Israel-Hamas war thread

[MissingInAction 25199]

31 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

How effective are those rockets? Do they have guidance on them or do they just aim them in a general direction and yell out PEW PEW! 

They are like a bunch of 12 year old Texans aiming Roman candles at passing cars.

Edit: I was very good at it.

Edited October 11, 2023 by MissingInAction

[NorthLoop 14249]

1 minute ago, MissingInAction said:

They are like a bunch of 12 year old Texans aiming Roman candles at passing cars.

I was thinking Saturn Missiles. 

[bolverk 29727]

More details on the unity government formed in Israel.

Quote

 

Israel’s new unity government brings in opposition figures with military know-how.

The Israeli prime minister and the leader of an opposition party said Wednesday that they had reached a deal to form a national unity “emergency government” that gives new roles to experienced former generals and reduces the influence of right wing hard-liners.

Under the arrangement, key decisions about the war in Gaza will be taken by a new “war management cabinet” consisting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; the defense minister, Yoav Gallant; and a senior opposition lawmaker and former defense minister, Benny Gantz. It provides some degree of unity as Israel confronts a war, after a year of huge social division that saw major protests against the Netanyahu government over plans to diminish the power of the courts.

The government has come under intense pressure to dismantle Hamas and remove it from power in the coastal Gaza Strip after its militants crossed the border this week and massacred hundreds of Israeli citizens in their homes, including children.

Israel’s military has responded with a devastating wave of airstrikes in Gaza, killing hundreds and injuring thousands, and its troops appear to be preparing for a ground invasion, a move that would likely massively increase the loss of life in the densely populated enclave. Israel has also taken steps to cut off Gaza’s water, energy and food supplies.

The formation of an Israeli unity government infuses the country’s wartime leadership with greater military experience, a move that is expected to bolster public trust. This in turn may give the government greater legitimacy to make major moves in the conflict, such as a ground invasion of Gaza or even Lebanon, political analysts say.

Mr. Gantz will be joined in Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet by Gadi Eizenkot, another opposition lawmaker with a wealth of military experience. Both are former army chiefs who bring a wealth of wartime know-how from previous conflicts with Gaza and Lebanon, and they are untainted by the catastrophic security failures on Saturday, giving the government’s decisions greater credibility.

“It’s about bringing in people who were chief of staff, and who were not involved in the current disaster,” said Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “They are not responsible for it, so they can help to get out of it.”

The government will only be formed after a vote in Parliament on Thursday, but Mr. Gantz and Mr. Eizenkot were already informally at work on Wednesday evening, joining meetings at the defense ministry, according to a spokesman for National Unity, a political alliance of which both are prominent members.

Public trust in government had ebbed all year in the huge backlash against the Netanyahu government’s plans to undermine the power of the courts, before cratering on Saturday as Hamas attacked. The scale of Hamas’s atrocities and the time it took for the country’s defense forces to fight back made ordinary citizens feel abandoned by their leaders.

The new arrangement faces its own challenges.  The country’s chief opposition leader, Yair Lapid, did not immediately respond to an invitation to join the wartime cabinet. And several far-right ministers in Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition remain at the cabinet table and will have a say over some security issues. They include Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister for national security, who was barred from joining the military as a teenager because he was considered too extremist.

Until 2020, Mr. Ben-Gvir displayed in his living room a portrait of a West Bank settler who shot dead dozens of Palestinians in a mosque in the occupied West Bank in 1994.

Still, the formation of the new government was a remarkable reversal. Until the attacks on Saturday, Mr. Gantz, the leader of National Unity, had refused to join Mr. Netanyahu’s government and was a strong critic of his effort to overhaul the judiciary.

Under the terms of the new coalition agreement, Mr. Netanyahu’s judicial plan has been postponed until the end of the war.

 

 

[Ted Lange 16144]

12 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

They are like a bunch of 12 year old Texans aiming Roman candles at passing cars.

Edit: I was very good at it.

