Hamas attacks southern Israel

[mishkin]

Papay: I am not certain where you want to go with your post, but the problem with the UN is that hiring a massive number of people within Gaza is a guarantee that they are hiring terrorists or perhaps close family members of terrorists. The media then quotes from these biased sources as if it were gospel (pardon the pun). Israel wants this to stop and the UN seems to happy with the way things are, but Israel is going to have the final say.

Maybe you do believe these people.

‘We cannot remain silent about what we saw.’ US doctors who volunteered in Gaza demand ceasefire in letter to White House
By Sahar Akbarzai, CNN
6 minute read
Published 2:29 PM EDT, Fri July 26, 2024

A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. “Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,” they wrote.

“We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.”
Palestinians survey the damage following the Israeli military bombardment of UNRWA's Abu Oraiban school on July 14, 2024.

Related article US-made munitions used in Israeli strike on Gaza school that killed 22, experts say

Many in the group have public health backgrounds and experiences volunteering in other conflict zones such as Ukraine and Iraq, according to the letter. “We believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children,” reads the letter posted to X on Thursday by Dr. Feroze Sidwa, who spearheaded the writing of the letter with the other physicians.

The doctors and nurses’ letter calls on the Biden administration to participate in an arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups, and to withhold military, diplomatic, and economic support to Israel until a permanent and immediate ceasefire is achieved. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

It comes at a critical time for the White House, as it urges the Israelis to accept a ceasefire agreement. Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, a day after the Israeli leader addressed the US Congress about the conflict. Sources told CNN the president was expected to be as forceful as he has ever been in pushing Netanyahu to agree to a deal.

“We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do,” the letter said.

Opinion: I’m an American doctor who went to Gaza. What I saw wasn’t war — it was annihilation (LA Times).

In late January, I left my home in Virginia, where I work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and joined a group of physicians and nurses traveling to Egypt with the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal to volunteer in Gaza.

I have worked in other war zones. But what I witnessed during the next 10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation. At least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. From Cairo, Egypt’s capital, we drove 12 hours east to the Rafah border. We passed miles of parked humanitarian aid trucks because they weren’t allowed into Gaza. Aside from my team and other envoy members from the United Nations and World Health Organization, there were very few others there.

Chef Jose Andres says Israel targeted his aid workers 'systematically, car by car'

[NorseThing]

Mishkin: all you posted is true, but it does nothing to negate what I previously posted. Your post simply exposes the result of what the UN created ignoring Israeli concerns. The Gaza problems are not simple and neither will their solutions be simple, but to ignore the problems of Israel does nothing regarding the suffering in Gaza. More than you can know, I suffer and worry about the lives destroyed and ruined as a result of the conflict.

[mishkin]

Any testimony from any non-Israeli in the area (the examples I have given you) speaks of the brutality of the IDF and sides with the Palestinian population openly. What they are doing there is atrocious.

I am absolutely convinced that any non-Zionist would clearly show animosity towards the IDF after 24 hours in Gaza or the west bank. You ask UNRWA members for absolute impartiality which is impossible. What does Israel (or you) want, for every NGO to be made up of? literally, saints? Or of fanatics of its own Zionist cause? No doubt the vast majority of UNRWA staff are pro-Palestinian (they are there to help the population). The majority of Palestinian UNRWA staff have some connection to Hamas (like any other Palestinian). It would be impossible for any organisation working in Gaza for years to not have Hamas sympathisers in its ranks and it is unfair to invalidate all the work that UNRWA has done for these reasons.

---------------------

Has UNRWA collaborated with Hamas? Has it been proven (no IDF intelligence please) that any of its schools or offices were used as weapons depots or something like that? Or did they teach children to hate Israel? (I only remember the scandal of conversations between employees celebrating the September attack.)

[PointOfViewGun]

Mishkin: all you posted is true, but it does nothing to negate what I previously posted. Your post simply exposes the result of what the UN created ignoring Israeli concerns. The Gaza problems are not simple and neither will their solutions be simple, but to ignore the problems of Israel does nothing regarding the suffering in Gaza. More than you can know, I suffer and worry about the lives destroyed and ruined as a result of the conflict.

