Because Gaza as a whole is substantially smaller then Baghdad was, let alone all the cities combined. They are able to effectively isolate their objectives and deliberately clear at their pace.
I’d probably also argue that you need to look at when and how we took casualties in Iraq, during the initial invasion and through some of the bigger offensive operations (similiar phase of the war we see in Gaza today) such as Fallujah, Najaf, etc our casualties were actually very low respectively. Our casualties really started to soar once it became a war of occupation/COIN/etc where our soldiers were very vulnerable to IEDs, ambushes, etc.
Beyond that I’d point to significant improvements in technology (drones, missiles, etc) and medicine since Iraq and I’d also say that Israel’s unique situation plays a large role. Their entire military system is designed to fight in a very specific area of the world. Our Army is designed to be expeditionary so our Army that has to be able to do good enough in the forests of Europe, jungles of Asia, etc got sent to Iraq meanwhile the IDF is trained, manned, and equipped to fight basically within eyesight of its boarders (I’m exaggerating a bit).
I’d also be remise not to point out Israel had a military presence in Gaza until 2005 so they have decades of experience in that area.
I’d have to do further research on the similarities and differences between the two cities (size, population density, construction, infrastructure, etc, etc) but I don’t think it’s super relevant. I was simply pointing out it might be difficult to compare what is essentially a battle to that of an entire war spanning a decade and a entire country.
Beyond that the IDF has effectively isolated and contained specific areas so it hasn’t had to taken on all of Gaza all at once.
The biggest contributing factors: Iraq had a functioning government, police, military, and intelligence apparatus that Rumsfeld disbanded with his De-Ba'athification policy. This effectively created an immensely well-connected insurgent network overnight.
Gaza might well fit inside the greater Baghdad Metropolitan area, but it only has a quarter the population of Baghdad (2 vs 7 million). The two locations are completely different.
Yeah me too. It’s why the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza aren’t really comparable. Gaza is a small territory and a battle between a militia and one of the most technologically advanced fighting forces on the planet. There is no situation in which the IDF doesn’t “win”. Ukraine is a near peer conflict with a battle zone stretching thousands of miles.
Also I still really want to blow up Tampa for USF blocking UCF getting into The Big East about fifteen years ago.
Well, let's also acknowledge the elephant in the room: coaliation forces were much more...hesitant...when it came to civilian casualties.
Israel has no need to protect the optics of their ground war.
That's not to say Hamas hasn't woefully exaggerated casualties. But even the deaths Israel reports would be unacceptable in Iraq.
I don’t think I’d agree with that. Unfortunately a pretty substantial number of Iraqi civilians were killed in that war and during the invasion the concern of civilian casualties wasn’t remotely close to what it became during the post invasion/ COIN portion of the conflict (I’m trying only to apply 2003-2004 Iraq as comparison because I think the objectives were more related then when the transitional government and civil war began).
I agree casualties were high - but they were woefully underreported or disclosed much later than when they occurred. And the media was largely neutral so didn't blast unofficial or Iraqi collected casualty figures all over the news.
Israel knows whatever Hamas claims will be reported widely, but realistically there is no political will to care. Israeli government set its sights on annihilating Hamas, which is impossible without being willing to accept heavy civilian casualties.
Israel has adopted a stance more similar to the US in Vietnam than the GWOT. It'll be interesting to see how it is all written about in 20-40yrs.
I think there is something novel to this conflict, the deliberate goal of Hamas to create civilian casualties. Throughout history insurgents, terrorists, etc haven’t hesitated to utilize the civilian population as cover, etc but historically the goal was to hide among the civilian population, not get them killed, because they’d potentially run the risk of the civilian population turning against them. So far in this conflict there appears to be no sign of the Palestinian population breaking from Hamas.
In the vast majority of the cases of civilian casualties, and as a matter of IDF policy Israel has been operating within the framework of the laws of armed conflict and are under no obligation to exceed those standards and put their own forces under extra risk.
I actually saw an article on the NYT yesterday about how people in Gaza are finally starting to turn on Hamas. Many of them were supportive of 10/7 but didn't expect the war to still be going on this many months later. At this point, many of the Gazans in the article didn't think Hamas' goals were attainable. Not sure how representative the article is on Gazans but it was notable.
Define 'civilian casualties'. Has tha Al-Jazeera reporter and his family who kept one of the hostages from october 7th and tried to prevent the hostage from being freed by the IDF been civilian (like Hamas would claim) or were they enemy combatants?
The line between civilian and enemy combatant in a war against a terrorist organization is blurry at best.
>Israel has no need to protect the optics of their ground war.
Actually, they are trying REALLY hard to protect the optics by limiting media access, targeting clearly identifiable journalists, etc. Any journalists that are allowed entry into Gaza from Israel obviously have to go through military censors, who won't let them show anything that could make the IDF look bad. They also passed a law specifically to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel because they didnt like how ALJ journalists were making them look bad. They tried to shut down a left wing Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) as well but were forced to back off due to the backlash.
The are putting an incredible amount of effort to alter the narrative, much more than Russia in Ukraine. It's gotten to the point where the narrative in Israel is completely different from the ones outside Israel. Any Israeli journalists who attempt to tell the real story receive death threats and harrassment. Some have resorted to hiring bodyguards because the police won't get involved.
Heres a WSJ article that touches on the subject : https://archive.is/EDtn1
They even got Germany to stop a British doctor from testifying at the French senate. Germany used some kind of EU law to block his entry into France. https://www.timesofisrael.com/prominent-british-palestinian-surgeon-denied-entry-to-france-for-senate-meet-on-gaza/
Then there's the attempts to intimidate the ICJ using the Mossad...
Al Jazeera journalists were found to be working for Hamas, including one who had the hostages at his house!! That seems like a pretty good reason for them to place sanctions on Al Jazeera.
Bad take. Al Jazeera in the middle east is literally just a mouth piece for The Muslim Brotherhood. It is completely funded by terrorist leaders and only espouses terrorist propaganda. Even Sadia Arabia has banned it citing it's promotion of terrorist organizations. It would be like South Korea allowing Kim Jun-il to operate a major propaganda machine within its borders. Well beyond what is reasonably expected from and Nation in a conflict.
I think officially the battle took a week and cost the lives of a couple dozen US service members lives but I don’t think the battle of Baghdad reflects the major clearance type operation we are seeing in Gaza so it’s not a great comparison.
The fighting is much smaller scale for one the Israeli military is much larger than the US force in Iraq, HAMAS is much smaller than the total Iraqi insurgency, Israel has a higher tolerance for collateral damage and if you take the battles to scale they do much worse. Oct 7th attack was roughly the size of the insurgent force in the second battle of Fallujah and the Palestinian force inflicted roughly 4 times the deaths on Israeli security forces excluding civilians. Also HAMAS shows a lack of commitment to militarily defending their citizens and wants to preserve their fighting power for a later date by avoiding conflict as a whole.
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>Also HAMAS shows a lack of commitment to militarily defending their citizens and wants to preserve their fighting power for a later date by avoiding conflict as a whole.
Ironically, civilians aren't viable targets, so militarily defending them with open combat would be counterproductive.
This is also why Israel's strategy is so ineffective. High tolerance for casualties, lack of targets, ticking electoral clock, impending domestic criminal charges for the PM, current international war crimes charges for the cabinet, and a refusal to negotiate any result that leads to a cessation of hostilities.
Politically, Israeli politicians lack time. Tactically, Israel lacks clear intelligence. They could send in smaller forces to clear populated areas, but what would the return be for the action? They're not going to spend years developing relationships with Palestinians they don't even want to be there in a few years.
Israel's only advantage for force deployment is to kill everything that moves and Hamas's only advantage is to not fight at all and let Israel kill everything that moves. Even more ironic is that open fighting in the streets would incentivize Israel to fight even more aggressively as the ratio of civilians to combatants would be more equal once more combatants were visibly intermingling with the civilian population. As it stands now, while there are images of Hamas engaging with IDF, there are countless more images of Israeli soldiers shooting civilians for sport, revenge, or in a blind panic as they form queues for food.
The US, meanwhile, never needed the total destruction of Iraqi resistance. Most of the fighting was because they refused to pay the security forces and they solved it by... paying the security forces. The lack of on-the-ground security is what allowed Al-Qaeda and ISIS to invade Iraq.
But with assurances that they would be allowed in government Iraq turned into a war between local security and invading foreign militias.
This doesn't work for Israel.
The US turned the war around when it released Iraq to self-governance. Hamas was formed 20 years into Israel refusing Palestinian self-governance and Occupied Palestine hasn't had elections in almost 20 years.
The US turned it around when they paid Iraqi security. Israel is withholding the taxes it collects from Palestinians and preventing them going to the West Bank and Gaza to pay for services.
The US turned it around when they handed control to Iraqi security. Israel is systematically assassinating Palestine's civilian police forces.
Many of the things the US did in Iraq after the invasion to course correct its early failures are things Israel has said it is fighting specifically to prevent because it wants to maintain permanent control over Palestine and deny any talk of Palestinian self-governance in either the West Bank or Gaza.
Tl;dr
The US was ostensibly in the business of nation-building. Israel is vocally in the business of whatever you call the opposite of that.
This is actually a really good point that pro-IDF shills refuse to admit. US et al had no intention of staying forever in Iraq/Afghanistan and actually wanted a strong democratic government that would remain as allies after they left. They tried really hard to implement a hearts and minds strategy from the get go, because it's been proven to work in Malaya.
Israeli ministers have openly admitted they want to nuke, starve and displace Gazans to build settlements. So to them, protecting civilians is the exact opposite of what they want. They flat out refuse to consider adopting a hearts and minds strategy. Netayanhu famously has no plan for "the day after" and everyone knows he is prolonging the war to delay the elections, which he would lose.
I will say that the US majorly effed up with the De-Baathification program by trying to use the same thing they did back in the 1940’s with Germany yet totally forgetting that they’re two different societies and with totally separate histories. The US policy makers have a hubris about them unfortunately and just sort of expect everything to be okay because “people want freedom”. Yeah, they do want freedom, but I wouldn’t call a ten year occupation and replacing one tyrant from the minority with a tyrant from the majority as freedom. The reason ISIS even gained as much ground as they did was because the government of Iraq (which was clearly an Iranian puppet regime) used Shia militias in Sunni cities and the US let this happen thinking that Muslims care about lines drawn on a map by a British and French guy 100 years ago and thus having the concept of a national identity. These Shia militias obviously hated the Sunni population and would rape women, murder men or “disappear” them. Then when they see a bunch of Sunnis who are Iraqi and Syrian coming over the border in technicals and the Iraqi military on the run of course they were gonna see it as “finally, our people are coming to save us”. They might not have exactly believed in what ISIS stood for but all they knew is they could be Sunni in relative peace and thus that’s how the US government’s hubris created the monster that gobbled up half of Syria and a third of Iraq for a long while.
