The Israeli rescue service Zaka says its paramedics removed more than 260 bodies from a music festival that came under attack by Hamas militants.
The total figure of bodies found is expected to be higher, as other paramedic teams were also working in the area and Zaka added that the bodies “haven’t all been collected yet”.
Early on Saturday morning, Hamas targeted Nova music festival, a techno rave in the desert near the border with Gaza.
Videos shared on social media and by Israeli news outlets showed dozens of festival-goers running through an open field as gunshots rang out. Many hid in nearby fruit orchards or were gunned down as they fled.
I just think people talking about killing civilians at a music festival being an atrocity (it is!) were probably really quiet about the regular civilian casualties caused by Israel year after year. In 12 years, the UN counted 5,590 deaths. That’s not 5,590 dead terrorists, but people are acting like the atrocities just started now. I’m very much willing to say “what about”, not because it should make people think this one isn’t horrible, but because they really should answer “what about the other ones you ignored”.
And one doesn’t even need to go backward. Israel’s already racking up civilian casualties, and you can bet there’s going to be some people who want to keep going until the Palestinian number is much higher than the Israeli number.
Plenty of people, within Israel and outside, care quite a lot about those deaths and also consider them tragedies. You’ll remember that Netanyahu isn’t exactly an uncontroversial figure within Israel.
That’s why this has been such an incredibly frustrating and disappointing series of events, because any possibility of peace has been thoroughly extinguished now, and Palestinian citizens are going to suffer even more. Hamas of course knew this going into it, and didn’t care because its aim has never been peace for Palestinians, but rather the extermination of all Jews within Israel (as explicitly stated in its founding charter).
Both Netanyahu and Hamas are probably riding a nice high right now. Both of their political positions improve the more people die on both sides.
There may be a real rally around the flag effect, but there’s a lot of anger at Netanyahu on the massive military and intelligence failures that made this possible. He may be able to stick around for this conflict, but he’s probably toast afterwards.
Likud’s entire thing has always been that they’re the ones that can be trusted to keep Israelis safe. That view is now completely shattered.
Do you think they are going to elect a more moderate government to keep them safe?
Perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope then. If a less conservative and radical party takes control, maybe we’ll see an independent Palestinian state that’s allied with Israel and jointly fights Hamas.
Unfortunately that’s very unrealistic :/. We’ll probably see an even more radical conservative group take power, and make us think Netanyahu was a saint in comparison. :/
That assumes that there is a sizable portion of Palestinians that want to fight Hamas, and there’s sadly no guarantee of that.
I know, but I’d like to be optimistic. I’d like to think that becoming an independent state in exchange for helping hunt Hamas would be more than agreeable to them.
It saves me from the moral quandary – what if you’re right? What if the people generally support the group :/? I would need evidence to believe it, but I don’t know then. It’s pretty difficult to be neutral about them and not have a thought either way.
The biggest hurdle with that is that it’s essentially been tried. The IDF had occupied Gaza just like it currently does the West Bank until 2005, when they withdrew as a token of goodwill towards peace.
Gazans immediately elected Hamas and started launching rockets at Israel. Israel is not going to repeat that.
Is there a handy article I could read about this? I’d like to know more about it
Israel has never targeted civilians. Palestinians have always targeted civilians.
Hamas uses civilians as meat shields.
When people like you take INTENT out of the equation, your just doing Hamas’s bidding.
They literally shot a journalist in the head and then sent military thugs to rough up people at the funeral. Your perspective is severely lacking context on one side.
According to who?
You have to take these stories with a grain of salt.
Do you remember the Jenin massacre?
Do you remember all the awful things that the Israelis did? It was horrific.
… Except …
It never happened. The Palestinians lied about it.
You know you can look this up so you don’t come across as an ignorant partisan right?
Her name was Shireen Abu Akleh
From the article:
“Several independent investigations carried out by various bodies and organisations, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, concluded that Abu Akleh was most likely killed by seemingly well-targeted shots fired by Israeli forces, despite her wearing clear identification as a journalist. Internal investigations carried out by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) found “a high possibility” that Abu Akleh was “accidentally hit” by IDF gunfire. However, to date, Israeli authorities have not opened a criminal investigation into her death or held anyone accountable.”
So are you willing to amend your previous claim? Or do you just want to cast doubt on anything that shows the Israeli government in a bad light?
Edit: I almost forgot, here’s proof that Israeli military went to the funeral to beat pallbearers and others: https://apnews.com/article/shireen-abu-akleh-journalist-funeral-west-bank-bb71e2ec64dd034066bc6df4a9aa2fb3
And you know what, have some more quotes from the original article:
“The experts also decried the record-high number of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in recent months in the context of raids by Israeli forces, often targeting refugee camps. In 2022, out of 9000 Israeli operations, 702 targeted refugee camps in the occupied West Bank. In 2023, already more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the context of such operations, including in Jenin, Nablus and Jericho. Since 2001, at least 18 Palestinian journalists have been reportedly killed by the IDF in the occupied Palestinian territory and no one has been held accountable for those deaths.”
Again, the sources are suspect. The UN has been widely, absurdly anti-Israel to an absolutely comical extent.
“anything that says something I don’t support is suspect” get your head out of your ass.
Sorry, but the UN’s anti-Israel bias is extremely well documented. They’ve earned my skepticism and yours.
Okay then start citing some sources, because everyone opposing your view has cited their sources but you’ve shown nothing to back up your bogus claims.
Lmao, to say Israel doesn’t target civilians is retarded. They literally shut off water and power to 2 million civilians, that’s a war crime.
Do you think that’s because every other nation has it out for israel? Or because Israel has been doing war crimes for decades?
Every nation? Not at all. An overwhelming number of Arab nations? Yes.
Then it sure is strange how they keep doing things that kill civilians. They’re not blowing up buildings because that particular building was especially good for launching rockets. It’s collective punishment optimistically aimed at some sort of regime change, but more likely just to feed domestic bloodlust. It’s certainly not degrading military capabilities. They’re gone well before the missile hits.
And this is just the direct deadly violence. They knock down houses and light their fields on fire. Those are civilian targets in service of ethnic cleansing, either performed directly by the state or by agents supported and defended by it.
Says you.
Is that all you could come up with?
A take I read earlier today is that Hamas tries to kill as many Jews as possible, Israel tries to kill as few Palestinian citizens as possible, and neither side is very successful.
Sounds about right really.
A grim but accurate observation it seems
I don’t think that’s a great assessment. Israel is much better at avoiding civilian casualties than even the United States.
If they are the best in the world at minimizing civilian casualties during military operations, your definition of “very successful” might need some reexamination.
Is that right?