11 ms·

I'll provide context too - I'm a Jewish Israeli. I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as c

by edanm 1y ago

I'll provide context too - I'm a Jewish Israeli. I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online. This Haaretz article is very troubling. To the extent it's accurate, there's not much question that it reflects war crimes. A few thoughts: 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court. 2. There is clearly something broken with the GHF and the new aid delivery - dozens dead every day for weeks. We really need some answers on what's going on. 3. From Haaretz today: > The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Saturday urged Israel to investigate reports that soldiers opened fire towards unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites, detailed in a Haaretz expose, calling the allegations "too grave to ignore," while denying that any such incidents occurred within its facilities. > GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites."

NohatCoder 1y ago
The only news in the article is the way civilians are murdered. The Israeli government already kills far more people per day through deliberately induced starvation. These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty, but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
neepi 1y ago
I don't like getting involved in political threads but on this I have to. All information presented is mostly unverified testimony printed verbatim by the press from untrustworthy sources on both sides. It's difficult to tell what is fact and what is not. A lot of early reports in this war turned out to be false information and the rush to immediate news notification rather than quality journalism means that the headline changes context very quickly from the first cut to what people read and remember. (I wrote an extensive suite of software to track this) Wait and see. Do not judge too early. Take nothing as verbatim from anyone without evidence. Don't be unknowing partisans of an information war. Veracity takes time.
- MrSkelter 1y ago
  The lack of journalism in this conflict is a direct result of Israel forbidding press access and their targeting of Palestinian and other journalists. This deliberate effort enables them to then criticize the reporting which is done and cast doubt over sources. Since October 7th sources from within Palestine have been accurate regarding deaths and actions. Often being attacked first and then quietly acknowledged later. There is no reason to doubt the reporting of Israel’s paper of record, which though considered left wing writhing Israel, supports Netanyahu’s attacks on Gaza and applies rigorous journalistic standards.
- quietbritishjim 1y ago
  The information is unverified because Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza.
  - FridayoLeary 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - YZF 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - asadm 1y ago
      IDF has been actively killing journalists too. So many that this is deadliest war for journalist to report on in recorded history.
      - mahirsaid 1y ago
        This is not a war. War is Ukraine vs Russia.
      - birn559 1y ago
        Could you provide sources? I would assume 'journalists' are only actively killed if they grab a weapon or conduct similar actions. My understanding of "actively killed" is thy have been the explicit target of an attack and not casualties in general.
DrillShopper 1y ago
Note that this response is from a cynical American sick of Israel always Getting Away With It. I have no problem with Jewish people, but I strongly distrust the state of Israel and believe that it's a force that makes Jewish people less safe as the state screams it is doing what it is doing to protect Jewish people. One of my close college friends is a rabbi, and we've been talking about this since the start of the hostage crisis. > 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court. There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing. Even if Israel did investigate, there's nothing more classic than Israel going "we investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong". So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office
- edanm 1y ago
  > There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing. This is untrue - Israel has investigated war crimes, e.g. famously things like what happened at the Sde Teiman prison. > So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office Many have been trying for years. It's not trivial. (About half of Americans dislike {current_president}, whomever that is, but there's very little they can do about it in between elections.)
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Israel investigates harder when it learns that the ICC might otherwise investigate a specific case. Very cynical.
YZF 1y ago
As another Jewish Israeli I agree this is concerning. I do want you to consider the context here on Hacker News though. You and me have context, we understand the history, we understand at least something about wars and how they are fought. Most people here do not. The problem isn't whether firing on civilians with no reason when they come to get food is wrong or right. We all know it's wrong. The soldiers in Gaza know it's wrong. We all know this is a war crime. Most cases of war crimes during war are not prosecuted at all and not visibly. This is true for US wars in the middle east. It's true for the war the West wages against ISIS. It's true for Ukraine and Russia. It's a sad but unfortunate reality of our world. The current political climate and government in Israel are also not the best for the kind of outcome you are describing. Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes. Where do we place Israel on that scale? Is there more attention on Israel vs. other similar world events? Why? Do we see similar public debate and discussion of the morality of those wars in other countries? Again, where is Israel on that scale (not of idealistic fantasy world of justice but in the real world)?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  IDF HQ is next to a mall, so Israel is doing the same as Hamas?
  - YZF 1y ago
