The Israeli military hit a school and killed over 30 people, 23 of whim were women and children trying to find refuge from the constant bombardment unleashed on the people of Gaza by the Israeli government.
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.
…Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.
Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering. He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open. “It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Rashed said.
The stories are heartbreaking. It is tempting to turn away, just to avoid becoming depressed at the sheer level of inhumanity of display.
This will in no way deter the Israeli lobby from saying criticism of IDF or the Israeli government = anti-semitism.
I expect the usual politicians -especially the Republicans -- to ignore the massacre.
Israel’s actions are driving this right down the road to the worst outcome for everyone.
The Palestinians will essentially be genocided, and Israel will be a pariah, cut off from all nations except the US, who will try, without success, to rehabilitate our military ally. Israel will end up like South Africa and the great majority of Palestinians will be dead.
Ah, yes, the 2-year-old little girl was a Hamas operative, same old lies. “Look! There’s Hamas hiding in the pregnant woman’s womb! BOMB THE BUILDING!”
Israel is burning through on its accumulated store of goodwill and credibility.
Took a Holocaust to create that store, then decades of hard yakka (Australianism there) what with the hard work and the kibbutzes and the greening of the “desert”.
And now, pissing it away for basically nothing other than pride and revenge.
(Ah well, the wheel of history turns)
The “greening of the desert” depended heavily on stealing Palestinian and Jordanian water in the first place, so the desert wasn’t so much greened as relocated.
Prax, well, that was the narrative, not the bare reality.
Main thing, whatever sympathy they’d banked up with blood, tears, and suffering they now piss away with their O so obvious “baddies” actions.
They can only bomb hospitals and schools and tent cities and infrastructure and stop as much aid coming in as they can and make bullshit claims that only they could make and get away with.
Here’s a salient example.
I remember how in January Israel alleged UNRWA staff members were supposedly involved in the Hamas atrocity that initiated this phase of the conflict between Israel and what little remains of Palestine.
Funding was lost, much pain and suffering and grief and hunger and agony and loss and despair was suffered by Palestinians.
Months later, various countries have resumed funding for the UN agency that provides critical humanitarian aid. None of the allegations were ever sustained.
…
And, of course, it’s not lost on the world community how the ICC has judged things.
IMO, worst possible thing for Biden in this coming election.
No bravery shown, no acknowledgement of the realities.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Biden said in a statement. “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/06/george-clooney-biden-criminal-court-israel/)
That he’s old is not the thing here, is that he can’t break free from his established belief that Israel is the “goody”.
(Bit like one of those Greek tragedies, for mine)
Of course, Biden is relying on the power of synechdoche — that is, the warrant is about Netanyahu and Gallant, not Israel, and about Sinwar, Dief, and Haniyeh, not Hamas.
So, bullshitty obfuscation that is supposed to make sense. It doesn’t.
(Ah well, to preempt, better Biden than the other one)
The Holocaust happened 80 years ago. Biden, like a lot of good-hearted people, grew up with that story as children and never questioned why Germany trying to kill a lot of “enemies of the state” (including Gypsies, LGBTQI, poor farmers who happened to have family farms on the land the Nazis wanted, and people not sufficiently loyal to Hitler as well as Jews, their main enemy of the state) meant that European people got to forcibly displace Middle Easterners of their own land that their families had been living on for millennia. And then, when those people didn’t want to be forcibly removed from their own land, use it as an excuse for escalating brutality toward those people.
Other soulless people just want to build luxury oceanfront condos and otherwise make a buck off the situation, but I’m not talking about them.
People around the world for whom the Holocaust was a fresh horror were appropriately appalled and sympathetic toward some of the survivors. You notice nobody got displaced to give the Gypsies a home on someone else’s land, or the survivors of the farm clearances, or the LGBTQI people.
As John Morales pointed out, there was much sympathy and support for the idea of Israel. And had Israel not been placed where it was (there were several options), things might have gone differently.
However, since at least the 1967 war when Israel decided it wanted land that was never part of the deal and attacked the natives who were living on it, Israel has been squandering the support and goodwill it had in the 1940s and 1950s while raking in support and arms from other countries. Shouting “But the Holocaust!” doesn’t work anymore when the shouter is 30.
People for whom the Holocaust was their grandparents’ 9-11 (or insert whatever atrocity fits in your mindset) see what’s going on without the filter, and are appalled. Israel’s destroyed hospitals, schools, churches (because some of the Palestinians are Christians), apartment buildings, the water and electricity plants, and people trying to provide food and shelter aid. Plus the native women and children--there was a recent leak that IDF was purposely targeting pregnant women and children in a points-earning game.
