Since October 7, more than 3,257 children have been reported killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and Israel respectively. The number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally – across more than 20 countries – over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.
So according to your logic, each one of the bombs was hitting a legitimate military target. Assuming that Hamas military wing is around 30K, and that Israel is dropping around 400 bombs every day for about 3 weeks, this means that they had hit 82.000 “military” targets over Gaza and the signal from their government is that this war would be very long and bloody war. So how many more “targeted” bombs need to be dropped to kill every one of Hamas? And is the human cost justified?
Have you ever been trapped somewhere and being a subject to heavy bombardment for weeks with no way to escape, no access to food, water, electricity or fuel? How would you feel if you are trapped with all of your family and would you consider the actions of the aggressor as just?
What are the chances that you would start passionately hate this aggressor to deliberately putting you through this, especially if they hurt or kill some of your family members? And I want an honest answer!
Because I know what it would be, there isn’t a single human being that would be happy and not feel utterly miserable in this situation.
So now think is this like a good base for finding a long term peaceful solution where Jews and Arabs can live alongside each other without killing/hating themselves? What about all those kids who are currently going through all of this? Why they need to suffer, what’s their guilt?
You know if you are constantly beating your child, the chances of them turning into not a decent human being are quite high. But please stop being surprised that this is the case, and stop blaming everything on them. A bit of self reflection can do miracles.
Looking at a mapping of the strikes and comparing it with Hama’s tunnel network it does look like they largely line up.
Also remember that if they’re targeting underground tunnels you need a lot of ordinance to collapse a tunnel from the air. And if you’re choosing to not use the biggest weapons (which even amongst conventional weapons Israel is clearly not using) you likely need multiple strikes to clear out a tunnel.
I don’t think killing every Hamas operative is the goal. Apparently there’s 30-40k fighters in Hamas’ army. I think the goal is to target the support infrastructure, weapons depot, etc… necessary to train and command that army. Hamas had been largely training this army out in the open before the start of this war. And Israel had been respecting their right to have an army for self defense. Now that they started a war they’re trying to take out all the targets they declined to do over the last few years.
Unfortunately it’s an unanswerable question, as questions of moral reasoning often are.
Oh I’d hate it. I feel for the Gazan caught in a war zone. I don’t think I’d believe the aggressor to be just. I just hope I wouldn’t be blindsided enough to not realize that my side was the aggressor.
Oh high. I’m human. Just because I’d make a bad decision in the same situation doesn’t make it a good decision.
Honestly, yes. Gaza has self determination, more aid than any other nation of poverty in the world, a favorable trade location, a diaspora capable of generating international remittances, a foreign border and the 1967 peace treaty borders. They can choose peace. They may not; but eventually they will choose peace or they will continue to get stomped on in wars that they start.
Gaza isn’t a child. It’s a nation. It can choose it’s destiny. But if it was the metaphor wouldn’t be a parent/child one. It would be a peers in school one. Israel would be the quite, weird kid who hit their growth spurt early and started hitting the gym because they got picked on in elementary school by everyone. And Gaza is the last kid in Middle School who still tries to pick on that kid every recess and complains that they continue to get punched in the mouth when they cross the line. That’s the more accurate metaphor.
I like that you are honest, and you also seem like a reasonable human being, which is admirable. I know the situation is not black and white and that both sides are complicit to the current situation, I just think that the human cost isn’t justifiable, and achieving it at any cost , which seems to be the intent of the Israelian government, even if that means sacrificing their hostages, which makes it even harder to sympathize.
I truly believe that this would only make things worse in the long term for both Arabs and Jews living in the area. And I fully expect the next government to be more far right and extreme in its measures.
And yes, the father/child was a metaphor, but as you put it can also be a school bully (Israel) and systemically bullied kid (Palestine).
And I think tunnels were first constructed to facilitate the trade between people in Palestine and the neighbouring villages and towns outside Gaza, but then were repurposed by Hamas for their war operations. I mean logically thinking of the right of free movement wasn’t so tightly regulated those tunnels would have probably never been built in the first place. And if Palestinians weren’t so heavily oppressed Hamas wouldn’t be in power right? So in a way Hamas is the reaction of years of ill treatment of Palestinians.
So one can argue that if this Intifada didn’t occur, Hamas wouldn’t exist nowadays. It was an angry reaction of desperate people (not defending here), just giving a bit of food for thoughts.
And one may also argue if Israel miraculously manage to destroy Hamas, there would be soon another group taking their place in the open vacuum so this would solve nothing in the long term. The only way to solve this problem is Israel to offer Palestine some concessions, cease fire and start treating them fairly in exchange of change of the leadership in the country and disarment of the Hamas war wing, which I don’t see happening with the current government.
in all honesty I don’t think there is any good outcome from this outside of a potential return of Fatah into Gaza
In the past Hamas was willing to work with Israel to avoid violence under the assumption that Israel would assist with Aid
However with Israel’s recent actions in the West Bank over the past few years I do not believe that there will be any true lasting peace until there is a political shift in Israel’s leadership
I am fully with you on this!
Thank you for the sentiment. Especially online I think that can get lost.
I guess I’ve just not been convinced that Israel is willing to achieve it “at any cost.” Given my knowledge of modern warfare, granted which is only an armchair level, it does seem clear that Israel is fighting with many self imposed limitation all designed to minimize the civilian casualties that must be suffered. I think that’s the core of why most are sympathetic; they see a similar self-restraint on the part of Israel’s armed forces. It’s almost been impossible to follow the last 20 years or so of these off again on again conflicts and not see the pattern of Hamas’s terrorism and war crimes; and then see them continue it because they face no international consequences for them.
At some point in this conflict every “neutral” observer will “look closer” at a particularly wild claim made by Israel or Hamas like “Hamas’s HQ is located under a Hospital and they have a torture dungeon under there”, “Hamas launches rockets from UN ran schools”, “Check out Hamas $leader’s dope crib in Quatar” or “Israel shells Hospital 500 children dead.” and time and time again they’re going to see the IDF largely didn’t do what Hamas said they did; and Hamas did what the IDF said they did. And most people can only see so many cases of Hamas recklessly committing blatant war crimes, murdering it’s own citizens, not having elections, calling for genocide etc… before they start to sympathize with Israel.
I guess the issue is that most see the metaphor reversed.
That’s definitely how the ones in the south near the Rafa crossing were originally constructed. Old fashioned smuggling. But the ones in the North are almost exclusively built by Hamas for warfare purposes. As both weapons depot and as ways to cross the border for raids into Israel without getting detected. The use of those tunnels for warfare has been a recurring theme in the series of conflicts since the disengagement.
No matter the origin, the use of those tunnels for war fighting does make them valid military targets.
I’d agree with that. Israel surely could have worked faster after the end of the Cold War (and the defacto end of financial and miliatary support from Russia towards Israel’s direct enemies) to establish a 2 state solution. But I do think it’s reasonable to note, that the First Intifada started in '87 8 years after Israel proved it was willing to trade land for peace with the Sinai deal with Egypt.
What sort of concessions would Israel need to offer Hamas and Gaza that they haven’t already offered them?