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

Here's those crack commandos we've heard so much about:

The Israel Defense Forces says that three Israeli hostages in Gaza were mistakenly identified as a threat and shot dead.

“During combat in Shejaiya (in northern Gaza), the IDF mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat. As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said at a briefing Friday.

JFC

Must have trained with the Spetsnaz.

They were probably a threat in that they could have revealed to the press the truth of how they were being treated, in comparison with Israeli government narratives...

I'm sure that protecting the government narrative is uppermost on the minds of the Israeli soldiers on the battlefield in Gaza.

I would not be surprised if more hostages are dead due to indiscriminate bombing.

They were probably a threat in that they could have revealed to the press the truth of how they were being treated, in comparison with Israeli government narratives...

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, December 15, 2023 2:55 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

How do you think they were treated?

Israeli forces severely assault a Palestinian Journalist LIVE on CNN.

"SHOOT ME" the journalist screams.

They go on to punch, strangle, weapon butt, throw him to the floor, kick him in the face, and eventually hospitalise him. pic.twitter.com/TxGrsyzGDY

— Rami Jarrah (@RamiJarrah) December 15, 2023

To people who say this is complex what I'd say is that it's really, really simple

“A house on the beach is not a dream”: An Israeli real estate company specialising in Jewish settlements in the West Bank is planning for the day after. This is beyond aspirational, their staff is already working on plans. pic.twitter.com/YtBJ3VYbgE

— Lana Tatour (@Lana_Tatour) December 15, 2023

I can't swear to it, but I suspect that's trolling. The "plans" show the footprints of the housing overtop of plots labeled "hospital" and "headquarters"

Also, I mean, the image

was going to say, I have a feeling a pro-israel troll made these for a larf, you know, a goof and a spoof.

just a little fun with the actual ethnic cleansing taking place

I also can't find it on their website, or through reverse image search fwiw, but maybe I'm missing it

They were probably a threat in that they could have revealed to the press the truth of how they were being treated, in comparison with Israeli government narratives...

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, December 15, 2023 2:55 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

How do you think they were treated?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, December 15, 2023 1:32 PM bookmarkflaglink

I was wondering this too.

There is not going to be any ethnic cleansing, at the end of this the Palestinians will still be living in Gaza and the Jews will still be living in Israel, nobody's going anywhere but there has been and will continue to be massive human suffering inflicted by people who persistently refuse to accept this, sorry to be basic

How are they going to live in Gaza when most of the housing and infrastructure has been severely damaged or destroyed?

They will be rebuilt, at tremendous cost, a huge waste that didn't have to happen.

dude I will bet you a doordash order of lobster tails from Outback that Palestinians are not going to be allowed to return to north Gaza at the very least

How can things go back to the way they were? I really don't see it.

breaking my own rule but in coverage of IDF killing 3 hostages I noticed little mention that one was Samer Fouad Talalka, a Bedouin young man who worked in Kibbutz Nir Am hatchery on Oct 7. I bet this horrific outcome had already crossed his mind and I can’t imagine a worse dread

— ‏تمار 🌴 Тама́р 🌴 תמר (@tamars) December 16, 2023

1/3 They killed his entire family. They shot him. They even killed his cameraman. But a day later, none of that stopped Wael Dahdouh from reporting on the funeral procession of his fallen colleague, Samir Abu Daqqa, pic.twitter.com/bCQulVWXDA

— 🍉Steven W. Thrasher, PhD, CPT (@thrasherxy) December 16, 2023

What does "little mention" mean? Every article I have seen identifies all three hostages who were killed.

It might be a phrase that hasn't come off as intended. The thread is good on one of the hostages killed, in describing their background and what that means for him.

Ah, I left "x" and thus can't read the thread

Layla Moran 🔶
@LaylaMoran
Update: a tank has taken position outside the church and the building opposite has been taken. The people inside have died. There are snipers at every window pointing into the church. Still shooting anyone emerging from buildings to use eg toilets. Still no food or water

To people who say this is complex what I'd say is that it's really, really simple

Another PDF with no source. I also suspect that person got trolled.

was going to say, I have a feeling a pro-israel troll made these for a larf, you know, a goof and a spoof.

It's like a cartoon villian version of an imaginary gentrifier.

The 10/7 denialists were really outing themselves in the replies.

https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e=6ecf616b61&u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=cba49d3041

"The fact that Israeli audiences don't see images from Gaza means that journalists are not doing their jobs," she says. "They have to show the images. Hebrew-speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what's going on in Gaza. We don't see the atrocities, the rubble, the destruction and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different."

