Israel - Palestinian militants launch massive attack, 7 Oct 2023 #2

[JennieM]

Israel releases images of slain children to rally support after Hamas attack​

JERUSALEM/TEL AVIV/BRUSSELS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Israel's government showed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defence ministers graphic images of dead children and civilians on Thursday, saying they were killed by Palestinian group Hamas as it builds support for its response.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office also released on social media a picture of a dead infant in a pool of blood and the charred body of a child, part of an apparent effort to stoke global anger against the Gaza militants over Saturday's attack.

[…]

Israel releases images of slain children to rally support after Hamas attack

Israel's government showed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defence ministers graphic images of dead children and civilians on Thursday, saying they were killed by Palestinian group Hamas as it builds support for its response.

www.reuters.com

 

[JennieM]

Gazans bombarded by Israel have no hope and no escape​

GAZA, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Most of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip have no electricity and no water. And, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run.

The Palestinian territory, one of the most crowded places on Earth, has been under siege since Saturday in a near-constant bombardment that Gazan health officials say has killed more than 1,000 people. The blitz is retaliation for a devastating attack on Israel by Gaza's ruling group Hamas which the Israeli military says killed more than 1,200 people.

Gaza's sole power station, which had been working intermittently for days, cut out on Wednesday after running out of fuel. Without power, water can't be pumped into houses. At night there's nearly total darkness punctuated by fireballs and the pin-pricks of light from phones used as flashlights.

"I lived through all the wars and incursions in the past, but I have never witnessed anything worse than this war," said Yamen Hamad, 35, a father-of-four, whose home had been destroyed by Israeli strikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

At a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, relatives and friends lined up outside the overloaded morgue where bodies were laid out on the floor because coolers were full or had no power.

The mourners were desperate to bury their loved ones swiftly before the unseasonable heat took its toll. They spoke briefly over the bodies, praying for the souls to rest in peace, before they carried them to graves nearby, with stretchers if they were available, or otherwise without.

[…]

Gazans bombarded by Israel have no hope and no escape

Most of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip have no electricity and no water. And, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run.

www.reuters.com

 

[Inthedetails]

I wonder if it was likely to be located near the Gaza border? Did Hamas know that? When did the organizers know where it was going to be? IF their accounts were hacked, then people could have known ahead of time and what better way to hit many by surprise all at once than to hit a music festival with 1000s of young people likely drinking or taking some drugs and being up all night and now tired from a fun filled night listening to music and dancing.. and then in comes terrorists from the air and ground.

Speculation only: Since it was a festival of peace, people from Gaza might have been welcomed and among the people who rsvp'd and received notification of location?

IDK, just wondering aloud.

jmo

 

[Herat]

Both sides will never come together after this, even if the Palestinians wanted it, this war will convince them that it's all Israel's fault. I am sure they are not fully aware of what is really going on and both sides are living in hell on earth. All JMO

A very reasonable observation, bestill

I, too, feel that there is no answer and both sides are getting farther apart than ever.

 

[JennieM]

1m ago
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has urged Australians wanting to leave Israel not to delay.


45s ago

Hundreds of Australians preparing to catch repatriation flights​

AAP: Hundreds of Australians are preparing to get on repatriation flights out of Israel, with two planes to depart Tel Aviv for London in the next 24 hours.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said 1600 people had registered in Israel or the West Bank, including 19 in Gaza, for repatriation in what was an “extraordinary logistical exercise”.

The government has organised two Qantas flights that are due to depart Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday for London. A third flight has also been chartered.

From there, the government will look at what assistance can be provided to get people back to Australia, with Mr Albanese flagging that Qantas is exploring the option of adding flights home via Singapore.

“The first flight from Qantas will leave to London, it will carry 220 passengers ... we’re doing all that we can, this is an extraordinary logistical exercise while a war is going on,” he told Nine’s Today Show on Friday.

An estimated 10,000 Australians citizens are in Israel, including dual citizens and tourists.

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

 

[JennieM]

What's been happening?​

It is currently the middle of the night in Israel and Gaza. Here is the latest news on the ground:

• The number of Israelis killed by Hamas has risen to 1,300, with at least 150 hostages taken into the Gaza Strip
• More than 1,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, with 338,000 people displaced
• The UN sexual and reproductive health agency says 50,000 pregnant women are unable to access essential health services and clean water in Gaza
• While the World Health Organisation says 11 medical workers have been killed in Gaza since Saturday
• Meanwhile, Israel’s information minister, Galit Distel Atbaryan, has resigned - saying the department's funding will be better used elsewhere
• European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen will visit Israel on Friday to express solidarity with the victims of Hamas attacks
• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin is also travelling to Israel on Friday- a day after a visit from Secretary of State Antony Blinken
• And police in France have banned all pro-Palestinian demonstrations because they are "likely to generate disturbances" to public order

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67073970

 

[bestill]

A very reasonable observation, bestill

I, too, feel that there is no answer and both sides are getting farther apart than ever.

