform recognised that and changed the way Community Notes works.

For people who are not aware of this, Community Notes is a crowdsource system feature within X. Any user can actually sign up for it. After a period of time, they can rate any post and write notes on what they think is false or misleading about it. There’s a voting system amongst contributors. If people who have previously disagreed with each other agree a post is false, that suggests the vote is probably reliable.

Most of the time this system works OK. But one of the criticisms that I had was that you could see a false post that was really viral with suggested community notes, and it would take up to four days for that to appear in people’s timelines. They've now made the process much faster. That's definitely positive...

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/bbc-expert-debunking-israel-hama...

>12 margd: Of course it's impossible. It's a farce.
ETA: Clearly an announcement like that is not intended to be serious, but to serve as a fig leaf. A cynical exercise in ticking boxes.

MSF International MSF | 1:43 PM · Oct 13, 2023:
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation. {Doctors without Borders}

🔴BREAKING:
Israel has given Al Awda Hospital just two hours to evacuate. Our staff are still treating patients.
We unequivocally condemn this action, the continued indiscriminate bloodshed and attacks on health care in Gaza.
We are trying to protect our staff and patients.

Waleed Shahid 🪬 @_waleedshahid | 11:53 AM · Oct 13, 2023:
Very Senior Democratic Strategist. Fmr Spokesperson, @justicedems. @BernieSanders, AOC, @JamaalBowmanNY...

Incredible. “During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel on Thursday, he and his aides were not informed by Israeli officials of their plan to force the mass movement of 1.1 million Palestinians.”

Israel says 1.1M residents must leave north Gaza Strip; Reuters journalist killed in shelling
WaPo | 13 Oct 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/13/israel-gaza-war-updates-hamas-pa...

>16 margd: Of course not. Rule number one: don't pre-announce your plans for ethnic cleansing to the Americans. They might feel obliged to object.

BBC journalists held at gunpoint by Israeli police
BBC | 13 Oct 2023

....Israel has told those in the north of the Gaza Strip - about 1.1 million people - to relocate to the south of the territory within 24 hours.

The UN has urged Israel to withdraw the order, warning of "devastating humanitarian consequences".

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, told civilians to ignore the evacuation order, describing it as "fake propaganda".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67102956
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Israel says 1.1M residents must leave north Gaza Strip; Reuters journalist killed in shelling
WaPo | 13 Oct 2023

Israel called on the entire population of the northern Gaza Strip — about 1.1 million people — to move south in the Palestinian territory within 24 hours. Israeli strikes are pounding the densely populated enclave, and troops are massing nearby ahead of an anticipated ground incursion after Hamas militants staged one of the deadliest attacks in Israeli history. Hamas described the evacuation warning as psychological warfare and urged people not to comply. Gaza authorities said there was nowhere safe to go under siege, while health officials said it would be impossible to evacuate hospitals, which are already facing power shortages and dwindling supplies. In southern Lebanon, meanwhile, a journalist with the Reuters news agency was killed Friday while covering clashes there. Six other journalists were injured, including two from the Al Jazeera news channel, after the journalists were struck by what Al Jazeera said was Israeli shelling.

...Israeli forces drop leaflets telling Gaza City residents to move south...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/13/israel-gaza-war-updates-hamas-pa...

US intelligence warned of the potential for violence days before Hamas attack
Katie Bo Lillis, Zachary Cohen, Alex Marquardt and Natasha Bertrand | October 13, 2023

...One update from September 28 warned, based on multiple streams of intelligence, that the terror group Hamas was poised to escalate rocket-attacks across the border. An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas — indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent...

...For most US and Israeli officials who were tracking the intelligence, the expectation was that there would likely be just another round of small-scale violence by Hamas — perhaps some rocket fire that Israel’s Iron Dome would intercept, one source familiar with the intelligence explained...

...the view is coalescing among US officials and lawmakers that Israel’s failure to predict the explosion of simmering rage from Gaza was primarily due to a lack of imagination.

Hamas likely hid the planning of the operation ... But US officials also believe that Israel had become complacent about the threat Hamas posed and failed to recognize key indicators that the group was planning for a large-scale operation...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/us-intelligence-warnings-potential-gaza-...

Y'know, if Security Council can't prevent slaughter in Gaza, if it happens, and it can't censor Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it can't address climate change, it's another institution that no longer serves global needs.

Israel had the sympathy of the world.

>8 John5918: Prof. Ker-Lindsay adds his two cents on what needs to happen -- which is what is not going to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkgGP6AWWOc

that was an excellent and objective summary of the history of this conflict. I still remember teaching sunday school the day that egypt and israel signed that agreement, My students made paper doves to hang on our ceiling, there was so much hope then. that hope turned to ashes when Itzchak Rabin was assassinated. and now after so long weve come to this very dangerious situation in the area and in the world. I dont know what to do with that But Lindsay certainly helped explain, and yes you are right - what needs to happen wont. heaven help us, coz I dont think anyone here can

>20 margd:

There has been a strong feeling in many parts of the world for many years that as long as the UN Security Council is dominated by five permanent members with veto powers, it will never truly be able to serve global peace and justice. The Security Council needs to be modified so it more accurately reflects the realities of today's world rather than the "victors" of a war that ended nearly eighty years ago. But of course it won't be, because the five permanent members will veto any changes which reduce their own power.

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 4:38 AM · Oct 14, 2023
Ukrainian patriot. Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Founder of the Institute of the Future. Official enemy of Russian propaganda

Palestinian militants received millions of dollars through the largest ruble-based crypto exchange Garantex, located in "Moscow City".

There is an evidence that "Palestinian militants in part financed their operations through crypto in the lead-up to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Digital wallets controlled by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which joined Hamas in the attacks, received a portion of $93 million via Garantex, according to analysis by researcher Elliptic, which said Hamas also used a similar financing strategy," the WSJ reports.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Garantex became the main channel for withdrawing money from Russia. In June, the total amount of transactions on the platform amounted to about $865 million. This is three times more than in April 2022, when the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the cryptocurrency exchange.

https://wsj.com/finance/currencies/garantex-russian-crypto-hamas-crime-sanctions...

Monica Marks @MonicaLMarks | 4:52 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Prof of Middle East Politics @NYUAbuDhabi. Tunisia, Turkey, Gulf. PhD @StAntsCollege Oxford. Fulbright, Rhodes, @HarvardWCFIA. 12 yrs writing on Tunisia.

Yesterday, Mecca's imam prayed for Palestine.
This & much else brings back '48. Ppl fleeing on foot, some by horse & donkey. Belongings spilling from their little bags. Babies crying.
This time, 🌍 watched their exodus live. Emotional impact tremendous.
From قناة الإخبارية
1:41 ( https://twitter.com/MonicaLMarks/status/1713115601231626278 )

Scholars, journalists & analysts cannot underestimate the resentments & ruptures these images will cause as they ripple & resonate across Muslim world & beyond.
Many in the Arab world, where I live, felt like they watched a Trail of Tears broadcast live.
Chilling, searing pain.

For so many, watching this exodus happen- -whilst Israeli forces attacked the very escape route, and 🇺🇸/🇪🇺 made no audible calls to stop it--is powerful evidence that Western liberalism & international law are hollow, hypocritical fictions.
The ripple effects here are dangerous.

Putin seized this window of opportunity, denouncing Israel's Gaza seige as a cruel reprisal & warning it not to use tactics like Nazis used when they beseiged Leningrad.
That update scrolled across news tickers on Arabic TV channels I watched last night for what felt like hours.

Terrorism scholars are also feeling particularly nervous. The recruitment opportunities that viewing these searing images, day after day, hour after hour, might engender are gulp-inducing.

Jews around the world are, I fear, becoming less safe. Countless Jewish men are removing their kippas whilst outside in fear of attacks.
Just yesterday, an Israeli embassy staffer was assaulted in Beijing of all places. Not a place known for anti-Semitism
https://www.reuters.com/world/israeli-embassy-staffer-assaulted-beijing-israel-f...

WHO in occupied Palestinian territory WHOoPt | 4:37 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

✈️TOUCHDOWN!
A plane carrying WHO health supplies has landed in Al-Arish airport,📍Egypt - close to Rafah.
Supplies will serve the urgent needs of +300,000 people & will be delivered to📍Gaza as soon as humanitarian access through Rafah is established.
https://bit.ly/3M2BT1r

Image World Health Organization (WHO) and 2 others
https://twitter.com/WHOoPt/status/1713111752320114883/photo/1
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus @DrTedros | 3:25 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Director-General of the World Health Organization.

A plane with WHO medical supplies to support the urgent health needs in Gaza has landed in Al Arish, #Egypt - close to the Rafah crossing.
We’re ready to deploy the supplies as soon as humanitarian access through the crossing is established.
We continue our plea to Israel to reconsider the decision to evacuate 1.1 million people. It will be a human tragedy.

Photo plane supplies ( https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1713119189488033970/photo/1 )

2100 rockets fired Friday and Saturday am {as much as 5 mi into s Israel?}:

Watch this amazing explanation from @AliVelshi {MSNBC} of how the damage from bombs in cities is made worse by the chunks of rock and other shrapnel thrown by the explosion.
1:45 ( https://twitter.com/WagnerTonight/status/1712654155678957925 )

- Alex Wagner Tonight {MSNBC} @WagnerTonight | 10:19 PM · Oct 12, 2023

💥Several hundred protesters including numerous families of unaccounted-for hostages calling on Netanyahu to resign at spontaneous protest outside Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. (@sha_b_p )
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1713163498157424660 )

- Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 8:03 AM · Oct 14, 2023
🇮🇱Israel🇵🇸 Palestine reporter♥️🇦🇷🇨🇭🥩🍷PostNews: https://post.news/ntarnopolsky (Jerusalem)

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 7:58 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

Russia advanced a ceasefire resolution in the UN on the Gaza War
It calls for the creation of a Palestinian state
It holds the US responsible and accuses European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen of ignoring Israeli attacks on Gaza civilian infrastructure

Russia's draft resolution does not list Hamas
It just discusses Israeli and Palestinian actors
The absence of Hamas can be explained by Russia's policy of not designating as a terrorist group
______________________________________

Pyotr Kurzin @PKurzin | 6:12 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Geopolitics, Current Events, Macro | Exp worldbank , @CrisisGroup , UN | MA @SAISHopkins | Spaceshost @theglobalgambit . Featured in ABC, Kitco, Evening Standard

🚨 #BREAKING: Russia’s UN Ambassador 🇺🇳 calls for ceasefire

In NYC, Russia’s PR Nebenzia has declared a humanitarian ceasefire’ is urgent while blaming the US for perpetuating the #IsraelPalestineWar.

The Russian delegation is pushing a draft resolution in the UNSC, urging an ‘immediate’ ceasefire and release of hostages. It also urges humanitarian aid and guaranteed safe evacuation.

The draft resolution partially states: ‘the UNSC strongly condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism’.