(sorry for weird email link, that's a browser version of a Haaretz email blast)

Re: the cartoon villian version of an imaginary gentrifier selling imaginary real estate in Gaza. I think its partly that people generally don't check these things, but its partly that we've recently seen ads for new apartments in Mariupol that aren't hugely different from those spoof ads, which may also have primed us to be a bit more credulous. Especially when coupled with not just settlement expansion in Mariupol in recent times but also the West Bank

Pretty grim. That makes sense.

Re: the Haaretz podcast, I listened to the episode on campus protests and have the one on journalism cued up.

https://www.instagram.com/hareyzahav/p/C0ygttBoH6X/
https://www.instagram.com/hareyzahav/p/C0s2ztnoXnQ/

it isn't hard to find the source for those pics. i don't get the impression that this is sincere planning, more just hoping that they will get to do that for real after the war.

There is not going to be any ethnic cleansing

the israeli government openly wants to, so it will depend if that is prevented from occurring

It could also be that the delineation between sincere/real and not is blurry. I think this is a big thing with misinformation in general, not so much things which are obviously not true, but things that could easily be true, so that "didn't actually happen but obviously could have done" becomes good enough

Ethnic cleansing is being carried out, it's the reality for Palestinians. There have been reports of Indian construction workers being hired as replacement for Palestinian workers in Israel. The Israeli economy has probably been not been working as well since 10/7.

While that specific housing plan may not have a concrete source these drawings speak to a desire that mat well become reality in the aftermath of 10/7.

Meanwhile, here is an item on Haaretz, humanising a murderer.

---

Haaretz.com
@haaretzcom
·
17h
Yonatan Hatzor, a 22-year-old soldier in the Israeli air force's Shaldag commando unit, leaves behind breathtaking artwork.

His last drawing was sketched on a school blackboard in Gaza, four hours before he was killed

Does it really seem notable to you that an Israeli newspaper would memorialize Israeli soldiers? Is there any country on earth where media doesn’t do that?

Found the framing of it notable and worthwhile to put it on here.

If Anglo media did this circa Iraq I imagine I would be doing similar.

Particularly a "left/liberal" newspaper.

your reaction is totally baffling to me tbh. You want people to not mourn their dead?

Again, the framing is hard to figure out without a link

This method of tweet posting is insanity-making

yes I really wish xyzzz wouldn't do this. just embed the tweet. no one cares about embedded tweets; the problem, again, is that people can't read long twitter threads without accounts. copying and pasting text devoid of links is annoying

If Anglo media did this circa Iraq I imagine I would be doing similar.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, December 18, 2023 6:56 AM bookmarkflaglink

The NYT does that too. There was a long story about a group of people in Gaza who lost 100 people. Buried in the middle was a mention that it included some people who perpetrated 10/7 with Hamas:

A few of the family’s dead were linked to Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years and that led the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.

One family member, Hamdan al-Astal, appears to have been among those who attacked Israel. He was not on the Oct. 26 list, but Palestinian news media in Gaza reported his death the day after the assault, saying he had participated.

Another family member who survived, Yunis al-Astal, is a longtime Hamas lawmaker and firebrand sheikh who has compared Jews to bacteria and apes and said it was justifiable to “wipe them out of existence.”

Ten days after Hamdan al-Astal’s death was reported, family members buried Ramzi al-Astal, also identified in Palestinian news media as a Hamas fighter.

More Than 100 Members of This Gaza Clan Have Been Killed in War

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/world/middleeast/gaza-al-astal-loss.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G00.2EXa.k7RgphMYscCE&smid=nytcore-android-share

And Palestinian media of course reports the deaths of combatants and terrorists and “humanizes” them.

I would guess that there was a story in some paper somewhere in the US about every single US soldier who died in Iraq.

100 people dead because of one suspected Hamas member and one “firebrand” lawmaker, and maybe one more?

your reaction is totally baffling to me tbh. You want people to not mourn their dead?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 18 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

That's not what I am saying here. People will mourn him if they feel like it. Who am I to say what people can and can't do?

What I wanted to bring here is how the newspaper is framing it. Which I found it to be of note.

Again, the framing is hard to figure out without a link

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 18 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

This method of tweet posting is insanity-making

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 18 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

yes I really wish xyzzz wouldn't do this. just embed the tweet. no one cares about embedded tweets; the problem, again, is that people can't read long twitter threads without accounts. copying and pasting text devoid of links is annoying

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, 18 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

People have been "infuriated" if I have done either.

Will note Haaretz is paywalled so it wouldn't work if I embedded anyway. But yes I can look to post the link from archive.ph but I wanted to point at this at a headline level.

no one was 'infuriated' with embedded tweets from what I remember.

It was the fact that they were tweets not the fact that they were embedded, I suspect.

" the problem, again, is that people can't read long twitter threads without accounts."

Just own your own framings xyzzz and perhaps we wouldn't have this problem.