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/07/first-thing-we-have-normalised-horror-says-unrwa-official-after-israeli-strike-on-school
FWIW, Israel lists 9 Hamas operatives (at what level?) who were killed in the school strike (see https://www.timesofisrael.com/falling-for-hamas-tactics-hagari-slams-world-media-coverage-of-strike-on-un-school/) -- so less than a third of the victims? I’ll leave to the lawyers the arguments of whether this ratio fits some argument of proportionality. On a human level this feels like the bombing of Dresden, over and over. I can’t imagine living under these circumstances.
Something related I saw today: The Bloody River. Currently, neither Israeli Jews nor Palestinians want to live in a single state that lacks a specific ethnic identity. I wonder if a Swiss-style confederacy could work. (BTW the article gives the Arabic rendition of the ‘from the river to the sea’ slogan. The Arabic doesn’t state ‘shall be free’ but ‘shall be Arabic’.)
anat @11:
Makes me think of the UNRWA staff that John Morales reminded us of @6. I don’t think it’s a good idea to take the word of any official of the state of Israel.
Hamas is Gaza’s government, and has been for the last fourteen years. Literally any Gaza resident serving their people in an official capacity is a Hamas operative. (That’s not say Hamas isn’t a terrorist organization as well, but so are many governments, including those of the US and Israel. Calling it Shock and Awe instead of Terror doesn’t change that.)
If all “Hamas operatives” are fair game for execution, then it’s simply impossible for Gaza to have a government…which of course is just fine with Netanyahu’s gang, because it makes it easier to deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim to statehood.
Sorta, Prax, legitimacy aside.
“Legislative elections were held in the Palestinian territories on 25 January 2006 in order to elect the second Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The result was a victory for Hamas, contesting under the list name of Change and Reform, which received 44.45% of the vote and won 74 of the 132 seats, whilst the ruling Fatah received 41.43% of the vote and won 45 seats.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_election)
They’ve run the place since, they’ve done all the arrangements with Israel, but they’ve never had another election since.
So, they do sorta function as a government for Gaza as you claim, but really, it’s hardly either legitimate or representative by now.
And, hey, what about the West Bank? That’s Fatah.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:History_of_the_State_of_Palestine
John Morales @14,
Well, it’s important to note that after that election, the US and other powers refused to recognize the Hamas win (which was a landslide in most parts of Gaza) and started supplying military aid to Fatah. That sparked a civil war, after which Hamas secured Gaza and Fatah secured the West Bank and each organization ousted (and/or expelled, executed or jailed) the other one’s officials.
If Palestine did have another election, Hamas would almost certainly win again; it’s actually more popular in the West Bank than in Gaza now, because residents of each region blame their current rulers for misgovernment. Most Palestinians would prefer a unity government incorporating both Hamas and Fatah members, but reconciliation attempts have always fallen through.
It’s also worth noting that Hamas has been the major provider of social services in Palestine since 2005 or so; that was the biggest factor in its popularity, much more than its militant stance against Israel. Fatah’s PLO was notoriously bad at providing such services.
None of which is to claim that the current Hamas government is legitimate or representative or non-corrupt or anything very positive, but it is the only game in town at the moment, and if Israel eradicates it then Gaza is basically left with no public services whatsoever.
The West Bank’s current government isn’t really relevant to Gaza, since there’s no means of regular transportation between the territories. Gaza’s only airport was destroyed by Israel in 2001, its coastline is blockaded by the Israeli navy, and its only land border crossings are with Israel and Egypt. Israel has now seized the Gazan side of the crossing to Egypt, which closed its side in response. The PLO couldn’t administer Gaza from the West Bank even if Hamas cooperated.
I mean, obviously if Israel established a transportation corridor between the territories and then didn’t bomb the shit out of aid convoys, that would help shift Gazans’ allegiance to Fatah. People tend to be grateful to anyone bringing them food, water and medical care. But Israel’s managed to kill over 250 international aid workers in Gaza to date, so that’s not gonna happen.
Still, they haven’t had one, have they?
Also, given that thanks to Hamas, Gaza is now in ruins, I myself am not that sure that the West Bank really would elect Hamas.
Anyway, point being, this business of conflating Hamas with the Palestinian people is stretching the synecdoche a bit far, I reckon. A bit like equating Netanyahu with Israel.