Bottle Rockets launched out of the hole at the end of a whiffle ball bat was the way to go.

[bolverk 29727]

Details on Americans missing, injured or killed:

Quote

 

What we know about the Americans missing or killed in Israel.

Families in the United States and Israel continued to pray on Wednesday for their loved ones who were missing in the wake of the brutal Hamas assault that killed more than 1,000 people in Israel over the weekend, including 22 American citizens, according to U.S. officials.

The slain Americans included an “idealist” who saved her son from assailants’ bullets and a nurse from California who had moved to Israel to care for her parents.

White House officials said on Wednesday that at least 17 Americans remained unaccounted for in Israel, although it was not clear how many were being held hostage by Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza and carried out the attacks. “We have to steel ourselves for the very distinct possibility that these numbers will keep increasing,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

President Biden pledged on Tuesday to put all efforts into finding and rescuing the missing. “I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world,” he said in a speech from the White House. Officials said they were in touch with the families of the missing and keeping them updated.

U.S. officials had not shared identities of the missing Americans, but based on media and family reports, they appeared to include dual citizens who were serving in the Israeli Army, as well as a mother and daughter from the Chicago area who were visiting family in Israel and a 23-year-old attending a music festival that came under attack from Hamas.

Here is what we know about them.

Missing Americans
Adrienne Neta
Nahar Neta fought back tears at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, as he described being on the phone trying to calm his 66-year-old mother, Adrienne. She was born and raised in California and lived in a kibbutz near the border with Gaza.

His siblings were on the phone with her as attackers broke into her home in Be’eri, he said. They heard screaming, he added, and have not heard from her since.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin
Rachel Goldberg said she woke up on Saturday in Jerusalem to the sound of sirens warning of incoming rocket fire. Her 23-year-old son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was at a music festival near Gaza’s border. When she turned her phone on 10 minutes later, she saw two consecutive text messages from him that read “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Goldberg — who moved with her family from California to Jerusalem in 2008 — has not heard from her son since. She said on Tuesday that the only thing the police could tell her was that his last known cellphone signal was near the border with Gaza.

Judith Raanan and Natalie Raanan
The mother and daughter from Evanston, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, were visiting relatives in Nahal Oz, a kibbutz less than a mile from the Israel-Gaza border. Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein, the executive director of Chabad of Evanston, said they had not been heard from since Saturday.

Natalie had recently graduated from high school, Rabbi Klein said. He described her mother as someone who could converse with a wide range of people, from older members of the congregation to younger students at Northwestern University.

“This was a woman that was full of hope,” Rabbi Klein said. “And I know she has a resilience to overcome her tormentors.”

Sagi Dekel-Chen
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a resident of the kibbutz Nir Oz, said he believed his 35-year-old son, Sagi, was being held captive “an arm-lengths away in Gaza, evidently, but couldn’t be farther from me and our family right now.” He said Sagi, who had tried to repel the attack on Saturday, was the father of two daughters and that his wife was pregnant with their third.

Mr. Dekel-Chen, who grew up in Connecticut, said that the kibbutz was “destroyed in a barbaric, inhumane attack in which dozens of my friends, my neighbors, were killed.”

Itay Chen
Ruby Chen said his 19-year-old son, Itay, who was serving in the Israeli Army, had been missing since Saturday. He pleaded with President Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to “do what they can to make this end for us as soon as possible.”

Among the Slain
Deborah Martias
In her final moments, Deborah Martias, who was born in Missouri and whose father is a longtime professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, covered her teenage son with her own body to protect him, her relatives told several news outlets on Tuesday.

In the moments before she and her husband, Shlomi Martias, were killed by the assailants who burst into the family’s home, Ms. Martias was on the phone with her father, Ilan Troen, he recounted in a televised interview. Mr. Troen said that she heard glass breaking, gunshots and people speaking in Arabic.

Her 16-year-old son, Rotem, was shot in the stomach but survived, hiding until he could be rescued.