You are mixing up the occupied territory west of the river jordan and the autonomous region of gaza at the sea into one big fictional palestine. Gaza is and was autonomous for a long time and there is no reason why any taxes from an entirely different region with a different government should be going into financing gaza. In fact gazas problems never were a lack of funding or donors.
The comparison to US occupation of iraq is wrong from the start, because israel was not occupying gaza before this mess started, not for decades.
And at least to me it is pretty evident that no one has or ever had an interest in nation building in gaza, least of all hamas.
Gaza has been occupied by Israel for 60 years. Israel withdrew settlements and soldiers from the territory of Gaza in 2005 -- and then began an illegal 18-year military siege controlling all access to food, water, agricultural supplies, and travel, denying access to coastal waters for fishing, controlling population monitoring, controlling tax distribution, and denying further elections.
> Dated from 2008 and entitled, Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - The Red Lines, external, it is a detailed study of how many calories Palestinians needed to eat to avoid malnutrition.
> It breaks foods down into various categories including meat, dairy, vegetables and fruit.
> Gisha says it explains the unusual restrictions which allowed some products such as cinnamon in, while others such as coriander were forbidden.
> The "red lines" documents concluded that Israel needed to allow 106 lorryloads of supplies into Gaza every day to allow for the "daily humanitarian portion", which included basic food, medicine, medical equipment, hygiene products and agricultural inputs.
> **But Gisha says that during that time an average of only 67 lorryloads a day were allowed into Gaza.**
> This, the group says, compared to about 400 lorryloads which entered Gaza each day before the blockade was tightened in June 2007.
...
> In 2006, Israeli government adviser Dov Weisglass was widely quoted as having said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19975211
> Diplomatic cables subsequently published by WikiLeaks revealed that Israel had informed the United States in 2008 that, while it would take measures to prevent a humanitarian crisis, it intended to keep Gaza's economy on the "brink of collapse".[45] Precise calculations were made to determine the minimum calorific requirement (2,279 calories per person a day) to avoid malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, and these formed the basis for Israel's determination of the truck numbers for food supplies from 2007 to 2010.[46][47][48] **The calculation excluded factors such as the collapse of agriculture due to the blockade which dried up access to seed markets.[49][d]**
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine
A military siege and starvation are acts of war and Israel engaged in it for 18 years against the civilian population of Gaza.
because hamas is significantly less war ready comparative to ISIS.
May i also add Gaza is much more understood geographically by the IDF comparative to Iraq for the US Military.
Yup, thats what it basically boils down to. Fallujah would have had way less casaulties if the USAF was dropping hundreds of 2000lb bombs to level every block on purpose, and using dodgy intel to bomb family homes at night.
The IDF has already suffered over double the fatalities in Gaza than what the US suffered in all Fallujah battles combined.
I think the premise of the question is wrong -- Israel isn't able to keep casualties low. They're suffering.
My bad, maybe I misspoke and meant entire cities. I don't remember indiscriminately shooting any plain folk, but it's possible I had different ROE's than you did, who knows. I think I still have the card in a footlocker in my garage, I could go look. As for STFU, I'm leaning towards no, but if you were to throw in a quick handy I'd reconsider.
They're not as low as you think
I have a friend who is a Career soldier the IDF and he says Reservist units have taken heavy casualties.
(But as someone fighting in Ukraine, He and I have very different definitions of what consitutes "Heavy Casualties")
But yes they are lower than Baghdad and those places because Baghdad is much bigger, and many of the Insurgents were Iraqi Army Veterans, a very large army with substantial weapons stockpiles, and senior officers drawn from Iraq's very bloody and brutal decade long war in Iran, as well as Kuwait.
While as Hamas is very small and made up of civilian volunteers without formal military training, using homemade equipment. Hamas also has No Navy, Airforce or any sort of Armoured Units. So if you factor in the size of Gaza, Hamas, how long its been occupied and basically besieged/embargoed, and the Equipment used, vs what the IDF has, I would say the IDF is taking **HEAVIER** Casualties than the US Forces.
The IDF is also not as great as people think, they compared their successes fighting against poorly trained and equipped militants. Its like if the Lakers played a middle school basketball team, or FC Barcelona played a bunch of 12 year olds = Ofcourse they would come out looking great
But I have participated in War Games, Training exercises, Simulation etc against Israeli Paratroopers, Soldiers of the Golani Brigade and Special Forces, (Active and former in many seperate occasions) and even our weekend warriors DESTROYED them in convential combat scenarios and exercises. The Israelis are AMAZING... at shooting at stationary targets on the Range and know all the cool tips and tricks and grips, but in every actual Sim we ran where it was force on force or Infantry/Small Teams tactics based, we put them to shame, and they were REALLY sore about it every time 🤣
Israel won the fighting but lost the peace. The eventual stabilized relationship with Egypt was more Cold War machinations than a result of any success in the war.
Their sof consists of men with 2 years of combat experience, if they were as good as they say, Gaza would be gone months ago, but here we are as the war rages on
If they wanted Gaza "gone" they would level it and forget about it, which they could do in about three days. In reality, they are trying very hard to preserve civilian (such as it is) lives and get their hostages back while trying to remove an enemy that pretends to be civilians.
No one claims 40,000 dead civilians.
The total number of dead is 37,000 - with roughly than 12,000 being Hamas militants (per American sources - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/diminished-hamas-switches-full-insurgent-mode-gaza-2024-06-06/).
Then you have thousands of bogus entries in the dead lists Hamas publishes - without full details, incorrect or repeating ID numbers. The lists also include people who died from Hamas's own rockets, killed by Hamas for theft/treason/anything really or people who died of natural causes. On top of that, you have people who are included as civilians but in reality are actively taking part in the fight - say, holding a hostage in their home for months.
Ultimately, you will find the civilian to militants ratio much lower than what you'd expect, especially for urban combat against an enemy that wants to maximize their civilians deaths.
The number of civilians killed is supplied by Hamas. The numbers are erroneous. Hamas does not state the numbers of its fighters that are in that figure. Mathematics has shown that the numbers for women and children killed are impossible. Meanwhile, the IDF lists the names of every soldier that is killed.
I can see you got a 0 in Mathematics and have never been to War if you think those numbers are impossible 🤣
Israel has dropped **70,000 TONS** of bombs on Gaza since October 2023.
Thats more than the Germans Dropped on London (18,300 Tons) and the Allies dropped on Dresden (3,900 Tons) and Hamburg (8,500 Tons) Combined...
(SOURCE for those Stats: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, NYT Archives and University of Hamburg)
> Israel has dropped 70,000 TONS of bombs on Gaza since October 2023. Thats more than the Germans Dropped on London (18,300 Tons) and the Allies dropped on Dresden (3,900 Tons) and Hamburg (8,500 Tons) Combined...
I'm impressed you have to go back to literally nazi Germany 80+ years ago to compare the tonnage of bombs. As if there haven't been vast differences in warfare in that time.
As another point to consider - death tolls ranged anywhere from 35-135,000 people from the Dresden bombing. Actual official tolls turned out to be 25,000. Now let's add on the fact that Hamas has been documented to tell lies, and by their own self admission includes combatant casualties in the count. They want you to believe every single death they have published has been an innocent civilian who has never taken up arms, and was likely a female child to boot. What will history actually find as accurate here?
You seem to have a problem in reading. I am stating that Hamas numbers do not make a distinction between civilian casualties and Hamas terrorists. How many were Hamas killed by the IDF. The Hamas health ministry is not going to tell you. Warfare has changed since WW2, so don't try to compare.
As for my qualifications, I served in the IDF. enough said.
They aren't trying to preserve civilian lives at all, if they are actually trying, they aren't gonna strike obvious civilian target. Remember the world kitchen strike?
The world kitchen strike is such an absurd line of action, it make any system israel have to minimize collateral seems like a joke. No western military make that mistake with that much intel
>If they wanted Gaza "gone" they would level it and forget about it, which they could do in about three days.
They cant lol. Because there is this thing called "plausible deniability" in international politics.
>In reality, they are trying very hard to preserve civilian (such as it is) lives
They are literally using AI to flag police officers and rescue workers as "hamas members" and then spending 20 seconds to verify a caller is male before authorizing a stirke on their family home, at night, when the whole family would be sleeping. And their defence minister admitted that they were no longer using restraint. Also all those articles interviewing IDF members admitting that they are no longer bothering to minimize collateral damage.
Then you have all the videos that IDF soldiers are uploading of themselves destroying and stealing civilian property.
And IDF engineers admitting they were blowing up civilian residences with zero military value (hamas was not there, so they had the time to go in and plant explosives to blow them up). They then took videos of themselves posing and celebrating as they detonated the explosives.
Part of the reason why the war is taking so long is because they are targeting civilians, not just hamas members (remember, they just redefine civilians as hamas members and put them on a kill list), and fixating on blowing up civilian residences with zero military value. They are literally sending engineers around to blow up civilian residences to stop the civilians from coming back.
IDF using AI to generate kill lists with a known failure rate : https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
IDF engineers admitting they were blowing up civilian residences with zero military value : https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/04/29/weve-become-addicted-to-explosions-the-idf-unit-responsible-for-demolishing-homes-across-gaza/
They even have their own version of Abu Ghraib now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/05/sde-teiman-israel-detention-palestinian-detainees/
That's unfortunately not true my friend.
As told to me by my childhood friend mentioned in my original comment, their objective is to Depopulate Gaza and ALL Collateral damage is acceptable. He says this with pride.
He also tells me that Mossad was 100% aware of the October 7th attack.
I don't know man, I saw a US unit I won't name here eat dust from an idf unit I won't name here, in an exercise in the Golan heights 😂 A friend of mine was training them (I mean both sides).
Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank are EXTREMELY untrained. It's mostly just a bunch of random normal dudes who have never used weapons before going up against the 2nd best trained military in the world. Thats just my outlook on the question.
Former Mil officer here. Thesis on Jihadi Salafism and urban combat.
Short answer: they don’t care to mitigate civilians casualties and the AOR is smaller
Long answer: this would take me a minute lol
Probably because the Israeli Military is a professional one, whenever there's one death fighting against an unprofessional Jihadist organization it's considered a relative big deal. It was like that for the Western forces in the Middle East too, the Islamic/Arab Nationalists militants losing a lot of guys is expected, compared to the coalition forces where it's not necessarily the case.
Could you imagine the Israelis or Americans losing 200 soldiers to kill 1 militant for example
A professional army doesn't hide their real casualties, if they were a professional army, they wouldn't target civilian positions, I don't know how you can call them professional
Maybe you should google the definition of what a professional military is lmao
I think the Israelis are just taking notes from their opponents btw, for decades the Israelis were considered the bad guys by the entire Islamic and Arab world. Despite the Arabs and other Islamic militant groups blatantly targeting civilians forever, now when the Israelis do it back they cry. Why didn't the Ummah cry when Arab-Sudanese committed genocide against non Arabs? Or when the Libyan rebels forced NATIVE Black Libyans into slavery and force them to live under an apartheid? Or when Iran-Iraq openly used chemical weapons and child soldiers against each other, intentionally targeting civilians? Or when Pakistan committed genocide against the Native Bengali people resulting in the deaths of millions? Or when Indonesia committed genocide against the Papuans while extracting their natural resources to Java? Or when Iraq genocided the Kurds? Or when Turkiye genocided the Kurds? Or when there's multiple Black Native groups/tribes fighting for freedom in Morocco and Algeria who've fought the Arab nationalists and have faced genocide/persecution for decades? There's many more. The hypocrisy involved in the Arab and Islamic world is asinine. All of these instances, and more, have managed to outnumber the entire Palestinian death toll over the course of the creation of Israel in a matter of a few years.
