Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[toomuchtime_]

Twenty years to life, hopefully.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[toomuchtime_]

The deal has been approved by the full cabinet, and while I hope it's true that Israel will resume dismantling Hamas after the ceasefire, I'm not sure this government will have the grit to do it.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Instead of covering the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas, the New York Times has turned itself into the newsletter of the Gaza hospital association.

Since the war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the Times has published, by my count, 19 front-page articles that are either primarily or substantially about the impact of the war on Gaza hospitals. That’s far more front-page articles than the Times has published on other aspects of the war that might be more newsworthy — say, the fate of the approximately 240 hostages, or the nature of Iran’s involvement in training and financing the Hamas terrorists, or plans for the future of Gaza after Israel achieves its goals of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages.

Most of the coverage has been of the he said/she said variety. The Times repeats Israeli statements that the hospitals are terrorist headquarters, while also repeating denials by Hamas and hospital officials.

The Nov. 11 edition of the New York Times had a front-page article headlined, “Gaza’s Hospitals Bear the Brunt As Battles Rage.” It reported, “Hamas denies operating within the hospital or under it, as does the hospital director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya.”

The Nov. 12 edition of the Times had a front-page article headlined, “Plight of Gaza’s Main Hospital Worsens as Israeli Forces Close In.” It reported, “The Israeli military has accused Hamas of operating an underground command center below Al-Shifa, using it as a shield. The hospital’s administration and Hamas have denied that.”

This is boilerplate that just gets copied and pasted into each day’s new front-page Times article on the same topic.

On Nov. 14: “Hospital Shakes In Gaza as Fights Rage at Doorstep.” The article reported, “Israeli officials say Hamas uses hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa, as shields to conceal vast complexes for their fighters in tunnels underneath. Hamas has denied the allegations.”

On Nov. 15: “Israeli Military Reports Assault at Gaza Hospital.” The article reported, “Israel asserts that Hamas has dug a network of tunnels beneath Gaza’s hospitals, using the patients and workers inside them as human shields for its command centers and safe houses. Hamas and hospital officials have denied the accusations.”

The Times international editor and associate managing editor, Phil Pan, who hadn’t had a byline in the newspaper since 2018, went to Gaza City himself to check into Al Shifa hospital and report under his own byline that his visit “will not settle the question of whether Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that rules Gaza, has been using Al-Shifa Hospital to hide weapons and command centers.”

I don’t know what Pan expected he’d find there. A sign behind the main information desk with colorful arrows? “Cardiology, third floor. Cafeteria, second floor. Hamas Terrorist Headquarters, basement.”

Even before this war, there was ample evidence that Hamas was using Gaza hospitals as bases. And the Times has already published one editors’ noteconceding that the newspaper “should have taken more care” with coverage of an explosion by an errant Palestinian rocket at a parking lot near one Gaza hospital. David Collier reported that one of the doctors frequently quoted in the Times denying Hamas’ presence at the hospital has a history of social media posts celebrating terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, notes that evidence has mounted. The IDF says it found that one of the hostages, 19-year-old Noa Marciano, had been murdered by Hamas terrorists inside the Shifa hospital. It published video of armed terrorists hustling Nepalese and Thai civilian hostages into the hospital. It found a terrorist tunnel with a blast-proof door and a firing hole. It found a booby-trapped vehicle full of weapons. It found Hamas weapons and uniforms hidden inside the hospital’s MRI area, where security cameras had been covered up.

“It’s increasingly clear that our assertion that Hamas uses hospitals as civilians shields — not just Shifa — is true,” Hecht writes. He says that translates into a journalistic point: “Same-sideness doesn’t always work. Israel is a liberal democracy. Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization. Giving equal weight to claims from both sides — one with a functional check and balance systems and another that knowingly butchers children in a surprise attack — is just plain wrong.”

Why is the Times focusing so obsessively about the Gaza hospitals rather than on other newsworthy stories in Gaza and in Israel, or, for that matter, in Lebanon, Iran, and China? A hint comes in a dispatch by the newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau chief, the error-prone Patrick Kingsley, who acknowledged, “Hamas restricts journalists in Gaza.”

Talk about burying the lede. What would be useful from the Times is more transparency about precisely how Hamas has been restricting journalists in Gaza. Does Hamas threaten the journalists with violence? Does Hamas tell the journalists that they should write about the hospitals and not about other topics? Does it order the journalists to report the doctors’ denials of Hamas activity even though everyone knows those denials are bogus?

The disclaimer that “Hamas restricts journalists in Gaza” is worth remembering as a cautionary label on everything the Times reports about the place.

The Times may eventually retreat from the Gaza topic and move on to other classical anti-Israel themes such as depicting the Jews as killers of innocent children. Before the Gaza hospital association newsletter drops the subject, though, would it be too much to ask for these intrepid Times journalists to go back to the Gazan doctors and ask: When they said there were no Hamasniks in the hospital, were they intentionally lying to the press? And when the journalists repeated the denial, did they, too, know it was a lie? Times editors may prefer to describe the situation as an unsettled question, but at a certain point readers may begin to wonder why the Times journalists have been so skeptical of Israel’s claims and so solicitous of Hamas’ denials.

‘Hamas Restricts Journalists in Gaza,’ New York Times Confesses — That Could Explain the Hospital Obsession - Algemeiner.com

Instead of covering the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas, the New York Times has turned itself into the newsletter of the Gaza hospital association. Since the war began with Hamas' Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the Times has published, by my count, 19 front-page articles that...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

It should be clear that Hamas tunnels, like the one below, would be of no utility to a hospital, and are clearly not what Barak is referring to:

So what is Barak talking about? Here are the facts he’s half-remembering: When Israel ran Gaza it engaged the well-known architects Gershon Tzpur and Benjamin Idelson to lead the development of a new Shifa Hospital, designed on modern lines, and looking very much like the Israeli hospitals the architects had earlier helped design, such as Beilinson, Ichilov, and Soroka.

