Israel

[chainsaw 10289]

3 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Hezbollah has been launching projectiles at Israel more or less constantly over the past months (including one that hit a soccer field and killed Arab-Israeli citizens).  There are some fairly obvious indicators of preparations, particularly when a major attack is planned and underway.  The idea that Israel “instigated” by destroying tubes and infrastructure left-of-launch is a fairly laughable assertion. You’re allowed to attack missiles and bombers on the ground. 

Golan heights is not Israel, but either way the soccer field was not actually being targeted and Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for that one. Do you honestly believe everything Israel says?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

3 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Golan heights is not Israel, but either way the soccer field was not actually being targeted and Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for that one. Do you honestly believe everything Israel says?

Either way Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets since October and they got fucked up in response.  

[chainsaw 10289]

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

thousands of rockets

just unprovoked? out of nowhere? Where do you get your news, I wonder...

[956 Worldwide 35592]

2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

just unprovoked? out of nowhere? Where do you get your news, I wonder...

Lol, of course you also sympathize with Hezbollah. I don’t really give a shit either way, it’s fun to see F-35s conduct this type of complex strike. 

[chainsaw 10289]

19 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You’re allowed to attack missiles and bombers on the ground. 

You only believe this rule applies to the people you like, right?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

You only believe this rule applies to the people you like, right?

Yes, I like it when terrorists get killed and don’t like it when terrorists kill people.  I guess you’re crying over Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian air bases, too? They should only shoot once the bombs are being dropped on them. 
 

 

[chainsaw 10289]

5 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Yes, I like it when terrorists get killed and don’t like it when terrorists kill people.  I guess you’re crying over Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian air bases, too? They should only shoot once the bombs are being dropped on them. 
 

 

So civilians are terrorists now? Okay.

[Brian Fantana 6865]

"Haha are you triggered? Are you CRYING? TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER!!!!!!!" is exactly the kind of discourse that makes this thread great guys keep it coming.

[bolverk 30323]

According to the CIA's World Factbook, the Gaza Strip is 139 square miles with a population of 2,141,643 (15,407 souls per square mile).

If 11% of Gaza is considered a humanitarian zone (see AP article below), that means 15.3 square miles is theoretically safe (even though the shrinking humanitarian zone has been struck many times before by the IDF). If all Gazans relocated to this small area humanitarian zone, its population density would be 140,000 persons per square mile which is twice the density of Manhattan.

According to the UN, the vast majority of Gazans have evacuated to it. Now, imagine the misery, desperation, hunger, and squalor, crammed together, spreading disease, all along with the constant threat of being blown up and never knowing when it will all end. What the hell is going to happen to these people?

 

Israel continues to shrink the humanitarian zone in Gaza, UN says
UNITED NATIONS – Sixteen evacuation orders by Israel’s military this month have squeezed Gazans into even smaller areas of the territory and the latest has shut the U.N. humanitarian operations center. However, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA is still providing health care and other assistance.

As a result of the orders, several hundred thousand already displaced Palestinians have been forced to move again, and the humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk to about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told reporters Monday.

“And this isn’t 11% of land that is fit for habitation, fit for services, fit for life, really,” Rose said in a briefing from Gaza,

He said it’s precisely in this environment with lack of access to aid, services, water and health care that polio has recently reemerged in Gaza, “with a small number of cases that could spread very rapidly.”

Rose said a U.N. campaign to vaccinate 95% of children under the age of 10 is scheduled to start on Saturday and involves over 3,000 people, including 1,000 from UNRWA, the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip.

He expressed hope that humanitarian pauses needed for the campaign will be heeded by Israel, Hamas and other militants.

A senior U.N. official said Israel’s latest evacuation order on Sunday included the U.N. operations center in Deir al-Balah, which was forced to close on short notice. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.N. has been in contact with Israel about the latest order and improving humanitarian operations.

Rose said UNRWA services are continuing with national staff, estimating that 15,000 Palestinians received health services across Gaza on Monday.

But he stressed that the ability of the U.N. humanitarian system to operate in Gaza “is becoming increasingly difficult.”

He said an estimated one million Palestinians a month aren’t getting the food they desperately need because of obstacles at crossing points, with only about 100 trucks with aid getting into Gaza every day instead of the 500 needed.

 

 

 

[chainsaw 10289]

34 minutes ago, bolverk said:

According to the CIA's World Factbook, the Gaza Strip is 139 square miles with a population of 2,141,643 (15,407 souls per square mile).

