Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[expat500]

Do you really think anyone is interested in someone whose job is to copy and paste without verification?

YOU are.

 

[Sixties Fan]

You seem to want to engage with me.

Please stop.

 

[expat500]

Please stop.

I’ll say what I want, when l want.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1

It could have been worse, and we really messed up.

Those are the two main takeaways from a Washington Post piece Sunday about what Hamas hoped to accomplish on October 7, and how the terrorist organization was able to lull Israel to sleep and deceive it.First, regarding how it could have been worse.

Despite various reports that Hamas was surprised by its “success” – murdering 1,200 people, raping, kidnapping 240 men, women, and children, including babies and the elderly, and burning and ransacking like fifth-century Huns – the Post report said Hamas actually intended to push much farther into Israel.

According to the report, based on current and former intelligence and security officials from Western and Mideast countries, Hamas had hoped to push into large Israeli cities and even to the West Bank. Although the report did not say where Hamas hoped to attack in Judea and Samaria, the southern Hebron Hills settlement of Sansana is just some 30 km. east of Ofakim, which itself is some 25 km. from Gaza and the farthest the terrorists penetrated to the east.Had Hamas pushed that far, they also would have gone through or near to a number of other communities, such as Lehavim and Meitar.How ironic that once there was serious talk about linking Gaza to the West Bank via a safe passage that would have run a similar route.

“New evidence suggests that they were prepared to go even further,” the Post report read. “Some militants carried enough food, ammunition, and equipment to last several days, officials said, and bore instructions to continue deeper into Israel if the first wave of attacks succeeded, potentially striking larger Israeli cities.”

According to the report, one terrorist unit carried reconnaissance information and maps suggesting an intention to continue the assault up to the border of the West Bank. “Hamas had been increasing its outreach to West Bank militants in recent months, although the group says it did not notify its West Bank allies of its October 7 plans in advance,” the report said.

According to a senior Israeli official quoted in the story, “They planned a second phase, including in major Israeli cities and military bases.” Had Hamas reached the West Bank, the paper quoted a former US official as saying, “it would have been a huge propaganda win – a symbolic blow not only against Israel but also against the Palestinian Authority.”

The report dedicated two paragraphs to descriptions about the atrocities Hamas committed. In the original version of the story online, a third paragraph quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as saying, “We know from interrogations that Hamas came in with detailed plans of their attack, including which commander should rape which soldiers in different places.”

That paragraph, however, was later edited out of the story.

According to the story, Hamas did not only want to murder, rape, and pillage. Rather, its ultimate goal was to provoke an Israeli response – one they knew would cause heavy casualties in Gaza – to trigger a major regional war. In this way, according to one expert cited in the story, they took a page out of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s playbook, since Bin Laden’s expectation was that the 9/11 attacks would lead to a fierce US response that would trigger a violent confrontation between the Muslim world and the West.

Citing current and former intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts, the report said: “Hamas expected an Israeli response and was willing to accept such sacrifices as the price for kick-starting a new wave of violent Palestinian resistance in the region and scuttling efforts at normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states.”

So, as horrific as the events of October 7 were, Hamas had hoped – and had planned – for far worse.

What can we take away from The Washington Post's Hamas article?

Those are the two main takeaways from a Washington Post piece Sunday about what Hamas hoped to accomplish on October 7, and how the terrorist organization was able to lull Israel to sleep.

www.jpost.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

How did Israel mess up?​

Now, regarding how Israel messed up.

The story paints a picture of Hamas conducting above- and below-ground military exercises while planning the attack for more than a year.

The terrorists trained and collected intelligence on their targets by using “cheap surveillance drones to generate maps” and Palestinian workers allowed into Israel to work, “often in the same farming communities that were in Hamas’s crosshairs.” Though not sophisticated, the intelligence gathering was methodical and thorough, the report said.

The precise plans for the attack were restricted to a tiny cadre of military leaders. The Post took at face value Iranian and Hezbollah claims that they did not have advance knowledge of the attack.

