Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashpoint

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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Beowulf »

Elfdart wrote:
Beowulf wrote:Sorry Bean, I don't have a Google alert on Gaza. Can you point me to where UN observers got hit? Yes, I know schools got hit... but then again, there's at least 3 cases where UNRWA personnel found rockets in their schools (and turned them over to the local authorities for disposal (by air (in Israel))).
How many of the schools and hospitals that were bombed/shelled by Israel had rockets in them? Paging Dean Wormer...
Again, I don't have a Google alert on Gaza. I'm not aware of the specifics of any bombings or shellings of schools or hospitals. They may not have been because of rockets being stored at them (a military target), they may have been targeted due to being used for command facilities (a military target), or they may have just been collateral damage from striking military targets nearby.

Assuming they were struck because they were believed to have rockets being stored there, it's somewhat irrelevant whether they did in fact. It's relevant instead whether it was reasonable for the commander who ordered them to be struck to have had the belief that they were being used for weapons storage. As demonstrated by the UN, schools have been used for weapons storage in this conflict (3 times in fact). This would lend credence to a hypothetical commander's belief that a given type of building was being used for weapons storage.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by wautd »

Image


Ground Zero. I mean Gaza.

With thousands of wounded people, destroyed infrastructure, lack of electricity and water the worst of the humanitarian crisis might has yet to come. Costs to rebuild are estimated between 5 - 10 billion $ and it's not like there's a lot of money (or even cement) at hand
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Thanas »

Grumman wrote:
Thanas wrote:I don't carry water for them and I will demand either proof of me being a Hamas supporter or advocating that their tactics are morally right. Otherwise, you better retract that one right now.
For starters, how about your assertion that the Palestinians had tried defense for sixty years, let alone that they found it unsuccessful? What period of sixty years were you thinking of, that did not include Hamas sending suicide bombers to murder Israeli civilians? Or your attempt to pretend "[t]his is one slow ethnic cleansing, which makes any of their actions criminal by default as they are in support of ongoing settlement policies" when it is only unilateral Israeli opposition to ongoing settlement policies, in the form of evicting settlers from the Gaza strip by force, that allowed the current situation to exist?
Chardok explained it way better than I could, so I refer you to his post.

As to your claim of me supporting Hamas, you better have a lot more than me expressing sympathy for the plight of the oppressed, chump.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by cosmicalstorm »

wautd wrote:Image


Ground Zero. I mean Gaza.

With thousands of wounded people, destroyed infrastructure, lack of electricity and water the worst of the humanitarian crisis might has yet to come. Costs to rebuild are estimated between 5 - 10 billion $ and it's not like there's a lot of money (or even cement) at hand
Well we know where the cement went don't we :lol:
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Thanas »

:?:
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Simon_Jester »

I see two possible meanings there.

One is, the cement went into the rubble we see before us.

The other is, the cement went into digging those tunnels Hamas planned to use to stage terror attacks into Israel with- the destruction of those tunnels having been a major focus of the IDF's military operations lately, and as far as I can tell their main stated reason for having troops on the ground inside the Gaza Strip at all for the past two weeks.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by madd0ct0r »

Isn't cement one of the materials that Israel has blockaded for for a few years?
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Patroklos »

Yes, largely because Hamas steals it all for their military projects as once again proven by the newer more elaborate tunnel networks discovered.

One of the reasons you see the scenes linked above is that Palestinian civilians get stuck with recycling building materials for structures which leads to barely structurally sound on a good day death traps. Israeli air strikes thus become devastating to everything around them dropping buildings a block away. As you might imagine that causes even more problems because even if civilians do stay a reasonable distance away from a Hamas target the building they are sheltering in may still kill them.

