Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

Israeli spokespeople using the term Hamas/ISIS reminds me of when Unionist politicians in Northern Ireland used to constantly refer to Sinn Fein as Sinn Fein/IRA.

"An explosion" has cancelled Biden's visit.

BREAKING: Biden cancels his planned trip to Jordan after the summit with Arab leaders was cancelled

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) October 17, 2023

Guessing this was possibly the intent with the strike.

At least 17 journalists have been killed already

https://cpj.org/2023/10/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/

For context that's more than in the entire Ukraine war so far

Really hearing this in Trump's voice

Biden has said Hamas has “committed evil atrocities that make Isis look somewhat rational.”

He said “We have to also bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people, and has brought them only suffering.”

The US president also said “I’m deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we have to overcome a lot of things.”

FFS

He's not going to do shit.

Nuseirat RC |

Israeli warplanes bombed Al-Hajj Bakery. The bakery, one of the largest and among the remaining few providing essential bread to residents, had recently extended its hours to operate 24/7, to provide access to bread for the community

2 murdered & others injured pic.twitter.com/hzKimtddr0

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 18, 2023

"the other team" just a disgusting way to put it, what a jolly game war is

The Israeli Air Force bombed dozens of buildings yesterday, as they themselves declare. Debating one building for the next week will keep people occupied so they don’t notice anything else going on, not only in Gaza but in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Hebron, Amman, Beirut, South Lebanon https://t.co/AIBnkFNd9t pic.twitter.com/ZIwdZrBWmR

— ‏تمار 🌴 Тама́р 🌴 תמר (@tamars) October 18, 2023

"the other team" just a disgusting way to put it, what a jolly game war is

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

The senile cunt is embracing Zionist scum, and cheering next week's ground war

President Biden appears to endorse Israel’s denial of responsibility for the explosion at the Gaza hospital. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” he said. “But there’s a lot of people out there not sure.” Israel has blamed Palestinian militants. Palestinian officials said Israel was responsible. Neither claim has been independently verified.

The Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed last night, killing hundreds of innocent Palestinians.

Following the airstrike, media outlets including the BBC pointed the finger at the Israeli Air Force.🧵1/5 https://t.co/kFFCd1OazW

— Andy McDonald MP (@AndyMcDonaldMP) October 18, 2023

a brief history of the IDF lying about stuff

So Starmer's death squad has their next target, Andy McDonald MP.

A little cold fury from Ezra Klein.

https://the-ezra-klein-show.simplecast.com/episodes/israel-palestine-column-read

Ok.

BREAKING: 🇮🇱 IDF spokesman says an investigation has been opened into the bombing of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, adding that Islamic Jihad is responsible and death tolls were exaggerated.

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) October 18, 2023

brb going to open an investigation into the JFK shooting, by the way Oswald acted alone

"It wasn't us and also it wasn't that bad" an interesting stance to go for.

It’s the only stance they can go for. If the destruction was as bad as reported, it can only have been Israel.

Not sure either why if Hamas/Islamic Jihad accidentally bombed their own people they'd exaggerate the numbers who died?

In for a penny in for a pound? Let's blame the Israelis and, while we're at it, bump up the numbers of dead.

I'm not an military expert, but assume the type of combatants the IDF are trying to blame here haven't the hardware capability to level a thousand plus capacity hospital in one accidental strike, unless maybe they were throwing everything they had at it in a sustained barrage of multiple "friendly fire" strikes - which stretches credibility.

Provisionally this image does not look consistent with an airstrike. In daylight it’s clear that the hospital building itself was not leveled but rather the cars in the parking lot may have ignited. https://t.co/Tty30VtA8i

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) October 18, 2023

it’s a great thing that we all get our news from a worldwide game of social media telephone.

🧵Now that day has broken, and we're getting better evidence, I'm willing to share some PRELIMINARY thoughts on the al-Ahli hospital explosion. The photos of the scene are, to me, not consistent with an airstrike and are not consistent with claims that 500+ people were killed. pic.twitter.com/dzA3Bx71hr

— Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) October 18, 2023

i mean luckily the professional media are there to remind us to be healthily suspicious of what anybody reports

to be very clear, none of this changes my opinion that the excessive air strikes of civilian targets and swift tactics are completely reprehensible, but i’m gonna use this example to remind myself to let all initial reports from the ground to breathe for a bit

*siege tactics

i agree with that, for sure, but the breathless guessing/misreporting isn't restricted to randos on social media, sadly

I'd rather wait than go to another twitter account. It's not only social media but multiple sources across media have reported this, with protests and rallies in many countries and diplomatic repercussions on the back of this.