It's heartbreaking to watch this living in my safe location. I hate it!! So worried about what our world will look like moving forward.

 

[Eli9]

'A marketing strategy around the world'​

The Washington Institute's Margolin said she believes that Hamas-led attacks were designed by the group to elicit a response from Israel seemingly so "disproportionate" that it would draw international condemnation and overshadow memories of Hamas's own violence.

But the deaths of many Palestinians could also lead to new supporters for its cause.

"[It] could intensify grievances against Israel, strengthening a revenge impact among the Palestinian population," said Max Abrahms, an associate political science professor at Northeastern University in Boston, and an expert in international security, especially in the areas of terrorism and counterterrorism.

"It could serve as essentially a marketing strategy around the world to potential supporters that Hamas is a leading organization within the broader Islamist movement, which could lead to more supporters, more money being spent," he said.

"I honestly think that Hamas wants Israel to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible in order to validate their narrative that Israel is evil."

Hassner, of the University of California, agreed, saying that terrorists often rely on the notion that the enemy is going to respond disproportionately and that this will come at a great cost to the enemy.

"So perhaps the idea was to create such acts of outrage that the Israelis simply would not be able to fight in a restrained way," he said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-gaza-endgame-1.6992430

Many other theories by other analysts at link.

 

[Herat]

Speculation only: Since it was a festival of peace, people from Gaza might have been welcomed and among the people who rsvp'd and received notification of location?

IDK, just wondering aloud.

jmo

I read somewhere, that an attendee of the raided peace festival said he received some odd messages in Arabic from the festival site the week before, but nothing in the website was in arabic. He said the site was only available to those who had registered and paid for it, so there is a concern that HAMAS was targeting this festival for attack along with the kibbitz that were attacked.

The Israeli authorities were looking into the possibility of the site having been hacked. They would have known the festival would have had lots of young people without weapons (it was a peace festival, after all)

 

[JennieM]

8m ago

More than 423,000 people displaced in Gaza: UN​

More than 423,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations said, following heavy Israeli bombardments in retaliation for Hamas’s attacks.

As of late Thursday, the number of displaced in Gaza rose by 84,444 people to reach 423,378, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement sent on Friday.

“Heavy Israeli bombardments, from the air, sea and land, have continued almost uninterrupted,” OCHA said in its update.

“Multiple residential buildings in densely populated areas have been targeted and destroyed during the past 24 hours.”


15m ago

Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Saturday​

The Israeli air force has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Saturday, it said late on Thursday.

“Dozens of fighter jets and helicopters attacked a series of terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organisation throughout the Gaza Strip. So far, the IAF has dropped about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets,” the IAF said on X.

The attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 6,6000 have been wounded.

The Washington Post has spoken to military experts who have called the number of strikes “staggering”. The number of munitions is more than the US used in a month of its campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and almost what the US used in its most intensive year of strikes in Afghanistan:

‘Israel is dropping in less than a week what the US was dropping in Afghanistan in a year, in a much smaller, much more densely populated area, where mistakes are going to be magnified,’ said Marc Garlasco, a military adviser at the Dutch organisation PAX for Peace and a former UN war crimes investigator in Libya.

The highest number of bombs dropped in one year during the war in Afghanistan was just over 7,423, Garlasco said, citing public records from US Air Forces Central Command. During the entire war in Libya, NATO reported dropping more than 7,600 bombs and missiles from planes, according to a UN report.

During the air campaign against the Islamic State in 2014 through 2019, the US-led coalition dropped 2,000 to 5,000 munitions per month across all of Iraq and Syria, military affairs journalist Wesley Morgan pointed out Thursday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, citing a Rand Corp. report.

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

 

[JennieM]

2m ago

Israeli bombing has destroyed eleven mosques, damaged 90 schools​

Israel’s bombing campaign has destroyed 752 residential and non-residential buildings, comprising 2,835 housing units, the UN says, citing numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing.

Another nearly 1,800 housing units have been damaged beyond repair and rendered uninhabitable, it said.

The UN agency also voiced alarm at the significant destruction of civilian infrastructure damaged in the shelling.

At least 90 educational facilities, including 20 UNRWA schools and 70 schools run by the Palestinian Authority, have also been struck and damaged, with one of the schools completely destroyed.

“Eleven mosques were targeted and destroyed, while seven churches and mosques sustained damage,” OCHA said.

Water and sanitation facilities have been also hit, it said, adding that since the hostilities began, six water wells, three water pumping stations, one water reservoir, and one desalination plant serving more than 1,100,000 people were damaged by air strikes.