It’s also been reported that while the resolution mentions Israel and Palestine, it excludes #Hamas.

Omitting certain words and including others can have diplomatic repercussions as it is ways for countries to signal their views and interests to others - sometimes to incentivise or coerce countries to change their behaviour.

The draft resolution is currently being debated behind closed doors, with Nebenzia claiming there was positive reaction from the 15 seat #UNSC.

Photos
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/2
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/3

Urgent: Water has now run out in Gaza according to the UN
“It has become a matter of life and death”.
2 million people at risk. Statement below 👇🏼
Text UNWRA ( https://twitter.com/Beltrew/status/1713124289514176795/photo/1 )

- Bel Trew @Beltrew | 5:27 AM · Oct 14, 2023
The Independent’s Chief International Correspondent. Foreign reporter of the year 2023. (Ukraine)

Haaretz.com @haaretzcom | 6:34 AM · Oct 9, 2023:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy"

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-conce...
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Simon Rosenberg @SimonWDC | 9:27 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Political Strategist, Commentator | Once NDN, DNC, DCCC, Clinton War Room, ABC News

The problem supporters of Israel now have is that we have to rely on the political and military judgement of the failed, discredited Netanyahu to get us through all this successfully. It's a huge problem.

Omar Shakir @OmarSShakir | 9:37 PM · Oct 13, 2023:
Israel and Palestine Director, Human Rights Watch (@hrw). Formerly @theccr (Center for Constitutional Rights) & @slshumanrights (Stanford human Rights Clinic). {Amman, Jordan}

No electricity. No internet. No clean water. No aid. Bombs raining down. Closure. Occupation. Refugees for generations. Persecution. Apartheid.
Unfathomable what Palestinians of Gaza facing—& worst may be to come. My @CNNSitRoom interview w/ @wolfblitzer

03:34 ( https://twitter.com/OmarSShakir/status/1713006061647478893 )
From Human Rights Watch

>15 margd: Doctors w/o Borders hospital update

MSF International MSF | 6:06 AM · Oct 14, 2023

🔴GAZA UPDATE:
At time of writing the hospital is still standing.
After spending part of the night in the street with bombs landing in close proximity, we understand that some medical staff and all patients have been able to move...

...but the situation remains extremely complicated and chaotic.
We call on Israel once again to cease the indiscriminate bloodshed, withdraw their ultimatum, and to protect healthcare facilities and civilians.

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 10:06 AM · Oct 14, 2023

Hamas built 500 kilometers of fortified tunnels as of 2021, which they are now using to wait out Israeli bombardments. It's likely that the length of the tunnels is greater now.

📹- Al Jazeera's 2021 report.
2:38 ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1713194531321995529 )

>30 margd: Russia

NEXTA @nexta_tv | 6:37 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
The largest Eastern European media.

Hamas thanked Putin for his statement in support of Palestine

"We in the Islamic Resistance Movement appreciate Russian President Vladimir Putin's stance on the ongoing Zionist aggression against our people and his rejection of the siege of Gaza, the halting of humanitarian aid and the attack on civilians there," the terrorists said.
________________________________

Putin cautions Israel against using tactics in Gaza like Nazi siege of Leningrad
Reuters | October 13, 2023
https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-israeli-ground-operation-gaza-will-result-ci...

A lot if not most all of outside actors are using this to support their own agendas. Likewise the Netanyahu regime and Hamas are using their own peoples, the Israeli's also using the Palestinian people and both again the Israeli hostages for their own ends. An international arbiter would be nice---first to stop the bombings in Gaza and second to get the hostages back from Hamas. Netanyahu and the right wingers in his govt. need to go.

Anonymous @YourAnonOne | 11:05 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

BREAKING: Israeli President says there are no innocent citizens in the Gaza Strip
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/YourAnonOne/status/1713209445457486323 )

Scoop: Iran warns Israel through UN against ground offensive in Gaza
Barak Ravid | 14 Oct 2023

Iran sent a message to Israel on Saturday stressing that it does not want further escalation in the Hamas-Israel war, but that it will have to intervene if the Israeli operation in Gaza continues...

Why it matters: The fighting between Hamas and Israel will turn into a regional war if Iran gets involved either directly or indirectly, such as through a militant group in Syria or by backing any Hezbollah decision to fully join the fighting...

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with UN envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland on Saturday in Beirut...
Wennesland urged Amir-Abdollahian to help prevent a spillover of the conflict in Gaza and Israel to the wider region in the Middle East.
The Iranian foreign minister replied that Iran doesn't want the conflict to turn into a regional war and wants to try to help with the release of civilians who are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
But Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Iran has its red lines. He said that if the Israeli military operation continues — and especially if Israel follows through on its promise of a ground offensive in Gaza — Iran will have to respond...

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/14/iran-warning-israel-hezbollah-hamas-war-gaza

>38 margd: i need a better reference then just your name

>41 cindydavid4: This might do it. https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html

>41 cindydavid4: ? Click link for video. (Twitter)

Sigh can the entire population of isreal pls get rid of Bibi and his followers? They not represent the country I grew up knowing

sigh I understand defending your country. I dont understand inhumane statements like that, the demand that they leave (and yes its ethnic cleansing) and that they are bombint while people are trying to leave. My god what has happed to this country? Herzog is saying that those in gaza should have stood up and fought to keep Hammus out. Cant wait to see the looks on their faces when the israelis rise up and kick them out. It cannot be soon enough

Heads of Churches in Jerusalem Call on Israel to Allow Humanitarian Aid to Go to Gaza (National Catholic Register)

The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem issued a statement Friday calling on Israel to allow food and medical supplies to enter the Gaza Strip, where “a grave humanitarian crisis has befallen all of us.” In their joint statement, the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders also called for stemming the violence that has erupted since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel last weekend, which took the lives of 1,300 Israelis. About 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict over the past week. “We call upon all parties to de-escalate this war in order to save innocent lives while still serving the cause of justice,” the joint statement from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders read. “Our beloved Holy Land has changed dramatically over the past week,” they said. “We are witnessing a new cycle of violence with an unjustifiable attack against all civilians. Tensions continue to rise and more innocent and vulnerable people are paying the ultimate price as the dramatic level of death and destruction in Gaza clearly show”...

Deterrence between Israel and Hizbollah Must Hold (International Crisis Group)

Thus far, October’s exchanges of fire between Hizbollah and Israel have stayed within the sides’ red lines. Still, with an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza looming, risks are tremendous. A Gaza ceasefire, while improbable, is the only way to rule out a broader war... External actors with Hizbollah’s ear should impress on the party, and Western countries on Israel, that opening a second front is in no one’s interest...

Hamas, Israel, and the U.S. Have Learned Nothing (The Progressive)

The killing of more than 1,000 Israelis and internationals from rockets and direct attacks by Hamas is a staggering blow for Israel, a small country which has repeatedly been a victim of violent attacks throughout its history, but never anything close to this scale. Tragically, the civilian death toll in Israel will likely be only a small fraction of the civilian death toll of Palestinians in Gaza in the face of the ongoing Israeli assault on the crowded enclave, which has included bombings of residential buildings and refugee camps and will surely escalate in intensity. Hamas, once again, has failed to recognize that killing civilians is not just morally reprehensible but politically counter-productive. They aren’t like Israel and Saudi Arabia, which can kill thousands of civilians with impunity and still receive massive military and diplomatic support from the United States...

Operation Al-Aqsa: Middle East Scholars Weigh in on Gaza – Israel Conflict (Counter Punch)

In this interview, international relation scholars Richard Falk and Stephen Zunes comment on: the politics of Hamas, the role of the press, how international law is applied in the region, human rights for civilians, the nature of terrorism, and the prospects of a Third Intifada. They explain the significance of these events...

These last two feature Middle Eastern Studies Professor Stephen Zunes, who says in an e-mail, "There is a lot I could share about the ongoing tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel that preceded it. I am mourning the deaths of individuals I knew and greatly respected in both Israel and in Gaza—they were opponents of both the Israeli government and Hamas. I am also concerned about how this has set back rational discussion about the conflict, harmed the Palestinians’ just struggle for freedom and equality, and will contribute to still further bloodshed". He also draws attention to two articles he wrote some time ago which give some background to the current situation, America's Hidden Role in Hamas' Rise to Power and Have ‘Human Shields’ Accusations Become an Excuse for War Crimes?

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
https://twitter.com/UNRWA
https://donate.unrwa.org/gaza/~my-donation
-------------------------------------------------

UNRWA UNRWA | 4:03 AM · Oct 15, 2023
UN Agency for Palestine Refugees Working with + for #PalestineRefugees#فلسطين نعمل مع ومن أجل لاجئي

"The situation is catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic"
🆘 The humanitarian crisis in📍#Gaza is dire.
Our UNRWA colleague Rawya reports the desperate need for food, water, and medicine for the people fleeing their homes who are now dying without these supplies available.
1:34 ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1713465609634144482 )
---------------------------------------------------

UNRWA UNRWA | 3:21 AM · Oct 15, 2023:
1:27 ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1713455015384269058 )

"My colleagues are telling me a lot of horror stories" @TamaraAlrifai tells @BBCNews that the unrealistic expectation for 1 million people to leave North📍#Gaza overnight "is a matter of life and death"; warning of the extremely dire conditions those able to leave now face.
-------------------------------------------------

Photos UNRWA tweets
UNRWA building destroyed: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/1
12 UNRWA staff killed https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/2
----------------------------------------------------

Osaid Alser, MD, MSc(Oxon) 🗝 🇵🇸 @OsaidesserMD | 10:22 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
Palestinian refugee | Academic surgeon in-training |

I am heartbroken
#RIP Dr Omar Ferwana, former dean of my medical school @IUGAZA and his daughter who’s also another physician along with his wife, kids/grandchildren as his house was targeted by #IOF {#IDF ?}. I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target 😞 #MedTwitter #NotATarget
Photo ( https://twitter.com/OsaidesserMD/status/1713379730945163282/photo/1 )
----------------------------------------------------

Richard Engel (NBC News) @RichardEngel | 2:44 AM · Oct 15, 2023
The Israeli military says Hamas likely boobytrapped the road heading south from northern Gaza, causing an explosion on Friday that killed 70 Palestinians, many on a flatbed truck.
----------------------------------------------------

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 2:55 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
analyst @CNA_org {Center for Naval Analyses, Arlington, VA}

The IDF has posted drone footage of Hamas attempts to block residents of Gaza City from evacuating south, including setting up physical roadblocks

From צבא ההגנה לישראל
0:22 ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713267311061192930 )
----------------------------------------------------

margd: My dad spent a year in Suez area as a UN Peacekeeper (58/59). His impressions then were of a dry and rocky land, little guys with donkeys and veiled women, desperate thieves and incredible hospitality & generosity, Europeans zipping around in jeeps... Doesn't look much different today from his home movies of 65 years ago, though I understand the population is pretty highly educated now thanks to UN and others...

Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom |
Middle East correspondent, TheEconomist . Author, 'How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within.'

There is talk in Washington and the region about trying to pay off Egypt, which is facing a debt crisis, to host Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza. The precedent would be the debt relief that Hosni Mubarak received in 1991 for joining the Gulf war.

Can Egypt be persuaded to accept Gazan refugees?
The country’s economic vulnerability offers leverage
Oct 14th 2023 | Istanbul
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/10/14/can-egypt-be-persuade...

World Health Organization (WHO) WHO | 3:34 PM · Oct 14, 2023:

Evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured

As the UN's agency responsible for public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly condemns Israel's repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe.

The lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance: those in intensive care or who rely on life support; patients undergoing hemodialysis; newborns in incubators; women with complications of pregnancy, and others all face imminent deterioration of their condition or death if they are forced to move and are cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated.

Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds.

Forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.

Hospital directors and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice: abandon critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, put their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them.

Overwhelmingly, caregivers have chosen to stay behind and honor their oaths as health professionals to “do no harm,” rather than risk moving their critically ill patients during evacuations. Health workers should never have to make such impossible choices.

Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them as havens from violence as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. Their lives, too, are at risk when health facilities are bombed.

There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.

WHO calls for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and calls for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians.

WHO also reiterates its calls for the immediate and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance, including WHO health supplies that arrived earlier today, is currently awaiting entry.

African Cardinal Directs Parishes to “hold in prayer” Victims of Israel-Palestine Violence (ACI Africa)

Stephen Cardinal Brislin of South Africa’s Cape Town Archdiocese has directed all Parishes in his Metropolitan See to pray for those affected by the Israel-Palestine violence that he says has created a “very troubling situation” in Holy Land... Cardinal Brislin recognizes the significance of the region in conflict to Christian faith, and decries the violent conflict that started on the morning of October 7... “Our hearts and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones, those who have been maimed, those who are displaced and those who have been taken hostage.” “The violence, destruction and loss of life is deplorable and horrifying,” Cardinal Brislin says in his two-page letter dated October 13, and goes on to warn, “The conflict potentially has terrible international consequences and could easily lead to a frightening escalation of violence”... “While there are those who seek facile interpretations of the conflict, there is no single narrative that captures the full context of what is presently happening in the Holy Land”... “With Pope Francis, we call for the release of hostages. We also pray for those in Gaza who have been held under siege for so many years in what is effectively the world's largest open-air prison. Our prayers need to accompany all who find themselves hostage.” “We need to pray for the support of the many people in the Holy Land who work for a just peace,” he adds... “Peace will never be attained through the barrel of a gun and it is the peacemakers who keep the flame of hope alive in what seems like an increasingly dark situation”... “As people of faith, and especially those of the Abrahamic faiths so tied to that land, we need to turn humbly, yet urgently, to God the Creator of all, to soften the hearts of those committed to violence and to inspire them to ‘hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into billhooks (so that) nation will not lift sword against nation or ever again be trained to make war,” he says in reference to Isaiah 2:4...

I think the good cardinal's reflection that “While there are those who seek facile interpretations of the conflict, there is no single narrative that captures the full context of what is presently happening in the Holy Land” deserves attention.

...2) Israel Opens Water Pipes {to southern Gaza}

Meanwhile, Israel has opened up the water pipes leading to Southern Gaza in an attempt to get more people to evacuate from the north as the ground invasion looks to begin shortly. For several days now Israel has laid siege to the Gaza Strip, turning off all water and electricity to the area. However, in what has been deemed to be an olive branch from the Israeli military, the water has been turned back on for residents fleeing the north...

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/israel-at-war-everything-you-need-to-know-as-we...
-----------------------------------------------------
ETA:

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 10:48 AM · Oct 15, 2023:

BREAKING: Israel resumes water supply to southern Gaza Strip

Israel's decision follows intense pressure from the Biden administration over the past 48 hours

US officials reportedly told their Israeli counterparts that the evacuation to southern Gaza Strip would be empty if Palestinians didn't have water. Israel listened to this message.

I don't wish to overdo the religious posts on this thread, but since all parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are from the same religious heritage, People of the Book, أهل الكتاب , supposedly respecting the same Hebrew scriptures, it might be worth highlighting this passage from the Prophet Isaiah:

If you remove the yoke from among you, the accusing finger, and malicious speech;
If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted;
Then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday….
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined dwellings.” (Isaiah 58:9–10, 12)

>51 John5918: yes, this

Amb. Chas. Freeman was Nixon's right-hand man and translator on his visit to China in 1972 and later the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He is the caliber of diplomat that this country used to be able to produce, and now no longer wishes to hear from.

Amb. Freeman hasn't come out with anything that I'm aware of since this began, but this brief excerpt is from a speech of his just a few months ago, which gives the broad context of the present moment in... West Asia.

https://chasfreeman.net/the-middle-east-is-once-again-west-asia/

The Middle East is Once Again West Asia
Remarks to the Middle East Forum of Falmouth

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By video 6 August 2023

...
It is even harder to be optimistic about the future of Israel, which continues a march to perdition that answers those who call it out and try to halt it with baseless smears of antisemitism. Israel was born in hope. It risks ending in tragedy, a victim of hubris and deaf inattention to the lamentations and warnings of its well-wishers. Israel’s demise, if it comes, will not be imposed by the Palestinian resistance to its injustices or by the hostility of its Arab neighbors. It will be by its own hands, with more than a little help from its American friends.

Sadly, the United States has been as much the enabler of Israel’s descent into self-destructive and obnoxious practices as any person who gives money to an alcoholic to buy liquor is. Unquestioning support for Israel remains essential to extracting campaign contributions from American armchair Zionists, but it creates nothing but moral hazard for Israel and makes it an albatross around the neck of U.S. foreign relations. American subsidies for Israel and insistence on its unique exemption from the norms of international law, more than anything else, cause the world to dismiss U.S. claims to support justice, human rights, and democracy with skepticism bordering on derision. Unless and until U.S. enablement ends, Israel will persist in behavior that dishonors Judaism, makes enemies for both itself and the United States, and jeopardizes not just its moral standing but its viability as a nation state.

As re-delivered via a Swiss academic in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t_Lw8InEt8

>51 John5918: Maybe stick around to restore a ruined dwelling or a thousand?

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:57 PM · Oct 15, 2023:
BREAKING: Israel's Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog rules out occupying the Gaza Strip after the war

Herzog's full statement denying the occupation:
"We have no desire to occupy or reoccupy Gaza. We have no desire to rule over the lives of more than two million Palestinians"

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:55 PM · Oct 15, 2023:

BREAKING: Israel says it is working with the UN on creating a big humanitarian zone in southern Gaza
The humanitarian zone would allow for water, medicine and food, and would host hundreds of thousands of people

Even based on Israeli estimates, this is still short of 1.1 million who it wants to flee northern Gaza

>54 margd: We have no desire to rule over the lives of more than two million Palestinians

Well, that's a new position. Maybe democracy will break out in Israel after all!

>54 margd: sooooo why have they been doing this before now?

>47 margd: this breaks my heart

Photos UNRWA tweets
UNRWA building destroyed: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/1
12 UNRWA staff killed https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/2
----------------------------------------------------

Osaid Alser, MD, MSc(Oxon) 🗝 🇵🇸 @OsaidesserMD | 10:22 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
Palestinian refugee | Academic surgeon in-training |

I am heartbroken
#RIP Dr Omar Ferwana, former dean of my medical school @IUGAZA and his daughter who’s also another physician along with his wife, kids/grandchildren as his house was targeted by #IOF {#IDF ?}. I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target 😞 #MedTwitter #NotATarget
Photo ( https://twitter.com/OsaidesserMD/status/1713379730945163282/photo/1 )

double post

>57 cindydavid4: I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target

The simple answer is they're not a legitimate target. It's a war crime.

ETA: CBC Radio reports that Israel and Hamas both deny a cesaefire to allow supplies to enter Gaza from Egypt.
(7 am 16 Oct 2023) :(

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus {WHO} @DrTedros | 2:20 AM · Oct 16, 2023:

Very relieved about reports of a ceasefire allowing life-saving supplies to enter into Gaza from Egypt. WHO's planeload of medical supplies arrived near Rafah on Saturday and we are working with partners to transport them into Gaza today if at all possible. Many civilians are in serious need.
_______________________________________

Gaza Hospitals Will Likely Run Out of Fuel in Just a Few Hours, UN Warns
‘RUNNING DRY’
The World Health Organization said that forcing sick and injured patients to flee hospitals in northern Gaza was a “death sentence.”
AJ McDougall | Oct. 16, 2023

Gaza hospitals were running dangerously low on fuel on Sunday, jeopardizing the lives of thousands of sick and injured patients as an expected ground offensive by Israeli forces looms.

The United Nations’ humanitarian office, OCHA, said that its monitors expected fuel supplies could be totally depleted by Monday. The hospitals will be unable to operate without fuel to power their generators. Other basic supplies, like food, water, and medicine, are also dwindling...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gaza-hospitals-likely-to-run-out-of-fuel-in-24-hou...
_______________________________________

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Middle East is on the "verge of the abyss" as he called on the Islamist-militant group Hamas to immediately release hostages being held in Gaza.

DW | 16 Oct 2023
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-un-says-middle-east-on-verge-of-abyss/liv...

>54 margd: George Conway: "This is a Trumpian level of narcissism."

Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 2:18 PM · Oct 15, 2023:
🇮🇱Israel🇵🇸 Palestine reporter♥️🇦🇷🇨🇭🥩🍷PostNews... {Jerusalem}

💥#Breaking Netanyahu's office ordered the government 𝐧𝐨𝐭 to cooperate with the team established by the Defense Ministry to rebuild destroyed southern communities, because the man appointed to head the Gen (ret) Roni Numa, is active in the protest movement. @HauserTov

Photo ( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1713620306873500097/photo/1 )

10.15.23 9:45 PM ET As the Israeli War continues, CNN's Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins hosts Lt General Mark Hertling* US Army (ret) @MarkHertling on set. "Most of these 300,000 reservists come from civilian jobs, not trained for combat" "City of trails underground" pertaining to Gaza City Full Segment

07:11 ( https://twitter.com/jeffstorobinsky/status/1713735264617533925 )
_________________________________________

* Mark Phillip Hertling is a former United States Army officer. From March 2011 to November 2012, he served as the Commanding General of United States Army Europe and the Seventh Army. Hertling served in Armor, Cavalry, planning, operations and training positions, and commanded every organization from Platoon to Field Army. (Wikipedia)

Hamas took UNWRA fuel and medical equipment after UNWRA compelled to evacuate its headquarters in Gaza City... {Israeli missile attack?} 😡grr

UNRWA @UNRWA | 7:58 AM · Oct 16, 2023:

🛑STATEMENT 👇
@UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities in #Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in 📍#GazaCity

Our staff were compelled to evacuate @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza city on a few hours’ notice during the night of Friday 13 October.
Since then, @UNRWA has had no access to the compound and no additional details about the removal of the assets.