Mr. Troen described his daughter and son-in-law as “idealists.” They lived at Kibbutz Holit, a small community just over a mile from Gaza, and had sent their children to a school that taught both Hebrew and Arabic, he said, in the hope that better understanding between Jews and Arabs could “change the course of history here.”

Hayim Katsman
A peace activist, Mr. Katsman was initially believed to have been taken hostage on Saturday but was later found killed in his home on Kibbutz Holit. He had studied conservative trends and radicalism within the Zionist religious community, played bass guitar and worked as a D.J. playing Arabic music.

He did gardening and landscaping at the kibbutz, said his mother, Hannah Wacholder Katsman, who described him as “very industrious and independent” in a text message. She said he was born in Israel but had acquired dual citizenship in the United States.

Mr. Katsman recently completed his doctorate at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he served as co-coordinator of a Israel-Palestine research group. His doctorate was titled, “Religious nationalism in Israel/Palestine.” It is unusual for Israelis to refer to the region in that way, rather than simply “Israel” or “Israel and the occupied territories.”

Daniel Ben-Senior
A nurse whom her family described as an “angel,” Daniel Ben-Senior, 34, was born in California but moved to Israel to help take care of her parents.

She was attending the music festival that was attacked by Hamas, and was originally considered among the missing. Israeli authorities told her family on Wednesday that she had been shot, said her cousin, Ran Ben-Senior, who lives in New York.

“It’s a nightmare,” he said.

 

 

Quote

 

The family of a missing American has pieced together that he is likely gravely injured and held by Hamas.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the Americans missing in Israel, was among the crowds at a music festival in southern Israel that was overrun by Hamas terrorists on Saturday. Members of his family who have pieced together at least some of what happened to him believe he is in desperate need of medical attention because part of his arm was blown off by a grenade the assailants threw before abducting him.

A family member, speaking by phone from Jerusalem on Wednesday, said relatives had arrived at their conclusions by speaking with other families and survivors of the attack, and by reviewing texts and phone conversations.

Mr. Goldberg-Polin, who was in elementary school when the family moved to Israel from Berkeley, Calif., had dinner on Friday night with the family in Jerusalem, leaving for the festival around 8:30 p.m.

“He’s a 23-year-old-young man, so his parents were not excessively worried,” said the family member, Rebecca Bardach, who said she is his cousin by marriage.

Even though the concert was so close to the border, there was no concern, she said: “It’s a small country so everything is close.”

He had spent the night dancing and listening to music at the festival. Then, Saturday morning, sirens sounded. Mr. Goldberg-Polin and a group of other concertgoers drove away from the festival, she said.

“When they heard the sirens, I think everybody understood immediately, ‘Wait, we’re being attacked by Gaza’ and raced to their cars to run from the missile attacks,” Ms. Bardach said. “And it was one big, massive traffic jam leaving.”

Shortly afterward, armed Hamas gunmen converged on the open area where the festival was being held and started shooting. Mr. Goldberg-Polin and his friends were already driving away.

When they heard missiles flying, they pulled over to take refuge in one of the free-standing bomb shelters that exist outside major Israeli cities. About 30 people ended up crowded into a space that fit 10, Ms. Bardach said.

A photo of him at the shelter was tracked down by the family, she said.

Around 8:11 a.m. Mr. Goldberg-Polin sent his parents two WhatsApp messages, Ms. Bardach said. One said, “I love you.” The other: “I’m sorry.”

The terrorists found the shelter, throwing grenades inside, Ms. Bardach said.

“Hersh’s best friend reacted incredibly fast, and every grenade — well not every one — he immediately picked up and hurled out of the shelter,” she said. “You have four seconds from when the pin is pulled and until it explodes.”

But people huddled inside were wounded, and part of Mr. Goldberg-Polin’s arm was blown off, according to survivors’ accounts, she said. A trained medic, he created a tourniquet for himself, she said.

