Israel #4

Russia...

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | Last edited 10:21 AM · Oct 12, 2023
Ukrainian patriot. Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Founder of the Institute of the Future. Official enemy of Russian propaganda

"Cover! Cover!" – evidence appeared that Russian-speaking instructors within the Hamas terrorist organization gave orders and coordinated the actions of mercenaries during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The order in Russian "Прикрывайте! Прикрывайте!" ("Cover! Cover!") can be clearly heard from 12 seconds onwards.

0:16 ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1712473612442276256 )
----------------------------------------

Anton Gaia 🇺🇦 @AntonGaia |
Deliberist, engineer, designer, pillow maker(seriously, I design pillows). {Ukraine}

The original video is down-pitched.
It's a bit clearer when pitched up.

0:03 ( https://twitter.com/AntonGaia/status/1712485988529057845 )
----------------------------------------

margd: Lots of questions from the twitterverse about authenticity of video.
My impression of Geraschenko is that he wants his audience to think well of Ukrainians and not well of Russians hurting his country. He has access in Ukraine, he does not lie, he corrects if, rarely, a post was incorrect?
Time will tell.

Visegrád 24 @visegrad24 | 9:49 AM · Oct 12, 2023:
Aggregating and curating news, politics, current affairs, history and culture from Central and Eastern Europe.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1712465490160050516

A few years ago, Gaza received new water pipelines thanks to foreign aid.
Hamas dug up the pipelines and turned them into rockets that they later fired at Israel
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1712465490160050516 )

margd: Lots of questions from the twitterverse about authenticity of video.

>1 margd: Even if authentic, the question is: is it indicative?
Mercenaries are drawn to conflict zones like flies to shit. Some mercenaries will have acquired their skills in Russia (perhaps hailing from its Muslim-majority regions, where they may or may not be on good terms with the present political dispensation) and speak Russian. It's rather a leap to draw the conclusion that because Russian was spoken in Gaza, therefore the Kremlin was behind the whole thing. I'm sure Gerashchenko wouldn't mind if people did, though. And if he had any substantive evidence to that effect, I'm sure he'd present it.

Sometimes countries don't share their best info so as not to reveal sources, methods?

>4 margd: Perhaps not. But think: would this be happening all the same, and along much the same lines, with or without Russian (or, at least, Russian-speaking) assistance? The answer is yes.
Ask the question again replacing the word "Russian" with "Iranian" and you actually have a more interesting case, in relative terms. Iranian assistance has been invaluable over the years to Hamas. But as we've already (I hope) established, that doesn't mean they were "behind this" either.
The "Russian connection" (to the extent that any exists) is going to be at best a footnote.

>5 davidgn: RFE/RL has a bit of a head-clearer on the issue. https://www.rferl.org/a/israel-hamas-invasion-russian-role-notte-interview-iran/...

Napolitano still invites Crooke around as well. And his questioning is more direct on the matter of the intelligence failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mN9u0p23fo

It's a pity he doesn't let Crooke get around to mentioning the Al-Aqsa point, though. The operation was only called "Al-Aqsa Flood"...

ETA:
Napolitano picks Mearsheimer's brain today as well on the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtkCbQpw-0

ETA 2:
To Crooke's anecdote (regarding the intelligence failure) about his friend at the US Army War College who finds that the present crop of students are entirely devoid of empathy or the desire to understand other cultures (particularly those in an adversarial relationship) -- it's inspired me to make a start adding these to the Awards/Honors/Lists. Maybe someone wants to pitch in.
https://www.librarything.com/award/13944/Read-for-Empathy-Collections
https://www.empathylab.uk/previous-collections
If there's a direct US equivalent, I'm not aware of it, though there are a few that aren't terribly far off.
e.g.
https://www.librarything.com/award/1548/Notable-Book-for-a-Global-Society (pretty much complete, but categories for some years may not have been captured)
https://www.librarything.com/award/1036/USBBY-Outstanding-International-Book (needs country of origin notes, as found on the bookmarks, etc. -- https://www.usbby.org/outstanding-international-books-list.html ; https://www.usbby.org/uploads/1/0/7/0/107064867/2023_oib_list_bookmark_.pdf )

I'm not sure if it helps, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

UK to send navy ships and spy planes to support Israel (Guardian)

Oh dear. What the region needs is international friends applying pressure on all parties to halt the current escalation of violence and begin meaningful negotiations for a long term peace, not to provide military support to one side or the other.

I went looking, and Graham Fuller did have a blog post out.
https://grahamefuller.com/the-ongoing-blindness-and-tragedy-of-events-in-israel-...

One might hope that this massive shock to Israeli society and government might serve as a wake up call to bring about a reconsideration of the wisdom of Israel’s ever harsher apartheid policies against the Palestinians. That would be the most fruitful outcome of these brutal events. But sadly, it is more likely to strengthen the hand of the powerful and dominant ultra-right wing forces in Israel, increasingly under the ideological control of the powerful settler movement. It’s hard to see how even international horror at these events could effectively move international organizations to fruitfully impose greater rationality and justice upon Israel’s treatment of its captive and opressed Palestinian population.

Brother Rachid الأخ رشيد @BrotherRasheed | 10:37 PM · Oct 10, 2023:
Moroccan, Berber, Ex-Muslim, follower of Christ, author, apologist, BA in comparative religions, MA in national security (ME politics), TV host

Khalid Mashal the leader and founding member of Hamas gave a speech today {from Doha, Qatar, where the govt has hosted Hamas leadership for years} asking Muslims all around the world to do the following:

1. To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood”, he said this will send a message of rage to Zionists and to America

2. He asked for financial help from all Muslims around the world; to help with their money, he called it “Financial Jihad”. He asked Muslims to give to the fighters of Gaza in order to compensate them for the destruction

3.He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza

4.The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa.
He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means. He said: This is the time for Jihad to be applied on the ground rather than just in theory. He asked the Mujahedeen to go in long caravans to spell their blood on the land of Palestine.

These are his final words:

Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls to be sacrificed for Palestine

Photo ( https://twitter.com/BrotherRasheed/status/1711933917098316276/photo/1 )
_________________________________________

Congress boosts security over Middle East tensions
Andrew Solender | 12 Oct 2023

...Hamas leadership's call for a global "Day of Rage" on Friday, which also has the Israeli government on high alert

...The House sergeant-at-arms' office, Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies are increasing security for lawmakers at D.C.-area airports, McFarland's notice said.

Capitol Police officers will be stationed at at the airports and escorts for members will be available on request.
Both offices also said certain areas of the Capitol will be restricted to lawmakers, staff and official business visitors...