And then there was the deception. The story retells how Hamas lulled Israel to sleep, hinting at newfound moderation and pragmatism – something Israel desperately wanted to believe.

“To buttress that perception of moderation, clashes between Hamas and Israel ceased after 2021,” the report said. “The group notably refrained from jumping in on several occasions when its Gaza ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or PIJ, fired rockets or engaged militarily with Israel. To many in Israel, it was further evidence that Hamas had changed and no longer sought a bloody conflict. Some reports suggested that Hamas officials even passed along intelligence about PIJ to the Israelis to reinforce the impression that they were being cooperative.”

And then, of course, Israel was off focus. It concentrated on an upsurge of violence in Judea and Samaria and was concerned with a flare-up in the North, as well as being preoccupied with the whole judicial reform.“

The distractions and ruses worked,” the report said. “In Gaza, less than 50 miles from the West Bank, the arming and training of Hamas assault teams were largely ignored or dismissed.”

Since the war began following the massacres on October 7, Israel has rightfully been focused more on fighting the war and destroying Hamas than on trying to figure out what went wrong and where it failed. Once the war is over, those questions will dominate the national agenda.

The Post story gave a general outline of what happened.

Answers to the question of how it happened – how Israel allowed it to happen – will be taken up by the various military and political committees and commissions that will be set up soon after the war ends.

What can we take away from The Washington Post's Hamas article?

Those are the two main takeaways from a Washington Post piece Sunday about what Hamas hoped to accomplish on October 7, and how the terrorist organization was able to lull Israel to sleep.

www.jpost.com

 

[Pastelli]

A Muslim doctor volunteering for Israel’s emergency service organization United Hatzalah was held hostage for several hours and shot twice by Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated southern Israel, according to a Hatzalah spokesman.

Tarek Abu Arar was driving to his shift at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon on Saturday morning when at a junction near Sderot he came across a person who seemed injured on the side of the road, the spokesman said, sharing Arar’s recounting of what happened.

“Suddenly as I got closer to the car I saw about 50 meters away what looked like an Israeli soldier in uniform. He gestured to me to come to him. As I walked to him and was just 10 meters away, he suddenly shot me in the chest,” Abu Arar said. “I started shouting and praying, convinced that I was about to die. I thought he was a soldier who had mistaken me for a terrorist. Then I heard someone say in Arabic ‘Stop, stop, he is an Arab.’ This is when I understood they were Hamas terrorists.”

Arar recounted that as he looked back, “about 10 additional men in military attire came out from behind the bushes and started interrogating me in Arabic. They asked me questions to check my knowledge of Islam. They had Kalashnikovs and very advanced military equipment and were wearing green uniforms that looked similar to IDF [Israel Defense Forces] uniforms.”

The Hamas terrorists reportedly told Abu Arar: “That’s it we have a hostage, the IDF cannot eliminate us from the air anymore.”

They then began shooting cars passing by the junction with the intent to murder as many civilians as possible, Abu Arar recalled.

“It was horrific,” he said. “This continued for two hours until the army arrived at the scene and there was a shootout between the terrorists and the soldiers, with me in the middle.”

After hours of captivity, a Hamas terrorist shot Abu Arar in the leg from point blank and signaled with his hand that the next bullet would be in his head.

“During this whole time, I was praying for a miracle,” Abu Arar said. “I was convinced that I was about to die.”

Forty-five minutes later, elite Israeli forces arrived at the scene, eliminated the terrorists, and rescued Abu Arar.

“This was the worst experience of my life,” Abu Arar said. “I have dedicated my life to helping others and saving lives, both in my profession as a doctor and my volunteering with United Hatzalah. To be forced to witness the horrible slaughter carried out in front of my eyes was terrible. I have no words to describe it. Just terrible.”

Abu Arar has been a volunteer doctor with United Hatzalah for over a year and is currently recuperating at home after having been released from the hospital. He is one of four United Hatzalah volunteers who were injured in the conflict on Saturday, one of whom, another Muslim volunteer, was providing medical coverage at the music festival where hundreds of Israelis were murdered when he was injured and kidnapped by Hamas. An additional volunteer, Maor Shalom, was killed while trying to save lives after he was called up to duty as part of Israel’s security forces.

