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

As far as the IDF is concerned killing a whole lot of civilians does not mean that this can't still be described as a "precision strike" because a certain amount of civilian casualties is allowable.

In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

It’s never spelled out – and I think it should be – that since 1948, 95% of all casualties in Israel and Palestine have been one side of the conflict. Since October 7, that rises to 98%.

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 26, 2024

Macron is outraged.

Sometimes I think about how the Palestinian civilian death total long ago surpassed the population of the place where I was born. The horror is inconceivable. It’s inexcusable, and yet, it’s still happening.

oof, I hadn't thought of it that way before, and the death toll is currently double the population of the town I grew up in. And it has just surpassed the total number of undergraduate students at the university I study/work at

#BREAKING: Gag lifted: Egyptian soldier killed following an exchange of fire between the Israeli and Egyptian soldiers near the Rafah border crossing

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) May 27, 2024

the footage of Rafah came up on Motaz’s feed and I nearly threw up when I clicked through. Horrific.

More from those xpost CNN live updates:

The United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has decried Israel's "horrific" strike on a camp housing displaced people in Rafah on Sunday.
...Despite noting the Israeli military's plans to carry out a review into the strike, Türk called it "shockingly clear" that the decision to strike an area "densely packed with civilians" resulted in the "entirely predictable outcome" of at least 45 deaths.

...Speaking following a visit to Israel last week, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he had detected “refinements” to Israel’s plan, which he said was now more “targeted and limited” in scale.

...The IDF said the attack was conducted based on “prior intelligence” indicating that senior officials of Hamas’s West Bank wing were present at the site, and that it had assessed there would be "no expected harm to civilians."

“Before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, the deployment of precise munitions by the IAF, and additional intelligence information,” the IDF said, adding that it "regrets" harm done to civilians.

This exchange really got to the heart of how I have felt for months.
https://i.postimg.cc/RCgvtQmX/IMG-1268.jpg

It makes the past few months of escalating atrocities and violence come into sharp focus; this was all entirely avoidable. It would be nice for the people finally shocked into saying something about the images from Rafah to have said something months ago, instead of smearing anyone who saw exactly how this would play out as a terrorist supporter.

...Israeli officials have repeatedly said that a ground operation in Rafah, where it believes Hamas’s leadership and four battalions of fighters are camped out with Israeli hostages, is necessary for “total victory”.

They don't care about precision. They care about killing as many Palestinians as possible, and anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves.

herd people into a 'safe zone', burn them alive, blame them for not being in the 'safe zone', say oops we'll investigate that

They care about killing as many Palestinians as possible, and anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves.

I believe otherwise. A criminal indifference to the death of people in Gaza is another story. If you think that distinction doesn't matter, fine, think that.

does that distinction matter in international law? (setting aside the feebleness of international law, of course)

Good question.
xxpost If hostages get get killed during their operations, they'll prob say it was because Hamas was using them as human shields, as they used to say about random civilians. But still, the shit would really hit the fan politically (though might matter more for Biden than Bibi, at least for a while).

More updates, speaking of precision:

[Israel has told the Biden administration that it used used a precision munition to hit a target in Rafah on Sunday, but that shrapnel from the explosion ignited a fuel tank nearby and started a fire that engulfed a camp for displaced Palestinians and led to dozens of deaths, a US official told CNN.

“We can’t confirm that but it’s what Israel shared with us,” the official said, “and we assume we will learn more once Israel completes its investigation.”

...The Israeli military claimed it struck a Hamas compound in the area, killing two senior officials from the militant group.

The Israel Defense Forces also claimed publicly that the target was not located inside the humanitarian area of Rafah where Palestinians were told to move amid Israel’s operations in southern Gaza.

oopsie! sorry (not sorry), people burned to death

we assume we will learn more once Israel completes its investigation

no doubt

Just wonder why some people were unmoved before Rafah, despite it being the same scorched earth tactics they have used all along. Why were you unmoved by dead kids in Gaza City or Khan Younis?

Like what’s different now?

An article from six weeks ago about the AI system Lavender https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

Tom D.'s link earlier today was the first I heard about it, and it's been haunting me all day

@ Boring, Maryland: I literally have absolutely no idea.

Just wonder why some people were unmoved before Rafah, despite it being the same scorched earth tactics they have used all along. Why were you unmoved by dead kids in Gaza City or Khan Younis?