If 11% of Gaza is considered a humanitarian zone (see AP article below), that means 15.3 square miles is theoretically safe (even though the shrinking humanitarian zone has been struck many times before by the IDF). If all Gazans relocated to this small area humanitarian zone, its population density would be 140,000 persons per square mile which is twice the density of Manhattan.

According to the UN, the vast majority of Gazans have evacuated to it. Now, imagine the misery, desperation, hunger, and squalor, crammed together, spreading disease, all along with the constant threat of being blown up and never knowing when it will all end. What the hell is going to happen to these people?

 

Israel continues to shrink the humanitarian zone in Gaza, UN says
UNITED NATIONS – Sixteen evacuation orders by Israel’s military this month have squeezed Gazans into even smaller areas of the territory and the latest has shut the U.N. humanitarian operations center. However, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA is still providing health care and other assistance.

As a result of the orders, several hundred thousand already displaced Palestinians have been forced to move again, and the humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk to about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told reporters Monday.

“And this isn’t 11% of land that is fit for habitation, fit for services, fit for life, really,” Rose said in a briefing from Gaza,

He said it’s precisely in this environment with lack of access to aid, services, water and health care that polio has recently reemerged in Gaza, “with a small number of cases that could spread very rapidly.”

Rose said a U.N. campaign to vaccinate 95% of children under the age of 10 is scheduled to start on Saturday and involves over 3,000 people, including 1,000 from UNRWA, the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip.

He expressed hope that humanitarian pauses needed for the campaign will be heeded by Israel, Hamas and other militants.

A senior U.N. official said Israel’s latest evacuation order on Sunday included the U.N. operations center in Deir al-Balah, which was forced to close on short notice. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.N. has been in contact with Israel about the latest order and improving humanitarian operations.

Rose said UNRWA services are continuing with national staff, estimating that 15,000 Palestinians received health services across Gaza on Monday.

But he stressed that the ability of the U.N. humanitarian system to operate in Gaza “is becoming increasingly difficult.”

He said an estimated one million Palestinians a month aren’t getting the food they desperately need because of obstacles at crossing points, with only about 100 trucks with aid getting into Gaza every day instead of the 500 needed.

 

 

 

How many other countries receive billions in US aid that also hang pregnant women?

Spoiler

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_FIREgyqyZ/

But hey some people "like it when terrorists get killed" and who cares if it's an extrajudicial killing of a woman in her third trimester, right?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

58 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

How many other countries receive billions in US aid that also hang pregnant women?

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_FIREgyqyZ/

But hey some people "like it when terrorists get killed" and who cares if it's an extrajudicial killing of a woman in her third trimester, right?

I scrolled the Insta account you linked to and here’s what I found:

Dan Bizerian:

Sinwar speeches:

Boycott Pepsi because you should be disgusted by the JEWS

[chainsaw 10289]

1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I scrolled the Insta account you linked to and here’s what I found:

Dan Bizerian:

Sinwar speeches:

Boycott Pepsi because you should be disgusted by the JEWS

Interesting deflection.

The particular guys in the Pepsi video were mocking the assault on Rafah.

https://mmnews.tv/jews-organize-pepsi-dance-after-massacre-in-rafah/

Anyway, you like seeing pregnant women hanged?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Interesting deflection.

The particular guys in the Pepsi video were mocking the assault on Rafah.

https://mmnews.tv/jews-organize-pepsi-dance-after-massacre-in-rafah/

Anyway, you like seeing pregnant women hanged?

I have no idea what that image is or was and it’s on an atrocity porn site that platforms this guy. I actually dismiss anything you post or link to because you’re swimming in a pool of shit. 

The other link you provided offered this description of the “Pepsi dance”:

Quote

In a post on the social media platform X, RTE Urdu shared a video in which some people, apparently Jews, are dancing while balancing a bottle of Pepsi on their heads.

Accompanying the video, RTE Urdu wrote in Urdu that Jews celebrated receiving a $1 billion fund from Pepsi after the massacre of Palestinians in Rafah. The post urged Muslims to boycott Pepsi and Coca-Cola forever.

RTE Urdu says Jews got a “$ 1 billion dollar fund”! After Rafah! Sounds legit! It was on X.
 

I don’t know what your own thoughts are but I feel comfortable saying that you are linking to some explicitly anti-Semitic shit. 

[chainsaw 10289]

13 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I have no idea what that image is or was and it’s on an atrocity porn site that platforms this guy. I actually dismiss anything you post or link to because you’re swimming in a pool of shit. 

The other link you provided offered this description of the “Pepsi dance”:

RTE Urdu says Jews got a “$ 1 billion dollar fund”! After Rafah! Sounds legit! It was on X.
 