Security cameras that cover the entrance / exit to the @UNRWA compound were damaged further to blasts from the conflict in previous days & ceased to operate.

@UNRWA fuel & other types of material are kept for strictly humanitarian purposes - any other use is strongly condemned.

If there is no food, water or medical for Palestinians the likelihood is there is no food, water or medical for the hostages that Hamas took among which are some elderly and some very, very young. Now and again I've heard comments of rescue plans by Israeli special forces none of which seem at all realistic particularly if they're not all in one place which is very likely the case. For me getting those taken hostage back should have been the main priority for the Israeli govt. from the beginning but apparently their euphemism of 'mowing the lawn' is their primary objective. Not surprising from a right wing govt. but disappointing nonetheless. Their objective of destroying Hamas over the dead bodies of non-combatants and probably at great cost to the IDF seems the way they're going to go while western powers like the U.S., Britain and France throw semi-enthusiastic encouragement their way from the sidelines along with some war materials. It's not a good look for anyone.

>64 lriley: Israel was caught so unprepared and Netanyahu govt seems so unstrategic, unimaginative. Depending on reserve soldiers--are there no Entebbe types to undertake surgical rescue?? No cave and tunnel experts like US has? If not, I fear that Hamas's brutal strike will spark exactly what it wants--a fight on its territory & its terms, a wider conflict, and many more deaths. Heard on radio that Hamas has ~ 200 hostages, God help them...

>64 lriley: Read somewhere that Biden's embrace of Netanyahu is at least in part an attempt to have some influence on him?

>66 margd: There is that but also there are American citizens who were killed and others taken hostage by Hamas. The concern for getting hostages back is not just an Israeli thing.

Speaking to #65 what I've heard also is that a lot of Israeli soldiers who had been posted near the Gaza Strip have in recent months been moved into the West Bank to help settlers there illegally take more land from Palestinians. I also remember hearing reports that Hamas on bringing hostages back to Gaza saying they were going to keep them in multiple separate locations within the territory and it's no doubt to stave off such a rescue operation. 150/200 people in any case would call for a massive rescue operation that could just as easily fail. And then you do have elderly people and very very young children and the likelihood is that even in the best case scenario some of them would die. Negotiating for them is the best idea and if any of the hostages were my relative that's I'd want to see.

Updates today from
Alastair Crooke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5hpJZ2uNRc

and Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCh6sbTTnHI

Jerusalem Catholic Patriarch offers to be exchanged for Gaza hostages (Citizen)

Pope Francis' representative in the Holy Land said on Monday he was willing to exchange himself for Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas and held in Gaza. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, made his comment in response to a question during a video conference with journalists in Italy. "I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part," he said. "The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping (an escalation). We are willing to help, even me personally," he said...

I heard on Cdn news that the old and disabled, unable to evacuate, are seeking sanctuary at the only RC church in Gaza. Muslims as well as Christians. Thousand? Supplies are desperately low.

>66 margd: contd. Nine hours and counting...

Edward Wong {NYT} @ewong | 9:36 PM · Oct 16, 2023:

.@SecBlinken negotiated for 9 hours w/ Netanyahu & aides to get them to agree to form a plan to get aid into Gaza & look at setting up “safe zones” for civilians, a senior State Dept. official said. Biden asked Blinken on Sunday to return to Israel after Blinken met w/ Sisi.

Photo Blinken ( https://twitter.com/ewong/status/1714092930640626095/photo/1 )
_____________________________________________

The White House WhiteHouse | 9:18 PM · Oct 16, 2023

On Wednesday, President Biden will travel to Israel to demonstrate his steadfast support for Israel in the face of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack and to consult on next steps.
.@POTUS will then travel to Amman, Jordan, where he will meet with his Majesty King Abdullah, Egyptian President Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
In Jordan, President Biden will reiterate that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discuss the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza.

Doctors in Gaza refuse to leave critically ill infants (Reuters. NYT)
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/sendtoadnan/status/1714272229075357836 )

Mustafa Akyol @AkyolinEnglish
Senior Fellow on Islam and modernity at @CatoInstitute . Senior Lecturer at @BostonCollege.

Thanks to the rabbis who joined the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume: the six year old boy who was brutally murdered {stabbed 26x by 71YO landlord who once helped him build a treehouse, then listened to talk radio...} just for being Muslim & Palestinian.

This is what we Muslims and Jews need: Caring for innocents of the "other side."

This is what will save us from today's darkness.

Quote
Yashar Ali 🐘 yashar | 8:54 PM · Oct 16, 2023:
HuffPost/NY Mag

A group of Chicago area Rabbis attended the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the six year old Palestinian-American boy who was brutally murdered by his landlord due to his ethnicity and religion.

Rabbi Ari Hart explains why the Rabbis attended the funeral:

“The Jerusalem Talmud teaches that the Jewish people are obligated to comfort the mourners of our people and of all people because of darchei shalom - the paths of peace.

Today, a group of rabbis of us went to the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six year old Muslim boy who was killed in his home by his depraved landlord because he was Palestinian and Muslim.

This picture is with the imam of the mosque where the funeral was held. We met with the Imam, heard from the father, and stood with the boy’s community as they mourned this horrific loss. We witnessed the pain. We expressed our shock and condemnation of the attack. We wept.

I can’t say that it was simple to be there.
These are not simple times.

But the murder of a six year old because of his faith and his identity is not complicated. It is a heinous crime. And that’s why we went today.

These days it really feels like the world has lost its way.

But I can’t give up on trying, yearning, dreaming, even right now, of finding the way to shalom. The way to peace.”

Photo ( https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1714082508810436715/photo/1 )

Not the Kamal Adwan Hopital in >72 margd:.

World Health Organization (WHO) WHO | 3:10 PM · Oct 17, 2023:

WHO statement on attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and reported large-scale casualties

WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. The hospital was operational, with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there. Early reports indicate hundreds of fatalities and injuries.

The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military. The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced.

WHO calls for the immediate active protection of civilians and health care. Evacuation orders must be reversed. International humanitarian law must be abided by, which means health care must be actively protected and never targeted.

WHO statement on attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and reported large-scale casualties
WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and WHO in occupied Palestinian territory
----------------------------------------

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:33 PM · Oct 17, 2023:

...I am...not assigning responsibility for the attack Israeli media is claiming its a failed Hamas rocket strike, so this is important to keep into account until we have more evidence to confirm or refute

>74 margd: On the hospital attack we might not know for sure for a while but my gut tells me it was an Israeli warplane. Yes the Palestinian groups have rockets and they've used them in the past and they can for sure be lethal but to kill somewhere around 500 people in one go.....something of that nature I don't think they've ever had. It seems to me that's a for real manufactured for a warplane to drop on someone or something bomb.

I was watching Nicole Wallace of MSNBC and she really wanted to believe the Israelis that it was Hamas or another Palestinian group but her on the ground reporter was pretty skeptical about that. Let's keep in mind that the Israelis have target assassinated a lot of Palestinians over the years and that it's a pretty sure thing they've been using white phosphorous on Gaza City which is a war crime on its own. They're very capable of doing something like this. Not likely but can't rule out some kind of accident either.

>75 lriley: As far as I can tell, the only reason the Israelis are letting water in at all is because the Americans made them. The Israeli government had been making noises about cutting off all water until the hostages were released.

If someone killed my child I’d want bloody revenge. But I’d be wrong – as is the Israeli government (Guardian)

I fear there will be terrible slaughter in Gaza, and leaders in the UK and the US seem willing to aid and sanction it... I feel such futility in writing this, as Israel’s military has stated its plan to commit effective genocide in Gaza... I’m American but I live in the UK, so I pay taxes to two countries that would explicitly aid and sanction this genocide. This genocide would be carried out with US and British weapons... Jewish and Muslim ghosts guided me better during my time of greatest pain than today’s presidents and prime minsters and newspaper owners are guiding us today. They profane the memory of those killed and those to be killed...

>75 lriley: Why bomb a hospital I wonder--knowing how badly Arabs and the world would take it? Had Hamas hidden something under the hospital, making it a target for Israel? But then, Biden was travelling for meeting with Israel today (Oct 18) and on to Jordan to meet with PLO, Egyptian, and Jordanian leaders, that meeting now cancelled. Could someone have wanted to scuttle that meeting enough to bomb a HOSPITAL?! An Anglican hospital... ( That would be a twofer for. Russia...)

>77 John5918: Wish Israel's leaders gave some thought as to what Hamas thought Israel reaction would be, what they were prepared for, before resorting to usual hammer. A hammer provided by the US, but nonetheless...

>79 margd:

Agreed. A parallel case is perhaps the USA's 9/11. If Osama bin Laden's objective was to destabilise western society, to undermine western values and the international rule of law, to attract to his cause and to radicalise disenchanted youth, and to create a climate of fear and instability in the western world, then his initial attack may have failed, but the USA's kneejerk, mindless, pointless, fruitless, barbaric and often illegal revenge attacks have achieved for him all of his goals and probably more than he could have hoped for. But capitalists should be happy, as the military-industrial complex and the security industry have become richer and more powerful.

Another of my favorite voices, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's old chief of staff) puts in his two cents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fjX_lUnwhM

ETA LINK:

Israel Defense Forces IDF | 3:46 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gaza—the IDF did not.
Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves:
1:01 ( https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1714548529538953637 )
________________________________________
ETA

Eylon Levy @EylonALevy | 4:01 AM · Oct 18, 2023
Israeli Government Spokesman. Former International Media Advisor to the President of Israel. Oxbridge grad, IDF vet.

2. Security cam footage from Netiv Haasara (destroyed by Hamas death squads on October 7) shows the same incident: a large barrage of rockets from northern Gaza, followed by a massive blast in the Strip.
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1714552325988053127 )
From Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian

4. The IDF releases Air Force footage from before and after the failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch, showing no visible signs of craters that might have been caused by IAF ordinances or significant damage to buildings.
0:33 ( https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1714552330605973966 )
From Israel Defense Forces
__________________________________________
ETA (looks like bedding of evacuees?)

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 5:17 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
analyst @CNA_org

Update on the chapel at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the building lost several of its stained glass windows in the explosion, but otherwise appears to be intact.

0:20 ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714571497820307470 )
__________________________________________
ETA

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 6:22 AM · Oct 18, 2023:

Possible impact crater at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza, roughly 1x1 meter, maybe 30cm deep.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714587746612740278 )
__________________________________________
ETA

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 7:47 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
Of note, casualty-wise, I can confirm a number, probably 30-50, IDPs (internally displaced persons) were sheltering on the lawn in the courtyard of the Ahli Hospital in the red highlighted area.

