Israel - Palestinian militants launch massive attack, 7 Oct 2023 #6

[JennieM]

Dual citizens can’t get out of Gaza

Palestinian Americans and other dual citizens rushed to southern Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt on Saturday as 20 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid entered the besieged strip that has staggered under shortages of medicine and food.

Even as embassies asked their citizens in Gaza to stand ready at the border, crowds of disappointed Palestinians holding American, Canadian, German and British passports waited hours in vain for at least fifth time this week.

“There is no opening of the crossing, and the suffering is the same,” said U.S. citizen Dina al- Khatib. “They communicate with us, but there is no change.”

With a humanitarian disaster brewing in Gaza, al-Khatib said she and her family were desperate to get out.

“It’s is not like previous wars,” she said. “There is no electricity, no water, no internet, nothing.”

Israel Hamas war live updates: Israel escalates its bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate.

apnews.com

 

[Friday Fan]

Too bad this is paywalled. Very informative article:

How to Navigate a Hostage Situation Like No Other​

Opinion | When it Comes to the Hostages, Israel Has Only a Few Options
Gershon Baskin is the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization, a human rights advocacy group and is an Israeli citizen.

He has contact with Hamas. Had a family member who was a hostage and was killed in 2005.
Proposed trade of 33 Palestinian women and 170 Palestinian minors currently in Israeli prisons. Hamas rejected it.
They want a complete cease fire.

Qatar is speaking with Hamas and the United States is speaking with Qatar and Israel.
There need to be direct talks between Israel, Qatar and Hamas, and no one else.
The US should not be involved in these talks. (His opinion)

 

[PommyMommy]

Please don’t look away.

It’s easy to keep scrolling in the age of social media, but we ask that you keep reading and sharing the names and photos of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas.

We need to keep their stories alive so that we can bring them home.

Every minute counts.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715744269560893905

 

[dotr]

RSBM from your link.


It is astounding to me, still, that all the atrocities perpetrated on these civilians should now be fading into the media background, and instead the message is mainly about the hungry Gazans.

How appalling is this world that there is so much anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment flooding the globe, with barely a backward glance as to why Israel is forced to eliminate Hamas.

Grandmothers raped until their pelvises were broken!

Children, virginal little children raped until their pelvises were broken!!!!

Families asleep one moment, then the next, their brains spilling out!!!

Murdering pregnant women and beheading a fetus!!!!

Families burnt alive in front of one another, to suffer not only physically but in emotional anguish!!

All the other aspects of this massacre that we have all learned about….a field of young people listening to music and hunted down for hours….

No, I don’t want to see innocent children from Gaza going hungry, but in my opinion, there is much more entwining of Palestinians and Hamas than people want to accept as the truth.

The children in Gaza are brainwashed from childhood to hate others, mainly Jews, and grow up to perpetuate this ideology.

This mindset of hate eventually brings suffering to all the world.

We have been told, forthrightly, by Islamist extremists that their goal is to extinguish not only Jews but Christians and all other religions, with the ideal being a Muslim-only Earth.

Israel was given no choice in this matter. They must eliminate those who kill them…kill or be killed is all that’s left.

Live and let live would bring peace instead, but that does not seem possible.

IMO

They could not say whether the mother was shot first or not...

Hamas ‘sliced baby out of pregnant Israeli’s womb’ while bodies of 20 kids found

The mother was found with her stomach wide open and a bullet in her head.

www.express.co.uk

'A commander of an emergency response unit is said to have broken down in tears as he described the scenes int he town close to the Gaza border.

"We see a pregnant lady on the floor, and we turn her around...and the stomach is wide open, there's an unborn baby connected to the cord, stabbed with a knife, and the mother shot in the head," Yossi Landau told i24News.''

 

[Friday Fan]

Dual citizens can’t get out of Gaza

Palestinian Americans and other dual citizens rushed to southern Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt on Saturday as 20 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid entered the besieged strip that has staggered under shortages of medicine and food.

Even as embassies asked their citizens in Gaza to stand ready at the border, crowds of disappointed Palestinians holding American, Canadian, German and British passports waited hours in vain for at least fifth time this week.

“There is no opening of the crossing, and the suffering is the same,” said U.S. citizen Dina al- Khatib. “They communicate with us, but there is no change.”

With a humanitarian disaster brewing in Gaza, al-Khatib said she and her family were desperate to get out.

“It’s is not like previous wars,” she said. “There is no electricity, no water, no internet, nothing.”

Israel Hamas war live updates: Israel escalates its bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate.

apnews.com

I wonder if they have even have customs agents at the border right now??

