Israel orders mass 'evacuation' from Northern Gaza, humanitarian crisis certain to ensue

[MKSheppard]

Circling back to the IDF and "Reading the Room", they've failed utterly.

What's been going on the last two years? Drone War. Lots of it in Ukraine.

Drones flying into individual bunkers and detonating inside to shocked looks from the people in the bunker.

Drones flying alongside cars driving on the battlefield, pulling up next to the driver's side and detonating with the driver looking at it.

Russia and Ukraine are basically second world powers, bluntly. Yet, they're affording some very advanced precision fires; and have basically changed the face and expectations of war.

Israel has a very strong tech base and arms industry and has demoed micro-drones for battlefield use complete with catchy videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7yIzY1BxuI

I can't get Youtube to embed. so just go look at the video from Elbit Systems for a micro battlefield drone.

Here's another one of a loitering munition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMEN155kty0

Instead, what do we get?

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 7378184383
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 21/photo/2

It appears that the Israeli Air Force may be dipping into stocks of older, less accurate unguided munitions.

At least two recent Israeli Air Force posts display the use of 750lb M117 unguided bombs on F-16Cs.

It all comes back to I think, the IDF being flustered and falling back to "the plan", even if the plan frankly sucks and was last updated in 2004.

Even the US couldn't do Operation Desert Storm (ODS) again in 2023 -- a solid month of bombing from the air from 17 January to 24 February anymore; not because of technical lack of will, but because of the internet and twitter making it politically unfeasible for us to keep bombing the Iraqis every night as the Iraqis would be able to post footage almost immediately of the civilian casualties from airstrikes.

[Zaune]

Circling back to the IDF and "Reading the Room", they've failed utterly...

Or been told to just do it anyway because their political leadership has decided it doesn't care about bad publicity anymore. Which from what I've heard would not be out of character for the current government.

Ethno-nationalism is a hell of a drug.

[Ralin]

Which leads to two questions:
- What did Hamas think they would gain from their attack ?

Show that they're doing shit.

Seriously, that's probably it. You don't get to be the revolutionary anti-Zionist Islamic government or whatever forever if you aren't seen doing something to fuck up Israel.

I've seen speculation that some of the atrocities that happened were from particular Hamas groups meeting less resistance than expected and lasting longer/succeeding more than they as shock troops thought they would and trying to find something else to do instead.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Iran warns Israel it will intervene if Gaza operation continues, report claims

Iran has told Israel through the UN that it will intervene if the country’s operations against Hamas in Gaza continue, a report has claimed.

Israel has warned 1.1 million people living in the north of the enclave to evacuate ahead of an expected ground operation in Gaza with the IDF planning to strike the territory from land, sea and air.

Iran’s involvement could be through a militant group from Syria or by backing Hezbollah to join the conflict, diplomatic sources told Axios.

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said that Israel’s operations could cause fighting to expand to other areas of the Middle East which would cause Israel to suffer “a huge earthquake”, reported the Associated Press.

Hezbollah has thousands of fighters and an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles capable of hitting anywhere in Israel, according to the outlet.

“I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” Mr Amirabdollahian said from Beirut on Saturday. “Any step the resistance (Hezbollah) will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”

And he added: “I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it’s too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in few hours.”

Mr Amirabdollahian said that he would be contacting UN officials in the region as “there is still an opportunity to work on an initiative (to end the war) but it might be too late tomorrow.”

At least 1,300 people were killed in the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October, including 260 people at a music festival near kibbutz Re’im.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Hamas-controlled Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes, the Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday.

Following the Hamas attacks, Israel announced a “complete siege” on the enclave and tens of thousands have now left their homes in Gaza to get away from the combat zone.

And on Saturday Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops in southern Israel that “The next stage is coming”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden held separate phone calls on Saturday with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, statements from the Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ offices said.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Biden that “unity and determination” were needed to achieve Israel’s combat goals against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, Mr Netanyahu’s office said, adding that he thanked the president for his support.

[Highlord Laan]

I wasn't aware Iran was that eager to get it's air force and "navy" annihilated by the US again.

[Solauren]

Could the US legally go after Iran if it was Hezbollah that entered the conflict, and all Iran did was economic and social pressure?