They took the worst of the blast, many of their bodies were badly burnt.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714609125236129929/photo/1 )

Biden: I caution this while you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the US. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes… The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.
0:56 ( https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1714647415637098894 )

- Acyn @Acyn | 10:19 AM · Oct 18, 2023

President Biden @POTUS | 9:12 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
I'm proud to be in Israel to honor the courage, commitment, and bravery of the Israeli people.
Americans are grieving with you following last week’s terror attacks.

آزاد رینــچ @NaikRooh
America is something you can easily manoeuvre
2:30 ( https://twitter.com/NaikRooh/status/1714630477825409068 )

>84 margd: It would be nice if Isreal realized this

>86 cindydavid4: I've been amazed at the generosity of spirit of some of the hostages' families who don't want anyone to suffer as they do.

Surprised that murdered and missing come from 41 states reportedly--42 counting Israel.
https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1713870362423804001/photo/1

Like 911--a lot of nationalities and creeds among the victims...
There was even a Palestinian among Oct 7 victims apparently--an ambulance driver attempting to rescue...a hero.

Another voice worth hearing: Norman Finkelstein in conversation with Chris Hedges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0aemeCbRTk

Many will not like what Finkelstein has to say, but he takes a remarkably good stab at interpreting the situation through the lens of the American Abolitionist tradition.

International Crisis Group calls for Ceasefire in Gaza (ICG)

Whoever bears responsibility for the blast killing hundreds in a hospital, the toll of the Gaza war is far too high. Western leaders should join calls for a pause to save lives, prevent fighting from spreading, and give diplomacy a chance. Israel should pause the bombing to allow a real humanitarian corridor to open. In parallel, it could outline to Western partners its terms for a permanent ceasefire that would include a way to deal with Hamas and the question of Gaza’s future governance. Hamas, meanwhile, should release the hostages it and other militants hold. In the longer term, world leaders need to put Palestinian national aspirations back on their agendas. The 7 October attacks dispel the idea that Israel can wall itself off without addressing the political question.

Taking Gaza City compared to Mariupol...

How Israel is training for urban warfare
Frank Hofmann | 19 Oct 2023

The Israeli military is one of the best-trained armies in the world when it comes to urban warfare. But even the best training can only begin to prepare it for the type of combat it would face in Gaza... {civilians, hostages, tunnels, world opinion}

https://www.dw.com/en/how-israel-is-training-for-urban-warfare/a-67134424
__________________________________
civilians, hostages, proportionality, applicability, war crimes, sieges

DW News @dwnews | 10:34 PM · Oct 18, 2023:

Are the international laws on armed conflicts being violated in the Israel-Hamas war? We asked two legal experts.
4:02 ( https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1714832446955634809 )

Rim Turkmani @Rim_Turkmani | 9:34 AM · Oct 19, 2023:
PI of http://syrianconstitution.org Research Director of Syria Research Prog @LSE_CCRG, writer on history of Arabic/Islamic science. Ex Astrophysicist @imperialcollege

This speech by Prince Turki al-Faisal {a Saudi prince and former government official who served as the head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency} is, in my view the best to come so far from an #Arab leading figure on the current atrocities in #Gaza & #Israel. Clear condemnation of Hamas's violations against civilians that he anchored in local and Islamic values rather than international law, which makes it more relatable to many. He is also very clear on the Israeli's violations and of those in the region who aided #Hamas.
He reminds people that 'Two wrongs don't make a right'

3:52 ( https://twitter.com/Rim_Turkmani/status/1714998338825666820 )

God help us all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/19/israel-news-hamas-war-gaza/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/state-department-worldwide-alert/index.h...

>92 davidgn: I'm pretty skeptical still that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the hospital. The cemetery the Israelis claim the missile came from is almost adjacent to the hospital (from what I've heard) and it would have been impossible from the angle the missile came from. Let's just say that the Israelis counterintelligence was caught with its pants down for weeks about the attack anyway and now they're back on top of things again listening in on Palestine fighters? It doesn't take a lot to cobble together a tape either. Almost anyone could do it. Back in the 80's there was a thing called Thatchergate that was perpetrated by the British anarchopunk band Crass during the Falklands War that had the United States, British and Russian counterintelligence scrambling for weeks. A couple of their members put together a conversation between Thatcher and Reagan and leaked it out of Germany in which Thatcher tells Reagan that she allowed the HMS Sheffield to be sunk to get more of the British public on her side and Reagan tells her in the event of a Soviet attack on bordering Nato countries he was willing to let them be destroyed like guinea pigs. About a year afterwards British counterintelligence ended up at the Dial House in Essex north of London where Jeremy Ratter (aka Penny Rimbaud) Crass's drummer lived and Ratter admitted they were behind the hoax.

Apparently there are weapons from North Korea that have been smuggled into Gaza. It makes me hesitate a little. The Palestinians in Gaza have shot off thousands and thousands over the past decade + and what the Israelis are telling us is this one rocket of theirs has killed about 25/30 times as many people in one go than what all those thousands and thousands of rockets have killed in decades which is somewhere around 30 people. I simply don't buy that at all and I wouldn't think American counterintelligence does either. So unless they can for real link something like the North Koreans into this.....no, it's not believable.

Keeping in mind as well this link to AIPAC

http://www.aipac.org/resources/the-aipac-pac-in-2022-2as6c

269 house members, 57 Senators both parties but also the leadership of the parties endorsed, very often with their campaigns funded by organizations which work under the umbrella of AIPAC. Israel is considered a close ally and the majority of members of congress including 37 election denying Republicans---for Biden do you buck all that? Probably not. At best you kick it down the road a few months let the Israelis mow their lawn and when the dust settles---oh, okay maybe they didn't do it. That way things can go on in the United States as they've gone on.

>93 lriley: Yabbut, the US satellite photos (as well as other releases in #83 ) seem to support that the hospital was damaged by Jihad/Hamas rocket. Shallow small crater in/near parking lot, where most damage occurred. No structural damage to hospital or chapel. Convenient though, to inflame opinion and cancel Biden meeting, but to incinerate your own people and risk more in hospital?? I can't believe they are that cynical. (Putin, Wagner, however...)

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 10:19 PM · Oct 18, 2023:
{Analyst. CNA is a nonprofit research and analysis organization dedicated to the safety and security of the nation. Arlington VA}

Full pull of 50cm SkySat imagery via @SkyWatchApps showing the Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on 10/17 and 10/18.
Imagery from the afternoon of 10/18 can be seen below. The central courtyard and parking area have been highlighted in red.
Satellite photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828700477219017/photo/1 )

Looking closer primarily serves to confirm that IDF aerial imagery and local Gazan media images were accurate. The surrounding buildings are primarily intact, and rooftop solar panels remain attached.
Satellite photo close-up ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828704285606093/photo/1 )

I will note that imagery from the day of the explosion (10/17) shows a bit better of a look into the courtyard.
The courtyard itself appears to be fairly empty, this may be because IDPs were primarily using it for overnight shelter.
Satellite photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828706202493211/photo/1 )

In that vein, Anglican bishop Hosam Naoum did say that people were known to have flocked to the hospital as a sanctuary site after local strikes.
He also confirmed that the hospital would remain open.
Stream link, both at 1:40 and 2:40. { https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828708186370134 }

Full imagery, 10/18 on the left, 10/17 (pre-explosion) on the right.
The graveyard mentioned in the call released by the IDF can be seen to the west of the hospital complex. No clear differences can be discerned between today and yesterday.
Satellite photos
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828709650202715/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828709650202715/photo/2

Quick overlay of other footage seen on the graphic.
Overall, no, there isn't a "smoking gun" here that can be easily pointed to.
Satellite photo w aerial inserts { https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714828711688605703/photo/1 }

Missiles were headed north over Saudi Arabia as well as Israel. (Some discussion on whether Houthis have missiles that can reach Israel.) The US warship was in Red Sea.

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 6:17 PM · Oct 19, 2023:
DPhil/PhD Intl Relations @UniofOxford Assoc Fellow @RUSI_org Geopolitical Risk Consultant Author

The US says it intercepted 3 land based cruise missiles and 8 drones on their way from Yemen to potentially reach Israel. SM2 missiles thwarted an attack
The Houthis were not intending to target the USS Carney itself
https://abcnews.go.com/International/security-incident-involving-us-navy-destroy...

The Houthis have consistently embraced an anti-Semitic ideology with the slogan "Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews' featuring prominently
The Houthis have also carried out forced expulsions of Yemeni Jews, most recently in 2021 /2

The Houthis has some ties to Hezbollah and Hamas
The Houthi leadership has vowed to fight alongside Hezbollah in a future war with Israel and has sent delegations to meet with Hassan Nasrallah
Mohammed al-Houthi also had a controversial 2021 photo-op with Hamas /3

The exact scope of Houthi coordination with other Iran-aligned proxy militias is likely limited
Saudi Arabia claimed to have killed Hezbollah-linked figures in airstrikes in Yemen, but it is far more likely that these groups will act independently /4
____________________________________-

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 3:44 PM · Oct 19, 2023:

Pentagon Press Sec confirms USS Carney shot down three land attack missiles and several drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces. Pentagon cannot say for certain what they were targeting, but said they were heading north along Red Sea, “potentially toward targets in Israel.”

First on CNN; US Navy warship operating in MidEast intercepted multiple projectiles near coast of Yemen, two US officials told CNN.
One official said missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi militants, who engaged in conflict in Yemen. W/⁦⁦@OrenCNN⁩ https://cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/us-navy-intercept-missiles-yemen

UN participants turn their backs to the US Ambassador in the Human Rights Committee, protesting the vetoes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkhv0rbole4

To me it doesn't really matter who fired that particular rocket, or any other rocket. Both sides have created a situation where civilians are being killed, which is both a war crime and a tragedy. Both sides are to blame, and indeed blame games against one side or the other are an attempt to deflect that reality. Stop the war.

>97 John5918: truth, but how to stop it? or can it be stopped?

Vahid Beheshti @Vahid_Beheshti | 11:47 AM · Oct 19, 2023:
Journalist & HR Activist - http://t.me/DORRTV 📍Current Location: FCDO, London, UK

An accidental admission on the Islamic Republic's state-run TV about the vast presence of armed trained forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps* in Gaza. They tried to fix it, but it was too late. The IRGC's involvement in this brutal war is undeniable. What more does the UK government need to recognise the IRGC as a terrorist organisation? ...
1:21 ( https://twitter.com/Vahid_Beheshti/status/1715031856586891531 )

* The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also called Sepah or Pasdaran, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khomeini as a military branch in May 1979, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. (Wikipedia)

Worth a read.

UN chief calls for sustained humanitarian access to Gaza as trucks set to roll in
Egypt-Gaza crossing scheduled to open Friday, allowing aid to enter Gaza for first time since start of war
AFP and ToI Staff | 19 October 2023
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-chief-calls-for-sustained-humanitarian-access-t...

