Hamas threatens execution of Israeli captives if Gaza attacks continue
Hamas threatens execution of Israeli captives if Gaza attacks continue
Death toll surpasses 1,300 as Israel strikes Gaza and fierce battles intensify between Hamas gunmen and Israeli troops.
Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has threatened to execute Israeli captives if Israel continues to bombard and kill civilians in Gaza.
“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.
“We regret this decision but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership the responsibility for this,” he said.
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I dunno, the internet has told me that Israel is just as bad. I definitely remember when the IDF took a bunch of civilian women and children as hostages and then announced that it was going to livestream their murder.
Oh wait.
There are no good guys in that conflict.
Only bad guys and victims.
Hamas being terrorists doesn't make it OK for Israel to be committed to genocide any more than Israel's existence as an ethnofascist apartheid state makes in OK for Hamas to be bombing proms.
Both organizations are making it impossible for Palestinians to live peacefully.
If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine. It is their historical sensitivity to genocide and limitations placed on them by international law and foreign pressures that imposes on them very different standards of behavior in this war. If they operated by the same set of rules that Hamas does, this conflict would have been over long ago.
Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. “I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,” one survivor recalled. “They’re kids, but they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience … Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.”
Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
One survivor who’d returned to the scene later in the day to look for his friends spoke, in a breaking voice, of what he’d seen. Of the bodies, mainly of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Of scantily clad corpses, many of whom appeared to have been shot at point-blank. Of cars, perforated by bullets or blown up by grenades.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-accountIsrael does not perform atrocities like this. This wasn't collateral damage, this wasn't an attack on a valid military target, it was intentionally kidnapping, raping, and murdering civilians. This sort of behavior makes it very hard for me to swallow the, "both sides are equally bad," narrative. I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian situation before, it is quickly evaporating.
I’m not denying that some of this is factual reporting, but that particular source can be very biased with respect to Israel.
Overall, we rate Tablet Magazine as right-center biased based on an editorial bias that moderately favors the pro-Israel nationalist right. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to the promotion of conspiracy theories despite a clean third-party fact check record.
Israel has turned Gaza into an open air prison. Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide, but I'll save that criticism until it actually plays out. In general, Israel is an apartied state. Hamas is a bunch of murderous terrorists committing war crimes, doing far more harm to their supposed cause than good. This attack will result in far more of their people suffering. But they count on that, hate within the Palestine community in Gaza is what gives them political power, so the civilians Isreal is currently killing will just continue to fuel the cycle of violence.
Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn't make Israel "good". If you compare Nazi Germany to apartied South Africa, the former is going to win the evil country contest everytime. But that doesn't make apartied South Africa good. If it wasn't for the Book of Revelations, America (it's government and it's people) would care as much about this conflict as it does about various civil wars and genocides happening all over the world, which is to say not at all (unless oil or other natural resources are imperilled).
Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide
My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.
Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”.
You make a good point about no one having clean hands in this conflict, but one party here seems willing to commit atrocities that the other is not. One party is historically willing to compromise and negotiate for a viable solution and the other has not, and in fact has it in their charter that they will not negotiate or compromise.
[Hamas's charter,] article 13, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
What we need to end this amicably is a solution that neither party is happy with, one they are equally dissatisfied with, because that is a hallmark of compromise. If one or both parties are unwilling to compromise, the erosion of Palestinian lands and power will continue as it has, and such atrocious acts may serve to hasten it.
My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.
The border crossing to Egypt is usually only for people when it's open. As I understand it, all goods have to use a different crossing passing into Israel first and then Gaza.
The border crossing to Egypt is usually only for people when it’s open.
why all the innocent palestinians arent rushing for the border to get out is beyond me. you know what's coming. being dead and saying 'i told you the bastards would kill me' sounds great up until the point you are dead.
Hoping Israel doesnt unleash possibly the most intense campaign of this generation is a fools dream really and unless you are a combatant, you'd get the hell out ASAP. Hamas is going to be blown to limbs and those that survive the bombings and full scale assaults are going to wind up Munich'd after all this is over. They cant do what they did and not expect utter retribution
Probably because Egypt isn't going to let them in either.
well instead of acting like a little bitch about it, maybe work on that solution
Yeah, let me just call up the government of Egypt and tell them to let in 2 million refugees.
If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine.
Hate to point out the irony, especially in this context... but at the rate things are going, in another 5 years there probably won't be a Palestine.
"Israel are the good guys because the international community has stopped them from completing the genocide at a quick pace"
God I really hope a ethno state claims your own land as theirs, puts you in an open air prison as it gradually steals pieces of it for its owns settlers year after year, denies you food and medicines. Shoots women, children, medics and reporters in your community.