Because, to me, it almost reads like 'yeah, we'll could do something, but Hezbollah is practically salivating at the idea but where's keeping them from doing anything for the moment'

[loomer]

I don't think 'legality' has ever stopped American interventionism, but no - I wouldn't think so.
Meanwhile, the water shortages continue to mount and are reaching crisis levels. As far as I'm aware, Israel's policy continues to be to refuse to allow humanitarian relief into Gaza.

Israel, of course, has refused to ratify the Rome Statute, but I nonetheless consider Article 8, section 2(b), clause xxv to be relevant:

Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions.

This particular clause reflects what is now pretty well ius cogens - if you create a humanitarian crisis and then refuse to provide or permit aid, you are engaged in an attack on civilians.

[Darth Yan]

EDIT: I'd like to point out that the last four wars the IDF has been in since like 2000 have all followed the same pattern even a dumb mofo like me can discern:

1.) Some sort of Atrocity or Attack by Hamas/Hizbollah that sparks the whole thing off.

2.) IDF starts reacting. Strong international support at the start.

3.) IAF continues to bomb, bomb bomb day after day. International support weakens.

4.) By the time the IDF ground forces actually go into operation, international support is much weaker then at the start of the war; and eventual war termination is forced by political means.

GOTO #1 about six years later.

Which leads to two questions:
- What did Hamas think they would gain from their attack ?

- Did they make Israel angry enough that international support will need to get lower before this war ends ?

One theory is that they weren't expecting to do so well; they thought they'd get a few hostages, kill a couple of people than maybe use the hostages to negotiate. But because Bibi was fucking incompetent (redirecting soldiers to protect the settlers, ignoring warnings) they were allowed to do far more and are now somewhat overextended.

In short, Bibi's stupidity caused what would have been a minor incursion and flare up to graduate to massive conflict.

[bilateralrope]

Water runs out at UN shelters in Gaza. Medics fear for patients as Israeli ground offensive looms

By NAJIB JOBAIN and SAMYA KULLAB (Associated Press)
02:16, Oct 16 2023

Water has run out at United Nations shelters across Gaza as thousands packed into the courtyard of the besieged territory's largest hospital as a refuge of last resort from a looming Israeli ground offensive and overwhelmed doctors struggled to care for patients they fear will die once generators run out of fuel.

Palestinian civilians across Gaza, already battered by years of conflict, were struggling for survival Sunday in the face of an unprecedented Israeli operation against the territory following a Hamas militant attack on 7 October that killed at least 1,300 Israelis, most of them civilians.

Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity to Gaza, pounded neighbourhoods with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of Israel's planned attack. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted last weekend.

Relief groups called for the protection of the over 2 million civilians in Gaza urging an emergency corridor be established for the transfer of humanitarian aid.

“The difference with this escalation is we don’t have medical aid coming in from outside, the border is closed, electricity is off and this constitutes a high danger for our patients,” said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, who works at Nasser Hospital in the southern Khan Younis area.

Doctors in the evacuation zone said they couldn't relocate their patients safely, so they decided to stay as well to care for them.

“We shall not evacuate the hospital even if it costs us our lives,” said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of pediatrics at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.

If they left, the seven newborns in the intensive care unit would die, he said. And even if they could move them, there is nowhere for them to go in the 40-kilometer-long (25-mile-long) coastal territory. “Hospitals are full,” Abu Safiya said. The wounded stream in every day with severed limbs and life-threatening injuries, he said.

Other doctors feared for the lives of patients dependent on ventilators and those suffering from complex blast wounds needing around-the-clock care. Doctors worried entire hospital facilities would be shut down and many would die as the last of the fuel stocks powering their generators came close to running out. United Nations humanitarian monitors estimated this could happen by Monday.

At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the heart of the evacuation zone, medical officials estimated at least 35,000 men, women and children crammed into the large open grounds, in the lobby and in the hallways, hoping the location would give them protection from the fighting. “Their situation is very difficult,” said hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia.

Hundreds of wounded continue to come to the hospital every day, he said.

About half a million Gaza residents have taken refuge in UN shelters across the territory and are running out of water, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, known by the acronym UNRWA. “Gaza is running dry,” she said, adding that UN teams have also begun to ration water.