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

 

[abanddb123]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but how come Israel troops, our troops, other Nato troops are not going in by foot, checking every tunnel and every house?

 

[Dotta]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but how come Israel troops, our troops, other Nato troops are not going in by foot, checking every tunnel and every house?

Israel, a country that struggles with many of its own specific political and security problems, currently does not have the conditions to join NATO.
NATO is not necessarily the right intermediary to help Israel.

 

[escape2sc]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but how come Israel troops, our troops, other Nato troops are not going in by foot, checking every tunnel and every house?

Israel, US and other NATO troops would be walking targets. Too many places for Hamas soldiers to hide or set up explosives.

 

[JennieM]

4m ago
Tamsin Rose

In Australia, police in the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, have applied for “extraordinary powers” to search protesters without reason and arrest and charge people who refuse to identify themselves at Sunday’s planned pro-Palestinian rally.

The acting commissioner, David Hudson, said he believed the threshold for using the powers introduced after the 2005 Cronulla riots had been met and he would seek to have them enabled before the rally in Sydney’s Hyde Park.

“These powers are extraordinary – these powers are seldom used,” he said on Friday.

Hudson urged people against attending the planned protest and warned against a repeat of Monday night’s march in which some people chanted antisemitic slurs and let off flares on the steps of the Opera House.Hudson said the force was getting legal advice over its ability to use the powers, which included provisions to lock the city down.

“Just because they’re available, does not necessarily mean they have to be used and we will not use the full extent of the powers which can lock the city down,” he said.

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

 

[Arkay]

I feel the same. Worried. My city is where the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States happened, with the synagogue massacre in 2018. Praying for all of us, everywhere.

I’m afraid that tomorrow will bring widespread misery. I so hope I’m wrong.

Please stay safe. Tomorrow will be telling, imo.

There are so many similar comments here. Comments about its being Friday the 13th, comments about if it’s really going to be a worldwide Jihad day.

In my neighborhood in NYC we’ve already received messages from our co-op’s management about security measures that will be in place to safeguard us, and warnings about what precautions to take.

I think is is IMPERATIVE to note a very crucial point—-though it is Israel and Jews who were slaughtered without warning, it is NOT Israel and Jews who are threatening world violence, on Friday or any other day.

That is not the Jewish way. What is happening in Gaza now is necessitated because every aspect of Hamas must be obliterated. But the world will never see Jews rise up and threaten international violence.

This is Islamist extremism.

This is the difference.

IMO the bad guys are obvious.

Outside of retaliation to destroy the Hamas nest of vipers and those who support them, NOBODY is locking their doors and staying home because they fear that Jews are intending a day of global violence.

IMO

 

[katydid23]

It makes me very sad and alarmed to see so many pro-Hamas rallies all around the Western World.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1712603910450356251

 

[JennieM]

5m ago

Israeli death toll stands at 1,300​

More than 1,300 people, including 222 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to the military.

The toll has not been seen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria that lasted weeks, Reuters reports.

The majority of the dead were killed in a single day, when Hamas fighters broke through the border and attacked Israeli civilians.

Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza. Israel says it has so far identified 97 of them.

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

 

[Chimera]

12m ago

Hamas hints Iran, Hezbollah not involved in decision to attack Israel​

Joanna Walters

Hamas just gave unprecedented briefing in English to world media, via Telegram, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Beth McKernan is reporting on the hop, via X/Twitter.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1712557306284835263

She says that the militant group that controls Gaza said that “the decision to launch a military operation was entirely Palestinian.”

The subtext appears to be that Hamas allies Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah were not involved in Saturday’s surprise and merciless assault on Israel by militants breaking out of Gaza to launch their attack.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1712557991663403325

Bethan also reports that Hamas made spurious claims that Israeli civilians weren’t deliberately targeted and that the attacks were aimed entirely at Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bases.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1712557991663403325

Palestinian death toll passes 1,500 – as it happened

UN spokesperson says such a movement would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ as Israel prepares for a ground offensive; Palestinian death toll rises to 1,537, according to Gaza’s health ministry

www.theguardian.com

I need an "eye roll" emoji, for reactions to posts.
My goodness.

They expect us to just blindly believe this ?
Omo.

 

[Momoffourboys]

I read somewhere, that an attendee of the raided peace festival said he received some odd messages in Arabic from the festival site the week before, but nothing in the website was in arabic. He said the site was only available to those who had registered and paid for it, so there is a concern that HAMAS was targeting this festival for attack along with the kibbitz that were attacked.

The Israeli authorities were looking into the possibility of the site having been hacked. They would have known the festival would have had lots of young people without weapons (it was a peace festival, after all)

Yes. I posted that upthread from the Israeli newspaper. The organizer believes his Fb was hacked. He survived and has been helping with names/lists.