Israeli defence officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a deepening humanitarian crisis and a continuing grave threat to regional stability.
In a briefing, R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the centre and south of Gaza, where military efforts are now focused, was “dense and saturated with terrorists” with “an underground city of branching tunnels”.
Three months would be needed to clear the area and fighting would “continue during the year 2024”, Hagari said.
He said scattered fighting was to be expected in northern Gaza, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel, but that Hamas militants were “without a framework and without commanders”.
I’m aware of the disagreement of historians on whether plan dalet was defensive or offensive. To me, after learning about what was said in the minutes of the Yishuv meetings, remarks in the diary of Ben-Gurion and other officials during the operations, and the extent of the on-the-ground operations; it’s clear to me that it was offensive and planned. After Learning about the extent of the settlements in the west bank, it’s also clear to me that a 2 state solution just isn’t possible. There’s no way to forcibly remove over 800k settlers, even if it was technically possible it still wouldn’t be moral to me.
But hey, I’m glad you’re open to checking out those books.
They have much more information and context from a much larger variety of sources than I could ever personally collect and summarize.
FWIW, I think one state with equal rights is the best solution. I’m with you there. I just think it’s impossible.
A lot of these radical Israeli settlers should be relocated, even as I completely agree that it feels impossible to do so. The aggressive and illegal Israeli settlements designed to interrupt and impact the Oslo accords have always been a huge problem I have with Israel.
Israel has a right to exist and defend themselves. But fuck their war crimes of collective punishment (specificly pre oct.) and more.
The Arabs who used to live in Palestine and their descendents have a right to exist and defend themselves, just like the Jews who lived in Palestine. And even though every single tocket fired by Gaza was a war crime, the current response by Israel I would have viewed as war crimes also. But for me, October 7th changed the equation significantly. No country in the entire world would tolerate Hamas next door, even if they are the government of Gaza. Their infrastructure and logistics has the be wiped out.
I really wish we could just forbid everyone from Jerusalem. LOL, everything would be 1000x easier if we did. No temple mount, no mosque, no nothing.
And I’ve done reading on the Nakba and the many crimes of the Palestinian Jews. One thing I always reflect on is who some of these radical Palestinian Jews were… people who fled during or at the end of WWII, and people who had endured Russian and Slavic pogroms, etc.
Knowing that fact makes it to me, very believable that disputed crimes at the LEAST were possible, if not likely. They remind me of the population of Gaza. They were so radicalized and traumatized, and so on… In the same way that nobody wants Gaza residents in their country (Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, etc). At this point, I think maybe only Yemen would take the Gaza population.
Sorry, I rambled and probably said much of nothing. It’s been a long day. Good talk.