I don’t know what your own thoughts are but I feel comfortable saying that you are linking to some explicitly anti-Semitic shit. 

99% of what that IG account posts is firsthand accounts of IDF's atrocities. It's quite telling the lengths you needed to go to unearth these other posts, mostly retweets, with some tangential relationship to a figure you find problematic. I don't know or care who Dan Bilzerian is.

So, if you want to "dismiss" the horrible things being done with our tax dollars, that's on your conscience.

 

[956 Worldwide 35592]

That link to the Pepsi story is so painfully stupid, LOL.  You read a story on a Pakistani website about Jews dancing with Pepsi because of a ONE BILLION DOLLAR FUND given to…someone….and of course it’s tied to Rafah, and you believed it.  That is honestly at least as dumb as any Q-shit I’ve seen. 

[chainsaw 10289]

3 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

That link to the Pepsi story is so painfully stupid, LOL.  You read a story on a Pakistani website about Jews dancing with Pepsi because of a ONE BILLION DOLLAR FUND given to…someone….and of course it’s tied to Rafah, and you believed it.  That is honestly at least as dumb as any Q-shit I’ve seen. 

Can you refute it?

 

[956 Worldwide 35592]

4 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Can you refute it?

 

No, I can’t prove a negative but I can identify you as a dumbass. 

[chainsaw 10289]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

No, I can’t prove a negative but I can identify you as a dumbass. 

There's a lot of social media out there consistent with the timing of the video. Do you know a lot of people who do celebratory dances with Pepsi products on their heads? It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance, if not arrogance, to assume all these news sources are lying just to defame a group of people.

Even if they were biased, how does any of that justify the extrajudicial hanging of pregnant women? Why do you keep avoiding that question?

[Brian Fantana 6865]

2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Can you refute it?

Come on, man, stop. It's obviously a dude bottle dancing at a wedding. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest anything beyond that. You're basically doing the PRONG HORN thing posting shit from some social media rage bait account, aka the thing I've been trying to get people to fucking stop doing for months.

Both of you are just literally proving immamac's point with this stupid ass argument about nothing that nobody fucking cares about.

[chainsaw 10289]

2 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Come on, man, stop. It's obviously a dude bottle dancing at a wedding.

Pepsi? At a wedding?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

15 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

There's a lot of social media out there consistent with the timing of the video. Do you know a lot of people who do celebratory dances with Pepsi products on their heads? It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance, if not arrogance, to assume all these news sources are lying just to defame a group of people.

 

Yeah, what was I thinking, there’s no way a bunch of people are lying on social media. You got me there man. 

[chainsaw 10289]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Yeah, what was I thinking, there’s no way a bunch of people are lying on social media. You got me there man. 

I mean sure it's possible all these people conspired to tell the same lie, but I don't think it's very likely.

Will you ever tell us what your position is on the hanging of pregnant women?

[956 Worldwide 35592]

6 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

I mean sure it's possible all these people conspired to tell the same lie, but I don't think it's very likely.

Will you ever tell us what your position is on the hanging of pregnant women?

If you haven’t figured it out, I think you’re posting rage-bait with a questionable tie to reality so I won’t comment.

[BrickHorn 18447]

7 hours ago, chainsaw said:

Do you honestly believe everything Israel says?

Narrator: Yes, he does. 

[DDD Dad 14648]

[Brian Fantana 6865]

Israeli Hostage Held by Hamas Rescued by IDF From Gaza - Israel News - Haaretz.com

[InkaUtexas 26869]

More on the hostage.  All i know is this guy fucks.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said it rescued a hostage from an underground tunnel in Gaza on Tuesday, freeing one of the scores of people abducted during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that ignited the war in Gaza.

The rescue brought a rare moment of joy to Israelis after 10 months of war but also served as a painful reminder that dozens of hostages are still in captivity as international mediators try to broker a cease-fire in which they would be released.

The military said Qaid Farhan Alkadi was rescued from a tunnel in a “complex operation” in the southern Gaza Strip, but provided few other details. It was not immediately known if the rescue was made under fire or if anyone was killed or wounded during the operation.

Alkadi was one of eight members of Israel’s Arab Bedouin minority who were abducted on Oct. 7. He was working as a guard at a packing factory in Kibbutz Magen, one of several farming communities that came under attack. He has two wives and is the father of 11 children.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-08-27-2024-696f8ee830207815efd31320976ef118

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

Celebrating at the DNC in a Time of Genocide

Joy was everywhere—as long as you didn’t think about Gaza.
 

