Israel-Gaza war

[Donerail]

No side is disputing this theory that "actually the hospital was a secret disguise for rocket launchers" because no one is alleging it other than a manaic republican Talk Elections poster from Ohio.

Come on! "Hamas uses hospitals to launch attacks" is, like, the first thing that anybody learns about this conflict. I guess to some it's presented as "false Israeli narrative", but everybody's heard it. It's literally common knowledge and goes without saying.

The general statement that Hamas stores weapons in or under hospitals is correct. But no one besides you is alleging that it is true of this hospital (a Christian hospital mostly funded by US/UK church groups) or that it is the cause of this explosion.

The current speculation from Israeli sources is that it was a motor failure on one of the heavy-yield Qassems like this one.

[GALeftist]

2. I initially thought that the narrative was that PIJ was firing missiles from the hospital, accidentally set a fire, and one or more missiles exploded (both its warhead and its fuel), which itself detonated the ammo deposit. This seemed plausible. Now it appears the allegation is that *one* missile accidentally hit not only the hospital, but also pretty close to the ammo deposit within the hospital, since these missiles usually only kill, like, 7 people per missile, misfire or not. This obviously isn't impossible, but it seems a hell of a lot more likely that Israel just bombed the hospital (it's not like they never do this).

I mean, they legitimately don't just level buildings with hundreds of civilian casualties, but either way it seems nobody is disputing "there was a depot in the hospital and it blew up", which I think is sufficient to assign blame.

I don't think it's even been proven that there was a depot in the hospital? Just that, *if* a PIJ rocket caused the explosion, there must have been a depot, because no rocket could have caused that large of an explosion on its own.

And no, I don't think the existence of a depot would be sufficient to assign blame. This mentality makes no sense to me. We don't tell American cops to just kill hostages taken by criminals.

[Vosem]

Ultimately, Palestinian liberationism will be defeated only when foreign sympathy for it is completely destroyed.

LMAO

The cause of Palestine will only die when the light of Islam is somehow and someway vanquished off the face of the Earth. Fortunately, that will never happen.

Nah, my guess based on current population/economic growth rates is that it will continue to weaken with time and then eventually go away once they suffer a defeat bad enough that the leading Palestinian organizations agree to become instrumentalities of the Israeli state. When that'll happen, I can't say; both economic and demographic projections are hard*, and it also depends a great deal on the exact course of foreign feeling. (Like, if a shift happened tomorrow in the opinions of the US government/news media, it could plausibly happen this week, but my guess is 20-30 years. Within my lifetime the Palestinian movement will go away among the Palestinians themselves, much less foreigners.)

*Eg, between 1995-2010 or so pretty much everyone thought that a Jewish majority in Israel+West Bank was not sustainable, but that majority looks far safer today. That Israel will strengthen against the Palestinians more over time is assured, but how much more is really hard to say, because it depends on the exact levels of population growth/emigration, and small shifts might cause larger changes down the road.

[Birdish]

This is supposedly from a Times of Israel reporter (though it is post-Musk Twitter so who knows). They have a few more videos in the follow up tweets.

https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1714377828131553446?s=46&t=o2RmfeV6y...

That's pretty convincing. And the tweet after this one shows correct time stamping apparently.

[Associate Justice PiT]

No side is disputing this theory that "actually the hospital was a secret disguise for rocket launchers" because no one is alleging it other than a manaic republican Talk Elections poster from Ohio.

Come on! "Hamas uses hospitals to launch attacks" is, like, the first thing that anybody learns about this conflict. I guess to some it's presented as "false Israeli narrative", but everybody's heard it. It's literally common knowledge and goes without saying.

The general statement that Hamas stores weapons in or under hospitals is correct. But no one besides you is alleging that it is true of this hospital (a Christian hospital mostly funded by US/UK church groups) or that it is the cause of this explosion.

     It's possible they were pressed into service by Hamas militants, but given the background of the hospital it's definitely something that should be substantiated more thoroughly than just "well this is what Hamas does". I am leaning towards this being an Israeli missile, but the truth behind the situation is far from clear.