From the UNRWA wesbite:

The Claim: Citing alleged intelligence estimates, several media have relayed claims that around 10% of all UNRWA staff in Gaza, or about 1,200 people, have links to Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The Facts: UNRWA has not received any information, let alone any evidence, from the Israeli Authorities or any other Member State about the above claim. UNRWA became aware of this claim first from international media and later from a press briefing by an Israeli government official. 
Like any other UN organization, UNRWA carries out detailed reference checks on any staff the Agency recruits. In addition, UNRWA shares the names, employee numbers, and functions of all staff members every year in all five areas of operations with the host authorities (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority) and, for the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, with Israel as the occupying power.  This means that at all times, host states and Israel are fully informed and aware of the details of all staff members working for UNRWA. Other UN Member States also receive these lists upon request.
The names of the 12 individuals against whom allegations were made were all shared multiple times with Israel and other Member States. Prior to January 2024, UNRWA did not receive any indication from the relevant authorities of any involvement of its staff in armed or militant groups. In addition, the Agency screens its staff on a biannual basis against the UN Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List.

This is not a case of UNRWA ignoring Israeli concerns. It's Israel using black propaganda against UNRWA to make it unable to function in Gaza. The purpose is to prolong and increase Palestinian suffering.

[mishkin]

I was collecting articles about how this conflict is causing a huge number of casualties among journalists.


Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

As of November 8:

137 journalists and media workers were confirmed killed: 129 Palestinian, two Israeli, and six Lebanese.
47 journalists were reported injured
2 journalists were reported missing
71 journalists were reported arrested.
Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.

CPJ is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes.

[Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials have repeatedly told media outlets that the army does not deliberately target journalists. It also told agencies shortly after the war started that it could not guarantee the safety of journalists. CPJ has called for an end to the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF.

United Nations experts have raised concerns over the killings of journalists, saying in a February statement that they were “alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months blatantly disregarding international law.”

Over 75% of all journalists killed in 2023 died in Gaza war, per CPJ

Probably some people in Israel is saying "terrorists, all journalists".

How International Press Groups Are Reacting to Israel’s Labeling Six Gaza Journalists as ‘Terrorists’

In the deadliest period for journalists in modern history, at least 131 media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of Israel’s retaliation for the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. In almost all cases, Israel has maintained that the killings journalists were unintentional. But international media groups are alarmed by Israel’s naming six Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) this week claimed the six are fighters for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The IDF says its allegations are based on documents seized in Gaza detailing the names, ID numbers, and ranks of members of the armed wings of the militant groups. TIME could not independently confirm the authenticity and accuracy of the documents. Al Jazeera has rejected the allegations, and described the documents as fabricated.

[sumskilz]

Probably some people in Israel is saying "terrorists, all journalists".

There are no journalists in Gaza except those who serve Hamas’s interests. That’s how totalitarian states work. That doesn’t mean they’re all terrorists. Most probably aren’t, but some are closer to Hamas than others.

For example:



Al Jazeera is the state media of Qatar. Qatar is one of Hamas’s greatest sponsors. They have hosted Hamas’s leadership in exile since 2012. Israel published the evidence they had regarding the six Al Jazeera journalists being current or former militants. Of course, Al Jazeera claimed the evidence is fraudulent, which would be their response whether it is true or not.

Abdallah Aljamal, a journalist who had freelanced for Al Jazeera, was killed during the rescue of the hostages he was holding in his apartment, but I assume that most journalists killed were collateral casualties.

[mishkin]

More like "There are no journalists in Gaza except those who serve Israel’s interests. That’s how totalitarian states work." Given the absolutely abnormal number of journalists killed, injured or arrested by the IDF during this conflict and given the restrictions that Israel places on journalists:

Why it's so hard for journalists to report from Gaza (npr,November 11, 2023 )

Over a month into the war in the Gaza Strip, international news organizations have little, if any, access to Gaza. Israel, which is bombing Gaza in response to the deadly Hamas attack on its soil, controls access. And with the exception of brief tours with a limited number of reporters, Israel has not been granting journalists access to the region. The conflict has been deadly for those trying to report it. Roughly 40 have been killed so far. Four were Israeli, one from Lebanon, the rest Palestinian. This leaves much of the outside world with limited access to news from Gaza and the approximately 2 million people who live there.

