Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

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ARAB MUSLIM BIGOT: DUA ABUDIAB


EXCLUSIVE: Seattle-area bar association apologizes after publishing screed calling for genocide of Jews.
By Ari Hoffman, Feb 20, 2024.
“The agency did not respond when asked how Abudiab could represent the best interests of any Jewish or Israeli lawyer in the Washington State Bar after calling for their deaths and the genocide of their people.”
The King County Bar Association Board of Trustees apologized after printing an article from one of its members and former director, Dua Abudiab, entitled From The River To The Sea, a phrase that calls for the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its residents.

EXCLUSIVE: Seattle-area bar association apologizes after publishing screed calling for genocide of Jews

 

[FDR_Reagan]

Hamas terrorists embedded in Rafah, U.S. vetoes anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution.
Feb. 21, 2024.

10,000 Hamas terrorists are embedded among civilians in Rafah – the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza – despicably using Palestinians as human shields. On Tuesday, February 21, White House spokesperson John Kirby reaffirmed America’s support for Israel as it fights to destroy the terrorists in the southern city along the Egyptian border.

"We understand that their Hamas leadership, in fact full Hamas units are now operating in Rafah, mixing among the civilians, trying to find refuge there. That's classic Hamas conduct and that's inexcusable and Israel has a right to go after them," Kirby said.

(US vetoes Security Council resolution demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza war )

Israel believes the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has killed 12,000 of Hamas’ estimated 30,000 fighters, with thousands more seriously wounded and unable to fight.

"We still have a long way to go," IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Tuesday as the military continues its fight to eliminate the threat from Hamas and free the hostages.

He added that Israel is fighting "a long and just war. … We act like human beings and, unlike our enemy, maintain our humanity. We must be careful not to use force where it is not required, to distinguish between a terrorist and those who are not."

U.S. vetoes anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution

The United States of America (U.S.A.) vetoed an anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday (February 20), which demanded an immediate ceasefire.

The White House reiterated its position that a ceasefire now would leave Hamas armed, in power, and ready to fulfill its promise to carry out another October 7.

"We still don’t believe that this is the right time for a general ceasefire that leaves Hamas in control and alleviates any responsibility for them to release the hostages," John Kirby said on behalf of President Joe Biden.

( )

In response to the U.S. veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution aiming to impose a ceasefire on Israel, the American-Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) released this statement on Tuesday, February 21:

"We commend the Biden administration for vetoing the anti-Israel Security Council resolution introduced by Algeria, a close ally of Putin.

"The pervasive and systemic anti-Israel biases throughout the UN system make it the wrong venue to adjudicate these complex issues.

"America must continue to stand with our ally Israel in its campaign to drive Hamas from power, ensure Hamas can never fulfill its vow to repeat October 7, and free the hostages."

Hamas terrorists embedded in Rafah, U.S. vetoes anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution

10,000 Hamas terrorists are embedded among civilians in Rafah – the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza – despicably using Palestinians as human shields. On Tuesday, February 21, White House spokesperson

www.citynewsokc.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

UNRWA death statistics over the past two months strongly indicate that Hamas casualty figures are lies​

A month ago, we looked at a Lancet article that used statistics from the first month of the October 7 war to shore up the idea that the Hamas ministry of health statistics were accurate.



Briefly, they compared the number of UNRWA deaths per thousand employees (about 7.5) with the number of total Gaza deaths per thousand residents according to the MoH (about 5) during the first month of the war. Based on that, they decided that the Ministry of Health statistics were largely accurate.

I pointed out the methodological flaws. As I noted,

It makes an assumption that everyone in Gaza has an equal chance of being killed, meaning that Israel is killing people randomly and indiscriminately. This is not only a false assumption, but an antisemitic one.

Indeed, one reason UNRWA workers could have been killed at a higher rate is because none of them are children - and more than half of them are males of fighting age. About two thirds of the first 101 killed were men, a higher percentage than the percentage of male employees at UNRWA (about 54% across UNRWA, not sure about Gaza itself.) Chances are that at least some of the UNRWA casualties were also legal combatants, either actively participating or acting as "spotters" or other support.