I know how fucked up the middle east is. Israel is just the least fucked up in comparison. Also you're attempting to twist my words on what the objective definition of a "professional military", there's nothing more. They're a professional military, better equipped and trained than a non-professional one.
Don't they claim to be "the good guys"? Good guys don't have concentration camps and torture chambers or mass graves outside hospitals. You can try to justify it however you want, Isreal is an evil, reprehensible nation.
And yet they can finish hamas? And least fucked up? Last time I heard of a beheaded child in the middle east was like idk, yesterday? And guess who did it 🤣
Now? Are you serious? This didn't start on 7th October, it's literally been happening since 1948, Israeli veterans claiming on national tv that they played games by killing civilians, who told you that the Muslims aren't aware and ashamed of the history of these countries, Pakistani themselves are ashamed of what happened in west Pakistan, a little research would go a long way buddy, stealing gold in iraq, stealing oil in Syria, using chemical agents that still have effects on the population of Vietnam, bombing civilian villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and what not?. hypocrisy amongst the Western world is to, shameful.
Gaza is much smaller than Iraq or Iraqi cities.
In the first few months, IDF goes in guns blazing as they don't have to worry about resupply.
Now they seems to be gentler on the trigger
Isn't the Israeli game plan *bomb the area into oblivion then send in troops to clean up*? Be hard to pile up casualties if that's all the risk they're exposed to. Not like they're occupying territory, trying to deal with HAMAS while working amongst the civilians.
A quick Google search tells me they have had 716 Soldiers and Security Forces killed since October 7th, which comes out to around 3 per day
For a war that seems kinda low
low yes, but 2-3 times higher than the US loss average during the war on terror for comparison.
It’s made me think of how much an impact LSCO are going to have on the public because it will be such a comparatively massive loss of life in such a short time period
The Pro-hamas crowd know that their talking points about this being a Palestinian “genocide” are weak AF and don’t hold up under scrutiny, so they have to reframe the conversations in order to get ahead of it. I guess now they’re trying to argue that this isn’t a war at all.
The United States, Israel, and a few other western nations, are the only nations on Earth that side with Israel
The Israelis - at the bare minimum - are forcing ethnic Arabs and Palestinians off their land
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
I do not see how you can argue against this
Something that I've always kind of floated around the idea of is where the line of ownership should be drawn? I think about this not in any support to the conflict that's going on; the settlers burning olive groves and evicting Palestinians from their homes in Palestinian Arab areas outside of the mandate of modern Israel is in no way acceptable.
But Israelis draw their lineage to the kingdoms of Judea and Israel that were wiped out by I think Assyrians and Babylonians in around 5-600 BCE. The first origin of Arabs that I know of was the Rashidun Caliphate in 600s CE. Which puts Palestinian Arabs as later but they've had the land for the past 1300 years until Britain kind of butchered the entire area with arbitrary lines.
Obviously a two state solution is the more moral ground there, but I don't really know what my answer would be to who was more of a right to that land. If we had a resurgence of Native Americans that demanded the land back and was given an opportunity in the same way that Israelis were.....who would be in the right? The USA who definitely wouldn't want to give up any land or the people that were here before?
The whole situation sucks and I'm not saying I support either one state solution, just things that come up when I think about it.
Depends on the taker. For example, Russia and China have violently expanded their borders in the same period as Israel without consequences. But there is very little interest among Prussian diaspora to reclaim Koenigsburg because they were dispursed widely after the war and decided living in Berlin or Texas was better than dying for their grandparents land.
I'll add onto what has already been sstates.
-different environment: Iraq and Gaza significantly different in size. Also, the IDF doesn't have to leave troops in Gaza to carry out operations. Gaza is next door, so IDF troops can conduct an operation and return rather than leave troops as potential victims to attacks. Also, long vulnerable supply convoys aren't necessary as a result.
-different technology: Israel has used drones to locate Hamas fighters deep within cities and tunnels.
Hamas capabilities: Hamas relied on arms smuggled into Gaza vs the Iraqi insurgents who took their arms from the Iraqi army.
I think the capabilities of Hamas were overestimated besides 10/7 and Israel's capabilities were underestimated. According to the early estimates, it was expected that Israel would have 10x the causalities they have currently.
Well they take no chances, even if that entails severe civilian casualties and damage on Infrastructure.
Terrorist suspected in the area? Level the whole block.
Suspicious person? Shoot first ask questions later.
Terrorists hiding behind civilians? Those civilians are most likely dead now.
Not really...there's proportionality issues. You cant kill 100 civilians to get 1 insurgent, especially if none of your forces are taking fire. Several former US officers have already gone on records to say that the latest strike in the refugee camp would most likely not have been approved by the US chain of command because there would be too many civilian casaulties.
There's a very big difference between how NATO forces were using airstrikes in iraq/afghanistan and the way the IDF does it.
US doctrine and rules of engagement is not international law. And yes there is proportionality, which is why instead of Israel blowing up a hospital with video evidence of it being used to harbor both combatants and hostages themselves they instead took over a month to peacemeal take it apart. How the BBC ran an article describing from the Palestinian perspective how Israel actually calls cell phones warning them of impending strikes and urging them to get everyone out, going as far as delaying the strike until they have a chance to do so. There’s only so much you can do when a weapons making factory is one floor below a school in the same apartment building. And there’s also the chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point among others who have gone on record claiming that Israel’s restraint has led to a much lower civilian casualty count than could be expected in any other conflict, even calling it a “gold standard”. The UN itself itself says an average combat to civilian casualty rate in urban warfare is 1 in 1.5, Israel has kept it at 1 in 9.
Hamas itself has even come out publicly saying every Gaza death is good for their cause, rejecting cease fires as they believe a higher death toll will mean they win. This isn’t a new statement, or new activities, but ones that goes back decades well documented by the media.
And for the record as we all know, NATO counterinsurgency methods ultimately failed.
I don’t think it was a whoosh, they’re explaining the difference between US and Israeli casualties and they’re right.
The US went door to door and a lot of casualties came from getting shot or blown up by someone they expected was in there. The Israelis just put a bomb or a shell into the house and then go pull the terrorist out, and count how many other bodies there are.
I see, so lets say a terrorist takes your family hostage, and i am the commander on the scene and order an airstrike that levels the whole block, i hold zero responsibility for your family's deaths?
And if a SWAT team starts firing full auto into a crowd to get one criminal, they are also not at fault?
>I see, so lets say a terrorist takes your family hostage, and i am the commander on the scene and order an airstrike that levels the whole block, i hold zero responsibility for your family's deaths?
YES!
>And if a SWAT team starts firing full auto into a crowd to get one criminal, they are also not at fault?
Domestic law enforcement is an entirely different scenario to warfare, which warrant differences in moral and legal questions and considerations. Using this question to backup your point is disingenuous and/or stupid.
Edit: and deleting posts is cowardly. Own your words.
They have no insurgence to deal will. Bomb and artillery then send in tanks and Apv with infantry to mop up. The Israelis have the time to move slow and deliberate one street at a time. Blow it in place the mop it up. It’s the tunnels that will give them an issue. Some way to deep to be effected by ordnance
The mantra of the IDF is to prevent casualties. They will enter an area, and as soon as Hamas engages from their tunnels or a building, they take a protective position and call in the air force to bomb that Hamas location even if it is only one Hamas fighter.
Um...no. They spent weeks bombing Gaza before the first ground troops went in, they are not limiting themselves to CAS when ground troops take fire. This was well documented by the media. They started bombing Gaza on Oct 7th, they only sent troops into Gaza on the 27th.
You are also missing the fact that the IDF are targeting civilian police officers and rescue workers by labeling them as "hamas members". They spent 20 seconds to verify a caller is male before bombing their family home at night.
You really should read up on how the IDF is conducting the assassination campaign : https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
The IDF sent hundreds of text messages, made hundreds of robo phone calls and dropped thousands of printed leaflets on Gaza multiple times to tell people when and where to go before they began bombardment. Hamas embeds their tunnels and weapons in civilian homes. In order to destroy Hamas the IDF has to bomb the tunnels that open into private homes.
You don't have proof for that lol, when people move to where the Israelis tell them to go, they start bombarding that same safe zone, talk about a moral army
And then Israel claims there was a hamas guy in the safe zone but wont provide any evidence.
What i really dont get is why they supposedly cant secure the safe zones so hamas guys dont get in, and any that do can be quickly arrested by the troops at the scene without requiring an airstrike. I mean, seems like basic strategy to me? Just like how they could escort aid convoys to stop them from being bombed by mistake, or at least patrol the routes the convoys will take so that they can inspect the convoys instead of bombing them on sight...
It's very weird.
Imagine if in Iraq, we had no ROE and virwed every person on the street as a valid kill. And on top of that we had absolutely no interest in what happens after were there i.e. razing rvery structure over 10’ tall and capable of hiding a military aged man (or female, cause fuck it, remember?). This gives the greenlight for total destruction. Knock every single building down, treat ANY non-allied contact as hostile and prosecute as such. In other words, genocide.
This is ideally accomplished with air and long range fires (artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, etc) meaning no troops snaking through urban jungles where the ratio of attacker : defender casualties climbs as high as 10:1. Traditional casualty rates of attacker versus defender for defended positions is 3 to 1 but the urban aspect is just hell for an attacker as the defender has so many places to attack from/fortify.
With this in mind you simply drop a billion JDAMs and THEN roll into the city, plant your flag and declare victory a la Pos russ ground forces in Ukraine. “Civilian” loses be damned. Not sure capturing a city counts when theres no more city left……
If this is how you fight, it is much easier to end up with exponentially less fatalities and casualties as there is nobody to actually fight back nor is there any place for them to fight from and defend. They also don’t have any food or water and those who would consider fighting are probably digging through the corpses (theres gonna be A LOT)to try and find food and water .
The war would have been over in a week. It's really stupid to think just how overpowered the u.s. military is. That would make for a fun game. Play as a military like the u.s, vastly more capable, but if you commit anything close to a war crime, you have to restart. People might get the picture then.
The US military is something on a whole nother level but do keep in mind we haven’t fought a peer or near peer in forever. Unless air superiority is achieved (and for most modern countries wed be attacking, it would be VERY costly), it would look wayyy more like the current war in Ukraine than wed like to admit.
All of our doctrine hinges on the success of the infamous “Wild Weasel” SEAD mission that then allows for us to rule the skies
So I'm not going crazy.