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/12/capitol-security-hamas-israel

Israel-Palestine War Undermining “pursuit of global peace”: Nigeria’s Christian leaders (ACI Africa)

Christian leaders in Nigeria are concerned about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violent conflict saying it is weakening the push towards global peace... “The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is deeply concerned about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has resulted in the loss of countless lives, destruction of infrastructure, and deepened the humanitarian crisis in the region,” representatives of Christian leaders in Nigeria say in the statement that CAN President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, signed...

Israel wants 1.1 million Gazans to move in next 24 hours, says UN (The Star)

The UN says it has been told by Israel that everyone in north Gaza should relocate to the south in the next 24 hours. The area includes densely populated Gaza City and will affect about 1.1 million people - around half of the Gaza Strip's population. The UN says it is "impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences" and has called on Israel to rescind evacuation orders...

UNRWA UNRWA | 6:47 AM · Oct 11, 2023:
{The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. Wikipedia}

9 of our UN staffers have been killed in airstrikes in📍#GazaStrip since Saturday.

“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict. They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.” https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates*

Photo ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1712057424394207326/photo/1 )
United Nations and 3 others
----------------------------------------------------

I can't see how 1.1 million civilians can be evacuated in 24h, esp. with dwindling food, water, fuel, and electricity...

*"Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The directive came on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning they received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza within 24 hours.

The Israeli military pulverized the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and blocked deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity ahead of a possible ground invasion as Palestinians tried to stock up on supplies..."

International aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis after Israel prevented entry of supplies from Egypt to Gaza’s 2.3 million people..."

BBC expert on debunking Israel-Hamas war visuals:
“The volume of misinformation on Twitter was beyond anything I’ve ever seen”
“You have to be 100% certain before publishing and show the audience why something is false,”
Eduardo Suárez | 13th October 2023

...{journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh} In the first couple of days of the conflict, the volume of misinformation on X was beyond anything I've ever seen. But I think the platform recognised that and changed the way Community Notes works.

For people who are not aware of this, Community Notes is a crowdsource system feature within X. Any user can actually sign up for it. After a period of time, they can rate any post and write notes on what they think is false or misleading about it. There’s a voting system amongst contributors. If people who have previously disagreed with each other agree a post is false, that suggests the vote is probably reliable.

Most of the time this system works OK. But one of the criticisms that I had was that you could see a false post that was really viral with suggested community notes, and it would take up to four days for that to appear in people’s timelines. They've now made the process much faster. That's definitely positive...

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/bbc-expert-debunking-israel-hama...

>12 margd: Of course it's impossible. It's a farce.
ETA: Clearly an announcement like that is not intended to be serious, but to serve as a fig leaf. A cynical exercise in ticking boxes.

MSF International MSF | 1:43 PM · Oct 13, 2023:
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation. {Doctors without Borders}

🔴BREAKING:
Israel has given Al Awda Hospital just two hours to evacuate. Our staff are still treating patients.
We unequivocally condemn this action, the continued indiscriminate bloodshed and attacks on health care in Gaza.
We are trying to protect our staff and patients.

Waleed Shahid 🪬 @_waleedshahid | 11:53 AM · Oct 13, 2023:
Very Senior Democratic Strategist. Fmr Spokesperson, @justicedems. @BernieSanders, AOC, @JamaalBowmanNY...

Incredible. “During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel on Thursday, he and his aides were not informed by Israeli officials of their plan to force the mass movement of 1.1 million Palestinians.”

Israel says 1.1M residents must leave north Gaza Strip; Reuters journalist killed in shelling
WaPo | 13 Oct 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/13/israel-gaza-war-updates-hamas-pa...

>16 margd: Of course not. Rule number one: don't pre-announce your plans for ethnic cleansing to the Americans. They might feel obliged to object.

BBC journalists held at gunpoint by Israeli police
BBC | 13 Oct 2023

....Israel has told those in the north of the Gaza Strip - about 1.1 million people - to relocate to the south of the territory within 24 hours.

The UN has urged Israel to withdraw the order, warning of "devastating humanitarian consequences".

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, told civilians to ignore the evacuation order, describing it as "fake propaganda".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67102956
__________________________________________

Israel says 1.1M residents must leave north Gaza Strip; Reuters journalist killed in shelling
WaPo | 13 Oct 2023

Israel called on the entire population of the northern Gaza Strip — about 1.1 million people — to move south in the Palestinian territory within 24 hours. Israeli strikes are pounding the densely populated enclave, and troops are massing nearby ahead of an anticipated ground incursion after Hamas militants staged one of the deadliest attacks in Israeli history. Hamas described the evacuation warning as psychological warfare and urged people not to comply. Gaza authorities said there was nowhere safe to go under siege, while health officials said it would be impossible to evacuate hospitals, which are already facing power shortages and dwindling supplies. In southern Lebanon, meanwhile, a journalist with the Reuters news agency was killed Friday while covering clashes there. Six other journalists were injured, including two from the Al Jazeera news channel, after the journalists were struck by what Al Jazeera said was Israeli shelling.

...Israeli forces drop leaflets telling Gaza City residents to move south...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/13/israel-gaza-war-updates-hamas-pa...

US intelligence warned of the potential for violence days before Hamas attack
Katie Bo Lillis, Zachary Cohen, Alex Marquardt and Natasha Bertrand | October 13, 2023

...One update from September 28 warned, based on multiple streams of intelligence, that the terror group Hamas was poised to escalate rocket-attacks across the border. An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas — indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent...

...For most US and Israeli officials who were tracking the intelligence, the expectation was that there would likely be just another round of small-scale violence by Hamas — perhaps some rocket fire that Israel’s Iron Dome would intercept, one source familiar with the intelligence explained...

...the view is coalescing among US officials and lawmakers that Israel’s failure to predict the explosion of simmering rage from Gaza was primarily due to a lack of imagination.

Hamas likely hid the planning of the operation ... But US officials also believe that Israel had become complacent about the threat Hamas posed and failed to recognize key indicators that the group was planning for a large-scale operation...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/us-intelligence-warnings-potential-gaza-...

Y'know, if Security Council can't prevent slaughter in Gaza, if it happens, and it can't censor Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it can't address climate change, it's another institution that no longer serves global needs.

Israel had the sympathy of the world.

>8 John5918: Prof. Ker-Lindsay adds his two cents on what needs to happen -- which is what is not going to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkgGP6AWWOc

that was an excellent and objective summary of the history of this conflict. I still remember teaching sunday school the day that egypt and israel signed that agreement, My students made paper doves to hang on our ceiling, there was so much hope then. that hope turned to ashes when Itzchak Rabin was assassinated. and now after so long weve come to this very dangerious situation in the area and in the world. I dont know what to do with that But Lindsay certainly helped explain, and yes you are right - what needs to happen wont. heaven help us, coz I dont think anyone here can

>20 margd:

There has been a strong feeling in many parts of the world for many years that as long as the UN Security Council is dominated by five permanent members with veto powers, it will never truly be able to serve global peace and justice. The Security Council needs to be modified so it more accurately reflects the realities of today's world rather than the "victors" of a war that ended nearly eighty years ago. But of course it won't be, because the five permanent members will veto any changes which reduce their own power.