    And where is the Pentagon? Attacking the Qirya, Israel's HQ, with some sort of accuracy is a legitimate military target. It's a pretty large target. Soldiers wear uniform. There are no civilians mixed into that camp. This is very different than lobbing rockets at Beer-Sheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ramat Gan. The casualties from Iran's attacks, minus one off-duty soldier, were all civilians and the targets were nowhere near anything military. The intentionally aim at population centers.
like_any_other 1y ago
> I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online. Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? (Orthogonally, I can certainly empathize with being pro-something, but not pro-everything-that-something-does. There's certainly nothing intrinsic to a Jewish state that would require firing at unarmed crowds.)
- edanm 1y ago
  > Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? If your implication is that I'm an ethno-nationalist, I don't think that characterizes Israel or my thoughts about it, however much "ethnostate" is a favorite slur of people to use against Israel.
  - leereeves 1y ago
    Ethnostate is not a slur, it's an accurate description of a country that itself passed the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. (A basic law in Israel is roughly like a constitutional amendment in the US.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nat...
    - throwaway3060 1y ago
      Ethnostate is an ambiguous word. Does it mean ethnically homogenous? Israel is certainly not that. Does it mean, essentially, a nation-state whose "national group" is an ethnicity? Israel is that - but so is much of Europe and some parts of Asia.
      - leereeves 1y ago
        How many of those have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of the X people? (at least after the 1940s)
ashoeafoot 1y ago
[flagged]
- tehjoker 1y ago
  https://youtu.be/3FO8BmzoPzU?si=L2wcnGolVDERRUzS https://youtu.be/3FO8BmzoPzU?si=L2wcnGolVDERRUzS why israel is arming gangs in gaza
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  That would be too impractical. The fact of the matter is that the only effective way is basically how the GHF is doing it already. It's sad that the UN and western media are running with the pro hamas anti GHF narrative. They are giving hamas every incentive to disrupt aid distribution as much as possible. At the very least the shocking fact that UNWRA are against Gazans getting aid when it's not done through them exposes the lie that they care about palestinians. The GHF undermines Hamas and UNWRA like nothing else has. It terrifies them and they are pulling all the propoganda stops to delegitimise them.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Yes, it’s much easier to get people into killboxes with only a handful of distribution points instead of hundreds. Yay GHF!
    - FridayoLeary 1y ago
      Not saying it's operating at maximum efficiency, but if UNWRA actually cared about palestinians they would cooperate to make it work.
      - actionfromafar 1y ago
        If IDF cared about palestinians, they would stop killing them.
viccis 1y ago
>GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites." Isn't there a video of dismembered body parts after the mortar shell hit and killed a few dozen? It sounds like if he is making such a clear statement as this, there should be an investigation, and, if it turns out there were such fatalities, then Acree (and many others) should be tried for covering up war crimes.
_l7dh 1y ago
> I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court. Sorry but you’re either dishonest or totally delusional. Tens of thousands of children murdered, nobody even thinks of putting a stop on this, and you say « it’s not widespread ». What? There has been so so many atrocities, even before Oct 7th committed by both the Israeli army and armed settlers in the West Bank. There is never, NEVER, anyone being held accountable. Snipers shoot kids on the beach? All good. Torture and rape in your prisons? Fine. Dude, you should fix your society. You are simply heading towards your own destruction, morally, on the side of public sympathy, and merely as people capable of living with other people peacefully. edit: minor typo.
itchyouch 1y ago
This article isn't really about whether there's some situation where there were some wrong doings, but it's yet another piece adding to the overall body of Israel's offenses against humanity. As a random bystander with no real skin in this conflict, other than being American, what I can say is that for a while, it did seem that Israel the country had to unfairly deal with hate and war and it seemed quite unfortunate. Most of the horrifying stories that would occasionally rise up seemed unbelievable, if not overblown. Though in recent weeks, social media & news has provided another perspective. 1. Numerous Israeli citizens mocking Palestinians and having the gall to upload it to social media. 2. Numerous classrooms and children being taught that non-Israeli's do no deserve the same human rights as Israelis, and the children from a young age reveling in their superiority. 3. Videos showing citizens in normal cars being a nuisance to Palestinian medical vehicles. 4. Videos showing the absolute decimation of Gaza. 5. Israeli news articles reporting 70% and more of the population supporting certain war actions. 6. Ex-IDF soldiers whistleblowing the atrocious acts they needed to commit. 7. Citizens barbequing and hanging out right along the Gaza's border as Palestinian folks on the other side starve. 8. The video of Palestinian medics getting murdered on the side of the highway. 9. Pictures of the logos on IDF uniforms showing "our promised land" with a map showing borders that claim the land of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon. I don't think there is something "broken" in aid delivery. It appears that there is a systemic and concerted effort by the bulk of the government and citizens (100% of who have to serve in the IDF) to colonize and usurp Palestinian land and beyond. And it seems that the latest set of conflicts have pulled back the curtain on the attitudes held by both the Israeli citizens and government.
vFunct 1y ago
[flagged]
therealpygon 1y ago
We’ve done an exhaustive internal investigation and are glad to have swiftly concluded that there was no wrongdoing by ourselves in this matter.

