Israel-Hamas Thread II

Desk trauma said:

Electing a Muslim mayor is Islam conquering NYC?

Click to expand...

Its a start. Ismamists always play the long game. We'll see what happens. It may be that Amercans in NY will wake up in time.

IDF soldiers reveal that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields and kills indiscrimantety:

Israeli soliders admit killing civilians and using human shields in Gaza

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers have lifted the lid on the army’s disregard for laws and norms during the genocide in Gaza in a new documentary called Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast by ITV on Monday night.

Daniel, the commander of an IDF tank unit is quoted in the show as saying that if soldiers “want to shoot without restraint, you can”, according to The Guardian.

Click to expand...

All told how rules on targeting civilians were flouted and the soldiers revealed how the Israeli military used human shields and opened fire without provocation on people trying to access food at aid distribution points.

Click to expand...

He told of one incident where a senior officer ordered a building to be demolished in an area which had been designated as safe for civilians. “A man was standing on the roof, hanging laundry, and the officer decided that he was a spotter. He’s not a spotter. He’s hanging his laundry. You can see that he’s hanging laundry,” Eli said.

“Now, it’s not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600-700 metres away. So unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded.”

Click to expand...

Not a good idea to be seen hanging out the washing by the IDF!

The makers of Breaking Ranks spoke to a contractor identified only as Sam who worked at food distribution sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, who says he witnessed the IDF killing unarmed civilians.

He describes an incident at one distribution site where two young men were running to get aid.

“You could just see two soldiers run after them,” said Sam.

“They drop onto their knees and they just take two shots, and you could just see […] two heads snap backwards and just drop.” He recalled another incident in which an IDF tank near one of the distribution sites destroyed “a normal car … just four normal people sat inside it”.

Click to expand...

Nor a good idea to be seen sitting in a car.

These are war crimes but the IDF soldiers who committed these crimes know they will not be held accountable.

Vanellus said:

IDF soldiers reveal that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields and kills indiscrimantety:

Israeli soliders admit killing civilians and using human shields in Gaza

The makers of Breaking Ranks...

Click to expand...

A new documentary airing on ITV, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel's War, claims to be “the story of the war in Gaza told by the soldiers who fought it.”

ITV’s ‘Breaking Ranks’: The IDF Soldier Documentary That Broke From the Truth

The story of the war in Gaza is, that the islamist terrorist group Hamas has effectively turned the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip into human shields for its fight against Israel.

Stopped_lurking said:

This appears to be a half-truth, from their response regarding the measurement method and the threshold. Your text seems to be tendentious.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/u...C_Famine_Classification_in_the_Gaza_Strip.pdf

If using the weight-to-height measurement it is still 30% to call it a famine. With the upper arm measure the threshold is 15% (and that as it has been previously, MUAC has previously been shown to underpredict hence the lower threshold). It is not a newly deviced measurement either. See the quote.

Click to expand...

On Aug 22, 2025, a famine was declared for the city of Gaza based on the IPC for food security. Three months later, there are increasing signs that this classification was greatly exaggerated. The global system for classifying hunger and malnutrition lists ‘famine/humanitarian catastrophe’ as the last and highest alert level on its scale. One criterion is that in such a case, the mortality rate exceeds two deaths per 10,000 people per day.

Paradoxically, none of the available surveys, neither the IPC's own figures nor those of Hamas, come anywhere close to this figure. For the classification of ‘famine’, around 188 people would have had to die every day in Gaza City alone. However, Hamas reported an average of six deaths per day caused by hunger during the same period across the entire Gaza Strip. The terrorist group is not suspected of wanting to gloss over the death toll. It even reported people suffering from serious illnesses as ‘victims of hunger’.

The accusation that Israel wants to ‘systematically starve’ the Gaza Strip is one of the main pillars of the genocide charges against Israel. In the spring of 2025, Israel imposed a highly controversial three-month blockade on aid deliveries, thereby establishing a new distribution system. Since then, goods have been distributed in such a way that Hamas is no longer involved. Apart from this period, enough food always reached the Gaza Strip in absolute terms. The main problem has always been the Hamas-controlled distribution.

That is why it is important to note that Israel has demonstrably done more to protect "Palestinians" in the Gaza Strip than any other state has ever done for the lives of civilians on the side of an enemy warring party. The casualties among the suffering civilians, especially children, are tragic, but very low compared to other urban wars against terrorists and guerrillas. To accuse Israel of genocidal intentions is an anti-Semitic lie.

The warnings from Doha and Riyadh sounded loud and almost desperate: Israel was jeopardising the ceasefire, both capitals said after the IDF attacked several Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip this week. Qatar was particularly harsh in its message, speaking of a ‘dangerous escalation’. Saudi Arabia joined in and also condemned the Israeli prime minister's trip to southern Syria. But the outrage obscures the crucial fact: the IDF attacks came after Hamas fighters fired from areas clearly under Israeli control.

The exact sequence of events highlights how fragile the current ceasefire is and how consistently Israel is trying to do what a state must do: protect its soldiers and civilians.

On Wed Nov 19th, a group of armed terrorists opened fire near IDF forces operating along the yellow separation strip in the Khan Yunis area. The IDF responded with a precision strike on a building in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City, which Israeli sources said was housing a senior Hamas terrorist. This was followed by further attacks on Hamas operational structures after additional terrorists approached the yellow control strip in several areas. Some of them were identified and eliminated across the line; an indication of the ongoing threat, even in the midst of an agreed period of calm.

Qatar stated that the attacks had claimed ‘martyrs and casualties’ and posed an immediate threat to the ceasefire. At the same time, Doha reaffirmed its ‘firm and unwavering commitment’ to the Palestinian cause, a phrase that has been more of a political signal than a realistic analysis for months.

However, neither Doha nor Riyadh mention the key point: the ceasefire does not oblige Israel to allow itself to be fired upon. In international law, the term ‘ceasefire’ never means the suspension of self-defence. When armed terrorists cross a control line or operate directly on it, a real threat arises. Since Oct 2023, the IDF has made it unmistakably clear that it will neutralise any immediate threat, regardless of political timelines.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia present their statements as warnings. But in reality, it is more of a reflex: both states must maintain their respective regional roles, serve their political alliances and assert their position in the Arab discourse. At the same time, they know that the ceasefire only exists because Israel has operated with maximum restraint despite numerous violations by Hamas.

What makes the current reactions so remarkable is that they completely ignore the fact that Hamas repeatedly breaks this ceasefire, whether through shooting, approaching Israeli posts or continuing to use civilian areas for military purposes.

The Israeli government and military have been emphasising this for weeks: Every attack, every approach, every armed movement that threatens lives will be responded to. This is not a breach of agreement, but the only responsible course of action in the face of a terrorist organisation that traditionally uses ceasefires as tactical pauses.

The current dispute shows once again how distorted the view from the outside can be and how necessary it is to consider the actual situation on the ground before making moral judgements.