Hamas has spent years stockpiling desperately needed fuel, food and medicine, as well as ammo and weapons, in the miles of tunnels it has carved out under Gaza.
This reads like straight propaganda, its absolutely true Hamas as stockpiles.
Know who else has stock piles of food and water? Isreal, and the UNRWA... hell the UN stockpile is sitting in trucks ready to get to the civilians.
What is the military utility of cutting food and water, then saying ... ohh look at the besieged city, look at how evil the people in the city are not sharing food and water amongst themselves. Know who else isn't sharing Food and Water inside of Israel ? The IDF!
I'm sure if Mexico declared war on us, conducted an invasion into Texas and killed over a thousand American civilians, we WOULD blockade and bomb them.
Egypt has treaties in place, and is following those treaties.
Egypt doesn't support Hamas, at all. Doesn't want religious political parties in Egypt.
Israel doesn't want aid coming into gaza. But appears happy for Gazans to leave Gaza empty.
Egypt doesn't want to absorb all the Gazan people into Egypt. But is happy to let aid cross into Gaza.
If the border was truly independent we would see all the aid trucks crossing, but Israel does control it via remote monitoring, bombing, and treaties. Israel has the superior military, so Egypt doesn't want to defy treaties.
Egypt doesn’t support Hamas, at all. Doesn’t want religious political parties in Egypt.
Even more strongly, the Muslim Brotherhood is like enemy of the state #1 in Egypt, and Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot.
Sisi isn't as hell-bent secular as Nasser, licensing and constructing plenty of churches and mosques and preaching religious tolerance, Al Nour isn't outlawed (probably because irrelevant, anyway), but they're cracking down hard on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Doesn't care lol. They only opened the border for aid because the USA gave them a guarantee that Israel will allow it and they wouldn't have to actually use their own military to defend their own border from the IDF.
The IDF may like to think that but the truth is Israel has huge control over water, fuel, and electricity entering. This is why they now managed to turn it off... If Israel didn't have direct control on the food and water these people need, we wouldn't have this goddamn problem.
Also now that Israel has entered, what do you want Hamas to do? I don't support them, but from a practical perspective, should Hamas give away the little fuel it has thtt may enable it to fight the IDF as they invade the strip? Seems to me like they are now the only people protecting civilians there (not super successfully), but still...
And from the Egyptian side news is saying that Israel is the #1 cause of delay on the checkpoint on purpose. Israel has full control over Gaza whether or not they like to admit it.
Will these terrible conditions drive the Palestinians to force their government to release the hostages? I think that is the question that so many people are wondering. I don’t know enough about the crisis to speculate on an answer so I pose the question, what does anyone think it will take for them to release the hostages?
killing uninvolved civilians wont force anyone to release hostages, it is Hamas plan to get more civilians killed which bolsters their mission, recruitment, and global recognition.
Separating the UNRWA from Hamas is pedantic and meaningless at this point. They have been totally co-opted by Hamas.
What is the military utility of cutting food and water
They cut off their own aid. No country provides aid to the state they are actively at war with. Dozens of aid trucks are indeed entering Gaza from other countries.
But sure, lets go with it, Then Hamas has food, water, medicine ready for the civilians in Gaza, waiting in trucks sitting in Egypt waiting to cross. Which is what Israel wants them to do, right? Supply their own citizens....
The person I was responding to said the UNRWA was controlled by Hamas, which would make the UNRWA supply convoys stuck in Egypt part of Hamas as well, meaning that Hamas is trying to supply the civilians...
Its ludicrous, so I was demonstrating to the grandparent poster why their position was incorrect by taking it at face value and going to its logical conclusion
Hamas is not the Arab League. The Arab League does have outsized influence in the UN. The Arab League doesn't so much care about Hamas (or Palestinians) as they do shitting on Israel.
Then Hamas has food, water, medicine ready for the civilians in Gaza
Israel arranged that. Those countries didn't want to provide aid because they don't actually like Hamas, because Hamas-alllied terrorists struck in their countries (and others). This is why they don't accept Palestinian refugees.
Hamas does appropriate those goods whenever it can, though.
When you blockade supplies and infrastructure from an entire region of people, most of whom have done nothing wrong, then yes, food shortages are your fault.
Assuming that it's an honest question and not just bait - at this point I would say indoctrination.
Hamas is in power in Gaza for more than 20 years.
That means that every person in Gaza under the age of 25 went to schools run by Hamas, only read books that were written or approved by Hamas, only saw television shows and movies that were made or approved by Hamas etc.
Since more than 50% of the people in Gaza are under 25, and from those that are over 25 about 50% voted for Hamas, I reckon that the current situation is that most people there only know Hamas and its ideology.
It was bait. The best organized groups in oppressed areas are extremists. We saw that when Hosni Mubarak got tossed in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood was instantly elected, because they were the most organized. Same goes for Hamas. Who was a serious oppoment to the only group capable of getting anthing actually done in Gaza? Israeli intelligence must have known they were going to get elected.
Also Hamas won the elections by a small margin, just a few percentages more than the PLO at the time. It's not like everyone in Gaza rallied behind them (at least then).
The reason that there were no elections after that is that once they won, they Putin'ed the opposition and threw all the PLO party members from the building rooftop.
The food, water, energy, and medical embargo of the Gazan people are all publicly acknowledged by the Israel Government. So yes... those things are their fault. They proudly claim responsibility.
While it is true Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, its irrelevant. Israel controls all inputs and outputs of Gaza, nothing gets in or out without IDF permission.
Gaza can't accept humanitarian aid from the UN, the IDF is preventing it.
Gaza can't trade with other countries for food, the IDF is preventing it.
Gaza can't released civilians to leave the war zone....