Touma said a quarter of a million people in Gaza moved to shelters over the past 24 hours, the majority of which are UN schools where "clean water has actually run out,” said Inas Hamdan, another UNRWA spokeswoman.

Across Gaza, families rationed dwindling water supplies, with many forced to drink dirty or brackish water.

“I am very happy that I was able to brush my teeth today. Can you imagine what lengths we have reached?” said Shaima al-Farra, in Khan Younis.

How many are going to die before Israel backs off ?

[LadyTevar]

Water runs out at UN shelters in Gaza. Medics fear for patients as Israeli ground offensive looms

How many are going to die before Israel backs off ?

IDF is going to go thru with the ground attack. We are HOPING they will be able to ID Civilians as non-combattants and not KOS. However, until the IDF concludes the ground attack, they are going to continue denying water, food, and resourcesuntil that operation concludes.

[bilateralrope]

The ground attack doesn't sound like something Israel will be able to conclude quickly. Unless their casualties get too high for them to continue.

The Israeli army faces uncharted warfare in Gaza

Edmund Bower of The Telegraph
06:53, Oct 15 2023

As the generals of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) ready their troops for the first ground invasion of Gaza in almost a decade, they will have one question on their minds: what don’t we know?

The Israeli military fought a bloody war in Gaza in 2014, losing 73 soldiers over a seven week-confict that saw more than 2000 Palestinians killed, and the Shin Bet intelligence service has a nuanced understanding of where Hamas’ military bases lie.

But military technology has evolved rapidly in the years since and analysts note that the soldiers entering the strip may face new threats, new traps and new ways of war.

Unlike in previous bouts with Israel, Hamas presides over what John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern Warfare Institute at Westpoint, calls “a poor man’s air force”.

In last weekend’s terrorist attack, Hamas unveiled its fleet of drones: small, commercially available quadcopters capable of reconnaissance and delivering small payloads of explosives. The group demonstrated that the drones were able to neutralise mounted machine gun posts.

Ukrainian forces fighting Russia have shown how effective even cheap drones can be at disabling expensive heavy armour such as tanks. Spencer says that their ability to drop munitions from above, where vehicles are typically more vulnerable than face-on, is a threat that the IDF has not faced before.

In addition to the threat of drones, Spencer says, “there are a lot of unknowns”. Hamas has previously claimed to have sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons. Whilst these claims have never been substantiated, Spencer says “it’s reasonable to expect” that the group possess some “unknown capabilities” acquired from foreign sponsors, that could include shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft and Javelin anti-armour missiles.

Even without expensive new weapons, the IDF will find Hamas deeply entrenched in the 139-square-mile coastal enclave. Since taking power in 2006, the group has turned Gaza into a fortress, diverting hundreds of thousands of tonnes of concrete from civil and developmental projects to build defensive structures both above and below ground.

The most famous of these defensive structures is the “Gaza Metro”, a series of tunnels that Hamas claims stretches 500km, about 100km further than the total length of the London Underground. “It’s a city under a city,” says Spencer.

The network of tunnels that wind through Gaza’s porous soil, connects buildings built with steel rebar reinforced concrete that “can take a real hit and provide a very protected position for an urban defender,” says Spencer. Steel rebar also gives effective protection against radar and some types of thermal imaging.

Within the buildings themselves, Israeli troops could encounter a range of booby traps and rigged explosives, ranging from hand grenade-sized trip wires, to artillery shells. “Some can be an entire building,” Spencer says, “multiple chain-reaction explosives”.

The idea is not so much the amount of explosives, which can vary, but the spread so as to cover “every street, every house”, says Spencer.

In this, the battle for Gaza may resemble the Philippines’ army’s campaign to retake the city of Marawi from Islamic State in 2017. It took them over five months to dislodge just under 1000 militants, who used IEDs and booby traps to fortify their position. The army’s approach relied heavily on airstrikes and artillery, which destroyed vast swathes of the city and left over 400,000 people homeless.

In comparison, Hamas fighters number between 30,000 and 40,000.

“In some ways, conditions couldn’t be worse for a ground invasion”, says Natan Sachs, the director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute. “Urban warfare is the hardest kind of warfare. Hamas has been entrenching itself in Gaza in the territory and the population, preparing for just this kind of occasion.”