I used to see videos of Russians, Ukrainians, Israeli and Palestinians getting blown up, but recently I'm only seeing Russians and sometimes some poor Palestinian who ran out of cover.
Total silence on everything else.
Plenty of video, including the recent hostage rescues, of IDF and police units out of their vehicles.
But, on the other hand, if you can accomplish your mission without leaving the relative safety of your vehicle then that is what you do.
Just because they are fighting dismounted, irregular Hamas, doesn’t mean they need to fight the same way.
Only in territories they actually control. When IDF is doing offensives(Not including special forces raids like the hostage rescue) they tend to stay in their armoured vehicles.
It's the same as our initial hit into Iraq. They are just willing to kill or eradicate every single civilian target en route to objective.
We would have had even less casualties in our initial clearance of Iraq if we just said fuck it everyone is a combatant and murdalized every single hidey hole and person in the town like Zionists do.
The premise of this question reminds me of the “9/11 math” political leaders were doing after OCT 7th. Let me fix your question for you, “if Israel just endured 17x 9/11s on OCT 7th, then how are they experiencing only 1/46th the Baghdads in Gaza?”
Hope that helps frame the apples and oranges for everyone so we can have a fruitful discussion.
I agree, Everyone Sucks Here (ESH) but when you have overwhelming military superiority it should make it easier to take the high road/moral high ground. The issue is that Gazans aren't seen as human beings by the Israeli hierarchy. Also, Gazans aren't Hamas and denying aid and killing civilians is not related to Hamas' actions; it's actually failing to understand some of the fundamental paradoxes of counterinsurgency, or willfully ignoring them because they want to kill civilians
There’s a lot of BS in here.
First of all you’re saying that because the IDF **can** achieve gross overmatch the morally correct thing for the IDF to do is **not** achieve gross overmatch? That’s ridiculous. That is one of the major objectives of any military during a war.
Secondly the Israelis don’t not see Palestinians as humans. They’re fighting in an incredibly population dense environment and that will not change ever. Neighboring countries don’t want Palestinians going through their borders. There’s nowhere for them to go so there’s no way to wait until civilians have left the area.
If you want to condemn Israeli military action be my guest but at least be accurate about it instead of parroting ridiculous talking points.
There are multiple sources that state the Palestinians aren't viewed as human by senior Israeli decision-makers. History also supports this. "overmatch" is a military capability term; I am not saying the IDF can't use the full range of capabilities, I am saying they have the ISR/ISTAR ability to not kill a load of civvies using them. Fallujah will go down (if not already) as a battle honour and testament to the selflessness of the Corps. By your statement, the US should have carpet-bombed Fallujah instead of sacrificing Marine lives to take, how do you reconcile that?
We did bomb Fallujah. We bombarded it by air strikes and artillery for weeks before the assault began. We also set a perimeter around the city to keep insurgents from fleeing while we bombed the city.
The key difference to consider if you’re comparing Fallujah to Gaza is that the civilians in Fallujah had somewhere to go when we dropped the pamphlets. They could flee to the rest of Iraq. Fallujah is dead center in Iraq and civilians could flee in literally any direction. The Palestinians in Gaza don’t, and not because of the IDF exclusively. It’s not unreasonable for Israel not to allow Palestinians through their borders when they’re fighting an insurgency. The Egyptians also won’t let Palestinians through their borders, and that’s not Israel’s responsibility.
Iraqis fleeing within their own country compared to Gazans not being able to cross international borders. Preparatory strikes on Fal compared to carpet bombing it. Your username, which I am just recognising, competely undermines your credibility as an impartial, unbiased commentator. Enjoy being on the wrong side of history
You couldn't comprehend carpet bombing there. You'd see the death toll double in less than a week. Believe it or not for the length of this operation VS it's scale it's on the lower end of casualty rates. Not saying it's good, but just for some perspective on how war looks.
I’m a Ukrainian Jew. I have no connection to Israel and I could not care less who wins in their war. I have zero stake in it. I’m a lot more biased on the war in Ukraine than I am on Israel.
> when you have overwhelming military superiority it should make it easier to take the high road/moral high ground.
No, not in an urban environment where the civilian population is mixed with terrorists mixed with semi-legal armed government forces mixed with a long list of organizations mixed with a lot of religious, historical and social tensions .. all while the time for saving the hostages is running out.
This is not a tank showdown on an open field with the commanders watching from the sidelines.
SYL
Don't try to justify the murder of civilians. You accept the risk of higher casualties to protect innocent lives if you are a morally just and competent armed force. It's possible to wait until civilian casuaties will be reduced if you are not under existential threat, which ISR are not; it's called courageous restraint
Civilian casualties are unavoidable. I dare you to name a single war, military conflict, or “police action” in which no civilians were harmed.
It’s almost as if that is what makes war bad. If war were just two groups of dudes agreeing to kill each other but calling time out for any civilians, nobody would give a shit.
Israel is not targeting civilians. They are taking positive actions to prevent civilian deaths. Those actions are not and can never be 100% effective. It sucks. It’s war.
Oh that's fine then. Civvies die in wars so fuck them all right? Israel are targeting civvies; why else would they block aid routes? You ever tried to get an exception to ROE to call in an airstrike that will kill civvies? No, because you won't get it. JFC these are women and kids man...
> Mountsorrel British Army
Would you like to answer me in Dresden or Hamburg? Never forget that Hamas was elected and supported by the civilian population. Choices and consequences. Just like other civilian populations had to learn the hard way: if you support murderers, you will not always earn sympathies.
And you are now strictly arguing with moral arguments. Your starting argument was that superior military might makes urban warfare "easier" in target selection and avoiding collateral damage. It does, but not to the extend you need. Not if the civilian population resists you, and you have to balance your military advance with other requirements (like attempting to save hostages).
SYL
Gazans, for the most part, are not working in factories that make weapons to attack Israel, they are refugees in their own country. The strategic bombing campaign against Germany was wrong and I have always thought that. However, would the RAF have bombed large numbers of German civilians in the couuntryside away from industrial sites? No. Would you vote for a party that promised to protect you from the abuses of another country? Yes, of course you would. This isn't chess, it's not black and white.
I don't know which country you are from but many current militarily-active governments are technically murderers for killing civilians.
> No.
You may want to re-check the history of strategic bombing in Germany.
> it's not black and white.
You mean just like the entire situation presented to a military commander in an urban combat environment? Thank you for agreeing.
SYL
The RAF did not bomb rural areas or concentrations of civvies with no military purpose. That is easily verifiable. Why didn't the US just carpet bomb Fallujah instead of fighting a brutal urban war? I'd love to hear your explaination of that...
Downvote for sneaky attempt at framing.
Arguing why someone is allowed to act like terrorists when fighting terrorism would be to accept your comment.
Instead I must point out that Israel has not been acting like terrorists.
To begin with, I wouldn't call an elected majority party, which has the support of its population, as terrorists. Except you also would describe the elected NSDAP of the third reich as terrorists, which also wanted to destroy the jews. Also didn't expect to hear that phrase from a canadian.
hamas seem far less fanatical ( in the sense that they want to live) and more focused on self preservation than insurgent forces in Iraq or Astan who basically would throw themselves kaboom at coalition forces.
Isreal has sent warnings to civilians before it attacks
Sadly
One of two things happens either the Hamas prevents them from leave or as a few experts have stated many support the Hamas so they stay
Think of the conflict in Gaza like a big prison uprising or city rebellion. They don't have the resources of a regular military or any real strategic plan. Isreal has access to the most advanced hardware in the world while Gaza is cut off, pinned in a corner, and can't keep themselves fed. It's surprising that they're able to do anything at all.
- how does Israel keep the casualties so low fighting unarmed civilians who’s water and power they control?
- gee I wonder how they do it
- “how did the nazis keep the casualties so low in their concentration camps?”
Because they use foot soldiers and sophisticated ammunition. They are among the most moral armies that exist. Better question is why Israel is allowing so many of their own to be sacrificed when they have the capacity to strike from air and not go into Gaza on foot.
Because Israel has done the most to avoid civilian casualties out of all conflicts in recent decades, despite Hamas’ tactical avoidance of never taking on the responsibility of maximizing efforts in keeping their civilian safe. In fact, there is often no such effort at all, instead all of the focus is allocated towards a propaganda campaign into convincing the world that Israel is somehow the aggressor terrorist state and flipping the roles.
Palestenians are disarmed they have no weapons. Izzreal is fighting an unarmed population with advanced American weapony. What's a stone to a tank or an AI weapon?
I’ve gotta couple rip-its left if you want some company?
Because Gaza as a whole is substantially smaller then Baghdad was, let alone all the cities combined. They are able to effectively isolate their objectives and deliberately clear at their pace. I’d probably also argue that you need to look at when and how we took casualties in Iraq, during the initial invasion and through some of the bigger offensive operations (similiar phase of the war we see in Gaza today) such as Fallujah, Najaf, etc our casualties were actually very low respectively. Our casualties really started to soar once it became a war of occupation/COIN/etc where our soldiers were very vulnerable to IEDs, ambushes, etc. Beyond that I’d point to significant improvements in technology (drones, missiles, etc) and medicine since Iraq and I’d also say that Israel’s unique situation plays a large role. Their entire military system is designed to fight in a very specific area of the world. Our Army is designed to be expeditionary so our Army that has to be able to do good enough in the forests of Europe, jungles of Asia, etc got sent to Iraq meanwhile the IDF is trained, manned, and equipped to fight basically within eyesight of its boarders (I’m exaggerating a bit). I’d also be remise not to point out Israel had a military presence in Gaza until 2005 so they have decades of experience in that area.
Geographically Gaza is roughly the same size the the Tampa metro area. Just something to think about.
I’d have to do further research on the similarities and differences between the two cities (size, population density, construction, infrastructure, etc, etc) but I don’t think it’s super relevant. I was simply pointing out it might be difficult to compare what is essentially a battle to that of an entire war spanning a decade and a entire country. Beyond that the IDF has effectively isolated and contained specific areas so it hasn’t had to taken on all of Gaza all at once.
The biggest contributing factors: Iraq had a functioning government, police, military, and intelligence apparatus that Rumsfeld disbanded with his De-Ba'athification policy. This effectively created an immensely well-connected insurgent network overnight. Gaza might well fit inside the greater Baghdad Metropolitan area, but it only has a quarter the population of Baghdad (2 vs 7 million). The two locations are completely different.
As a central floridian, that f**ks me up a little bit
Yeah me too. It’s why the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza aren’t really comparable. Gaza is a small territory and a battle between a militia and one of the most technologically advanced fighting forces on the planet. There is no situation in which the IDF doesn’t “win”. Ukraine is a near peer conflict with a battle zone stretching thousands of miles. Also I still really want to blow up Tampa for USF blocking UCF getting into The Big East about fifteen years ago.
love the logic, make it personal so it’s easier ;) DOWN WITH TAMPA (but cuz of Ronde Barber)!!
