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

So are you saying Israel have never committed war crimes in the West Bank?

Again this has been proven to be untrue.

"On the other hand, the taking of civilian hostages is a war crime, one of the worst actually, so it is clear that Hamas have committed that war crime. The continued holding of those hostages is also a war crime, something you and others appear to support given the criticism I have received for calling for the immediate and unconditional release of those hostages."

What do you think of the 2000 or more Palestinians detained by Israel without charge since October?

There are a number of posters who have refused to support calls for the unconditional release of the hostages, something our Tanaiste once again called for today. Instead, they engage in whataboutery and deflection to prisoners and other issues.

That is what the video appears to show, but does it show the full incident?

Imagine a scenario, Hamas fighters in civilian attire fire a rocket at an Israeli tanks, they miss, they jump in a car to drive away. Video starts. Tank fires back at car with civilians in it.

That is the level of propaganda that both sides are engaged in. There is a possible war crime involved, but the evidence is not conclusive.

The IDF did bomb the al Shifa hospital prior to the raid yesterday.

The IDF also had snipers firing into the hospital.

The IDF also bombed several ambulances leaving the hospital.

All of the hospitals in Northern Gaza are non operational. I think Israel will bulldoze them when they get the people out.

The war didn't start on October 7th though - it was just the latest flare up of a violent conflict lasting decades (a huge flare up admittedly).

To view it as the war starting on October 7th would be a total misreading of what actually happened, leading to the wrong 'solutions' being proposed. It would be like claiming that Bloody Sunday or the attack on British soldiers at Warrenpoint in 1979 was the thing that started the Troubles.

A nuclear armed Hamas would not hesitate in bombing Tel Aviv. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have done it already.

What should Israel have done over the past 6 weeks?

Maybe something that didn’t involve killing a child every 10 minutes.

How about fight Hamas fighters in the streets, not bomb 5,000 kids to death from unopposed war plans?

Yes I have heard that too, but another one (military officer) saying that there will be other cases where there will not be any choice, and they will have to go into the tunnels. And personally, I believe that this will be the case, but it will be a nightmare, and many will die.

Defeating Hamas is a different kettle of fish. There has been growing disaffection with Hamas amongst the Palestinian population for a long time now because of the way they are "ruling" here's one such report and while dated, it's still valid.

Gaza Palestinians vent against Hamas in rare online event - BBC News

Whether this will ever amount to anything, in terms of change, I don't know, but at the moment, Hamas position is secure, at least on the surface, but videos have appeared showing grieving mothers holding their dead children and screaming abuse at Hamas, blaming them for the deaths but these videos were quickly suppressed.

Defeating Hamas from a military viewpoint, I think will happen, but this will increase support for Hamas ideology, and their ideology is bigger than Palestine, and is linked to Isis etc. and so far, the plan is working. Ironically, its this very ideology that is the cause of so many Muslim country's refusing to take Palestine refugees. Previous acceptance of Palestinian Refugees in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia did not end well.

The two state solution seems the only sensible one. It's very true that the both sides have been very violent for decades, but it could be argued that the West constantly giving Israel the green light for aggression may well have prolonged the conflict by many years - without this green light, they may have been forced into concessions much earlier.

Well according to that survey linked to by @Homelander the vast majority of Palestinians approve of Hamas' actions.

So if nobody here supports Hamas' action can they really be said to support the Palestinian cause?

Are they just defending Palestinian human rights but not their political leanings?

Israel is the occupier, it has to safeguard civilians. Maybe the 5000 children killed was the pilots thinking a kid was a Hamas fighter. Fighter pilot fearing for his life and having to make a split second decision has to drop the bomb. There has to be a higher standard applied to Israel.

Now the only thing I can think of is that the car was being surveyed from the air, pulled up outside a building and loaded with weapons, then followed and the tank intercepted it. But in that case, if they clearly can't tell whose in the car, maybe instead of firing a shell at it, they could have used the machine gun. Maybe the mother or daughter would have survived. It's that disportionality that really seems like Israel don't really care about any colleratal damage.

If you think it's Hamas who started this war you need to educate yourself about the history of the region. Israel was murdering innocent Palestinians since long before Hamas existed. Hamas was originally founded by a displaced Palestinian who's family had been ethnically cleansed by Israel. That sort of experience is going to push you towards some extreme views. There will be similar stories for many Hamas members, it's acts of barbarity by the occupying forces that pushes people into extremism. You can guarantee that for every one of the thousands of innocent young children that Israel has barbarically murdered in the last month, any siblings or parents who survive will be a whole lot more susceptible to taking up arms against Israel in future.

Aside from fostering the rise of Hamas through pure violence, Israel (particularly under Netanyahu's extreme right wing Likud party) has also had an active policy of helping Hamas to grow for years, directly funding them and helping them to gain a foothold in Gaza in a deliberate attempt to destabilise the more moderate Palestinian authorities and to create a bogeyman that can be used to scupper any progress towards a Palestinian state and to provide a distraction from the continuing displacement of Palestinians and expansion of illegal settlements.

So what should we expect Israel to do? Stop blowing young innocent children to smithereens might be a start. Stop murdering innocent people and stealing their homes on the West Bank. Stop cutting off electricity to maternity wards and guaranteeing the deaths of young babies. Stop the illegal settlements and the theft of Palestinian land. Stop the oppression and curtailing of any freedom of Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank. Start moving away from a policy of apartheid and a state built on ethnic supremacy and start taking steps towards becoming a modern democracy where all citizens have rights and aren't described and treated by the leaders as "human animals"

When people have something to live for and stop seeing everything they own and everyone they loved being destroyed by an extremely violent, hyper militarised state that treats them like animals, the lure of lashing out in attacks that guarantee your own death will diminish pretty dramatically, and organisations like Hamas will disappear into irrelevance.

BBC no longer falling for Israel's demand to treat everything they say as fact.