Hamas has attacked Israel

Now another terrorist organisation has joined Hamas, yes Hezbollah, funded by Iran.
The poor innocents of whatever side, will be butchered by this lot.
We should all be afraid, very afraid.

Franbern

maddyone

I will always support Israel. I have Jewish friends. Hamas have launched a terrorist attack. The people of Israel must defend themselves. How Qatar can support blatant terrorism and such appalling behaviour is beyond me.

Being jewish or having Jewish Friends and supporting the extreme right wing government of Israel currently, are two quite different things. Many Jews, both in and out of Israel completely oppose the current govrnment and their virtually fascist , apartheid system. And, it is they and that system that is the real culprets for this current attack.

I am quite horrified as to how Biden, Starmer etc can rush in to support such a right wing government. And we need always to remember that ones sides 'terrorists' and the other sides 'freedom fighters'.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation and Iran is itching to destroy the land of Israel, alongside Hamas. Will you lovers of Palestine be happy then.
As for Palestinian flags flying in our capital city, shameful.
Suggest you all read the History of Jerusalem.

So many right wing populist leaders, it is quite frightening
I have never felt quite so insecure since the 50 s and 60s

I've long been a member of The Palestine Consolidation Group here in the south of England and the UK has had quite a good record for supporting Palestine, despite it's original interference ,... but as America has always supported Israel I think that this sitauation is going to escalate into an extremely nasty bloodbath.. and probably involve other countries too

Whitewavemark2

Hezbollah are threatening to get involved, as Israel are launching strikes into Lebanon. So that would be a very different ball game as Hezbollah are very skilled fighters.

Listening - one opinion is that the Hamas know very well that they can’t possibly win, but that their intention is not to wage war, but to use the hostages as bargaining tools.

Reports are that Hezbollah were already firing into Israeli territory prompting a response which was always going to be fierce.

I don’t think anybody thought that Hezbollah were not going to get involved.

👀 from a Ukraine spokesperson.

Iuliia Mendel
@IuliiaMendel
·
6m
This new war distracts from another one that Putin is conducting in Ukraine. But at the end it’s all about the world that goes insane after the right-wing politicians take the lead and bring disastrous consequences where civilians suffer the most.

You don’t need to tell us that! Even where they don’t wage war, their governance is always chaotic.

I remember one single Israeli soldier was exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians prisoners not too long ago.

Hezbollah are threatening to get involved, as Israel are launching strikes into Lebanon. So that would be a very different ball game as Hezbollah are very skilled fighters.

Listening - one opinion is that the Hamas know very well that they can’t possibly win, but that their intention is not to wage war, but to use the hostages as bargaining tools.

Take a look at Silwan a Palestinian village where the inhabitants have been forcibly removed to build a theme park and 55,000 homes for settlers.

silverlining48

It’s happened, the winner already has it all.
Take a look at the historic maps of Palestine/Israel . Shrunk to two separate areas one very tiny. where they are not allowed to travel between, with the winners occupying the rest
That’s the point because the land grabbing is going on as I write, until presumably there is nothing left for those whose land it originally was.

And the Palestinians have to pay to have their own homes demolished before being forced out.. often from land their families have lived on for centuries..

Am idly imagining descendants of angles, Saxons, romans, whoever, returning to these shores staking their claim.

It’s happened, the winner already has it all.
Take a look at the historic maps of Palestine/Israel . Shrunk to two separate areas one very tiny. where they are not allowed to travel between, with the winners occupying the rest
That’s the point because the land grabbing is going on as I write, until presumably there is nothing left for those whose land it originally was.

Harking back to the Nakba (or the Nazi Holocaust) is not going to solve the problem. The present fact is that the Israelis and the Palestinians (strictly speaking, their politicians and those who support them on both sides) dispute ownership of the same land and both are prepared to fight for it. Despite some rhetoric Arab states are not prepared to support the Palestinians. Only Iran is clearly involved as it is elsewhere. If there is no possibility of a negotiated solution with the help of third parties then it will be a matter of which side can make their case stick from time to time through military means. That is sad but I can't see any other outcome.

GrannyGravy13

Glorianny

GrannyGravy13

maddyone

There is no justification for yesterday’s events, but I know people will continue to try to justify them.