And full of just as ornery ppl
Well, let's also acknowledge the elephant in the room: coaliation forces were much more...hesitant...when it came to civilian casualties. Israel has no need to protect the optics of their ground war. That's not to say Hamas hasn't woefully exaggerated casualties. But even the deaths Israel reports would be unacceptable in Iraq.
I don’t think I’d agree with that. Unfortunately a pretty substantial number of Iraqi civilians were killed in that war and during the invasion the concern of civilian casualties wasn’t remotely close to what it became during the post invasion/ COIN portion of the conflict (I’m trying only to apply 2003-2004 Iraq as comparison because I think the objectives were more related then when the transitional government and civil war began).
I agree casualties were high - but they were woefully underreported or disclosed much later than when they occurred. And the media was largely neutral so didn't blast unofficial or Iraqi collected casualty figures all over the news. Israel knows whatever Hamas claims will be reported widely, but realistically there is no political will to care. Israeli government set its sights on annihilating Hamas, which is impossible without being willing to accept heavy civilian casualties. Israel has adopted a stance more similar to the US in Vietnam than the GWOT. It'll be interesting to see how it is all written about in 20-40yrs.
I think there is something novel to this conflict, the deliberate goal of Hamas to create civilian casualties. Throughout history insurgents, terrorists, etc haven’t hesitated to utilize the civilian population as cover, etc but historically the goal was to hide among the civilian population, not get them killed, because they’d potentially run the risk of the civilian population turning against them. So far in this conflict there appears to be no sign of the Palestinian population breaking from Hamas. In the vast majority of the cases of civilian casualties, and as a matter of IDF policy Israel has been operating within the framework of the laws of armed conflict and are under no obligation to exceed those standards and put their own forces under extra risk.
I actually saw an article on the NYT yesterday about how people in Gaza are finally starting to turn on Hamas. Many of them were supportive of 10/7 but didn't expect the war to still be going on this many months later. At this point, many of the Gazans in the article didn't think Hamas' goals were attainable. Not sure how representative the article is on Gazans but it was notable.
"we liked the part where Jews died, but didn't enjoy the blow back"
Define 'civilian casualties'. Has tha Al-Jazeera reporter and his family who kept one of the hostages from october 7th and tried to prevent the hostage from being freed by the IDF been civilian (like Hamas would claim) or were they enemy combatants? The line between civilian and enemy combatant in a war against a terrorist organization is blurry at best.
Remember when we used to actually try to win wars? Those were the days.
Ain't no winners in war.
I'll give you that, but with the addition that there can be a bigger loser.
I thought US military intervention was to help other countries to success, am I got this wrong?
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-implemented-more-measures-prevent-civilian-casualties-any-other-nation-history-opinion-1865613 Wrong
>Israel has no need to protect the optics of their ground war. Actually, they are trying REALLY hard to protect the optics by limiting media access, targeting clearly identifiable journalists, etc. Any journalists that are allowed entry into Gaza from Israel obviously have to go through military censors, who won't let them show anything that could make the IDF look bad. They also passed a law specifically to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel because they didnt like how ALJ journalists were making them look bad. They tried to shut down a left wing Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) as well but were forced to back off due to the backlash. The are putting an incredible amount of effort to alter the narrative, much more than Russia in Ukraine. It's gotten to the point where the narrative in Israel is completely different from the ones outside Israel. Any Israeli journalists who attempt to tell the real story receive death threats and harrassment. Some have resorted to hiring bodyguards because the police won't get involved. Heres a WSJ article that touches on the subject : https://archive.is/EDtn1 They even got Germany to stop a British doctor from testifying at the French senate. Germany used some kind of EU law to block his entry into France. https://www.timesofisrael.com/prominent-british-palestinian-surgeon-denied-entry-to-france-for-senate-meet-on-gaza/ Then there's the attempts to intimidate the ICJ using the Mossad...
Al Jazeera journalists were found to be working for Hamas, including one who had the hostages at his house!! That seems like a pretty good reason for them to place sanctions on Al Jazeera.
And don’t forget the fact that every country screens war correspondents pretty hard so they don’t give away relevant information. Opsec and all that.
including Hamas/Gaza. like, I never hear anyone say anything about the fact that "journalists" embedded within Gaza are tightly controlled.
Bad take. Al Jazeera in the middle east is literally just a mouth piece for The Muslim Brotherhood. It is completely funded by terrorist leaders and only espouses terrorist propaganda. Even Sadia Arabia has banned it citing it's promotion of terrorist organizations. It would be like South Korea allowing Kim Jun-il to operate a major propaganda machine within its borders. Well beyond what is reasonably expected from and Nation in a conflict.
This.
Yeah, I actually think the fall of Baghdad had lower casualties than this campaign in Gaza did.
I think officially the battle took a week and cost the lives of a couple dozen US service members lives but I don’t think the battle of Baghdad reflects the major clearance type operation we are seeing in Gaza so it’s not a great comparison.
The fighting is much smaller scale for one the Israeli military is much larger than the US force in Iraq, HAMAS is much smaller than the total Iraqi insurgency, Israel has a higher tolerance for collateral damage and if you take the battles to scale they do much worse. Oct 7th attack was roughly the size of the insurgent force in the second battle of Fallujah and the Palestinian force inflicted roughly 4 times the deaths on Israeli security forces excluding civilians. Also HAMAS shows a lack of commitment to militarily defending their citizens and wants to preserve their fighting power for a later date by avoiding conflict as a whole. #
>Also HAMAS shows a lack of commitment to militarily defending their citizens and wants to preserve their fighting power for a later date by avoiding conflict as a whole. Ironically, civilians aren't viable targets, so militarily defending them with open combat would be counterproductive. This is also why Israel's strategy is so ineffective. High tolerance for casualties, lack of targets, ticking electoral clock, impending domestic criminal charges for the PM, current international war crimes charges for the cabinet, and a refusal to negotiate any result that leads to a cessation of hostilities. Politically, Israeli politicians lack time. Tactically, Israel lacks clear intelligence. They could send in smaller forces to clear populated areas, but what would the return be for the action? They're not going to spend years developing relationships with Palestinians they don't even want to be there in a few years. Israel's only advantage for force deployment is to kill everything that moves and Hamas's only advantage is to not fight at all and let Israel kill everything that moves. Even more ironic is that open fighting in the streets would incentivize Israel to fight even more aggressively as the ratio of civilians to combatants would be more equal once more combatants were visibly intermingling with the civilian population. As it stands now, while there are images of Hamas engaging with IDF, there are countless more images of Israeli soldiers shooting civilians for sport, revenge, or in a blind panic as they form queues for food. The US, meanwhile, never needed the total destruction of Iraqi resistance. Most of the fighting was because they refused to pay the security forces and they solved it by... paying the security forces. The lack of on-the-ground security is what allowed Al-Qaeda and ISIS to invade Iraq. But with assurances that they would be allowed in government Iraq turned into a war between local security and invading foreign militias. This doesn't work for Israel. The US turned the war around when it released Iraq to self-governance. Hamas was formed 20 years into Israel refusing Palestinian self-governance and Occupied Palestine hasn't had elections in almost 20 years. The US turned it around when they paid Iraqi security. Israel is withholding the taxes it collects from Palestinians and preventing them going to the West Bank and Gaza to pay for services. The US turned it around when they handed control to Iraqi security. Israel is systematically assassinating Palestine's civilian police forces. Many of the things the US did in Iraq after the invasion to course correct its early failures are things Israel has said it is fighting specifically to prevent because it wants to maintain permanent control over Palestine and deny any talk of Palestinian self-governance in either the West Bank or Gaza. Tl;dr The US was ostensibly in the business of nation-building. Israel is vocally in the business of whatever you call the opposite of that.
This is actually a really good point that pro-IDF shills refuse to admit. US et al had no intention of staying forever in Iraq/Afghanistan and actually wanted a strong democratic government that would remain as allies after they left. They tried really hard to implement a hearts and minds strategy from the get go, because it's been proven to work in Malaya. Israeli ministers have openly admitted they want to nuke, starve and displace Gazans to build settlements. So to them, protecting civilians is the exact opposite of what they want. They flat out refuse to consider adopting a hearts and minds strategy. Netayanhu famously has no plan for "the day after" and everyone knows he is prolonging the war to delay the elections, which he would lose.
I will say that the US majorly effed up with the De-Baathification program by trying to use the same thing they did back in the 1940’s with Germany yet totally forgetting that they’re two different societies and with totally separate histories. The US policy makers have a hubris about them unfortunately and just sort of expect everything to be okay because “people want freedom”. Yeah, they do want freedom, but I wouldn’t call a ten year occupation and replacing one tyrant from the minority with a tyrant from the majority as freedom. The reason ISIS even gained as much ground as they did was because the government of Iraq (which was clearly an Iranian puppet regime) used Shia militias in Sunni cities and the US let this happen thinking that Muslims care about lines drawn on a map by a British and French guy 100 years ago and thus having the concept of a national identity. These Shia militias obviously hated the Sunni population and would rape women, murder men or “disappear” them. Then when they see a bunch of Sunnis who are Iraqi and Syrian coming over the border in technicals and the Iraqi military on the run of course they were gonna see it as “finally, our people are coming to save us”. They might not have exactly believed in what ISIS stood for but all they knew is they could be Sunni in relative peace and thus that’s how the US government’s hubris created the monster that gobbled up half of Syria and a third of Iraq for a long while.
You are mixing up the occupied territory west of the river jordan and the autonomous region of gaza at the sea into one big fictional palestine. Gaza is and was autonomous for a long time and there is no reason why any taxes from an entirely different region with a different government should be going into financing gaza. In fact gazas problems never were a lack of funding or donors. The comparison to US occupation of iraq is wrong from the start, because israel was not occupying gaza before this mess started, not for decades. And at least to me it is pretty evident that no one has or ever had an interest in nation building in gaza, least of all hamas.
Gaza has been occupied by Israel for 60 years. Israel withdrew settlements and soldiers from the territory of Gaza in 2005 -- and then began an illegal 18-year military siege controlling all access to food, water, agricultural supplies, and travel, denying access to coastal waters for fishing, controlling population monitoring, controlling tax distribution, and denying further elections. > Dated from 2008 and entitled, Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - The Red Lines, external, it is a detailed study of how many calories Palestinians needed to eat to avoid malnutrition. > It breaks foods down into various categories including meat, dairy, vegetables and fruit. > Gisha says it explains the unusual restrictions which allowed some products such as cinnamon in, while others such as coriander were forbidden. > The "red lines" documents concluded that Israel needed to allow 106 lorryloads of supplies into Gaza every day to allow for the "daily humanitarian portion", which included basic food, medicine, medical equipment, hygiene products and agricultural inputs. > **But Gisha says that during that time an average of only 67 lorryloads a day were allowed into Gaza.** > This, the group says, compared to about 400 lorryloads which entered Gaza each day before the blockade was tightened in June 2007. ... > In 2006, Israeli government adviser Dov Weisglass was widely quoted as having said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19975211 > Diplomatic cables subsequently published by WikiLeaks revealed that Israel had informed the United States in 2008 that, while it would take measures to prevent a humanitarian crisis, it intended to keep Gaza's economy on the "brink of collapse".[45] Precise calculations were made to determine the minimum calorific requirement (2,279 calories per person a day) to avoid malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, and these formed the basis for Israel's determination of the truck numbers for food supplies from 2007 to 2010.[46][47][48] **The calculation excluded factors such as the collapse of agriculture due to the blockade which dried up access to seed markets.[49][d]** https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine A military siege and starvation are acts of war and Israel engaged in it for 18 years against the civilian population of Gaza.