Chicago—The Democratic National Convention is over. The tens of thousands of Democrats who descended on Chicago this week are now on their way back home. And to judge by the headlines, they had a wonderful time.

The theme of “joy” has dominated the messaging from both the Kamala Harris campaign and the media over the past few days. “Kamala Harris leans on the ‘politics of joy,’” began a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times. USA Today titled a piece, “DNC is bubbling with joy and optimism. Could Trump’s dark view of America be … a lie?”

But a scrappy, underfunded coalition of activists wasn’t ready to vibe their way through what they and countless scholars say is an ongoing genocide in Gaza—one that continues to be carried out using American weapons.

These activists were both inside and outside the DNC. The Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of more than 250 organizations, held two mobilizations at the beginning and end of the convention, and people turned out in the thousands, uniting around the demands to end the genocide and stop all US aid to Israel. (Other groups also took action throughout the week.) And 29 uncommitted delegates, representing roughly 740,000 voters who cast protest votes during the primary to show their opposition to US support for Israel’s military operations, showed up inside the DNC calling for an arms embargo. They staged an overnight sit-in, followed by a mobilization inside the DNC, pushing their far more moderate demand for a Palestinian-American speaker on the main stage (though their primary goal, and that of protesters outside of the perimeter, remained an arms embargo against Israel).

All of this work was ultimately in service of one end: to make sure that gleeful liberals cannot evade the shameful, inconvenient fact that the Biden White House—and the Harris campaign—have not changed their position on Israel’s ongoing, wholesale destruction of Gaza.

Not that Democrats and their allies aren’t striving mightily to convince people otherwise. In her climactic acceptance speech on Thursday night, Harris called the suffering in Gaza “devastating” and “heartbreaking,” though she refused to identify the cause of that suffering. She said she and Biden were “working to secure a ceasefire” so that “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination”—words that are identical to ones Biden has been using. For this bare minimum, she was hailed by liberal pundits as having broken important new ground.

But the truth is clear. Despite both Biden and Harris’s pointing to so-called “ceasefire talks,” they have each refused to back peace activists’ demand—a demand shared by all major Palestinian organizations, humanitarian groups, and seven major unions representing nearly half of all union members, including the NEA, SEIU, and UAW: a total arms embargo against Israel until it ends its bombing, siege, and occupation of Gaza.

To the average Democrat, all of this can, understandably, be a bit confusing. After all, don’t the White House and Vice President Harris support a ceasefire?

The confusion is the point. Biden and Harris support a ceasefire in name only. The White House co-opted calls for a ceasefire last February and shifted the definition from its common historical usage: using the threat of an arms embargo to force Israel to end its military campaign. That’s how the term was used in previous attacks on Gaza in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021. Now, “ceasefire” refers to a vague truce outline that Israel can choose or not choose to agree to, while still receiving US military aid no matter what.

This is why, beginning in the spring of this year, activists shifted their key demand from a ceasefire to an arms embargo on Israel: Because the White house and many Democrats had turned the word “ceasefire”—like the phrase “two-state solution” before it— into yet another way to buy Israel time as it continued to inflict a daily death toll that is unprecedented in the 21st century.

The week of the DNC, the official death toll, which researchers believe to be a massive undercount, surpassed 40,000. The day Kamala Harris gave her speech, over 40 Palestinians were killed by Israel bombings in Khan Younis, including over a dozen children.

The PR effort by the White House to co-opt and warp the term “ceasefire”—in concert with switching from Biden to Harris—seems to have mostly worked. Youth support has shot back up, and the “vibes” are reportedly good again.

But those actually focused on policy, and the fact of the US support for genocide, aren’t easily fooled by these superficial gestures. They will not be won over by vague shifts in “tone” or “I see you, I hear you” nonprofit speak. So this week in Chicago, the city with the largest Palestinian diaspora population in the United States, they stuck by their plans to pressure both the current President Biden and likely future President Harris to agree to an arms embargo— to condition aid to Israel until it acts in line with US and international law.

Thus far, Harris has refused these requests. Her top foreign policy adviser Phil Gordon told reporters on August 8 that “Harris does not support an arms embargo on Israel.” And her former Senate national security adviser Halie Soifer told a panel at the DNC on August 20, “A Kamala Harris administration will not cut or condition US security assistance to Israel.” Put simply, Harris will continue Biden’s strategy: pretending that a ceasefire will happen by magic, or that Benjamin Netanyahu will have a sudden change of heart, rather than using actual leverage from the most powerful country in human history to end the war.