Maybe with the trucks coming in and likely returning, they are focused on that aspect. It is a small crossing.

 

[PommyMommy]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has once again claimed Responsibility for a Drone Attack today on U.S. Forces at Al-Asad Airbase in Western Iraq; this is the 3rd or 4th Attack on this Base by this Group within the last 72 Hours.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715746338896228793

 

[PommyMommy]

A Hamas Terrorist on a Motorcycle near the City of Khan Yunis tried to cross the Border from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israeli earlier and was Liquidated by the Air Force.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715752499808702806

Palestinian media reporting senior Hamas member Talal al-Hindi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715748817184935960

A Israeli Soldier has been Airlifted to Rambam Health Care Campus in the Northern City of Haifa after suffering Serious Injuries from an Anti-Tank Guided Missile launched by Hezbollah on the Border with Lebanon.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715764018160230779

 

[Gypsy Road]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it.

If there is no power in Gaza or very little, no water, supplies, food, etc and they have been saying for 2 week since this started that there is going to be this huge issue with no power and water and so on.. then how are people getting so much information out of Gaza.. how are they communicating to tell about the kids struggling, etc. Is life even going on at all in Gaza.. school and shopping at stores, etc. I assume a little area cut off from the world and I am curious how is anyone communicating with the world outside that area? How is hostage negotiations happening? Who are they talking to and how do they have phones, or internet, or power. I guess I assumed no power mean zero.. NONE.. clearly that can't be the case. How are all these videos and propaganda getting released from HAMAS? I suppose in the tunnels, but if they can get in and out in the tunnels, then why can't they get supplies that way? If they can get supplies that way then where are the exits at and why aren't those bombed?

THIS!
I have wondered all these things.

 

[PommyMommy]

Hezbollah is claiming to have Targeted a IDF Humvee and a Merkava Mark lV Main Battle Tank using Anti-Tank Guided Missiles on the Border with Lebanon today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715764713076699523

 

[cottonweaver]

This is so sad. Nobody should have to experience such trauma. What a horrible life so many people have to live.

when I read any of those kinds of articles I end up wondering what about me?
Maybe if ordinary people ( like me) were more aware of the rest of the world, of foreign policy, read more foreign news, maybe we'd be in a better position in terms of the expectations we have for our own political leaders?

I don't really read much news from around the world. Last time I read anything from ME was probably during withdrawal from Afghanistan.

 

[Friday Fan]

At what point do we also place foreign passport holders (foreign citizens and dual Palestinin-foreign citizens) into the group of "being held hostage within Gaza" as well.

I wonder if they have customs agents at the border?
Right now trucks are coming and going and the border crossing is small. Maybe they couldn't handle both pedestrians and large convoys at the same time?
US/Mexico has separate access for pedestrians and vehicles. But this looks like it may have only one gate.

 

[Brightchaser47]

Noting:

“We hope that with CT and biopsies, we can bring the unidentified down to less than 200. But some people, we will never find. We will never identify them. And people need to be prepared for this.”

Speaking personally, Bublil said that she wants the world to know that “generally, Hamas enjoyed the killing.”

View attachment 454878

I believe the use of substances that was mentioned earlier greatly contributed to the brutality.

 

[Vern]

I wonder if they have customs agents at the border?
Right now trucks are coming and going and the border crossing is small. Maybe they couldn't handle both pedestrians and large convoys at the same time?
US/Mexico has separate access for pedestrians and vehicles. But this looks like it may have only one gate.

Nope; that isn't it.

Rafah has a pedestrian crossing.

Movement of people via Rafah Crossing - Gisha

gisha.org

 

[cottonweaver]

Iranian ( dissident) news clip which is more positive and we need something positive

Aryamehr Stadium in Tehran ( Apparently, according to Iran experts, in Iran, football stadiums have become one of the big venues where populations express dissent at their regime)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715658118141730969

Basically what happened is...
- Iranian regime officials scheduled a one minute of silence in support of Hamas.
- spectators didn't comply and instead boos

 

[Cedars]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it.

If there is no power in Gaza or very little, no water, supplies, food, etc and they have been saying for 2 week since this started that there is going to be this huge issue with no power and water and so on.. then how are people getting so much information out of Gaza.. how are they communicating to tell about the kids struggling, etc. Is life even going on at all in Gaza.. school and shopping at stores, etc. I assume a little area cut off from the world and I am curious how is anyone communicating with the world outside that area? How is hostage negotiations happening? Who are they talking to and how do they have phones, or internet, or power. I guess I assumed no power mean zero.. NONE.. clearly that can't be the case. How are all these videos and propaganda getting released from HAMAS? I suppose in the tunnels, but if they can get in and out in the tunnels, then why can't they get supplies that way? If they can get supplies that way then where are the exits at and why aren't those bombed?