Amidst speculation around Israel’s long term objectives for the mission, Professor Kobi Michael of the Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, says that its aim is to “totally eliminate all the military and the governmental capacity of Hamas”. Such an operation, he speculates, could take “weeks or months”.

Asked about what Israel might do with Gaza after the war, Michael, who also served as chief of the Palestinian desk at the Strategic Affairs Ministry, says: “I don’t care. We don’t have the time to think about it. We have to accomplish our mission. Then it will be a problem of the Arab world and the international community.”

Earlier in the week, former MI6 chief Alex Younger said that “it’s really obvious now that Hamas are essentially laying a trap for Israel”.

The terrorist group “will be well pleased if Israel commits itself to an open-ended, full-scale ground invasion of Gaza because of the scale and intensity of conflict that that would entail, and the loss of innocent life that would inevitably follow and the radicalisation that would engender,” he said.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

You would think if Hamas had Stingers they would have used them during the Israeli airstrikes. The question really is how long Israel is going to spend pounding Gaza from afar before sending in the troops, and how long before Gaza makes Bakhmut look like Kyiv by comparison.

[Solauren]

You would think if Hamas had Stingers they would have used them during the Israeli airstrikes. The question really is how long Israel is going to spend pounding Gaza from afar before sending in the troops, and how long before Gaza makes Bakhmut look like Kyiv by comparison.

How long Israel is going to spend on air assault is in going to be dictated by their goals, and intelligence.

Realistically, I can't see Israel going for a week or more. (October 20+). They'll want to hammer Gaza as flat as possible before engaging in ground based hostilities. The longer the bomb, the more chance of any traps or fortifications in the area to be destroyed.

Also, it depends on if they even want any civilians left in the area when they are done. Much clearer to do that from the air and then blame Hamas for forcing people to take shelter to use as human shields, or whatever they decide to pitch on that front.

[MKSheppard]

One theory is that they weren't expecting to do so well; they thought they'd get a few hostages, kill a couple of people than maybe use the hostages to negotiate. But because Bibi was fucking incompetent (redirecting soldiers to protect the settlers, ignoring warnings) they were allowed to do far more and are now somewhat overextended.

In short, Bibi's stupidity caused what would have been a minor incursion and flare up to graduate to massive conflict.

I've seen that theory -- HAMAS expected X people to reach their targets, Y number of people to last longer than 5 minutes, Z number of people to survive longer than 15 minutes.

...only to see that instead of 15-20% reaching their targets and lasting about 10 minutes before the local QRF arrived....about 85% got to their targets and had about an hour before effective response was mounted (wild ass guesses).

Oops. They're like the dog that caught the car. What we do now?

PS:" I've also heard a counter theory to IDF incompetence -- that the Israeli intelligence apparatus let some of this through, as a way of getting Bibi ousted; but wildly miscalculated. I don't assign that theory a high probability of being true.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

It should be noted that HAMAS has been pulling its fake massacre shenanigans, this time being a VIBED detonation being claimed as an airstrike. That's the sad reality of this sort of thing, especially since the Palestinians managed to get away with controlling the narrative for so long (at least until the Associated Press managed to break that hold via the Internet).

[loomer]

Note, however, that the other strike remains in question. Also, I'm not really sure we live on the same planet if you think the internet broke a Palestinian grip on information control.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

With the current situation, this scene comes to mind:

[wautd]

I'm willing to bet it's upper leadership isn't even in the territory being bombed. Basic rule - don't shit where you live.

The leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization is staying in luxury appartments in Qatar, which is pretty baffling when you think about it. I'm curious to see how long Quatar can/is willing to give shelter to Hamas
If only Hamas used all the foreign aid to improve the infrastructure in Gaza instead of filling their own pockets and funding terrorism.
I think that because Saudi Arabia and Israel were on the verge to normalize ties, Hamas committed a brutal terrorist attack to make themselves relevant and in the spotlights again. That attack probably caused far more carnage than they expected, or maybe not (if Israel kills a lot of civilians in response, it'll still be a PR victory for them).

Now, As I stated before, I don't think Hamas is acting alone, and is probably being used as a proxy to lower material and political support away from the Ukraine. Apparently the initial attack came without Israeli intelligence noticing anything. You're think they were monitoring for stuff like this.