by edanm 1y ago

NohatCoder 1y ago

The only news in the article is the way civilians are murdered. The Israeli government already kills far more people per day through deliberately induced starvation. These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty, but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

neepi 1y ago

I don't like getting involved in political threads but on this I have to. All information presented is mostly unverified testimony printed verbatim by the press from untrustworthy sources on both sides. It's difficult to tell what is fact and what is not. A lot of early reports in this war turned out to be false information and the rush to immediate news notification rather than quality journalism means that the headline changes context very quickly from the first cut to what people read and remember. (I wrote an extensive suite of software to track this) Wait and see. Do not judge too early. Take nothing as verbatim from anyone without evidence. Don't be unknowing partisans of an information war. Veracity takes time.

MrSkelter 1y ago
The lack of journalism in this conflict is a direct result of Israel forbidding press access and their targeting of Palestinian and other journalists. This deliberate effort enables them to then criticize the reporting which is done and cast doubt over sources. Since October 7th sources from within Palestine have been accurate regarding deaths and actions. Often being attacked first and then quietly acknowledged later. There is no reason to doubt the reporting of Israel’s paper of record, which though considered left wing writhing Israel, supports Netanyahu’s attacks on Gaza and applies rigorous journalistic standards.
quietbritishjim 1y ago
The information is unverified because Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  [flagged]
- YZF 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - asadm 1y ago
    IDF has been actively killing journalists too. So many that this is deadliest war for journalist to report on in recorded history.
    - mahirsaid 1y ago
      This is not a war. War is Ukraine vs Russia.
    - birn559 1y ago
      Could you provide sources? I would assume 'journalists' are only actively killed if they grab a weapon or conduct similar actions. My understanding of "actively killed" is thy have been the explicit target of an attack and not casualties in general.

DrillShopper 1y ago

Note that this response is from a cynical American sick of Israel always Getting Away With It. I have no problem with Jewish people, but I strongly distrust the state of Israel and believe that it's a force that makes Jewish people less safe as the state screams it is doing what it is doing to protect Jewish people. One of my close college friends is a rabbi, and we've been talking about this since the start of the hostage crisis. > 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court. There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing. Even if Israel did investigate, there's nothing more classic than Israel going "we investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong". So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office

edanm 1y ago
> There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing. This is untrue - Israel has investigated war crimes, e.g. famously things like what happened at the Sde Teiman prison. > So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office Many have been trying for years. It's not trivial. (About half of Americans dislike {current_president}, whomever that is, but there's very little they can do about it in between elections.)
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Israel investigates harder when it learns that the ICC might otherwise investigate a specific case. Very cynical.

YZF 1y ago

As another Jewish Israeli I agree this is concerning. I do want you to consider the context here on Hacker News though. You and me have context, we understand the history, we understand at least something about wars and how they are fought. Most people here do not. The problem isn't whether firing on civilians with no reason when they come to get food is wrong or right. We all know it's wrong. The soldiers in Gaza know it's wrong. We all know this is a war crime. Most cases of war crimes during war are not prosecuted at all and not visibly. This is true for US wars in the middle east. It's true for the war the West wages against ISIS. It's true for Ukraine and Russia. It's a sad but unfortunate reality of our world. The current political climate and government in Israel are also not the best for the kind of outcome you are describing. Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes. Where do we place Israel on that scale? Is there more attention on Israel vs. other similar world events? Why? Do we see similar public debate and discussion of the morality of those wars in other countries? Again, where is Israel on that scale (not of idealistic fantasy world of justice but in the real world)?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Hikikomori 1y ago
IDF HQ is next to a mall, so Israel is doing the same as Hamas?
- YZF 1y ago
  And where is the Pentagon? Attacking the Qirya, Israel's HQ, with some sort of accuracy is a legitimate military target. It's a pretty large target. Soldiers wear uniform. There are no civilians mixed into that camp. This is very different than lobbing rockets at Beer-Sheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ramat Gan. The casualties from Iran's attacks, minus one off-duty soldier, were all civilians and the targets were nowhere near anything military. The intentionally aim at population centers.

like_any_other 1y ago

> I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online. Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? (Orthogonally, I can certainly empathize with being pro-something, but not pro-everything-that-something-does. There's certainly nothing intrinsic to a Jewish state that would require firing at unarmed crowds.)