“Israel are the good guys because the international community has stopped them from completing the genocide at a quick pace”
Work on your reading comprehension, because you conveniently ignored much of what I wrote. The Jews were genocided. They don't want to genocide others, unlike their opponents.
20% of the state of Israel is Palestinian/arab, with full citizenship and rights. It seems their behaviors are motivated by self-defense, not destroying an ethnic group.
God I really hope a ethno state claims your own land as theirs, puts you in an open air prison as it gradually steals pieces of it for its owns settlers year after year, denies you food and medicines. Shoots women, children, medics and reporters in your community.
If I my country theoretically started a losing war with our neighbor and then refused to make peace when we lost, I'd expect to be occupied by hostile soldiers and be denied autonomy until my country did. When a hostile army is occupying and guerilla attacks or riots/uprisings happen, people get shot. It's almost like there are consequences for endless violence and open warfare against one's neighbor. No side has a monopoly on victimhood here.
The fact that you would wish such ills on others for recognizing this, that you look at this conflict in such a reductive way, is telling of your character.
The Jews were genocided. They don’t want to genocide others
And muslims were killed on mass as part of that same genocide, so that means they physical cant be involved in a genocide of their own right?
20% of the state of Israel is Palestinian/arab, with full citizenship and rights.
Can you read your own wikipedia article?
While most Arabs remaining in Israel were granted citizenship, they were subject to martial law in the early years of the state.[32][33] Zionism had given little serious thought as to how to integrate Arabs, and according to Ian Lustick subsequent policies were 'implemented by a rigorous regime of military rule that dominated what remained of the Arab population in territory ruled by Israel, enabling the state to expropriate most Arab-owned land, severely limit its access to investment capital and employment opportunity, and eliminate virtually all opportunities to use citizenship as a vehicle for gaining political influence.
Or can we talk about how whats going on in Israel is recognised as apartheid?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
If I my country theoretically started a losing war with our neighbor and then refused to make peace when we lost,
You people are physically incapable of having a good faith thought on this issue. The Palestinians didnt "start a war with their neighbour" They had their land taken from them by the west so they could replace their Jewish populations.
The fact that you would wish such ills on others for recognizing this, that you look at this conflict in such a reductive way, is telling of your character.
Lmao cope.
And muslims were killed on mass as part of that same genocide, so that means they physical cant be involved in a genocide of their own right?
This seems incoherent, I don't follow. What are you trying to say?
Can you read your own wikipedia article?
I did read the article, you seem to have difficulty with verb tenses. That was in the past. At present Arab Israelis have the same legal citizen rights as Jewish Israelis.
Or can we talk about how whats going on in Israel is recognised as apartheid?
www.amnesty.org/…/israels-system-of-apartheid/Thanks for the link, I will watch that when I get the chance.
You people are physically incapable of having a good faith thought on this issue. The Palestinians didnt “start a war with their neighbour” They had their land taken from them by the west so they could replace their Jewish populations.
"You people," classy. What people are you including me among in order to dismiss my opinion? Spell it out for me.
This conflict is a long and winding road, but based on my understanding that's exactly what happened. Palestinians didn't like the UN partition plan so they resorted to violence and attacked their Jewish neighbors, triggering the Arab-Israeli War of 1948:
The United Nations resolution sparked conflict between Jewish and Arab groups within Palestine. Fighting began with attacks by irregular bands of Palestinian Arabs attached to local units of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries. These groups launched their attacks against Jewish cities, settlements, and armed forces. The Jewish forces were composed of the Haganah, the underground militia of the Jewish community in Palestine, and two small irregular groups, the Irgun, and LEHI. The goal of the Arabs was initially to block the Partition Resolution and to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Jews, on the other hand, hoped to gain control over the territory allotted to them under the Partition Plan.
Lmao cope.
Grow up.
You're arguing Jewish people would perpetrate genocide simply because Jewish people on the past were victims (despite all the evidence that they are currently commiting a genocide) so I took that same logic and applied it to the Muslims of palestine.
It's in the past
Jfc. I'm guessing you're also one those people that says "why do we have lgbt/womens/black rights? You already have all your rights?"
You people as in people who go out of their way to disregard reality to simp for a religious apartheid ethno state that is commiting genocide.
Again, you're phrasing it as if Israel and palestine had coexistence as neighbours then palestine decided to attack out of no where. The UN (or more specifically the British) decided they were just going to take the Palestinians land to make a country of their own in an act of blatant colonialism. So they were responding to being invaded.