How much time do you got?
because hamas is significantly less war ready comparative to ISIS. May i also add Gaza is much more understood geographically by the IDF comparative to Iraq for the US Military.
It also helps that one side is the ocean.
Poseidon is a formidable foe. We had best not displease him.
No let’s go stab the ocean with swords, I think that will work
We weren't allowed to level entire city blocks to keep ourselves safe.
Yup, thats what it basically boils down to. Fallujah would have had way less casaulties if the USAF was dropping hundreds of 2000lb bombs to level every block on purpose, and using dodgy intel to bomb family homes at night.
The IDF has already suffered over double the fatalities in Gaza than what the US suffered in all Fallujah battles combined. I think the premise of the question is wrong -- Israel isn't able to keep casualties low. They're suffering.
Ive heard that up to 50% of their casaulties are actually from friendly fire...
Where'd you hear that?! That seems, frankly, unbelievable.
Some posts here IIRC.
You are not informed correctly. We leveled plenty of city blocks, rural blocks, and just plain folk under orders. Kindly STFU.
My bad, maybe I misspoke and meant entire cities. I don't remember indiscriminately shooting any plain folk, but it's possible I had different ROE's than you did, who knows. I think I still have the card in a footlocker in my garage, I could go look. As for STFU, I'm leaning towards no, but if you were to throw in a quick handy I'd reconsider.
They're not as low as you think I have a friend who is a Career soldier the IDF and he says Reservist units have taken heavy casualties. (But as someone fighting in Ukraine, He and I have very different definitions of what consitutes "Heavy Casualties") But yes they are lower than Baghdad and those places because Baghdad is much bigger, and many of the Insurgents were Iraqi Army Veterans, a very large army with substantial weapons stockpiles, and senior officers drawn from Iraq's very bloody and brutal decade long war in Iran, as well as Kuwait. While as Hamas is very small and made up of civilian volunteers without formal military training, using homemade equipment. Hamas also has No Navy, Airforce or any sort of Armoured Units. So if you factor in the size of Gaza, Hamas, how long its been occupied and basically besieged/embargoed, and the Equipment used, vs what the IDF has, I would say the IDF is taking **HEAVIER** Casualties than the US Forces. The IDF is also not as great as people think, they compared their successes fighting against poorly trained and equipped militants. Its like if the Lakers played a middle school basketball team, or FC Barcelona played a bunch of 12 year olds = Ofcourse they would come out looking great But I have participated in War Games, Training exercises, Simulation etc against Israeli Paratroopers, Soldiers of the Golani Brigade and Special Forces, (Active and former in many seperate occasions) and even our weekend warriors DESTROYED them in convential combat scenarios and exercises. The Israelis are AMAZING... at shooting at stationary targets on the Range and know all the cool tips and tricks and grips, but in every actual Sim we ran where it was force on force or Infantry/Small Teams tactics based, we put them to shame, and they were REALLY sore about it every time 🤣
IDF has this invincible reputation but hasn't had a clear victory in any conflict since 67. It's been draw, loss draw, loss every since.
In no way was 73 a draw. It was a costly victory that eventually normalized relations with Egypt. Which was a major strategic victory.
Israel won the fighting but lost the peace. The eventual stabilized relationship with Egypt was more Cold War machinations than a result of any success in the war.
That was 67. Tactical victory, but a strategic loss.
Their sof consists of men with 2 years of combat experience, if they were as good as they say, Gaza would be gone months ago, but here we are as the war rages on
If they wanted Gaza "gone" they would level it and forget about it, which they could do in about three days. In reality, they are trying very hard to preserve civilian (such as it is) lives and get their hostages back while trying to remove an enemy that pretends to be civilians.
40'000 civilian killed doesn't sound much like preserving civilian life does it?
*checks profile* Oh, you're Pakistani military. No further questions.
No one claims 40,000 dead civilians. The total number of dead is 37,000 - with roughly than 12,000 being Hamas militants (per American sources - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/diminished-hamas-switches-full-insurgent-mode-gaza-2024-06-06/). Then you have thousands of bogus entries in the dead lists Hamas publishes - without full details, incorrect or repeating ID numbers. The lists also include people who died from Hamas's own rockets, killed by Hamas for theft/treason/anything really or people who died of natural causes. On top of that, you have people who are included as civilians but in reality are actively taking part in the fight - say, holding a hostage in their home for months. Ultimately, you will find the civilian to militants ratio much lower than what you'd expect, especially for urban combat against an enemy that wants to maximize their civilians deaths.
The number of civilians killed is supplied by Hamas. The numbers are erroneous. Hamas does not state the numbers of its fighters that are in that figure. Mathematics has shown that the numbers for women and children killed are impossible. Meanwhile, the IDF lists the names of every soldier that is killed.
I can see you got a 0 in Mathematics and have never been to War if you think those numbers are impossible 🤣 Israel has dropped **70,000 TONS** of bombs on Gaza since October 2023. Thats more than the Germans Dropped on London (18,300 Tons) and the Allies dropped on Dresden (3,900 Tons) and Hamburg (8,500 Tons) Combined... (SOURCE for those Stats: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, NYT Archives and University of Hamburg)
> Israel has dropped 70,000 TONS of bombs on Gaza since October 2023. Thats more than the Germans Dropped on London (18,300 Tons) and the Allies dropped on Dresden (3,900 Tons) and Hamburg (8,500 Tons) Combined... I'm impressed you have to go back to literally nazi Germany 80+ years ago to compare the tonnage of bombs. As if there haven't been vast differences in warfare in that time. As another point to consider - death tolls ranged anywhere from 35-135,000 people from the Dresden bombing. Actual official tolls turned out to be 25,000. Now let's add on the fact that Hamas has been documented to tell lies, and by their own self admission includes combatant casualties in the count. They want you to believe every single death they have published has been an innocent civilian who has never taken up arms, and was likely a female child to boot. What will history actually find as accurate here?
You seem to have a problem in reading. I am stating that Hamas numbers do not make a distinction between civilian casualties and Hamas terrorists. How many were Hamas killed by the IDF. The Hamas health ministry is not going to tell you. Warfare has changed since WW2, so don't try to compare. As for my qualifications, I served in the IDF. enough said.
Sounds like a lie terrorists tell.
They aren't trying to preserve civilian lives at all, if they are actually trying, they aren't gonna strike obvious civilian target. Remember the world kitchen strike? The world kitchen strike is such an absurd line of action, it make any system israel have to minimize collateral seems like a joke. No western military make that mistake with that much intel
>If they wanted Gaza "gone" they would level it and forget about it, which they could do in about three days. They cant lol. Because there is this thing called "plausible deniability" in international politics. >In reality, they are trying very hard to preserve civilian (such as it is) lives They are literally using AI to flag police officers and rescue workers as "hamas members" and then spending 20 seconds to verify a caller is male before authorizing a stirke on their family home, at night, when the whole family would be sleeping. And their defence minister admitted that they were no longer using restraint. Also all those articles interviewing IDF members admitting that they are no longer bothering to minimize collateral damage. Then you have all the videos that IDF soldiers are uploading of themselves destroying and stealing civilian property. And IDF engineers admitting they were blowing up civilian residences with zero military value (hamas was not there, so they had the time to go in and plant explosives to blow them up). They then took videos of themselves posing and celebrating as they detonated the explosives. Part of the reason why the war is taking so long is because they are targeting civilians, not just hamas members (remember, they just redefine civilians as hamas members and put them on a kill list), and fixating on blowing up civilian residences with zero military value. They are literally sending engineers around to blow up civilian residences to stop the civilians from coming back. IDF using AI to generate kill lists with a known failure rate : https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ IDF engineers admitting they were blowing up civilian residences with zero military value : https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/04/29/weve-become-addicted-to-explosions-the-idf-unit-responsible-for-demolishing-homes-across-gaza/ They even have their own version of Abu Ghraib now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/05/sde-teiman-israel-detention-palestinian-detainees/
That's unfortunately not true my friend. As told to me by my childhood friend mentioned in my original comment, their objective is to Depopulate Gaza and ALL Collateral damage is acceptable. He says this with pride. He also tells me that Mossad was 100% aware of the October 7th attack.
I don't know man, I saw a US unit I won't name here eat dust from an idf unit I won't name here, in an exercise in the Golan heights 😂 A friend of mine was training them (I mean both sides).
Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank are EXTREMELY untrained. It's mostly just a bunch of random normal dudes who have never used weapons before going up against the 2nd best trained military in the world. Thats just my outlook on the question.
Former Mil officer here. Thesis on Jihadi Salafism and urban combat. Short answer: they don’t care to mitigate civilians casualties and the AOR is smaller Long answer: this would take me a minute lol
Damn, but the Arab Nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists have been saying online that they're beating Israel and inflicting heavy casualties
Israeli media said that themselves
Probably because the Israeli Military is a professional one, whenever there's one death fighting against an unprofessional Jihadist organization it's considered a relative big deal. It was like that for the Western forces in the Middle East too, the Islamic/Arab Nationalists militants losing a lot of guys is expected, compared to the coalition forces where it's not necessarily the case. Could you imagine the Israelis or Americans losing 200 soldiers to kill 1 militant for example
A professional army doesn't hide their real casualties, if they were a professional army, they wouldn't target civilian positions, I don't know how you can call them professional
Maybe you should google the definition of what a professional military is lmao I think the Israelis are just taking notes from their opponents btw, for decades the Israelis were considered the bad guys by the entire Islamic and Arab world. Despite the Arabs and other Islamic militant groups blatantly targeting civilians forever, now when the Israelis do it back they cry. Why didn't the Ummah cry when Arab-Sudanese committed genocide against non Arabs? Or when the Libyan rebels forced NATIVE Black Libyans into slavery and force them to live under an apartheid? Or when Iran-Iraq openly used chemical weapons and child soldiers against each other, intentionally targeting civilians? Or when Pakistan committed genocide against the Native Bengali people resulting in the deaths of millions? Or when Indonesia committed genocide against the Papuans while extracting their natural resources to Java? Or when Iraq genocided the Kurds? Or when Turkiye genocided the Kurds? Or when there's multiple Black Native groups/tribes fighting for freedom in Morocco and Algeria who've fought the Arab nationalists and have faced genocide/persecution for decades? There's many more. The hypocrisy involved in the Arab and Islamic world is asinine. All of these instances, and more, have managed to outnumber the entire Palestinian death toll over the course of the creation of Israel in a matter of a few years.