I'm not one of those people, so I don't know for sure, but there are reasons why this might be the case. Public opinion on all things isn't as static as we tend to think, and its also potentially not what they are ok or not ok with that has changed, but their perception of what is happened that has changed. There will be people that thought Israel were justified to do "something" in response to 10/7 at the time, but didn't imagine it would be this open ended and large scale

But people becoming not okay with it is better than people staying ok with it

kids are out of school, so it's now harder to muster claims of rampant antisemitism when there are no new videos of protestors being beaten by cops but *are* videos of palestinians being gruesomely killed

something something 'shared humanity'

humans should recognize the humanity in others. but if you're into dehumanizing other people then at least you have lots of company.

Xp Maryland

The aforementioned red-line might get some of your more "liberal" minded folks outraged. Outrage based on "wtf guys, we kinda said dont do that and now you did. You're making us look bad now, and could you please not break feeble international law so blatently", rather than outrage at the continuation of what has been happening for nearly 8 months now.

With rafah, they've exceeded the bounds that the powers that be set upon them. So people more inclined to make their moral judgements based solely on the policy of their state might start to get a bit more outraged

reasonable!

There's an element of attrition here too. There's only so many daily headlines of unrequited civilian deaths you can hear before it starts to weigh on the conscience of the everyman/woman (hopefully)

Xp all too

well let's not go too far (in america, at least, where brown people are terrorists until proven otherwise)

but it does seem like a shift if piers fucking anthony has questions

lol i meant piers morgan

piers anthony would be much more pedophilic about the whole thing

I'd agree with that H.P, I think the cumulative nature of things is an important factor, but also the fact that people's perceptions of things often has a lag time (though this can also go in the other direction, where people start to tune out, and support/pressure can start to decrease instead of increasing)

ttps://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/israeli-spy-chief-icc-prosecutor-war-crimes-inquiry

Er oops add the h at the beginning of that for more Israeli sponsored terror.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/israeli-spy-chief-icc-prosecutor-war-crimes-inquiry

According to accounts shared with ICC officials, he is alleged to have told her: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”

_They care about killing as many Palestinians as possible, and anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves._

I believe otherwise. A criminal _indifference_ to the death of people in Gaza is another story. If you think that distinction doesn't matter, fine, think that.

What a distinctionto make after months of this.

xp
You can't make claims like that without any evidence!

So here's the evidence:

https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-database-with-500-instances-of-israeli-incitement-to-genocide-continuously-updated/

Having various officials out there sounding like Simonyan on RT does shift it some way beyond indifference I think, if we're looking at intent or motivation

On the one hand, there's the benefit of the doubt

On the other hand, there's the past 8 months

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/kill-zone-inside-gaza-dispatches/on-demand/76448-001
this was harrowing, thought I'd see some mention of it.
Mads Gilbert's book Night In Gaza from 10 years ago could be describing the same experiences.
What was new to me was the depiction of Gaza from before October 7th. Am hearing about the great amount of destruction of institutions I wouldn't expect to have existed after reading work from 10 and 20 years ago. Universities and knowledge they stored destroyed.

& Israel doing archaeology hoping to support their mythological history while trying to prevent a more accurate history of ancient sites coming out.

seeing reports that Israel has attacked a second tent shelter in a designated safe zone. looking forward to hearing more about how the IDF's bombs are too small to cause fires

Tell me again how this is "indifference" rather than "desire to annihilate."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/gaza-live-least-fifteen-children-killed-israeli-strikes

also this, which I hadn't really seen spelled out yet: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-day235-1.7216768

Israeli tanks advanced to the centre of Rafah for the first time on Tuesday, witnesses said, three weeks into a ground offensive in the southern Gaza city that has stirred global condemnation for its continued civilian toll.

Tanks and armoured vehicles mounted with machine guns were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, a central Rafah landmark, the witnesses told Reuters. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area, without commenting on reported advances into the city centre.

Overnight, its forces battered the city with airstrikes and tank fire, residents said. New strikes overnight killed a total of 16 people in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in northwest Rafah, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

"Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night," one resident told Reuters via a chat app.

they want Palestinians dead

I have a specific problem with just saying "they" without a clear referent. There's no doubt this applies to some factions in Israel whose leaders plainly state this attitude. But 100,000 Israelis recently demonstrated against their government's war policies. Where do they fit into "they"?

fwiw the original referent was "Israeli officials." idk if that sole meaning endured over the conversation but it was less vague at the start

I would assume "they" means the people responsible for ordering the strikes

xp specifically, I'm not sure what eephus meant by "they," but I think it's clear table was responding to dow's post: Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

Yeah, I meant Israeli officials. But it’s also worth mentioning that many in Israeli society support what is happening. https://theconversation.com/most-israelis-dislike-netanyahu-but-support-the-war-in-gaza-an-israeli-scholar-explains-whats-driving-public-opinion-230046