You’re arguing Jewish people would perpetrate genocide simply because Jewish people on the past were victims (despite all the evidence that they are currently commiting a genocide) so I took that same logic and applied it to the Muslims of palestine.
I never wrote nor implied that, in fact I wrote the opposite; Israel is not willing to commit genocide, unlike Hamas. You do have terrible reading comprehension.
You people as in people who go out of their way to disregard reality to simp for a religious apartheid ethno state that is commiting genocide.
Riiight. Nice misdirection. I think we all know what you meant.
Israel is a theocracy, but it can't be an ethnostate when other ethnicities have full citizen rights and live among the population.
The only party here out to commit genocide is Palestine, Hamas is very explicit about that. See my link above.
Your worldview is completely twisted when fighting back against genocidal terrorists slaughtering your civilians is genocide and the slaughterers are the sympathetic party.Again, you’re phrasing it as if Israel and palestine had coexistence as neighbours then palestine decided to attack out of no where. The UN (or more specifically the British) decided they were just going to take the Palestinians land to make a country of their own in an act of blatant colonialism. So they were responding to being invaded.
I didn't say out of no where, but according to my reading they did in fact start the war. There were other ways to respond to the UN partition plan than through violence. Palestine chose violence and continues to choose violence up to this day, and they are still suffering from that decision. Had they been willing to peacefully coexist history would have played out differently for them.
Yes you did, almost word for word and yourw still doing it now. Israel IS commiting genocide right as we fucking speak.
What did I mean then? Since you apparently know better than I do?
Lol sure, and uyghurs have the sane rights as the Han Chinese in China, so that means they all live in peace and there's nothing bad going on there either right?
You are going so far out of you way to deny reality to deny any wrong Israel does. I really fucking wish Israel was actually this egalitarian utopia that you think it is. But if you read the report from amnesty International I sent you, you would see how delusional your perception of Israel is.
Oh yeah totally and if the American Indians chose peace instead of attacking the white settlers then they could have avoided the genocide. Really if you think about it the trail of tears was entirely there fault right? They shoukd have just let the settlers claim their la d whil3 they went through the proper channels. Oh and btw the Arabs did that before any armed conflict, appealing to the international court of justice to say the UN should not be able to forcibly partition a state against the will of most of its inhabitants but were (shockingly) shut down. The Arab higher committee organised a general strike in protest of the UN resolution.
Also you're not right, the conflict between Jewish settlers and Arabs had been going on since the late 1800s when a settler shot an Arab at a wedding. And the start of the hostilities that became the civil war and later the israel- Arab war was when a zionist paramilitary group brutally murdered a Arab family because they suspected them to be informants for the British (at this point the zionist group had been commiting terrorist attacks against British forces for some time) Then the broader war was triggered when the Jewish settlers unilaterally declared """independence""" and the formation of their own state, despite Palestine and the Arab league not agreeing to any terms like that. And personally I would say declaring a revolution like that counts as starting the war.
Sure, but aren’t they still nazi fascists who try to genocide lgbtq+ people?
Snark aside, I do completely agree, and there's a lot that I would criticize Israel for. That list does not, however, include mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of random civilians.
It does include apartheid, genocide, belief in racial superiority and murdering journalists though. We can’t equate what one side has done with the other as one side has generally held all the power while one side has been persistently oppressed. Also, it’s pretty hard to say whether mass murder, rape and kidnapping civilians is as bad as, worse than, or better than genocide.
The Israeli government regularly commits atrocities and crimes against humanity. Hamas regularly commits atrocities and crimes against humanity. There are no good guys here, just bad guys in charge being funded and goaded by other bad guys and innocent civilians being needlessly murdered.
Rape and kidnapping maybe not but did you just say that Israel hasn't been murdering Palestinians? Or are you saying they've never murdered more than 200 at once
You know as well as I do that the IDF does not go around Palestinian villages slaughtering everyone they see.
Israel's hands are not remotely perfectly clean, and there have absolutely been actions that are reprehensible, but the operations of the IDF and Hamas are not remotely equivalent, as you're perfectly aware.
Yes I'm aware it's different but I'm wondering why you phrased it like there hasn't been violence against (non-hamas) Palestinian citizens by Israel.
Because the scale and level of intention to harm civilians are completely incomparable. Israel is generally not trying to murder every Palestinian citizen it finds. Meanwhile, that is Hamas' explicit reason for existing, as literally stated in their founding charter.
Israel has done a lot of shit, and I don't deny that. But it hasn't acted the way Hamas does.
Why would you want to rephrase "mass murder of civilians" (as in go shoot up a couple hundred teenagers at a music festival, with some rape mixed in) to "violence against citizens" ?