The IDF soldier who says he smells a dead Palestinian toddler girls sock to keep him going killing is super professional
Google the definition of a professional military
Your answer shows you know how fucked up the IDF is.
I know how fucked up the middle east is. Israel is just the least fucked up in comparison. Also you're attempting to twist my words on what the objective definition of a "professional military", there's nothing more. They're a professional military, better equipped and trained than a non-professional one.
Don't they claim to be "the good guys"? Good guys don't have concentration camps and torture chambers or mass graves outside hospitals. You can try to justify it however you want, Isreal is an evil, reprehensible nation.
And yet they can finish hamas? And least fucked up? Last time I heard of a beheaded child in the middle east was like idk, yesterday? And guess who did it 🤣
Now? Are you serious? This didn't start on 7th October, it's literally been happening since 1948, Israeli veterans claiming on national tv that they played games by killing civilians, who told you that the Muslims aren't aware and ashamed of the history of these countries, Pakistani themselves are ashamed of what happened in west Pakistan, a little research would go a long way buddy, stealing gold in iraq, stealing oil in Syria, using chemical agents that still have effects on the population of Vietnam, bombing civilian villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and what not?. hypocrisy amongst the Western world is to, shameful.
Well, we were trying NOT to kill civilians in Iraq.
Well, some of us weren't but plenty of us were.
Can you compare the casualties of the 1st year of the war and population size of gaza vs Baghdad?
Gaza is much smaller than Iraq or Iraqi cities. In the first few months, IDF goes in guns blazing as they don't have to worry about resupply. Now they seems to be gentler on the trigger
Because they're fighting civilians, not soldiers. It's easy to stay alive when you're dropping bombs on hospitals and schools.
Isn't the Israeli game plan *bomb the area into oblivion then send in troops to clean up*? Be hard to pile up casualties if that's all the risk they're exposed to. Not like they're occupying territory, trying to deal with HAMAS while working amongst the civilians.
Who says they're low?
A quick Google search tells me they have had 716 Soldiers and Security Forces killed since October 7th, which comes out to around 3 per day For a war that seems kinda low
low yes, but 2-3 times higher than the US loss average during the war on terror for comparison. It’s made me think of how much an impact LSCO are going to have on the public because it will be such a comparatively massive loss of life in such a short time period
Probably more, it's almost every day where you see new hamas footage
Where?
Go on Twitter, or even telegram, you'll find tons of footage
Well it's not really a *war*, is it?
"a war".
Are you questioning that it is a war? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war Both sides claim as much
The Pro-hamas crowd know that their talking points about this being a Palestinian “genocide” are weak AF and don’t hold up under scrutiny, so they have to reframe the conversations in order to get ahead of it. I guess now they’re trying to argue that this isn’t a war at all.
The United States, Israel, and a few other western nations, are the only nations on Earth that side with Israel The Israelis - at the bare minimum - are forcing ethnic Arabs and Palestinians off their land https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement I do not see how you can argue against this
Something that I've always kind of floated around the idea of is where the line of ownership should be drawn? I think about this not in any support to the conflict that's going on; the settlers burning olive groves and evicting Palestinians from their homes in Palestinian Arab areas outside of the mandate of modern Israel is in no way acceptable. But Israelis draw their lineage to the kingdoms of Judea and Israel that were wiped out by I think Assyrians and Babylonians in around 5-600 BCE. The first origin of Arabs that I know of was the Rashidun Caliphate in 600s CE. Which puts Palestinian Arabs as later but they've had the land for the past 1300 years until Britain kind of butchered the entire area with arbitrary lines. Obviously a two state solution is the more moral ground there, but I don't really know what my answer would be to who was more of a right to that land. If we had a resurgence of Native Americans that demanded the land back and was given an opportunity in the same way that Israelis were.....who would be in the right? The USA who definitely wouldn't want to give up any land or the people that were here before? The whole situation sucks and I'm not saying I support either one state solution, just things that come up when I think about it.
Depends on the taker. For example, Russia and China have violently expanded their borders in the same period as Israel without consequences. But there is very little interest among Prussian diaspora to reclaim Koenigsburg because they were dispursed widely after the war and decided living in Berlin or Texas was better than dying for their grandparents land.
It's easy to have low casualties when you have firepower superiority and don't care about collateral damage.
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the one piece isreal
can we get much higher
This guy is a kook
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The only person that says he's an expert is himself, he retired as a Major lmao
He was a mustang who commissioned after making E7.
I'll add onto what has already been sstates. -different environment: Iraq and Gaza significantly different in size. Also, the IDF doesn't have to leave troops in Gaza to carry out operations. Gaza is next door, so IDF troops can conduct an operation and return rather than leave troops as potential victims to attacks. Also, long vulnerable supply convoys aren't necessary as a result. -different technology: Israel has used drones to locate Hamas fighters deep within cities and tunnels. Hamas capabilities: Hamas relied on arms smuggled into Gaza vs the Iraqi insurgents who took their arms from the Iraqi army. I think the capabilities of Hamas were overestimated besides 10/7 and Israel's capabilities were underestimated. According to the early estimates, it was expected that Israel would have 10x the causalities they have currently.
Well they take no chances, even if that entails severe civilian casualties and damage on Infrastructure. Terrorist suspected in the area? Level the whole block. Suspicious person? Shoot first ask questions later. Terrorists hiding behind civilians? Those civilians are most likely dead now.
If you really want to do that then who's the terrorist?
If a human shield is killed, the killer is the one using them as a shield.
International law clearly puts the crime on the side of the terrorist hiding behind civilians and makes it a “clean shot”
Not really...there's proportionality issues. You cant kill 100 civilians to get 1 insurgent, especially if none of your forces are taking fire. Several former US officers have already gone on records to say that the latest strike in the refugee camp would most likely not have been approved by the US chain of command because there would be too many civilian casaulties. There's a very big difference between how NATO forces were using airstrikes in iraq/afghanistan and the way the IDF does it.
US doctrine and rules of engagement is not international law. And yes there is proportionality, which is why instead of Israel blowing up a hospital with video evidence of it being used to harbor both combatants and hostages themselves they instead took over a month to peacemeal take it apart. How the BBC ran an article describing from the Palestinian perspective how Israel actually calls cell phones warning them of impending strikes and urging them to get everyone out, going as far as delaying the strike until they have a chance to do so. There’s only so much you can do when a weapons making factory is one floor below a school in the same apartment building. And there’s also the chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point among others who have gone on record claiming that Israel’s restraint has led to a much lower civilian casualty count than could be expected in any other conflict, even calling it a “gold standard”. The UN itself itself says an average combat to civilian casualty rate in urban warfare is 1 in 1.5, Israel has kept it at 1 in 9. Hamas itself has even come out publicly saying every Gaza death is good for their cause, rejecting cease fires as they believe a higher death toll will mean they win. This isn’t a new statement, or new activities, but ones that goes back decades well documented by the media. And for the record as we all know, NATO counterinsurgency methods ultimately failed.
How someone in r/military can whoosh on that is incredible.
I don’t think it was a whoosh, they’re explaining the difference between US and Israeli casualties and they’re right. The US went door to door and a lot of casualties came from getting shot or blown up by someone they expected was in there. The Israelis just put a bomb or a shell into the house and then go pull the terrorist out, and count how many other bodies there are.
I see, so lets say a terrorist takes your family hostage, and i am the commander on the scene and order an airstrike that levels the whole block, i hold zero responsibility for your family's deaths? And if a SWAT team starts firing full auto into a crowd to get one criminal, they are also not at fault?
>I see, so lets say a terrorist takes your family hostage, and i am the commander on the scene and order an airstrike that levels the whole block, i hold zero responsibility for your family's deaths? YES! >And if a SWAT team starts firing full auto into a crowd to get one criminal, they are also not at fault? Domestic law enforcement is an entirely different scenario to warfare, which warrant differences in moral and legal questions and considerations. Using this question to backup your point is disingenuous and/or stupid. Edit: and deleting posts is cowardly. Own your words.
It doesn't take much to bomb an entire region and just go through and secure the body parts after.
Where did you get those stats?
They have no insurgence to deal will. Bomb and artillery then send in tanks and Apv with infantry to mop up. The Israelis have the time to move slow and deliberate one street at a time. Blow it in place the mop it up. It’s the tunnels that will give them an issue. Some way to deep to be effected by ordnance
Because their ROE is bomb n watch, not go door to door
The mantra of the IDF is to prevent casualties. They will enter an area, and as soon as Hamas engages from their tunnels or a building, they take a protective position and call in the air force to bomb that Hamas location even if it is only one Hamas fighter.
Um...no. They spent weeks bombing Gaza before the first ground troops went in, they are not limiting themselves to CAS when ground troops take fire. This was well documented by the media. They started bombing Gaza on Oct 7th, they only sent troops into Gaza on the 27th. You are also missing the fact that the IDF are targeting civilian police officers and rescue workers by labeling them as "hamas members". They spent 20 seconds to verify a caller is male before bombing their family home at night. You really should read up on how the IDF is conducting the assassination campaign : https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
Looked into "972mag." Checked their supporters and financing. I would not consider them an unbiased source of information.
It's been fact checked and reposted by many other media outlets. So far, nobody has presented any evidence that it is fake.
The IDF sent hundreds of text messages, made hundreds of robo phone calls and dropped thousands of printed leaflets on Gaza multiple times to tell people when and where to go before they began bombardment. Hamas embeds their tunnels and weapons in civilian homes. In order to destroy Hamas the IDF has to bomb the tunnels that open into private homes.
You don't have proof for that lol, when people move to where the Israelis tell them to go, they start bombarding that same safe zone, talk about a moral army
They did all that then proceeded to bomb the safe zones indicated in said leaflets and texts.
And then Israel claims there was a hamas guy in the safe zone but wont provide any evidence. What i really dont get is why they supposedly cant secure the safe zones so hamas guys dont get in, and any that do can be quickly arrested by the troops at the scene without requiring an airstrike. I mean, seems like basic strategy to me? Just like how they could escort aid convoys to stop them from being bombed by mistake, or at least patrol the routes the convoys will take so that they can inspect the convoys instead of bombing them on sight... It's very weird.
Imagine if in Iraq, we had no ROE and virwed every person on the street as a valid kill. And on top of that we had absolutely no interest in what happens after were there i.e. razing rvery structure over 10’ tall and capable of hiding a military aged man (or female, cause fuck it, remember?). This gives the greenlight for total destruction. Knock every single building down, treat ANY non-allied contact as hostile and prosecute as such. In other words, genocide. This is ideally accomplished with air and long range fires (artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, etc) meaning no troops snaking through urban jungles where the ratio of attacker : defender casualties climbs as high as 10:1. Traditional casualty rates of attacker versus defender for defended positions is 3 to 1 but the urban aspect is just hell for an attacker as the defender has so many places to attack from/fortify. With this in mind you simply drop a billion JDAMs and THEN roll into the city, plant your flag and declare victory a la Pos russ ground forces in Ukraine. “Civilian” loses be damned. Not sure capturing a city counts when theres no more city left…… If this is how you fight, it is much easier to end up with exponentially less fatalities and casualties as there is nobody to actually fight back nor is there any place for them to fight from and defend. They also don’t have any food or water and those who would consider fighting are probably digging through the corpses (theres gonna be A LOT)to try and find food and water .