That sums it up for me.

Both sides are at fault, there will not be a winning side only devastated families, broken lives and destruction of properties and infrastructure.

Oh I think you are wrong there. I'm sure that Israel will as usual come out on top, that it will continue to operate an Apartheid state in Palestine and that Palestinians will suffer far more than any Israeli citizen.
There is little or no infrastructure in Gaza, it has been part of Israeli policy to destroy it for a long time. In 2012 the policy was vividly expressed as "bombing Gaza back into the middle ages" www.heraldscotland.com/news/13081414.ground-war-looms-israeli-bombs-pound-gaza/

The moderate citizens of Gaza along with the moderate citizens of Israel will be the ones paying the consequences.

As in all wars they are collateral damage.

Can you tell me when Israeli moderates will have days without power because fuel for the generator was held up at a checkpoint? When Israeli women will give birth at checkpoints because they have been held up there as they tried to reach hospital? When Israeli women are paraded naked around their homes whilst Palestinian soldiers search it?
Because that's what happens to Palestinian women

Gaza would have greater legitimacy if they held an election.

Israel would appear more legitimate if their prime minister was not corrupt.

The world would have greater legitimacy if they worked much harder to bring a resolution, rather taking expedient sides.

It is all such a mess.

Glorianny

maddyone

The actions of Hamas were bestial. Driving dead, naked or semi naked women around on trucks displaying their bodies. The killings of approximately 500 civilians, hostages gone to God knows where, 500 missiles rained down on Israel. They send missiles into Israel all the time but it’s rarely reported. One of the girls murdered and stripped was actually a German woman. Her parents in Germany are reportedly distraught. Hardly surprising. I can’t imagine what the people of Israel are going through. This is nothing but terrorism and bestiality. There is no justification for this. I can’t imagine how any normal person can even try to justify it.

Read the link I gave to what happens to Palestinian women when Israeli soldiers decide to search their houses. Then work out what is behind these acts which are acts of retribution. Horrific yes, but how much more horrific is it to know that the soldiers of an occupying army behave in such a manner and the incidents are not reported, that it never even makes the news because it is simply an everyday occurrence.

So it's ok then, is it?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?
You are justifying barbaric behaviour on those grounds?

As GrannyGravy says

The moderate citizens of Gaza along with the moderate citizens of Israel will be the ones paying the consequences.

As in all wars they are collateral damage.

Glorianny

GrannyGravy13

maddyone

There is no justification for yesterday’s events, but I know people will continue to try to justify them.

That sums it up for me.

Both sides are at fault, there will not be a winning side only devastated families, broken lives and destruction of properties and infrastructure.

Oh I think you are wrong there. I'm sure that Israel will as usual come out on top, that it will continue to operate an Apartheid state in Palestine and that Palestinians will suffer far more than any Israeli citizen.
There is little or no infrastructure in Gaza, it has been part of Israeli policy to destroy it for a long time. In 2012 the policy was vividly expressed as "bombing Gaza back into the middle ages" www.heraldscotland.com/news/13081414.ground-war-looms-israeli-bombs-pound-gaza/

The moderate citizens of Gaza along with the moderate citizens of Israel will be the ones paying the consequences.

As in all wars they are collateral damage.

I agree with franbern. The Israelis I know despair of the extreme right and the treatment of Palestinians but this is balanced by the need to feel safe in their own country. Those of us who voice our own opinions from afar can’t possibly appreciate how it feels to be so conflicted.

My own links to Israel go back to childhood when my mother taught English and music in a Jewish school in Aden. Most of the teenagers then went to Israel to work on a kibbutz. We all know how influences from a young age stay with us into adulthood so I will always support the right of Israel to defend itself.

How heartbreaking it all is.

If you mistreat a group or race then even the most peaceful of people will eventually retaliate and lash out. Not always in the right direction or at the right people. You should not blame those who have been mistreated and use it as an excuse to mistreat them further.

In fact Arafat shared the Nobel peace prize that year
Think it was the Oslo accord

Long piece by Ricky Council House media.

Its not hard to understand the state of Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of over 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from their homes in what is known as the Nakba or “catastrophe”. It’s not hard to grasp this is a very legitimate grievance that Palestinians hold to this day.