PS for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Israeli_legislative_election
@ 16 Morales
Unbelievable anyone could be this ignorant.
How Morales thinks it works:
-- Gaza elected extremists
-- Extremists did bad things
-- Israel has no choice but to bomb them into oblivion because they elected extremists
Reality:
-- Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza no matter what
-- Gaza tries moderate governments
-- Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza no matter what
-- Gaza tries peaceful protest
-- Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza no matter what
-- In desperation Gaza elects extremists to fight back
-- Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza no matter what
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-great-march-of-return/
Yet, here you are, bobifericator.
See, there was this event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel) which demarcated the time when Gaza was not being bombed into rubble and when it was. That was Hamas that did that.
They fucking televised themselves doing that atrocity.
Israel did not exactly mince words about what they would do, and they have indeed not minced actions either.
You want to imagine that was not the proximate cause, go for it.
Fact remains, history is there for anyone to see.
(Why you want to be so unbelievably ignorant is left to speculation, Stupidbob)
Israel is responsible for Israel’s actions, Hamas is responsible for Hamas’ actions. If you wish to play the game of blaming someone’s reaction on the stimulus, then do so in a consistent fashion, i.e. by also placing blame on Israel for being the stimulus to Hamas’ actions.
John Morales @16,
Most Palestinians blame Israel for that, not Hamas. Hamas’ popularity has gone up due to the war, and Fatah’s has gone down; the vast majority of Palestinians want Abbas to resign as PLO leader. If the war drags on and Hamas wins no more victories, their popularity might drop again, but…did Americans turn against the Republican party because of 9/11? Societies generally react to attack by becoming angrier and more militant. (As Israel has.)
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1217758546/hamas-support-palestinians-west-bank
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/22/poll-hamas-remains-popular-among-palestinians/
I’m not doing that; I’m identifying Hamas as the exclusive provider of governmental services in Gaza. If Netanyahu and everyone in the Likud party were killed by Hamas tomorrow, Israel’s government would not collapse because most officials and civil servants are not Likud. (Less than 2% of Israelis are Likud members). If Israel kills all the “Hamas operatives” in Gaza, there literally is no government left, and almost nobody who could replace them in the short term.
Two things about that:
1. Most Palestinians believe that the reports of Hamas’ worst atrocities during the attack are “fake news” (which some of them almost certainly are, as Haaretz reported) and that the remainder are no worse than what the IDF does to Palestinians on a regular basis.
2. Most Palestinians view Hamas’ taking of hostages during the attack as a good move, because it led to a hostage exchange that has returned 250+ of their own people so far. That was Hamas’ biggest political victory in the war.
I don’t think the Hamas attack was good for Palestine, let alone worth its immediate cost in death and misery, but I’m not Palestinian. They’re not putting much blame on Hamas.
Prax, it was only that aspect of your comment that was problematic.
Sure, but you did write “If all “Hamas operatives” are fair game for execution, then it’s simply impossible for Gaza to have a government…which of course is just fine with Netanyahu’s gang, because it makes it easier to deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim to statehood.”, which is directly linking Hamas as Gaza’s government with Palestinian statehood.
Which is probably fair as far as that goes, but still.
Look, you believe whatever you want.
But it’s damn clear to me that, had Hamas not done its raid, Gaza would not now be in ruins.
Should be clear to anyone who has internet access, too.
Especially if it actually affects them personally, because then it’s worth the interest.
It affects people in the West Bank.
—
Sure, Holms.
From my link @20: “Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, rising Israeli settler violence, and recent escalations.”
Not long after: “On the evening of 27 October 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a large-scale invasion[29][30] inside the Gaza Strip, as part of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, with the stated goal of destroying Hamas and overthrowing the organization’s governance of the Gaza Strip.[31] At the start of the war, Israel implemented a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in significant shortages of fuel, food, medication, water, and essential medical supplies.[32][33] This siege resulted in a 90% drop in electricity availability, impacting hospital power supplies, sewage plants, and shutting down the desalination plants that provide drinking water.[34] Widespread disease outbreaks have spread across Gaza.[35] Heavy bombardment by Israeli airstrikes caused catastrophic damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, further deepening the humanitarian crisis.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_government_response_to_the_2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel)
Now, you might see those two events as entirely disconnected, independent events, go for it.
Me, I see it as predictable cause and effect.
Provocation and response. Israel’s response and fury were damn predictable.
The first event caused the second, proximately.
A bit like the USA after the World Trade Center event. They were ropable. Lashed out.
The old-testament stuff by Israel was never unexpected.