TEL AVIV, Israel – Since Israel launched its military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the Israeli military — with rare exceptions for military tours — has prevented foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip.

Only Palestinian reporters who were already inside the enclave are able to report from there on the conflict and all it entails: The fierce urban combat, the air strikes, the mass displacement of Palestinians and how the civilian population is coping with it all.

For this, they've paid a heavy price.

---------------------------------

Next time I hear about collateral damage and how many innocent people can die in order to kill a terrorist (one terrorist for every hundred civilians seems an acceptable figure for the IDF*.) I'm going to do some petty math too. And don't dare accuse me of justifying any massacre because, well, that is precisely what is done every time someone talks about the collateral victims of the Israeli army.

* At least 90 Palestinians have been reported killed in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in southern Gaza which Israel said targeted Hamas’ military chief, who was an alleged mastermind of the October 7 attacks.

Around 70% of deaths in Gaza are women and children, says UN.


Collateral damage. Nothing to see here, move along.

[sumskilz]

Why it's so hard for journalists to report from Gaza (npr,November 11, 2023 )

Israel... controls access.

That article was November 11th, 2023. Israel didn’t capture Rafah until May of 2024, so that’s straight up misinformation on NPR’s part. That said, it’s completely normal not to allow journalists to the frontlines of a war except on special embedded trips. Ukraine does the same.

Israel has the same degree of media freedom as any typical western country does, as is evidenced by the existence of Haaretz. Al Jazeera has been banned, for the same reason RT News is banned in the EU.

[mishkin]

Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war

Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging.

In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out their work in Israel and the two Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

These include 71 arrests, as well as numerous assaults, threats, cyberattacks, and censorship. As of November 11, 2024, CPJ’s records showed that 43 of these journalists were still under arrest.

Since July, the hostile environment for the press has spread across the Middle East.

Journalists say ethnic cleansing taking place in northern Gaza news void

Israel has stepped up systematic attack on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign in early October.

Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north, where there are now almost no professional journalists left to document what they and several international institutions describe as an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Journalists interviewed by CPJ in late October and early November said the continued attacks on the media – along with the food shortages, continual displacement, and communications blackouts experienced by all Gazans – placed severe constraints on coverage of the impact of Israel’s offensive, which the Israeli military says is a bid to stop militant Hamas fighters from regrouping.

“Israel is accused of adopting a ‘starve or leave’ policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza. It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them, the world won’t be able to write history.”

Honestly, the only defense that can be given to Israel's behavior towards journalism in Gaza is "Hamas acts like fascists too."

Previous source:

On November 23, 2023, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed a government resolution to cease any state advertising, subscriptions, or other commercial connections with the Haaretz daily newspaper, according to Haaretz and The Times of Israel. He cited what he described as the publication’s “defeatist and false propaganda” against the State of Israel during wartime. However, the Cabinet did not approve the proposal, which the Union of Journalists slammed as “harmful to freedom of the press” and a “populist” maneuver. Karhi, who led efforts to pass emergency regulations to shut down foreign broadcasters deemed harmful to national security, also included domestic media in his initial draft, the Times of Israel reported.

The COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER's head, worthy of any council of ministers of Franco's Spain. Yisus F. Christ. Comrade Putin, when you finish off Ukrainian fascism, move on to Israeli fascism.

[sumskilz]

On November 23, 2023, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed a government resolution to cease any state advertising, subscriptions, or other commercial connections with the Haaretz daily newspaper, according to Haaretz and The Times of Israel. He cited what he described as the publication’s “defeatist and false propaganda” against the State of Israel during wartime. However, the Cabinet did not approve the proposal, which the Union of Journalists slammed as “harmful to freedom of the press” and a “populist” maneuver.

So nothing happened, but I don’t see anything wrong with the proposal. It seems bizarre to me that any private news outlet should be entitled to public funds, especially one which is reviled by most of the population, nor do I see how that would be a violation of freedom of press. That anyone thinks that the government should be obligated to have an ongoing business relationship with every newspaper in the country seems ridiculous.