In an obscure conference room outside the DNC security perimeter, I met a group of courageous doctors who described the most unimaginable horrors, flanked by uncommitted delegates.

They had all volunteered in Gaza, sometimes for months. Now they were in Chicago to try to break through, to appeal to the humanity of the DNC attendees. They spoke of holding the hands of dying children who didn’t have family members alive left to care for them. They described collapsed medical systems where basic supplies like soap and bandages were so scarce they couldn’t even perform as doctors. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who was in Gaza from March 25 to April 8, told the room:

Quote

“I saw children’s heads smashed to pieces by bullets we paid for, not once, not twice, but every single day. I saw the outrageous, systematic destruction of the entire city of Khan Younis. If there is a single room with four walls left in the entire city I couldn’t tell you where it is. I saw mothers mix what little formula they could find with poisoned water to feed to their newborns, since they were so malnourished themselves that they could not breastfeed. I saw children who cried not out of pain, but because they wished they had died along with their families instead of being burdened with the memory of their siblings and parents charred and mutilated beyond recognition. All, of course, by American ordnance.”

Yet the party must go on, and for the vast bulk of Democrats, this fake “ceasefire” PR has given them permission to compartmentalize the horrors of Gaza. But the line between the Biden-Harris administration and Gaza isn’t the least bit circuitous. It’s clear and straight. The Gaza genocide is real and very much the responsibility, in large part, of the current administration.

Needless to say, powerful Democrats are not particularly keen to discuss this reality. When we saw Chuck Schumer on the floor of the DNC, where he was being warmly greeted by his supporters, we asked him if he backed the calls from the UAW and other labor unions for an arms embargo on Israel. The second he heard our question, he walked away. The horrors of Gaza can only ruin the vibes.
 

A group of 29 uncommitted delegates, meanwhile, did their best to be the most reasonable, loyal, and moderate pro-Palestine voice of the bunch. Despite their praising Kamala Harris, trying to work with her, and trying to use their credentials as established Democratic loyalists and voters, the party rejected their request for a brief speaking slot.

The protesters outside, meanwhile, were mocked and given snarky write-ups belittling their turnout, even as they showed up in the thousands and took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, with at least 74 people arrested since last Sunday.

There is simply no right way to oppose genocide. Whether you’re an exceedingly polite self-described “insider” or a protester in the streets, you’re either ignored, treated like a terrorist, or called a joke.

The whiplash from the beige, off-site conference room in a large, mostly empty convention center talking to doctors pleading for some kind of change in policy to the fever-pitched excitement on the packed convention floor was sobering. The contrast was morally upsetting to anyone who believes in the straight line between the White House and the nonstop images of dead children. But most don’t. And it’s unclear how to make that connection for millions who simply don’t want to see what is obvious.

The easy leftist answer is that those inside are simply misinformed, heavily propagandized. And while that’s no doubt true to a large extent, I’m not totally sure they don’t want to be. Partisanship is a powerful force. Media misinformation is a powerful force. Having parasocial relations with our elected leaders is a powerful force. Fearing Donald Trump and the real dangers of Project 2025 is a powerful force.

This combination results in the widespread decision to push Gaza out of sight. One can’t help but think that if just 5 percent of this support on marked display at the United Center this week was withheld on condition of Harris agreeing to end arms sales to the Gaza genocide, she would agree overnight. If pro–arms embargo elected officials like Representatives Ilhan Omar and Joaquin Castro, and pro–arms embargo unions like SEIU, NEA, and UAW, had withheld their endorsements until after Harris agreed to cut off aid—rather than offering it in a matter of days—it may have worked. But they didn’t. The lone Palestinian American in Congress, Representative Rashida Tlaib, did, but she remains on a limb all alone. Most progressives issued good statements, no doubt, but like the Biden White House, refused to use their actual leverage. Everyone says the right things, and feels bad and sad, but almost no one I spoke to—except the protesters outside, the Gaza healthcare workers, and the uncommitted delegates inside—seemed to be willing to actually risk anything.

And so the bombs continue, and the party goes on. Gaza is removed from our minds and the field of vision of those attending the big celebration. And everyone—or at least those not on the wrong end of American weapons—gets to feel “joy” again.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/dnc-gaza-genocide/

[956 Worldwide 35592]

That article sparked me to read another BBC article about the missing hostages since I noticed that the guy was Bedouin.  There are still some other remaining Bedouin, as well as at least one Nepalese and several Thais (and bodies of some Thai hostages). 
 