It’s not hard to grasp that since the borders were drawn between Israel and Palestine in 1947, Palestine has dramatically shrunk while Israel has grown. It’s irrelevant to say Israel has demolished this or that illegal settlement when it controls so much Palestinian land.

It’s not hard to understand Palestinians are trapped under what is recognised as apartheid by the United Nations and human rights groups across the world, including B’Tselem in Israel and Amnesty International.

“Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act.”

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

What is also not hard to understand is that this “conflict” is asymmetric with a disproportionate death toll on one side and advanced weaponry on the other. Often the conflict is rocks against tanks. Today it was parachutes against jets.

Source: Wikipedia
In Israel, you have a country that was built through a process of ethnic cleansing which now controls the borders of its neighbour and runs a brutal apartheid system.

Now you can complain all you like about Palestinian violence, and for the record I hate all of the violence, but if your criticism starts and ends with the behaviour of Palestinians after everything they’ve gone through, I’m going to assume your concerns are nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with maintaining apartheid.

This year alone we’ve seen Israel kill over 247 Palestinians, including 37 children (prior to today when the figure went much higher). We’ve seen other acts of violence, including Israeli troops shooting the ankles of peaceful protesters, causing amputations.

Common occurrences include: raids on the homes of innocent families in the middle of the night; random acts of harassment and violence by Israeli soldiers; the imprisonment of young children; missile strikes on residential buildings; the killings of journalists, aid workers and peaceful protesters. I could go on.

I assume you would not accept Russians doing this to Ukrainians, yet when I, or anyone else, makes this point on Twitter, we are accused of being “Putin apologists” as though criticising both illegal occupations somehow means you support one of them.

The latest violence is deeply worrying because it could escalate into something truly horrific. It has already been shocking in terms of the successes of “Operation Al-Aqsa flood”.

In a surprise attack, Palestinian paragliders breached Israeli territory and rockets rained down on Tel Aviv. Barbed-wire fences around Gaza were met with bulldozers; Israeli soldiers were dragged from their tanks; and personnel carriers, and even an IDF major-general, were captured. An unknown number of civilians were also captured.

In retaliation, Israel sent its jets to bombard Gaza with missiles in what it called “Operation Iron Swords”.

None of this is cause for celebration: it’s horrific to see civilians taken hostage and yet it was pretty much inevitable. In a situation where Palestinians have little or no chance of fighting conventionally against a powerful foe armed with state of the art US weaponry, less conventional means of fighting are going to happen. Palestinians cannot vote their way out of apartheid.

When Palestinians protest peacefully, they get shot. When we call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, our government moves to make BDS illegal. When moderate Palestinian politicians call for peace, they get assassinated.

Meanwhile, Palestinian homes are demolished, mosques are raided, farmland is stolen, orchards are destroyed, water supplies are poisoned, and life is made near-impossible. Palestinians must resort to extreme measures or except a boot on their face forever.

From the Palestinian perspective, every Israeli participates in the military, including women (apart from those who refuse the draft and go to jail) and therefore all civilians become valid targets in their eyes. I don’t like it and I want all hostages to be released unharmed, but that’s the unfortunate reality.

Today, the Israeli response has killed roughly 200 Palestinians (including children) and injured 2,000 at the time of writing (expect these figures to rapidly increase). A Palestinian residential building containing 100 apartments was blown up while an Al Jazeera reporter was live on air.

Israel is saying it will cut all power to Gaza, which would surely cost lives, especially in hospitals, unless they have enough backup power. Let’s not forget collective punishment is a war crime. Many social media users are calling for an all out attack on Gaza and even for the extermination of Palestinians who they describe as subhuman.

As Rivkah Brown put it on Twitter:

“Hospital ventilators, heart rate monitors, dialysis machines – thousands of people will die as a result of this power cut. Tell me how this is any different to Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians.”

Just read the replies to Brown’s tweet from Israelis and ask yourself if it sounds like they’re calling for genocide…

Some social media users are speculating that Israel intentionally let its usually impregnable iron dome fail; that it seems too strange that its normally red-hot intelligence services did not see a huge attack coming; that the far-right Israeli government wanted an excuse to cleanse the land of Gaza. I’ve no idea if this is true, but I do know some Israeli politicians openly express their desire for genocide, such as Ayelet Shaked who once said:

“Behind every terrorist stands dozens of men and women without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.