[Ferguson97]

The thing specific to me, which I have to imagine is an experience very few have had, is that I’ve taken college courses where “Western media is biased against Israel” was presented as uncontroversial fact to teach students about the concept of media bias generally.

You deserve a refund.

[Vosem]

2. I initially thought that the narrative was that PIJ was firing missiles from the hospital, accidentally set a fire, and one or more missiles exploded (both its warhead and its fuel), which itself detonated the ammo deposit. This seemed plausible. Now it appears the allegation is that *one* missile accidentally hit not only the hospital, but also pretty close to the ammo deposit within the hospital, since these missiles usually only kill, like, 7 people per missile, misfire or not. This obviously isn't impossible, but it seems a hell of a lot more likely that Israel just bombed the hospital (it's not like they never do this).

I mean, they legitimately don't just level buildings with hundreds of civilian casualties, but either way it seems nobody is disputing "there was a depot in the hospital and it blew up", which I think is sufficient to assign blame.

I don't think it's even been proven that there was a depot in the hospital? Just that, *if* a PIJ rocket caused the explosion, there must have been a depot, because no rocket could have caused that large of an explosion on its own.

And no, I don't think the existence of a depot would be sufficient to assign blame. This mentality makes no sense to me. We don't tell American cops to just kill hostages taken by criminals.

This is standard practice in some countries, though (eg, my family came to the US from the Soviet Union, where standard practice for decades was in fact to just try to kill the hostage-takers in order to discourage future hostage-taking attempts, and if the hostages die then so be it), and I'm not sure that it shouldn't be standard practice more generally. We would have a world with fewer hostage-taking attempts.

Fair enough, however, that Americans do not do this. Nor do Israelis, normally.

No side is disputing this theory that "actually the hospital was a secret disguise for rocket launchers" because no one is alleging it other than a manaic republican Talk Elections poster from Ohio.

Come on! "Hamas uses hospitals to launch attacks" is, like, the first thing that anybody learns about this conflict. I guess to some it's presented as "false Israeli narrative", but everybody's heard it. It's literally common knowledge and goes without saying.

The general statement that Hamas stores weapons in or under hospitals is correct. But no one besides you is alleging that it is true of this hospital (a Christian hospital mostly funded by US/UK church groups) or that it is the cause of this explosion.

The current speculation from Israeli sources is that it was a motor failure on one of the heavy-yield Qassems like this one.

That just seems like "it is possible for a motor failure on a Qassem to have caused this". More generally, the level of destruction and casualties here, and apparently the size of the explosion, are much greater than from a normal Israeli airstrike, or for that matter from a normal Palestinian rocket, so there needs to be a special explanation for why the explosion was so large and catastrophic, and everything that I've seen besides 'weapons depot' has been obviously wrong. 'Motor failure on a Qassem' is maybe not a ridiculous suggestion (though I haven't heard of a motor failure causing this large of an explosion), but this is basically one random tweet bringing it up.

I would be surprised if there were hospitals in Gaza it is not true for, just because of the incentive structure: if you penalize one side for attacking hospitals, then of course the other side will keep all of their equipment in hospitals -- why wouldn't they? (Unless they don't have enough equipment for it -- which seems dubious -- or they're broadly unwilling to militarize hospitals -- which we've already established is false. "None" or "all" both seem much more plausible than "some". It isn't as though hospital administrators can be expected to stand up to authoritarian regimes.)

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

That just seems like "it is possible for a motor failure on a Qassem to have caused this". More generally, the level of destruction and casualties here, and apparently the size of the explosion, are much greater than from a normal Israeli airstrike, or for that matter from a normal Palestinian rocket, so there needs to be a special explanation for why the explosion was so large and catastrophic, and everything that I've seen besides 'weapons depot' has been obviously wrong. 'Motor failure on a Qassem' is maybe not a ridiculous suggestion (though I haven't heard of a motor failure causing this large of an explosion), but this is basically one random tweet bringing it up.

There is, in fact, a very simple explanation: that the IDF dropped a bunker buster on the hospital. The video of the strike doesn't show any of the secondary explosions characteristic of a weapons depot.

