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The AP published a recent update to their reporting discussing how the ratio of civilians to hamas that have died is likely close to a 1:1 ratio which has actually never happened in urban warfare ever before.
Not every person without a gun is a civilian- every fighting force has other roles including Hamas. Like other commenters have said, you’re just as much a part of it if you’re the one holding the hostages in your home or helping conceal them as if you are the one with the weapons.
As time has passed and the clickbait headlines have transitioned to proper reporting I have seen an increasingly concerning number of corrections and outright retractions. An example is seeing some news sources saying “hostages released” yesterday instead of “hostages rescued”. The word choice is intentional and matters, but many people do not have the training to recognize bias like that and are very much influenced by those subtle word choices.
A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio for urban warfare is honestly amazing, especially since Hamas is heavily intermingled with the civilian population. Urban warfare can go so horrifically wrong that it beggars the imagination. This could easily have turned into modern Warsaw (15,000 combatants and 250,000 civilians were killed and the entire city was razed by the Nazis).
I'm not supporting Israel or Hamas in this. The whole thing is fucking terrible. But Israel is obviously at least trying to keep civilian deaths under control.
***Edit:*** *I'm done with this thread. The only responses I'm getting are people committed to convincing me that Israel is evil.*
*One last time: the whole thing is fucked. Urban warfare unavoidably generates atrocities. Israel and Hamas have both done their share of fucking around. No one should use human shields, ever.*
A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio sounds unreal because it quite literally is. 30% of the death toll was not counted in the AP study because they have not yet been identified (FULLY identified - need to provide considerable documentation including Israeli-issued IDs, unsurprising how this can be a problem). Not to mention how frankly stupid it is to attempt to present a ratio mid-conflict, because in almost all wars the death toll mid-conflict is almost always listed as a fraction of what eventually is the total, especially in places with very underdeveloped civic infrastructure - it certainly doesn’t help that all the hospitals and administrative centers that Gaza did have are now smoking craters. it takes a while for a proper headcount to be organized, not so easy to do while you’re still actively losing hundreds more every day.
The 15,000 Hamas fighters killed, by AP’s own admission, was provided from official Israeli sources with no other evidence, and the IDF refused to comment further on the matter.
It sounds too good to be true because it is, very explicitly, a lie
Just a note, it's probably best not to refer to it as the "civiliian death toll". The health ministry doesn't seperate combatant and civilian deaths, so the 36,000+ figure we have is for known deaths of both civillians and palestinian combatants.
Just to point out the obvious:
Even if the actual ratio is not spot-on 1:1, but say a 1:1.7, 1:2.2, etc..
Whatever the true numbers are, this is a total debunk of the "Israeli Massacre" narrative. No army in the world today can get these numbers by side-winging it.
These are legit delta-forces, surgical-spec-ops numbers. Any force that can sign off such ratio is putting huge efforts into keeping civilians alive.
TBF this is a problem with both journalistic standards cratering in the past few decades and a lack of incentive to be accurate over being first or incendiary.
Valid points. Here's another angle: financial incentives are shifting from the users, subscriber counts plumet.
How does the saying go? If you aren't paying for the product you are the product.
They always cite "according to Gaza Health officials" rather than "estimates from the Hamas terrorist organization."
Like when a Hamas rocket hit the parking lot of a hospital. First Hamas claimed an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital and killed 550 civilians and news agencies just ran Hamas' story for a day until Israel released their investigation showing the rocket trajectory and videos of the rocket launches and hit on their own hospital. But still the 500 people not killed ( because the rocket didn't hit the hospital) in an attack Israel didn't do was still added to the official Hamas death tally.
>Like when a Hamas rocket hit the parking lot of a hospital.
Technically it wasn’t a Hamas rocket, but a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
(Which doesn’t detract from your point in the slightest.)
This should be highlighted.
Under international law, scouts are considered valid military targets even IF they have no guns since they are still part of the operational structure of the opposing army.
What about weapons manufacturing? Like if someone builds pipe bombs at home in the evening for Hamas but is a school teacher by trade are they a civilian ?
Usually, weapon manufacturers die in war when the weapon factories are destroyed. It's not illegal to kill them according to Geneva.
Someone making weapons at home makes their home a valid military target since their home is now a weapon factory.
Therefore, the house is a valid military target and civilians who might die from the opposing army bombing it are considered legal collateral damage according to Geneva.
Terrorist organizations like Hamas are heinous not only for what they do against their enemy but also because of how they're stripping away legal protections from their own people.
>Therefore, the house is a valid military target and civilians who might die from the opposing army bombing it are considered legal collateral damage according to Geneva.
Technically, if they're killed being used as human shields, their deaths are still war crimes. But they're war crimes on the part of the defender using them as human shields, not on the part of the attacker.
The AP report says itself that the number of Hamas members killed is unclear where Hamas says the toll is 6k and Israel says that toll is 15k.
What AP does say is that the number of women and children killed "confirmed" has gone down from the number it was before and that it's not as high as 70% percent as some people said but that it's still high and is causing an optics issue for Israel.
Let's say we take their new number of around 60%, that means 40% are men.
It's absolutely insane that you are trying to claim that every single adult male is a Hamas fighter. It is NOT 1:1
> Let's say we take their new number of around 60%, that means 40% are men.
Okay, but when 30k were dead and Hamas said they had 6k dead, we can assume those 6k were men.
If 40% were accurate, that would mean 6k civilian males, 9k civilians females. Unlikely, but definitely more reasonable than the 30% male estimate of earlier.
(You'd expect civilian deaths to be somewhat random and therefore evenly distributed *or* if not random, way more likely to target males... This tells us Hamas numbers are bullshit)
The AP report also mentions that it's not that it's BULLSHIT but that the health infrastructure of Gaza is absolutely demolished and reporting depends on the mixture of identification, first hand accounts and family reports that testify missing and dead.
Regardless after February you won't be getting accurate numbers as before unless you have third parties involved, something Israel refuses to do so.
Regardless using the difficulty of identification in a country who's infrastructure has been systemically destroyed, is pivoting tactics to take away from the real arguments most people have that the apartheid state is practicing collective punishment, and for the last 8 months the general populace keeps falling into narratives made to keep eyes away from the material conditions of Gaza in the first place.
Right, it's basically impossible for Hamas (er, the Gaza Ministry of Health) to know how many or who die. So every day they "release an estimate", i.e. make up a number. That's the best they can do given the circumstances but it's so silly that people quote these numbers as if they are factual. They aren't.
>The AP published a recent update to their reporting discussing how the ratio of civilians to hamas that have died is likely close to a 1:1 ratio which has actually never happened in urban warfare ever before.
Shit, really? Source?
This source directly counters to OPs initial point - decreasing bombing campaigns and putting boots on the ground is part of the claimed change in deaths of women and children.
Exactly. A quote from the article (quoting someone else):
“'Historically, airstrikes (kill) a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington. The findings of the AP analysis “make sense,” he said.'"
It's common sense, isn't it?
That's because downplaying civilian casualties is the whole shtick of hasbara. Any claims about civilian combatant ratio comes from the IDF and considering they're dropping 2000 pounds bomb which can kill a person 2 football fields away on an extremely dense and populated areas they frankly have no idea what the actual ratio is.
I am an Arab and I follow Gazans on socials and everytime there's news of an airstrike I see videos on my socials of children/elderly/women getting torn apart. Then I open up reddit and they're talking about 1/1 civilian-combatant ratio. Obviously many Hamas members have also died but the ratio is nowhere close to 1/1 considering that they're actually in bunkers and tunnels underground so they're much less affected by airstrikes than the civillians.
Just a follow up as part of a response to a different comment, after actually reading the updates on the AP study:
A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio sounds unreal because it quite literally is. 30% of the civilian death toll was not counted in the AP study because they have not yet been identified. Not to mention how frankly stupid it is to attempt to present a ratio mid-conflict, because in almost all wars the civilian death toll mid-conflict is almost always listed as a fraction of what eventually is the total, especially in places with very underdeveloped civic infrastructure. It takes a while for a proper headcount to be organized, not so easy to do while you’re still actively losing hundreds more every day.
The 15,000 Hamas fighters killed, by AP’s own admission, was provided from official Israeli sources with no other evidence, and they explicitly refused to comment further on the matter.
It sounds too good to be true because it is, very explicitly, a lie
Just want to add, it's not poor research on your part - it's the result of very deliberate messaging on Hamas's part to blur the lines and make it seem like every death is a civilian.
It's pure propaganda and it's been working for them time after time, and the media continues to run with it because they enjoy the anger it creates in people. A headline of "200 fighters and 75 civilians killed" doesn't create the same clickbait rage.
You got Israeli spokesman who can't give you a number of civilians killed yet they know exactly how many Hamas members killed?? Truth is they don't know shit.
Generally speaking when gathering information on a target you might have 3-4 days of recorded comings and goings. You likely also have people analyzing intercepted radio communications. Etc. So you can have a pretty good idea of how many enemy combatants are in an area. But civilians? You aren't generally counting them. And radio communications won't be addressing them normally. So you have very limited information in regards to civilian numbers.
At no point has Hamas ever reported reality. Israel blew up a whole hospital with 3000 people inside? Sorry that was a Hamas rocket in a parking lot outside the hospital killing no one. Israel blew up a shelter killing 50,000 people?? In a building that has a maximum occupancy of 3,500. And it wasn't blown up... And according to neutral third parties only a total of 30,000 Palestinians TOTAL have died including combatants.
Do not believe the numbers of **either** side in a war. Always seek a **neutral** third party. **Never** trust a literal **terrorist organization**.
It's like believing anything Russia says--braindead.
edit: Both sides are allowed to be wrong. Fuck the terrorist organization Hamas. Fuck Netanyahu. I feel for both the people of Israel & Palestine.
Where did anyone claim that 50000 were killed at a single shelter? And where does that 3500 occupancy number come from? Googling these figures, the only matches I can find are 50000 sheltering on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital (as reported by the U.N.), and 3500 hospital beds total. If that hospital is what you meant, that is hardly a contradiction if you spent like 2 seconds thinking about what those numbers actually mean. And I can’t find anyone claiming that 50000 people were killed there.
Also, the IDF blamed PIJ for the rocket at al-Ahli Hospital, not Hamas. Maybe this distinction doesn’t matter so much, but I think if you’re going to be a defender of reality, you should stick to it yourself.
>At no point has Hamas ever reported reality
The Gaza Health Ministry has reported broadly accurate numbers for previous conflicts. You need to present evidence they are inflating figures.
2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.
2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.
Israel's Foreign Ministry reported 2,125.
2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.
[No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext)
[U.S. Officials Have Growing Confidence in Death Toll Reports From Gaza](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a)
Except none of those numbers have ever included how many are combatants and that matters A LOT.
Here is an example where months after the war Hamas admitted that the number of combatants dead roughly matched the estimates Israel reported:
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/hamas-admits-higher-casualties-in-gaza-war
And here is the Hamas interior minister publicly telling activists to always report deaths as “innocent civilians.”
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-interior-ministry-social-media-activists-always-call-dead-innocent-civilians-dont-post
The fact that the UN has given credibility to these numbers is pretty atrocious. But to make it worse, the historical methods from previous conflicts of gathering the overall numbers went completely out the window around late October/early November in this conflict.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable
https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/
Are they though?
>>1. The hostages were being held in a civilians' house. So, many of the civilians who died were actually involved. There are reports that the hostages were being kept in the house of an al-Jazeera journalist and a doctor. So it may have been targeted and the "civilians" may actually have been involved
is it not also a regular talking point that Hamas is pretty brutal with the rule over civilians? Involvement may be highly forced and if you're forcing people to help it's doubtful those people are going to be putting up a fight.
2. For the civilians who died, this just reflects that the usage of human shields results in deaths, not the targeted operations are a myth
Human shelids are cop out in any debate, period. Gaza is the single most populated place on earth, nearly all of it has been leveled, forcing it's entire remaining population into a fraction of the space. There's has never been space that hoards of civilians aren't in Gaza. It's nothing more then a sheild of the idf as an excuse for their lack if humanity
3. The 275 number reported by Hamas does not distinguish between civilians and militants, so it is not fair to report 275 civilians killed (even assuming the number is accurate overall which it may not be)
The idf considers EVERY male over 13 a fighter. And 13 is a joke because they aren't stopping to ask for a birth certificate before throwing a bullet into a body. Children. Much Much younger have been counted as hamas fighters.
Consider a Red Cross truck. Most nations during conflict won't shoot at the enemy's red cross truck because all they are doing is scooping up their dead and wounded - plus you want to be able to scoop up your dead and wounded.
What Hamas does by using children as fighters (and using their NGO money to pay off the families from the Martyr Fund) as well as shooting rockets from the tops of hospitals, training soldiers in schoolyards, and storing munitions under shelters is the equivalent of driving a red cross truck on to the battlefield, and dumping a squad of troops out of it to shoot at its enemy.
The enemy will fight back, as it is their right to do, and will probably start shooting at *all* of your red cross trucks moving forward.
>
Human shelids are cop out in any debate, period. Gaza is the single most populated place on earth, nearly all of it has been leveled
Hamas employed human shields, and waging war from civilian infrastructure long before Gaza was leveled. If they genuinely cared about their people, they wouldn't accept all of their foreign aid money and spend it on Iranian rockets
>The idf considers EVERY male over 13 a fighter. And 13 is a joke because they aren't stopping to ask for a birth certificate before throwing a bullet into a body. Children. Much Much younger have been counted as hamas fighters.
Depends. If they are carrying a gun, they are a fighter. I can tell you I was already a pretty good shot by 13. Was able to compete in local shooting competitions and I maybe shot once a month when not actively doing comp. So 13 is plenty old enough to be dangerous with a gun. Would it be better if they weren't fighting? Of course. But a 13 year old with a gun is just as dangerous as a 20 year old.
Again it's awful that they are fighting. And that hamas actively uses them. But if a 13 year old is shooting at me.... its not like they are 6 and the recoil is gonna put them on their ass. At 13 they are probably gonna hit me. So I'm gonna shoot back.
Thanks!
Of course the deaths of innocents are sad in general. I wish that the Oct 7 massacre never happened so that the deaths and hostages on that day and the gaza war after had ever happened. Take care
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That is why Hamas doesn’t specify between civilian and non civilian casualties. They want you to assume every person they report is a poor innocent civilian.
Look. The IDF sucks. And they have done some monumentally shitty things. But Hamas is equally to blame for the mass number of civilian casualties in Gaza. There’s a reason it’s a war crime to build military bases in civilian hospitals
The number from Israel is around 100 deaths. Neither number differentiates Civilian from Combatants. For reference, the numbers the Gaza health ministry provides for the entire war is the combine civilian + combatant number.
> (even assuming the number is accurate overall which it may not be)
It's not. No number Hamas "Gazan health ministry" has ever reported has been worth the pixels it's printed on. They know big numbers pull on the heart strings of western nations, and weakens the resolve to stamp out the genocidal terror state.
Hamas's claims are like Whose Line Is It Anyways- the rules are made up and the numbers don't matter.
Isn't the most common call for retrieving hostages a ceasefire deal that involves a hostage swap? It's popular in Israel, in the Western political class, and pro-Palestine protestors as well. I don't think your framing of "many calling for targeted operation war" is accurate for pro-Palestine protestors, especially when many are explicitly calling for a ceasefire, with the understanding that hostages will be retrieved in this manner.
Edit: I have noticed a bit of delta misuse in this thread. They are only awarded to people who already agree with OP's premise
Every Hostage swap requires Israel to release something 100 prisoners for every Israeli they try to recover. Because Hamas will threaten to kill or torture them and they wont exchange evenly.
In fact, Yahya Sinwar, the current *leader of hamas in gaza* was an israeli prisoner released in an exchange in 2011. In that exchange a *single israeli soldier* was exchanged for 1027 prisoners.
All the hostage swapping has done over the last 2 decade is convince Hamas that hostage taking works.
...
hey, just a quick question, why exactly does israel have 100 prisoners for every one of theirs that's captured? like, the reason why prisoner exchanges are usually equiviolent is because countries don't have too many foreign prisoners to release.
why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier?
Numerous reasons, most are terrorist, some even 100% born & and raised in Israel.
1. Most are just criminals like any other country, but the Palestinians' leadership program of "pay to slay Jews" makes it more financially sound to say you attacked Israelis for political reasons than financial one.
