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

where did you see that?

actually a friend told me so it may be wrong, not sure the source and can't find anything now

At least 18 people are reported to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Greek Orthodox church compound in Gaza on Thursday. Palestinian officials said at least 500 Muslims and Christians had taken shelter in the church from Israeli bombardments.

Waiting for a long Twitter rant from the IDF against The Guardian on this one

Likud guy Amir Weitmann going in two footed on RT, saying Russia will pay

Okay this is important: the University of London's @ForensicArchi team, and veteran war crimes investigator @CobbSmith, are suggesting, not definitively yet, that the Gaza hospital attack was "more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell" fired by the Israelis. https://t.co/54UYcJR1dH

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 20, 2023

It was on Channel 4 News earlier - not the murderous blood stained BBC - also the recorded message from Hamas members discussing the attack appears to have been "heavily edited".

So maybe Twitter sleuths didn't solve this after all

Got an absolutely worthless response from my rep touting this letter that he sent Biden - https://adamsmith.house.gov/_cache/files/a/3/a31a0979-6c28-4285-992d-94b513f3ad33/2251B35EAC0D7ACC5F1EA362BFF46DD7.quill---letter-l13380---letter-to-president-biden-on-israel---signed.pdf

Okay this is important: the University of London's @ForensicArchi team, and veteran war crimes investigator @CobbSmith, are suggesting, not definitively yet, that the Gaza hospital attack was "more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell" fired by the Israelis. https://t.co/54UYcJR1dH
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 20, 2023
― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 20 October 2023 19:37 (two hours ago) link

An artillery shell... from where? A stealth mode tank that entered gaza in the middle of the night?

Meanwhile, these are not "twitter sleuths"

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231020-gaza-hospital-blast-was-caused-by-misfired-rocket-says-european-military-source
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-biden/card/u-s-signals-intelligence-shows-gaza-militants-behind-hospital-blast-VwW5ysaxHfggbrnHgY0e

A stealth mode tank that entered gaza in the middle of the night?

Command and Conquer in the hizzouse

(xp) Is that what Forensic Architecture are? Twitter sleuths?

Modern artillery is famously only used at close range.

This feels like one of those events where we'll see competing narratives for years to come and not being a military/detonation expert nor feeling the slightest inclination to trust American intelligence or unnamed European military sources I kinda just have to accept that my answer will be "I don't know who did it" for the foreseeable.

Is that what Forensic Architecture are? Twitter sleuths?

I don't know if they are twitter sleuths, but they're hardly neutral in this.

yeah I raise my eyebrow a bit at these new 'OSINT' and "forensic architecture" experts that have arisen from....somewhere.

Forensic Architecture appears to have been around for 13 years and not even vaguely focused on Israel.

A conclusive investigation into this attack requires full access to the site and munition fragments, as well as witness interviews. We continue our work on this case, and reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinian people under attack, including our friends & colleagues.

— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) October 20, 2023

being objective and being neutral are separate things

For sure, which is why confirmation bias is a thing.

"aha! You are registered to vote for the DemoRAT party, therefore you're (Len) bias"

in all seriousness though, I mean, the other intelligence agencies determining it was Islamic Jihad are pro-Israel, one of which is Israel themselves so....

and it also does feel a lil gross (not that I'm against sharing these updates itt) for all of the people spending their time speculating on whose fault it is with Substack level data when a lot of people in that building or the lot surrounding it died in fairly grisly, traumatic fashion. and when others are still being bombed as we speak

may I just recall to mind the sterling work done by our US intelligence agencies in the runup to the Iraq War?

I’m done discussing it. You guys believe what you want to believe. There’s no way Hamas would lie.

I have not drawn any conclusion since the latest info over the last few days emerged, but was supporting what Tracer said in that the Forensic Architecture account's take on the matter isn't invalidated by their supporting of Palestinians. (it might be invalidated by simply having insufficient data or drawing questionable conclusions, but you can't expect people examining data not to be human beings and have formed an opinion on the matter).

There’s no way Hamas would lie.

This is patently untrue, but the easily divined thought behind it is curiously unhelpful to reaching any kind of useful conclusion.

in the end, innocent civilians pay the price

4000 (Palestinians) and counting

“forensic architecture” pop-science accounts are giving me covid flashbacks

xxp Also Israeli civilians, although usually a lot more Palestinians in previous situations, so probably the current conflict as well. Terror is terror, and governments, no matter how culpable, no matter how out of their depth, have to respond very quickly, which is the point of terror. The release of two American hostages may be a good sign, but who knows how significant.