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 4:38 AM · Oct 14, 2023
Ukrainian patriot. Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Founder of the Institute of the Future. Official enemy of Russian propaganda

Palestinian militants received millions of dollars through the largest ruble-based crypto exchange Garantex, located in "Moscow City".

There is an evidence that "Palestinian militants in part financed their operations through crypto in the lead-up to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Digital wallets controlled by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which joined Hamas in the attacks, received a portion of $93 million via Garantex, according to analysis by researcher Elliptic, which said Hamas also used a similar financing strategy," the WSJ reports.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Garantex became the main channel for withdrawing money from Russia. In June, the total amount of transactions on the platform amounted to about $865 million. This is three times more than in April 2022, when the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the cryptocurrency exchange.

https://wsj.com/finance/currencies/garantex-russian-crypto-hamas-crime-sanctions...

Monica Marks @MonicaLMarks | 4:52 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Prof of Middle East Politics @NYUAbuDhabi. Tunisia, Turkey, Gulf. PhD @StAntsCollege Oxford. Fulbright, Rhodes, @HarvardWCFIA. 12 yrs writing on Tunisia.

Yesterday, Mecca's imam prayed for Palestine.
This & much else brings back '48. Ppl fleeing on foot, some by horse & donkey. Belongings spilling from their little bags. Babies crying.
This time, 🌍 watched their exodus live. Emotional impact tremendous.
From قناة الإخبارية
1:41 ( https://twitter.com/MonicaLMarks/status/1713115601231626278 )

Scholars, journalists & analysts cannot underestimate the resentments & ruptures these images will cause as they ripple & resonate across Muslim world & beyond.
Many in the Arab world, where I live, felt like they watched a Trail of Tears broadcast live.
Chilling, searing pain.

For so many, watching this exodus happen- -whilst Israeli forces attacked the very escape route, and 🇺🇸/🇪🇺 made no audible calls to stop it--is powerful evidence that Western liberalism & international law are hollow, hypocritical fictions.
The ripple effects here are dangerous.

Putin seized this window of opportunity, denouncing Israel's Gaza seige as a cruel reprisal & warning it not to use tactics like Nazis used when they beseiged Leningrad.
That update scrolled across news tickers on Arabic TV channels I watched last night for what felt like hours.

Terrorism scholars are also feeling particularly nervous. The recruitment opportunities that viewing these searing images, day after day, hour after hour, might engender are gulp-inducing.

Jews around the world are, I fear, becoming less safe. Countless Jewish men are removing their kippas whilst outside in fear of attacks.
Just yesterday, an Israeli embassy staffer was assaulted in Beijing of all places. Not a place known for anti-Semitism
https://www.reuters.com/world/israeli-embassy-staffer-assaulted-beijing-israel-f...

WHO in occupied Palestinian territory WHOoPt | 4:37 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

✈️TOUCHDOWN!
A plane carrying WHO health supplies has landed in Al-Arish airport,📍Egypt - close to Rafah.
Supplies will serve the urgent needs of +300,000 people & will be delivered to📍Gaza as soon as humanitarian access through Rafah is established.
https://bit.ly/3M2BT1r

Image World Health Organization (WHO) and 2 others
https://twitter.com/WHOoPt/status/1713111752320114883/photo/1
------------------------------------------------------

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus @DrTedros | 3:25 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Director-General of the World Health Organization.

A plane with WHO medical supplies to support the urgent health needs in Gaza has landed in Al Arish, #Egypt - close to the Rafah crossing.
We’re ready to deploy the supplies as soon as humanitarian access through the crossing is established.
We continue our plea to Israel to reconsider the decision to evacuate 1.1 million people. It will be a human tragedy.

Photo plane supplies ( https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1713119189488033970/photo/1 )

2100 rockets fired Friday and Saturday am {as much as 5 mi into s Israel?}:

Watch this amazing explanation from @AliVelshi {MSNBC} of how the damage from bombs in cities is made worse by the chunks of rock and other shrapnel thrown by the explosion.
1:45 ( https://twitter.com/WagnerTonight/status/1712654155678957925 )

- Alex Wagner Tonight {MSNBC} @WagnerTonight | 10:19 PM · Oct 12, 2023

💥Several hundred protesters including numerous families of unaccounted-for hostages calling on Netanyahu to resign at spontaneous protest outside Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. (@sha_b_p )
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1713163498157424660 )

- Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 8:03 AM · Oct 14, 2023
🇮🇱Israel🇵🇸 Palestine reporter♥️🇦🇷🇨🇭🥩🍷PostNews: https://post.news/ntarnopolsky (Jerusalem)

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 7:58 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

Russia advanced a ceasefire resolution in the UN on the Gaza War
It calls for the creation of a Palestinian state
It holds the US responsible and accuses European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen of ignoring Israeli attacks on Gaza civilian infrastructure

Russia's draft resolution does not list Hamas
It just discusses Israeli and Palestinian actors
The absence of Hamas can be explained by Russia's policy of not designating as a terrorist group
______________________________________

Pyotr Kurzin @PKurzin | 6:12 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Geopolitics, Current Events, Macro | Exp worldbank , @CrisisGroup , UN | MA @SAISHopkins | Spaceshost @theglobalgambit . Featured in ABC, Kitco, Evening Standard

🚨 #BREAKING: Russia’s UN Ambassador 🇺🇳 calls for ceasefire

In NYC, Russia’s PR Nebenzia has declared a humanitarian ceasefire’ is urgent while blaming the US for perpetuating the #IsraelPalestineWar.

The Russian delegation is pushing a draft resolution in the UNSC, urging an ‘immediate’ ceasefire and release of hostages. It also urges humanitarian aid and guaranteed safe evacuation.

The draft resolution partially states: ‘the UNSC strongly condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism’.

It’s also been reported that while the resolution mentions Israel and Palestine, it excludes #Hamas.

Omitting certain words and including others can have diplomatic repercussions as it is ways for countries to signal their views and interests to others - sometimes to incentivise or coerce countries to change their behaviour.

The draft resolution is currently being debated behind closed doors, with Nebenzia claiming there was positive reaction from the 15 seat #UNSC.