You only need to work yourself into a pretzel if you start from the assumption that Hamas or PIJ did it and then work backwords. If you consider the possibility that Israel could be responsible then the size of the explosion is easily explained.

[Silent Hunter]

It isn't as though hospital administrators can be expected to stand up to authoritarian regimes.)

Quite the opposite, considering the Soviet abuse of psychiatry.

[Donerail]

That just seems like "it is possible for a motor failure on a Qassem to have caused this". More generally, the level of destruction and casualties here, and apparently the size of the explosion, are much greater than from a normal Israeli airstrike, or for that matter from a normal Palestinian rocket, so there needs to be a special explanation for why the explosion was so large and catastrophic, and everything that I've seen besides 'weapons depot' has been obviously wrong. 'Motor failure on a Qassem' is maybe not a ridiculous suggestion (though I haven't heard of a motor failure causing this large of an explosion), but this is basically one random tweet bringing it up.

The most likely explanation for the level of destruction is that the warhead was much larger (400kg) than the usual PIJ rockets (most of which are much smaller). That is of course speculation at this point, but given that you have provided nothing (not even a random tweet!) to back up your theory beyond some articles showing that Hamas has previously stored weapons in other hospitals sometimes, assume true until proven otherwise. "Occam's razor," someone said ITT.

[bilaps]

Yes, Israel can't figure out that Hamas is going to do full scale terror attack biggest in history, but yet in 15 minutes they know it's Palestinians who fired the rocket at the hospital

[Vosem]

That just seems like "it is possible for a motor failure on a Qassem to have caused this". More generally, the level of destruction and casualties here, and apparently the size of the explosion, are much greater than from a normal Israeli airstrike, or for that matter from a normal Palestinian rocket, so there needs to be a special explanation for why the explosion was so large and catastrophic, and everything that I've seen besides 'weapons depot' has been obviously wrong. 'Motor failure on a Qassem' is maybe not a ridiculous suggestion (though I haven't heard of a motor failure causing this large of an explosion), but this is basically one random tweet bringing it up.

The most likely explanation for the level of destruction is that the warhead was much larger (400kg) than the usual PIJ rockets (most of which are much smaller). That is of course speculation at this point, but given that you have provided nothing (not even a random tweet!) to back up your theory beyond some articles showing that Hamas has previously stored weapons in other hospitals sometimes, assume true until proven otherwise. "Occam's razor," someone said ITT.

No, my first post here today was a quote from Gaza Report saying this.

https://twitter.com/gaza_report/status/1714337523592208695

It would also make sense, because there's no reason to think an organization using some hospitals as weapons depots wouldn't use all of them, unless you want to put forward a theory of them not having the equipment or some kind of hospital-religious-affiliation thing, from PiT, which both seem extremely dubious.

That just seems like "it is possible for a motor failure on a Qassem to have caused this". More generally, the level of destruction and casualties here, and apparently the size of the explosion, are much greater than from a normal Israeli airstrike, or for that matter from a normal Palestinian rocket, so there needs to be a special explanation for why the explosion was so large and catastrophic, and everything that I've seen besides 'weapons depot' has been obviously wrong. 'Motor failure on a Qassem' is maybe not a ridiculous suggestion (though I haven't heard of a motor failure causing this large of an explosion), but this is basically one random tweet bringing it up.

There is, in fact, a very simple explanation: that the IDF dropped a bunker buster on the hospital. The video of the strike doesn't show any of the secondary explosions characteristic of a weapons depot.

You only need to work yourself into a pretzel if you start from the assumption that Hamas or PIJ did it and then work backwords. If you consider the possibility that Israel could be responsible then the size of the explosion is easily explained.

The video of the strike shows a single ground explosion, 'all at once'. This wouldn't be consistent with, like, a parking lot with vehicles, but it would be consistent with the explosion of a weapons depot -- compare with videos of fertilizer explosions. It happens more-or-less all at once if the explosive material is packed closely enough together.

The IDF randomly bombing the hospital for teh evulz with a bunker buster deliberately is physically possible, I guess, but it isn't their usual MO (like launching weapons from hospitals is for Hamas), and you'd guess they'd be ready for the media coverage if that happened rather than investigating if they somehow messed up somewhere. 'Regular IDF airstrike accidentally blowing up explosive material on site' seems much likelier.

