If you’re not going to be satisfied with anything short of Netanyahu on tape saying “our intent is to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible”verbatim, then we can just end this conversation now. Even the US would probably be forced to meaningfully withdraw support if Israel fully took the mask off (though as I’ve shown, many high ranking ministers and IDF members have come shockingly close).
What you hear instead are thinly-veiled justifications. Oh, we had to bomb those hospitals because there were tunnels there. So sorry about the civilian deaths at a refugee camp, but we just wanted to get that one commander.
Let’s be real here. Israel shut off food, water, medicine and electricity to Gaza. They’ve damaged over 2/3 of the buildings there [1]. As of a month ago, they’d dropped almost 2x the amount of explosives the US delivered to Hiroshima [2].
These are not the actions of a country “going after military targets even at some cost to civilians”. Israel is doing exactly what Hagari said: inflicting maximum damage.
[1] https://x.com/tksshawa/status/1732447886237974898 https://x.com/tksshawa/status/1732447886237974898
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-attacks-on-gaza-weapons-and-scale-of-destruction https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-att...
If they're planning to just kill everyone, why haven't they just leveled the place? Militarily speaking, they can do that right now and have been able to do that for a long time. So if that's their true goal, then what stops them from giving the order right now?
Meanwhile, Palestine has shown no restraint at all in their 10/7 massacre and no Jews live in Palestine, whereas many Arabs live peacefully in Israel.
> Meanwhile, Palestine has shown no restraint at all in their 10/7 massacre and no Jews live in Palestine, whereas many Arabs live peacefully in Israel.
Do you realize that isreal is the side who killed at least 10x the number that the other side kill. I can see that you describe hamas's action as horrible but there is no way of condition that justifies what isreal did and is still doing to Palestinian civilians (no
matter how you think you can)
Israel could kill literally everyone though, and has been able since long before this. So the idea that they're not restrained in their response ignores that capability.
As to the latter part, you're pulling a trick to imply that the 10x are all civilian non-combatants, which is just as bad as the other people pretending that all the teen-aged Hamas soldiers who have been killing people are non-combatant children.
This is one relevant read:
https://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ https://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casua...
Why are we playing this numbers game? If Hamas hypothetically had killed 30,000 Israels would you be saying that Israel still has 12,000 to go? Every person matters and in a war there are no targets for how many people are killed, in wars people get killed for achieving some other objectives. I would imagine that even if Hamas had only killed 150 people in Israel we'd be in exactly the same place and the ratio would be 100x because there's a point where Israel has to (well, at least they think) reoccupy Gaza at any cost. Israel was almost there in previous conflicts, but backed off.
There is no war in history, as far as I know, but willing to be corrected, where the measure or who is wrong and who is right, or when the war should end, was some threshold or ratio in the number of dead people. A war continues until both sides agree to stop it. Wars have a terrible human price. I think something like 400,000 people have died in the war in Yemen. I think there are hundreds of thousands of dead in the Russian-Ukraine war (mostly soldiers but they're people, and young people, too. Many civilians.). Sudan is pretty bad. 600,000 killed in the Syria civil war.
Because Israel cares about their civilians and defends them at huge costs (Iron Dome), while hamas is happier the more civilian death happens on their side, as it’s free propaganda/media outrage for them - see human shield, starting rockets from civilian buildings, etc.
I already answered your question.
Your second point is wrong, by the way. There are hundreds of thousands of Jews living in settlements in the West Bank.
Only if you want to claim that words are more revealing of intentions than actions, which would discredit you.
The hospital they bombed had the parking lot damaged by a failed Hamas rocket. The "refugee camp" has been there for many years, not as huddled fleeing masses, but permanent structures from people who fled there long ago, the tunnel network is well known and there's video evidence, the aid was being supplied by Israel to begin with (including the water) and they were using the pipes to make weapons, etc.
So I'm not surprised to find that none of your other points make sense either.
Sure, let’s look at their actions:
- Killed almost 18,000 people
- Displaced 1.9 million people
- Cut off food, water, medicine, fuel, electricity and Internet access
- Limited press access except for footage reviewed by the IDF
- Dropped ~2x as much explosive as the US dropped in Hiroshima
- Damaged over 2/3 of buildings
- Bombed basically every hospital
- Bombed an ambulance
- Told people to move south and then bombed Rafah crossing, on the border with Egypt
- Kidnapped thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank
- Tortured Palestinian abductees
- Handed out weapons to West Bank settlers
- Stripped civilians and paraded them through the streets
This is all after October 7th — before that, Israeli settlers were responsible for pogroms and dozens of murders in the West Bank.
I'm honestly not sure how to engage in this discussion. Rather than asking me for what proof I would accept, what proof would you accept that Israel is not trying to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible?