Photos
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/2
https://twitter.com/PKurzin/status/1713135674650402885/photo/3

Urgent: Water has now run out in Gaza according to the UN
“It has become a matter of life and death”.
2 million people at risk. Statement below 👇🏼
Text UNWRA ( https://twitter.com/Beltrew/status/1713124289514176795/photo/1 )

- Bel Trew @Beltrew | 5:27 AM · Oct 14, 2023
The Independent’s Chief International Correspondent. Foreign reporter of the year 2023. (Ukraine)

Haaretz.com @haaretzcom | 6:34 AM · Oct 9, 2023:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy"

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-conce...
----------------------------------------------

Simon Rosenberg @SimonWDC | 9:27 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
Political Strategist, Commentator | Once NDN, DNC, DCCC, Clinton War Room, ABC News

The problem supporters of Israel now have is that we have to rely on the political and military judgement of the failed, discredited Netanyahu to get us through all this successfully. It's a huge problem.

Omar Shakir @OmarSShakir | 9:37 PM · Oct 13, 2023:
Israel and Palestine Director, Human Rights Watch (@hrw). Formerly @theccr (Center for Constitutional Rights) & @slshumanrights (Stanford human Rights Clinic). {Amman, Jordan}

No electricity. No internet. No clean water. No aid. Bombs raining down. Closure. Occupation. Refugees for generations. Persecution. Apartheid.
Unfathomable what Palestinians of Gaza facing—& worst may be to come. My @CNNSitRoom interview w/ @wolfblitzer

03:34 ( https://twitter.com/OmarSShakir/status/1713006061647478893 )
From Human Rights Watch

>15 margd: Doctors w/o Borders hospital update

MSF International MSF | 6:06 AM · Oct 14, 2023

🔴GAZA UPDATE:
At time of writing the hospital is still standing.
After spending part of the night in the street with bombs landing in close proximity, we understand that some medical staff and all patients have been able to move...

...but the situation remains extremely complicated and chaotic.
We call on Israel once again to cease the indiscriminate bloodshed, withdraw their ultimatum, and to protect healthcare facilities and civilians.

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 10:06 AM · Oct 14, 2023

Hamas built 500 kilometers of fortified tunnels as of 2021, which they are now using to wait out Israeli bombardments. It's likely that the length of the tunnels is greater now.

📹- Al Jazeera's 2021 report.
2:38 ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1713194531321995529 )

>30 margd: Russia

NEXTA @nexta_tv | 6:37 AM · Oct 14, 2023:
The largest Eastern European media.

Hamas thanked Putin for his statement in support of Palestine

"We in the Islamic Resistance Movement appreciate Russian President Vladimir Putin's stance on the ongoing Zionist aggression against our people and his rejection of the siege of Gaza, the halting of humanitarian aid and the attack on civilians there," the terrorists said.
________________________________

Putin cautions Israel against using tactics in Gaza like Nazi siege of Leningrad
Reuters | October 13, 2023
https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-israeli-ground-operation-gaza-will-result-ci...

A lot if not most all of outside actors are using this to support their own agendas. Likewise the Netanyahu regime and Hamas are using their own peoples, the Israeli's also using the Palestinian people and both again the Israeli hostages for their own ends. An international arbiter would be nice---first to stop the bombings in Gaza and second to get the hostages back from Hamas. Netanyahu and the right wingers in his govt. need to go.

Anonymous @YourAnonOne | 11:05 AM · Oct 14, 2023:

BREAKING: Israeli President says there are no innocent citizens in the Gaza Strip
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/YourAnonOne/status/1713209445457486323 )

Scoop: Iran warns Israel through UN against ground offensive in Gaza
Barak Ravid | 14 Oct 2023

Iran sent a message to Israel on Saturday stressing that it does not want further escalation in the Hamas-Israel war, but that it will have to intervene if the Israeli operation in Gaza continues...

Why it matters: The fighting between Hamas and Israel will turn into a regional war if Iran gets involved either directly or indirectly, such as through a militant group in Syria or by backing any Hezbollah decision to fully join the fighting...

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with UN envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland on Saturday in Beirut...
Wennesland urged Amir-Abdollahian to help prevent a spillover of the conflict in Gaza and Israel to the wider region in the Middle East.
The Iranian foreign minister replied that Iran doesn't want the conflict to turn into a regional war and wants to try to help with the release of civilians who are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
But Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Iran has its red lines. He said that if the Israeli military operation continues — and especially if Israel follows through on its promise of a ground offensive in Gaza — Iran will have to respond...

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/14/iran-warning-israel-hezbollah-hamas-war-gaza

>38 margd: i need a better reference then just your name

>41 cindydavid4: This might do it. https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html

>41 cindydavid4: ? Click link for video. (Twitter)

Sigh can the entire population of isreal pls get rid of Bibi and his followers? They not represent the country I grew up knowing

sigh I understand defending your country. I dont understand inhumane statements like that, the demand that they leave (and yes its ethnic cleansing) and that they are bombint while people are trying to leave. My god what has happed to this country? Herzog is saying that those in gaza should have stood up and fought to keep Hammus out. Cant wait to see the looks on their faces when the israelis rise up and kick them out. It cannot be soon enough

Heads of Churches in Jerusalem Call on Israel to Allow Humanitarian Aid to Go to Gaza (National Catholic Register)

The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem issued a statement Friday calling on Israel to allow food and medical supplies to enter the Gaza Strip, where “a grave humanitarian crisis has befallen all of us.” In their joint statement, the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders also called for stemming the violence that has erupted since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel last weekend, which took the lives of 1,300 Israelis. About 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict over the past week. “We call upon all parties to de-escalate this war in order to save innocent lives while still serving the cause of justice,” the joint statement from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders read. “Our beloved Holy Land has changed dramatically over the past week,” they said. “We are witnessing a new cycle of violence with an unjustifiable attack against all civilians. Tensions continue to rise and more innocent and vulnerable people are paying the ultimate price as the dramatic level of death and destruction in Gaza clearly show”...

Deterrence between Israel and Hizbollah Must Hold (International Crisis Group)

Thus far, October’s exchanges of fire between Hizbollah and Israel have stayed within the sides’ red lines. Still, with an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza looming, risks are tremendous. A Gaza ceasefire, while improbable, is the only way to rule out a broader war... External actors with Hizbollah’s ear should impress on the party, and Western countries on Israel, that opening a second front is in no one’s interest...

Hamas, Israel, and the U.S. Have Learned Nothing (The Progressive)

The killing of more than 1,000 Israelis and internationals from rockets and direct attacks by Hamas is a staggering blow for Israel, a small country which has repeatedly been a victim of violent attacks throughout its history, but never anything close to this scale. Tragically, the civilian death toll in Israel will likely be only a small fraction of the civilian death toll of Palestinians in Gaza in the face of the ongoing Israeli assault on the crowded enclave, which has included bombings of residential buildings and refugee camps and will surely escalate in intensity. Hamas, once again, has failed to recognize that killing civilians is not just morally reprehensible but politically counter-productive. They aren’t like Israel and Saudi Arabia, which can kill thousands of civilians with impunity and still receive massive military and diplomatic support from the United States...