Because that’s their only talking point
Remember when terrorists attacked the USA, UK, France and Spain?
And then we decided to commit war crimes and deprive civilians of water, electricity and food, while destroying their houses?
Oh wait, we didn't.
We actually tried to win hearts and minds while targeting just the terrorists.
Didn't work out, but we didn't become vicious war criminals against poor innocent civilians who just happened to be ethnically related to the terrorists.
Israel is not deserving of support by the civilized world.
People have forgotten that denying people basic necessities in the hopes that they die out is also genocide.
lmao what hearts and minds do you expect to win out of a population who has religious beef with you? A population who would gladly wipe you out if they could?
Nah, Israel needs to be able to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the name of peace, so that Palestinians can find their peace elsewhere.
Okay I get what you're trying to say but Americans absolutely caused massive amounts of wanton destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Um, Iraq and Afghanistan? We absolutely DESTROYED ALL of Iraq's infrastructure in like a week and then GW flew out to an aircraft carrier with a banner that said "Mission Accomplished".
Then we spend the next 20 years kicking in doors and killing civilians cause reasons.
Then we bail and leave all the dudes that helped us out behind so they can pay the price for helping the enemy...good times...
Israel is not deserving of support by the civilized world.
Totally agree but just like the drug commercial in the '80s..."I learned it from watching you!"
Wait what? Didn't Obama drone like a wedding and the doctors without borders?
Lol the US and Canada murdered 95% of the natives, including 100% of those who resisted plus their families, took their land and put the rest into remote reservations
Israel's shit but not as shit
And then we decided to commit war crimes and deprive civilians of water, electricity and food, while destroying their houses? Oh wait, we didn’t.
You serious? If you’re from the US: Have you by any chance heard of Guantanamo Bay? Abu Ghraib?
The equivalency discussions are all BS.
Terrorist attacks targeting civilians are bad.
Also, indiscriminate bombing killing civilians is bad.
A civilized world really shouldn't condone either. And one doesn't justify the other.
Flying planes into civilian buildings killing thousands wasn't an appropriate response to their government supporting tyrants who tortured and killed dissidents. (Also, probably not a good idea to support tyrants.)
The hundreds of thousands of civilians who died in the middle east in response to those attacks shouldn't have had to pay the price on such an attack even if their country had had anything to do with it in the first place.
The only appropriate "both sides" in these kinds of situations is the capacity to have empathy and regret over the suffering that occurs to normal people trying to live their lives on both sides of the conflicts.
Unfortunately a lot of what I'm seeing online these days is the logical equivalent of "Bin Laden was justified in 9/11 because the US's foreign policy caused the suffering of many in the middle east." Logic I happen to think is pretty disgusting personally, just as I've also always found dismissal of civilian suffering in broader military responses reprehensible.
Not a lot of countries have clean hands to be pointing fingers with, but the only way we move towards a world with less blood on our collective hands is by unequivocally pointing to human rights abuses where they occur and saying "this is not okay."
Not "this is okay because so and so bombed a city block first and wasn't touching black while saying I'm rubber and you're glue."
No - targeting or indiscriminately killing civilians is not okay - full stop.
And if one's attitude about the civilian deaths of one group of people is anything less than that, they might just be a bit racist towards that group of people, and may want to reexamine how they look at fellow humans and the degree to which minor differences in skin color or religion or ancestral identity outweighs the commonality of the human experience of pain, suffering, and loss.
TL;DR: It's perfectly appropriate to recognize that the Palestinian people have suffered injustice and mistreatment while also recognizing that a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians is repugnant. The mental gymnastics to recognize the former and not the latter is pretty gross though, and honestly every time I see it (and frequently these days) I can't help but think it probably really does boil down to racist assholes using false equivalency to justify their bigotry.
I mean... Gaza is an open air prison that is, in part, used to keep the "more moderate" Palestinians in the West Bank compliant/docile. Very much a "You act up and we will do this to you too" situation.
Rather than get angry that The Internet told you something you don't like, do some research and better understand the whole mess. Because... it is a giant mess on all sides. Even a lot of the external support is built around using the Palestinians as a distraction/punishment for israel rather than actually caring what happens to them.
Rest assured, I understand the mess fairly well. I've spent a decent amount of time in Middle East and know several Palestinians and Israelis.
There's quite a lot that I'd strongly criticize Israel for, but intentional murder and rape of civilians is something that can never be justified, no matter how much critical theory you read.
And in that I agree (even if young soldiers with guns and permission to do whatever they want tend to commit large amounts of sexual violence against civilian populations...)