Again, Occam's Razor. You don't have to contort yourself; just eliminate the possibilities which are unlikely.

[bilaps]

Ultimately, Palestinian liberationism will be defeated only when foreign sympathy for it is completely destroyed.

LMAO

The cause of Palestine will only die when the light of Islam is somehow and someway vanquished off the face of the Earth. Fortunately, that will never happen.

Nah, my guess based on current population/economic growth rates is that it will continue to weaken with time and then eventually go away once they suffer a defeat bad enough that the leading Palestinian organizations agree to become instrumentalities of the Israeli state. When that'll happen, I can't say; both economic and demographic projections are hard*, and it also depends a great deal on the exact course of foreign feeling. (Like, if a shift happened tomorrow in the opinions of the US government/news media, it could plausibly happen this week, but my guess is 20-30 years. Within my lifetime the Palestinian movement will go away among the Palestinians themselves, much less foreigners.)

*Eg, between 1995-2010 or so pretty much everyone thought that a Jewish majority in Israel+West Bank was not sustainable, but that majority looks far safer today. That Israel will strengthen against the Palestinians more over time is assured, but how much more is really hard to say, because it depends on the exact levels of population growth/emigration, and small shifts might cause larger changes down the road.

When Hezbollah trully enters the war, you'll see how many Israelis will leave the country. Palestinians don't have nowhere to go, you'll have to kill them all.

[Birdish]

Yes, Israel can't figure out that Hamas is going to do full scale terror attack biggest in history, but yet in 15 minutes they know it's Palestinians who fired the rocket in the hospital

Seems to have take them two hours actually. Or atleast two hours to put out a statement.

[bilaps]

Yes, Israel can't figure out that Hamas is going to do full scale terror attack biggest in history, but yet in 15 minutes they know it's Palestinians who fired the rocket in the hospital

Seems to have take them two hours actually. Or atleast two hours to put out a statement.

It was obviously a hyperbole.

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1714387055059628288

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1714390254935851272

Good thread from GeoConfirmed, which has been reliable in the past and seems to confirm that part of a Palestinian missile hit the yard of the hospital in question. Still not drawing any conclusions, but I think I'm now leaning towards this being the cause of the explosion.

[Vosem]

The thing specific to me, which I have to imagine is an experience very few have had, is that I’ve taken college courses where “Western media is biased against Israel” was presented as uncontroversial fact to teach students about the concept of media bias generally.

You deserve a refund.

This isn't a thread about my life, Ferguson, but I've brought up before that I meet American-right people (or, even more specifically, often techno-libertarians) in ways way out of proportion to their fraction of society, and this is true even when I'm meeting people somewhat randomly (such as being assigned teachers/professors in some mandatory class/course). In hindsight, my high school/college/law school experiences were all pretty unusually right-wing in various ways (I've said before that, while the all-law-school group-chat was quite left-wing/"woke", policy discussions in actual classes, particularly tax classes, tended toward the extremely fiscon even by my standards), even setting aside that my family also gave me assigned reading. For those of you who have been on the Forum longer, I think this is the fundamental reason I didn't think "wokeness" was a thing until, like, 2018-19, or well after most people on the right had become concerned by it.

(Also TBF that was just one course, though generally quite non-woke attitudes towards relationships between countries prevailed broadly in the department; Why Arabs Lose Wars was assigned reading in a different class.)

Ultimately, Palestinian liberationism will be defeated only when foreign sympathy for it is completely destroyed.

LMAO

The cause of Palestine will only die when the light of Islam is somehow and someway vanquished off the face of the Earth. Fortunately, that will never happen.

Nah, my guess based on current population/economic growth rates is that it will continue to weaken with time and then eventually go away once they suffer a defeat bad enough that the leading Palestinian organizations agree to become instrumentalities of the Israeli state. When that'll happen, I can't say; both economic and demographic projections are hard*, and it also depends a great deal on the exact course of foreign feeling. (Like, if a shift happened tomorrow in the opinions of the US government/news media, it could plausibly happen this week, but my guess is 20-30 years. Within my lifetime the Palestinian movement will go away among the Palestinians themselves, much less foreigners.)