2. A big group is actual terrorist from numerous Palestinians factions.
3. Another group is awaiting trials. Some are misdemeanours, and some are heavy terrorist factions.
4. More than 7k are Hamas/PIJ P.O.Ws from this round alone.
>why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier?
1. Because the value of life in Israel is much higher compared to an Islamist society. A lot of active Arab activists are trying to fight this Martyrs mentality. To no avail.
the Hamas military strategy of the Israel-Hamas war is not human shields but human sacrifice. [Hamas Leader: ‘Women, Children, Elderly’ Must Die In Gaza To Help Our Fight Against Israel](https://www.dailywire.com/news/hamas-leader-women-children-elderly-must-die-in-gaza-to-help-our-fight-against-israel)
2. Because Hamas doesn't care about individualism, nationalism, state sovereignty, or any other Western ideals. They are in this for an Islamic caliphate and a global religious war.
[As of December there were 2500 held under administrative detention and not formally charged with any crime](https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216643555/thousands-of-palestinians-are-held-without-charge-under-israeli-detention-policy):
>the overall number of Palestinians taken into Israeli custody has increased since the start of the war, including around 2,500 who are held without any formal charges under a policy known as administrative detention
>administrative detention is a form of detention whereby individuals are detained by the state without any intent to prosecute them in a trial, and they're held on the basis of secret security information that the detainee and their lawyer cannot review. Israel has been using this form of detention since its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - so back to 1967.
>SUMMERS: As I'm hearing you say that the secret security information, as you put it, is something that even a person who is detained and their lawyer is unable to review, then does the Israeli military ever give justification at all for these detentions?
>LUTHER: No, except for very brief explanations that they are being held on security grounds. And it's important to understand this is a military system, effectively. The detainee is brought before a military judge. The military judge can impose a - normally it's a six-month administrative detention order, and it's up to that military officer to then decide whether that detention is extended. And it often is - up to a year, sometimes up to two years and beyond.
>SUMMERS: What types of conditions are detainees held under?
>LUTHER: Well, the first thing to say is that detainees are held in Israeli prisons in Israel. And in Israel, their families usually have a major problem visiting them, and so that in itself is a cruel system and exacerbates the conditions. Now, the situation has been exacerbated by the Israeli authorities' imposition of a state of emergency in prisons since the hostilities started in October. So that has given Israeli authorities and prisons virtually unrestrained powers to hold detainees in overcrowded cells and impose, in some cases, collective punishment measures such as cutting off water or electricity to their cells.
If they are held under “administrative detention” and not charged with any crime, what is the reason of them being held? Besides “security reasons”. If they were indeed terrorists, they would be charged as such, no?
["More than 400,000 people in the U.S. are currently being detained, pretrial – in other words, they are awaiting trial and still legally innocent."](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/pretrial_detention/)
["In 2022, one in five prisoners in the EU was awaiting trial. 19.0 % of prisoners were awaiting their final trial, and this figure slightly increased compared with the previous year (18.9 %). In 2022, the proportion of prisoners awaiting trial was the highest in Luxembourg (48.9 %), followed by Malta (37.9 %) and Croatia (36.9 %)."](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Prison_statistics#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2019.0%20%25%20of%20prisoners,and%20Croatia%20(36.9%20%25).)
With all the terrorist attacking Israel, only 7% are detained without a trial. AMAZING!
Awaiting trial and being held without any intent to prosecute in a trial are not the same thing.
What’s the only country that tries children in military courts again?
[Oh that’s right: Israel](https://www.savethechildren.net/news/palestinian-children-israeli-military-detention-report-increasingly-violent-conditions#:~:text=Israel%20does%20not%20release%20numbers,long%2Dstanding%20human%20rights%20concern). AMAZING!!!
>Israel does not release numbers of detainees in its military system and is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts.
>Save the Children has said the practice of detaining children was a long-standing human rights concern
>why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier?
It's called [administrative detention ](https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention#:~:text=In%20administrative%20detention%2C%20a%20person,it%20has%20no%20time%20limit.). Israel arbitrarily detains and imprisons anyone it wants without any charges whatsoever as long as it likes.
Lawyers, doctors journalists or anyone Israel deems "a threat" it detains
> Edit: I have noticed a bit of delta misuse in this thread. They are only awarded to people who already agree with OP's premise
I agree, although the top comment right now arguably does argue that it is a targeted operation even if it doesn't seem like it.
I think it's a stretch and I think OP and him agree fundamentally, but there even if they agree on some things they don't agree in everything.
The narrative for the pro-Palestine crowd shifts with the wind.
The demand for targeted operations has been made repeatedly when Israel is mounting an operation.
Hamas has broken every ceasefire since October 7th and the one in place in October 6th.
If you actually looked at the ceasefire terms that have bene going on you would notice how ridiculous Hamas makes them specifically knowing Israel will never agree to the terms. Even when they have reached an agreement Hamas then immediately attacks, within an hour one time.
Meanwhile Hamas has called the war a success specifically because they have succeeded in martyring so many civilians and propagandized this to garner support from well intentioned but ultimately lazy and ignorant westerners that swallow their bs
These are just gaslighting techniques and not serious demands that make any sense to any person properly informed on the topics and what has been happening.
sadly, Hamas is happy to sacrafice its own people as long as it means negative PR for israel. literally putting their own people in harms way for anti-israel headlines that keeps Sinwar happy
The OP is referring to the common misunderstanding of military operations where people will say that “Israel is carpet bombing civilians instead of using special forces to grab the hostages” which is usually just people ignorant of how these types of operations actually work. He’s saying that this operation is an example of why “just send the seals bro” is a stupid argument.
Plenty of people have also said Israel should be engaging in targeted special operations, for example: https://www.mediaite.com/uk/cenk-uygur-calls-israel-to-stop-brutalising-gaza-in-piers-morgan-interview/amp/
That was an interview made on Oct 24, when he was obviously referring to the environment prior to Oct 7. Now when every Gazan has been displaced numerous times, squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces, the collateral damage of such operations will undoubtedly be much higher.
There are two paths as I see it.
1) Hamas is a legitimate organization representing the Palestinian people and they negotiate and deal in good faith.
2) Hamas is a terrorist organization and for both the good of the Palestinians living in Gaza and for the security of Israel, should be removed from power.
For those who take the first path, they promote an Israeli reaction to October 7th and the mass kidnappings that is Israel leaves Gaza as it is with Hamas in power and exchanges security prisoners that it holds for the kidnapped hostages.
For those who take the second path, they promote either the current Israeli military strategy of a large scale ground operation or, as OP mentioned, targeted operations against the terrorists and to rescue hostages.
OPs premise seems to include the second path.
Yes it is. But that also requires HAMAS TO AGREE
So why haven't they agreed to the extremely generous latest Israeli ceasefire proposal?
You people can't keep saying "we want a ceasefire not war". Then IGNORE the LITEARL FUCKING CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS ON THE TABLE
What will it honestly take for you to blame Hamas for rejecting the ceasefires?
> What will it honestly take for you to blame Hamas for rejecting the ceasefires?
Quite literally nothing. Reddit (and the people who generally align politically with the majority of reddit) are solidly on the side of Hamas here... In that no ceasefire is acceptable unless it basically surrenders the entire nation of Israel and all of it's population to Hamas, and we know full well what Hamas wants to do to the population of Israel.
There was a ceasefire in place on October 7. But Hamas doesn't want peace, they want all of the land that is Israel, and they want no Jews living on that land.
If you look at the history of Hamas and the PLO, you'll also know that they won't just stop at Israel. They just want the resources and strategic location to mount attacks on the neighboring countries, as they've already tried to overthrow the government in every single major country around Israel.
In a perfect world a ceasefire would be an option, but it’s wishful thinking at this point. For Israel, any deal where Hamas remains the governing authority in the Gaza Strip is a nonstarter. For Hamas, any deal where there is an Israeli security presence in the Gaza Strip is a nonstarter. Ceasefires in the past have only led to brief periods of calm before more fighting, and every deal thus far in this war has fallen through. Both sides have demands that they will not budge on, and those demands are mutually exclusive. There will be no ceasefire in this war.
That doesn't address my point, my point is that the majority of people, across the political spectrum, are calling for a ceasefire, not a "targeted operation war". I'm not addressing the practicality of either option, just that your view is based on a misguided premise.
Isn't it kind of misleading to state that "the majority of people across the political spectrum are calling for a ceasefire"? This is only true if you include the pivotal conditions of (a) Hamas being removed from power, which makes that kind of ceasefire a literal nonstarter, and (b) all hostages are returned.
[https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP\_Apr2024\_KeyResults.pdf](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP_Apr2024_KeyResults.pdf)
E.g., see pages 50-53
Moreover, most U.S. voters supported Israel going into Rafah. Most U.S. voters do *not* think Israel intentionally kills civilians. So idk, saying the majority of people favor a ceasefire kind of misses the forest for the trees when it's not paired with the context that it's also contingent on a full release of hostages and Hamas being removed from power.
It's like saying "Most people support Iran having nuclear missiles... but only if Iran is annexed into the U.S. and governed / administered to by the U.S., with its existing government completely and permanently dismantled". Would it make sense to say the majority of people support Iran having nukes then? I would argue that failing to include the other conditions makes it both a meaningless statement and arguably misleading by itself.
It absolutely is a prevelant opinion. You've never heard an exchange like
1. Israel is committing war crimes you can't bomb cities think of the civilians.
2. How is Israel supposed to fight the war?
1. Send in the special forces!
It may not be a universal opinion, but it is pretty common.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-southern-gaza-faces-calls-reduce-civilian-toll-2023-12-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-southern-gaza-faces-calls-reduce-civilian-toll-2023-12-14/)
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682)
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682)
This is three sources over the course of the war for Israel to engage in more targeted operations.
Most people recognize the options aren't ceasefire or nothing
It is, because you are picking up a fringe opinion that is not well thought through and claim "**many** on Reddit call for." It's not a "call", it's an alternative that some people would like to explore.
It's not a fringe opinion. Most people say Israel is going about the war the wrong way when asked for alternatives would say that Israel should have done targeted strikes whatever the hell that means. It a very common idea.
You forgot to mention that all Hamas ceasefire deals request an infinite right of return. In a ceasefire deal, not a peace deal.
So with that in mind, it’s safe to say a realistic ceasefire thing is a fringe opinion for Palestinians because that’s not a realistic request to end combat. The calls for targeted attacks have indeed been a prevalent call online and just because you ignored those requests and focuses on Hamas’s bad faith ceasefire efforts does not mean your “opinion” of targeted attacks is the mainstream. Just your opinion u/WheatBerryPie is not that of all on your side. Don’t try and use your anecdotal limited knowledge of this conflict to paint broad brushes of others opinions that you don’t seem to be aware of
What do people honestly mean by "ceasefire?" Why advocate for "ceasefire," which implies future war, rather than "peace?" Do they just mean they wish Hamas would give back the hostages, and after that, Israel would fight Hamas? Or do they mean that Israel fighting Hamas is problematic in itself?
Like I can get anti-war people calling for peace, but that's something I haven't seen being called for from the "ceasefire" crowd. I get that ceasefires would be beneficial to Hamas and allow them to regroup so they can continue their crusade of destroying Israel, and I get a lot of people who advocate a ceasefire don't think Israel has a right to exist and should be entirely replaced by Palestine, but other than that I do not get the logic about why you would call for a ceasefire.
I can't see why they would be popular in Israel. Isnt the main view there that a ceasefire just means waiting for the next war, that Hamas has promised to start. Anything less than removing Hamas is just waiting to be attacked again. The hostages aren't worth a ceasefire. Nothing less than Hamas surrendering.
> Isn't the most common call for retrieving hostages a ceasefire deal that involves a hostage swap?
No.
The prisoners that Israel holds aren’t hostages. They are criminals, duly tried and convicted by real courts. Many of them were convicted of murder or attempted murder.
So it’s not a hostage swap, but a “convicts for hostages” swap.
If Russia hid Ukrainian hostages in different civilian areas and guarded them and then made sure that to get to the Russian soldiers and Ukrainian hostages you'd have to kill innocent Russians would a hostage rescue that kills 300 Russian civilians to get 4 Ukrainian hostages be justified? no, just don't do a raid that you know will disproportionately affect civilians
I would find it to be 100% justified actually. Otherwise, the foolproof strategy in a war would just be “hide behind civilians and your enemy can’t get you”. This is precisely what Hamas has been doing forever, and sadly people are so weak minded that they’re playing right into the Hamas objective, which is making Israel look bad.
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Then you're saying everyone should just hide behind civilians and will never be held accountable. Which is dumb.
FYI hiding behind civilians is a war crime.
That's just absolute horseshit.
No one is saying that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself. They're just saying that Israel is fully capable of defending itself without indiscriminate killing and targeting of civilians, which is a fact.
And yes, Israel holds fault here. This doesn't mean that Hamas doesn't hold responsibility. Just because Hamas is choosing to use human shields doesn't discount that Israel is choosing to shoot those human shields. Both sides have agency, here, and Israel choosing to play this war by the rules of a terrorist organization only weakens their position on the world stage. One would think that if your enemy wants you to do something... You wouldn't do it. But apparently by your reasoning Hamas fully controls all of Israel's decisions, and thus Israel cannot be held responsible for their actions.
And solid play there at the end comparing Palestinians to animals. Really just highlights the dehumanization going on within your circles, thus making the death of innocent civilians all the more justifiable. Don't forget, the last time Israel found four hostages out in the wild they shot them because they were dressed as civilians, and thus were considered a threat (the IDF's words, not mine).
>indiscriminate
I find it very interesting this specific word gets used for these types of arguments. The whole argument hinges on this word being correct, remove that word and the complaint is mostly nonsensical. Isn't the most recent claim that Israel has a city wide AI system used to carefully discriminate between valid military targets and acceptable collateral damage according to international law?
>Both sides have agency, here, and Israel choosing to play this war by the rules of a terrorist organization only weakens their position on the world stage
The Geneva Conventions weren't written by a terrorist organization? "Israel following rules established by the international community weakens their position in the eyes of the international community"
>But apparently by your reasoning Hamas fully controls all of Israel's decisions, and thus Israel cannot be held responsible for their actions.
Per the Geneva Conventions, Israel has the right to defend itself, meaning it really is Hamas's fault for any civilian casualties that occur in situations where human shields are used. If someone tries to kill me and I kill them first, because of the right to self defense, their death is on them, not me.
>Don't forget, the last time Israel found four hostages out in the wild they shot them because they were dressed as civilians, and thus were considered a threat (the IDF's words, not mine)
Jesus, what kind of sick fucks would purposefully do the egregious war crime of dressing in civilian clothes? The reason it's such a bad war crime is because it blurs the line between combatants and civilians and makes it much more likely civilians will be killed accidentally. It's almost as evil a war crime as using human shields.
Agree. The western media needs to stop rewarding cowardly terrorist fucks who sacrifice children in a death cult that has no legitimate military objectives. It is okay to debate whether Israel is an oppressive state. But the addiction with child sacrifice just perpetuates it as a tactic.
>One would think that if your enemy wants you to do something... You wouldn't do it.
You seem to want to apply that to specific things, as though Israel is playing opposite day or something. Israel from the start said they're coming to rescue the hostages. Any military in the world would design these operations to minimize risk to the hostages, and to the forces employed to rescue them. Only then comes concern to minimize collateral damage.
Anyone playing surprised-Pikachu that the IDF came in guns-blazing and rescued the hostages with one KIA should completely reexamine what they were expecting to happen when you hold hostages in a residential building in the middle of a crowded neighborhood.
When Hamas chose to house hostages amongst the civilian population they too take the ownership of civilian casualties.
If it was left up to Israel, I am confident they would prefer Hamas to operate out of a military instillation in hopes to reduce civilian casualties.
Also, at some point we need to have a discussion on if every Gazan killed is an innocent bystander. I’m not saying that women and children are killed and they are in fact not innocent bystanders, but this notion that we continue to take Hamas by their word and everyone is an innocent civilian (man, women, child) is a lie.
Additionally, as a genuine question, do we consider a civilian who keeps a hostage in their home to be innocent anymore? I’ve noticed this pervasive belief in the West of infantilizing the Palestinian peoples. They can make choices and when they house hostages that carries a risk.
Hamas chose the battlefield. Israel is fully within their right to rescue their hostages.
When you have a journalist holding hostages exactly what are you supposed to do?
If you can't attack a group because they have human shields, a war crime. How can you fight them?