[PointOfViewGun]

So nothing happened, but I don’t see anything wrong with the proposal. It seems bizarre to me that any private news outlet should be entitled to public funds, especially one which is reviled by most of the population, nor do I see how that would be a violation of freedom of press. That anyone thinks that the government should be obligated to have an ongoing business relationship with every newspaper in the country seems ridiculous.

Was a similar measure used against news organizations that spread countless false information about October 7?

[mishkin]

The government giving benefits to the newspapers they consider "good" and ignoring those that are "hated by the people" (the good Israelis?) or that "demoralize the population." Yes, a brilliant idea, has absolutely nothing to do with authoritarianism.

Israel may be the most progressive country in the region, but it is a fascistoid militarist state. (blame the neighbors for it).

[Ludicus]

Extremely well documented.
Israel: Extremists in Power - Watch the full documentary

[mishkin]

Extremely well documented.
Israel: Extremists in Power - Watch the full documentary

Thanks (cant rep you).

There is tons of information from respectable western media about the state of affairs in the middle east. Yesterday I was talking to Sumskilz about the press in Gaza and at dinner time the public news channel (rtve) was reporting on the latest deaths of Palestinian journalists (because foreigners are not allowed in) or their relatives (although the latter may simply be due to the brutality of the war, not because they are labelled as "relatives of").

[Papay]

UNRWA was banned in order for Israel to starve Gazans more easily. One month ago US issued a warning that they would "take measures" unless the Israelis were forced to let more aid go in Gaza. One month later, this is the reality

Middle East crisis live: Aid entering Gaza is lowest in months, says Unrwa, as US deadline approaches (theguardian.com)

There are videos with children starving to death and hunger is widespread among Gazans. This means thousands more will die either from hunger or from weakness because of it

[NorseThing]

I look back to the many wars since the 1950s. Win or lose, the biggest losers are always children. Starvation is always good to print and advertisements. Not so good for children, especially on the losing side. Yes, Papay, I have a great deal of sympathy for your posts. I simply do not have an easy or even a complicated solution. Trump says to end all this now, but that is rhetorical and not a solution. The Israelis claim to be aggrieved, but that is also rhetoric and not a solution. Iran continues with death to America (thank you Iranian revolution), but again that is rhetoric. I could go on, but I am only rhetorical also.

[Ludicus]

Top UN court says Israel's settlement policy in occupied territories violates international law
Netanyahu appoints hardline backer of settlements as Israeli envoy to US
Who is Mike Huckabee, the US evangelical, pro-settlement envoy to Israel?
Trump's pick of Huckabee and Witkoff a clue to Middle East policy

It may sound like a joke, but it’s not: the new U.S. ambassador to Israel says that "Palestinians don’t exist," and the new Israeli ambassador to the U.S. says that the settlements which violate international law are "neighborhoods" –he even lives in one. Neither of them is a career diplomat. Diplomats are representatives of states paid to build bridges that allow the construction of things useful for the common good. Huckabee and Yechiel Leiter are anti-diplomats.
It’s shocking to see Holocaust deniers reject facts and history, but it’s even more shocking to see Huckabee and Leiter do the same. Facts are objective matters that lie beyond ideologies and interpretations of history.
Huckabee ignores the facts and the history-documented by historians, journalists, and documentarians—and says that Israel has as much right to the occupied West Bank "as Americans have the right to Manhattan." He views Palestinians as the Native Americans who lived in America when European colonizers arrived. The Zionist slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land" is a lie that has been over 120 years in the making. Before Israel was born, Palestine was not a deserted land-it was full of Palestinians.

[NorseThing]

But Palestinians do not exist. They may be Arabs, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, or what not. Palestine is neither a nation nor an ethnicity. A creation for a political purpose, but meh.

Please show me where you have an authoritative source establishing Palestine as a nation group or ethnicity.

[Laser101]

But Palestinians do not exist. They may be Arabs, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, or what not. Palestine is neither a nation nor an ethnicity. A creation for a political purpose, but meh.

Please show me where you have an authoritative source establishing Palestine as a nation group or ethnicity.

Palestinians are as much of an ethnicity as any other Arab nationality.

[NorseThing]

And your authority on Palestinians being an ethnicity is what???? Or are just making it up out of convenience for your point????