At some point, Hamas gunmen entered the shelter and forced those who were able to walk out to leave with them, she said.

Mr. Goldberg-Polin “was one of about five who did that, who was not incapacitated, wounded or dead,” Ms. Bardach said, adding that witnesses told the family he was put in a Hamas vehicle.

“We hope that training will help him survive,” she added, referring to Hamas, “and the fact that they want hostages alive to use as bargaining chips.”

 

 

[JesusSweatDuck 17810]

49 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

How effective are those rockets? Do they have guidance on them or do they just aim them in a general direction and yell out PEW PEW! 

Unless they've upgraded the latter.  Just dumb rockets they fire in a direction, no guidance.

[Covri 6253]

1 hour ago, NorthLoop said:

How effective are those rockets? Do they have guidance on them or do they just aim them in a general direction and yell out PEW PEW! 

[atomheartbevo 89810]

1 hour ago, Frank Drebin said:

It is clearly not a prison: Israel isn’t trying to keep them in Gaza, Israel is trying to keep them out of Israel. I mean Gaza was not blockaded for at least 2 years after Israel withdrew from the land, the blockade was in response to Hamas.

2005 - disengagement leaving an open Ggaza with infrastructures to accelerate economical success, 2007 fences to protect against crazy fundamentalists.

And Egypt borders one part of it.  For all of the focus on Israel, Egypt has blocked their part of the Gaza Strip for a few decades.  

56 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

They are like a bunch of 12 year old Texans aiming Roman candles at passing cars.

Edit: I was very good at it.

[NoName 16407]

 

editing in more tweets

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by NoName

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I saw this on Reddit, but have not had time to verify all the dates. However, I thought some folks might find this interesting and/or helpful in understanding the region and border history. 
 

https://reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/VsuwPRCfDA

Edited October 11, 2023 by Patricio Swayze

[GabrielsHorn 2186]

 

[Foosters 17889]

2 hours ago, texasdago said:

Good God, looking at some of the past few posts about Twatter... Elon straight up ruined that platform.  What a joke.  This should accelerate the demise of the current iteration.  You simply cannot trust it.

1234

[52-80 19259]

42 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I saw this on Reddit, but have not had time to verify all the dates. However, I thought some folks might find this interesting and/or helpful in understanding the region and border history. 
 

https://reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/VsuwPRCfDA

Reddit is the only reliable social site remaining. They identified the boston bomber before authorities could. 

[SimonBolivar 10960]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/11/world/israel-news-hamas-war/39d430e0-ff30-5bdb-9537-dcd5e1ad1d00?smid=url-share

 

Quote

Nadav Gavrielov
Oct. 11, 2023, 5:57 p.m. ETJust Now
Just now
Nadav Gavrielov

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel did not mince words at a news conference with Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister and Benny Gantz, a political rival who joined in a national unity government today. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” Netanyahu said, as he promised to "crush and eliminate" the group. He also listed some of the atrocities he said Hamas terrorists had committed. Boys and girls had been found shot in the head, he said. People had been burned alive, women had been raped and killed, and soldiers had been beheaded.

 

[Chopper 17267]

2 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

Israel isn’t trying to keep them in Gaza, Israel is trying to keep them out of Israel.

Same as Egypt. Amazing how people just skip over that fact. Even though Egypt blocks Gaza for the very same reason as Israel: The danger from Hamas.

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

And Egypt borders one part of it.  For all of the focus on Israel, Egypt has blocked their part of the Gaza Strip for a few decades. 

Yep. The 2 countries blockaded it at the very same time, following the election at which Hamas took control from the Palestine Authority. Gaza's status is as much due to the rivalry between the Palestine Authority and Hamas, as it does with Egypt and Israel. Yet only Israel catches shit for it, when the reasons for it from the Israeli side can be plainly seen as it can also be plainly heard in the refusal of Hamas to acknowledge Israel's very right to exist.