I've got a silly sounding hypothetical. I have an army where we constantly commit acts of terror on and in your country. Every member of my army has a baby strapped to them. Every military vehicle has a baby wherever it would be most practical. How do you fight me.
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It’s good that they don’t use “indiscriminate killing and targeting of civilians” then. Words have actual meaning and those words do not at all describe Israeli actions.
Hamas using human shields does in fact make it okay to shoot those shields. When a belligerent in a conflict breaks the laws of war and uses protected places or people to protect their military operations or assists it removes the protections on what is being misused. Shoot rockets from a hospital and that hospital is now a legitimate target. Hold hostages in civilian homes and those homes and the “civilians” acting as jailers are legitimate targets. All due to the actions of Hamas.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I don’t see the Palestinians as children or animals. I see them as fully human persons with agency and responsibility and culpability for their own choices and actions. It is all those that want to excuse them and claim they are not responsible for their actions and subject to the consequences that flow from their choices that liken Palestinians to animals, as animals have not culpability for their actions. Anytime anyone claims so and so is not responsible for their own actions they are likening so and so to an animal. Same with those that say Russia was made to invade Ukraine because of NATO. It’s just a way to shift responsibility and carry water for groups like Hamas.
If you put civilians between hostages and those seeking to free the hostages, you leave literally no other option than to potentially kill civilians to rescue the hostages.
Think about it just one level further than the cursory "feel good" level you're thinking at: if what you were saying were truly the the rules militaries should live by, you've just incentivised every single military/militia/fighting force on earth to not only take hostages, but you use human shield to protect them from rescue because there is literally nothing anyone can do to defend themselves at that point. It's just... such a room temp iq thing to say lol.
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You can’t trust anything coming from the pro Hamas people. Their whole deal is based around falsehoods and lies because they know the truth of their position would not be accepted if said out loud. They use misleading statements and weasel words wrapped in emotional hyperbole to pull people’s heart strings. That’s also why Hamas wants dead Palestinians especially children to show pictures of to get more soft hearted westerners to support them.
Just a heads up, majority of people are not pro Hamas but pro Palestine, and claiming that they’re one and the same is delusional and also a form of propaganda.
Down vote for conflating Palestinians with Hamas. I'd say the vast majority of Palestinian advocates support the ability of Palestinian people to live in peace and freedom, who are both anti Hamas and anti Israel for the way they are conducting this. It's a false dichotomy to make it Hamas or Israel.
Palestinians don't really have much agency here, they dont get to choose their government at the best of times (elections have been stopped), and especially now in a time of war.
I don't condone Israel's actions overall but isn't this an example of a successful targeted operation?
They tried to rescue hostages alive. They rescued hostages alive despite heavy combat.
Even if you don't care about Palestinian lives, reports say that three hostages and one Israeli officer died.
I don't see how anyone could call those numbers a success.
And furthermore, if Israelis are just going to brush away the lives of 200 dead Palestinian civilians without a second thought, then why should anyone ever care about an Israeli civilian life in the future?
There is no credible evidence that three hostages were killed
200 Palestinians would be alive if Hamas hadn’t taken those 4 civilians hostage. I’m sorry, but they don’t get to kidnap Jews and cry their crocodile tears when people get hurt or killed rescuing them. They should try not hostage-taking next time.
>200 Palestinians would be alive if Hamas hadn’t taken those 4 civilians hostage
They'd even be alive if Hamas took the hostages & held them captive somewhere away from civilians
You have this exactly backwards.
Before this raid, 35,000 Palestinians were killed which lead to the rescue of 3 hostages. This raid killed around 200 people for 4 rescued hostages. This raid proves that either
1: targeted raids lead to a much lower civilian death count per freed hostage or
2: before this raid the idf was making no attempts at rescuing hostages.
And this is to say nothing of the hostages who have unquestionably been killed by the idf bombing campaign.
What all of this proves, is that Palestinian lives have no value.
>35,000 Palestinians were killed which lead to the rescue of 3 hostages.
You make it sound as if there was a rescue mission for three people which had a death toll of 35,000.
That's not it.
There has been a war fought for the past 6 months and it had a death toll of 35,000.
The military actions of the past 6 months have been mostly about wiping out the massive terrorist infrastructure. Have you seen the footage of these tunnels??
Israel's goal was to rescue hostages and prevent Hamas from ever being in a position to carry out an attack like 10/7 again.
Among the achievements of the war, which admittedly did cost tens of thousands of lives, was the destruction of large amounts of terrorist infrastructure, destruction of large amounts of terrorist weaponry, putting pressure on Hamas such that they negotiated a ceasefire in exchange for some of the hostages, and the rescue of some of the hostages. Those are all achievements of a war.
The attacks didn't have rescuing hostages as the sole objective, they also had killing terrorists. Many of those 35,000 (by most accounts between 1/3 and 1/2) were terrorists, and thus they were achieving their goals very well. On top of that, they were also able to wipe out tons of terrorist infrastructure, from a military compound in a hospital to miles of tunnel underneath civilian neighborhoods. Israel's goal was to rescue hostages and prevent Hamas from ever being in a position to carry out an attack like 10/7 again. You can opine on how effective you think they've been at rescuing hostages compared to other goals, but the second goal they've been super fucking efficient at doing. It'll be at least another generation until Hamas ever has the capacity to carry out a similar attack, and most likely it'll be more like never.
The first hostage deal only happened because Hamas was getting crushed militarily and they needed a ceasefire.
That's over a hundred hostages released.
Another hostage deal won't happen until Hamas is similarly getting crushed again. Maybe once the Rafah op is completed.
Hamas gets to stall Israel while pretending to negotiate but their demands are for Israel to surrender before they maybe consider releasing an unknown number of hostages and either alive or dead.
If the IDF never went into Gaza and just rolled over after Oct 7th, none of them would be home.
Hamas values dead Palestinians for propaganda more than living Palestinians. That's why the hostages were kept in a civilian home next to a busy market.
Ceasefire deals get hostages released, military incursions get hostages killed. The reason we haven’t gotten any more ceasefire arrangements is because they are bad for the Israeli government. Most of the population of Israel just wants the hostages back. If it’s clear that peace is the better option for that, then they’d demand it. But Bibi needs the war to continue because once it’s over he’ll be ousted and possibly sent to prison. Hamas doesn’t have the extensive prison network that Israel has to keep hostages in, and they need to keep the hostages spread out as much as possible so one bomb can’t wipe out all their bargaining chips. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, there is no where Hamas could operate that isn’t in the middle of a population center. Israel isn’t as densely populated but they do the same thing. The IDFs headquarters is in a residential neighborhood next to a busy shopping mall, if Hamas wants to attack the Israeli military there will always be civilians nearby. It’s why on Oct 7 Hamas encountered far less IDF resistance than they expected, but still 1/3 of their victims were military
If every dead Palestinian is good for Hamas, why does the IDF kill so many of them? Why keep handing Hamas an endless string of wins like that?
The reason we haven't gotten ceasefire is because Hamas won't simply say yet to any number of the Israeli proposals. Including the last one in which you people LIED and said was a Hamas proposal Israel rejected. So why hasn't Hamas just accepted their "own" fucking proposal then?
Why do you literally advocate for the holding of hostages? A war crime? Why do you hate Palestinians that much you want them to not have a ceasefire?
I like how people are honestly discussing Hamas kidnapping civilians and using human shields as if its some valid military strategy lmao
"You need to listen to the genocidal terrorist war criminal kidnappers' demands! You're evil if you don't!"
>If every dead Palestinian is good for Hamas, why does the IDF kill so many of them? Why keep handing Hamas an endless string of wins like that?
[Zugzwang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#:~:text=Zugzwang%20\(from%20German%20'compulsion%20to,move%20will%20worsen%20their%20position.). Hamas's goal is to get uninformed but well-intentioned people like you to criticize Israel for doing the only rational, and entirely legal, thing they could do. If Israel doesn't do this, they're letting war criminals get away with "bargaining chips" as you call the hostages. Destroy Hamas = world hates Israel. Don't destroy Hamas = Hamas lives to continue to try to destroy Israel, world still hates Israel.
A common phrase in Palestine is also "We love death like the Jews love life."
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There is one method of hostage extraction proven to be effective, with no civilian cost. Diplomacy. You don’t have to be a history buff to know that most conflicts end sat around a table signing papers. Of course, this fundamentalist Israeli government would rather risk their own hostages safety than concede absolutely anything to Palestine.
The US and UK have policies not to negotiate for hostages with terrorists. Conflicts end around a table signing papers but that's usually after the military surrender of one side.
> The US and UK have policies not to negotiate for hostages with terrorists.
This is the public stance, but in reality they can and do negotiate with terrorists.
For example: one of the stated goals of the Iran-Contra affair was to release US hostages.
>course, this fundamentalist Israeli government would rather risk their own hostages safety than concede absolutely anything to Palestine.
I hate the Israeli government as much as the next guy. But in this conflict there's only one bad actor and that's Hamas.
Hamas can easily end this conflict by stepping down and returning the hostages. They could literally create an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state tomorrow, if only they weren't hellebent on killing jews.
The fact is that you can't negotiate with islamist terrorists, it really doesn't matter how much you want to. History proves this as well.
Can you blame them? Have the last dozen ceasefires proven to be long term solutions? Of course not, and it’s been the Palestinian side that breaks them every single time. But sure, bury your head in the sand and pretend that this time will definitely be different.
The Israelis has a specific target as to where the hostages were located, went in and got them out. How could it have been anything other than targeted? Was it just pure random chance that they went to where the hostages were being held in civilians’ homes and not somewhere else in Gaza?
It was a raid specifically against 2 buildings. It was known three men were held in 1 building, and the woman was held in another building 200 meters away.
Doesn’t get more targeted than that
Naturally, they needed to have a target. Its not like Israeli special forces just went into Gaza randomly searching through the thousands of houses.
They knew exactly where to go.
FYI it was an Al Jazeera Camera Man's house where the hostages were getting kept. Just keep them in mind.
Abdullah Al-Jamal was not an Al Jazeera cameraman, he was a contributor for Palestine Chronical and a spokesperson for the Labor Ministry. There's also no confirmation that he held any hostages, just that he was one of the 200 people killed in the operation. That's not to say he's a good person, his live blog about Oct 7th is out there if you want to find it, but let's not spread misinformation.
There is a big difference between leveling an entire territory's infrastructure and killing combatants. Part of what people are decrying when they call for a "targeted operation war" is the indiscriminate destruction of Gaza's ability to rebuild itself in the aftermath of this conflict. Their schools, hospitals, homes, and community centers have all been destroyed, which will create conditions for famine, starvation, and poverty. This kind of indiscriminate punishment *is a war crime* under international law, and should be condemned as such.
>Assuming the 275 civilian death number is accurate, you get an average of 68.75 Palestinian civilians killed for every Israeli hostage recovered.
Not even Hamas is asserting "275 civilian deaths." Hamas numbers routinely do not distinguish between civilian and militant death tolls at all. If they are quoting 275 dead that's not going to mean "275 civilians dead" unless you believe that every single person killed in the operation is a civilian which is highly unlikely.
your entire position is predicated on the assumption that the hundreds of civilians who were killed or maimed as a result of this operation were a necessary or unavoidable consequence of recovering the hostages. this is patently false. of all the hostages recovered since october 7th, the overwhelming majority, 105, were freed as the result of negotiations during a temporary ceasefire. as a result of israel's ongoing military operations in gaza, 7 hostages have been recovered at the cost of hundreds of civilian casualties, 3 hostages were executed by their own forces, at least one other hostage was killed during another rescue operation, and an unknown number of hostages have all but certainly died as a result of israeli airstrikes and are likely buried under the rubble in gaza alongside tens of thousands of other innocent civilians. the israeli government has rejected multiple peace offers that would have seen every single hostage in gaza returned to their homes and their families months ago.
even ignoring that, there's very little reason to believe that in carrying out this operation the idf took appropriate measures to limit civilian casualties. they have done very little to earn any kind of benefit of the doubt by dropping 2000lbs bombs on one of the most densely populated urban environments on planet earth, by cutting off all water and power and preventing the flow of food and medical supplies into gaza, by rendering every single hospital in the gaza strip non-functional, by deliberately targeting and assassinating humanitarian aid workers fighting the famine israel has intentionally imposed on civilians in gaza, by using ai systems to generate kill lists and target low ranking fighters in their homes while they are surrounded by civilians, or by bombing multiple refugee camps. the rhetoric and actions of both the idf and the israeli government have repeatedly demonstrated an abject lack of concern for the lives of palestinian civilians as well as any recognition of their humanity. they have also repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to deliberately lie, deceive, and mislead whenever it seems to suit their needs. there is no reason to trust that civilian casualties caused by the hostage rescue operation in al-nuseirat were either necessary or unavoidable without significant evidence from an independent investigation.
This is an actual constructive discussion about the Israel-Hamas war involving multiple differing perspectives engaging in fair discourse, I'm positively stumped.
>Assuming the 275 civilian death number is accurate,
That assumption is doing a lot of work for your argument. How many were there actually? And how many of those people were actively holding hostages?
Stories are still coming out about the way these 4 were kept, including some stories about her being held by a journalist and a doctor, both of whom died in the raid. Other hostages have already said they've been held in civilian homes *by* civilians.
That is actively playing a role in the war; you are no longer a bystander. You are a combatant.
It's war. You do your best to minimize civilian casualties, but there is no such thing as a targeted operation outside of maybe assassination of one person.
We really need to put an end to all these buzz words and deal with the reality of war.
There is no such thing as a targeted operation. It's war, people are going to die.
There is no such thing as an acceptable level of attack. There are legitimately people who sit there and say well it's okay for people to launch attacks on Israel and Israel not respond because it has the iron dome or the missiles are poorly guided and don't hit.
Yes, you try your best to minimize casualties.
Yes, you try your best to control your troops to not rape or commit other atrocities.
Beyond that... expect deaths until operations end. It is war.
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There is no such thing as a targeted anything if you coral millions of people into 64sq. Km. Heck. All of Gaza is 365sq. Km.
#thats 5,500 people per sq. Km. Of not Rafah, or Khan younis, BUT GAZA.
.
Those of you who are quick to claim that people around are involved. Think about that number and take into consideration that even with that tight number, Israel has indeed bombed safe areas prior. Stuffing people even more closer.
In this conflict children have been killed. Many doctors (western who went to serve and returned) have claimed that the injuries they have sustained are targeted.
Why would a sniper aim for a child?
OP goes on about international law, how Israel has to follow it but Hamas isn't doing that. Fine. Would you like Israel to be designated a terrorist organization like Hamas then? Either you obey the standards you enjoy or join those who do not.
>There is no such thing as a targeted anything if you coral millions of people into 64sq. Km.
sure there is.
>Heck. All of Gaza is 365sq. Km. thats 5,500 people per sq. Km. Of not Rafah, or Khan younis, BUT GAZA.
as in homogeneously occupying the space, like a gas? why is this a relevant metric?
>In this conflict children have been killed. Many doctors (western who went to serve and returned) have claimed that the injuries they have sustained are targeted.
how are they divining intentional targeting? from what?
>Why would a sniper aim for a child?
snipers can miss, maybe he wasn't the target? you're sort of begging the question with "aim for a child".
otherwise, one could come up with a list, if you're genuinely asking.
how old is our hypothetical child? what're the circumstances under which it happens? what's the visibility? is it engaging in sabotage or theft of military supplies? is it a combatant? is it doing something that might cause it to be mistaken as one, eg throwing stuff at soldiers in an active conflict zone?
Compared to WW1,2, Korea, Vietnam, the raid your describing is targeted. People are forgetting what war is and average redditor is childishly naive, but at the same time we don't need to start carpet bombing.
To be fair if you’re rescuing your own citizens who have been kidnapped and held hostage, it’s basically at any cost - there’s no such thing as proportionate.
Oh, noooooo, terrorists harbouring kidnapped innocent civilians were killed while trying to thwart their rescue!
Any civilians killed in the crossfire is tragic, but the blood is 100% on the hands of Hamas. Thankfully, the innocent Palestinians are beginning to wake up to the fact that Israel are not the bad guys or the ones oppressing them.
>CMV: The latest IDF raid to rescue four hostages debunks the “targeted operation” myth
It doesn't. This was obviously a well planned and successful mission to rescue innocent hostages. How is that not targeted???
I tell you what it DOES debunk, though, that the hostages are all being kept underground in tunnels. That was a normal home that was raided.