‘I Have No Words’: Muslim Doctor With Israeli EMS Group Shot, Held Hostage by Hamas - Algemeiner.com

A Muslim doctor volunteering for Israel's emergency service organization United Hatzalah was held hostage for several hours and shot twice by Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated southern Israel, according to a Hatzalah spokesman. Tarek Abu Arar was driving to his shift at Barzilai Hospital in...

www.algemeiner.com

Saw that. Very interesting

 

[Sixties Fan]

Hamas hid hostages under Rantisi hospital, IDF reveals in Gaza

There were baby bottles found on the site, suggesting Israeli hostages had been held there.

www.jpost.com

 

[Pastelli]

After decades of indoctrination and incitement (Ethnic Arab racism and religious Islamic Jihad).

Seeing the Oct.7.23 celebration by masses of racist Arabs in Gaza, the sick joy toward (the 3,000 savages onslaught):

• gunning down teenagers;
• mass rape: some before some after killing girls - all while laughing and under Allah Akbar;
• decapitation (and playing with severed heads);
• dismembering bodies;
• mas kidnapping of families;
• torching families alive;
• suffocating people sheltering...;
• parading the hostages to be abused by "ordinary Gazans" upon arrival...etc.

• Mapping the Massacres
• Special Announcement – The Hamas Atrocities Documentation Center (HADC) (MEMRI)
• Testimonials from the War in Israel, Oct 23

You see, Israel cares principally about defense and security, not about sympathy. Otherwise they would not hunt jihadi-fascist Hamas headquarters under hospitals. Or any security measures - demonized by Palestinianism for that matter.

 

[Sixties Fan]

• The Palestinian Ministry of Health (PMH) in Gaza is tightly controlled and operated by Hamas, a barbaric radical Islamic terror organization whose charter calls for the mass murder of Jews. Any report by the ministry, by definition, is a Hamas report.
• 
  
• The PMH reports on Palestinian casualties with attribution exclusively to IDF strikes. Reports of Hamas fighters’ casualties are noticeably absent. In short, five weeks after the outbreak of the war, neither the Hamas leadership nor the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported a single casualty among Hamas forces.
• 
  
• No one questioned how PMH reported 30,000 Palestinians wounded when the total number of hospital beds in all medical facilities in Gaza, including UNRWA clinics, did not exceed 3,000. So, where exactly are all the 30,000 wounded? According to PMH reports, there are already more than 13,000 Palestinians dead. If that casualty number is accurate, where were they buried?
• 
  
• Due to the zero reliability of Hamas and its strategic manipulations, we offer an alternative analysis to help determine an objective measure of casualties in Gaza. It starts from a number of dead and wounded which is about half of the number reported by Hamas, although it is possible, and even with high certainty, to assume an even lower number.
• 
  
• At least half of the number of dead and wounded are probably Hamas members, whether armed terrorists, whose identity is disguised as civilians by Hamas, or members of the Hamas establishment. A significant number of the “children” reported as killed or wounded are young people aged 13-18, who were in Hamas facilities or even took an active part in the fighting. (Israeli Minister Ron Dermer, in an interview with Sky News, reported 3,000 Hamas members killed.)
• 
  
• From the remaining number, a significant number of Palestinian dead and injured resulting from nearly 1,000 failed rocket launches that landed short must be subtracted, such as the one that fell on the al-Ahali hospital. From the remainder one must subtract all the Palestinians who fled northern Gaza for the safe zone in the south and who were killed by Hamas.
• 
  
• The small balance of casualties is indeed comprised of unarmed civilians who were regretfully and unintentionally killed by IDF attacks. But compared to every other war in the last hundred years, the collateral damage caused by IDF is low compared to other Western military campaigns, particularly by the UK or U.S. military.
• 
  
• This relatively small civilian collateral damage is the result of Israel’s strict adherence to the international laws of war and the utmost efforts made by the IDF to convince the Gaza civilian population to evacuate battle zones while opening humanitarian corridors and securing safe civilian passage.