FYI: if it's the same Forensic Architecture led by Eyal Weizman at Goldsmiths a serious, long-standing and award-winning research outfit that's done a lot of work documenting human rights abuses, discrediting official lies, etc., in various contexts. Not to say they could never be wrong about anything --- but they're not random Twitter sleuths. Worth Googling IMHO.

Oops, missing an ", then it's."

I’m done discussing it. You guys believe what you want to believe. There’s no way Hamas would lie.

Well, that's a reasonable response I must say. Some pretty respectable research group casts doubt on the IDF's claims - they don't actually say The Israelis Did It btw - and it's reported on this thread, because it's interesting and where else would you put it? And that's it, what's the big deal?

The story was covered on the national news on British television, that's where I heard about it. Admittedly I am expecting some mouthpiece of the Israeli government to pop up any minute and accuse Channel 4 of blood libel alongside the BBC.

Just caught a couple of minutes of a CBS reporter talking about witnessing IDF snipers shoot eight West Bank protesters and then dismissed it as tempers flaring on both sides, super cool media we’ve got here.

has this reporter ever heard of combat units operating under 'rules of engagement'? if so, then a clever reporter might have asked whether killing protestors fell within those rules. "tempers flaring" is either a wrong interpretation of an official; policy or else he was describing a war crime and court martial offense.

7 influential accounts are warping Israel-Hamas news on X, researchers find
The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public said that the most popular posts about the crisis revealed how news on the platform is “faster, more disorienting, and potentially more shaped by Musk himself.”

Forensic Architecture does extremely good and serious work and its founder/lead Eyal Weizman is an Israeli.

It's even more interesting when you go directly to the study, which is linked in that article - as expected, it goes into detail re: their methodology:

https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/

eyal weizman of forensic architecture is also from israel

Conrad, are you capable of reading two posts above?

I am but I don't

WTF! Sons of Satan!

Israeli military throw warning papers over Gaza city declaring that any civilian in North Gaza strip is liable for death.

Adding a clear genocidal statement “Anyone who chose to remain in North Gaza would be considered a partner of a terrorist organization” pic.twitter.com/BBwdx1JeBW

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 21, 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/21/the-most-successful-land-grab-strategy-since-1967-as-settlers-push-bedouins-off-west-bank-territory

maybe this doesn't need saying, but ^that is why I believe it is accurate to call Israel a settler colony (not because of its founding as a nation), and why posts rhetorically q'ing if white people should vacate North America miss the point imo

It is unfortunate that this article fails to mention that large numbers of Israeli people are beyond upset with the settlers, livid with the government's failure to stop these illegal settlements, and terrified that the settlers are giving Israeli people a bad name worldwide.

It is a point that has been made countless times in this thread and in reporting all over the world.

I don't think that's an entirely fair read. There are several Israeli activists interviewed and quoted in the piece (e.g., the quote in the headline is from an Israeli), and the story of one activist being assaulted by settlers is told. That said, I have no expertise on this issue and would be curious to know more about public sentiment in Israel if you know of anything I could read.

And if we die, speak for us:
here were people who dreamt of travel, love, life and other things

— Hiba Abu Al Nada
Gaza https://t.co/kdxQ9BMkjt

— sough (@Vorfrreude) October 21, 2023

There has been a fair bit of discussion on the "Is this anti-semitism?" thread on ILE lately.

This also comes up quite a bit on the r/worldnews discussions on Reddit. There's also a lot of snark, misinformation, and the usual internet noise in the comments, but the mods do a decent job of weeding out blatant hate speech and there is a premium on sourcing claims. And then debating the citations, etc.

Sometimes people come along on reddit and ask - Can someone please explain what is going on like I am 5? Which is a fair question given the state of domestic politics all over the world is exhausting just to keep up. I've seen those people sometimes directed to the Wikipedia page on the 2023 Israel-Hamas War I recommend you also look at the "Talk" page for that article to see all the nomenclature and facts that people are debating at any given time.

Those are just a few fairly arbitrarily selected places to look. I am sure others will suggest more.