But you specifically brought up
when the IDF took a bunch of civilian women and children as hostages and then announced that it was going to livestream their murder.
You can MAYBE argue against the livestreaming, but it isn't like news agencies around the world aren't regularly doing stories on the human rights violations and apartheid in Gaza (and, to a much lesser extent, the West Bank).
1 are you arguing that young Israeli soldiers would be raping away in the same manner?
2 maybe argue against livestreaming killing hostages?
I am not aware of any "on the record" incidents of IDF soldiers raping Palestinians. However, a bit of research shows a pretty horrific series of articles about IDF commanders allowing Hamas prisoners to rape IDF soldiers but...
Similarly, there are documented accusations of rape by Israeli soldiers during past wars.
But, beyond that: it is pretty much "known" that soldiers will use sexual violence as a weapon during war. It is one of the horrors of war that shows up pretty much no matter what army is involved.
So... while I am not going to accuse Israeli soldiers of rape (and actively didn't), that is not the line in the sand I would use to argue why one set of violent thugs are better than others.
And I already addressed the distinction without difference of executing Palestinian civilians in an open air prison being held hostage to try to encourage other Palestinians to "behave" in front of news cameras versus on twitter.
I love this take because it implies that Palestinians, on their own, are incapable of self-determination and self-governance without degenerating into raping, slaving, barbarians, thereby justifying the existence of Gaza and Israel's actions; yet, this is presented earnestly, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, and with the veil of being in some way pro-palestinian.
You don't think cutting off food, water, and power to millions isn't an are we the baddies moment too?
Both sides are acting like petulant children while their people suffer
They don’t take them hostage, usually they just kill them right there.
You know as well as I do that the IDF has never done anything like what happened on Saturday. Kidnapping children? Shooting random people waiting at a bus stop? Slaughtering 200 people at a festival? Taking a hundred hostages and then threatening to murder them while live streaming it?
Israel has done a lot of shit, and deserves criticism for all of it, but it has not done anything comparable to this.
They have regularly and repeatedly carried out air strikes targeting civilian infrastructure with no evidence of military targets.
There are multiple reports from multiple years of IDF soldiers killing children, including the recent video of soldiers killing a young boy in front of a cheering crowd.
What about all the videos of the things IDF has done to people in the West Bank? Countless reports of women being raped before being thrown from their homes, and their family members being shot for resisting having their land stolen from them.
Yes, what happened the other day was terrible. But it’s not unilateral, Israel has committed war crimes against Palestinians for decades. Just because they have been spread out instead of all happening on one day does not make them better.
Do you have any sources of, for example, countless women being raped by the IDF/Israelis?
Ok not to say this isn't awful but you if you have to go back 75 years to find 4 rapes, don't you think the wording 'countless' and the implication this is a regular practice in the West Bank is a bit of a lie?
didn't see it was already 75 years ago. i think you're right.
i went looking online to see if i could find any reports on rape allegations. most sources are news websites that i'm not familiar with so i don't want to use them as source.
most reputable news sources have articles about rape allegations among soldiers, not from palestinians. Which i think is a problem in every army, regardless of the nation.
so i think i'm in agreement with you here that there's not much evidence that the IDF is raping palestinians.
having said that, it feels like a technicality in the face of all the palestinians the IDF has murdered and evicted. Where i'm talking exclusively about civilians, not hamas terrorists.
I don't think it is just a technicality really. Accusations of systemic rape as a weapon of war are very serious. If they are used as a counter argument to say "it's not important that Palestinians immediately go on a raping spree the very moment they step foot out of Gaza, because the Israelis have been doing it for years" that is a clear lie. Such lies need to be called out, not excused as unimportant technicalities. How are you deciding that those Israeli kids deserved it if you don't really care about facts
oh i never meant to say that any of the israeli victims deserved it.
neither the israeli nor the palestinian people deserve what has been happening.
i do think its unfair to be shocked at palestinian aggression while ignoring israeli war crimes.
none of it is ever deserved or justified. the hamas attack from last week should be fought back with tooth and nail. hamas needs to be brought down.
and netanyahu and any israeli politicians involved in the colonization for the past two decades should be tried for war crimes.
Just your typical 80 yr occupation with no real options to even become a state, I mean how bad could that be right?
Except that Oslo accord that they walked out on, and that fact that this is happening in the Gaza strip, a section of Palestinian controlled land with the 1967 borders, a foreign and maritime border and had all Jewish residents (including those that predated the 1948 beginning of hostilities) evicted, often an gunpoint and has had autonomy for nearly two decades now right? Besides that option.