(full article online)

Hamas’ “Numbers Warfare”

Understanding Hamas’ casualty reporting in the Gaza War - Hamas’ “Numbers Warfare”

jcpa.org

 

[Pastelli]

• The Palestinian Ministry of Health (PMH) in Gaza is tightly controlled and operated by Hamas, a barbaric radical Islamic terror organization whose charter calls for the mass murder of Jews. Any report by the ministry, by definition, is a Hamas report.
• 
  
• The PMH reports on Palestinian casualties with attribution exclusively to IDF strikes. Reports of Hamas fighters’ casualties are noticeably absent. In short, five weeks after the outbreak of the war, neither the Hamas leadership nor the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported a single casualty among Hamas forces.
• 
  
• No one questioned how PMH reported 30,000 Palestinians wounded when the total number of hospital beds in all medical facilities in Gaza, including UNRWA clinics, did not exceed 3,000. So, where exactly are all the 30,000 wounded? According to PMH reports, there are already more than 13,000 Palestinians dead. If that casualty number is accurate, where were they buried?
• 
  
• Due to the zero reliability of Hamas and its strategic manipulations, we offer an alternative analysis to help determine an objective measure of casualties in Gaza. It starts from a number of dead and wounded which is about half of the number reported by Hamas, although it is possible, and even with high certainty, to assume an even lower number.
• 
  
• At least half of the number of dead and wounded are probably Hamas members, whether armed terrorists, whose identity is disguised as civilians by Hamas, or members of the Hamas establishment. A significant number of the “children” reported as killed or wounded are young people aged 13-18, who were in Hamas facilities or even took an active part in the fighting. (Israeli Minister Ron Dermer, in an interview with Sky News, reported 3,000 Hamas members killed.)
• 
  
• From the remaining number, a significant number of Palestinian dead and injured resulting from nearly 1,000 failed rocket launches that landed short must be subtracted, such as the one that fell on the al-Ahali hospital. From the remainder one must subtract all the Palestinians who fled northern Gaza for the safe zone in the south and who were killed by Hamas.
• 
  
• The small balance of casualties is indeed comprised of unarmed civilians who were regretfully and unintentionally killed by IDF attacks. But compared to every other war in the last hundred years, the collateral damage caused by IDF is low compared to other Western military campaigns, particularly by the UK or U.S. military.
• 
  
• This relatively small civilian collateral damage is the result of Israel’s strict adherence to the international laws of war and the utmost efforts made by the IDF to convince the Gaza civilian population to evacuate battle zones while opening humanitarian corridors and securing safe civilian passage.

(full article online)

Hamas’ “Numbers Warfare”

Understanding Hamas’ casualty reporting in the Gaza War - Hamas’ “Numbers Warfare”

jcpa.org

Palestinian Ministry of DEATH.

(Mark Regwv, at a Nov.7.23 PBS News Hour interview with Nick Schifrin who worked earlier at Al JihadZeeara)



Mark Regev:

Well, first of all, we don't know that 100 civilians were killed, yes? Let's be clear. We don't know.

I saw some of those pictures from the bombing on the bomb site. They all look like men of military age. And, of course, you know that the Hamas terrorists don't wear uniforms. And we have to understand that.

It also has to be said, all the information coming out of Gaza is supplied by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, and they're giving out Hamas' numbers, and they have to be taken with a grain of salt. And I even dare say that even the pictures coming out of Gaza are controlled by Hamas. We have not seen — and I challenge you, have we seen a single picture of one Hamas terrorist killed by the Israelis in our strikes? No.