*Eg, between 1995-2010 or so pretty much everyone thought that a Jewish majority in Israel+West Bank was not sustainable, but that majority looks far safer today. That Israel will strengthen against the Palestinians more over time is assured, but how much more is really hard to say, because it depends on the exact levels of population growth/emigration, and small shifts might cause larger changes down the road.

When Hezbollah trully enters the war, you'll see how many Israelis will leave the country. Palestinians don't have nowhere to go, you'll have to kill them all.

"What do a Russian mobilization and an Israeli mobilization have in common?"

"The flight Moscow to Tel Aviv is sold out."

The issue with this theory is that the start of the current war led to a bunch of Israelis returning to the country (and Hamas/Egypt taking special measures to stop Palestinians from fleeing!), so...it seems like this is exactly backwards?

https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1714390254935851272

Good thread from GeoConfirmed, which has been reliable in the past and seems to confirm that part of a Palestinian missile hit the yard of the hospital in question. Still not drawing any conclusions, but I think I'm now leaning towards this being the cause of the explosion.

Right; assuming these people are correct they are basically confirming the Israeli government's story (that the hospital was hit by a Palestinian rocket), and at least implying the thing that I've been saying (something on or under the ground must have caused the explosion because those rockets are not normally large enough for this). It was basically deducible from first principles.

[Vosem]

Funny how American media now say that it could be both sides. But when Russians say there's no reason residential buldings in some God forbidden town in Ukraine are hit on purpose and that's the remains of air defense, there's no both sides, Russians are just pure evil. Yet Israelis with it's history of war crimes vs Palestinians are to be beleived.

I don't know about the bigger war which started in 2022, but in the 2014-15 War in Donbass there were credible-ish reports of both sides using human shields, Hamas-style. Unfortunately so long as the current journalistic norms are what they are this is a style of fighting that is likely to spread, as militant groups around the world bid for sympathy from the developed world. Until the BBC/NYT/Reuters axis falls, you can expect to see many more exploded hospitals.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1714398040746758169?t=vbYe48NnGoW73jV8ua4q_w&a...
Abraham Accords are [inks]ed, I think.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1714390254935851272
Good thread from GeoConfirmed, which has been reliable in the past and seems to confirm that part of a Palestinian missile hit the yard of the hospital in question. Still not drawing any conclusions, but I think I'm now leaning towards this being the cause of the explosion.

If true, it would make the Israeli misuse of the wrong footage even harder to rationalise. By lying, they have made it harder to argue their own case.

Jordan and the West Bank pulled out of their upcoming meetings with Biden. Biden cancelled the meeting afterwards - Egypt hadn't announced it was out, but it's possible they were preparing to exit, too.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1714398040746758169?t=vbYe48NnGoW73jV8ua4q_w&a...
Abraham Accords are [inks]ed, I think.

Tbf they were never in a great place to start with. The latest Israeli-Saudi normalisation would have rested on "NATO-style guarantees from the US for Saudi Arabia" (lol) in addition to US-sponsored nuclear enrichment there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If true, it would make the Israeli misuse of the wrong footage even harder to rationalise. By lying, they have made it harder to argue their own case.

The people who run the twitter account have a long history of the sort of egregious incompetence that ought to get someone running the social media account of a medium-sized business sacked, let alone the government of a sovereign state.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1714398040746758169?t=vbYe48NnGoW73jV8ua4q_w&a...
Abraham Accords are [inks]ed, I think.

Hamas got a win out of murdering hundreds of civilians, sickening.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

If true, it would make the Israeli misuse of the wrong footage even harder to rationalise. By lying, they have made it harder to argue their own case.

The people who run the twitter account have a long history of the sort of egregious incompetence that ought to get someone running the social media account of a medium-sized business sacked, let alone the government of a sovereign state.

Lapid made the correct call in not joining the unity government. Gantz and co. should have known from last time that they could not cancel out the malefactors and incompetents with Netanyahu in charge.