In other words, one would expect a much higher percentage of UNRWA employees, especially males, to be killed than the general population if you don't accept the antisemitic assumption that Israel is killing indiscriminately.

Which means that if UNRWA death figures are to be statistically meaningful, we must assume that they represent a higher death-per-thousand rate than the general population.

However, since that first month, the rate of UNRWA workers killed has dropped dramatically - far more than the drop in deaths published by the Hamas authorities.





If the Lancet felt that UNRWA's figures support the MoH figures in the first month, then why have they diverged so dramatically since then? Doesn't that indicate that the MoH figures have become increasingly unreliable?

If the UNRWA deaths can be used as a sample of total Gaza deaths, which the Lancet peer-reviewed claimed, that would mean that the true number of deaths over the past month in Gaza is about 1,100, not the 5,095 the MoH claimed.

I don't think the UNRWA numbers are a proper proxy for calculating deaths either way. My theory is that the Gaza health ministry statistics on total casualties (not women and children) were roughly accurate for the first month or so, but as communications broke down in Gaza they (and the Hamas media office) just started making things up. There is simply no infrastructure in Gaza to provide anything close to accurate casualty statistics but Hamas relies on these numbers being reported daily to pressure Israel to cease fire. Since the world believes them, so why not continue to lie?

A group of supposed experts are projecting the number of Gaza deaths if there is a ceasefire orif Israel presses into Rafah. Their entire analysis is based on accepting the casualty figures from Hamas as being 100% accurate. And while they don't say exactly how they use the UNRWA figures, they seem to be accepting the Lancet methodology in their report: " We estimated the proportion and number of unreported (e.g. those killed that may be under rubble and have not been reported) traumatic injury deaths by comparing the ratio of mortality among United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) staff (for whom 100% detection was assumed) to that among the general population, including uncertainty ranges, to estimate a confidence interval."

One of the authors of this report was also a co-author of the Lancet report.

At any rate, even if you completely trust The Lancet methodology of using UNRWA casualties as an accurate sample of Gaza total death rates, you have to admit that their evidence supporting Hamas casualty figures has been thoroughly debunked. Science depends on consistency, and the data from the past two months contradict the Lancet's conclusion from one mere month.

UNRWA death statistics over the past two months strongly indicate that Hamas casualty figures are lies

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

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[Sixties Fan]

ARAB MUSLIM BIGOT: DUA ABUDIAB


EXCLUSIVE: Seattle-area bar association apologizes after publishing screed calling for genocide of Jews.
By Ari Hoffman, Feb 20, 2024.
“The agency did not respond when asked how Abudiab could represent the best interests of any Jewish or Israeli lawyer in the Washington State Bar after calling for their deaths and the genocide of their people.”
The King County Bar Association Board of Trustees apologized after printing an article from one of its members and former director, Dua Abudiab, entitled From The River To The Sea, a phrase that calls for the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its residents.

EXCLUSIVE: Seattle-area bar association apologizes after publishing screed calling for genocide of Jews

This post should go here:

Stop Antisemitism

www.usmessageboard.com

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[Sixties Fan]

I reported that the Hamas Health Ministry claimed on Sunday that electricity had been cut off at the Nasser Medical Center in Khan Younis for three days (since February 16) - yet I found a Sky News Arabia report from February 18 showing the lights and medical equipment were still on.



Then the World Health Organization posted a video apparently taken the same day showing the lights off.



Maybe the electricity was cut between the two scenes?

If that was the case, then why are the lights on in Al Ghad TV on February 20?




Today there were more scenes of the hospital with the lights off in patient rooms, and teams of doctors relying on flashlights, from CNN and Euronews.



This seems strange - because even the WHO admits that there is a backup generator in service in the hospital. (It was provided by the same Israeli soldiers who are portrayed as the evil invaders. ) Why would there be no electricity where it is needed most?

More importantly, why would the hallway lights be prioritized over the lights where the doctors are treating patients?

