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

I think the reason Regev will not disclose the IDF's rules of engagement because it appears there are none. And Hamas know that - so why the cloak and dagger stuff? Couldn't be because he's lying could it?

"A mother and daughter were killed inside the Holy Family Church complex (Gaza City). Earlier in the week, two men were killed while they were coming and going from the building - a bin collector and a janitor."

The full scale of what the IDF has done and is doing is starting to trickle out. No surprise that journalists are banned from Gaza - wouldn't want the truth coming out. I fear that more harrowing details will likely come out over the weeks and months ahead and Israel will have a lot more to answer for to its own people and the world.

Full report:

Layla Moran's family among hundreds trapped in Gaza church - BBC News

There are many ignorant posters on here whom I suspect hate Palestinians because they think they are exclusively muslim. But there are Christians living in both Gaza and the West Bank. They are in danger, not from Hamas, but from Israelis.

How are Christians treated in Israel proper? There is a time honoured tradition of Jews spitting at them

And this video, admittedly from some US Christian channel, where the sent a reporter to investigate, and within about 5 minutes of dressing up and walking around with a priest, had been spat on multiple times.

I suspect it won't take long for certain posters to present mental gymnastics to basically say they got what they deserved.

Sharone Lifschitz is the British-Israeli daughter of Yocheved, 85 - one of the first hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza in late October. Her father, Oded, 83 is still missing and believed to be held hostage in the Strip.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "Israel has a moral duty towards the citizens it abandoned on 7 October. As the time passes that moral duty is becoming more and more urgent."

The hostage families appear to have had enough. I see a ground swell of opinion building that could, hopefully, force a ceasefire.

It seems to me that the Israeli War Cabinet, whilst placating the hostage families and the general population to their faces, have always had a very different game plan. I don't see any attempts whatsoever to free the hostages. Looks to me like it a total free for all for the IDF.

Who was it who said "The most moral army in the world"?

And that is an absolute disgrace. The Israeli War Cabinet have pushed this way too far to the detriment of everyone who lives in Israel and to Israelis and Jews further afield.

Its hard to know how this will pan out - I see Netanyahu already got his political campaign underway in the midst of the bombing. They should hang their heads in shame (but they won't of course). They couldn't have scored a worse own goal.

And ordinary people continue suffer.

Remember kids, the IDF definitely doesn't kill civilians on purpose

Can't wait to see the usual lads try and defend this.

https://twitter.com/swilkinsonbc/status/1736091046671495339?t=o9EExoxXa3nU3JV8v2xm7w&s=19

I saw it on twitter it must be true. From someone that cheered on a terrorist attack in Leicester? In a hospital that was captured 4 days ago after heavy fighting: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/12/israeli-forces-raid-gazas-kamal-adwan-hospital-after-days-of-strikes

(you know, one of those hospitals where Hamas isn't present)

They have indeed undone a lot of hard work since WW2, just thrown it away. All so a belligerent government could try & avoid losing power. But the Israeli population have by & large supported this depravity and must take full responsibility. An exercise in how to make yourself hated.

I see the IDF killed some Jewish hostages in Gaza. That apparently has sparked protests in Israel. Yet the Israeli's were not sufficiently perturbed by the mass slaughter of Palestinians to protest. Very disheartening. Worryingly for Israel Hezbollah has upped the ante destroying a military installation in Northern Israel.

Netanyahu's policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide has brought forward the real possibility of Israel's statehood ceasing to exist in 20 years time if not sooner.

So you believe the Palestinean population that have by & large supported this depravity must take full responsibility aswell?

I posted a link from a Christian site based in Jerusalem - you posted links from Al Jazeera, which is funded by Qatar, a country with strong links to Hamas.

But yeah, your links are totally reliable and even disprove mine, even though mine, unlike yours, also hold up in terms of real life numbers: the Christian population in Gaza is almost extinct, whereas the Christian population in Israel is stable and even thriving in economic terms.

Maybe you can find a link from Islamic Resistance to prove me even wronger? 😁

While Israel being the world's only Jewish state is probably part of this, I think there's more to it.

I've seen many posters here make erroneous references to the demographics of Israeli Jews, and the sense that I get is that some of the Left - though not all - view Israel as having committed the cardinal sin in their religion of radical Leftism: that of supposedly being a white settler colony. It is for this reason above all else that some posters here want the State of Israel to be annihilated and others subject it to standards no other belligerent fighting for its existence have been held to.

And I say "supposedly" because the data directly contradict them. Firstly the white part. The demographics of Israeli Jews show that only 30% of them are of full blooded European or European-American ancestry. The vast majority have full or part Middle Eastern ancestry by blood. The reason for this is not difficult to understand. The Mizrahi Israeli Jews made Aliyah as refugees from other parts of the Middle East since 1947. Not that it should matter, as Israel is a religious state, not an ethnic state, but to some on the Left, skin colour is everything and some are born with original sin based on same.

As to Israel being a "settler" state, again no. The demographics are clear. Most of those who made their journey to Israel did so as refugees, from various conflicts all over the world. And 80% of Israeli Jews were born in Israel, so yes, by definition it is their country, especially if they do not have citizenship of any other.

As to being a "colonial" state/whatever, this is also false. A colony must, by definition, have a Metropolitan State. That is, an overseas territory of an Empire or other form of realm must have a clearly defined homeland for people of the realm, with which the colonial adventurers identify, the way European countries had overseas possessions prior to World War 2. Israel cannot thus be a colony because the Jews did not have a homeland. They did not expand an existing realm into Israel, their Metropolitan State IS Israel. Being generous, you could claim that the settlements in the Disputed Territories are colonies, but only if you accept that Israel within the '67 borders is the Metropolitan State - i.e. the homeland of the Israeli people.

Yet nobody who claims that Israel itself is a colony can tell us exactly where the Jewish metropolitan state is.

The last possible reason for Israel being hated so much could be envy and spite - that is, precisely because it's not a s***hole that it's getting dunked on so much.

They have had to work hard at building up their legacy since WW2, a slow process of overcoming doubts and winning people to their story. And now destroyed their hard work in the past couple of months. I knew local Jewish lads growing up, just like the rest of us, except for various traditions. We went to college and they were talking of their military service. A most belligerent state.

You keep making reference to Irish history.....................but it seems from your understanding of them, that you aren't actually familiar with it at all.........