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[martinuzz]

After investgation, the Canadian ministry of Defense concludes that the explosion next to the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza was not Israel's doing.
It is likely that the explosion was caused by a stray missile fired from Gaze itself.

In a statement, the ministry lets it be known that the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command has conducted an independent analysis based on both public as well as classified documents. The analysis shows, 'with high reliability', that Israel is not behind the hospital attack.
France and the US came to the same conclusion earlier.

It is still unclear how many people were killed in the explosion at the parking lot next to the hospital. The Gaza health authorities, which are under Hamas control, says 471 people were killed.
A new report, realeased last thursday by US intelligence, estimates between 100 and 300 people were killed, with a high probability of it being on the low end of that spectrum.
The report describes the damage to the hospital itself as light structural damage.

[Strongpoint]

Doesn't matter. We already have a similar fake with a strike on a Greek Orthodox church that housed 500 people (The church in question is around 25x10 meters, I'd love to see 500 inside). In reality, the church was lightly damaged when a building near it was destroyed in a precision strike of the Israeli airforce. We'll have many more.

I chose to outright ignore all reports of "Israeli war crimes" from now on. Like I do with Russian news. Some may be real but checking those is tiresome and quite pointless. Anti-Israel bias is huge and obvious.

[Frumple]

Like... you could, but the problem (such as it is, just... ignoring everything going on with the latest mess is an option) is that Israel's about as reliable as Hamas when it comes to claims about what's going on. If you're going to ignore claims going one way, you don't really have grounds to be trusting ones going the other.

Reality is it's an active conflict and bombing campaign in an urban area, between two groups that have a history of publicly lying about basically everything. Reliable information is going to sparse for a long damn time for anyone, foreign intelligence services or otherwise, and it's not going to come from the genocidal terrorists or the folks running ethnic cleansing campaigns that lie about murdering reporters, regardless.

Though in fairness, ignoring any particular claim of israeli warcrime is probably fine. Their bombing campaign and subsequent occupation's almost certainly going to kill a lot fewer civilians than the ongoing blockade of vital resources, so stuff like individual bombings, no matter how deadly in a localized area or in aggregate, is probably going to end up peanuts compared to deprivation, starvation, dehydration, and lack of medical care.

[Schmaven]

With all the misinformation and falsified reports about Gaza and Israel, I just take all of it with a grain of salt until a week or so has passed and things can get sorted out.  The MartyrMade podcast has a good balanced view of the history of the situation with The Unraveling providing a good analysis of the more recent events.  I really don't need to get to the minute updates on it.  And I assume some sort of government phone alert would be sent out to everybody if things really spiraled out of control to the point where I would need to change my daily routine.

[scriver]

I was going to say, part of the issues I take with Israel's position is their high amount of peace-crimes

[Strongpoint]

So, Israel demanded apologies from the UN Secretary-General and said that it will deny visas to UN officials until this happens. Interesting. Such things don't happen often. Even authoritarian states don't usually openly oppose the UN.

[Rockeater]

Israel hated the UN for a long time, not particularly surprised by that.

What did the UN said? is it about the hospital? because I missed the news about it here and the only bit I saw was about the fact that the original HAMAS attack was not a context-less event and Israel was an oppressor beforehand, which is true.

[Strongpoint]

Israel hated the UN for a long time, not particularly surprised by that.

What did the UN said? is it about the hospital? because I missed the news about it here and the only bit I saw was about the fact that the original HAMAS attack was not a context-less event and Israel was an oppressor beforehand, which is true.

Yeah, Israel didn't like this heavy implication that they (partially) deserved this massacre as well as the usual take that retaliation strikes and not supplying strategic resources to your enemy is collective punishment


Edit:
Imagine a scenario. Mexican armed forces launched a surprise successful attack on the USA during which they brutally massacred tens of thousands of American citizens. In response, USA mobilized its forces, stopped all trade with Mexico, and started a massive bombing campaign on Mexican infrastructure while preparing for a land invasion.

Half of the world (including organizations like HRW, AI, and UN) screams that it is "collective punishment"...

Replace Mexico with Gaza and USA with Israel and we get the VERY SAME THING. It is beyond my understanding how the hell this absurd is accepted.

[Rockeater]

If you remove enough context you can say anything, a fairer comparison would be replacibg Maxico with a native amrican group, having the US maintained it's genocidal policies to native americans and have those native amercan groups almost completly depend on the US partilly because the US made it that way, and even then you wouldn't have the entire context

Also, Israel literally flatten a neighberhood, or at least they boasted on it here, so I am not sure on the meaning of the word "stratigic"

[Strongpoint]

1) "Context" has nothing to do with this. If a person will go and try to kill me\my loved ones I have full right to respond with deadly force. And this right doesn't go away if I (or my ancestors) did something bad to this person (or their ancestors). Even if it is something truly horrible. The only thing I may be judged for are past crimes. My legitimate self-defense is still legitimate.

2) Since the early 2000s, Gaza is not an occupied territory and HAMAS aren't resistance fighters. Such wars do work differently but it is not what we have there in 2023. Gaza is a de facto country. It has its own borders. It has its own independent government. It has its own armed forces. It is a country and should be treated as such. Formal recognition is that - formal.

3) It means that Palestinians and Gaza are different entities. And Gaza is in no way shape or form fully dependent on Israel. Especially with the border with Egypt. And perhaps, If they would invest more in infrastructure and less in its armed forces, they wouldn't even need electricity and water from Israel.

4) The USA would TOTALLY flatten neighborhoods full of Mexican Armed Forces firing into American territory in my hypothetical scenario. I have no doubts about that. And it would make such neighborhoods a legitimate military target.