Operation Al-Aqsa: Middle East Scholars Weigh in on Gaza – Israel Conflict (Counter Punch)

In this interview, international relation scholars Richard Falk and Stephen Zunes comment on: the politics of Hamas, the role of the press, how international law is applied in the region, human rights for civilians, the nature of terrorism, and the prospects of a Third Intifada. They explain the significance of these events...

These last two feature Middle Eastern Studies Professor Stephen Zunes, who says in an e-mail, "There is a lot I could share about the ongoing tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel that preceded it. I am mourning the deaths of individuals I knew and greatly respected in both Israel and in Gaza—they were opponents of both the Israeli government and Hamas. I am also concerned about how this has set back rational discussion about the conflict, harmed the Palestinians’ just struggle for freedom and equality, and will contribute to still further bloodshed". He also draws attention to two articles he wrote some time ago which give some background to the current situation, America's Hidden Role in Hamas' Rise to Power and Have ‘Human Shields’ Accusations Become an Excuse for War Crimes?

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
https://twitter.com/UNRWA
https://donate.unrwa.org/gaza/~my-donation
-------------------------------------------------

UNRWA UNRWA | 4:03 AM · Oct 15, 2023
UN Agency for Palestine Refugees Working with + for #PalestineRefugees#فلسطين نعمل مع ومن أجل لاجئي

"The situation is catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic"
🆘 The humanitarian crisis in📍#Gaza is dire.
Our UNRWA colleague Rawya reports the desperate need for food, water, and medicine for the people fleeing their homes who are now dying without these supplies available.
1:34 ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1713465609634144482 )
---------------------------------------------------

UNRWA UNRWA | 3:21 AM · Oct 15, 2023:
1:27 ( https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1713455015384269058 )

"My colleagues are telling me a lot of horror stories" @TamaraAlrifai tells @BBCNews that the unrealistic expectation for 1 million people to leave North📍#Gaza overnight "is a matter of life and death"; warning of the extremely dire conditions those able to leave now face.
-------------------------------------------------

Photos UNRWA tweets
UNRWA building destroyed: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/1
12 UNRWA staff killed https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/2
----------------------------------------------------

Osaid Alser, MD, MSc(Oxon) 🗝 🇵🇸 @OsaidesserMD | 10:22 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
Palestinian refugee | Academic surgeon in-training |

I am heartbroken
#RIP Dr Omar Ferwana, former dean of my medical school @IUGAZA and his daughter who’s also another physician along with his wife, kids/grandchildren as his house was targeted by #IOF {#IDF ?}. I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target 😞 #MedTwitter #NotATarget
Photo ( https://twitter.com/OsaidesserMD/status/1713379730945163282/photo/1 )
----------------------------------------------------

Richard Engel (NBC News) @RichardEngel | 2:44 AM · Oct 15, 2023
The Israeli military says Hamas likely boobytrapped the road heading south from northern Gaza, causing an explosion on Friday that killed 70 Palestinians, many on a flatbed truck.
----------------------------------------------------

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 2:55 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
analyst @CNA_org {Center for Naval Analyses, Arlington, VA}

The IDF has posted drone footage of Hamas attempts to block residents of Gaza City from evacuating south, including setting up physical roadblocks

From צבא ההגנה לישראל
0:22 ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713267311061192930 )
----------------------------------------------------

margd: My dad spent a year in Suez area as a UN Peacekeeper (58/59). His impressions then were of a dry and rocky land, little guys with donkeys and veiled women, desperate thieves and incredible hospitality & generosity, Europeans zipping around in jeeps... Doesn't look much different today from his home movies of 65 years ago, though I understand the population is pretty highly educated now thanks to UN and others...

Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom |
Middle East correspondent, TheEconomist . Author, 'How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within.'

There is talk in Washington and the region about trying to pay off Egypt, which is facing a debt crisis, to host Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza. The precedent would be the debt relief that Hosni Mubarak received in 1991 for joining the Gulf war.

Can Egypt be persuaded to accept Gazan refugees?
The country’s economic vulnerability offers leverage
Oct 14th 2023 | Istanbul
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/10/14/can-egypt-be-persuade...

World Health Organization (WHO) WHO | 3:34 PM · Oct 14, 2023:

Evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured

As the UN's agency responsible for public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly condemns Israel's repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe.

The lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance: those in intensive care or who rely on life support; patients undergoing hemodialysis; newborns in incubators; women with complications of pregnancy, and others all face imminent deterioration of their condition or death if they are forced to move and are cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated.

Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds.

Forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.

Hospital directors and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice: abandon critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, put their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them.

Overwhelmingly, caregivers have chosen to stay behind and honor their oaths as health professionals to “do no harm,” rather than risk moving their critically ill patients during evacuations. Health workers should never have to make such impossible choices.

Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them as havens from violence as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. Their lives, too, are at risk when health facilities are bombed.

There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.

WHO calls for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and calls for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians.

WHO also reiterates its calls for the immediate and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance, including WHO health supplies that arrived earlier today, is currently awaiting entry.

African Cardinal Directs Parishes to “hold in prayer” Victims of Israel-Palestine Violence (ACI Africa)

Stephen Cardinal Brislin of South Africa’s Cape Town Archdiocese has directed all Parishes in his Metropolitan See to pray for those affected by the Israel-Palestine violence that he says has created a “very troubling situation” in Holy Land... Cardinal Brislin recognizes the significance of the region in conflict to Christian faith, and decries the violent conflict that started on the morning of October 7... “Our hearts and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones, those who have been maimed, those who are displaced and those who have been taken hostage.” “The violence, destruction and loss of life is deplorable and horrifying,” Cardinal Brislin says in his two-page letter dated October 13, and goes on to warn, “The conflict potentially has terrible international consequences and could easily lead to a frightening escalation of violence”... “While there are those who seek facile interpretations of the conflict, there is no single narrative that captures the full context of what is presently happening in the Holy Land”... “With Pope Francis, we call for the release of hostages. We also pray for those in Gaza who have been held under siege for so many years in what is effectively the world's largest open-air prison. Our prayers need to accompany all who find themselves hostage.” “We need to pray for the support of the many people in the Holy Land who work for a just peace,” he adds... “Peace will never be attained through the barrel of a gun and it is the peacemakers who keep the flame of hope alive in what seems like an increasingly dark situation”... “As people of faith, and especially those of the Abrahamic faiths so tied to that land, we need to turn humbly, yet urgently, to God the Creator of all, to soften the hearts of those committed to violence and to inspire them to ‘hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into billhooks (so that) nation will not lift sword against nation or ever again be trained to make war,” he says in reference to Isaiah 2:4...