The Week When Biden Hugged Bibi
The President, fresh off a grim trip to the Middle East, makes the case for funding Israel’s war—and Ukraine’s, too.
Susan B. Glasser | October 20, 2023

...Hours after Biden landed back in Washington, I heard a grim prognosis about the conflict from a source familiar with the President’s trip and the days of intensive shuttle diplomacy to seven countries in the region by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that preceded it. How grim? Some senior Israeli officials told the Americans to expect a war that could last as long as ten years...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-week-when-biden...

>94 margd: The Al Jazeera video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNLvL_8SeY

>97 John5918: I agree entirely. And to be clear on who the "sides" are, this is not a war of Israelis versus Palestinians, this is two gangs of thugs, each of them concerned with maintaining their own power and willing to kill as many people as necessary to achieve that goal. Doesn't matter much to them who dies, as long as they get to be the boss.
And the losing side is always going to be the ordinary people, Palestinian or Israeli, who have to suffer and die and pay for cleaning up the mess.

>103 kiparsky: this is not a war of Israelis versus Palestinians... And the losing side is always going to be the ordinary people, Palestinian or Israeli

Precisely.

>98 cindydavid4: "but how to stop it? or can it be stopped?"

Precisely. We're all ears...

Any divinity or alien looking on as people fight for power / land / resources /revenge, must shake their heads at our priorities as our planet collapses around us...

Those poor people (the hostages)...

Hamas’s Hostage-Taking Handbook Says to ‘Kill the Difficult Ones’ and Use Hostages as ‘Human Shields’
The document, which I obtained from an Israeli official, also suggests that Hamas did not plan to take hostages back to Gaza.
Graeme Wood | October 19, 2023

...The manual suggests that the group at first intended not to spirit all of them into Gaza, but instead to take them hostage where they were found inside Israel, possibly for a protracted standoff...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/hamas-hostage-taking-manual/67...
________________________________________

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 3:40 PM · Oct 20, 2023:

U.S. mother and daughter Natalie and Judith Raanan who were taken hostage by Hamas, have been released.
Reportedly, the release was able to happen due to mediation efforts by Qatar.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1715452994894860432/photo/1 )

I think it's kind of important to find the truth on whether it was an accidental missile explosion caused by a Palestinian group at the hospital or a deliberately targeted bombing by the Israeli Air Force. As well if there is going to be peace the right wing Netanyahu government continuing to illegally annex territory in the West Bank to the benefit of settlers has to stop along with the bombing campaign in Gaza. To my eyes anyway it's hard not to see these combined efforts and the lack of civil rights for Palestinians as a state policy of ethnic cleansing.

Israel cited the Al Jazeera clip I linked above as proof that it was a missile. Al Jazeera then looked at the same clip and concluded something different that the last missile was destroyed in the air by Israel moments before the explosion at the hospital. At least to them that wasn't it.

Nothing above absolves Hamas of the crimes they committed on Oct. 7 but I do think context in all things here is important and that what was going on in the West Bank, the dire living conditions in Gaza, and Israel's international moves with other Arab states etc. were provocations that Israel could and should have refrained from. The day they begin talking to their Palestinian counterparts looking for real solutions will be most welcome. I think the present Israeli govt. will have to go though for that to happen. What I'm getting as the mood of Israeli citizens currently does at least leave me a little optimistic that that kind of change might be on the horizon.

The Israel Defense Ministry in a statement Friday said the majority of the 200 people taken hostage by Hamas are still alive, according to CNN. The IDF said about 10-20 of the hostages are over the age of 60; over 20 are under the age of 18.

Heres the link to the entire story

https://www.azcentral.com/israel-war-hamas/ the above is at the bottom

so what the hell does that mean? those poor families I cant imagine how they mus t be feeling.....

Jeffrey Sachs: How to avoid all-out war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1twSIKyWhM

And a short overview of the deadly strategic peril of the moment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vacDom3adc
(Longer, if you like):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq1SjC7u8l0
"Why do we want to do this? Why are we not containing this?" (I don't like the Colonel's politics, but his capsule summary of the military situation is useful)

Biden's speech throwing fuel on the fire (with a couple old CIA guys).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV2sYw2R2MM
"Lighting a match to pile of dry kindling."

>107 lriley: I don't like this either, Larry.
Jonathan Cook has a very strong opinion. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-18/ahli-hospital-gaza-gaslit/

>105 margd:

There's no simple answer, of course. But Israel's international friends, particularly the USA but also UK and others, need to stop giving unquestioning support to Israel while it continues to commit war crimes and other human rights abuses; their current stance actually encourages continued violence. While continuing to unequivocally support Israel's right to exist as a state, they also have to support Palestinians' right to a state (some form of the "two state" solution which both protagonists formally agreed many years ago), and hold all sides accountable to international law and norms (which includes pressuring Israel to abide by the many UN resolutions which Israel currently ignores, encouraged by the USA). They have to recognise that being a friend of the current ruling regime in Israel is not the same as being a friend to Israel nor to the Israeli people. Ultimately both the Israeli people and the Palestinians will be better off when they have reached a negotiated settlement. There will never be a military "victory" by either side.

>107 lriley: I think it's kind of important to find the truth on whether it was an accidental missile explosion caused by a Palestinian group at the hospital or a deliberately targeted bombing by the Israeli Air Force.

I think that the explosion of a missile is not usually considered an accident - that's what they're meant to do.

It's honestly not clear to me at all how it would make a difference whether that particular missile was launched by one side or another. What would we know after settling this question that we don't know now? That Hamas/the IDF is willing to use indiscriminate force against a civilian population? Yeah, we know that. That the men giving orders to both armed factions have nothing but contempt for civilians who made the mistake of living where the bombs are falling? Yeah, got that too. I can't see what would change about my view of this situation if I had a definitive answer to that question.

Saudi prince slams Hamas, Israel and the West (BBC)

A speech made by Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia this week on the current violence in the Middle East is unusually frank for a senior member of the Saudi royal family. It has been widely acknowledged as the clearest indicator yet of the Saudi leadership's thinking on the situation. Prince Turki, a widely respected elder statesman in Saudi circles, has publicly condemned both Hamas and Israel for attacking civilians, following Hamas's 7 October attack on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza. There were no heroes, he said, only victims...

Us against the world, again.
https://apnews.com/article/un-security-council-resolution-gaza-hamas-1c23913f855...
This will not end well.

>114 davidgn:

I note the irony in the US Ambassador's comment "We need to let that diplomacy play out”, when current US policy is actually encouraging violence to "play out", and the UN resolution which the US vetoed is in fact a potentially important element of diplomacy.

I also note the irony that Israel is very happy with the UN resolution which fell in their favour by creating the state of Israel in 1948, but ignores any resolutions which hold them to account.

>115 John5918: Something tells me he was mostly referring to this (and the like). https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-breaking-evanston-hamas-hostages...
Have to get the U.S. passports out before letting the sky fall.
I honestly would not be surprised if that's what this comes down to.

>112 kiparsky: But Israel's bombing campaign continues and what does that tell us? Well.....they continue to bomb and if they target churches what else are they targeting? Past practice tells us that when Palestinian missiles explode there is not much payload. Only on rare occasions have they killed anyone. A real bomb used in an airstrike though comes with a much more serious and impactful explosion. Apparently the Israelis bombed a Greek Orthodox Church last night killing a number of civilians taking refuge there. I read a story several hours ago that had former Michigan republican congressman Justin Amash saying that several members of his (extended?) family who lived in Gaza died in that bombing.....he had pictures up of two of them. To jog people's memories about Amash.....he'd been in Congress for several terms and was the republican calling for Trump's impeachment pretty much before anybody even in the Democratic congressional caucus. Think 2017/18. I don't agree much at all with his politics but he struck me as a person of conviction with strong moral character. He was a good two years ahead of Matt Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and he paid a political price for his convictions as the rest of his caucus pretty much drove him out of the party.

>116 davidgn:

Maybe so, but if a ceasefire could be negotiated, the release of hostages would be part of it. Escalating the violence doesn't look to me like a very good way of getting hostages released unharmed. Maybe it looks good in the USA's bizarre electoral circus?

Jewish Voice for Peace and Israelis against Apartheid are calling for Israeli citizens in Israel and abroad to sign their petition https://act.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/a/israelis-demand-ceasefire

>111 John5918: I think that is what Biden is trying to do.

Justin Amash lost several relatives in Israeli air strike that hit an Orthodox church in Gaza. A Palestinian/Syrian-American / Michiganian, Amash served in Congress for ten years, where he was the first R congressman to call for the impeachment of Donal Trump.

DW News @dwnews | 5:13 PM · Oct 20, 2023:
At least 16 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, where displaced Palestinians were taking shelter.
1:11 ( https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1715476411027165356 )
-----------------------------------------------

Justin Amash @justinamash | 4:48 PM · Oct 20, 2023:
libertarian • member of Congress, 2011-2021

I was really worried about this. 😔 With great sadness, I have now confirmed that several of my relatives (including Viola and Yara pictured here) were killed at Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza, where they had been sheltering, when part of the complex was destroyed as the result of an Israeli airstrike. Give rest, O Lord, to their souls, and may their memories be eternal.

The Palestinian Christian community has endured so much. Our family is hurting badly. May God watch over all Christians in Gaza—and all Israelis and Palestinians who are suffering, whatever their religion or creed.

Photo ( https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1715470077196194068/photo/1 )
______________________________________
Similarly, an Israeli who lost parents to Hamas on 10/7:

Mehdi Hasan {MSNBC} | @mehdirhasan | 1:19 PM · Oct 20, 2023:

"Cry with me and our tears will heal the wounds from both sides, our tears will wash the blood from the ground... and we will be able to see the path to peace."

One of the saddest, and most powerful, interviews I have done for a while.

"War is not the answer... war will never be the answer... me & my family, we are seeking no revenge. We are seeking peace & equality."

Hamas killed Israeli @maozinon's parents last week & yet, as he told me today, he opposes Israel's bombing of Gaza:
2:07 ( https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1715417529642885334 )

>105 margd: "Any divinity or alien looking on as people fight for power / land / resources /revenge, must shake their heads at our priorities as our planet collapses around us..."