And as part of that construction a basement was built under the hospital:

Obviously, this is a typical hospital basement, not a “bunker,” and while Hamas has for years been using the basement for its own purposes, when Israel speaks of Hamas tunnels and the “Gaza Metro,” they’re not talking about an ordinary basement.

This reality hasn’t stopped internet trolls from falsely claiming that Barak admitted that Israel, not Hamas, created the tunnels under Shifa Hospital.


(full article online)

Ehud Barak Misleads about the Shifa Tunnels

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak seems to say in this interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Israel created the underground 'bunkers' beneath Shifa

www.camera.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) has commendably amended numerous captions which had reported as fact Hamas’ unverified figure for Gaza Strip fatalities.

Multiple DPA captions about Qatari aid to the Gaza Strip yesterday stated as fact a Hamas-supplied figure for Palestinian casualties in the Gaza Strip without attributing the questionable data to the designated terror organization. The problematic captions had stated:

The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to 12300 since the start of battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

A screenshot of one of the DPA captions before it was revised
Given that the information cannot be verified and originates with a terror organization which just carried out one of the worst massacres of civilians in recent memory — with mass atrocities such as torture, burning alive, beheadings, rapes, murder of parents in front of children and vice versa — it is irresponsible to cast the claim as fact.

DPA’s Nov. 18 news story, in contrast, commendably attributed the questionable claim to Hamas (“Israel firms up claim Hamas using hospital, schools for armed fight“), stating: “Israel’s military response – including massive air bombardment and a ground offensive in the north – has killed more than 11,500 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.”

Hamas’ figures, which cannot be verified, do not distinguish between civilians and terrorists and include thousands of terrorists, including the approximately 1500 Hamas terrorists who carried out the slaughter within Israel and were killed as they perpetrated horrific war crimes. The figure also includes Palestinians civilians killed by failed Palestinian rockets meant for Israel.

In response to communication from CAMERA’s Jerusalem office, DPA editors commendably deleted Hamas’ unverified casualty claim entirely from all of the relevant photo captions.


One of DPA’s captions following removal of Hamas’ unverified casualty claim

DPA Fixes Captions Which Cited Hamas' Fatality Claims as Fact

DPA commendably deletes references to Hamas' unverified figure for Gaza casualties which multiple captions has reported as fact and without attribution to the terror

www.camera.org

 

[rosends]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Ahead of an expected pause of several days in fighting, the IDF said Wednesday morning that troops have uncovered and destroyed some 400 terror tunnel shafts in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ground offensive last month.

The IDF said Wednesday that troops of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit have played a significant role in demolishing the Hamas tunnels over the past month of fighting. The tunnel entrances have been found deep within civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings, schools, hospitals and other sites.

The IDF has accused Hamas of using the Palestinian population in Gaza as human shields by deliberately placing its terror infrastructure within the civilian environment. In recent days, Israel has revealed a number of tunnel shafts in and around the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, as Hamas has repeatedly denied that it operates underneath the medical center.


(full article online)

Ahead of slated truce, IDF says it’s destroyed 400 Hamas tunnels, continues to fight

Death of Cpt. Liron Snir brings the toll in the ground operation to 69; sources indicate that four-day pause in fighting will begin Thursday at 10 a.m.

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Those who don’t understand why Gaza is being bombed don’t understand the depth of the national trauma that Israel is going through right now. The images of hostages are hanging in every corner, on every street. Every party and every ideological movement has died, and the only agenda that’s alive is bringing back the hostages and to exterminate Hamas, no matter the price is.

The reason 7 October was able to happen was because Israelis had started to trust Gazans, a trust that was shattered in the most outrageous way possible.

Imagine starting to trust your enemy, only for them to use your trust to kill your daughter and kidnap your mother.

I don’t think Israelis will ever accept, forgive, or forget how this trust was destroyed.

I have never seen a people and a community be so emotionally battered as Israelis are right now. You can feel their sadness and grief in the air. You breathe it in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv.

I am also very moved by how much Israelis love their nation and people, how far they will go for their people. I am very moved but also very jealous.

If October 7 was a Swedish tragedy, it would take the Swedes less than 2 days to start organising rainbow “anti-hate” protests.

Israelis, on the other hand, know very well that you can’t negotiate with terrorists.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

These are people who aren’t Jewish, who have never participated in Israeli elections, and who were just trying to earn a living.

They are the victims of antisemitism by association.

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ All that matters is becoming martyrs. The Muslim Arab Palestinian 20th century creation to justify not defeating Israel and destroying it ]

 

[Sixties Fan]

There is no doubt in the truth.

-The Israeli victims on Oct 7th were without a doubt victims of a genocide committed by an outlaw savage group, who indiscriminately killed and wounded thousands of civilians because of their religion and ethnicity.

-Gaza civilian victims are War Crime Victims committed by their own governing authority.

Most of the Gaza victims perished as human shields.Verdict,Hamas is condemned for:

1-genocide and ethnic cleansing against Israel

2-Using their own civilians as human shields

3. Kidnapping Israeli civilians, and taking hostages as a bargaining chip to release Hamas mass murderers.

*The state of Israel doesn't bear any legal or moral responsibility for human shield victims used by Hamas. *Israel has the right to eradicate Hamas in order to protect its citizens from any future genocide.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]