I guess I can kind of see the Bedouin being viewed as traitors to Islam or whatever, but it’s wild about the Nepalese and Thais.  You’d think they’d have given then back early to score some PR points but then again these are the worst people in the world. 

[Brian Fantana 6865]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/28/israel-gaza-war-west-bank-palestinian/

Israel currently carrying out a large scale op in the West Bank, a place where they definitely do not belong in any capacity. Their goal is to "thwart terror", again in a place where they should not be at all, in a place where they themselves are the terrorists.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-28/ty-article/.premium/palestinians-report-nine-killed-eight-wounded-in-israeli-army-west-bank-raids/00000191-97e9-df0a-ab9f-f7e97b7d0000

Quote

Israel's foreign minister likened the raid to operations in Gaza, saying Israel should consider 'temporary evacuations in the West Bank'

Remember when I said they wanted to do the exact same thing they're doing to Gaza to the West Bank? No one that gets "temporarily evacuated" will ever be allowed to return to their homes. This is our tax dollars at work, again.

[InkaUtexas 26869]

What do they gain? Not a fucking thing.

And on the subject of US Tax dollars. We fund and train (yep, US personnel) the West Bank's Police Authority. So we train the people who are there to defend against violence AND those committing the violence. Fucked up policy....

 

[BrickHorn 18447]

3 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Their goal is to "thwart terror"

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

 

https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2024/08/26?story=paragraph-9192

Edited August 28 by MC Fresh Breath

[chainsaw 10289]

The media blackout is disgusting

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

US Health Workers Back From Gaza Calculate Death Toll at 92,000 — at a Minimum
 

Quote

 

Dozens of U.S. doctors and nurses who have returned from volunteer trips to Gaza say in a scathing new letter that Israel’s assault, along with the famine and epidemics raging across Gaza, have killed a conservative estimate of at least 92,000 Palestinians so far — over double the widely-cited official death count by health officials.

In their message sent to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the first lady on Thursday, the group of 45 health care workers say that the things they saw in Gaza are beyond anything they have seen in other conflicts, and will forever be seared in their minds.

“President and Dr. Biden, 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,” they wrote. “We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.”

The range of horrors the health care workers reported seeing is extremely wide, encompassing dire hunger, grisly injuries and deadly illnesses. While in Gaza, thy saw babies die each day; held babies’ brains in their hands for the first time — and not the last; had to treat children who were shot in the head on a daily basis; and watched desperate families have to feed their newborns with formula mixed with “poisoned water”; among countless other atrocities.

With few exceptions, “everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both,” they wrote — including the entirety of the Palestinian population, every aid worker and volunteer, and likely every Israeli hostage. They said that every child under five years old they encountered, both in and out of their care, likely had Hepatitis A.

The spread of illness is due to Israel’s blockade and attacks on the Gaza sanitation system, they said, and will only get worse.

“Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking,” the letter says.

“It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months,” they said.

The letter concludes by urging the Biden administration to withhold military, diplomatic and economic support from Israel, and to participate in a global arms embargo, in order to secure a permanent ceasefire as soon as possible.

In an appendix to the letter, the medical workers cite statistics and projections from international experts in order to arrive at their estimate of the death toll, which they caution is — like the official death count of 39,000 Palestinians — also likely a vast undercount.

On top of the official death count, the workers say that the death toll from the famine is likely 37,786 people, a calculation based on estimates from reports by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) about Gaza and typical death tolls from the levels of hunger the IPC has found in Gaza.

This is far, far higher than the official estimate of 34 people who have died of starvation so far. The vast discrepancy is due to the impossibility of accounting for all starvation deaths, as health officials are only able to count deaths reported by health facilities — many of which are physically out of reach for starving Palestinians, both because they have been severely weakened and because hospitals in Gaza have been overflowing with patients for months.

“All told, it is highly likely that the death toll from starvation matches or even exceeds the death toll from violence in Gaza,” the medical workers said.

The deaths due to Israel’s starvation campaign include babies who only lived for a week before dying, as families have shared with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) in testimonies published this week. Parents report having to watch their children slowly waste away, completely unable to help them even when they’re admitted to treatment centers.

This includes seven-day-old Abdulaziz Salem, who only knew life in an incubator after dying on March 2 in Kamal Adwan as his mother was also in critical condition. Salem suffered from jaundice and malnutrition during pregnancy before dying of cardiac arrest and lack of oxygen, DCIP said.

“I could not breastfeed my son because I had no food and I became sick,” his mother told DCIP. She said her family was displaced six times while she was pregnant. “There was no oxygen or baby formula in the hospital. My son died, suffocating and hungry.”