I think the good cardinal's reflection that “While there are those who seek facile interpretations of the conflict, there is no single narrative that captures the full context of what is presently happening in the Holy Land” deserves attention.

...2) Israel Opens Water Pipes {to southern Gaza}

Meanwhile, Israel has opened up the water pipes leading to Southern Gaza in an attempt to get more people to evacuate from the north as the ground invasion looks to begin shortly. For several days now Israel has laid siege to the Gaza Strip, turning off all water and electricity to the area. However, in what has been deemed to be an olive branch from the Israeli military, the water has been turned back on for residents fleeing the north...

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/israel-at-war-everything-you-need-to-know-as-we...
-----------------------------------------------------
ETA:

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 10:48 AM · Oct 15, 2023:

BREAKING: Israel resumes water supply to southern Gaza Strip

Israel's decision follows intense pressure from the Biden administration over the past 48 hours

US officials reportedly told their Israeli counterparts that the evacuation to southern Gaza Strip would be empty if Palestinians didn't have water. Israel listened to this message.

I don't wish to overdo the religious posts on this thread, but since all parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are from the same religious heritage, People of the Book, أهل الكتاب , supposedly respecting the same Hebrew scriptures, it might be worth highlighting this passage from the Prophet Isaiah:

If you remove the yoke from among you, the accusing finger, and malicious speech;
If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted;
Then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday….
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined dwellings.” (Isaiah 58:9–10, 12)

>51 John5918: yes, this

Amb. Chas. Freeman was Nixon's right-hand man and translator on his visit to China in 1972 and later the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He is the caliber of diplomat that this country used to be able to produce, and now no longer wishes to hear from.

Amb. Freeman hasn't come out with anything that I'm aware of since this began, but this brief excerpt is from a speech of his just a few months ago, which gives the broad context of the present moment in... West Asia.

https://chasfreeman.net/the-middle-east-is-once-again-west-asia/

The Middle East is Once Again West Asia
Remarks to the Middle East Forum of Falmouth

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By video 6 August 2023

...
It is even harder to be optimistic about the future of Israel, which continues a march to perdition that answers those who call it out and try to halt it with baseless smears of antisemitism. Israel was born in hope. It risks ending in tragedy, a victim of hubris and deaf inattention to the lamentations and warnings of its well-wishers. Israel’s demise, if it comes, will not be imposed by the Palestinian resistance to its injustices or by the hostility of its Arab neighbors. It will be by its own hands, with more than a little help from its American friends.

Sadly, the United States has been as much the enabler of Israel’s descent into self-destructive and obnoxious practices as any person who gives money to an alcoholic to buy liquor is. Unquestioning support for Israel remains essential to extracting campaign contributions from American armchair Zionists, but it creates nothing but moral hazard for Israel and makes it an albatross around the neck of U.S. foreign relations. American subsidies for Israel and insistence on its unique exemption from the norms of international law, more than anything else, cause the world to dismiss U.S. claims to support justice, human rights, and democracy with skepticism bordering on derision. Unless and until U.S. enablement ends, Israel will persist in behavior that dishonors Judaism, makes enemies for both itself and the United States, and jeopardizes not just its moral standing but its viability as a nation state.

As re-delivered via a Swiss academic in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t_Lw8InEt8

>51 John5918: Maybe stick around to restore a ruined dwelling or a thousand?

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:57 PM · Oct 15, 2023:
BREAKING: Israel's Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog rules out occupying the Gaza Strip after the war

Herzog's full statement denying the occupation:
"We have no desire to occupy or reoccupy Gaza. We have no desire to rule over the lives of more than two million Palestinians"

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:55 PM · Oct 15, 2023:

BREAKING: Israel says it is working with the UN on creating a big humanitarian zone in southern Gaza
The humanitarian zone would allow for water, medicine and food, and would host hundreds of thousands of people

Even based on Israeli estimates, this is still short of 1.1 million who it wants to flee northern Gaza

>54 margd: We have no desire to rule over the lives of more than two million Palestinians

Well, that's a new position. Maybe democracy will break out in Israel after all!

>54 margd: sooooo why have they been doing this before now?

>47 margd: this breaks my heart

Photos UNRWA tweets
UNRWA building destroyed: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/1
12 UNRWA staff killed https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1712494153588715712/photo/2
----------------------------------------------------

Osaid Alser, MD, MSc(Oxon) 🗝 🇵🇸 @OsaidesserMD | 10:22 PM · Oct 14, 2023:
Palestinian refugee | Academic surgeon in-training |

I am heartbroken
#RIP Dr Omar Ferwana, former dean of my medical school @IUGAZA and his daughter who’s also another physician along with his wife, kids/grandchildren as his house was targeted by #IOF {#IDF ?}. I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target 😞 #MedTwitter #NotATarget
Photo ( https://twitter.com/OsaidesserMD/status/1713379730945163282/photo/1 )

double post

>57 cindydavid4: I don’t understand {how} HCWs are a legitimate target

The simple answer is they're not a legitimate target. It's a war crime.

ETA: CBC Radio reports that Israel and Hamas both deny a cesaefire to allow supplies to enter Gaza from Egypt.
(7 am 16 Oct 2023) :(

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus {WHO} @DrTedros | 2:20 AM · Oct 16, 2023:

Very relieved about reports of a ceasefire allowing life-saving supplies to enter into Gaza from Egypt. WHO's planeload of medical supplies arrived near Rafah on Saturday and we are working with partners to transport them into Gaza today if at all possible. Many civilians are in serious need.
_______________________________________

Gaza Hospitals Will Likely Run Out of Fuel in Just a Few Hours, UN Warns
‘RUNNING DRY’
The World Health Organization said that forcing sick and injured patients to flee hospitals in northern Gaza was a “death sentence.”
AJ McDougall | Oct. 16, 2023

Gaza hospitals were running dangerously low on fuel on Sunday, jeopardizing the lives of thousands of sick and injured patients as an expected ground offensive by Israeli forces looms.

The United Nations’ humanitarian office, OCHA, said that its monitors expected fuel supplies could be totally depleted by Monday. The hospitals will be unable to operate without fuel to power their generators. Other basic supplies, like food, water, and medicine, are also dwindling...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gaza-hospitals-likely-to-run-out-of-fuel-in-24-hou...
_______________________________________

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Middle East is on the "verge of the abyss" as he called on the Islamist-militant group Hamas to immediately release hostages being held in Gaza.

DW | 16 Oct 2023
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-un-says-middle-east-on-verge-of-abyss/liv...

>54 margd: George Conway: "This is a Trumpian level of narcissism."

Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 2:18 PM · Oct 15, 2023:
🇮🇱Israel🇵🇸 Palestine reporter♥️🇦🇷🇨🇭🥩🍷PostNews... {Jerusalem}

💥#Breaking Netanyahu's office ordered the government 𝐧𝐨𝐭 to cooperate with the team established by the Defense Ministry to rebuild destroyed southern communities, because the man appointed to head the Gen (ret) Roni Numa, is active in the protest movement. @HauserTov

Photo ( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1713620306873500097/photo/1 )

10.15.23 9:45 PM ET As the Israeli War continues, CNN's Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins hosts Lt General Mark Hertling* US Army (ret) @MarkHertling on set. "Most of these 300,000 reservists come from civilian jobs, not trained for combat" "City of trails underground" pertaining to Gaza City Full Segment

07:11 ( https://twitter.com/jeffstorobinsky/status/1713735264617533925 )
_________________________________________

* Mark Phillip Hertling is a former United States Army officer. From March 2011 to November 2012, he served as the Commanding General of United States Army Europe and the Seventh Army. Hertling served in Armor, Cavalry, planning, operations and training positions, and commanded every organization from Platoon to Field Army. (Wikipedia)

Hamas took UNWRA fuel and medical equipment after UNWRA compelled to evacuate its headquarters in Gaza City... {Israeli missile attack?} 😡grr

UNRWA @UNRWA | 7:58 AM · Oct 16, 2023:

🛑STATEMENT 👇
@UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities in #Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in 📍#GazaCity

Our staff were compelled to evacuate @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza city on a few hours’ notice during the night of Friday 13 October.
Since then, @UNRWA has had no access to the compound and no additional details about the removal of the assets.

Security cameras that cover the entrance / exit to the @UNRWA compound were damaged further to blasts from the conflict in previous days & ceased to operate.

@UNRWA fuel & other types of material are kept for strictly humanitarian purposes - any other use is strongly condemned.

If there is no food, water or medical for Palestinians the likelihood is there is no food, water or medical for the hostages that Hamas took among which are some elderly and some very, very young. Now and again I've heard comments of rescue plans by Israeli special forces none of which seem at all realistic particularly if they're not all in one place which is very likely the case. For me getting those taken hostage back should have been the main priority for the Israeli govt. from the beginning but apparently their euphemism of 'mowing the lawn' is their primary objective. Not surprising from a right wing govt. but disappointing nonetheless. Their objective of destroying Hamas over the dead bodies of non-combatants and probably at great cost to the IDF seems the way they're going to go while western powers like the U.S., Britain and France throw semi-enthusiastic encouragement their way from the sidelines along with some war materials. It's not a good look for anyone.

>64 lriley: Israel was caught so unprepared and Netanyahu govt seems so unstrategic, unimaginative. Depending on reserve soldiers--are there no Entebbe types to undertake surgical rescue?? No cave and tunnel experts like US has? If not, I fear that Hamas's brutal strike will spark exactly what it wants--a fight on its territory & its terms, a wider conflict, and many more deaths. Heard on radio that Hamas has ~ 200 hostages, God help them...

>64 lriley: Read somewhere that Biden's embrace of Netanyahu is at least in part an attempt to have some influence on him?

>66 margd: There is that but also there are American citizens who were killed and others taken hostage by Hamas. The concern for getting hostages back is not just an Israeli thing.

Speaking to #65 what I've heard also is that a lot of Israeli soldiers who had been posted near the Gaza Strip have in recent months been moved into the West Bank to help settlers there illegally take more land from Palestinians. I also remember hearing reports that Hamas on bringing hostages back to Gaza saying they were going to keep them in multiple separate locations within the territory and it's no doubt to stave off such a rescue operation. 150/200 people in any case would call for a massive rescue operation that could just as easily fail. And then you do have elderly people and very very young children and the likelihood is that even in the best case scenario some of them would die. Negotiating for them is the best idea and if any of the hostages were my relative that's I'd want to see.

Updates today from
Alastair Crooke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5hpJZ2uNRc

and Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCh6sbTTnHI

Jerusalem Catholic Patriarch offers to be exchanged for Gaza hostages (Citizen)

Pope Francis' representative in the Holy Land said on Monday he was willing to exchange himself for Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas and held in Gaza. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, made his comment in response to a question during a video conference with journalists in Italy. "I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part," he said. "The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping (an escalation). We are willing to help, even me personally," he said...

I heard on Cdn news that the old and disabled, unable to evacuate, are seeking sanctuary at the only RC church in Gaza. Muslims as well as Christians. Thousand? Supplies are desperately low.

>66 margd: contd. Nine hours and counting...

Edward Wong {NYT} @ewong | 9:36 PM · Oct 16, 2023:

.@SecBlinken negotiated for 9 hours w/ Netanyahu & aides to get them to agree to form a plan to get aid into Gaza & look at setting up “safe zones” for civilians, a senior State Dept. official said. Biden asked Blinken on Sunday to return to Israel after Blinken met w/ Sisi.

Photo Blinken ( https://twitter.com/ewong/status/1714092930640626095/photo/1 )
_____________________________________________

The White House WhiteHouse | 9:18 PM · Oct 16, 2023

On Wednesday, President Biden will travel to Israel to demonstrate his steadfast support for Israel in the face of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack and to consult on next steps.
.@POTUS will then travel to Amman, Jordan, where he will meet with his Majesty King Abdullah, Egyptian President Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
In Jordan, President Biden will reiterate that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discuss the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza.

Doctors in Gaza refuse to leave critically ill infants (Reuters. NYT)
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/sendtoadnan/status/1714272229075357836 )

Mustafa Akyol @AkyolinEnglish
Senior Fellow on Islam and modernity at @CatoInstitute . Senior Lecturer at @BostonCollege.

Thanks to the rabbis who joined the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume: the six year old boy who was brutally murdered {stabbed 26x by 71YO landlord who once helped him build a treehouse, then listened to talk radio...} just for being Muslim & Palestinian.

This is what we Muslims and Jews need: Caring for innocents of the "other side."

This is what will save us from today's darkness.

Quote
Yashar Ali 🐘 yashar | 8:54 PM · Oct 16, 2023:
HuffPost/NY Mag

A group of Chicago area Rabbis attended the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the six year old Palestinian-American boy who was brutally murdered by his landlord due to his ethnicity and religion.

Rabbi Ari Hart explains why the Rabbis attended the funeral:

“The Jerusalem Talmud teaches that the Jewish people are obligated to comfort the mourners of our people and of all people because of darchei shalom - the paths of peace.

Today, a group of rabbis of us went to the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six year old Muslim boy who was killed in his home by his depraved landlord because he was Palestinian and Muslim.

This picture is with the imam of the mosque where the funeral was held. We met with the Imam, heard from the father, and stood with the boy’s community as they mourned this horrific loss. We witnessed the pain. We expressed our shock and condemnation of the attack. We wept.

I can’t say that it was simple to be there.
These are not simple times.