They only show you pictures of civilians. So, either you can presume we're only killing civilians, which is obviously illogical, or that Hamas is managing to control the pictures.
PBS

 

[Sixties Fan]

INTRODUCTION​

This essay begins with the credulous media reaction to the Hamas propaganda about Al-Ahli hospital on 17 October. I offer two explanations for that terrible and dangerous journalistic failure in terms of, on the one hand, the contemporary prevalence of (now reflexive) ‘lethal journalism’ and, on the other, the historic ubiquity of what David Deutsch calls ‘the Pattern.’ After arguing that the lethal-journalism enabled demonisation of Israel is one of the last redoubts of the Pattern in the West, as illustrated by rapidity with which Western journalists restored it with their coverage of the Hospital tragedy. I conclude by warning that our unparalleled and difficult global experiment in freedom and abundance, not only Israel’s, depends on how we respond in the times ahead.

PART 1: AL AHLI HOSPITAL, 17 OCTOBER 2023: A CASE STUDY IN LETHAL JOURNALISM​

17 October offered an example, literally breathtaking, of the unseemly haste with which professional commitments can be cast off and Jihadi war propaganda broadcast to the world. While rocketing Israel, one of the Jihadi’s own bombs landed in a parking lot outside a hospital in Gaza City. The explosion blew out some of the hospital’s windows, and caused, based on photos of the blast area and few bodies, a soberly estimated dozens of dead. Hamas, as it has so often in the past when their rockets kill their own children, announced to the world the triple lie that it had been 1) an Israeli strike on 2) a hospital, and had 3) killed hundreds.

Had there been a real journalist in Gaza to film the undamaged hospital, or the small crater, we would have known right away. But no. There were none, only ‘journalists fighting with their cameras’ and keyboards passing propaganda off as news. Gauging from the loop of footage shown by CNN, played again and again, there was nothing to confirm any aspect of the Hamas claims.


(full article online)

Fathom Long Read | Lethal Journalism and the Pattern: Why the World Fell for Hamas’ Al Ahli Lie

Richard Landes is author of Can ‘The Whole World’ Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad (2022) Introduction This essay begins with the credulous media reaction to the Hama...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

One of the most shocking and transformative experiences occurred to me in late October 2003, when I got to see the original raw footage that a Palestinian cameraman had shot three years earlier at Netzarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000. It was a peek through the lens of Talal Abu Rahma, the Palestinian cameraman who had filmed what journalists later depicted as a day of riots that killed many in the Gaza Strip, including the 12-year-old boy, Muhammad al Durah.

Charles Enderlin, chief correspondent of France2, aired the footage as news with his cameraman’s narrative: an innocent Palestinian boy, targeted by the IDF, gunned down while his father pleaded with the Israelis to stop shooting. It became an instant global sensation, enraging the Muslim world and provoking angry protests where Western progressives and militant Muslims joined to equate Israel to the Nazis.

Ironically, for the first time since the Holocaust, “Death to Jews” was heard in the capitals of Europe. From that point on, for many, Israel was to blame for all violence, a pariah state.

Even had the child died in a crossfire, blaming his death on deliberate Israeli action made it a classic blood libel: A gentile boy dies; the Jews are accused of plotting the murder; violent mobs, invoking the dead martyr, attack the Jews. In Europe, the attacks the al Durah libel incited were mostly on Jewish property. In the Middle East, a new round of suicide bombers, “revenging the blood of Muhammad al Durah” targeted Israeli children to the approval of 80% of the Palestinian public. It was, in fact, the first postmodern blood libel. The first blood libel announced by a Jew (Enderlin), spread by the modern mainstream news media (MSNM), and carried in cyberspace to a global audience. It was the first wildly successful piece of “fake news” of the 21st century, and, as an icon of hatred, it did untold damage.

But it gets worse. Not only did the evidence show that the Israelis could not have fired the shots that hit the boy and his father, but everything about the footage suggests the scene was staged. There was no blood on the wall or ground and footage never shown to the public appeared to show the boy moving after being declared dead. I set out to explore this staged hypothesis, first raised by Nahum Shahaf, and exposed to the Anglophone public by James Fallows in 2003.