If your running a embargoed prison camp, and you don't let anyone leave, and you don't let any food or water in... that makes you responsible. If you release press statements proudly stating your cutting off all food water energy and medicine from the prison camp, it simply removes all doubt.
Not entirely accurate - the IDF has already allowed more than 70 trucks of humanitarian aid to go through, but this article is saying something else - it says that there is enough food, water, medical supply and resources inside the prison camp.
I'm not sure where the 500 trucks number comes from, but so far there are no reports about people in Gaza dying from dehydration or starvation.
I'm not disagreeing that it's tragic and that there are many innocent people, from both sides, that are getting caught in the crossfire.
I do think that it's important to reflect the reality, that the situation there is more complex than "Israel bad Palestinian good"
Innocent people be them Palestinian, Israel, Jordanian, etc don't deserve to be bombed, starved, denied water, and medical care to make a point about which belligerent is worse.
I'll take a stab at it. Without trying to wish away things that can't be wished for.
Transition the administration of the contested area (mandatory Palestine basically) over to a secular representative government. With peacekeeping provided by the UN. The secular government should be completely separate from any religion, but have the right to religion as part of the Constitution.
Encourage massive economic integration between the different ethnic populations. There will be civil turmoil for quite a while, but we're winning slowly, demonstrating the people the future is better together. It'll probably take two or three generations until things settle down. So we're looking at an occupying force for 40 to 60 years.
To add legitimacy to this government, they should have a truth and reconciliation panel covering and forgiving all of the crimes of the past, they should objectively, and harshly come down on any land crimes, hate crimes, religious persecution, religious exclusion, that happens inside the country.
One huge problem, is there is a large population of young men, who don't have any prospects or hope. So any form of stability is going to come from keeping those men occupied, invested in the future. Be that military service, Peace corps service, education, those men have to be occupied. Otherwise it'll become a recruiting ground for any religious fascist.
You’re going to have people that will never see any merit to the other sides position no matter what. You want to know the flat objective truth? Both parties here fucking suck. Both parties are committing war crimes and atrocities. Every retaliation by either side is vehemently defended as justified because of a prior retaliation which was in turn defended because of the retaliation before it. Over and over again.
Global politics being what it is only ensures that no matter what we are going to ride this roller coaster into oblivion and a lot of people are going to have to die for no justifiable reason. Each side is pushing hard to justify their actions and to be presented as the victim. Both sides have decades of experience working the PR front. In 15 years we will be discussing the latest violence in the region.
Pessimistic perhaps, but I’d just say it’s realistic.
It's.... complicated. There is a back and forth through out history.
I'd say the British are the most responsible for the current situation, but it really doesn't matter. People need to just be able to live, and nobody should have the right to claim land for a religion to the exclusion of anyone else.
This land is for religion X and nobody else... these people are wrong, and only create violence. (yes, that includes most of our current participants in today's war).
The thing is the morality of the issue is not that complicated.
It's as complicated as the genocide of native americans and their expulsion into "reservations" where they still lack the same access to infrastructure, healthcare, education as the rest of the country today.
As complicated as apartheid south africa or the irish republicans.
The history is complicated in the sense that it is war with many atrocities and injustices. But the root of the issue, the cause for all these atrocities that the colonialists suffer in retaliation is colonialism.
Sure, there was a wronged party, and many students will get their PhDs in analyzing guilt and documenting atrocities.
The USA is still in no hurry to give back land to the Native Americans. They are as sorry as all heck... but the practical reality is they want to continue to exist, and are not willing to give up anything strategic for historical purposes.
The key to life is, the past is informative, but not important, the future is what is important. Living in peace but wronged is better then dying right in war.
Right, but when someone asks me who I stand with on these conflicts, it's not the English, the Boers or the English (again).
The native americans, the Zulu, the IRA all committed terrible things on the colonialist civilians as well. And yet when you ask today who was in the right to fight the war that was fought, it's those parties. Never the colonialists.
The problem is that you're Americanising this conflict.
There are Israeli Arabs, Druze and Bedouin that lived in the region for centuries and are now happy to identify as Israeli (look online for Arab Israelis for Israel. Get out of the echo chambers). There are Jewish families that have been there since the Roman empire.
On the flip side there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that migrated to the region in the 1930's and 40's, their family names today still indicate their family origins in Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq etc.
If you really want to dive down the historical rabbit hole of the region we'll be here for hours, but trying to frame this conflict as a white colonisers vs indigenous people is historically and factually incorrect.
But is it incorrect? You have people from Staten island and California move into an arab families home today and the IDF will protect them and the family whose home just got occupied better not twitch a muscle too abruptly. You're painting this as if I have to draw from long settled history to support my argument, I don't.
But this displacement has been going on for close to a hundred years now. The establishment of the State of Israel had the zionist militias empty out villages and force the people into the desert trail of tears style. Like the establishment of any other colonial state and not just the US, but like the examples I mentioned before so I don't know where this "americanising" is coming from, South Africa, Ireland, Congo, Haiti and many many many other countries before Israel.
That really depends on how far back in history you want to go. We can even start with Muhammad and the Jewish tribes massacres (Banu Qurayza for example).
But honestly, I don't think that that's a productive approach.
This is a live, dynamic and constantly changing conflict. The things that defined it 100 or even 50 years ago are no longer relevant.
The israeli people living there today have no ancestry back to mohammedan times. They're 99% converts. But really, you wanted to go back to the start. As if you are going to find some historical excuse that could justify the use of white phosphorus, bombing of hospitals, the bombing of roads that the population were told to take to move south by the very same army doing the bombardment. Some point in time where you can point to and claim "See, this is why the israeli's are justified in starving and bombing and terrorizing these people in an open-air prison".