It just won’t stop. We’re looking at about 1,000 Israelis killed, and over 650 Palestinians killed in Gaza. Many on both sides are children. 100 abducted, with the Israeli government so far refusing to negotiate on their release, and Hamas warning it will start murdering them
— Haggai Matar (@Ha_Matar) October 9, 2023
The latest Gaza death toll is 1,000 Israeli dead and 700 Palestinians. Hamas fighters continue to attack southern Israel and the IDF has conceded that it has not blocked all of the 22 sites where militants blew up its security fence. It also concedes that Palestinian fighters continue to enter Israel from them. The army also conceded that the Palestinian resistance inside Israel continues unabated.
Israel has called 300,000 reservists for active duty. Tens of thousands of troops are massing outside Gaza preparing to invade the enclave. IDF spokesperson, Jonathan Conricus declared that Israel will occupy Gaza and ensure Hamas will never again control it. To do so, Israel will have to reoccupy it and station thousands of troops. They in turn will be targeted by Hamas, which Israel cannot succeed in eradicating.
Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 20 years and lost hundreds of soldiers to Hezbollah attacks. Israeli occupation of Gaza would repeat the quagmire.
Bibi Netanyahu has threatened to turn Gaza to “rubble.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has called Hamas “human animals” and denied Gazans food, water, electricity and fuel. This is collective punishment and forbidden under Geneva Convention. It is a war crime.
The International Criminal Court has already opened a file against Israel for alleged war crimes during the last major invasion in 2014. Then, it killed 2,300 Palestinians. The ICC has not yet agreed to open a formal investigation after several years of delay. The world awaits action. Holding war criminals accountable, whether Palestinian or Israeli, is critical to maintaining the credibility of international law. Israel is shredding it by the day.
Palestinian militant groups hold up to 120 Israelis hostage in Gaza. Netanyahu has not announced any effort to free them or exchange them for Palestinian prisoners. Instead, he speaks of all-out war. Hamas, on the other hand, has threatened to execute one hostage for every Palestinian killed or house destroyed.
Hamas says that it is detaining hostages in its underground tunnels. The IAF has already dropped bunker buster bombs to destroy them. If what Hamas says is true, then Israel is killing its own citizens. If it unleashes a full-scale exterminationist assault, then all the Israeli hostages will die. Either at the hands of Hamas, of from IDF assault.
This is reminiscent of the IDF’s Hannibal Directive, a policy calling for the killing of Israeli soldiers who fall captive to Palestinian militants. Israel prefers a dead soldier to a live one it will be forced to exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s imminent attack will likely kill its own citizens, and is a version of this horrible Directive. As this Haaretz makes clear, Netanyahu has no intent to negotiate for the hostages’ release. He has given them up for lost. Abandoned them. It’s a cynical, morally bankrupt approach characteristic of him.
The Biden administration has ordered a naval task force to the eastern Mediterranean and declared readiness to offer whatever weapons Israel needs to obliterate Gaza. Though meant as show of strength, it is really a confirmation of the impotence of Israeli policy. We claim to support a tw0-state solution. Yet we are accessories to mass murder of Palestinians. We are all-in for Israel. Palestine can go to hell (and it will, if the Israelis have anything to say about it).
Israel is an example of the worst of humanity. Of the depths of depravity to which our species can sink. Israel’s apologists raise bitter cries over the murder of children and women, while refusing to acknowledging that many times more Palestinian children and women have died under Israeli onslaught. As I said in an earlier post, this is terror for terror. Hamas declares that if every Palestinian is a legitimate target, then every Israeli will be as well. It is a cold, brutal calculation. But Israel has no monopoly on brutality. It will suffer what it metes out.
Hannibal lost the war. Or is the Hannibal directive a reference to Hannibal Lecter?
The term is meaningless, it’s simply a code word for an abducted soldier. The IDF is full of these e.g. “hot hammer”, “bell code”, “yellow airplane”, “red farm” etc., none of which have anything to do with what they convey.
More importantly, the ‘Hannibal directive’ was discontinued 7 years ago and was never the directive for cases of abducted civilians. This says a lot about the quality of what you’re reading.
@ Yair: Actually your claim is meaningless. The Hannibal Directive has been thoroughly reported by Israeli media. Everyone knows what it means. And it doesn’t mean what you claim. I’ve posted here about the specific parameters of the Directive and given examples, based on Israeli media, when it was used to kill IDF soldiers who were captured.
Further, there are now IDF soldiers held captive in Gaza. If Hannibal only referred to abucuted soldiers and was “discontinued,” then Hannibal is still relevant. Yet you say it isn’t.
I never claimed that the Directive was specifically invoked in this case. What I did claim was that the general concept of the Directive undergirds Israel’s approach to its hostages. It is willing to sacrifice them in order to inflict maximum damage on Hamas. The proof will be after Israel commits genocide in Gaza, will there be any hostages left alive. We shall see.
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Not sure what the connection is, but I’m sure it refers to the ancient North African general, not the film villain.
Absolutely Richard. The media is rarely telling it right, very biased and all about Hamas terrorism refusing the term resistance. Hamas are resistance, and the only effective resistance apparently convinced they necessarily have to use terror. Notice that now we are talking again about Palestinians, the forgotten ones “under control”.