PS.

Let's modify my USA analogy. Waves of unjustified violence against Hispanic people, mostly Mexican illegal immigrants, happen in the USA, and then in response Mexico launches a surprise attack... and the rest of the scenario remains the same.  Does it really changes much?

[Frumple]

1) "Context" has nothing to do with this. If a person will go and try to kill me\my loved ones I have full right to respond with deadly force. And this right doesn't go away if I (or my ancestors) did something bad to this person (or their ancestors). Even if it is something truly horrible. The only thing I may be judged for are past crimes. My legitimate self-defense is still legitimate.

I mean, Hamas managed to pull off the attack largely because the IDF was over on west bank giving cover for illegal israeli settlers lynching people. Context kinda' does matter. It doesn't excuse the particular atrocities hamas got up to any more than it did comanche raids back in the day, but trying to boil any of this down to self-defense leaves you with a very messy stew, especially considering how staggeringly disparate things are on the capability and actual impact front. There's only one side of this conflict that's actually under existential threat, at this point in particular and even prior to the slaughter raid, and it damn sure ain't Israel.

Since the early 2000s, Gaza is not an occupied territory and HAMAS aren't resistance fighters. Such wars do work differently but it is not what we have there in 2023. Gaza is a de facto country. It has its own borders. It has its own independent government. It has its own armed forces. It is a country and should be treated as such. Formal recognition is that - formal.

This, however, is nonsense. Gaza doesn't have armed forces, they have a terrorist group hiding in a city, and if they actually tried to organize something formal the IDF would have flattened it. Its government is no more independent than the biggest prison gang in a penitentiary. They have no control over their borders, trade, infrastructure, anything. It's an occupied territory by any definition of the term that makes sense. Paper-thin excuses for why it's totally-not-we-swear are just that, thin as paper.

It means that Palestinians and Gaza are different entities. And Gaza is in no way shape or form fully dependent on Israel. Especially with the border with Egypt. And perhaps, If they would invest more in infrastructure and less in its armed forces, they wouldn't even need electricity and water from Israel.

The unfortunate and traditional Israeli response to trying to build infrastructure in Gaza has been to bomb it. A great deal of the reason there hasn't been much efforts to do that is because what organizations that are there are entirely aware they don't get to decide whether or not they actually get to use anything they build, and the likely answer to anything substantial is going to be "No", either due to the terrorists that murdered their last government and took over or the folks on the other side of the prison fence with artillery, air support, and a fondness for targeting civilian infrastructure.

West Bank and Gaza absolutely are different entities, though, especially ever since Hamas started chucking what parts of their then-government that had ties to the former off buildings. Probably have been ever since Israel started cutting off or otherwise obstructing as much travel between the two as it felt it could get away with.

[anewaname]

One of the things I've been considering is, since the West Bank became occupied, how many Palestinians have emigrated from the West Bank to Gaza? (I'm under the impression few Palestinians are able to successfully emigrate elsewhere.)

[Strongpoint]

This, however, is nonsense. Gaza doesn't have armed forces, they have a terrorist group hiding in a city, and if they actually tried to organize something formal the IDF would have flattened it. Its government is no more independent than the biggest prison gang in a penitentiary. They have no control over their borders, trade, infrastructure, anything. It's an occupied territory by any definition of the term that makes sense. Paper-thin excuses for why it's totally-not-we-swear are just that, thin as paper.

It is outright wrong to compare Gaza to a prison and Hamas to a gang. There are no Israeli forces in Gaza to enforce anything since 2005. Gaza is de facto self-governed. And those armed guys are de facto guys that not only defend this territory but also conduct offensive operations aka Armed Forces. Things are what they are, not what they are called or what they are recognized as.

What do you even mean by "no control over their borders, trade or infrastructure?" As far as I can see people can't get into Gaza without asking for permission (or going with military force), they obliviously trade (they don't make their rockets out of thin air) and they obliviously control their own infrastructure.

There's only one side of this conflict that's actually under existential threat, at this point in particular and even prior to the slaughter raid, and it damn sure ain't Israel.

WHAT!?
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

HAMAS's (which means Gaza's, like all Nazi goals were goals of the Third Reich) official goal is a "liberation" of all of Palestine and removing all Jews (OK, they kinda make an exception for those living in Palestine before 1948, I fail to understand how it works). They are very much an existential threat. Their goal is the genocide of Jews in all of Israel. If an obliviously enemy who wants your total destruction is currently too week to do so, it doesn't mean that this enemy is not a threat to your existence.

[anewaname]

There are 300+ miles of tunnels under Gaza and have been for many years (wikipedia). Smuggling people, weapons, and things into Gaza is common.

Will Israel start by sending their soldiers into those tunnel systems? Or will they review current and past orbital and heat map surveillance to guess which buildings are hiding tunnel exits, and then collapse those buildings? Presumably with some warning to evacuate citizens. By blocking some exits, it will be easier to find other exits and will reduce Hamas's tactical advantages, so Israel will use the justifications a "defensive war" allows and will destroy a lot of buildings.

[Strongpoint]

Those tunnels are military in nature and built with the goal of attacking Israel, the smuggling part is really minor. "Stuff" moves to Gaza mainly via the sea and border with Egypt, or legally with Israel's permission. Because contrary to the beliefs of many people, there was no blockade of Gaza, the flow of goods and workforce existed before this current war

And yeah, Israel needs to find a way to destroy those tunnels, which are totally military objects, in its war with Gaza. It is what countries do at war - destroy enemy assets.