And that had brought me to see these rushes, the raw, unedited footage shot that day in September 2000 at Netzarim Junction. The film was in the possession of senior French-Israeli journalist and France2 chief correspondent Charles Enderlin, who was the employer of Abu Rahma, the cameraman who had shot the footage. He was known to only show the rushes to investigators “on his side” but coming on the recommendation of a friend, Enderlin assumed I was sympathetic. For the viewing, I had Enderlin on my left, and on my right, an Israeli cameraman working for France2, who had been with Enderlin in Ramallah the day of the filming.

What I saw astonished me. In scene after scene, Palestinians staged scenes of battle, injury, ambulance evacuation, and panicked flight, which the cameraman deliberately filmed, all the while standing around in front of the Israeli position, completely unafraid. To judge by Abu Rahma’s 21 minutes of film, and a Reuters cameraman’s two hours, Netzarim Junction that day of September, the “third day of the intifada,” was the site of multiple makeshift stages upon which cameramen, most Palestinian, some foreign, filmed “action sequences,” performed by everyone from military men with guns to teenagers and kids standing by.

At one point in our viewing, a very large man grabbed his leg and began to limp badly.

Perhaps he had not faked his injury convincingly enough, perhaps his size discouraged anyone from picking him up. In any case, only children gathered around, whom he shooed away, and, after looking to see no one was coming, he walked away without a limp.

The Israeli France2 cameraman snorted.

“Why do you laugh?” I asked.

“It’s so obviously fake,” he responded.

“I know,” I said, turning to Enderlin, “this all seems fake.”

“Oh, they do that all the time. It’s a cultural thing” The senior correspondent replied.

“So why couldn’t they have faked it with al Durah?”

“They’re not good enough,” said Enderlin. “They can’t fool me.”





(full article online)

Fake News in Palestine Media

Discover the history of blood libel being used in Palestine news media. Learn the story of Muhammad al Durrah in Palestine fake news.

www.tabletmag.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Hamas Pallywood as a Palestinian Strategy​

 

[Sixties Fan]

UNCUT INTERVIEW: Survivor of Hamas music festival attack describes terrifying escape​

 

[Sixties Fan]

Sarit Kurtzman lives with her husband and 14-month-old daughter on Kibbutz Alumim, just four kilometers from the Gaza border. While they're used to the sounds of rockets, planes, and tanks, the sounds they heard on October 7th were unlike anything they'd heard before.For 26 hours, they hid in their safe room as terrorists infiltrated their Kibbutz and wreaked havoc on all that they knew.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Alina Master's journey of survival from the party in Re'im is incomprehensible. She escaped from the Nova party, hid in a bomb shelter for hours and was injured by a rocket on the way. last week, she met for the first time with the families of those who had hidden with her in the shelter, shielded her with their bodies, and were subsequently killed

 

[Sixties Fan]

Neta Epstein and Iren Shavit, both 22, hid in the bomb shelter while terrorists entered their home in Kfar Aza and began throwing grenades inside. In an incredible act of bravery, Neta jumped on the grenade, shielding Iren with his body – and in his death, he saved her life. A story by Oren Aharoni, 16.10.23

 

[Sixties Fan]

Aner Shapira, a soldier in the Nahal Brigade's reconnaissance unit, was on vacation during that horrific Saturday and was attending a party in Re'im. When the massacre began, he took cover in a vehicle with friends. As the terrorists threw grenades into it, he hurled them back at them, one by one. Until one grenade exploded, killing him – while he shielded the others with his body. Aner's parents, his six siblings, and the friends he saved, speak about the remarkable person he was.

 

[Sixties Fan]

In a split-second decision that Nira made when gunfire erupted from Be'eri, she saved her own and her three daughter's lives, along with seven other neighbors. The terrorists who broke into the community took her husband Yossi and gathered the rest of the family outside in the field. Nira seized the moments when the terrorists went to other houses and managed to get everyone to a nearby house that had already been broken into. She recounts the ordeal and her longing for Yossi, who is in Hamas captivity

 

[Sixties Fan]

https://www.thejc.com/news/news/uk-charity-employs-hamas-commander-and-collaborates-with-terror-group-2o8pxf5RPtG7CMUqEHIyxF