The medical workers additionally estimate that Israel’s blockade on medical treatments and attacks on health care workers have killed at least 5,000 Palestinians so far — again, a low estimate, they emphasize as they say with “absolute certainty” that “no small number” of people with medical conditions like cancer or diabetes have died.

These numbers add up to roughly 92,000 people — roughly 4.2 percent of the entire population of Gaza. The estimates of the death toll don’t include the thousands of Palestinians missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

As the letter says, this is still likely much lower than the true death toll. The medical workers reference a recent estimate from an editorial published in medical journal The Lancet in which public health experts said that, going off death tolls from similar modern conflicts and massacres, the true death toll of Palestinians could be 186,000. This, too, is a low estimate, the researchers said.

The impact on children is particularly horrific. The health care workers point out that, even just going off the list of children killed who have been identified, the death toll is equivalent to 1.2 million children being killed in the U.S., adjusted for population.

“We are unaware of a similar proportion of any population being killed and maimed in 10 months of conflict since World War II,” the group said.

 

https://truthout.org/articles/us-health-workers-back-from-gaza-calculate-death-toll-at-92000-at-a-minimum/

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

11 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

The media blackout is disgusting

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/23/middleeast/israel-gaza-water-shortages-heatwave-crisis-intl

 

Live TV

Children are drinking from puddles and wading through sewage pools, as Israel pummels water systems in Gaza
 

Quote

 

CNN  — 

Guns swinging from their hips, two soldiers in black combat boots and green tactical clothing appear to wire explosives to pumps at the Canada Water reservoir in Rafah, southern Gaza.

Moments later, an orange blaze tears through the critical facility in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, as ribbons of grey smoke erupt into the sky.

The blast was captured in a now deleted video, which was reportedly shared by an Israeli soldier on Instagram and geolocated by CNN. Satellite imagery shows that the reservoir was damaged between July 26 and July 27. Destroyed buildings are visible in the surrounding area. 

 

 

 

 

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

https://old.reddit.com/r/NewsAndPolitics/comments/1f2vp8d/this_young_palestinian_man_named_medo_made_videos/

his tiktok was here.  i don't normally go to tiktok.  watched some of these though. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@medohalimy

Edited August 28 by MC Fresh Breath

[Brian Fantana 6865]

Genocide, terrorism, war crimes. Our 3 biggest exports.

[Brian Fantana 6865]

Some lighter news amid all the shit:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/28/israel-polio-pause-gaza/

Quote

Israel has agreed to a temporary pause of some military operations in the Gaza Strip to enable a polio vaccination campaign there, a senior State Department official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel had not agreed to “pauses in the fighting in order to administer polio vaccines,” but rather “the allocation of certain places in the Gaza Strip” for unstated purposes, an arrangement it said had been approved by the security cabinet. The wording appeared designed to avoid indicating it had approved a humanitarian pause in the fighting in the absence of a cease-fire deal opposed by some members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

The State Department official said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a meeting with Netanyahu in Israel last week, had made a “major push” to make arrangements for the safe implementation of a vaccination campaign after international health officials confirmed a case of the polio virus in Gaza, where vaccinations and other health care have been severely disrupted since the Israel-Hamas war began in early October.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity while the details of the program, including the duration and locations of individual pauses, are still being worked out.

Word of the planned campaign came as the World Food Program said Wednesday it has temporarily suspended movement of its staff in Gaza “until further notice” after a clearly marked WFP vehicle came under fire Tuesday evening. The shooting took place “a few meters” from an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge in the central part of the enclave, WFP said.

“Despite being clearly marked and receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach, the vehicle was directly struck by gunfire as it was moving towards an [IDF] checkpoint,” WFP statement said. “It sustained at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side and three on other parts of the vehicle. None of the employees onboard were physically harmed.”

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, said the vehicle was shot at by the Israel Defense Forces. Dujarric said Wednesday that the United Nations had lodged a formal complaint with Israeli authorities, but so far has not received a response. The targeted vehicle, he said, was part of a convoy of at least three, all with clear WFP markings.

“We have no way to assess the mindset of those who are shooting at us,” Dujarric said. “We do know that the movement of this particular convoy was coordinated with the Israeli authorities. Whether the information wasn’t passed down, whether it was deliberate, whether there was another reason, those are explanations we would like to get.”

Cindy McCain, the head of WFP, said the shooting was “totally unacceptable ... We have repeatedly asked for a functioning deconfliction system in Gaza, and yet the current arrangements have failed.”

