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

I could have some understanding of your position, if Israel wasn't stealing Palestinian lands. Israel are the aggressor, they are attacking the Palestinians. You can point to something before the 1970s and say Palestine started this, but that can be debated and it doesn't explain why Israel are outside their borders and continue to expand them. Their at it again by planning to set up more housing in Gaza, it can't be condoned. Hamas we can agree are a terrorist organisation, I put Israel into the same bucket, because they conduct themselves the same way, rape, pillage, kill.

Seems the Israeli hostages are down in sixth place now as regards the goals of the current campaign.

Oddly enough, it appears Genocide was not included as the #1 priority. But I see the word "Concentration" was included. So I guess that's official - Israel appears to be setting up concentrations of Palestinians in camps in southern Gaza…

• Despite promises made to the public and to hostage families by IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir that the return of the hostages is the top priority of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, operational orders presented to IDF commanders on Tuesday included it as the last of six war goals. Preceding the return of the hostages on the list were "defeating Hamas," "operational control of territory," "demilitarization of the territory," "destroying sites of Hamas rule," and "concentration and movement of the population."
  
• Many of the commanders attending the briefing were also surprised that the IDF had substituted the usual Hebrew word used to refer to the hostages (hatufim) with the less politically charged term "b'nei aruba" (which also implies that they are being used as leverage).
  

"'There was never a situation where the hostages didn't appear on the first or second line of every operational order throughout the course of the war,' said a source who attended the IDF briefing. 'Seeing the hostages or 'abductees' in sixth place was like a punch in the gut, but no one said a word. People looked at each other and fell silent'" – Yaniv Kubovich

Smotrich used the same word a few days ago.

I would not be surprised if people actually started reporting that "Israel is setting up Concentration Camps in Gaza"

Of course it will be denied - everything is denied until they caught lying through their backsides - and even then there's a mealy mouthed explanation followed by a justification.

crammed together in one small area

"Concentrated" according to Smotrich.

And yes, absolutely, very easy to control whoever is there.

The public verbiage was around supporting Palestinians to "voluntarily" leave to third countries.

The reality will be as you say - starve them close to death and then offer them a free journey to another country with a promise of both loads of food and of course "you can return whenever you like". The further reality then being that will never be allowed to return.

"Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty"

Slam dunk

I've been saying that all along. This pussyfooting around with rhetoric and outrage speaking isn't doing any good. There's so much talk of only so much sanctions you can place on Israel that can affect the situation. If it was the other way around the Gazans would be cut off from everything. They are anyway of course, but the aggressor is being allowed to impose a total blockade of another jurisdiction entirely and starve them out. It looks like the international political world don't care if Gaza or its people exist at all or if Israel take it over.

Israel has been ordered to pay reparations by the ICJ - of course, they will avoid it.

However, I believe they are already "paying" for their actions in terms of the revulsion and ire directed towards them by those with morals and a regard for humanity. Just like Hamas are paying for an equal amount of revulsion and ire for their actions.

They think revulsion and ire is antisemitism. They are psychopaths. Have a look at the israel reddit if you want to lose your mind.

So the citizens think they're doing nothing wrong and the protests for palestine etc are just anti-jew marches and gullible people being brainwashed by hamas.

And their leadership are bulletproof as the major western powers worship them.

Unfortunately they'll neither have a guilty conscious or pay any price for this at all.

Yeah same with Gabor Mate and his son. Self loathing Jews. So they are 100% convinced they are right about everything and they can't be criticised.

Some interesting developments on getting food and aid into Gaza, even without the say so or go ahead from Israel. There are suggestions elsewhere that relations between Trump and Netanyahu have become very tetchy in the last few days, especially ahead of Trump's visit to the Middle East (but not Israel).

Israel is not part of it - absolutely a WTF moment.

Huckabee's statements are possibly a sign of frustration with Israel plus not wanting to be part of an impending disaster in Gaza - many thousands starving to death within days.

Good detail here from Haaretz - I'd say Alleged War Criminal #1 is livid.

The Trump administration is heavily pressuring Israel to reach a deal with Hamas before the president leaves for his visit to the Middle East, a source familiar with the details told Haaretz. The source said the White House is telling Jerusalem that if Israel does not agree to cooperate with Washington on pursuing an agreement, it will be left on its own.

• The U.S. announced the creation of a new foundation to lead the distribution of aid in Gaza without the IDF's involvement. A 14-page document from the newly registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation envisions four distribution centers in Gaza providing up to 1.2 million Palestinians with food, water and hygiene kits. Later, the project aims to reach all of Gaza's residents.
  
• U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in Jerusalem that President Trump had ordered aid to be brought into Gaza as soon as possible, to avert the "great danger" of "people starving to death." Huckabee said Israel would not distribute the aid but IDF soldiers would be "involved in keeping the perimeter safe." He said that "private security" would be responsible for "ensuring the safety of the workers, both getting into the distribution centers and then in the distribution itself," but emphasized that "this is not an IDF or an Israeli operation."
  
• Huckabee added that although the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is very close, "The United States doesn't have to tell Israel everything it's going to do."

Your mistake is looking at Israel's posture in isolation - as if they were acting/living in a vacuum. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. If we define Israel as being limited to the 1967 borders, such a country would be militarily indefensible owing to Israel's horrifying geography and regional political environment.

I've said before that withdrawing to the 1967 borders would be effectively suicidal and no sane government of Israel would ever do so, regardless of whether they are on the left or the right of the political spectrum.

You can bash Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, Likud, the settlers etc all you want. This does not change the fact that Israel has very real security problems and that there is no way to appease their many mortal enemies who've made it clear that their fight with Israel and its people is a fight to the death.

To be clear, it isn't just Hamas, all of the Islamic terrorist organisations have pledged to destroy Israel and Iran backs 3 of them, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Iran is a member of the CRINKs bloc as explained so for that reason alone my position on Israel is the same as it is for Taiwan, Ukraine, South Korea etc. And to be clear, anyone who condemns Israel publicly is doing the economic/political legwork of the Ayatollahs as confirmed by the leader of that terrorist regime himself.

In a perverse way, I respect the likes of the South African Economic Freedom Fighters, they correctly understand many of the worlds conflicts as those being waged by the CRINKs against free democracies. And at least they're honest enough to say that they side with genocidal, totalitarian scumbags like Putin, Xi, Hamas etc.

@SeanW Israel is a democracy and they are starving 2 million people in our name. Pls address this and stop skirting around psuedo geopolitics. What is your opinion on using starvation as a method of war?

This is not exactly true. There is an existential threat to Israel but its pretty much internal at this point.

News reports, TV programmes, statements made by influential Israeli figures (politicians and media figures) all which were made in Hebrew have now indicated this is a profoundly sick society. IOF soldiers who rape prisoners are defended and lauded, settlers invade and kick people off their land, 75% of Israelis (at least) thought what was happening in Gaza was A-OK, bus tours are run out to cheer on the bombing of children from the sky.

No, the threat to Israel ain't from it's surrounding neighbours although they may have provided the match. Its the fact they are losing support (1/3 of Jewish American teens have expressed sympathy for Hamas). Israel's condition is terminal!

“We’re facing the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the end of the second world war in order to create a splendid holiday destination once all the millions of tonnes of rubble have been cleared from Gaza and the Palestinians have died or gone away". using the starvation of Gaza’s civilian population as a “weapon of war”. “Three times more explosive power has been dropped on Gaza than was used in the Hiroshima bomb” 

Can anyone doubt at this stage that this is the Israelis endgame here ? It’s disgusting, and so are the Israeli apologists on this thread. Shame on you all.