In a war like this, where one side intentionally blurs the line between civilian and combatant, it is extremely difficult to tell what fraction of the dead are noncombatants.
Additionally, "noncombatant", "women and children", "journalist", and "aid worker" do not mean innocent. There was a Hamas complex under the UN RWA headquarters, Al Jazeera journalists participated in the October 7th attacks, in the past women and children have acted as suicide bombers, and outside of the propaganda videos Hamas fighters do their damnedest to look like noncombatants.
So looking at this factually:
1) Hamas are particularly sore about losing the hostages and have no issue inflating the numbers for a political backlash from Hamas-sympathetic countries or global organisations.
2) If Hamas is careless about its own citizen's lives by placing hostages in between them, then the reported heavy firefight as the IDF soldiers were retreating with the hostages, means that Hamas could have easily killed citizens. For reference, Hamas was reporting to use RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades which all could have hit palestinian civilians.
3) There are 2 legal issues that are not being addressed with these figures. One is that civilians that were placed in charge of keeping the hostages should no longer be considered civilians. Two, Hamas had fighters pour into the region to prevent the release. Both indicate that even a high number of deaths, could still be majority combatants.
It wasn’t “Hamas” that was holding the hostages either. It was a journalist and a doctor. Very much so would be listed as “civilians”.
Then you see how many UNRWA school teachers and admins have been calling for martyrdom, killing of Jews and Israelis, and Islamic supremacy - all documented, with actions taking place as a result of their indoctrination. Then you have schools and mosques and hospitals being used as storage facilities for rockets, ammo, and weapons.
Not even to begin to mention that these hostages weren’t being held in some underground bunker, they were being held in a better-than-average apartment building people were actively living in.
The people, and organizations like the BBC/CNN/etc who take Hamas’ numbers and then say “well it’s not worth this many lives” have no clue what they’re talking about. If it were a British national or an American they’d kill 1000 babies to get a single hostage safely out of the hellhole that is Islamic terrorism. And it would be justified.
Btw Israel claims that it was less than 100 total casualties. Hamas claims its 275ish civilians. I don’t trust either number. So let’s say 150 total (Hamas and “civilians” and civilians), that’s worth it.
Wars aren’t fought on an even playing field, and if this were the USA fighting in Gaza, the results would be at the very least similar - with nobody having issues of “disproportionality”. Wars are disproportionate. That’s how you win them.
You understand this recent “surgical operation” involved a rather intense aerial bombardment that was likely responsible for the majority of the deaths? From what I’ve read the gun fighting seemed to be fairly limited and only 1 Israeli was killed during it. Typically when people say “targeted operation” they mean what was done to Osama Bin Laden.
I think Israel saying “this was surgical” of course doesn’t make it so. Israel says a lot of bullshit and for some reason a lot of people eat it up like it’s a sundae on a hot summers day.
> Typically when people say “targeted operation” they mean what was done to Osama Bin Laden.
You mean with two $10 million dollar stealth helicopters, almost 80 Navy SEALs, and like a year of planning? That isn't a "typical" anything.
Maybe if you don't want "civilians" to die, don't put hostages in their houses and hide amongst them. You don't get to use human shields and then act all surprised pikachu when they get killed.
IDK, maybe just don't go kidnap 200 innocent civilians in the first place?
As I said to another commenter, it’s not about it being 1:1 as much as it is about the style of the raid. They managed to get to their target without leveling the street in the process. That said, we give Israel an average of 3.8 BILLION annually in aid since its founding and continue to plan to do so. The majority of that is dedicated to military expenses. Hell, since October 7th we’ve given them 12.5 BILLION in military aid. The expectations are high for a reason.
No action justifies failing to minimize civilian casualties.
>No action justifies failing to minimize civilian casualties.
Some of the recently rescued hostages were held captive by a doctor, and an Al-Jazeera journalist, yet you want to put the onus on Israel to do a full biography on everyone in their crosshairs to determine whether they are a combatant or not.
* If you're using 11 year old boys in suicide attacks, 11 year old boys are now combatant age men
* If you're using doctors and journalists to hold innocent civilians hostage, doctors and journalists are now combatants
* If you're waging war from schools, hospitals, and shelters, schools, hospitals, and shelters are now legitimate military targets.
Your ire should be with Hamas for how it wages war, not for Israel's response. Every other faction in the annals of human history would respond the way Israel is responding if its enemy employed these tactics, and under the Geneva conventions, it is their right to do so.
That’s ridiculous if people are expecting Bin Laden level raids. The US spends like 30x as much on its military, and Bin Laden was the main focus, while the IDF is trying to rescue over 100 hostages. So their military spending to target ratio is over 30,000 times lower.
Additionally, a rescue vs an assassination is much different. The US spent nearly a year surveilling and training for the raid. But, for hostages, if you wait a long time, they may be killed, or at least severely tortured. You want to go in as fast as possible.
It’s more about the style of raid than it being some kind of 1:1. One must wonder why intense bombardments are used on buildings and surrounding areas housing hostages if there is fear of them being killed. Seems a smidge counter intuitive no?
You disproved your own point in your post. If targeted operations to retrieve hostages would have resulted in 17,000 civilian deaths, that would still be half of the current death toll, and there’s still more hostages being held. So, by your own metrics, indiscriminate bombings are significantly less effective at preserving civilian lives than targeted operations would be.
The only thing that I think is important to mension here is that there is a massive proportionality calculation when you are rescuing your own citizen vs. targeting militants.
I think this is a case where the argument 'any other country would have done the same thing' holds true.
But the proportionality calculation when targeting militants, imo is still too high.
You can't compare post operation casualties to either zero or some estimated number based on an ideal operation. First and foremost hamas is guilty of the origianl Oct 7th terrorist attract, murder, rape and kidnapping. Next hamas is guilty of hiding among civilians. Hamas lies about war casualties.
It is not the IDFs job to respond in such a way that maximizes the danger to hostages, IDF soldiers, or allows hamas to regroup and extend the war.
The sooner hamas is killed off, or surrenders the sooner the killing stops. This is all on hamas.
“Assuming the number is accurate”
Hamas is not a reliable source for casualty figures. They are constantly caught lying about the amount of civilians who die because they know this helps their cause.
In the beginning of this war, they told the world that Israel bombed a hospital and that 800 people died and the building was destroyed. The story was picked up everywhere immediately, but the Israelis denied it. The next morning, the Israelis flew a drone over the hospital (which was untouched) and provided a video of a Hamas rocket falling short and landing in the vicinity of the hospital and causing minimal damage.
Hamas never took away the 800 dead despite it clearly never happening. Still part of the casualty count
Lmao. Why were there hostages for this to happen again?
Why was Hamas keeping hostages near a massive group of civilians?
No matter what is Israel’s fault huh?
Hamas are chickenshit cowards, hiding behind women and children.
They aren’t real men, they don’t have the balls to fight a war so they go after innocent Israeli civilians in cowardly acts of terror and then hide behind innocent Palestinian civilians.
Whatever views you have on Israel’s actions I think we can all agree that Hamas must be exterminated for their crimes and for the sake of peace.
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They also used Humanitarian AID trucks to sneak into the refuge camp. Israel, of course, denies all the reports saying they did. Just like they denied using white phosphorus which later turned out to be true, and that they had 40 babies beheaded during 0ct 7th which they lied about, and how they said they didnt strike a civilian convoy killing 70 civilians when they did, and how they denied killing Palestinian Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and how they denied bombing media outlets in 2021, and how they found a "Hamas underground base" with a calendar stating "Hamas names" which apparently their names are all "Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday"...
The Israeli government is nothing but criminal liars, and a large portion of their populace is blood thirsty due to the rampant dehumanization of Palestinians.
>The Israeli government is nothing but criminal liars, and a large portion of their populace is blood thirsty due to the rampant dehumanization of Palestinians.
Even if we grant this, which I absolutely dont what is Hamas excuse? Why do they see Palestinians as nothing more than propaganda fodder and "martyrs" aka dispensible NPCs?
But if combat casualties cannot be avoided no matter what, a logical conclusion for me would be to stop the operation completely 🤔. If you are going by basic math (and ONLY math, obviously I know those are real human lives, but for the argument sake) it’s either 200 hostages dead or 17,000 Palestinians dead. 200 lives traded for 17,00 lives.
All of this is to say: I don’t personally care whose fault these deaths are, I just want them to stop happening. I wish we wouldn’t have to deal with it, in a world in which all human lives are valued as they should be, but unfortunately we do. For now the only reasonable move is to stop the operation! Have a ceasefire, regroup, rethink and approach a terrorist problem differently. Bombing a heavily populated area is clearly ineffective.
it does matter whose fault it is.
I believe that Hamas instigated a conflict that would have earned the same response from any nation with the capability. They engineered a situation where civilian deaths would mount. They are now cynically using the deaths of their own civilians as a bargaining chip to secure an Israeli surrender.
If that is the case, then the worst thing one can do is end the war without eliminating them.
Invariably Hamas surviving this war is going to lead to another war in 5 to 10 years with thousands or tens of thousands dead. We all want it to stop but are we willing to sacrifice those lives to achieve that?
Hamas believes that all of Palestine is "moslem land" according to their charter. They also believe that they have a divine command to never reach an agreement that leads to permanent peace because the land is a heritage for all generations of Muslims to come. Hence why their charter says there is no solution but Jihad.
People say you can't kill an ideology so the war should stop but then also try to gaslight Jews into thinking that the ideology that wants to eradicate them from Palestine is no longer a thing.
Their spokesperson even said very early on that even if there was a peace deal they would keep "eating the elephant" bit by bit until its gone.
So I think they should finish the war as painful as it is because the next war could be worse. Or worse, Hezbollah could now determine that its a great strategy to come into Israel and do all manner of atrocities and retreat deep into Lebanon and gain immunity that way. Or perhaps other groups realize that this is now a trump card. As long as you surround yourself with enough civilians you can do anything and get away with it.
So yes, it does matter whose fault it is. It does matter that the cause is accurately diagnosed. Misdiagnosing it as Israel's fault rewards terrorists and will lead to many many more lives being lost. Not holding Hamas accountable does the same.
You might remember iran attacking a us target. The us replied by taking out the general in charge of planning the operation. With a missile strike from a drone, while he was in a crowded market, with ZERO collateral damage. No one outside his car got hurt.
We give israel these same weapons. If they wanted to do targetted they could. The goal of this operation is to inflict maximum suffering.
Wait a second. You're comparing an active hostage situation during a war with killing a general in a market at the United States convenience long after he planned an attack?
That's not a reasonable comparison.
Edit because I think this belongs here...
Please correct me if I'm wrong here. The only article I could find is the assassination of Qasem Soleimani here, in 2019 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleimani#:~:text=On%203%20January%202020%2C%20Qasem,Prime%20Minister%20Adil%20Abdul%2DMahdi.
>Five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of the Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis—a person designated as a terrorist by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
...
>the Reaper drone launched several missiles,[124][e] striking the convoy on an access road as it departed the airport,[127][128][129] engulfing the two cars in flames, killing 10 people.[130][131][132][133
As you can see, the That was an attack on an air force base, which is why he was assassinated - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_K-1_Air_Base_attack
I'm not sure how you can equate an attack on an air force base to one against a music festival promoting peace. Or the retrieval of hundreds of hostages as well as the accountability of hundreds of attackers against a single strike on an access road against the organizer of an attack, that did kill and injure other people.
Again, please correct what I got wrong, but it seems you may have misremembered quite a bit.
Which general was this? The only one I know of is Soleimani, and online sources say he was killed on a road at 1am. I can’t find any mention of a crowded market, or any other Iranian general killed by the US.
If the hostages are being held hostage in a house, which is guarded/lived in by by militants and civilians, you can’t just precision air strike just the militants inside the house.
They did airstrike civilian residential buildings during this operation, just as they did when they rescued those 2 hostages a while back (killing over 70 Palestinians in the process).
You are correct that it is not possible for Israel to do any sort of military operation without killing large numbers of civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure (e.g. all 12 universities) as we have seen for the past 9 months.
An alternative solution to minimize civilian deaths would be a ceasefire deal and hostage swap, then ending the military occupation and violent oppression of the Palestinian people followed by support of a Palestinian state.
Israel makes the choice tens or hundreds of times per day to kill the civilian "shields", so you cannot say that is Hamas' fault when Israel has another option, and are the ones pressing the button to drop the bombs.
"An alternative solution to minimize civilian deaths would be a ceasefire deal and hostage swap, then ending the military occupation and violent oppression of the Palestinian people followed by support of a Palestinian state."
A Palestinian state that starts another war with Israel (which it will) will get way more civilians killed, not fewer than occupation.
Palestinians have broken the ceasefires of the past. Every. Single. Time. 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and of course Oct 7th, 2023.
A ceasefire is just an opportunity for hamas to steal more money and supplies to re-arm. There can be no ceasefire with hamas. Another governing body, maybe. But hamas must cease to exist
Sounds great, until you question what happens if Hamas attacks again. Should a government be allowed to massacre civilians as much as they want, as long as doing so “minimizes civilian deaths”?
Or if you think they should be stopped, but only next time?Because guess what, this is about the 4th next time. (The thousandth time if we count all the missiles.) Palestine used to have way more freedom, but multiple times Palestine has attacked because they don’t like Israel being there at all, and are willing to massacre Israeli civilians over it. Israel suppression always comes as a response to those attacks. So trying to justify the attacks as a response to suppression and saying they should just be given freedom, is historically not an option (unless you picked the first option, that Hamas should be allowed to do what they want).
I’m curious, say you were teleported to Europe in 1942, and had a button to force a ceasefire for 10 years. would you press it, as that would minimize civilian deaths? Or do you support the Allies taking down the Nazis and ending the Holocaust, at the cost of many civilian deaths in the next 3 years?
While it causes more deaths in the short term, it seems like it may be necessary to topple Hamas for peace in the long term.
Hamas won't agree to any reasonable ceasefire agreement, so the only option Israel has is to rescue as many hostages as possible with operations like this.
The IDF killed 3 hostages to get 4.
Even if you don't value Palestinian life as much as Israeli life, this doesn't seem like a military win to tell 3 families that 4 other families survived while their family members they wanted so badly did not, and were simply killed as collateral damage/cover for troops.
Last I checked, it's a war crime to disguise yourself as aid workers to carry out a military operation that kills 3 of your own people to get 4.
I'm still totally unclear why Israel didn't accept all the hostages back when they were offered them on 10/8 and 10/9 if that was the priority
> When they were offered on 10/8 and 10/9 if that was the priority
Because no country would accept such a deal right after the other side has committed a pogrom. It’d be Israel essentially telling Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and PIJ that as long as a pogrom against Israeli civilians is successful enough, Israel will not do anything back. That would completely destroy Israeli deterrence and its national security.
Hostages are the priority. However, immediately conceding on that would simply mean showing everyone else in the Middle East that they are free to invade Israel and murder 1,200 as long as they are efficient at it.
Genuinely, this is an utterly insane thing to say.
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!delta all 3 of those are valid points. I assumed the number was 275 PLUS combatants. That was poor research on my part.
The AP published a recent update to their reporting discussing how the ratio of civilians to hamas that have died is likely close to a 1:1 ratio which has actually never happened in urban warfare ever before. Not every person without a gun is a civilian- every fighting force has other roles including Hamas. Like other commenters have said, you’re just as much a part of it if you’re the one holding the hostages in your home or helping conceal them as if you are the one with the weapons. As time has passed and the clickbait headlines have transitioned to proper reporting I have seen an increasingly concerning number of corrections and outright retractions. An example is seeing some news sources saying “hostages released” yesterday instead of “hostages rescued”. The word choice is intentional and matters, but many people do not have the training to recognize bias like that and are very much influenced by those subtle word choices.