Don't doubt for a second every usable scrap from that rubble scene will be reused to rebuild shortly.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Simon_Jester »

I imagine it was in bombed-out WWII cities too, for the same reason- if that's all you've got, you use it.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by eyl »

On another matter, Calcalist (an Israeli financial paper) had an article (Hebrew-only AFACT, althoguh a small portion was translated here) about the cement which went into Gaza. The high points:

1) The article gives as an example a tunnel which was discovered at the end of 2013, about 2.5 km in length (which appears to be fairly typical). According to IDF Engineering Corps estimates, it used 25,000 concrete plates with a total weight of about 800 tons.

2) Hamas skimmed off the cement coming into Gaza. In particular, there were different qualities of cement coming in through the smuggling tunnels (the high quality-stuff was either smuggled in from Turkey or "legally" brought via Israel, the rest was often of very low quality; also, the low-quality cement was often packaged as high-quality), and Hamas appropriated the high-quality stuff. The situation was bad enough that the head of Gaza's building contractors' association formally requested devices for testing cement from USAID, though apparently the request was not granted. While the article doesn't say, this probably contributed to the death toll, because a building built with the low-quality cement is more likely to collapse even if it wasn't directly hit.

3) Two years ago, Israel approved a Qatari initiative to build $400 million worth of projects in Gaza. For that, a significant amount of cement was brought in from Egypt. That ement was effectively handed over to Hamas, who apparently used much of it for their own projects. The article points out that the Qatari projects slowed down significantly due to lack of materials after Egypt shut down the smuggling tunnels, which shouldn't have happened if the material had been going to where it should.

EDIT - might as well put the translated section linked above here:
Where did Hamas get the cement to produce its concrete-lined attack tunnels, especially in light of the Israeli blockade and an overall shortage of cement? While the civilian sector in Gaza suffered from a lack of building materials, Hamas had no problem obtaining thousands of tons of cement. Unfortunately, part of the cement that Israel allowed to enter Gaza for humanitarian needs ended up in Hamas' hands.
In addition, cement was brought in through smuggling tunnels from Egypt for years, especially during the period when the Muslim Brotherhood ruled Egypt (June 2012 to June 2013). During that time, an average of between 400 and 3,000 tons of cement, iron, and building stone entered Gaza daily via the tunnels. High-quality cement came from Turkey to the port at El-Arish in Sinai. The Egyptian authorities at the time were aware of the flow but did nothing to stop it.
Beginning in 2011, complaints by Gaza contractors about the quality of the cement coming through the tunnels started appearing in the Palestinian press, with concerns voiced that newly built homes would one day collapse. It appears that in the private sector, cheaper Egyptian cement was often switched for what was labeled as high quality cement. One cement merchant in Gaza explained that suppliers would deliver a truckload of cement sacks. The outer ones were Turkish cement, while those beneath were Egyptian. Anyone who complained or tried to return the cement quickly found himself threatened by the military arm of Hamas, and dropped his complaint.
Two years ago, Israel approved Qatari financing of reconstruction projects in Gaza at a cost of $400 million. A large amount of Egyptian military grade cement was allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing. The moment the cement entered Gaza, Hamas took control of it. The Qataris didn't really care what happened to the cement and the other building materials they paid for.
When the Egyptian army closed the smuggling tunnels, a serious delay in Qatar's building projects in Gaza was announced. The local reaction was surprise, since Egypt had sent to Gaza all the materials that were needed for the Qatari projects. (Calcalist-Hebrew)
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by madd0ct0r »

thing is, is Hamas building tunnels the issue, or is it them firing rockets at israel?

I'm not even joking. I can see tunnels are part of the war effort, but at the same time effort going into building them isn't being used to attack israelis. it's purely passive and defensive. If more concrete was available, you'd get bigger tunnels but also better housing stock. With enough cement available, what do you think Hamas would do? chuck blocks of it at israel?
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Grumman »

madd0ct0r wrote:thing is, is Hamas building tunnels the issue, or is it them firing rockets at israel?