If that was the goal, wouldn't you think more Palestinians be dead by now? How does this goal benefit Israel in any way?
But it's a fair question what would it take to convince me. I think you'd need to show me enough incidents of Israel intentionally targeting civilians with the clear goal of maximizing civilian deaths. e.g. carpet bombing of civilians in the south with casualties in the 10's of thousands from one bombing raid or indiscriminate artillery firing on the south like we see the Russians doing in Ukraine.
Just a by the way, do you know what exactly "refugee camp" means in the context of this conflict? Can you describe what that is and why it's called a refugee camp. I'm asking because it seems many do not know (and if you don't, it's not actually what you think it is).
Haven't you seen large numbers of civilians walking from the north part of Gaza to the south part of Gaza right by Israeli soldiers and tanks? I've seen IDF soldiers give them water as they're passing by. There were photos of civilians arrested yesterday (and treated poorly, doesn't look good) ... but alive.
Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
There is definitely wide scale destruction to structures. I've seen the figure 1/3 today. It's all one big combat zones, when tanks fire inside cities and airplanes drop bombs, and artillery shells targets there is widespread damage. Very much like major scale war in other urban areas around the world, Bahkmut, Mariupol, are two examples from the other active conflict. I don't take it as proof of targeting civilians. It is a tactic to avoid urban warfare, booby traps, remove cover that the enemy can use etc. I agree it's a pretty brutal tactic but not one specifically disallowed in the rules of war.
Have you ever been to Israel? I'm just curious. Do you know many Israelis?
If they “only” managed to kill this amount of people with that amount of (much more modern) explosives, isn’t that proof in itself that they don’t want to deal maximal casualties? Or otherwise they are very bad at it.
With that said, any amount of civilian death is tragic - and we should absolutely mandate Israel to be as specific in their attacks as possible. But 0 civilian casualty is impossible to achieve. What we can know, even according to the biased hamas numbers, they are roughly in the 2 civilian to 1 military personnel ratio, which is absolutely realistic given the circumstances/other modern warfares, etc. Feel free to refute this statement of mine, if you do believe that they “want to kill as many civilians as possible”.
I’ve said this multiple times in this thread — Israel is unable to truly inflict maximum casualties because they cannot afford to lose the US as their ally. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has admitted as much: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/gallant-we-cant-say-no-to-the-us-on-humanitarian-aid-given-how-much-they-do-for-us/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/gallant-we-cant...
> But 0 civilian casualty is impossible to achieve.
No it isn't. It might be impossible to achieve Israel's goals without any civilian casualties but those goals are not a given. Not doing anything would have caused less total suffering than Israel's current strategy.
> go after military targets even at some cost to civilians (and the question of that cost)
I feel the "question of that cost" is where the differences in opinion lie.
For example, if Israel considered the civilians of Gaza as Israel citizens of equal importance to all other Israeli citizens, you'd expect them to consider that cost to be much higher, and it would force them to maneuver much more carefully in their military operations in order to minimize it. Yes, it would make it a lot harder for them to fight and make headway against Hamas as well if they did.
Some people hold the belief that this is how Israel should treat civilians, no lesser than they'd treat their own.
I think another contentious issue, is around the outcome of the war, and what it means for those civilians as well. Is the idea to force the One-State solution, but not as a binational state with equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, but instead as a state with dominant Jewish identity? The impression to this question can change your opinion of the civilian casualties, are they an unfortunate price to pay towards their liberation from Hamas, and their incorporation into a more just, equal, fair, democracy, where they can live a better life? Or is it actually towards their further oppression by Israel?
Or if it is to force a Two-State solution, again, what would it mean of those civilians, would the Palestinian state be forced to harsh conditions as part of treaties if they lose the war, which would hurt those civilians further, etc.
It's complicated, but I do think most of it is about this "cost of civilian casualties", and what worth you attribute to it, and what worth you attribute to the end in order to justify the means.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect Israel to consider Palestinians civilians in Gaza as of equal value to Israeli civilians in Israel during war time. Israel's duty as a country is to provide security for its people. I don't think this is a standard adhered to in any other war. That said, consider Israel is bombing tunnels and infrastructure where there is a real possibility that Israeli hostages would get killed.
The question of the outcome of the war is a reasonable one. That said the primary goal of the war is to ensure the security of Israel. The longer term outcome would depend on political processes in Israel and in the Palestinian side and likely all the other parties that are have been meddling in this conflict forever.
What's "reasonable" is not a trivial matter to answer, and different people will differ in their opinion here. What goes into someone's determination for what is reasonable I think is very complex and deep, including their own moral values, emotional attachment, repercussions to themselves, perceived righteousness, strategic analysis, etc.