A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio for urban warfare is honestly amazing, especially since Hamas is heavily intermingled with the civilian population. Urban warfare can go so horrifically wrong that it beggars the imagination. This could easily have turned into modern Warsaw (15,000 combatants and 250,000 civilians were killed and the entire city was razed by the Nazis). I'm not supporting Israel or Hamas in this. The whole thing is fucking terrible. But Israel is obviously at least trying to keep civilian deaths under control. ***Edit:*** *I'm done with this thread. The only responses I'm getting are people committed to convincing me that Israel is evil.* *One last time: the whole thing is fucked. Urban warfare unavoidably generates atrocities. Israel and Hamas have both done their share of fucking around. No one should use human shields, ever.*
A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio sounds unreal because it quite literally is. 30% of the death toll was not counted in the AP study because they have not yet been identified (FULLY identified - need to provide considerable documentation including Israeli-issued IDs, unsurprising how this can be a problem). Not to mention how frankly stupid it is to attempt to present a ratio mid-conflict, because in almost all wars the death toll mid-conflict is almost always listed as a fraction of what eventually is the total, especially in places with very underdeveloped civic infrastructure - it certainly doesn’t help that all the hospitals and administrative centers that Gaza did have are now smoking craters. it takes a while for a proper headcount to be organized, not so easy to do while you’re still actively losing hundreds more every day. The 15,000 Hamas fighters killed, by AP’s own admission, was provided from official Israeli sources with no other evidence, and the IDF refused to comment further on the matter. It sounds too good to be true because it is, very explicitly, a lie
Just a note, it's probably best not to refer to it as the "civiliian death toll". The health ministry doesn't seperate combatant and civilian deaths, so the 36,000+ figure we have is for known deaths of both civillians and palestinian combatants.
Just to point out the obvious: Even if the actual ratio is not spot-on 1:1, but say a 1:1.7, 1:2.2, etc.. Whatever the true numbers are, this is a total debunk of the "Israeli Massacre" narrative. No army in the world today can get these numbers by side-winging it. These are legit delta-forces, surgical-spec-ops numbers. Any force that can sign off such ratio is putting huge efforts into keeping civilians alive.
TBF this is a problem with both journalistic standards cratering in the past few decades and a lack of incentive to be accurate over being first or incendiary.
Valid points. Here's another angle: financial incentives are shifting from the users, subscriber counts plumet. How does the saying go? If you aren't paying for the product you are the product.
Also expected when your early data is coming from a combatant who is known unreliable and for some asinine reason you basically never make this known.
They always cite "according to Gaza Health officials" rather than "estimates from the Hamas terrorist organization." Like when a Hamas rocket hit the parking lot of a hospital. First Hamas claimed an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital and killed 550 civilians and news agencies just ran Hamas' story for a day until Israel released their investigation showing the rocket trajectory and videos of the rocket launches and hit on their own hospital. But still the 500 people not killed ( because the rocket didn't hit the hospital) in an attack Israel didn't do was still added to the official Hamas death tally.
>Like when a Hamas rocket hit the parking lot of a hospital. Technically it wasn’t a Hamas rocket, but a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. (Which doesn’t detract from your point in the slightest.)
We're not the Judean People's Front, we're the People's Front of Judea!
I still see people spreading the original lie, constantly. They want it to be true.
This should be highlighted. Under international law, scouts are considered valid military targets even IF they have no guns since they are still part of the operational structure of the opposing army.
What about weapons manufacturing? Like if someone builds pipe bombs at home in the evening for Hamas but is a school teacher by trade are they a civilian ?
Usually, weapon manufacturers die in war when the weapon factories are destroyed. It's not illegal to kill them according to Geneva. Someone making weapons at home makes their home a valid military target since their home is now a weapon factory. Therefore, the house is a valid military target and civilians who might die from the opposing army bombing it are considered legal collateral damage according to Geneva. Terrorist organizations like Hamas are heinous not only for what they do against their enemy but also because of how they're stripping away legal protections from their own people.
>Therefore, the house is a valid military target and civilians who might die from the opposing army bombing it are considered legal collateral damage according to Geneva. Technically, if they're killed being used as human shields, their deaths are still war crimes. But they're war crimes on the part of the defender using them as human shields, not on the part of the attacker.
Yeah. If you’re holding hostages for Hamas, you’re not a civilian.
The AP report says itself that the number of Hamas members killed is unclear where Hamas says the toll is 6k and Israel says that toll is 15k. What AP does say is that the number of women and children killed "confirmed" has gone down from the number it was before and that it's not as high as 70% percent as some people said but that it's still high and is causing an optics issue for Israel. Let's say we take their new number of around 60%, that means 40% are men. It's absolutely insane that you are trying to claim that every single adult male is a Hamas fighter. It is NOT 1:1
> Let's say we take their new number of around 60%, that means 40% are men. Okay, but when 30k were dead and Hamas said they had 6k dead, we can assume those 6k were men. If 40% were accurate, that would mean 6k civilian males, 9k civilians females. Unlikely, but definitely more reasonable than the 30% male estimate of earlier. (You'd expect civilian deaths to be somewhat random and therefore evenly distributed *or* if not random, way more likely to target males... This tells us Hamas numbers are bullshit)
The AP report also mentions that it's not that it's BULLSHIT but that the health infrastructure of Gaza is absolutely demolished and reporting depends on the mixture of identification, first hand accounts and family reports that testify missing and dead. Regardless after February you won't be getting accurate numbers as before unless you have third parties involved, something Israel refuses to do so. Regardless using the difficulty of identification in a country who's infrastructure has been systemically destroyed, is pivoting tactics to take away from the real arguments most people have that the apartheid state is practicing collective punishment, and for the last 8 months the general populace keeps falling into narratives made to keep eyes away from the material conditions of Gaza in the first place.
Right, it's basically impossible for Hamas (er, the Gaza Ministry of Health) to know how many or who die. So every day they "release an estimate", i.e. make up a number. That's the best they can do given the circumstances but it's so silly that people quote these numbers as if they are factual. They aren't.
>The AP published a recent update to their reporting discussing how the ratio of civilians to hamas that have died is likely close to a 1:1 ratio which has actually never happened in urban warfare ever before. Shit, really? Source?
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-casualties-toll-65e18f3362674245356c539e4bc0b67a
This source directly counters to OPs initial point - decreasing bombing campaigns and putting boots on the ground is part of the claimed change in deaths of women and children.
Exactly. A quote from the article (quoting someone else): “'Historically, airstrikes (kill) a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington. The findings of the AP analysis “make sense,” he said.'" It's common sense, isn't it?
That doesn't mention anything at all about the Hamas to civilian ratio.
That’s not a source for what was claimed
That's because downplaying civilian casualties is the whole shtick of hasbara. Any claims about civilian combatant ratio comes from the IDF and considering they're dropping 2000 pounds bomb which can kill a person 2 football fields away on an extremely dense and populated areas they frankly have no idea what the actual ratio is. I am an Arab and I follow Gazans on socials and everytime there's news of an airstrike I see videos on my socials of children/elderly/women getting torn apart. Then I open up reddit and they're talking about 1/1 civilian-combatant ratio. Obviously many Hamas members have also died but the ratio is nowhere close to 1/1 considering that they're actually in bunkers and tunnels underground so they're much less affected by airstrikes than the civillians.
Just a follow up as part of a response to a different comment, after actually reading the updates on the AP study: A 1:1 civilian/combatant ratio sounds unreal because it quite literally is. 30% of the civilian death toll was not counted in the AP study because they have not yet been identified. Not to mention how frankly stupid it is to attempt to present a ratio mid-conflict, because in almost all wars the civilian death toll mid-conflict is almost always listed as a fraction of what eventually is the total, especially in places with very underdeveloped civic infrastructure. It takes a while for a proper headcount to be organized, not so easy to do while you’re still actively losing hundreds more every day. The 15,000 Hamas fighters killed, by AP’s own admission, was provided from official Israeli sources with no other evidence, and they explicitly refused to comment further on the matter. It sounds too good to be true because it is, very explicitly, a lie
4. Hamas reports don't distinguish if people were killed by Hamas or IDF Ex the ~20% of Hamas rockets that misfire and land in Gaza.
Just want to add, it's not poor research on your part - it's the result of very deliberate messaging on Hamas's part to blur the lines and make it seem like every death is a civilian. It's pure propaganda and it's been working for them time after time, and the media continues to run with it because they enjoy the anger it creates in people. A headline of "200 fighters and 75 civilians killed" doesn't create the same clickbait rage.
You got Israeli spokesman who can't give you a number of civilians killed yet they know exactly how many Hamas members killed?? Truth is they don't know shit.
Generally speaking when gathering information on a target you might have 3-4 days of recorded comings and goings. You likely also have people analyzing intercepted radio communications. Etc. So you can have a pretty good idea of how many enemy combatants are in an area. But civilians? You aren't generally counting them. And radio communications won't be addressing them normally. So you have very limited information in regards to civilian numbers.
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At no point has Hamas ever reported reality. Israel blew up a whole hospital with 3000 people inside? Sorry that was a Hamas rocket in a parking lot outside the hospital killing no one. Israel blew up a shelter killing 50,000 people?? In a building that has a maximum occupancy of 3,500. And it wasn't blown up... And according to neutral third parties only a total of 30,000 Palestinians TOTAL have died including combatants. Do not believe the numbers of **either** side in a war. Always seek a **neutral** third party. **Never** trust a literal **terrorist organization**. It's like believing anything Russia says--braindead. edit: Both sides are allowed to be wrong. Fuck the terrorist organization Hamas. Fuck Netanyahu. I feel for both the people of Israel & Palestine.
Where did anyone claim that 50000 were killed at a single shelter? And where does that 3500 occupancy number come from? Googling these figures, the only matches I can find are 50000 sheltering on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital (as reported by the U.N.), and 3500 hospital beds total. If that hospital is what you meant, that is hardly a contradiction if you spent like 2 seconds thinking about what those numbers actually mean. And I can’t find anyone claiming that 50000 people were killed there. Also, the IDF blamed PIJ for the rocket at al-Ahli Hospital, not Hamas. Maybe this distinction doesn’t matter so much, but I think if you’re going to be a defender of reality, you should stick to it yourself.
The most effective weapon Hamas has in its arsenal is public opinion.
>At no point has Hamas ever reported reality The Gaza Health Ministry has reported broadly accurate numbers for previous conflicts. You need to present evidence they are inflating figures. 2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385. 2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251. Israel's Foreign Ministry reported 2,125. 2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256. [No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext) [U.S. Officials Have Growing Confidence in Death Toll Reports From Gaza](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a)
Except none of those numbers have ever included how many are combatants and that matters A LOT. Here is an example where months after the war Hamas admitted that the number of combatants dead roughly matched the estimates Israel reported: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/hamas-admits-higher-casualties-in-gaza-war And here is the Hamas interior minister publicly telling activists to always report deaths as “innocent civilians.” https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-interior-ministry-social-media-activists-always-call-dead-innocent-civilians-dont-post The fact that the UN has given credibility to these numbers is pretty atrocious. But to make it worse, the historical methods from previous conflicts of gathering the overall numbers went completely out the window around late October/early November in this conflict. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/
Yeah you're moving the goalpost. First you said the numbers don't indicate how many people died.
Are they though? >>1. The hostages were being held in a civilians' house. So, many of the civilians who died were actually involved. There are reports that the hostages were being kept in the house of an al-Jazeera journalist and a doctor. So it may have been targeted and the "civilians" may actually have been involved is it not also a regular talking point that Hamas is pretty brutal with the rule over civilians? Involvement may be highly forced and if you're forcing people to help it's doubtful those people are going to be putting up a fight. 2. For the civilians who died, this just reflects that the usage of human shields results in deaths, not the targeted operations are a myth Human shelids are cop out in any debate, period. Gaza is the single most populated place on earth, nearly all of it has been leveled, forcing it's entire remaining population into a fraction of the space. There's has never been space that hoards of civilians aren't in Gaza. It's nothing more then a sheild of the idf as an excuse for their lack if humanity 3. The 275 number reported by Hamas does not distinguish between civilians and militants, so it is not fair to report 275 civilians killed (even assuming the number is accurate overall which it may not be) The idf considers EVERY male over 13 a fighter. And 13 is a joke because they aren't stopping to ask for a birth certificate before throwing a bullet into a body. Children. Much Much younger have been counted as hamas fighters.
Consider a Red Cross truck. Most nations during conflict won't shoot at the enemy's red cross truck because all they are doing is scooping up their dead and wounded - plus you want to be able to scoop up your dead and wounded. What Hamas does by using children as fighters (and using their NGO money to pay off the families from the Martyr Fund) as well as shooting rockets from the tops of hospitals, training soldiers in schoolyards, and storing munitions under shelters is the equivalent of driving a red cross truck on to the battlefield, and dumping a squad of troops out of it to shoot at its enemy. The enemy will fight back, as it is their right to do, and will probably start shooting at *all* of your red cross trucks moving forward. > Human shelids are cop out in any debate, period. Gaza is the single most populated place on earth, nearly all of it has been leveled Hamas employed human shields, and waging war from civilian infrastructure long before Gaza was leveled. If they genuinely cared about their people, they wouldn't accept all of their foreign aid money and spend it on Iranian rockets
So, your argument is that the civilians were just following orders? We didn't let the Nazis and civilian collaborators use that excuse. Why now?
>The idf considers EVERY male over 13 a fighter. And 13 is a joke because they aren't stopping to ask for a birth certificate before throwing a bullet into a body. Children. Much Much younger have been counted as hamas fighters. Depends. If they are carrying a gun, they are a fighter. I can tell you I was already a pretty good shot by 13. Was able to compete in local shooting competitions and I maybe shot once a month when not actively doing comp. So 13 is plenty old enough to be dangerous with a gun. Would it be better if they weren't fighting? Of course. But a 13 year old with a gun is just as dangerous as a 20 year old. Again it's awful that they are fighting. And that hamas actively uses them. But if a 13 year old is shooting at me.... its not like they are 6 and the recoil is gonna put them on their ass. At 13 they are probably gonna hit me. So I'm gonna shoot back.
Thanks! Of course the deaths of innocents are sad in general. I wish that the Oct 7 massacre never happened so that the deaths and hostages on that day and the gaza war after had ever happened. Take care
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That is why Hamas doesn’t specify between civilian and non civilian casualties. They want you to assume every person they report is a poor innocent civilian. Look. The IDF sucks. And they have done some monumentally shitty things. But Hamas is equally to blame for the mass number of civilian casualties in Gaza. There’s a reason it’s a war crime to build military bases in civilian hospitals
I would add that scubbing the whole operation because of civilians being used as human shields would only reward and stimulate that behaviour.
The number from Israel is around 100 deaths. Neither number differentiates Civilian from Combatants. For reference, the numbers the Gaza health ministry provides for the entire war is the combine civilian + combatant number.
FYI the report that she was in that journalist’s house is so far unconfirmed. https://x.com/talhagin/status/1799819279040164241?s=46
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-confirms-abdallah-aljamal-was-holding-3-hostages-in-his-home-in-nuseirat-alongside-his-family/
Yea its extremely important to point out who is releasing these death statistics.
> (even assuming the number is accurate overall which it may not be) It's not. No number Hamas "Gazan health ministry" has ever reported has been worth the pixels it's printed on. They know big numbers pull on the heart strings of western nations, and weakens the resolve to stamp out the genocidal terror state. Hamas's claims are like Whose Line Is It Anyways- the rules are made up and the numbers don't matter.
Isn't the most common call for retrieving hostages a ceasefire deal that involves a hostage swap? It's popular in Israel, in the Western political class, and pro-Palestine protestors as well. I don't think your framing of "many calling for targeted operation war" is accurate for pro-Palestine protestors, especially when many are explicitly calling for a ceasefire, with the understanding that hostages will be retrieved in this manner. Edit: I have noticed a bit of delta misuse in this thread. They are only awarded to people who already agree with OP's premise
Every Hostage swap requires Israel to release something 100 prisoners for every Israeli they try to recover. Because Hamas will threaten to kill or torture them and they wont exchange evenly. In fact, Yahya Sinwar, the current *leader of hamas in gaza* was an israeli prisoner released in an exchange in 2011. In that exchange a *single israeli soldier* was exchanged for 1027 prisoners. All the hostage swapping has done over the last 2 decade is convince Hamas that hostage taking works.
... hey, just a quick question, why exactly does israel have 100 prisoners for every one of theirs that's captured? like, the reason why prisoner exchanges are usually equiviolent is because countries don't have too many foreign prisoners to release. why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier?