I'm not even joking. I can see tunnels are part of the war effort, but at the same time effort going into building them isn't being used to attack israelis. it's purely passive and defensive. If more concrete was available, you'd get bigger tunnels but also better housing stock. With enough cement available, what do you think Hamas would do? chuck blocks of it at israel?
Hamas's tunnels are not purely passive and defensive. Some are defensive, yes, but others exist to be used to gain access to Israel to conduct attacks and kidnappings.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by madd0ct0r »

ok, makes sense.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Block »

Grumman wrote:
madd0ct0r wrote:thing is, is Hamas building tunnels the issue, or is it them firing rockets at israel?

I'm not even joking. I can see tunnels are part of the war effort, but at the same time effort going into building them isn't being used to attack israelis. it's purely passive and defensive. If more concrete was available, you'd get bigger tunnels but also better housing stock. With enough cement available, what do you think Hamas would do? chuck blocks of it at israel?
Hamas's tunnels are not purely passive and defensive. Some are defensive, yes, but others exist to be used to gain access to Israel to conduct attacks and kidnappings.
You don't dig defensive tunnels that lead into vulnerable targets like your enemies backyards. That's what the ground invasion was about, finding and destroying all the tunnels that ran from Gaza into Israel.
I'll try to find the source but I've read that given the amount of cement used in the tunnels, they could've built over 100 schools, a couple hospitals, a power plant or two, and still had plenty left over for housing.
So basically Hamas is making life significantly harder on it's own people in an effort it supposedly knows is futile.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by madd0ct0r »

That sounds like a dodgy source. The expensive bits in hospitals and powerplants ain't the concrete.
A comparison in pure housing blocks would be better.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Simon_Jester »

At any rate, they could have built houses (and schools) that wouldn't fall down and crush the occupants when a bomb blows up a hundred meters away. Also, well. As noted, if the tunnels didn't exist, the Israelis probably wouldn't have sent in troops to find them and blow them up, if only because doing so was costly for them. Most people dislike throwing away their own soldiers on a wild goose chase. In which case many of the Israeli airstrikes would not have been called in in the first place, because people don't like throwing away their bombs on a wild goose chase either.

And, in line with my earlier remarks, the 'offensive tunnels' dug into Israel didn't actually do anything beneficial for any person living in Gaza. Nor could they have ever done so. So the opportunity cost of those tunnels was very, very high for the Gazans to pay.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by cosmicalstorm »

What capacity would Hamas have if Egypt didn't take part in the war/blockade?
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Simon_Jester »

Hm.

Well, Hamas would have considerably more freedom to import heavy weapons, so they would have more of them. The arms mix probably wouldn't be that different from what it is in real life, because Hamas already has about the heaviest kinds of weapons they can feasibly operate: truck-launched rockets, mortars, that sort of thing. Large amounts of heavy artillery, or tanks, or things of that nature would be a waste of money for them because it'd be too hard to supply and get them into action, and too easy for the Israelis to blow them up.

So they'd have about the same capacity they do now, only more so. They would probably still be skimming off the best construction materials and other supplies for violent, expensive boondoggles like the cross-border tunnels into Israel.

On the other hand, Egypt already allows humanitarian supplies through the checkpoint at Rafah, after inspection by the Egyptian authorities. It might be somewhat less work to get the humanitarian supplies into Gaza, but not vastly less work, and the same goes for construction materials. Obviously, movement of goods across the longer border with Israel would still be stupidly slow and cramped.

Of course, one thing about the customary international laws regarding neutral powers is that while neutral powers are allowed to engage in commerce with belligerent countries, that commerce IS subject to interception, interdiction, and attack by the warring nations. Since Hamas and the Gaza Strip are in a real sense at war (or trying to be at war) with Israel, the Israelis might interpret Egypt abandoning its role in the blockade in that light. The Israelis would fear (not without reason) the prospect of masses of heavy weapons crossing the border from Egypt into Gaza with effectively no customs inspections to control the imports. In which case the Israelis would have a strong incentive to try to shut down cross-border traffic by attacking the border checkpoints. It'd cause massive collateral damage, but they've long since stopped caring about that.