 

[Viper 12112]

 

 

[TexasEd 8077]

30 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Reddit is the only reliable social site remaining. They identified the boston bomber before authorities could. 

On Shaggy we thought it was Hodor

[Deej 76941]

The Fyre Festival doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

[Brisketexan 105383]

33 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Reddit is the only reliable social site remaining. They identified the boston bomber before authorities could. 

Also....Reddit has lots of boobs.  Or so I've heard.

1 minute ago, Deej said:

The Fyre Festival doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

Let's not go forgiving crimes against humanity yet, okay?

[atomheartbevo 89810]

2 minutes ago, Deej said:

The Fyre Festival doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

[Deej 76941]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Also....Reddit has lots of boobs.  Or so I've heard.

Let's not go forgiving crimes against humanity yet, okay?

That meal would be celebrated in the Steel Shank thread.

[Brisketexan 105383]

Just now, Deej said:

That meal would be celebrated in the Steel Shank thread.

Not without a Bud Light, a firearm, and random slices of jalapenos it wouldn't.

[Deej 76941]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Not without a Bud Light, a firearm, and random slices of jalapenos it wouldn't.

[MisterP 127]

Messaging one of my many Israeli friends today. Their women are so badass. Yes, pics, because obviously.  

[F250 28823]

14 minutes ago, Deej said:

That meal would be celebrated in the Steel Shank thread.

That's the opening picture for "The Steel Shank gang goes on a diet"

[ztejas 43543]

4 minutes ago, MisterP said:

Messaging one of my many Israeli friends today. Their women are so badass. Yes, pics, because obviously.  

She sounds spicy. 

[MisterP 127]

2 minutes ago, ztejas said:

She sounds spicy. 

.

Edited October 11, 2023 by MisterP

[Ted Lange 16144]

35 minutes ago, Deej said:

The Fyre Festival doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

[HOOKEM4 5044]

8 minutes ago, ztejas said:

She sounds spicy. 

A bit genocidal but I'll allow it considering what just happened. I do hope she dials it back to killing all the baddies as opposed to millions of civilians.

[YGIFS 19452]

You know how I know Surly Texans are truly are in touch with the nuanced situation of Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Palestinians, Egypt, Sunni, Shiites, Arabs, Persians, and even Christian Western interests in the region?  We've all been warned repeatedly about being overly political in this thread in just a matter of hours.  

And not one of us has thought to even remember this is not really a political conflict, but largely a religious and geographic one.  Anybody here get a religious warning yet by being unorthodox or insensitive?  Anybody have another poster call out their geographic ignorance?  Nope.  We're trying to clean this thing up politically so as not to offend our fellow moronic Texans who start every sentence with, "You know, as a student of history..."  it's a fucking shock the rest of the world isn't looking to us for more guidance on the unfolding situation.  30+ years in that sandbox, most Americans still think Jordan  Airspace is the 'Space Jam' reboot coming out next summer.  We shouldn't get overly political here, but let's not pretend that most Americans have any fucking idea what's really going on there.  They'll repeat what they're spoon-fed because that's the design.  

Meanwhile, somebody gets too deep into Sykes-Picot or Persian-Sunnis collaborating with Persian-Jews for centuries, all far more political than what BLM thinks of Gaza.  That poster is fine.  Mention a bill for Israeli aide before our own bicameral legislature, and it's "MEH, CLOAK ROOM, MEH!"  Fucking clown show.  

As stated, we've let the Ukraine/Russia thread be largely driven by expertise, fact reporting, and unbiased field coverage.  This one can be the same.  You don't need a degree in theology or history.  You just need to start thinking for yourself.  We are a stupid, stupid people and we must never forget that there is a damn good reason we are only asked to weigh in on global affairs because of that giant fucking Navy with our flag on the side.  /rant

[Deej 76941]

1 hour ago, MisterP said:

Messaging one of my many Israeli friends today. Their women are so badass. Yes, pics, because obviously.  