edanm 1y ago
> Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? If your implication is that I'm an ethno-nationalist, I don't think that characterizes Israel or my thoughts about it, however much "ethnostate" is a favorite slur of people to use against Israel.
- leereeves 1y ago
  Ethnostate is not a slur, it's an accurate description of a country that itself passed the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. (A basic law in Israel is roughly like a constitutional amendment in the US.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nat...
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    Ethnostate is an ambiguous word. Does it mean ethnically homogenous? Israel is certainly not that. Does it mean, essentially, a nation-state whose "national group" is an ethnicity? Israel is that - but so is much of Europe and some parts of Asia.
    - leereeves 1y ago
      How many of those have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of the X people? (at least after the 1940s)

ashoeafoot 1y ago

[flagged]

tehjoker 1y ago
https://youtu.be/3FO8BmzoPzU?si=L2wcnGolVDERRUzS https://youtu.be/3FO8BmzoPzU?si=L2wcnGolVDERRUzS why israel is arming gangs in gaza
FridayoLeary 1y ago
That would be too impractical. The fact of the matter is that the only effective way is basically how the GHF is doing it already. It's sad that the UN and western media are running with the pro hamas anti GHF narrative. They are giving hamas every incentive to disrupt aid distribution as much as possible. At the very least the shocking fact that UNWRA are against Gazans getting aid when it's not done through them exposes the lie that they care about palestinians. The GHF undermines Hamas and UNWRA like nothing else has. It terrifies them and they are pulling all the propoganda stops to delegitimise them.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Yes, it’s much easier to get people into killboxes with only a handful of distribution points instead of hundreds. Yay GHF!
  - FridayoLeary 1y ago
    Not saying it's operating at maximum efficiency, but if UNWRA actually cared about palestinians they would cooperate to make it work.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      If IDF cared about palestinians, they would stop killing them.

viccis 1y ago

>GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites." Isn't there a video of dismembered body parts after the mortar shell hit and killed a few dozen? It sounds like if he is making such a clear statement as this, there should be an investigation, and, if it turns out there were such fatalities, then Acree (and many others) should be tried for covering up war crimes.

_l7dh 1y ago

> I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court. Sorry but you’re either dishonest or totally delusional. Tens of thousands of children murdered, nobody even thinks of putting a stop on this, and you say « it’s not widespread ». What? There has been so so many atrocities, even before Oct 7th committed by both the Israeli army and armed settlers in the West Bank. There is never, NEVER, anyone being held accountable. Snipers shoot kids on the beach? All good. Torture and rape in your prisons? Fine. Dude, you should fix your society. You are simply heading towards your own destruction, morally, on the side of public sympathy, and merely as people capable of living with other people peacefully. edit: minor typo.

itchyouch 1y ago

This article isn't really about whether there's some situation where there were some wrong doings, but it's yet another piece adding to the overall body of Israel's offenses against humanity. As a random bystander with no real skin in this conflict, other than being American, what I can say is that for a while, it did seem that Israel the country had to unfairly deal with hate and war and it seemed quite unfortunate. Most of the horrifying stories that would occasionally rise up seemed unbelievable, if not overblown. Though in recent weeks, social media & news has provided another perspective. 1. Numerous Israeli citizens mocking Palestinians and having the gall to upload it to social media. 2. Numerous classrooms and children being taught that non-Israeli's do no deserve the same human rights as Israelis, and the children from a young age reveling in their superiority. 3. Videos showing citizens in normal cars being a nuisance to Palestinian medical vehicles. 4. Videos showing the absolute decimation of Gaza. 5. Israeli news articles reporting 70% and more of the population supporting certain war actions. 6. Ex-IDF soldiers whistleblowing the atrocious acts they needed to commit. 7. Citizens barbequing and hanging out right along the Gaza's border as Palestinian folks on the other side starve. 8. The video of Palestinian medics getting murdered on the side of the highway. 9. Pictures of the logos on IDF uniforms showing "our promised land" with a map showing borders that claim the land of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon. I don't think there is something "broken" in aid delivery. It appears that there is a systemic and concerted effort by the bulk of the government and citizens (100% of who have to serve in the IDF) to colonize and usurp Palestinian land and beyond. And it seems that the latest set of conflicts have pulled back the curtain on the attitudes held by both the Israeli citizens and government.

vFunct 1y ago

[flagged]

therealpygon 1y ago

We’ve done an exhaustive internal investigation and are glad to have swiftly concluded that there was no wrongdoing by ourselves in this matter.