Netanyahu should be suing for peace. Saudi Arabia and Iran were moving towards rapprochement. A grand bargain can be imagined. Blinken should push for it. .. and threaten Israel that we’re fed up. Biden is probably not bold enough, too reticent and fearful politically.
What exactly are they resisting by going door to door and gunning down civilian families? If you’ve seen some of the footage of what hamas was doing in be’eri 3 days ago, there was no focus on securing tactically advantageous landmarks, or targeting military infrastructure, or anything that would gain them footing in a long term war or land dispute. They were going for pure bloodshed, of unarmed civilians hiding in their homes, that’s why the word “resistance” when referring to hamas is unhinged. Meanwhile when Israel bombs hamas bases (that they generally conveniently build underneath or in civilian buildings) they have a policy called “roof knocking” (look it up if you haven’t heard of it) that alerts civilians the place will be bombed and to evacuate it. Pointing a gun at a 70 year old ladies head and pulling the trigger is MUCH different morally than civilians dying by collateral damage when the actual target is hamas.
As far as striving for peace I agree, but again that’s tough when 83% of gaza strip citizens fully support hamas, who’s main motto is “death to all jews” and not “let’s settle this peacefully”.
@ Menachem:
I’m always skeptical when people who hate someone or something pretend to try to understand their motives. I don’t think Palestinians owe you any explanation for what they do or why they do it. But for them, committing violence against Israelis, whether soldiers or civilians, is precisely what Israel does to their civilians. They are bringing their suffering home to you, whether you like it or not. IF you want them to stop, you will have to stop. If you don’t, they won’t.
No more than Israel does when it massacres Palestinian civlians, which it does on a much larger scale.
That is such a humane way of destroying someone’s home and livelihood. So much nicer than merely dropping a bomb and killing the inhabitants outright, which Israel does btw.
Do NOT offer lying propaganda here. That is not only not Hamas’ motto, it isn’t even true as hyperbole. Hamas wants Palestine. It does not want to and has never said its goal was to kill Jews. I find this disgusting and if you ever make similar claims here you will lose your comment rights.
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@Potter
Ukraine has been occupied by a brutal adversary ten times it’s size and power. Why hasn’t Ukrainian resistance resorted to terrorism?
Potter??
Let me posit an answer. The Ukrainians prefer to fight and die like men. With honor.
Ukraine has an army, sophisticated weapons delivered mainly by the Western world, if they send the same amount of military material to the Palestinians they didn’t have to use what I personally refuse to call terrorism, it’s the only means of the colonized.
If you wish to condone Palestinian terrorism that’s fine.
But Deir Yassin, as a student of history, you know full well that when the PLO had an army that was well supplied with weapons from the Soviets, the PLO and the PFLP, et al, used terrorism against Israel.
@ Yellow: The PLO engaged in resistance. If it engaged in terror it was simply a response to Israel’s far more lethal and grotesque terror.
Yellow, you can “posit” your answer right back where it came from. Were the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto terrorists for fighting back against the German occupiers? The French resistance regularly carried out attacks on the Germans. Were they terrorists?
By the way, Putin seems happy to label the Ukrainian resistance as terrorists. As the saying goes, one man’s freedom-fighter is another man’s terrorist. Are the Israeli pilots of bombers that indiscriminately target civilians in their beds really more courageous (or manly lol) than the Gaza resistance fighters? Do they ponder what they have done when they fly home for breakfast after their latest killing spree?
@ Yellow:
Really? You must be kidding. What do you call the assassination of the daughter of a close Putin confidant? Other bombings engineered by Ukraine on Russian soil? Are you blind? Or just read Ukrainian media? I have no love for Russia. But to claim the Ukrainians aren’t willing to engage in such acts to advance their interests is ridiculous.
ICC Non-Investigation … how different the situation I-P might have developed when both Hamas, Palestinians and the occupying power the Jewish State of Israel were under investigation for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel acts with impunity under the shield of Washington DC, both US Congress and the White House. The EU as slave on the President’s coat-tails serves the occupying power due to economic might and political clout. Peace in the Middle-East has never been close, nor was there hope after Yitzak Rabin was assassinated. Apartheid and occupation under the boot of the IDF cannot endure. The damaging refusal by Karim Khan to start the ICC investigation is playing out in the hands of military might. Flying the Israeli flag 🇮🇱 above a majority of EU capitals is a travesty of Justice – chutzpah.
A related case on occupation and apartheid before the ICJ in The Hague will soon come to a decision.
Case Before International Court of Justice Will Expose Israel’s Prolonged Illegal Policies, Permanent Observer Tells Palestinian Rights Committee | UN Press – 30 Aug. 2023 |
If you wish to condone Palestinian terrorism that’s fine.
But Deir Yassin, as a student of history, you know full well that when the PLO had an army that was well supplied with weapons from the Soviets, the PLO and the PFLP, et al, used terrorism against Israel.
Pardon!
Contemporary Palestinian resistance movement against decades of illegal occupation of their land. No, not “disputed” territory. Oslo Accords were torpedoed by Bibi Netanyahu after the assassination of Yitzak Rabin. Hatred endures but will not lead to any form of coexistence. In 2005 Ariel Sharon was willing to end settlement expansion on the West Bank, even president Bush made it a campaign promise in 2004. The world is getting more complicated and dangerous due to nationalist, fascist regimes. Unfortunately both America and Israel are failing their democratic principles.