So pleased to see hostages being released.

bmacca surely none of this is right? The whole impossible impasse?

JenniferEccles

It’s worth bearing in mind that the pause in fighting would have continued had Hamas not broken the deal by refusing to release the Israeli hostages on one day’s list. It was said that they were worried that the hostages would have revealed how badly they were treated.

It goes without saying that any civilian deaths, especially that of young children is dreadful but civilian casualties happen in every war. In an attempt to help minimise that, Israel, right from the start, has advised citizens to move out of areas it planned to target.

No such consideration was given to the poor innocent festival goers who were so brutally murdered back in October, or the villagers who suffered such appalling brutality at the hands of the Palestinian monsters that the full extent of what those poor souls went through has never been revealed.

No wonder Israel is determined to destroy the murderous regime which committed these atrocities.

There is some debate about why the ceasefire ended.
Arab sources say
The impasse allegedly occurred when Israel refused to negotiate further. Hamas wanted to negotiate the terms of the release of elderly male civilian hostages held in Gaza, but Israel claimed the group still had women hostages to be released. Hamas retorted that the women hostages were soldiers and thus not subject to the original truce agreement, which allowed only for the release of Israeli civilians. Hamas wanted to renegotiate its own terms, but Israel was not willing to do so and wanted to give Hamas nothing in return for its demands

Hamas refused this and Israel then walked away

It is difficult as well to reconcile Israel's stated intention of waging a war until Hamas was completely destroyed with any real commitment to peace.

It is difficult to reconcile ....

Why waste time second guessing what Israel's motives are?

When one thing we know for sure is, Hamas intention to repeat the October massacre.
They have continually repeated their intention to do so.
Why wait, and let them?

Killing children in Gaza wont bring peace...maybe not for generations .You'd think people would have learned that before now.This is genocide and its what Israel has wanted since 1948 presumably thats why their border wasn't secured on October 7th.I read a post accompanied by photographs from Phillipa Whitford MP .about a young woman she had met studying in Scotland, a research scientist .She was distraught at their situation and hoped her infant son would live"to see better times" Sadly they didn't she was murdered by Israeli" defence "force along with her husband her infant son and her brothers .WHAT A WASTE
How can anyone justify this?
There is NO justification yet Israel is being allowed to carry on its murderous route .This is not being done in the name of many Jews who find it unacceptable .The USA and "UK" have to stop supplying Israel with weapons and charge Netanyahu with war crimes ...the current situation must't be allowed to continue.I PROUDLY STAND WITH PALESTINE .Palestine is NOT HAMAS !!

I’m a bit puzzled by your post paddyann, was Phillipa Whitford an MP? If so, for which Parliament as she doesn’t to be Palestinian. I realise that she may have married a Palestinian but how is she an MP and living in Gaza? I’m puzzled, can you tell us more please?

doesn’t appear to be….

Ms Whitford is a SMP

Thank you GrannyGravy, but also wondering how she was murdered along with her husband and child by the IDF if she lives in Scotland?

And also her brothers?

She was talking about a woman who this happened to.
To be fair when PEOPLE SHOUT on the internet I tend not to read their posts fully.

Ahh, I see, thank you Galaxy, I think I didn’t read the post properly.

maddyone

Thank you GrannyGravy, but also wondering how she was murdered along with her husband and child by the IDF if she lives in Scotland?

The MP knew this young woman when she lived in Scotland.
I'm not surprised she is distraught at their deaths now.
This is causing so much grief on both sides.

But murdered?
Like Israelis were tortured and murdered by Hamas?

Or casualties of a horrible war?

murdered by Israeli ‘defence’ force

I quoted from paddyann’s post, as I have done above.
This is a very sad case, but every single one is a sad case in Gaza and Israel.

Picture from the Telegraph

Is this careful targetting of known Hamas hideouts or carpet bombing? Please look carefully at the picture and imagine what it must be like to live there or have lived there. How will Israel know when Hamas is eliminated, will it be when Gaza is a wasteland?

Every day I imagine what it must be like to live there
It's just horrifying, all of it.

Israel, USA vetoed the call for a ceasefire by the UN.

The U.K. abstained.

The rest of the world is calling for a ceasefire. What is happening now in Gaza and the West Bank is abhorrent and little short of genocide.

Despite what some may think, I don't believe Israel had to react like this. As they were on the point of signing a historic agreement with four Arab states, they could have focused on the return of the hostages and continued to build their relationships with their Arab neighbours. I believe they have played into the hands of Hamas and damaged their own credibility but worse they have trashed any chance of peace negotiations. However, I think this Israeli govt knew exactly what it was doing and doesn't want peace. What they want is to occupy Gaza and the West Bank. They don't represent most Israeli Jews but their actions will impact them for decades to come. Sadly I think whitewavemark is correct and we are witnessing genocide. FWIW most of the Al Qaeda recruits came from displaced young Muslims living in refugee camps, not from Muslim families living with a roof over their heads, an identity and hope for the future.

Well said foxie and WWM.

foxie48 what you think about the Israeli government doesn’t make it true.
Just focused on the hostages and done nothing else you say?
That’s laughable.
They wouldn’t have got the number of hostages back they did without their action in Gaza.
If they had done nothing then the scenario by hamas in Gaza would very likely have been public executions of the hostages.
What you would call kind actions by Israel ie. Doing nothing but pursuing peace with neighbours, would be thought weak actions by hamas and more horror would follow.
The Israeli government had no choice but to go in after hamas hard. An awful situation all round but nothing else to be done regretfully.

But it’s not been Hamas but innocent civilians who have and are still paying the price.

Both hamas and civilians have been killed and by the end of the action many more hamas will be either captured or killed.
This is what hamas has brought down on its own people.

The Hamas leaders aren't there although the perpetrators might be.

The civilians, the women, the children are. ☹

Unlikely to get the leaders at the moment, not even in Gaza but hiding out in comfort in a neighbouring country.Doesn’t mean they’ll be safe forever tho. The IDF are getting either the perpetrators or other hamas terrorists slowly but surely.

Oreo If you keep doing the same thing, you keep getting the same result and Israel has a very long history of meeting violence with even more violence. Where has this taken them? Certainly not to any lasting peace. Hamas exists because enough people support them and enough Palestinians believe they have no future. You may find it "laughable" to suggest a different way but in the past in the Middle East any change has come about because of a willingness to change, not to continue to keep doing the same. The majority of people want to live in peace not conflict. Unfortunately, the "ordinary" people don't get much chance to make the decisions they just end up being the collateral of war. fwiw I'm just a woman expressing an opinion, I don't have a magic wand to "make it true" but I wish I did.

I don’t find it laughable to suggest a different way, just that doing nothing as a strategy is. Terrorist groups are not a normal government and you can’t deal with them as if they were.Yes, as you say, unfortunately the ordinary people of any country on a war footing are collateral even when the IDF are doing their best not to target them, but to target hamas hideouts.