Iran seems to be involved for sure, but perhaps also Russia has something to do with it (what with Hamas using trophy weapons captured in Ukraine).
I believe Egypt when they said that they've warned Israel multiple times, and I'm cynical enough to believe that Netanyahu's far right governement allowed it to happen (his popularity was at an all time low, so nothing like a terrorist attack and war to rally the Israeli population behind him.
Hamas and Netanyahu's far right governement are each other's objective allies as they need each other to remain in power.

I hope that Israel's response is precise, with minimum civilian casualties, followed by Israel calming down and moving in to restore order and infrastructure and help people pick up their lives.

I hope that too but that doesn't seems to be the case.

Were the attacks by Hamas justifyable? Not in the slightest
Does Israel has the right to defend itself? Off course.
Is peace with Hamas' dictatorship possible? It's hard to find common ground when Hamas denies your right to exist.
But that doesn't mean that Israel has the right to behave like Russia in Ukraine. A disproportionate violent response where the ones to suffer are civilians is counter productive and only creates the future generation of Hamas terrorists

[His Divine Shadow]

Circling back to the IDF and "Reading the Room", they've failed utterly...

Or been told to just do it anyway because their political leadership has decided it doesn't care about bad publicity anymore. Which from what I've heard would not be out of character for the current government.

Ethno-nationalism is a hell of a drug.

It's not like they get much flak for it so why change? Biden is fully behind Israel and Ursula Van Der Leyen said they had the full support of the EU, they don't need to read the room when they got powerful allies.

[Ralin]

It's not like they get much flak for it so why change? Biden is fully behind Israel and Ursula Van Der Leyen said they had the full support of the EU, they don't need to read the room when they got powerful allies.

Yeah but that can change. Maybe in a decade or three Israel's allies will be less willing or able to have their back, and that could get bad for them if they also can't whoop all their neighbors on their own anymore.

Assuming there are any Palestinians left to fight over by then. Wonder if part of what stops Israel from finally solving the problem is Netanyahu et all needing them around to rally against?

[LadyTevar]

Note, however, that the other strike remains in question. Also, I'm not really sure we live on the same planet if you think the internet broke a Palestinian grip on information control.

BBC News VERIFY on the Civilian Convoy Strike
TL:DR -- BBC verified that the video was valid, but they could NOT verify who/how/what caused the explosion.


But... there's now been deaths in the US over this:
Landlord Charged with Hate Crime killing 6yr old Muslim and injuring Mother

A man has been charged with murder and hate crimes after allegedly stabbing a six-year-old boy to death because he was Muslim.
Joseph Czuba, 71, is accused of killing Wadea Al-Fayoume and seriously wounding his mother in Plainfield, Illinois.
The landlord allegedly targeted the pair, who were his tenants, because of their religion and the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.

There's more to the article. The father was away at a conference. They'd been living there 4yrs.
The landlord told the police he did it because of what happened in Israel, but I'm thinking mental illness or senile dementia was involved as well. It's still a horrific murder of a child, for no good reason.

[Ralin]

If only Hamas used all the foreign aid to improve the infrastructure in Gaza instead of filling their own pockets and funding terrorism.

What, you mean like by buying concrete or something?

Is peace with Hamas' dictatorship possible? It's hard to find common ground when Hamas denies your right to exist.

The quotes I've seen on that boil down to Hamas holding that all of Israel rightfully belongs to them because of course they believe that, but that they're willing to accept less than that because that's how compromises work. How explicitly they're willing to say that part varies depending on the circumstances, because politics.

Seems a wee bit disingenuous to say this in relation to the group Israel and big brother the US refuse to recognize as a legit government to be negotiated with and whose political leadership you just seemed to be implying should be kicked out of the country they have shelter in.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

At the same time, Israel raised its official death toll to 1,400. The timing of announcing this is suspicious, it must be said.

[Ralin]

At the same time, Israel raised its official death toll to 1,400. The timing of announcing this is suspicious, it must be said.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[Crazedwraith]

At the same time, Israel raised its official death toll to 1,400. The timing of announcing this is suspicious, it must be said.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Presumably, that announcing a big death toll gets them sympathy and makes it more difficult for anyone to object to their retaliation.