Sharon's Rules for Talking About Israel/Palestine
Sharon Astyk | 9 October 2023

...4. This is a climate change problem as well. There is a very good chance we are starting a global war over a place where NEITHER national group will be able to live in 50 years due to extreme heat and lack of water...

https://ko-fi.com/post/Sharons-Rules-for-Talking-About-IsraelPalestine-I2I5PZ830

>107 lriley: >112 kiparsky: Etc.
To the extent that it matters:
Max Blumenthal chalks it up as a JDAM or similar. He points out that the Obama administration sent JDAMs to Israel as a consolation while putting together the Iran deal. Perhaps the present Israeli administration is now deploying them as a self-consolation for the not-entirely-besieging-Gaza deal. The audio and video comparisons are superficially convincing.

https://youtu.be/iXx5_hlx9kM?si=7kJvnpxfgcnwiuju&t=145

The Fog of War, and the Deadly Toll of Reporting from Gaza and Israel (51:35)
NPR On the Media | October 20, 2023

More than twenty journalists have been killed during the recent Israel-Hamas conflict. On this week's On the Media, hear about the deadly challenges facing reporters on the ground. Plus, why comparisons of the Hamas attack on October 7th to September 11th serve as a warning for the geopolitical fallout that may lie ahead.
1. OTM host Brooke Gladstone (@OTMBrooke) on the worsening fog of war surrounding Israel and Palestine, and the confusion and disinformation in the coverage of the conflict.
2. OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger (@MicahLoewinger) and Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, on the sharp rise in cases of violence against reporters in Gaza and Israel.
3. Tareq Baconi, president of the board of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and David Klion (@DavidKlion), contributing editor at Jewish Currents, on why comparisons of 9/11 to the Hamas attack forewarn us of geopolitical conflict.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

Margaret Brennan (CBS) @margbrennan | 9:55 AM · Oct 21, 2023

In Cairo, Jordan’s King Abdullah says Islam, 1000 years before the Geneva Conventions, ordered soldiers not to kill a child, a woman or old person, destroy a tree, harm a priest or destroy a church. “These are the rules of engagement that Muslims must accept & abide by….”
Text excerpt ( https://twitter.com/margbrennan/status/1715728484243325079/photo/1 )

How Biden Bigfooted Bibi The American president has captured Israeli hearts. Can he rein in the Israeli government?
Noga Tarnopolsky | 21 Oct 2023
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-how-joe-biden-bigfooted...

>125 margd:

Back in the 1990s UNICEF were teaching the Geneva Conventions to rebel soldiers in Sudan using an innovative approach, asking them what were the traditional rules of warfare in their own cultures. Same type of answers: warriors can kill warriors, but not women, children or the elderly; crops and houses shouldn't be destroyed; cattle could be taken but not killed, etc. At the end of the seminar, the soldiers would be told that basically they already know the Conventions, now go and implement them.

Samuel Ramani (Oxford)@SamRamani2 | 9:51 AM · Oct 21, 2023:

BREAKING: Switzerland launches investigation into Hamas financing
Unlike the EU, Britain and the US, Switzerland does not deem Hamas to be a terrorist organization
Investigating financial flows to Hamas-linked entities is harder without that legal foundation. But Switzerland is responding to intense pressure to take action

Coincidentally, Iraq (Foreign Minister? Shiite) recently visited Putin.

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 9:48 AM · Oct 21, 2023:

BREAKING: Iran-backed militias in Iraq say the United States should leave its bases immediately
The US has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria
Iraq's Iranian proxy militias threaten an escalation on the Jordan border in tandem with Israel's ground invasion of the Gaza Strip
Noteworthy, as clashes in the West Bank flare and Jordan is stepping up anti-Israel rhetoric

So sad...

Footage recaps the last 2 weeks in Gaza in 30 seconds
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/sparkle0100/status/1715638393705542114 )

-Sparkle @sparkle0100 | 3:57 AM · Oct 21, 2023
IT Specialist…(Chelsea FC)💙..(Wizkid FC)🦅… DM for adverts & promotions…Business DM(Go straight to the point)

Gazans working in Israel ended up in prison?

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 9:43 AM · Oct 21, 2023:

Palestinians in Israeli prisons
October 7: 5,200
Now: 10,000 +

Israel says it is targeting Hamas
4,000 Gaza workers in Israel and 1,070 Palestinians in East Jerusalem and West Bank have been detained
Palestinians say the crackdown is much larger and point to Israelis claiming those who stay in Gaza City are effectively Hamas collaborators

>117 lriley: Yes, in the past they've used "symbolic" bombs - in other words, they didn't go for maximum fatalities. We could spend some time thinking about that, but at the moment that's not at all what's going on.

I guess the point is simply this: right now, I see no way to make a moral distinction between the IDF and Hamas, and I see no way that the answer to your question, whichever way it comes up, changes that.

I'm frankly sort of amazed by the confusion about this point, on all sides but most particularly on the left. Ordinary decency, it seems to me, demands that we all stand with the Palestinian people and with the Israeli people, and that means we have to call out the actors who are killing them, and that means both Hamas and the IDF. I can't see what benefit we might gain from trying to explain away the actions of one, as that just means we're accepting the premise that indiscriminate attacks on civilians can be justified. In my view, they can't.

>132 kiparsky: Putting Hamas and the IDF aside. What we have now is an Israeli govt. that's on the path of trying to become a religious ethno-state. If they continue on that path to accomplish that they will have to kill or expel Palestinians altogether and it just means expect more terrorism and more war. A better way is to recognize the Palestinian people within its borders--tear down the Gaza fence and bring Palestinians to full citizenship. That won't be easy either and will take a long time to resolve. I think the settler community for the most part anyway would prefer the first option. The second option though should undercut Hamas's terrorist tactics. But within Gaza now Hamas have become the authority because the Israeli's when they fenced the Palestinians in abnegated any form of law or order within and Gaza is a part of the country of Israel proper. If they are a state they should act like one and they should abide by what's fair to all and what's legal which they're not doing in the West Bank either.

Currently Israel is bombing a part of their own population, reducing that population's already dire situation to rubble----just so as to create the conditions so that they can move in over dead civilian bodies to get to the actors that committed the crimes of Oct. 7 and possibly save some of the poor souls that Hamas kidnapped?---I put the question mark there because to me it looks like a truly fucked up plan. How this is going to make anything better is beyond me and whether or not Biden, the British and the French align alongside this plan isn't going to make it better or right. Whether or not to give Palestinians full citizenship or kill them seems to be pretty much what all this is about.

>133 lriley: If after subduing Hamas, Gaza City looks like Mariupol, Israel may have buffer for its kibbutz(es?)...

ETA
Photography Then and Now
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/mariupol-before-and-after-updated-...

>134 margd: How so?

>133 lriley: an Israeli govt. that's on the path of trying to become a religious ethno-state.

I would say that happened a long time ago.

better way is to recognize the Palestinian people within its borders--tear down the Gaza fence and bring Palestinians to full citizenship

Yes, it's high time that Israel became a democracy.

Meanwhile on the West Bank:

Israel strikes mosque in occupied West Bank refugee camp
Aljazeera | 22 Oct 2023

...Israeli military officials said the “terror operatives” were organising an “imminent” attack and had been involved in several attacks in recent months.

...the strike in Jenin took residents by surprise as it is relatively unusual for Israel to carry out aerial attacks on the territory.{two decades*}

...Following the strike, some residents received text messages on their phones warning them against collaborating with the Jenin Brigade, one of the largest and most popular groups in the West Bank. The messages advised residents to keep children inside.

...the total number of deaths since October 7 to 90, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health

...more than 1,000 people have been taken into custody in the past two weeks as raids and the number of detentions continue to rise in the occupied West Bank...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/22/israeli-air-strike-kills-two-in-west-b...

* https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-carries-out-airstrike-on-terror-cell-at-jenin-...

https://grahamefuller.com/231017-did-hamas-succeed-or-fail-in-its-operation/

231017- Did Hamas Succeed or Fail in its Operation?
October 17, 2023
by Graham E. Fuller • Uncategorized •

Graham E. Fuller

17 October 2023

The surprise and savage attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians and military installations last week unquestionably can be termed a massacre. Many might add that it was also a colossal blunder and self-defeating act in the political sense that it will help neither Hamas nor the Palestinian cause. This observation deserves greater scrutiny.
....
Observers should therefore not be too quick to draw sweeping conclusions about who, in the long run, will “benefit” and who will “lose” from this whole sequence of ugly events — events that are still unfolding. The winners and losers indeed extend beyond Israel/Palestine itself.

But how do we react to horror like this? One way is by responding with equal or greater punitive acts or horror. Certainly that is already the response of the Israeli state. But I suspect there are large numbers of people out there who are both truly horrified by Hamas actions and who also feel impelled to reject further acts of savage retribution by Israel that will not bring solutions; views among people who increasingly believe that finally something truly decisive must be done to bring a halt to all this madness — regardless of whether one is sympathetic to the Palestinians or not.
....
We already have news reports from around the world that most of the “Global South” and BRICS states are in broad sympathy with the Palestinians. They perceive Israel as yet another “white” Western state classically oppressing indigenous peoples in a latter-day colonial enterprise. Its actions are perceived as a white racist undertaking with nearly the full, almost unwavering chorus of official western support for Israel.
....
These events in Israel alone do not in themselves of course represent a pivotal moment in global relations. But they do represent yet another significant and symptomatic event in the gradual bifurcation of East/West power and sense of identity. These blocs of course are not homogeneous and their impact will be gradual and difficult to gauge. But I would argue that it nonetheless betokens an important deeper trend that does not bode well for Washington or Western Europe whose reins upon the world are slipping. And Israel will be perceived as an integral part of that western power bloc, acting mainly at western behest in the Middle East. This bloody operation by Hamas may set off deeper reflections about the Western and US geopolitical order in the Global South.

Perhaps Harvard scholar Steven Walt summed it up well in suggesting that Israel could indeed win the battle against Hamas and lose the war–true also for Washington.

—————————————————

Graham E Fuller served as a CIA operations officer for nine years in the Middle East and later served as Vice Chairman of the national intelligence Council overseeing all national forecasting.

Maps hint of extent of tunnels in Gaza and at the border w Israel.
Hostages aside, wouldn't tear gas drive Hamas from tunnels? And couldn't robots or maze-trained, transmitter-equipped, bomb/people-sniffing rats, for that matter, be used to map tunnels? Why only talk of sending soldiers down or of (indiscriminately?) bombing from above?

Tunnel warfare expert on challenges ahead for Israel (6:36)
MSNBC | Oct 22, 2023

Daphne Richemond-Barak, adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point, joins MSNBC’s Alex Witt to discuss the 'Gaza Metro'.

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

Armen Devejian daddykool | 10:53 PM · Oct 22, 2023:
alliterative architect

Never forget what Arafat walked away from in July 2000.
Text excerpt, Guardian (https://twitter.com/daddykool/status/1716286595194917178/photo/1)
____________________________________

The Missed Chance for Peace (Opinion)
David Brooks | Oct. 12, 2023

"...Israelis continued to support a two-state solution. On May 17, 1999, the Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, running on an aggressive peace platform, defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the race for prime minister.

Bill Clinton hosted an Israeli-Palestinian summit at Camp David in July 2000. In many ways that summit was premature. But as the chief U.S. negotiator at the time, Dennis Ross, told me this week, Barak led “the most forthcoming government in Israel’s history,” and Clinton seized the opportunity.

