Hamas has launched a major attack on Israel
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Eric
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Yeah, pretty horrible. I hope Israel isn't behind this, it's the sort of thing we expect from Russia or Hamas. I'm also concerned that Israel is still denying basic humanitarian services/power/water. I'm on their side but you have to be better than the terrorists you're targeting.
Yeah. I mean war can be chaos - for instance I'd like to think that the US doesn't deliberately target wedding parties in Afghanistan and that incident, and others like it, really were a mistake. I recognize fully that such events being an error doesn't make it any less a horror for the people on ground. On the other hand, we have Russia/Assad very systematically targeting hospitals in Syria and of course the infamous incident of the Mariupol Theatre marked "Children". Even if there are targets of opportunities near one, clearly marked and known hospitals (which this is one) really aren't supposed targeted. Ever. And those rules go back aways.
It's bad enough if this was an accident, which it might be. It will be far worse if it was not. Again, bodies may never ask how they got so cold, but, still, it matters.
The US is working to try to set up humanitarian corridors and restore humanitarian assistance. Hopefully those efforts succeed. But even if Israel was to judicially follow all the rules of war, Gaza is a crammed packed city of 2.1 million people. Except getting people out of Gaza which doesn't seem possible right now, this will be a disaster. And the horrible thing is I don't know what else the Israelis can do. Again, other than getting people out. But Israel isn't going to take them, especially not after what's happened. And Egypt won't either. Beyond the obvious costs of running a refugee camp for >a million+ people for who knows how long which has already been mentioned in this thread, Egypt is a military dictatorship who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood who was ... on friendly terms with Hamas. I'm not going to get into the moral debate of Egypt's military dictatorship versus the Muslim Brotherhood as that is another complicated and fraught topic, but the key takeaway here is that the current government hates Hamas as well. I'll wager not as much as the Israelis do now, but regardless they aren't going to want to risk Hamas fighters escaping into Egypt. I don't know what we can offer Egypt to get them to accept refugees anyway, but as far as I can tell this is the only way. Of course Hamas would probably try to block such an exodus (their leadership living comfortably in Doha have said as much), it's in their interests that Israel has to wade through as much blood to get to them as possible, but it's still the best shot.
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Israel says they are trying to find out if it was them, and that the hospital was definitely not on the target list. Apparently there was a barrage of rockets launched from the area at the time, and it’s not clear if a Hamas rocket went astray, if an Israeli bomb went astray, or what.
Eric
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It's hard to imagine they would target a hospital like that, hope they get to the bottom of it.
Israel is current saying it was an errant Palestinian missile fired by the group "Palestinian Islamic Jihad". The Israelis claim that it flew wildly off course and accidentally struck the hospital. It may take awhile for independent sources to confirm, but it absolutely does happen that a missile misfires so badly. The claim may also not be correct. We'll see.
Basically with fog of war, attribution may take awhile. However, even if Israel is ultimately found not responsible that may not stop the repercussions happening before attribution is assigned (i.e. Biden's diplomatic trip to meet with Arab leaders and Israel to get some humanitarian solution for the people of Gaza - hopefully that won't be affected by this).
Hamas is offering to release all civilian hostages in exchange for a cease fire and an end to the bombing. I don't think Israel had responded by the time of me writing this. I'm not sure if they can accept that or not.
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That wouldn't surprise me. Assuming their rockets aren't very sophisticated, it could be their range is programmed by how much propellant (whatever that is) is packed into a rocket, and how accurately that can be determined. And other variables (winds, etc.) that aren't accounted for influencing accuracy. Similar to WWII German V1 "buzz bombs."
Sad to say it's even possible with more sophisticated missiles. Fire enough of them and eventually one of them is going to go off course and fail to self destruct when it does. We've seen that in Ukraine as well (although at least one incident which outside observers say might've been a Ukrainian misfire, the Ukrainians hotly deny and both have evidence - attribution can be hard).
But the missiles these guys are using? Yup eminently believable. Far from guaranteed, so we shouldn't just accept the claim of course. But definitely believable.
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Nice that CNN and other news sources had headlines blaming Israel all day without actually confirming it was Israel. (CNN, for one, now has a more neutral headline).
Yeah ... news agencies are often neutral when they really shouldn't be and jump the gun when they should be more cautious. First draft of history and all that, these can be hard things to get right every time, but even so. Some writers have consistently better first drafts than others and I've often been consistently less than impressed with our news media's.
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That's very irresponsible. Shame on them.
This is playing right into the hands of Hamas and its terrorist allies. And, like everyone else, the Arab states immediately blame Israel for the attack because, why not? I tend to believe Israel's explanation, but it's going to take physical proof to show it was a misfired Palestinian missile. I would think there's satellite surveillance of Gaza that could show where the missile originated. If that's not possible, it will require forensic evidence that won't be readily available.
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So the default is “blame the Jews without proof,” but blaming a terrorist organization requires forensics?
Sadly, yes, given the current state of affairs. Do you think any of the Arab states, or much of the world for that matter will accept that the terrorists did this based on Israel's word alone? Of course not. It's much too convenient to blame Israel for every explosion in Gaza.
Eric
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It just doesn't fit Israel's MO to me. They've shown they'll hit hard targets for Hamas and accept some level of casualties as a result, but they are not targeting civilians and have not this entire time. I think we'll see more concrete evidence as time goes on but the terrorists have been the ones deliberately targeting innocents, even in Gaza, so there's no reason to believe this was anything else.
According to an IDF spokesman, Israel will soon be releasing evidence that it was a terrorist missile. This will include drone footage, radar, and intercepted communications.
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Qassam rockets. Easy to make and very inaccurate. There's no guidance - the target is wherever the propellant, a sugar and fertilizer (potassium nitrate) mixture, are totally consumed. Best used against civilian targets to strike fear/terror, and not good for specific military targets.
en.wikipedia.org
Qassam rocket - Wikipedia
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Right now, say what you will about either side, but I'm not believing ANYTHING coming from Hamas. Violent terrorist groups don't care about their own - in their mind, they get to choose who lives and dies, and they are willing to sacrifice their own.
You don't necessarily have to believe Israel right now either, but the word of Hamas means virtually nothing.
Not going to even try to guess what exactly happened or what the actual casualty numbers are, you’re not going to get accurate information in real time, and even if accurate it’s not truthfully accurate until verified, given the magnitude of the stakes.
You don't necessarily have to believe Israel right now either, but the word of Hamas means virtually nothing.
Not going to even try to guess what exactly happened or what the actual casualty numbers are, you’re not going to get accurate information in real time, and even if accurate it’s not truthfully accurate until verified, given the magnitude of the stakes.