I don't personally know what's reasonable or not here to be honest, but I do know the differing opinion on it is a major contributor to the discourse and the disagreements around it.
I wanted to point that out, because you and another commenter were not able to convince each other, and this is why in my opinion.
I would like to nitpick your list if that's ok. I think being very precise is really important here. If there are uncertainties then those should be spelled out as well. Once we know the facts we can have a better discussion (not just the facts related to this list but the complete picture).
- Israel did displace a lot of people. Partly for their own safety while Israel attacks the area they live in. I think your number are correct.
- We already covered the "cut off" in another thread so I (edit: didn't want to but I guess I did anyways) want revisit it. Water was off, and then on, food and medicine are allowed in but maybe not enough, Internet access is on most of the time in this war zone, electricity is mostly cut off (partly because the power station ran out of fuel I think, not strictly because Israel cut it off). This is a snarky comment but I'm pretty sure the tunnel vents still have power. Northern Gaza and Southern Gaza are also different (with more restrictions on Northern Gaza). I would call this statement misleading.
- Israel did drop a lot of bomb tonnage on Gaza but we can't really compare this to the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima. There were 60-80 thousand dead in Hiroshima which was much less populated/dense than Gaza (total population was about 350,000). As a piece of trivia, between 241,000 and 900,000 people died in Japan in the bombing campaigns of WW2. I would fact check this statement as misleading.
- There is plenty of press access from the Palestinian side. I think we're getting more footage from the war zone compared to many other war zones. Israel does review footage of press that embeds with the IDF in Gaza for operational-security reasons. I think that's pretty normal. I don't recall large complaints from the media about this, but they do note it in their reports. So correct but misleading.
- Do you have a reference for "dozens of murders by settlers prior to Oct 7th"? Are you going all the way back to Baruch Goldstein? Even with that "dozens" seems incorrect to me. There's no room for any violence by settlers but let's get the facts right. My very quick research has failed to substantiate this claim.
- Reference for "paraded them through the streets"? Also do we know they're all civilians? Israel strips people they arrest (to their underwear) to make sure they're not suicide bombers. I have seen those photos/videos as well. I agree it's pretty humiliating (and) the pictures didn't look good. I hope the people that are uninvolved will be released quickly. I know you're going to take issue with what I say here, but this was in Northern Gaza where civilians have been asked to evacuate and Hamas combatants operate in civilian clothing. Hamas has a lot of history with suicide bombers so it's not unreasonable to expect this tactic. I would call this partly misleading.
- I also take issue with "kidnapped" and "tortured". I would say arrested Islamic Jihad and Hamas activists. Torture is illegal in Israel (maybe allowed if there's a "ticking bomb", I don't recall) and while it's possible there have been cases I don't think it's systemic, any evidence to the contrary?
- You're technically correct about the move south and bomb the south but I think it's important to note there was significantly less bombing in the south than the north and Israel has said specifically they will still bomb the south if they have clear targets. Israel never said it won't bomb the south. It just said it's safer. And if you check the statistics you'll see that's true. This is where "technically right" can be misleading.
- West bank settlers have had weapons forever pretty much. Most of the handing of weapons these days is to people in Israel proper.
- I think there was a single incident with an ambulance where Israel claimed it was being used for a military purpose. There is a long discussion about the status and usage of ambulances here: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/attacks-misuse-ambulances-during-armed-conflict/ https://lieber.westpoint.edu/attacks-misuse-ambulances-durin...
- I'm pretty sure "bombed every hospital" is false. Reference? We had the possible Islamic Jihad rocket falling in a hospital parking lot, we had some bombings close to hospitals, we had fake news from other conflicts presented as Israel bombing hospitals, but "bombed every hospital" is new to me. I think "did not bomb any hospitals" is closer to the truth. How many people were killed by Israel's bombing of hospitals?
- I've seen different accounts for the percentage of buildings damaged. 2/3 seems on the high side. References?
I don't think there's proof you can provide me, because we seem to have fundamentally different ideas of what it means to target civilians. Like, I would use that for this description in your literal words:
> Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Shutting off these things is targeting civilians! You may think it's justified or that there's precedent, but that doesn't change the fact that the goal of the attack is to harm every human being there.
> Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
I opposed the US conquering Iraq, I oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I oppose Israel's bombing in Gaza (and, as you alluded to, Gaza's situation is unique among those examples in that they are more or less blockaded by and dependent on Israel). I don't really find "but what about other wars" a compelling argument — war is bad!
As to your last question, although I don't know why it's relevant: I'm a diaspora Jew who has not been to Israel from a fairly large Jewish community in the US. Not sure what counts as "many" but yes, I know some Israelis.