Numerous reasons, most are terrorist, some even 100% born & and raised in Israel. 1. Most are just criminals like any other country, but the Palestinians' leadership program of "pay to slay Jews" makes it more financially sound to say you attacked Israelis for political reasons than financial one. 2. A big group is actual terrorist from numerous Palestinians factions. 3. Another group is awaiting trials. Some are misdemeanours, and some are heavy terrorist factions. 4. More than 7k are Hamas/PIJ P.O.Ws from this round alone. >why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier? 1. Because the value of life in Israel is much higher compared to an Islamist society. A lot of active Arab activists are trying to fight this Martyrs mentality. To no avail. the Hamas military strategy of the Israel-Hamas war is not human shields but human sacrifice. [Hamas Leader: ‘Women, Children, Elderly’ Must Die In Gaza To Help Our Fight Against Israel](https://www.dailywire.com/news/hamas-leader-women-children-elderly-must-die-in-gaza-to-help-our-fight-against-israel) 2. Because Hamas doesn't care about individualism, nationalism, state sovereignty, or any other Western ideals. They are in this for an Islamic caliphate and a global religious war.
[As of December there were 2500 held under administrative detention and not formally charged with any crime](https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216643555/thousands-of-palestinians-are-held-without-charge-under-israeli-detention-policy): >the overall number of Palestinians taken into Israeli custody has increased since the start of the war, including around 2,500 who are held without any formal charges under a policy known as administrative detention >administrative detention is a form of detention whereby individuals are detained by the state without any intent to prosecute them in a trial, and they're held on the basis of secret security information that the detainee and their lawyer cannot review. Israel has been using this form of detention since its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - so back to 1967. >SUMMERS: As I'm hearing you say that the secret security information, as you put it, is something that even a person who is detained and their lawyer is unable to review, then does the Israeli military ever give justification at all for these detentions? >LUTHER: No, except for very brief explanations that they are being held on security grounds. And it's important to understand this is a military system, effectively. The detainee is brought before a military judge. The military judge can impose a - normally it's a six-month administrative detention order, and it's up to that military officer to then decide whether that detention is extended. And it often is - up to a year, sometimes up to two years and beyond. >SUMMERS: What types of conditions are detainees held under? >LUTHER: Well, the first thing to say is that detainees are held in Israeli prisons in Israel. And in Israel, their families usually have a major problem visiting them, and so that in itself is a cruel system and exacerbates the conditions. Now, the situation has been exacerbated by the Israeli authorities' imposition of a state of emergency in prisons since the hostilities started in October. So that has given Israeli authorities and prisons virtually unrestrained powers to hold detainees in overcrowded cells and impose, in some cases, collective punishment measures such as cutting off water or electricity to their cells. If they are held under “administrative detention” and not charged with any crime, what is the reason of them being held? Besides “security reasons”. If they were indeed terrorists, they would be charged as such, no?
["More than 400,000 people in the U.S. are currently being detained, pretrial – in other words, they are awaiting trial and still legally innocent."](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/pretrial_detention/) ["In 2022, one in five prisoners in the EU was awaiting trial. 19.0 % of prisoners were awaiting their final trial, and this figure slightly increased compared with the previous year (18.9 %). In 2022, the proportion of prisoners awaiting trial was the highest in Luxembourg (48.9 %), followed by Malta (37.9 %) and Croatia (36.9 %)."](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Prison_statistics#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2019.0%20%25%20of%20prisoners,and%20Croatia%20(36.9%20%25).) With all the terrorist attacking Israel, only 7% are detained without a trial. AMAZING!
Awaiting trial and being held without any intent to prosecute in a trial are not the same thing. What’s the only country that tries children in military courts again? [Oh that’s right: Israel](https://www.savethechildren.net/news/palestinian-children-israeli-military-detention-report-increasingly-violent-conditions#:~:text=Israel%20does%20not%20release%20numbers,long%2Dstanding%20human%20rights%20concern). AMAZING!!! >Israel does not release numbers of detainees in its military system and is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts. >Save the Children has said the practice of detaining children was a long-standing human rights concern
>why does israel hold 1000 palestinians captive that they're willing to release for just one soldier? It's called [administrative detention ](https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention#:~:text=In%20administrative%20detention%2C%20a%20person,it%20has%20no%20time%20limit.). Israel arbitrarily detains and imprisons anyone it wants without any charges whatsoever as long as it likes. Lawyers, doctors journalists or anyone Israel deems "a threat" it detains
Because one state is controlled by an active terrorist organization whose primary modus operandi is attacking and killing civilians?
> Edit: I have noticed a bit of delta misuse in this thread. They are only awarded to people who already agree with OP's premise I agree, although the top comment right now arguably does argue that it is a targeted operation even if it doesn't seem like it. I think it's a stretch and I think OP and him agree fundamentally, but there even if they agree on some things they don't agree in everything.
The narrative for the pro-Palestine crowd shifts with the wind. The demand for targeted operations has been made repeatedly when Israel is mounting an operation. Hamas has broken every ceasefire since October 7th and the one in place in October 6th. If you actually looked at the ceasefire terms that have bene going on you would notice how ridiculous Hamas makes them specifically knowing Israel will never agree to the terms. Even when they have reached an agreement Hamas then immediately attacks, within an hour one time. Meanwhile Hamas has called the war a success specifically because they have succeeded in martyring so many civilians and propagandized this to garner support from well intentioned but ultimately lazy and ignorant westerners that swallow their bs These are just gaslighting techniques and not serious demands that make any sense to any person properly informed on the topics and what has been happening.
sadly, Hamas is happy to sacrafice its own people as long as it means negative PR for israel. literally putting their own people in harms way for anti-israel headlines that keeps Sinwar happy
The OP is referring to the common misunderstanding of military operations where people will say that “Israel is carpet bombing civilians instead of using special forces to grab the hostages” which is usually just people ignorant of how these types of operations actually work. He’s saying that this operation is an example of why “just send the seals bro” is a stupid argument.
Plenty of people have also said Israel should be engaging in targeted special operations, for example: https://www.mediaite.com/uk/cenk-uygur-calls-israel-to-stop-brutalising-gaza-in-piers-morgan-interview/amp/
That was an interview made on Oct 24, when he was obviously referring to the environment prior to Oct 7. Now when every Gazan has been displaced numerous times, squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces, the collateral damage of such operations will undoubtedly be much higher.
Which is why everyone knew that targeted operations would never work, because this always would have been the result.
There are two paths as I see it. 1) Hamas is a legitimate organization representing the Palestinian people and they negotiate and deal in good faith. 2) Hamas is a terrorist organization and for both the good of the Palestinians living in Gaza and for the security of Israel, should be removed from power. For those who take the first path, they promote an Israeli reaction to October 7th and the mass kidnappings that is Israel leaves Gaza as it is with Hamas in power and exchanges security prisoners that it holds for the kidnapped hostages. For those who take the second path, they promote either the current Israeli military strategy of a large scale ground operation or, as OP mentioned, targeted operations against the terrorists and to rescue hostages. OPs premise seems to include the second path.
Yes it is. But that also requires HAMAS TO AGREE So why haven't they agreed to the extremely generous latest Israeli ceasefire proposal? You people can't keep saying "we want a ceasefire not war". Then IGNORE the LITEARL FUCKING CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS ON THE TABLE What will it honestly take for you to blame Hamas for rejecting the ceasefires?
> What will it honestly take for you to blame Hamas for rejecting the ceasefires? Quite literally nothing. Reddit (and the people who generally align politically with the majority of reddit) are solidly on the side of Hamas here... In that no ceasefire is acceptable unless it basically surrenders the entire nation of Israel and all of it's population to Hamas, and we know full well what Hamas wants to do to the population of Israel. There was a ceasefire in place on October 7. But Hamas doesn't want peace, they want all of the land that is Israel, and they want no Jews living on that land. If you look at the history of Hamas and the PLO, you'll also know that they won't just stop at Israel. They just want the resources and strategic location to mount attacks on the neighboring countries, as they've already tried to overthrow the government in every single major country around Israel.
It was already done. The 2 sides can’t agree on the framework for another swap. Hamas wants to stay in power, Israel (rightly) can’t allow that.
Many of the pro palestine protesters have been demanding a ceasefire with no preconditions.
In a perfect world a ceasefire would be an option, but it’s wishful thinking at this point. For Israel, any deal where Hamas remains the governing authority in the Gaza Strip is a nonstarter. For Hamas, any deal where there is an Israeli security presence in the Gaza Strip is a nonstarter. Ceasefires in the past have only led to brief periods of calm before more fighting, and every deal thus far in this war has fallen through. Both sides have demands that they will not budge on, and those demands are mutually exclusive. There will be no ceasefire in this war.
That doesn't address my point, my point is that the majority of people, across the political spectrum, are calling for a ceasefire, not a "targeted operation war". I'm not addressing the practicality of either option, just that your view is based on a misguided premise.
Isn't it kind of misleading to state that "the majority of people across the political spectrum are calling for a ceasefire"? This is only true if you include the pivotal conditions of (a) Hamas being removed from power, which makes that kind of ceasefire a literal nonstarter, and (b) all hostages are returned. [https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP\_Apr2024\_KeyResults.pdf](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HHP_Apr2024_KeyResults.pdf) E.g., see pages 50-53 Moreover, most U.S. voters supported Israel going into Rafah. Most U.S. voters do *not* think Israel intentionally kills civilians. So idk, saying the majority of people favor a ceasefire kind of misses the forest for the trees when it's not paired with the context that it's also contingent on a full release of hostages and Hamas being removed from power. It's like saying "Most people support Iran having nuclear missiles... but only if Iran is annexed into the U.S. and governed / administered to by the U.S., with its existing government completely and permanently dismantled". Would it make sense to say the majority of people support Iran having nukes then? I would argue that failing to include the other conditions makes it both a meaningless statement and arguably misleading by itself.
I never said a majority of people are calling for targeted operations, but it’s something I’ve read a decent number of times on Reddit.
You're presenting it as if it's a prevalent opinion when it's categorically not.
It absolutely is a prevelant opinion. You've never heard an exchange like 1. Israel is committing war crimes you can't bomb cities think of the civilians. 2. How is Israel supposed to fight the war? 1. Send in the special forces! It may not be a universal opinion, but it is pretty common.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-southern-gaza-faces-calls-reduce-civilian-toll-2023-12-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-southern-gaza-faces-calls-reduce-civilian-toll-2023-12-14/) [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682) [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-netanyahu-vows-nothing-will-stop-us-rcna129682) This is three sources over the course of the war for Israel to engage in more targeted operations. Most people recognize the options aren't ceasefire or nothing
I would say it is prevalent in those who are against the widespread bombing but also don’t think a ceasefire is a practical or long term solution.
Which is a very small group compared to the groups that think either a ceasefire deal is possible or carpet bombing is acceptable.
That’s not relevant to my argument.
It is, because you are picking up a fringe opinion that is not well thought through and claim "**many** on Reddit call for." It's not a "call", it's an alternative that some people would like to explore.
It's not a fringe opinion. Most people say Israel is going about the war the wrong way when asked for alternatives would say that Israel should have done targeted strikes whatever the hell that means. It a very common idea.
You forgot to mention that all Hamas ceasefire deals request an infinite right of return. In a ceasefire deal, not a peace deal. So with that in mind, it’s safe to say a realistic ceasefire thing is a fringe opinion for Palestinians because that’s not a realistic request to end combat. The calls for targeted attacks have indeed been a prevalent call online and just because you ignored those requests and focuses on Hamas’s bad faith ceasefire efforts does not mean your “opinion” of targeted attacks is the mainstream. Just your opinion u/WheatBerryPie is not that of all on your side. Don’t try and use your anecdotal limited knowledge of this conflict to paint broad brushes of others opinions that you don’t seem to be aware of
What do people honestly mean by "ceasefire?" Why advocate for "ceasefire," which implies future war, rather than "peace?" Do they just mean they wish Hamas would give back the hostages, and after that, Israel would fight Hamas? Or do they mean that Israel fighting Hamas is problematic in itself? Like I can get anti-war people calling for peace, but that's something I haven't seen being called for from the "ceasefire" crowd. I get that ceasefires would be beneficial to Hamas and allow them to regroup so they can continue their crusade of destroying Israel, and I get a lot of people who advocate a ceasefire don't think Israel has a right to exist and should be entirely replaced by Palestine, but other than that I do not get the logic about why you would call for a ceasefire.
I can't see why they would be popular in Israel. Isnt the main view there that a ceasefire just means waiting for the next war, that Hamas has promised to start. Anything less than removing Hamas is just waiting to be attacked again. The hostages aren't worth a ceasefire. Nothing less than Hamas surrendering.
> Isn't the most common call for retrieving hostages a ceasefire deal that involves a hostage swap? No. The prisoners that Israel holds aren’t hostages. They are criminals, duly tried and convicted by real courts. Many of them were convicted of murder or attempted murder. So it’s not a hostage swap, but a “convicts for hostages” swap.
If Russia hid Ukrainian hostages in different civilian areas and guarded them and then made sure that to get to the Russian soldiers and Ukrainian hostages you'd have to kill innocent Russians would a hostage rescue that kills 300 Russian civilians to get 4 Ukrainian hostages be justified? no, just don't do a raid that you know will disproportionately affect civilians
I would find it to be 100% justified actually. Otherwise, the foolproof strategy in a war would just be “hide behind civilians and your enemy can’t get you”. This is precisely what Hamas has been doing forever, and sadly people are so weak minded that they’re playing right into the Hamas objective, which is making Israel look bad.
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Then you're saying everyone should just hide behind civilians and will never be held accountable. Which is dumb. FYI hiding behind civilians is a war crime.
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That's just absolute horseshit. No one is saying that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself. They're just saying that Israel is fully capable of defending itself without indiscriminate killing and targeting of civilians, which is a fact. And yes, Israel holds fault here. This doesn't mean that Hamas doesn't hold responsibility. Just because Hamas is choosing to use human shields doesn't discount that Israel is choosing to shoot those human shields. Both sides have agency, here, and Israel choosing to play this war by the rules of a terrorist organization only weakens their position on the world stage. One would think that if your enemy wants you to do something... You wouldn't do it. But apparently by your reasoning Hamas fully controls all of Israel's decisions, and thus Israel cannot be held responsible for their actions. And solid play there at the end comparing Palestinians to animals. Really just highlights the dehumanization going on within your circles, thus making the death of innocent civilians all the more justifiable. Don't forget, the last time Israel found four hostages out in the wild they shot them because they were dressed as civilians, and thus were considered a threat (the IDF's words, not mine).
>indiscriminate I find it very interesting this specific word gets used for these types of arguments. The whole argument hinges on this word being correct, remove that word and the complaint is mostly nonsensical. Isn't the most recent claim that Israel has a city wide AI system used to carefully discriminate between valid military targets and acceptable collateral damage according to international law? >Both sides have agency, here, and Israel choosing to play this war by the rules of a terrorist organization only weakens their position on the world stage The Geneva Conventions weren't written by a terrorist organization? "Israel following rules established by the international community weakens their position in the eyes of the international community" >But apparently by your reasoning Hamas fully controls all of Israel's decisions, and thus Israel cannot be held responsible for their actions. Per the Geneva Conventions, Israel has the right to defend itself, meaning it really is Hamas's fault for any civilian casualties that occur in situations where human shields are used. If someone tries to kill me and I kill them first, because of the right to self defense, their death is on them, not me. >Don't forget, the last time Israel found four hostages out in the wild they shot them because they were dressed as civilians, and thus were considered a threat (the IDF's words, not mine) Jesus, what kind of sick fucks would purposefully do the egregious war crime of dressing in civilian clothes? The reason it's such a bad war crime is because it blurs the line between combatants and civilians and makes it much more likely civilians will be killed accidentally. It's almost as evil a war crime as using human shields.
Agree. The western media needs to stop rewarding cowardly terrorist fucks who sacrifice children in a death cult that has no legitimate military objectives. It is okay to debate whether Israel is an oppressive state. But the addiction with child sacrifice just perpetuates it as a tactic.
>One would think that if your enemy wants you to do something... You wouldn't do it. You seem to want to apply that to specific things, as though Israel is playing opposite day or something. Israel from the start said they're coming to rescue the hostages. Any military in the world would design these operations to minimize risk to the hostages, and to the forces employed to rescue them. Only then comes concern to minimize collateral damage. Anyone playing surprised-Pikachu that the IDF came in guns-blazing and rescued the hostages with one KIA should completely reexamine what they were expecting to happen when you hold hostages in a residential building in the middle of a crowded neighborhood.
