Hamas strike on Israel - Threadbans in op - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

It's not really. The US has been like the privileged/wealthy parents of an errant teenager who has been involved in a disturbance at school or something.

They've no interest in finding out the truth but are going to defend their offspring no matter what. They don't care about the lack of evidence, they probably knew there was no intelligence to justify the attacks on the hospital and so this is just about PR work for 12-24 hours or so. It would only be embarrassing if they felt that they had to justify their support for Israel, they clearly don't.

Biden has cut the progressive element of the Democrat party adrift completely. They've probably weighed it up and decided they'll gain way more center right floating voters than they will lose and so be it.

Very very disappointing to see, particularly with Biden repeating IDF/PR lines like their irrefutable facts despite the evidence (or lack of). Also the likes of John Fetterman who was elected after a huge progressive push for his campaign last year.

News from the US today is that APAC (with 100M of GOP money) is going to go after progressive Democrats such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (the only Palestinian/American in congress) and that Democrat leadership isn't too bothered about this.

I've been a big defender of Biden as President, that is a small consolation and the only thing that will give me joy if he runs and wins next year is that he'll have kept out a Conservative that would have done everything he is doing with respect to Israel, and a lot more damage besides.

100%

The flattening of that hospital would have been deemed completely justifiable under unnamed "rules of war" based on an Israeli whim.

Israel's war on hospitals has already ensured that almost all of them have ceased to function. That was always the plan. They'd rather they did not exist in Northern Gaza.

No, the Rafah crossing is controlled by the Egyptian Border Guard. Egypt, not Israel, has closed it twice this year both in the aftermath of attacks by Hamas.

IDF are now going to be targeting kids bedrooms for bombings. Boards lads will be screaming they are now all legitimate targets

It's not unilateral control, much of what they do is in conjunction with Israel,

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4267348-egypt-says-israel-responsible-for-rafah-crossing-closure/

So that's where all the MEDICAL SUPPLIES are going is it.

Is there anyone here that can justify this blockade of fuel which has so many implications. Is it ok for civilians to die of thirst for example? Because that is what you are condoning if you support Israel's war efforts.

Yes...........and? I was replying to a poster who made the vacuous comparison between Hamas launching rockets from the tiny enclave of Gaza and the Russians launching missiles from their vast territory. That this in their poisoned view justified Israel blasting Gaza city because they figured people might say it was ok for Ukraine to retaliate against Russia. That sort of twisted logic.

Egypt controls the crossing and they openly admit they open/close it to keep pressure on Israel over the Gaza issue.

For instance, there is no political or military reason why Israel would want Egypt to keep the crossing closed to non-Palestinian citizens. That doesn’t help them in the slightest. It does help Egypt highlight the Palestinian cause though - and does mean they don’t have to deal with ordinary Palestinians trying to apply for refugee status in Egypt.

PARA 1. Because in a war it is Standard Operating Practice to booby trap inoperative vehicles, or equipment A. to deny the enemy its use and B to kill the enemy. This does not mean that every single vehicle or location will be booby trapped,its all circumstantial based.

PARA 2. Stale Reporting. Hames attacked Israel, 07.11.2023. As early as the 10th newspapers were reporting on what the IDF would face in the tunnels, with booby traps being frequently mentioned. There have been earlier, months earlier in fact, long before Nov 7th reports on what was in the tunnels, based on what the IDF found in them at that time. But these are not the reports I speak about.

PARA 3. Quote" No reports of booby traps in this conflict have been provided" Unquote. Answer :- YET. As for motorbike comment, see PARA 1 for my reply,

You can also go back a few posts where I said that the full story of what happened in these tunnels will take weeks, if not months to come to a conclusion, and no one should be jumping on any narratives right at the start of the operation, which this is. When they have been investigated for 2 or more weeks, then it will be time to start forming more definite conclusions. As for my opinion that they are booby trapped, I'll stick with that. Unreservedly.

Given there’s a war going on there, talking to anyone who might be able to help ensure people can cross safely is advisable. There’s not much point in having the crossing open if there’s a full scale air strike or land operation happening there/near there when people are trying to cross.

I'm not sure you've convinced me. But thanks for info

New stash

LOL has the twitter account been reading the thread. Nothing in the video mentioned the vehicle being booby trapped, the soldier mentioned just they found it filled with ammunition (and they apparently rifled it all out of there, meaning it was not rigged to blow "at the slightest vibration" according to the SOP provided as conjecture by local military intelligence). It being "booby trapped" appears to be pure hyperbole from the chief Hasbara account.

That's 2 not-rigged vehicles so far by my count. Maybe they will find a few tomorrow now that my objections have been logged.

"We're in the heart of the hospital" literally outdoors and not in the hospital

To be honest you are far too obsessed with trying to nitpick at the smallest things.

I mean seriously, booby-traps being common operating procedure doesn't mean that every, single vehicle is going to be booby-trapped, or that lack of booby-trapped vehicles is blowing open some vast conspiracy. Booby-traps are incredibly common in the Russo-Ukraine war but obviously not every single abandoned vehicle, weapon, building or trench is booby-trapped or even close to it.

Really, this bizarre insistence that in the abscence of visual proof or some independent dossier that such things don't exist is just bizarre and naive. I mean a while back you compared the likelihood of booby traps to Bin Laden having a secret underground fortress.

Because yeah, the liklihood of either is similar. Booby-traps are a staple of any war in modern history, but the Israel-Hamas conflict, in a dense urban conflict zone, where one side is a paramilitary force reliant on small arms.....booby-traps aren't a thing unless explicity proven. Makes sense.

I mean there's no physical evidence linking Hitler to the holocaust, but only an absolute moron would argue that in the absence of proof we can't be sure he knew about it. Sometimes common logic needs to be applied.

They find a car load of weapons and ammunition at the hospital and rather than acknowledge or discuss how that does or does not potentially give validity to claims that Hamas stores weapons in such places, you instead nitpick that the twitter mentions booby-traps, yet the video doesn't.

The Heart of the Hospital - It's not a single building, like most large hospitals in the world. It has large outdoor areas. Did you actually think Al-Shifa was just some small little quaint building? It's a massive complex with several blocks and various other buildings and open spaces in between. The "heart" is the heart of the complex, not any one building.