“They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists.

“They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists.”

When our politicians side with the Israeli government, this is the far-right mindset they’re siding with.

One of the few British politicians who has called for a ceasefire - Jeremy Corbyn - has been savaged for not giving the green light for an Israeli massacre - and let’s be clear, this is what every politician who says “Israel has a right to defend herself” is doing. I’m looking at you, Sir Keir Starmer.

Why is no one saying Palestine has a right to defend herself from an illegal occupation? Where is Palestine’s iron dome? Why aren’t the people with Ukraine flags in their Twitter bios doing the same for Palestine? (Apologies to the few who are.)

I can tell you why: our politicians never gave a shit about Ukrainian or Palestinian lives, but they do their utmost to program you into caring / not caring based on what is politically convenient. This was never about protecting civilians and always about geopolitical concerns: both Israel and Ukraine are strategic outposts.

In other words, your concerns might come from a genuine place, but theirs don’t. You only have to look at the conflict zones around the world to see how little they care about human life when they have nothing to gain. Don’t let these dishonest people tell you what to think or feel.

Every argument you can make in defence of Ukraine, you can make in defence of Palestine, and every criticism you can make against Palestine, you can make against Ukraine. Both countries are illegally occupied. Both populations are facing unimaginable horror. Both have fighters who’ve gone too far, killed civilians and committed war crimes.

You get this in every war (just look at the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Iraq) and it’s always wrong, but we don’t place our emphasis on the wrongdoing of Ukrainians because it’s outweighed by the fact they are illegally occupied by a powerful foe.

Criticising Palestinians is not how you solve this problem; calling out apartheid and demanding peace is. Let’s not forget South Africans resorted to violence to end apartheid, but we do not focus our blame on the ANC. We recognise that desperate people will do desperate things and this is what’s happening in Palestine.

However, the way Palestine and Ukraine are discussed by our media is vastly different: with Ukraine there is enormous sympathy and with Palestine there is none. With Ukraine, they show examples of their fighters at their best, and with Palestine, they show them at their worst.

This is why you probably never saw the media mention Ukrainians lying captured Russians on the ground and shooting them in the knees, or Palestinians ensuring that Israeli women with children would come to no harm (both of which I’ve seen video examples of).

You are supposed to love the Ukrainian and hate the Palestinian, and in both cases, you’re supposed to cheer for continued violence and vilify those who call for peace.

And if you stay silent when the occupying army or Israeli settlers do the same to innocent Palestinian civilians do not be surprised if there is a reaction. Usually stones or burned tyres but not this time.
I remember Yasser Arafat of Fatah who was willing and truly wanted a peaceful solution but who was treated with distain by the Israeli government.
So many lost opportunities for the chance of peace.

I have had to switch off watching news footage as the scenes are so sickening.

GrannyGravy13

maddyone

There is no justification for yesterday’s events, but I know people will continue to try to justify them.

That sums it up for me.

Both sides are at fault, there will not be a winning side only devastated families, broken lives and destruction of properties and infrastructure.

Oh I think you are wrong there. I'm sure that Israel will as usual come out on top, that it will continue to operate an Apartheid state in Palestine and that Palestinians will suffer far more than any Israeli citizen.
There is little or no infrastructure in Gaza, it has been part of Israeli policy to destroy it for a long time. In 2012 the policy was vividly expressed as "bombing Gaza back into the middle ages" www.heraldscotland.com/news/13081414.ground-war-looms-israeli-bombs-pound-gaza/

silverlining48

Would just say that the rockets which had been sent to sterot (sp) the nearest Israeli town rarely do any damage as they are not powerful enough. Thus perhaps not news worthy.
I believe the Palestinians feel they have nothing to lose, a quick death or a Slow one in what is an open air prison the size of Birmingham but with 2.5 million inhabitants squeezed into it.
They have been told to leave their homes but there is nowhere they can go, and without the safe rooms that most Israeli homes have they have nowhere to hide themselves and their Families.
It’s a tragic situation.

It surely is..they're not even allowed to leave by water as their fishing zone is severely restricted by Israel