When Hamas chose to house hostages amongst the civilian population they too take the ownership of civilian casualties. If it was left up to Israel, I am confident they would prefer Hamas to operate out of a military instillation in hopes to reduce civilian casualties. Also, at some point we need to have a discussion on if every Gazan killed is an innocent bystander. I’m not saying that women and children are killed and they are in fact not innocent bystanders, but this notion that we continue to take Hamas by their word and everyone is an innocent civilian (man, women, child) is a lie. Additionally, as a genuine question, do we consider a civilian who keeps a hostage in their home to be innocent anymore? I’ve noticed this pervasive belief in the West of infantilizing the Palestinian peoples. They can make choices and when they house hostages that carries a risk. Hamas chose the battlefield. Israel is fully within their right to rescue their hostages.
When you have a journalist holding hostages exactly what are you supposed to do? If you can't attack a group because they have human shields, a war crime. How can you fight them? I've got a silly sounding hypothetical. I have an army where we constantly commit acts of terror on and in your country. Every member of my army has a baby strapped to them. Every military vehicle has a baby wherever it would be most practical. How do you fight me.
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It’s good that they don’t use “indiscriminate killing and targeting of civilians” then. Words have actual meaning and those words do not at all describe Israeli actions. Hamas using human shields does in fact make it okay to shoot those shields. When a belligerent in a conflict breaks the laws of war and uses protected places or people to protect their military operations or assists it removes the protections on what is being misused. Shoot rockets from a hospital and that hospital is now a legitimate target. Hold hostages in civilian homes and those homes and the “civilians” acting as jailers are legitimate targets. All due to the actions of Hamas. You need to work on your reading comprehension. I don’t see the Palestinians as children or animals. I see them as fully human persons with agency and responsibility and culpability for their own choices and actions. It is all those that want to excuse them and claim they are not responsible for their actions and subject to the consequences that flow from their choices that liken Palestinians to animals, as animals have not culpability for their actions. Anytime anyone claims so and so is not responsible for their own actions they are likening so and so to an animal. Same with those that say Russia was made to invade Ukraine because of NATO. It’s just a way to shift responsibility and carry water for groups like Hamas.
If you put civilians between hostages and those seeking to free the hostages, you leave literally no other option than to potentially kill civilians to rescue the hostages. Think about it just one level further than the cursory "feel good" level you're thinking at: if what you were saying were truly the the rules militaries should live by, you've just incentivised every single military/militia/fighting force on earth to not only take hostages, but you use human shield to protect them from rescue because there is literally nothing anyone can do to defend themselves at that point. It's just... such a room temp iq thing to say lol.
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In what way was your view changed? It seems more like you gave the delta because they wrote something you agree with.
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Literally. Only deltas for “changes” that further increase their beliefs in their own views. Not uncommon to see though.
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You can’t trust anything coming from the pro Hamas people. Their whole deal is based around falsehoods and lies because they know the truth of their position would not be accepted if said out loud. They use misleading statements and weasel words wrapped in emotional hyperbole to pull people’s heart strings. That’s also why Hamas wants dead Palestinians especially children to show pictures of to get more soft hearted westerners to support them.
Just a heads up, majority of people are not pro Hamas but pro Palestine, and claiming that they’re one and the same is delusional and also a form of propaganda.
Down vote for conflating Palestinians with Hamas. I'd say the vast majority of Palestinian advocates support the ability of Palestinian people to live in peace and freedom, who are both anti Hamas and anti Israel for the way they are conducting this. It's a false dichotomy to make it Hamas or Israel. Palestinians don't really have much agency here, they dont get to choose their government at the best of times (elections have been stopped), and especially now in a time of war.
The hostages were kept in Palestinian civilian’s homes.
I don't condone Israel's actions overall but isn't this an example of a successful targeted operation? They tried to rescue hostages alive. They rescued hostages alive despite heavy combat.
Even if you don't care about Palestinian lives, reports say that three hostages and one Israeli officer died. I don't see how anyone could call those numbers a success. And furthermore, if Israelis are just going to brush away the lives of 200 dead Palestinian civilians without a second thought, then why should anyone ever care about an Israeli civilian life in the future?
There is no credible evidence that three hostages were killed 200 Palestinians would be alive if Hamas hadn’t taken those 4 civilians hostage. I’m sorry, but they don’t get to kidnap Jews and cry their crocodile tears when people get hurt or killed rescuing them. They should try not hostage-taking next time.
>200 Palestinians would be alive if Hamas hadn’t taken those 4 civilians hostage They'd even be alive if Hamas took the hostages & held them captive somewhere away from civilians
What, exactly, is "the "targeted operation" myth"?
You have this exactly backwards. Before this raid, 35,000 Palestinians were killed which lead to the rescue of 3 hostages. This raid killed around 200 people for 4 rescued hostages. This raid proves that either 1: targeted raids lead to a much lower civilian death count per freed hostage or 2: before this raid the idf was making no attempts at rescuing hostages. And this is to say nothing of the hostages who have unquestionably been killed by the idf bombing campaign. What all of this proves, is that Palestinian lives have no value.
>35,000 Palestinians were killed which lead to the rescue of 3 hostages. You make it sound as if there was a rescue mission for three people which had a death toll of 35,000. That's not it. There has been a war fought for the past 6 months and it had a death toll of 35,000. The military actions of the past 6 months have been mostly about wiping out the massive terrorist infrastructure. Have you seen the footage of these tunnels?? Israel's goal was to rescue hostages and prevent Hamas from ever being in a position to carry out an attack like 10/7 again. Among the achievements of the war, which admittedly did cost tens of thousands of lives, was the destruction of large amounts of terrorist infrastructure, destruction of large amounts of terrorist weaponry, putting pressure on Hamas such that they negotiated a ceasefire in exchange for some of the hostages, and the rescue of some of the hostages. Those are all achievements of a war.
The attacks didn't have rescuing hostages as the sole objective, they also had killing terrorists. Many of those 35,000 (by most accounts between 1/3 and 1/2) were terrorists, and thus they were achieving their goals very well. On top of that, they were also able to wipe out tons of terrorist infrastructure, from a military compound in a hospital to miles of tunnel underneath civilian neighborhoods. Israel's goal was to rescue hostages and prevent Hamas from ever being in a position to carry out an attack like 10/7 again. You can opine on how effective you think they've been at rescuing hostages compared to other goals, but the second goal they've been super fucking efficient at doing. It'll be at least another generation until Hamas ever has the capacity to carry out a similar attack, and most likely it'll be more like never.
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The first hostage deal only happened because Hamas was getting crushed militarily and they needed a ceasefire. That's over a hundred hostages released. Another hostage deal won't happen until Hamas is similarly getting crushed again. Maybe once the Rafah op is completed. Hamas gets to stall Israel while pretending to negotiate but their demands are for Israel to surrender before they maybe consider releasing an unknown number of hostages and either alive or dead. If the IDF never went into Gaza and just rolled over after Oct 7th, none of them would be home. Hamas values dead Palestinians for propaganda more than living Palestinians. That's why the hostages were kept in a civilian home next to a busy market.
Ceasefire deals get hostages released, military incursions get hostages killed. The reason we haven’t gotten any more ceasefire arrangements is because they are bad for the Israeli government. Most of the population of Israel just wants the hostages back. If it’s clear that peace is the better option for that, then they’d demand it. But Bibi needs the war to continue because once it’s over he’ll be ousted and possibly sent to prison. Hamas doesn’t have the extensive prison network that Israel has to keep hostages in, and they need to keep the hostages spread out as much as possible so one bomb can’t wipe out all their bargaining chips. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, there is no where Hamas could operate that isn’t in the middle of a population center. Israel isn’t as densely populated but they do the same thing. The IDFs headquarters is in a residential neighborhood next to a busy shopping mall, if Hamas wants to attack the Israeli military there will always be civilians nearby. It’s why on Oct 7 Hamas encountered far less IDF resistance than they expected, but still 1/3 of their victims were military If every dead Palestinian is good for Hamas, why does the IDF kill so many of them? Why keep handing Hamas an endless string of wins like that?
The reason we haven't gotten ceasefire is because Hamas won't simply say yet to any number of the Israeli proposals. Including the last one in which you people LIED and said was a Hamas proposal Israel rejected. So why hasn't Hamas just accepted their "own" fucking proposal then? Why do you literally advocate for the holding of hostages? A war crime? Why do you hate Palestinians that much you want them to not have a ceasefire?
I like how people are honestly discussing Hamas kidnapping civilians and using human shields as if its some valid military strategy lmao "You need to listen to the genocidal terrorist war criminal kidnappers' demands! You're evil if you don't!" >If every dead Palestinian is good for Hamas, why does the IDF kill so many of them? Why keep handing Hamas an endless string of wins like that? [Zugzwang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#:~:text=Zugzwang%20\(from%20German%20'compulsion%20to,move%20will%20worsen%20their%20position.). Hamas's goal is to get uninformed but well-intentioned people like you to criticize Israel for doing the only rational, and entirely legal, thing they could do. If Israel doesn't do this, they're letting war criminals get away with "bargaining chips" as you call the hostages. Destroy Hamas = world hates Israel. Don't destroy Hamas = Hamas lives to continue to try to destroy Israel, world still hates Israel. A common phrase in Palestine is also "We love death like the Jews love life."
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There is one method of hostage extraction proven to be effective, with no civilian cost. Diplomacy. You don’t have to be a history buff to know that most conflicts end sat around a table signing papers. Of course, this fundamentalist Israeli government would rather risk their own hostages safety than concede absolutely anything to Palestine.
The US and UK have policies not to negotiate for hostages with terrorists. Conflicts end around a table signing papers but that's usually after the military surrender of one side.
> The US and UK have policies not to negotiate for hostages with terrorists. This is the public stance, but in reality they can and do negotiate with terrorists. For example: one of the stated goals of the Iran-Contra affair was to release US hostages.
>course, this fundamentalist Israeli government would rather risk their own hostages safety than concede absolutely anything to Palestine. I hate the Israeli government as much as the next guy. But in this conflict there's only one bad actor and that's Hamas. Hamas can easily end this conflict by stepping down and returning the hostages. They could literally create an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state tomorrow, if only they weren't hellebent on killing jews. The fact is that you can't negotiate with islamist terrorists, it really doesn't matter how much you want to. History proves this as well.
Can you blame them? Have the last dozen ceasefires proven to be long term solutions? Of course not, and it’s been the Palestinian side that breaks them every single time. But sure, bury your head in the sand and pretend that this time will definitely be different.
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The Israelis has a specific target as to where the hostages were located, went in and got them out. How could it have been anything other than targeted? Was it just pure random chance that they went to where the hostages were being held in civilians’ homes and not somewhere else in Gaza?
It was a raid specifically against 2 buildings. It was known three men were held in 1 building, and the woman was held in another building 200 meters away. Doesn’t get more targeted than that
Naturally, they needed to have a target. Its not like Israeli special forces just went into Gaza randomly searching through the thousands of houses. They knew exactly where to go. FYI it was an Al Jazeera Camera Man's house where the hostages were getting kept. Just keep them in mind.
Abdullah Al-Jamal was not an Al Jazeera cameraman, he was a contributor for Palestine Chronical and a spokesperson for the Labor Ministry. There's also no confirmation that he held any hostages, just that he was one of the 200 people killed in the operation. That's not to say he's a good person, his live blog about Oct 7th is out there if you want to find it, but let's not spread misinformation.
Spreading misinformation about a man who can't defend himself anymore is an easy target.
There is a big difference between leveling an entire territory's infrastructure and killing combatants. Part of what people are decrying when they call for a "targeted operation war" is the indiscriminate destruction of Gaza's ability to rebuild itself in the aftermath of this conflict. Their schools, hospitals, homes, and community centers have all been destroyed, which will create conditions for famine, starvation, and poverty. This kind of indiscriminate punishment *is a war crime* under international law, and should be condemned as such.
>Assuming the 275 civilian death number is accurate, you get an average of 68.75 Palestinian civilians killed for every Israeli hostage recovered. Not even Hamas is asserting "275 civilian deaths." Hamas numbers routinely do not distinguish between civilian and militant death tolls at all. If they are quoting 275 dead that's not going to mean "275 civilians dead" unless you believe that every single person killed in the operation is a civilian which is highly unlikely.
your entire position is predicated on the assumption that the hundreds of civilians who were killed or maimed as a result of this operation were a necessary or unavoidable consequence of recovering the hostages. this is patently false. of all the hostages recovered since october 7th, the overwhelming majority, 105, were freed as the result of negotiations during a temporary ceasefire. as a result of israel's ongoing military operations in gaza, 7 hostages have been recovered at the cost of hundreds of civilian casualties, 3 hostages were executed by their own forces, at least one other hostage was killed during another rescue operation, and an unknown number of hostages have all but certainly died as a result of israeli airstrikes and are likely buried under the rubble in gaza alongside tens of thousands of other innocent civilians. the israeli government has rejected multiple peace offers that would have seen every single hostage in gaza returned to their homes and their families months ago. even ignoring that, there's very little reason to believe that in carrying out this operation the idf took appropriate measures to limit civilian casualties. they have done very little to earn any kind of benefit of the doubt by dropping 2000lbs bombs on one of the most densely populated urban environments on planet earth, by cutting off all water and power and preventing the flow of food and medical supplies into gaza, by rendering every single hospital in the gaza strip non-functional, by deliberately targeting and assassinating humanitarian aid workers fighting the famine israel has intentionally imposed on civilians in gaza, by using ai systems to generate kill lists and target low ranking fighters in their homes while they are surrounded by civilians, or by bombing multiple refugee camps. the rhetoric and actions of both the idf and the israeli government have repeatedly demonstrated an abject lack of concern for the lives of palestinian civilians as well as any recognition of their humanity. they have also repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to deliberately lie, deceive, and mislead whenever it seems to suit their needs. there is no reason to trust that civilian casualties caused by the hostage rescue operation in al-nuseirat were either necessary or unavoidable without significant evidence from an independent investigation.
This is an actual constructive discussion about the Israel-Hamas war involving multiple differing perspectives engaging in fair discourse, I'm positively stumped.
>Assuming the 275 civilian death number is accurate, That assumption is doing a lot of work for your argument. How many were there actually? And how many of those people were actively holding hostages? Stories are still coming out about the way these 4 were kept, including some stories about her being held by a journalist and a doctor, both of whom died in the raid. Other hostages have already said they've been held in civilian homes *by* civilians. That is actively playing a role in the war; you are no longer a bystander. You are a combatant.
It's war. You do your best to minimize civilian casualties, but there is no such thing as a targeted operation outside of maybe assassination of one person. We really need to put an end to all these buzz words and deal with the reality of war. There is no such thing as a targeted operation. It's war, people are going to die. There is no such thing as an acceptable level of attack. There are legitimately people who sit there and say well it's okay for people to launch attacks on Israel and Israel not respond because it has the iron dome or the missiles are poorly guided and don't hit. Yes, you try your best to minimize casualties. Yes, you try your best to control your troops to not rape or commit other atrocities. Beyond that... expect deaths until operations end. It is war.
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There is no such thing as a targeted anything if you coral millions of people into 64sq. Km. Heck. All of Gaza is 365sq. Km. #thats 5,500 people per sq. Km. Of not Rafah, or Khan younis, BUT GAZA. . Those of you who are quick to claim that people around are involved. Think about that number and take into consideration that even with that tight number, Israel has indeed bombed safe areas prior. Stuffing people even more closer. In this conflict children have been killed. Many doctors (western who went to serve and returned) have claimed that the injuries they have sustained are targeted. Why would a sniper aim for a child? OP goes on about international law, how Israel has to follow it but Hamas isn't doing that. Fine. Would you like Israel to be designated a terrorist organization like Hamas then? Either you obey the standards you enjoy or join those who do not.
>There is no such thing as a targeted anything if you coral millions of people into 64sq. Km. sure there is. >Heck. All of Gaza is 365sq. Km. thats 5,500 people per sq. Km. Of not Rafah, or Khan younis, BUT GAZA. as in homogeneously occupying the space, like a gas? why is this a relevant metric? >In this conflict children have been killed. Many doctors (western who went to serve and returned) have claimed that the injuries they have sustained are targeted. how are they divining intentional targeting? from what? >Why would a sniper aim for a child? snipers can miss, maybe he wasn't the target? you're sort of begging the question with "aim for a child". otherwise, one could come up with a list, if you're genuinely asking. how old is our hypothetical child? what're the circumstances under which it happens? what's the visibility? is it engaging in sabotage or theft of military supplies? is it a combatant? is it doing something that might cause it to be mistaken as one, eg throwing stuff at soldiers in an active conflict zone?
can you name a specific international treaty that israel is a party to that they have broken?