But the murder of a six year old because of his faith and his identity is not complicated. It is a heinous crime. And that’s why we went today.

These days it really feels like the world has lost its way.

But I can’t give up on trying, yearning, dreaming, even right now, of finding the way to shalom. The way to peace.”

Photo ( https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1714082508810436715/photo/1 )

Not the Kamal Adwan Hopital in >72 margd:.

World Health Organization (WHO) WHO | 3:10 PM · Oct 17, 2023:

WHO statement on attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and reported large-scale casualties

WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. The hospital was operational, with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there. Early reports indicate hundreds of fatalities and injuries.

The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military. The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced.

WHO calls for the immediate active protection of civilians and health care. Evacuation orders must be reversed. International humanitarian law must be abided by, which means health care must be actively protected and never targeted.

WHO statement on attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and reported large-scale casualties
WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and WHO in occupied Palestinian territory
----------------------------------------

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 3:33 PM · Oct 17, 2023:

...I am...not assigning responsibility for the attack Israeli media is claiming its a failed Hamas rocket strike, so this is important to keep into account until we have more evidence to confirm or refute

>74 margd: On the hospital attack we might not know for sure for a while but my gut tells me it was an Israeli warplane. Yes the Palestinian groups have rockets and they've used them in the past and they can for sure be lethal but to kill somewhere around 500 people in one go.....something of that nature I don't think they've ever had. It seems to me that's a for real manufactured for a warplane to drop on someone or something bomb.

I was watching Nicole Wallace of MSNBC and she really wanted to believe the Israelis that it was Hamas or another Palestinian group but her on the ground reporter was pretty skeptical about that. Let's keep in mind that the Israelis have target assassinated a lot of Palestinians over the years and that it's a pretty sure thing they've been using white phosphorous on Gaza City which is a war crime on its own. They're very capable of doing something like this. Not likely but can't rule out some kind of accident either.

>75 lriley: As far as I can tell, the only reason the Israelis are letting water in at all is because the Americans made them. The Israeli government had been making noises about cutting off all water until the hostages were released.

If someone killed my child I’d want bloody revenge. But I’d be wrong – as is the Israeli government (Guardian)

I fear there will be terrible slaughter in Gaza, and leaders in the UK and the US seem willing to aid and sanction it... I feel such futility in writing this, as Israel’s military has stated its plan to commit effective genocide in Gaza... I’m American but I live in the UK, so I pay taxes to two countries that would explicitly aid and sanction this genocide. This genocide would be carried out with US and British weapons... Jewish and Muslim ghosts guided me better during my time of greatest pain than today’s presidents and prime minsters and newspaper owners are guiding us today. They profane the memory of those killed and those to be killed...

>75 lriley: Why bomb a hospital I wonder--knowing how badly Arabs and the world would take it? Had Hamas hidden something under the hospital, making it a target for Israel? But then, Biden was travelling for meeting with Israel today (Oct 18) and on to Jordan to meet with PLO, Egyptian, and Jordanian leaders, that meeting now cancelled. Could someone have wanted to scuttle that meeting enough to bomb a HOSPITAL?! An Anglican hospital... ( That would be a twofer for. Russia...)

>77 John5918: Wish Israel's leaders gave some thought as to what Hamas thought Israel reaction would be, what they were prepared for, before resorting to usual hammer. A hammer provided by the US, but nonetheless...

>79 margd:

Agreed. A parallel case is perhaps the USA's 9/11. If Osama bin Laden's objective was to destabilise western society, to undermine western values and the international rule of law, to attract to his cause and to radicalise disenchanted youth, and to create a climate of fear and instability in the western world, then his initial attack may have failed, but the USA's kneejerk, mindless, pointless, fruitless, barbaric and often illegal revenge attacks have achieved for him all of his goals and probably more than he could have hoped for. But capitalists should be happy, as the military-industrial complex and the security industry have become richer and more powerful.

Another of my favorite voices, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's old chief of staff) puts in his two cents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fjX_lUnwhM

ETA LINK:

Israel Defense Forces IDF | 3:46 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gaza—the IDF did not.
Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves:
1:01 ( https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1714548529538953637 )
________________________________________
ETA

Eylon Levy @EylonALevy | 4:01 AM · Oct 18, 2023
Israeli Government Spokesman. Former International Media Advisor to the President of Israel. Oxbridge grad, IDF vet.

2. Security cam footage from Netiv Haasara (destroyed by Hamas death squads on October 7) shows the same incident: a large barrage of rockets from northern Gaza, followed by a massive blast in the Strip.
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1714552325988053127 )
From Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian

4. The IDF releases Air Force footage from before and after the failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch, showing no visible signs of craters that might have been caused by IAF ordinances or significant damage to buildings.
0:33 ( https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1714552330605973966 )
From Israel Defense Forces
__________________________________________
ETA (looks like bedding of evacuees?)

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 5:17 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
analyst @CNA_org

Update on the chapel at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the building lost several of its stained glass windows in the explosion, but otherwise appears to be intact.

0:20 ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714571497820307470 )
__________________________________________
ETA

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 6:22 AM · Oct 18, 2023:

Possible impact crater at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza, roughly 1x1 meter, maybe 30cm deep.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714587746612740278 )
__________________________________________
ETA

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical | 7:47 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
Of note, casualty-wise, I can confirm a number, probably 30-50, IDPs (internally displaced persons) were sheltering on the lawn in the courtyard of the Ahli Hospital in the red highlighted area.

They took the worst of the blast, many of their bodies were badly burnt.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714609125236129929/photo/1 )

Biden: I caution this while you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the US. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes… The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.
0:56 ( https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1714647415637098894 )

- Acyn @Acyn | 10:19 AM · Oct 18, 2023

President Biden @POTUS | 9:12 AM · Oct 18, 2023:
I'm proud to be in Israel to honor the courage, commitment, and bravery of the Israeli people.
Americans are grieving with you following last week’s terror attacks.

آزاد رینــچ @NaikRooh
America is something you can easily manoeuvre
2:30 ( https://twitter.com/NaikRooh/status/1714630477825409068 )

>84 margd: It would be nice if Isreal realized this

>86 cindydavid4: I've been amazed at the generosity of spirit of some of the hostages' families who don't want anyone to suffer as they do.

There are (199?) hostages. Amazing that they come from 41 states reportedly--42 counting Israel.
https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1713870362423804001/photo/1
Like 911--a lot of nationalities and creeds among the victims...

There was even a Palestinian among Oct 7 victims apparently--an ambulance driver attempting to rescue...a hero.

Another voice worth hearing: Norman Finkelstein in conversation with Chris Hedges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0aemeCbRTk

Many will not like what Finkelstein has to say, but he takes a remarkably good stab at interpreting the situation through the lens of the American Abolitionist tradition.