The summit failed to yield an agreement, and the enemies of peace struck back. Ariel Sharon took a stroll on the Temple Mount — where Haram al-Sharif stands and non-Muslim entry is restricted — that provoked Palestinian rage. The Palestinian leadership launched the second intifada, bringing a reign of terror to Israeli streets.

Still, Clinton and negotiators persisted with meetings at Sharm al-Sheik. Clinton brought the two sides to the White House. At the pivotal meeting in December, he slowly read aloud the peace plan that would come to be known as the Clinton Parameters. It called for uncomfortable sacrifices from both parties but gave each side what the U.S. negotiators believed they needed.

A few days later, the Israeli cabinet voted to accept the plan. Yasir Arafat did what he generally did. He never said no, but he never said yes. The Saudi and Egyptian ambassadors in Washington strongly pressured him to agree to a deal, but perhaps feeling pressure from back home or sensing where Palestinian public opinion was or feeling that the provisions for the refugees were insufficient, Arafat dallied. Momentum was frittered away. Just before Clinton left office, he had one of his final conversations with Arafat. Arafat told him he was a great man. According to his memoir, Clinton replied: “I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/israel-palestinians-gaza-peace.html
____________________________________

What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict?
Recent events are the culmination of a decades-long clash in the disputed region of the Middle East
Chris McGreal | Wed 18 Oct 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/why-israel-palestine-conflict-hist...

·

>140 margd: the more I read david brooks the more I like him.I welll remember that, and being disappointed that it didn't work Ariel Sharons stroll did nothing but turn peace on its head, and the rest they say is history

Anshel Pfeffer אנשיל פפר @AnshelPfeffer | 10:21 AM · Oct 23, 2023:
Mancunian hack @haaretz writer TheEconomist correspondent, unauthorized biographer of Netanyahu and Ovadya Yosef. Next book: God Fearers
https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1716459869039907032

Netanyahu and sources within the defense establishment are briefing against each other. Netanyahu has been doing it for 2 weeks already, trying to place the sole blame on the IDF and Shin Bet for Hamas’ surprise attac. In the last 2 days he’s sending, through proxies, a new line

Netanyahu’s new line attack on the generals (thru proxies) is that they don’t care enough for the lives of their soldiers and they’re prepared to send them into Gaza before the air-force has used bunker-busting bombs to destroy Hamas tunnels there. Now there’s counter-briefing

In the briefing from the defense establishment they’re not attacking Netanyahu directly but they’re saying they did as ordered, called up reserves, secured Israel’s borders and prepared a force for the ground operation which has been waiting at peak-readiness for over a week now

In other words, the generals are accusing Netanyahu (without actually naming him) of dithering, not taking responsibility and not making overdue decisions on the next stage of the war.

Both sides now trying to reduce tensions. Joint statement by Prime Minister, Defense Minister and IDF:
“We’re all working together in tight and complete coordination… Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi have full and mutual trust” incredible this needs to be said at time of war
__________________________________________
ETA

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 1:27 PM · Oct 23, 2023

Public opinion data in Israel
Belief in Israeli victory against Hamas: 79%
Belief that Israel is sufficiently united: 78%
Trust in Benjamin Netanyahu: 32%

The data comes from the Jewish People's Policy Institute
Netanyahu is much less trusted than the Israel Defence Forces
A sentiment which possibly inspired the Israel PM Office and IDF joint statement emphasising unity and cooperation today

Unbelievable. So it's damn the torpedoes, then.
Ray McGovern: Blinken goes Berserk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV2I0Xp9Rgw

Fingers crossed the mutiny at State comes off. It really is the only hope.
cf. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-department-gaza_n_6531a23ae4b0da897ab75ce4

The quote that says it all:
"Senior State Department officials have privately discouraged the agency from using three specific phrases in public statements, HuffPost revealed last week: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.”"

from the above, maybe there is hope:

On Thursday evening, Blinken sent out an all-staff message reviewing State Department contributions to his trip. HuffPost obtained the note.

“We asked a lot of you. And once again, under tremendous pressure, you delivered,” the secretary wrote. “I know that, for many of you, this time has not only been challenging professionally, but personally ... You are not alone. We are here for you.”

“Let us also be sure to sustain and expand the space for debate and dissent that makes our policies and our institution better,” the message continued.

but making space for debate and dissent is one thing; actually acting on it with policy is another think. I am Jewish and often feel isolated for my views; I support israel, but not when they are bombing a people out of existance. But I am very cautious of who I talk to about it. its frustrating to me keeping silent' I cant imagine a whole dept dealing with this same frustration, esp the department of state which has acted as the adult in the room in many situations.

>130 margd: (Gaza victims)

Israeli victims...

Ben Caspit בן כספית @BenCaspit | 4:54 AM · Oct 24, 2023:
Author of the best seller The Netanyahu Years, senior columnist, Walla, Maariv, Al-Monitor, Radio 103 fm, TV anchorman

Own, last words of the victims. Listen to them
1:04 ( https://twitter.com/BenCaspit/status/1716740007715557699 )

>144 cindydavid4: I am Jewish and often feel isolated for my views; I support israel, but not when they are bombing a people out of existance. But I am very cautious of who I talk to about it. its frustrating to me keeping silent
I feel for you. Having to interact with "bloodthirsty" people must be terribly hard. I hope you're not too isolated! It's good to remember there are Israeli and Jewish people all over the world advocating for a peaceful resolution, as in >119 Dilara86:

oh I hadnt noticed that link; thanks for that, think Ill sign up

The power of forgiveness: a freed hostage’s gesture should not be forgotten (Guardian)

Recognising the common humanity of Israeli and Palestinian civilians can break the endless chain of attack and reprisal... When 85-year-old Israeli Yocheved Lifshitz was released from Hamas’s underground cells, she was filmed gripping the hand of a hooded fighter who had probably been part of her prison guard while saying “shalom”, the Hebrew word for peace. It was a startling moment of humanity in a frighteningly divided world. At a press conference, Ms Lifshitz said that she had been treated well in captivity despite a harrowing and brutal capture from her kibbutz. A peace activist, Ms Lifshitz’s views surely influenced her words, as probably did the knowledge that her husband was still being held by Hamas. But in these bleak times, Ms Lifshitz offers an important lesson: that a small gesture of kindness towards a person who represents your enemy can stop time, can show in an instant that we are all human, as opposed to an impulse for revenge that reinscribes the past, setting off an endless chain of attack and reprisal...

Hamas operatives used phone lines installed in tunnels under Gaza to plan Israel attack over 2 years, sources familiar with intelligence say
Pamela Brown and Zachary Cohen | October 25, 2023

...The intelligence shared with US officials by Israel reveals how Hamas hid the planning of the operation through old-fashioned counterintelligence measures such as conducting planning meetings in person and staying off digital communications whose signals the Israelis can track in favor of the hardwired phones in the tunnels.

...the small cell waited until just before the attack was launched to prep a larger group of fighters above ground to carry out the specific operation.

...some of the training above ground was observed but did not ring major alarm bells. The thinking was, “oh they always train people like this. It didn’t look different,” the source said.

... Israel was aware that Palestinian militants had been using hardwired communication systems prior to the October attack.

It encountered what appeared to be a similar kind of communication system when the Israeli military raided the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank this summer... When Israeli troops moved in as part of what was dubbed “Operation Home and Garden,” the Israel Defense Forces discovered secure, hardwired communication lines and closed-circuit surveillance cameras to give advance warning of Israeli troop movements...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/politics/intelligence-hamas-israel-attack-tunnels...

Opinion | This Was Netanyahu's Most Catastrophic Error
David Rothkopf | Oct 24, 2023

Of all the mistakes made by Netanyahu before Hamas' despicable assault, from attacking Israeli democracy to personal corruption, from embracing Putin to promoting extremists, his strategy of shunting the Palestinians aside has been a catastrophe – and has undermined the popular global support Israel might have expected...

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-24/ty-article-opinion/.premium/this-...

>150 margd: One guess is that Netanyahu might try to expel the Palestinians from Gaza altogether. He's more or less turned Gaza City into Mariupol and the overcrowding of the Gaza Strip was terrible before all this started.....the electricity, the water issues. As uninhabitable as it was before Oct. 7 it's much worse now....and the Palestinians don't have the means to clear rubble and rebuild or not unless the Israelis help them with the logistics. The question also is whether Netanyahu and his Likud party will take that area and resettle it as it's apparently been trying to do in the West Bank as well. The right wing that's kept Netanyahu in power has wanted to make Israel a Jewish ethnostate. It's almost as if the path to do so is right in front of them. They have all the excuses they need and I don't see Britain, the United States or France stopping it.

>151 lriley: No. Neither do I.
I do see a number of other actors stopping it, though. And that worries the hell out of me.

>151 lriley: Precious few states have been plagued with good leadership in the last decade or two, though I am so glad that Biden and not TFG (The Former Guy) is warming seat in WH (White House) these days.

A peaceful Gaza could have a prosperous future as tourist place, if nothing else? (My dad warmly remembered Lebanon (from 58/59) as a Riviera kind of spot, and was so sad to see it decline.)

(I posted a link here to a long video of someone I once respected who included a throwaway line that I had missed that shocked me on re-listening. I did not expect that from him. Gone.)

>153 margd: Don't think either of our political parties have the will or would want to do the right thing here. Biden is going to sign off and the republicans and most democratic politicians want that too. The small number of justice democrats seem to be the resistance. It's not a good look at all IMO for Biden's administration. I'm sure that Trump would be worse maybe sending our marines in but it's not Trump it's Biden and he takes credit or blame for the shit that happens now.

Keep in mind also Israel very much risks becoming a pariah in the mideast region again even without a second Nakba but creating a major refugee situation for the other countries in the region to deal with along bigoted religious lines I don't think will go down well. Other countries will look at us too. What do we really stand for? Why the Ukrainians and not the Palestinians when it comes to a larger power imposing its will on a weaker power/population?

>155 lriley: I think Biden has preserved some influence, sitting with Israeli cabinet, etc. Slow them down so they have time to think through ramifications, consider civilians. You gotta consider historical and political limits, how US felt after 911*, not let perfect be enemy of the good? Though this is hardly good, could be so much worse??

*ETA i.e., "learn from our mistakes"

>156 margd: the Likud Israelis behind Netanyahu are a lot closer in spirit to MAGA republicans than they are to a center democrat like Biden and it's infuriating to me that so many democratic politicians have thrown in their lot with hardly any critique to this right wing govt. This...$....is what power Biden might have in changing Likud's minds on anything and I think if he tried to stop the flow of $'s to Israel that house democrats and Senators would join together with republicans and override him anyway.

Really any chance of change IMO is really going to have to start in Israel proper.....getting an entirely different Israeli govt. than the one in place now and the clock is already ticking as far as something drastic happening on the Palestinian issue.

>156 margd:

When you look at the disastrous results of "how the US felt after 9/11", and more so on how it acted after 9/11, this does not bode well for the world.