Since Israel controls the electricity, I imagine there are very large stockpiled amounts of fuel and batteries - anyone whose had the extra money has probably been doing that for years, as a basic preparedness excercise. Like if you live in a hurricane zone.

Beyond what people have themselves, access would depend on who you know, how important your use of it is, how much you can pay...Word would get out if someone was supplying phone charging. Probably news is spread by a grapevine, rather than everyone using their own phone.

Just from what I've heard from every account of journalists near a warzone, going back decades, there is usually one nice hotel they all stay at, and it provides food and power (at least periodically). It would be information central, not just for government, but also NGOs, any diplomatic-type staff, etc.

JMO

 

[Sillybilly]

Hey everyone,

Websleuths does not have enough staff, time, or specific knowledge of all Israel/Palestine/Middle Eastern affairs to be able to vet / research all the background of the various publications that members are sending us for approval. Chances are, we don't know any more than you do about a particular source.

Members are going to have to do their own due diligence by thoroughly checking out the background and credibility of the sources they are reading. If you are convinced that a source is legitimate, go ahead and link to it. If your post gets Reported by other members with an explanation as to any concern, WS staff will review it at that time.

Also, as Websleuths is located in the USA, linked articles need to be from MSM, government or other well recognized agencies or individuals, and articles need to be in English or with English translation.

Thanks to all for your cooperation.

SB

 

[Vern]

Since Israel controls the electricity, I imagine there are very large stockpiled amounts of fuel and batteries - anyone whose had the extra money has probably been doing that for years, as a basic preparedness excercise. Like if you live in a hurricane zone.
...

RSBM,

Gaza actually has it's own power plant and they control their own power; it's just out of fuel.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/middleeast/gaza-power-plant-shuts-down-intl/index.html

 

[Friday Fan]

Nope; that isn't it.

Rafah has a pedestrian crossing.

Movement of people via Rafah Crossing - Gisha

gisha.org

But can it handle large convoys and pedestrians at the same time?

Are there separate gates for pedestrians and vehicles?

A small border can operate with one gate, but probably alternates between vehicles and pedestrians.
Right now, this border is probably having much more vehicle traffic than usual.

ETA:
I see a vehicle gate and a pedestrian gate. There will be inspectors assigned to the vehicle gate in the middle.

Pedestrians go through the small red doors. Customs officials inside the building will inspect pedestrian's passports.

Unlike lever gates at US/Mexico, it appears they have gates that must be opened and closed manually, each time a vehicle passes through.
Rafah Border Crossing - Wikipedia

 

[JennieM]

14m ago
A Hezbollah fighter was killed along the border with Israel on Saturday, Reuters reports the Iran-backed group saying.

The fighter’s death on Saturday marks 14 Hezbollah fighters that the group said have been killed since the conflict broke out two weeks ago.

A security source in Lebanon said the fighter was killed in the Lebanese area of Hula, which lies opposite Margaliot on the Israeli side which Israel said was the target of an anti-tank missile attack, Reuters reports, adding that the Israeli army said it fired back.

Strikes on Gaza to increase from today, Israeli spokesperson says – as it happened

Israeli Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said: ‘We will deepen our attacks to minimise the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war.’ This blog is now closed

www.theguardian.com

 

[JennieM]

Statement by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on aid delivery into Gaza​

21 Oct 2023

We welcome today’s announcement that an aid convoy has entered Gaza, the first since the outbreak of hostilities on October 7.

The 20-truck convoy includes life-saving supplies provided by the Egyptian Red Crescent and the United Nations which are approved to cross and be received by the Palestinian Red Crescent, with the support of the United Nations.

The delivery follows days of deep and intense negotiations with all relevant sides to make sure that aid operation into Gaza resumes as quickly as possible and with the right conditions.

I am confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine and fuel – to the people of Gaza, in a safe, dependable, unconditional and unimpeded manner.

Two weeks since the start of hostilities, the humanitarian situation in Gaza – already precarious – has reached catastrophic levels. It is critical that aid reaches people in need wherever they are across Gaza, and at the right scale.

The people of Gaza have endured decades of suffering. The international community cannot continue to fail them.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - occupied Palestinian territory | Statement by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on aid delivery into Gaza

We welcome today’s announcement that an aid convoy has entered Gaza, the first since the outbreak of hostilities on October 7.

www.ochaopt.org