[YGIFS 19452]

Also, I know this'll hurt feelings but listen to some experts tomorrow evening on all of this.  People who actually know and don't just chant shit at restaurants:

https://www.clementscenter.org/event/israels-9-11-the-hamas-terrorist-attacks-and-the-future-of-mideast-security/

If you can't make it, they post the session the next morning at the same link usually.  AEI, Mother Jones, the Atlantic, Heritage, RAND, Reason, NYTimes, CFR, etc.  This is not the time to listen to the stupid people in your circle.  Get your shit from vetted sources with macro, historical understanding.  Otherwise, it's just another CR-snowflake bitchfest in here. 

[Viper 12112]

 

 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8822]

Messaging one of my many Israeli friends today. Their women are so badass. Yes, pics, because obviously.  

Durant fingers.


Out

[atomheartbevo 89810]

59 minutes ago, Viper said:

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89810]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:16 PM, Frank Drebin said:

Yep.  We aren’t talking about the brightest group of people.  Lot of inbreeding for generations.  One third marry a first cousin. 

Spoiler

I know his first wife was his 2nd cousin, but he still fucked his cousin.

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[Deej 76941]

11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Well, everyone he tried to mobilize had a BAC of .36.

[Helobious 9466]

6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

  Hide contents

I know his first wife was his 2nd cousin, but he still fucked his cousin.

 

2nd cousin is pretty weird. However once you get to the level of 3rd cousin and beyond you’re so genetically dissimilar it’s not really inbreeding. 

[GabrielsHorn 2186]

 

[GabrielsHorn 2186]

Haven’t actually seen the Reuters report, so maybe a grain of salt

 

[Deej 76941]

11 minutes ago, Helobious said:

However once you get to the level of 3rd cousin and beyond you’re so genetically dissimilar it’s not really inbreeding. 

[elfenix 34334]

21 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I know his first wife was his 2nd cousin, but he still fucked his cousin.

 

somehow the rudy thread in CR isn't "shut your fucking face cousin fucker: the rudy giuliani thread"

[Deej 76941]

3 minutes ago, GabrielsHorn said:

Haven’t actually seen the Reuters report, so maybe a grain of salt

 

Egypt:

[Not a cat 5706]

6 minutes ago, GabrielsHorn said:

Haven’t actually seen the Reuters report, so maybe a grain of salt

 

I'm stunned.  Ok, not really.  

[F250 28823]

1 hour ago, Viper said:

 

 

Those numbers look similar to the 2014 Gaza conflict. They activate pretty fucking fast. I was working for an Israeli security company when shit went down in '14. The majority of our company employees were Israeli and it seemed like they all split overnight. I've never seen anything like it.

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by F250

[YGIFS 19452]

29 minutes ago, Helobious said:

2nd cousin is pretty weird. However once you get to the level of 3rd cousin and beyond you’re so genetically dissimilar it’s not really inbreeding. 

This is good news.  Because I'm third-cousins with Abby Elliott (from SNL & "The Bear") on my father's side.  And she's totally down to clown.  

[Bevo 13601]

11 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

This is good news.  Because I'm third-cousins with Abby Elliott (from SNL & "The Bear") on my father's side.  And she's totally down to clown.  

Please take this conversation to the ou thread.

[CHIEF 5095]

2 hours ago, Viper said:

 

 

How many terrorists/fighters/support personnel  does Hamas have in Gaza? With a population of 2.3 million, if one out of every 23 people were a member, that would be 100k. I would imagine it is more than that. 1 out of 10 would be 230k. 

CHIEF

Edited October 12, 2023 by CHIEF

[Neonmoon 38130]

1 minute ago, CHIEF said:

How many terrorists/fighters/support personnel  does Hamas have in Gaza? With a population of 2.3 million, if one out of every 23 people were a member, that would be 100k. I would imagine it is more than that. 1 out of 10 would be 230k. 

CHIEF

[Bevo 13601]

Hamas has an army of 30,000 men.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Bevo