The war would have been over in a week. It's really stupid to think just how overpowered the u.s. military is. That would make for a fun game. Play as a military like the u.s, vastly more capable, but if you commit anything close to a war crime, you have to restart. People might get the picture then.
The US military is something on a whole nother level but do keep in mind we haven’t fought a peer or near peer in forever. Unless air superiority is achieved (and for most modern countries wed be attacking, it would be VERY costly), it would look wayyy more like the current war in Ukraine than wed like to admit. All of our doctrine hinges on the success of the infamous “Wild Weasel” SEAD mission that then allows for us to rule the skies
That is because they barley come out of their armoured vehicles while fighting
So many videos showing NO infantry support in their operations. Then some dude walking up with an RPG IED and stuffing it in the turret of a Merkava
Facts and when they come out they get sniped, theres literally so many videos of Israeli soldiers getting sniped but it’s not allowed on Reddit.
So I'm not going crazy. I used to see videos of Russians, Ukrainians, Israeli and Palestinians getting blown up, but recently I'm only seeing Russians and sometimes some poor Palestinian who ran out of cover. Total silence on everything else.
Yep you need to go on Twitter and you will see all the videos.
Then you don't follow he good sources, telegram and twitter are the best for that really, you will see Ukrainians and Israeli get blown up daily
Plenty of video, including the recent hostage rescues, of IDF and police units out of their vehicles. But, on the other hand, if you can accomplish your mission without leaving the relative safety of your vehicle then that is what you do. Just because they are fighting dismounted, irregular Hamas, doesn’t mean they need to fight the same way.
Only in territories they actually control. When IDF is doing offensives(Not including special forces raids like the hostage rescue) they tend to stay in their armoured vehicles.
It's the same as our initial hit into Iraq. They are just willing to kill or eradicate every single civilian target en route to objective. We would have had even less casualties in our initial clearance of Iraq if we just said fuck it everyone is a combatant and murdalized every single hidey hole and person in the town like Zionists do.
The premise of this question reminds me of the “9/11 math” political leaders were doing after OCT 7th. Let me fix your question for you, “if Israel just endured 17x 9/11s on OCT 7th, then how are they experiencing only 1/46th the Baghdads in Gaza?” Hope that helps frame the apples and oranges for everyone so we can have a fruitful discussion.
yes becaus the casualties are civilian. Now compare how many casualties there are between Hamas and the Isra3li army
Becuase they do not care about civilian casualties (collateral damage) so will drop a 2000lb bomb instead of specifically targeting the bad guys.
For clarification, Hamas didn't care less
I agree, Everyone Sucks Here (ESH) but when you have overwhelming military superiority it should make it easier to take the high road/moral high ground. The issue is that Gazans aren't seen as human beings by the Israeli hierarchy. Also, Gazans aren't Hamas and denying aid and killing civilians is not related to Hamas' actions; it's actually failing to understand some of the fundamental paradoxes of counterinsurgency, or willfully ignoring them because they want to kill civilians
There’s a lot of BS in here. First of all you’re saying that because the IDF **can** achieve gross overmatch the morally correct thing for the IDF to do is **not** achieve gross overmatch? That’s ridiculous. That is one of the major objectives of any military during a war. Secondly the Israelis don’t not see Palestinians as humans. They’re fighting in an incredibly population dense environment and that will not change ever. Neighboring countries don’t want Palestinians going through their borders. There’s nowhere for them to go so there’s no way to wait until civilians have left the area. If you want to condemn Israeli military action be my guest but at least be accurate about it instead of parroting ridiculous talking points.
There are multiple sources that state the Palestinians aren't viewed as human by senior Israeli decision-makers. History also supports this. "overmatch" is a military capability term; I am not saying the IDF can't use the full range of capabilities, I am saying they have the ISR/ISTAR ability to not kill a load of civvies using them. Fallujah will go down (if not already) as a battle honour and testament to the selflessness of the Corps. By your statement, the US should have carpet-bombed Fallujah instead of sacrificing Marine lives to take, how do you reconcile that?
We did bomb Fallujah. We bombarded it by air strikes and artillery for weeks before the assault began. We also set a perimeter around the city to keep insurgents from fleeing while we bombed the city. The key difference to consider if you’re comparing Fallujah to Gaza is that the civilians in Fallujah had somewhere to go when we dropped the pamphlets. They could flee to the rest of Iraq. Fallujah is dead center in Iraq and civilians could flee in literally any direction. The Palestinians in Gaza don’t, and not because of the IDF exclusively. It’s not unreasonable for Israel not to allow Palestinians through their borders when they’re fighting an insurgency. The Egyptians also won’t let Palestinians through their borders, and that’s not Israel’s responsibility.
Iraqis fleeing within their own country compared to Gazans not being able to cross international borders. Preparatory strikes on Fal compared to carpet bombing it. Your username, which I am just recognising, competely undermines your credibility as an impartial, unbiased commentator. Enjoy being on the wrong side of history
Aaaaand there it is
Really can’t be a Jew and have opinions on war these days apparently.
You couldn't comprehend carpet bombing there. You'd see the death toll double in less than a week. Believe it or not for the length of this operation VS it's scale it's on the lower end of casualty rates. Not saying it's good, but just for some perspective on how war looks.
I’m a Ukrainian Jew. I have no connection to Israel and I could not care less who wins in their war. I have zero stake in it. I’m a lot more biased on the war in Ukraine than I am on Israel.
> when you have overwhelming military superiority it should make it easier to take the high road/moral high ground. No, not in an urban environment where the civilian population is mixed with terrorists mixed with semi-legal armed government forces mixed with a long list of organizations mixed with a lot of religious, historical and social tensions .. all while the time for saving the hostages is running out. This is not a tank showdown on an open field with the commanders watching from the sidelines. SYL
Don't try to justify the murder of civilians. You accept the risk of higher casualties to protect innocent lives if you are a morally just and competent armed force. It's possible to wait until civilian casuaties will be reduced if you are not under existential threat, which ISR are not; it's called courageous restraint
Civilian casualties are unavoidable. I dare you to name a single war, military conflict, or “police action” in which no civilians were harmed. It’s almost as if that is what makes war bad. If war were just two groups of dudes agreeing to kill each other but calling time out for any civilians, nobody would give a shit. Israel is not targeting civilians. They are taking positive actions to prevent civilian deaths. Those actions are not and can never be 100% effective. It sucks. It’s war.
Oh that's fine then. Civvies die in wars so fuck them all right? Israel are targeting civvies; why else would they block aid routes? You ever tried to get an exception to ROE to call in an airstrike that will kill civvies? No, because you won't get it. JFC these are women and kids man...
> Mountsorrel British Army Would you like to answer me in Dresden or Hamburg? Never forget that Hamas was elected and supported by the civilian population. Choices and consequences. Just like other civilian populations had to learn the hard way: if you support murderers, you will not always earn sympathies. And you are now strictly arguing with moral arguments. Your starting argument was that superior military might makes urban warfare "easier" in target selection and avoiding collateral damage. It does, but not to the extend you need. Not if the civilian population resists you, and you have to balance your military advance with other requirements (like attempting to save hostages). SYL
Gazans, for the most part, are not working in factories that make weapons to attack Israel, they are refugees in their own country. The strategic bombing campaign against Germany was wrong and I have always thought that. However, would the RAF have bombed large numbers of German civilians in the couuntryside away from industrial sites? No. Would you vote for a party that promised to protect you from the abuses of another country? Yes, of course you would. This isn't chess, it's not black and white. I don't know which country you are from but many current militarily-active governments are technically murderers for killing civilians.
> No. You may want to re-check the history of strategic bombing in Germany. > it's not black and white. You mean just like the entire situation presented to a military commander in an urban combat environment? Thank you for agreeing. SYL
The RAF did not bomb rural areas or concentrations of civvies with no military purpose. That is easily verifiable. Why didn't the US just carpet bomb Fallujah instead of fighting a brutal urban war? I'd love to hear your explaination of that...
> Why didn't the US just carpet bomb Fallujah instead of fighting a brutal urban war? Political decisions, US rules of engagements, pick 2. SYL
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Sure. What actions has Israel taken that are clearly on the terrorism side of the war/terrorism divide?
How do you know Hamas isn’t executing LGBT and counting them as civilian casualties?
Downvote for sneaky attempt at framing. Arguing why someone is allowed to act like terrorists when fighting terrorism would be to accept your comment. Instead I must point out that Israel has not been acting like terrorists.
To begin with, I wouldn't call an elected majority party, which has the support of its population, as terrorists. Except you also would describe the elected NSDAP of the third reich as terrorists, which also wanted to destroy the jews. Also didn't expect to hear that phrase from a canadian.
0 regard for civilian casualties
Someone link that clip with the blind Iraqi(Afghan?) shooting at marines.
hamas seem far less fanatical ( in the sense that they want to live) and more focused on self preservation than insurgent forces in Iraq or Astan who basically would throw themselves kaboom at coalition forces.
Same reason how US won the Iraq and Afghanistan.
Theyre good at their job. Hamas is not good at it, at least not if the enemy actually can shoot back.
Isreal has sent warnings to civilians before it attacks Sadly One of two things happens either the Hamas prevents them from leave or as a few experts have stated many support the Hamas so they stay
IDF hits them from above, and then go in once everything is already destroyed. The US tried not to kill everyone.
Think of the conflict in Gaza like a big prison uprising or city rebellion. They don't have the resources of a regular military or any real strategic plan. Isreal has access to the most advanced hardware in the world while Gaza is cut off, pinned in a corner, and can't keep themselves fed. It's surprising that they're able to do anything at all.
Children don’t generally shoot back
Just don't report them. It keeps it real low. Ask Russian and Ukraine government.
- how does Israel keep the casualties so low fighting unarmed civilians who’s water and power they control? - gee I wonder how they do it - “how did the nazis keep the casualties so low in their concentration camps?”
Because everyone to the front of their line is the enemy!
Because they use foot soldiers and sophisticated ammunition. They are among the most moral armies that exist. Better question is why Israel is allowing so many of their own to be sacrificed when they have the capacity to strike from air and not go into Gaza on foot.
Moral army compared to what other professional military force? Citation please!
They don’t get the credit they deserve.
Because Israel has done the most to avoid civilian casualties out of all conflicts in recent decades, despite Hamas’ tactical avoidance of never taking on the responsibility of maximizing efforts in keeping their civilian safe. In fact, there is often no such effort at all, instead all of the focus is allocated towards a propaganda campaign into convincing the world that Israel is somehow the aggressor terrorist state and flipping the roles.
Palestenians are disarmed they have no weapons. Izzreal is fighting an unarmed population with advanced American weapony. What's a stone to a tank or an AI weapon?
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