Perhaps it depends on the audience and the message that they want to tell. To the Western audiences of WHO, CNN and Euronews, footage of doctors treating patients with small handheld lights is dramatic. For reports by Arabic sources, they want to see scenes of overcrowding, chaos and injured people being rushed through the hallways, which look a lot better when the lights are on.

I'm not saying that things are wonderful at the hospital. I'm saying that you can assume that everything you see out of Gaza is being staged and choreographed to send a specific message to manipulate you.

That's entertainment.
That's Pallywood.

Nasser Medical Center lights appear to be turned off for Western media reports

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

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Reuters Distances Itself From Photographer for “Unacceptable” Behavior Caught on Oct. 7 Video - Algemeiner.com

The Reuters wire service is distancing itself from a freelance photographer after a pro-Israel journalism watchdog organization found an Instagram video of the photographer on October 7 appearing to urge Gazans to cross over into Israel. The media monitoring group HonestReporting published what...

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[Sixties Fan]

Yazan Zakaria Abu Jamaa, 5, was killed on October 7 when a rocket fired from Gaza struck his home in the southern Bedouin town of Ar’ara.

He is survived by his parents and three sisters.

A neighbor, Alaa Abu Jamaa, told AFP that Yazan, “was standing at the door of his house near a car. When the rocket exploded, the car was blown out of place and burned with a number of other cars… Yazan was killed. He was blown into parts.”

Yazan’s father Zakaria, a driver, recalled with tears that he “was in Eilat on Saturday morning when I learned of my son’s death. I came back in the midst of the exchange of bombing between Hamas and Israel and saw my son in the hospital.”

His voice broke and he could not continue.

The family noted that their town lacks sirens and rocket shelters, and they believe that his life would have been saved otherwise.

A week after his death, Zakaria told Ynet, “I’m broken, I can’t talk about this now, I just can’t… I leave my house just to go to the cemetery. The rest of the time I sit on my balcony and I smoke and drink coffee.”

In January he told Makan, the Arabic-language public TV station, that “every night I wake up and I see that the pain in my heart just grows and grows.

Yazan Abu Jamaa, 5: Bedouin family’s only son slain by rocket

Killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ar'ara on October 7

www.timesofisrael.com

 

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Shachar Zemach, 39, from Kibbutz Be’eri, was killed fighting a Hamas invasion of the kibbutz on October 7.

As a member of the kibbutz’s rapid response team, he was recognized as a fallen soldier with the rank of sergeant major in the reserves.

According to Reuters, Zemach and other members of the Be’eri security team, including Eitan Hadad, were guarding the kibbutz dental clinic, which became an ad hoc triage center, as several wounded people lay inside, being treated by Dr. Daniel Levi and paramedic Amit Mann.

But Zemach and Hadad ran out of ammunition and retreated inside the clinic. One survivor heard Zemach shout in English: “Please, I’m not your enemy,” before there was more shooting and another grenade was thrown. Hadad, Levi and Mann were also slain alongside him inside the clinic.

Zemach’s funeral was held in Modiin on October 15 and he was laid to rest in Be’eri a day later. He is survived by his wife Ofri, their two children, Ella, 4, and Netta, 2, as well as his parents Shlomit and Doron and his younger siblings Yarden, Itai, Shai and Ido.

A native of Be’eri, he grew up in the kibbutz, and after his army service got a degree in economics and politics at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba. He worked for many years at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, before three years ago when he decided to accept the job of Chief Financial Officer at the Be’eri print shop, according to a kibbutz eulogy.

Zemach was at one point a prominent left-wing activist, member of Meretz and participant of Breaking the Silence, a group of IDF veterans who speak out about what they say are abuses against Palestinians they witnessed while carrying out during their service.

The organization noted that Zemach was a “man of peace, beloved and kind,” who worked with them in the past in organizing tours in Hebron for activists and journalists.

“He was killed with an M16 [rifle] in his hand, but in his other hand there was always an olive branch,” his father, Doron, told Channel 13 news.

(full article online)

Shachar Zemach, 39: Peace activist defended kibbutz until last bullet

Killed fighting a Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7

www.timesofisrael.com

 

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