Very good to see.

S.I Cobas, a major rank-and-file union in the #logistics sector in #Italy, declares that its #workers “will oppose any shipping of weapons to Israel which they become aware of.”

Trade unions, your action makes a material difference on the ground! #StopArmingIsrael
#Palestine pic.twitter.com/RxWemzdVLL

— Workers in Palestine (@WorkersinPales1) October 18, 2023

xp fair enough

Yeah I was gonna say, my source for this so far wasn't social media telephone but the BBC! Who of course also gets things wrong, to put it lightly, but I dunno if this would have played out differently in a pre-social media, post-24 hour news cycle era.

xpost

When the President of the US is acknowledging an explosion and loss of life and invoking international law I'm assuming he is not just watching TV or looking at twitter.

But maybe I'm wrong about that.

depends which president, to be fair

I don't want to get too hung up on the hospital story, but this is on WSJ right now and it really looks clear the explosion was in the parking lot. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-biden/card/watch-footage-shows-destruction-after-deadly-gaza-hospital-compound-blast-mmFVg7Pa5PkKxZyHbtRX

I don't really understand why Israel would just randomly strike a hospital parking lot while not targeting anything else in the vicinity.

TBC, I also don't know if Palestinian officials were "lying" or if it was just fog of war/quick reactivity (I imagine communications aren't at their best in Gaza right now), just as I'm not entirely sure what happened with the 40 beheaded babies claim - could just as easily have been fog of war/telephone game as propaganda. Taking a deep breath and waiting a day or two is always a good idea.

on ILX?!

the old racist one I think xps

"It wasn't us and also it wasn't that bad"

aka the national motto of the Turkish republic - regardless of the facts in this specific case it's horrifying on multiple levels to see it being rehearsed so soon and so blatantly in Israel

A counter-argument against the rocket explanation:

About the #Gaza #hospital blast,

The version saying it would have been caused by Palestinian rocket (mis)fire is gaining traction online and among #OSINT communities.

A thread showing weaknesses in this version, and why an Israeli bombing is highly more plausible.⬇️ 1/x

— Francesco Sebregondi 🔎 (@FSBRG) October 18, 2023

It seems like that guy's argument is "you can't conclusively prove that there wasn't also an IDF strike (on a hospital parking lot) at the same time as the rocket misfire." Can we not post any more speculative twitter threads please? Who is this guy?

otm

I don't think we can really know what happened until Seymour Hersh comes out with a piece asserting that Biden ordered the CIA to do it.

There's no way 500+ patients were killed without structural damage to the hospital, so evidence has to surface beyond individual people / doctors reporting it and footage of burnt cars (if that's all there is atm). Even graphic footage that can't be shown on TV but that could be verified. Waiting and exercising prudent skepticism is probably the best course of action for now.

There could be reasons for alleging a huge civilian massacre. It's clear the information war is absolutely key and that Palestinians need to instill doubt in the hardliners / West since everything else that was unleashed on them hasn't been "enough" (to every sane person's dismay) to shift positions.

It's disheartening how everything about the conflict is funneled through ideology and politics: all the suffering is co-opted, discourse asphyxiated, there's no space, war just unfolds in all its unstoppable irrationality.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wDxkDDOmuMoqTRTYeoBcM?si=2b7e9da9c8114d69
Alexei Sayle's podcast new episode from today is a Palestine special

My Bangladeshi neighbour and her sisters - who never usually go on demonstrations - are off to Whitehall to protest the treatment of Palestinians. We are all Starmer constituents…

I'm not qualified to get into the guessing game re: the hospital but I don't see how you get around telling a million people in Gaza to move south and then doing air strikes over the Rafah Crossing while aid piles up on the Egypt side. I know I am just plucking out a moment here but this seems to be something the world agrees is happening and the scale of the horror is hard to comprehend.

this is the guardian's analysis of the hospital explosion:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-hospital-piecing-together-what-happened-as-israel-insists-militant-rocket-to-blame

who the fuck knows the truth of all that, but tbh i would rather live in a world where israel aren't deliberately targeting hospitals, and as much as i despise the idf, i hope this wasn't their doing

I am pretty skeptical that the IDF did it at this point and not seeing new evidence to the contrary.

Meanwhile the media’s quickness to report the claim is having grave global consequences.

why did they ask 22 hospitals in Gaza to evacuate all their patients and staff? If there isn't any suspicion here that they wouldn't target them, then I'd rather do speculation or read speculation by *nobodies* on twitter than give the IDF any benefit of the doubt with their track record of outright lying about atrocities they commit.