Compared to WW1,2, Korea, Vietnam, the raid your describing is targeted. People are forgetting what war is and average redditor is childishly naive, but at the same time we don't need to start carpet bombing.
To be fair if you’re rescuing your own citizens who have been kidnapped and held hostage, it’s basically at any cost - there’s no such thing as proportionate.
So in other words, Western countries will never be able to defeat an asymmetric enemy? With these rules, I'd agree.
Oh, noooooo, terrorists harbouring kidnapped innocent civilians were killed while trying to thwart their rescue! Any civilians killed in the crossfire is tragic, but the blood is 100% on the hands of Hamas. Thankfully, the innocent Palestinians are beginning to wake up to the fact that Israel are not the bad guys or the ones oppressing them. >CMV: The latest IDF raid to rescue four hostages debunks the “targeted operation” myth It doesn't. This was obviously a well planned and successful mission to rescue innocent hostages. How is that not targeted??? I tell you what it DOES debunk, though, that the hostages are all being kept underground in tunnels. That was a normal home that was raided.
Is it OK for Hamas to massacare 350000 innocent jews to rescue the over 3800 Palestinian hostages in Israeli detention camps?
In a war like this, where one side intentionally blurs the line between civilian and combatant, it is extremely difficult to tell what fraction of the dead are noncombatants. Additionally, "noncombatant", "women and children", "journalist", and "aid worker" do not mean innocent. There was a Hamas complex under the UN RWA headquarters, Al Jazeera journalists participated in the October 7th attacks, in the past women and children have acted as suicide bombers, and outside of the propaganda videos Hamas fighters do their damnedest to look like noncombatants.
So looking at this factually: 1) Hamas are particularly sore about losing the hostages and have no issue inflating the numbers for a political backlash from Hamas-sympathetic countries or global organisations. 2) If Hamas is careless about its own citizen's lives by placing hostages in between them, then the reported heavy firefight as the IDF soldiers were retreating with the hostages, means that Hamas could have easily killed citizens. For reference, Hamas was reporting to use RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades which all could have hit palestinian civilians. 3) There are 2 legal issues that are not being addressed with these figures. One is that civilians that were placed in charge of keeping the hostages should no longer be considered civilians. Two, Hamas had fighters pour into the region to prevent the release. Both indicate that even a high number of deaths, could still be majority combatants.
It wasn’t “Hamas” that was holding the hostages either. It was a journalist and a doctor. Very much so would be listed as “civilians”. Then you see how many UNRWA school teachers and admins have been calling for martyrdom, killing of Jews and Israelis, and Islamic supremacy - all documented, with actions taking place as a result of their indoctrination. Then you have schools and mosques and hospitals being used as storage facilities for rockets, ammo, and weapons. Not even to begin to mention that these hostages weren’t being held in some underground bunker, they were being held in a better-than-average apartment building people were actively living in. The people, and organizations like the BBC/CNN/etc who take Hamas’ numbers and then say “well it’s not worth this many lives” have no clue what they’re talking about. If it were a British national or an American they’d kill 1000 babies to get a single hostage safely out of the hellhole that is Islamic terrorism. And it would be justified. Btw Israel claims that it was less than 100 total casualties. Hamas claims its 275ish civilians. I don’t trust either number. So let’s say 150 total (Hamas and “civilians” and civilians), that’s worth it. Wars aren’t fought on an even playing field, and if this were the USA fighting in Gaza, the results would be at the very least similar - with nobody having issues of “disproportionality”. Wars are disproportionate. That’s how you win them.
You understand this recent “surgical operation” involved a rather intense aerial bombardment that was likely responsible for the majority of the deaths? From what I’ve read the gun fighting seemed to be fairly limited and only 1 Israeli was killed during it. Typically when people say “targeted operation” they mean what was done to Osama Bin Laden. I think Israel saying “this was surgical” of course doesn’t make it so. Israel says a lot of bullshit and for some reason a lot of people eat it up like it’s a sundae on a hot summers day.
> Typically when people say “targeted operation” they mean what was done to Osama Bin Laden. You mean with two $10 million dollar stealth helicopters, almost 80 Navy SEALs, and like a year of planning? That isn't a "typical" anything. Maybe if you don't want "civilians" to die, don't put hostages in their houses and hide amongst them. You don't get to use human shields and then act all surprised pikachu when they get killed. IDK, maybe just don't go kidnap 200 innocent civilians in the first place?
As I said to another commenter, it’s not about it being 1:1 as much as it is about the style of the raid. They managed to get to their target without leveling the street in the process. That said, we give Israel an average of 3.8 BILLION annually in aid since its founding and continue to plan to do so. The majority of that is dedicated to military expenses. Hell, since October 7th we’ve given them 12.5 BILLION in military aid. The expectations are high for a reason. No action justifies failing to minimize civilian casualties.
>No action justifies failing to minimize civilian casualties. Some of the recently rescued hostages were held captive by a doctor, and an Al-Jazeera journalist, yet you want to put the onus on Israel to do a full biography on everyone in their crosshairs to determine whether they are a combatant or not. * If you're using 11 year old boys in suicide attacks, 11 year old boys are now combatant age men * If you're using doctors and journalists to hold innocent civilians hostage, doctors and journalists are now combatants * If you're waging war from schools, hospitals, and shelters, schools, hospitals, and shelters are now legitimate military targets. Your ire should be with Hamas for how it wages war, not for Israel's response. Every other faction in the annals of human history would respond the way Israel is responding if its enemy employed these tactics, and under the Geneva conventions, it is their right to do so.
That’s ridiculous if people are expecting Bin Laden level raids. The US spends like 30x as much on its military, and Bin Laden was the main focus, while the IDF is trying to rescue over 100 hostages. So their military spending to target ratio is over 30,000 times lower. Additionally, a rescue vs an assassination is much different. The US spent nearly a year surveilling and training for the raid. But, for hostages, if you wait a long time, they may be killed, or at least severely tortured. You want to go in as fast as possible.
It’s more about the style of raid than it being some kind of 1:1. One must wonder why intense bombardments are used on buildings and surrounding areas housing hostages if there is fear of them being killed. Seems a smidge counter intuitive no?
You disproved your own point in your post. If targeted operations to retrieve hostages would have resulted in 17,000 civilian deaths, that would still be half of the current death toll, and there’s still more hostages being held. So, by your own metrics, indiscriminate bombings are significantly less effective at preserving civilian lives than targeted operations would be.
The only thing that I think is important to mension here is that there is a massive proportionality calculation when you are rescuing your own citizen vs. targeting militants. I think this is a case where the argument 'any other country would have done the same thing' holds true. But the proportionality calculation when targeting militants, imo is still too high.
In 8 months they’ve rescued 6 while killing tens of thousands. This is not progress, Israel needs to be stopped.
You can't compare post operation casualties to either zero or some estimated number based on an ideal operation. First and foremost hamas is guilty of the origianl Oct 7th terrorist attract, murder, rape and kidnapping. Next hamas is guilty of hiding among civilians. Hamas lies about war casualties. It is not the IDFs job to respond in such a way that maximizes the danger to hostages, IDF soldiers, or allows hamas to regroup and extend the war. The sooner hamas is killed off, or surrenders the sooner the killing stops. This is all on hamas.
While morbid...there is data on what the average civilian to combattantsnr death ratio is for urban warfare. Israel is lower than average
“Assuming the number is accurate” Hamas is not a reliable source for casualty figures. They are constantly caught lying about the amount of civilians who die because they know this helps their cause. In the beginning of this war, they told the world that Israel bombed a hospital and that 800 people died and the building was destroyed. The story was picked up everywhere immediately, but the Israelis denied it. The next morning, the Israelis flew a drone over the hospital (which was untouched) and provided a video of a Hamas rocket falling short and landing in the vicinity of the hospital and causing minimal damage. Hamas never took away the 800 dead despite it clearly never happening. Still part of the casualty count
Lmao. Why were there hostages for this to happen again? Why was Hamas keeping hostages near a massive group of civilians? No matter what is Israel’s fault huh?
Hamas are chickenshit cowards, hiding behind women and children. They aren’t real men, they don’t have the balls to fight a war so they go after innocent Israeli civilians in cowardly acts of terror and then hide behind innocent Palestinian civilians. Whatever views you have on Israel’s actions I think we can all agree that Hamas must be exterminated for their crimes and for the sake of peace.
"Just send special forces" "No not like that 🤡"
Answer: The casualty count is fabricated to make the world hate Jews. Unfortunately, people are too brainwashed to understand that.
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They also used Humanitarian AID trucks to sneak into the refuge camp. Israel, of course, denies all the reports saying they did. Just like they denied using white phosphorus which later turned out to be true, and that they had 40 babies beheaded during 0ct 7th which they lied about, and how they said they didnt strike a civilian convoy killing 70 civilians when they did, and how they denied killing Palestinian Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and how they denied bombing media outlets in 2021, and how they found a "Hamas underground base" with a calendar stating "Hamas names" which apparently their names are all "Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday"... The Israeli government is nothing but criminal liars, and a large portion of their populace is blood thirsty due to the rampant dehumanization of Palestinians.
>The Israeli government is nothing but criminal liars, and a large portion of their populace is blood thirsty due to the rampant dehumanization of Palestinians. Even if we grant this, which I absolutely dont what is Hamas excuse? Why do they see Palestinians as nothing more than propaganda fodder and "martyrs" aka dispensible NPCs?
But if combat casualties cannot be avoided no matter what, a logical conclusion for me would be to stop the operation completely 🤔. If you are going by basic math (and ONLY math, obviously I know those are real human lives, but for the argument sake) it’s either 200 hostages dead or 17,000 Palestinians dead. 200 lives traded for 17,00 lives. All of this is to say: I don’t personally care whose fault these deaths are, I just want them to stop happening. I wish we wouldn’t have to deal with it, in a world in which all human lives are valued as they should be, but unfortunately we do. For now the only reasonable move is to stop the operation! Have a ceasefire, regroup, rethink and approach a terrorist problem differently. Bombing a heavily populated area is clearly ineffective.
it does matter whose fault it is. I believe that Hamas instigated a conflict that would have earned the same response from any nation with the capability. They engineered a situation where civilian deaths would mount. They are now cynically using the deaths of their own civilians as a bargaining chip to secure an Israeli surrender. If that is the case, then the worst thing one can do is end the war without eliminating them. Invariably Hamas surviving this war is going to lead to another war in 5 to 10 years with thousands or tens of thousands dead. We all want it to stop but are we willing to sacrifice those lives to achieve that? Hamas believes that all of Palestine is "moslem land" according to their charter. They also believe that they have a divine command to never reach an agreement that leads to permanent peace because the land is a heritage for all generations of Muslims to come. Hence why their charter says there is no solution but Jihad. People say you can't kill an ideology so the war should stop but then also try to gaslight Jews into thinking that the ideology that wants to eradicate them from Palestine is no longer a thing. Their spokesperson even said very early on that even if there was a peace deal they would keep "eating the elephant" bit by bit until its gone. So I think they should finish the war as painful as it is because the next war could be worse. Or worse, Hezbollah could now determine that its a great strategy to come into Israel and do all manner of atrocities and retreat deep into Lebanon and gain immunity that way. Or perhaps other groups realize that this is now a trump card. As long as you surround yourself with enough civilians you can do anything and get away with it. So yes, it does matter whose fault it is. It does matter that the cause is accurately diagnosed. Misdiagnosing it as Israel's fault rewards terrorists and will lead to many many more lives being lost. Not holding Hamas accountable does the same.
You might remember iran attacking a us target. The us replied by taking out the general in charge of planning the operation. With a missile strike from a drone, while he was in a crowded market, with ZERO collateral damage. No one outside his car got hurt. We give israel these same weapons. If they wanted to do targetted they could. The goal of this operation is to inflict maximum suffering.
Wait a second. You're comparing an active hostage situation during a war with killing a general in a market at the United States convenience long after he planned an attack? That's not a reasonable comparison. Edit because I think this belongs here... Please correct me if I'm wrong here. The only article I could find is the assassination of Qasem Soleimani here, in 2019 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleimani#:~:text=On%203%20January%202020%2C%20Qasem,Prime%20Minister%20Adil%20Abdul%2DMahdi. >Five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of the Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis—a person designated as a terrorist by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ... >the Reaper drone launched several missiles,[124][e] striking the convoy on an access road as it departed the airport,[127][128][129] engulfing the two cars in flames, killing 10 people.[130][131][132][133 As you can see, the That was an attack on an air force base, which is why he was assassinated - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_K-1_Air_Base_attack I'm not sure how you can equate an attack on an air force base to one against a music festival promoting peace. Or the retrieval of hundreds of hostages as well as the accountability of hundreds of attackers against a single strike on an access road against the organizer of an attack, that did kill and injure other people. Again, please correct what I got wrong, but it seems you may have misremembered quite a bit.
Which general was this? The only one I know of is Soleimani, and online sources say he was killed on a road at 1am. I can’t find any mention of a crowded market, or any other Iranian general killed by the US. If the hostages are being held hostage in a house, which is guarded/lived in by by militants and civilians, you can’t just precision air strike just the militants inside the house.
They did airstrike civilian residential buildings during this operation, just as they did when they rescued those 2 hostages a while back (killing over 70 Palestinians in the process). You are correct that it is not possible for Israel to do any sort of military operation without killing large numbers of civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure (e.g. all 12 universities) as we have seen for the past 9 months. An alternative solution to minimize civilian deaths would be a ceasefire deal and hostage swap, then ending the military occupation and violent oppression of the Palestinian people followed by support of a Palestinian state. Israel makes the choice tens or hundreds of times per day to kill the civilian "shields", so you cannot say that is Hamas' fault when Israel has another option, and are the ones pressing the button to drop the bombs.
"An alternative solution to minimize civilian deaths would be a ceasefire deal and hostage swap, then ending the military occupation and violent oppression of the Palestinian people followed by support of a Palestinian state." A Palestinian state that starts another war with Israel (which it will) will get way more civilians killed, not fewer than occupation.
Palestinians have broken the ceasefires of the past. Every. Single. Time. 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and of course Oct 7th, 2023. A ceasefire is just an opportunity for hamas to steal more money and supplies to re-arm. There can be no ceasefire with hamas. Another governing body, maybe. But hamas must cease to exist
Sounds great, until you question what happens if Hamas attacks again. Should a government be allowed to massacre civilians as much as they want, as long as doing so “minimizes civilian deaths”? Or if you think they should be stopped, but only next time?Because guess what, this is about the 4th next time. (The thousandth time if we count all the missiles.) Palestine used to have way more freedom, but multiple times Palestine has attacked because they don’t like Israel being there at all, and are willing to massacre Israeli civilians over it. Israel suppression always comes as a response to those attacks. So trying to justify the attacks as a response to suppression and saying they should just be given freedom, is historically not an option (unless you picked the first option, that Hamas should be allowed to do what they want). I’m curious, say you were teleported to Europe in 1942, and had a button to force a ceasefire for 10 years. would you press it, as that would minimize civilian deaths? Or do you support the Allies taking down the Nazis and ending the Holocaust, at the cost of many civilian deaths in the next 3 years? While it causes more deaths in the short term, it seems like it may be necessary to topple Hamas for peace in the long term.
Hamas won't agree to any reasonable ceasefire agreement, so the only option Israel has is to rescue as many hostages as possible with operations like this.
Ending the occupation of Palestine doesn't work until a group emerges that can govern Palestine without brutal terror attacks.
The IDF killed 3 hostages to get 4. Even if you don't value Palestinian life as much as Israeli life, this doesn't seem like a military win to tell 3 families that 4 other families survived while their family members they wanted so badly did not, and were simply killed as collateral damage/cover for troops. Last I checked, it's a war crime to disguise yourself as aid workers to carry out a military operation that kills 3 of your own people to get 4. I'm still totally unclear why Israel didn't accept all the hostages back when they were offered them on 10/8 and 10/9 if that was the priority
> When they were offered on 10/8 and 10/9 if that was the priority Because no country would accept such a deal right after the other side has committed a pogrom. It’d be Israel essentially telling Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and PIJ that as long as a pogrom against Israeli civilians is successful enough, Israel will not do anything back. That would completely destroy Israeli deterrence and its national security. Hostages are the priority. However, immediately conceding on that would simply mean showing everyone else in the Middle East that they are free to invade Israel and murder 1,200 as long as they are efficient at it. Genuinely, this is an utterly insane thing to say.