Israel — which has accused UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, of Hamas sympathies — has said it implemented stricter deconfliction procedures for humanitarian vehicles traveling in Gaza after what it said was a mistaken attack in April on a marked World Central Kitchen vehicle. Seven WCK workers were killed in the attack.

The IDF said Sunday that polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, brought in specially refrigerated trucks in coordination with the United Nations. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, both U.N. agencies, have said they are organized to begin widespread vaccinations as soon as it is safe to do so.

The last case of polio was reported in Gaza a quarter century ago. Children are most at risk from the highly contagious virus.

This is a good thing, assuming no "accidental" massacres occur during the campaign.

[PRONG HORN 3219]

6 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

US Health Workers Back From Gaza Calculate Death Toll at 92,000 — at a Minimum

 

I wonder how many of the 92,000 were counted twice.

 

 

 

 

[InkaUtexas 26869]

11 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Genocide, terrorism, war crimes. Our 3 biggest exports.

Please elaborate. Other than Palestine where have we exported genocide and terrorism?

Did a new UT Student not wearing a Che shirt forget to tuck you in last night?

[Keef 888]

12 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Please elaborate. Other than Palestine where have we exported genocide and terrorism?

Did a new UT Student not wearing a Che shirt forget to tuck you in last night?

America does a lot of things right in the world but we do a lot of things wrong.  I have no idea why we went to Iraq.  The CIA spent decades overthrowing central and south american politicians in favor of authoritarian dictators.  Same thing in Africa too.

[InkaUtexas 26869]

4 minutes ago, Keef said:

America does a lot of things right in the world but we do a lot of things wrong.  I have no idea why we went to Iraq.  The CIA spent decades overthrowing central and south american politicians in favor of authoritarian dictators.  Same thing in Africa too.

None of those are genocide.

[Keef 888]

1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

None of those are genocide.

I would encourage you to do a bit of reading on our involvement with Pinochet, Sukarno, and Habré, just off the top of my head.  And while certainly not a "genocide", I'm willing to bet far more Afghans and Iraqis died than Palestinians at this juncture.  

[InkaUtexas 26869]

6 minutes ago, Keef said:

I would encourage you to do a bit of reading on our involvement with Pinochet, Sukarno, and Habré, just off the top of my head.  And while certainly not a "genocide", I'm willing to bet far more Afghans and Iraqis died than Palestinians at this juncture.  

Sure, I know those stories quite well. And we stood witness for years in Bosnia and Rwanda. Today as before we doing little to halt what is going on in Sudan. I asked him why where we committed Genocide (other than the US Native American Population).

Pinochet is not genocide. And look across the non-US supported Argentine Junta. Habre yes, but then we need to line up a lot more African leaders for tribal attrocities. Indonesia. Yes, was it more political or tribal/religeous or a hybrid.

Iraq , Afghanistan, not sure. Do you count inter-ethnic/tribal/religious incidents as part of our involvement? For instance, if a Sunni backed by Saudis blows up a Shia Mosque getting people, maybe a couple of militants, supporting Iran, does that count go against the US?

[Anastasis 23717]

31 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

None of those are genocide.

We genocide democracy when democratic outcomes are not aligned with our foreign policy objectives. 

[AnTiM 1695]

"The IDF said Sunday that polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, brought in specially refrigerated trucks in coordination with the United Nations. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, both U.N. agencies, have said they are organized to begin widespread vaccinations as soon as it is safe to do so.

The last case of polio was reported in Gaza a quarter century ago. Children are most at risk from the highly contagious virus."  

 

Please send all the anti-vaccine hardcases over there to see what they are responsible for.

[Brian Fantana 6865]

2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

I asked him why where we committed Genocide (other than the US Native American Population).

Except that isn't what I said. When I refer to them as exports, it seems like everyone else understood I was talking about past/current instances where we have provided support for groups that were actively committing acts of terror and/or genocide or where our actions directly led to those acts occurring.

[InkaUtexas 26869]

1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

Except that isn't what I said. When I refer to them as exports, it seems like everyone else understood I was talking about past/current instances where we have provided support for groups that were actively committing acts of terror and/or genocide or where our actions directly led to those acts occurring.

OK, where was the genocide? Using the UN's definition. I know you know it. None cited meet genocide as part of US policy, even with exporting training, equipment and morale support.

And I do think Israel is committing genocide. We are not exporting it. We are complicit in giving, not even fucking selling them, the tools.

Playing devil's advocate. It is a term tossed around and when it matters or is taking place, and it is in more places of the world than Palestine, it gets lost. Just like terror. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.