...

Another point is that the Egyptians themselves (and for that matter other Palestinian factions like the Palestinian Authority) may want the blockade to stay in place for their own reasons. For example, the Egyptians have an incentive to NOT want an active smuggling subculture growing up on their border with Gaza, because weapons (or other dangerous things) could easily be smuggled back across the border from Gaza to Egypt and not just the other way around. The Palestinian Authority is strongly opposed to Hamas for reasons of domestic power struggles, and has sometimes gone on record supporting the blockade because they see it as weakening Hamas, weird and creepy though it may be for them to say that.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by TimothyC »

cosmicalstorm wrote:What capacity would Hamas have if Egypt didn't take part in the war/blockade?
While Simon's post above is correct, I would also like to add that while Morsi and his Islamist cronies in the Muslim Brotherhood were in control in Egypt, the border with Gaza was much, much more porous than it is now (or was before).
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Thanas »

The chutzpah of Lieberman is beyond bounds. Now he wants Germany to be responsible for patrolling Gaza and the EU to "prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza", aka pay for the reconstruction of it.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

In all fairness, what's wrong with demanding that the EU put it's money where it's mouth is, and take over Gaza instead of complaining about how the ISraelis are interfering, when Gaza is currently run by a bunch of nutty terrorists ?
It'd be in the best interest of the Palestinians.

Of course, it'd never happen, since well. :P
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Block »

The Grim Squeaker wrote:In all fairness, what's wrong with demanding that the EU put it's money where it's mouth is, and take over Gaza instead of complaining about how the ISraelis are interfering, when Gaza is currently run by a bunch of nutty terrorists ?
It'd be in the best interest of the Palestinians.

Of course, it'd never happen, since well. :P
It'd also remove the most openly antisemitic countries in the UN General assembly from the equation, possibly calming some of the more moderate Israelis' fears.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

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The Grim Squeaker wrote:In all fairness, what's wrong with demanding that the EU put it's money where it's mouth is
Do I really have to explain what is wrong with the picture of Israel bombing something and then demanding Europe pays for it and deals with the consequences of Israeli action?
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Simon_Jester »

Thanas wrote:The chutzpah of Lieberman is beyond bounds. Now he wants Germany to be responsible for patrolling Gaza and the EU to "prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza", aka pay for the reconstruction of it.
Okay, yeah, that is completely flamingly psychotic.
The Grim Squeaker wrote:In all fairness, what's wrong with demanding that the EU put it's money where it's mouth is, and take over Gaza instead of complaining about how the ISraelis are interfering, when Gaza is currently run by a bunch of nutty terrorists ?
It'd be in the best interest of the Palestinians.

Of course, it'd never happen, since well. :P
There's a certain appeal to at least setting the precedent for a more or less neutral international body to start sorting this out, but to accomplish anything they'd need the right to bulldoze Israeli settlements in the West Bank with impunity.

Also, even though it does make a kind of perverse sense to ask the EU to administer the Gaza Strip and "put its money where its mouth is," it doesn't make sense to ask them to pay extra to fix the bomb craters created by a third party. You break it, you bought it, even if someone else is going to be in charge of physically arranging for the repairs and administering the site.
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Re: Intifada 3? Kidnapped Israeli citizens might be a flashp

Post by Elfdart »

wautd wrote:Image


Ground Zero. I mean Gaza.

With thousands of wounded people, destroyed infrastructure, lack of electricity and water the worst of the humanitarian crisis might has yet to come. Costs to rebuild are estimated between 5 - 10 billion $ and it's not like there's a lot of money (or even cement) at hand
About a week ago, I pointed out that proportionally the attacks on Gaza are worse than a hundred 9/11 attacks.
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