placnx

There is no safe place to go. Hamas is asking that people from northern Gaza be allowed to return there, as fighting there is ostensibly over, but Israel has refused.

US is asking Israel to show their plan for moving the million plus people in Rafah, and Israel has not done so. US wants to see preparations for the encampments such as a water supply and so on.

No starvation in Gaza. That's what the lovely young woman, spokesperson for Netanyahu, always says when asked by BBC.

Maybe that's not what they were celebrating. Rather that some broke out of the high-tech prison, outsmarted their captors.

AseanNow should add new reaction icons, one for "lie", another for "propaganda". The "confused" icon does not say enough.

The intention to commit war crimes by Israeli leaders through statements on TV was displayed in video clips before the ICJ in the case brought by South Africa.

Have a sense of proportion!

Some Israeli cabinet ministers were suggesting that other countries (not Egypt) absorb the people of Gaza. Then there was the meeting about putting settlers back in Gaza. Then somebody was fantasizing about selling Gaza land for beachfront villas.

That is what Vladimir Netanyahu said - the Amalek tale.

Unfortunately they are not finished yet.

IDF have a responsibility to ascertain that civilians are not present. The present policy is intentionally disproportional and indiscriminate, unlike previous Gaza operation. We might say that this is a "special military operation"!

Right, and indiscriminate killing of civilians is unlawful.

Sorry, I just checked. Israeli Arabs can indeed volunteer to serve in the IDF.

That was in the early days of colonialism. The end of WW2 was the time for decolonization, except for Israel which resurrected the British occupation laws from 1967 to run apartheid in the West Bank.

SInce when can Palestinians join the army? Druze can, though. Army service confers various advantages, so Palestinians are disadvantaged.

IHL War rule 14 states: "Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited." So the attack seems to be a violation of this rule, as only one person was a "squad commander". According to Times of Israel, "The IDF says that the trio were “en route to carry out terror activity in the area of central Gaza” when they were struck.", evidently another IDF lie. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-shin-bet-confirm-killing-haniyehs-sons-say-the-three-were-hamas-operatives/ Today Al Jazeera has an excellent discussion of this assassination and the policy in general. The intro to the discussion mentions that worldwide Israel has done 2700 assassinations by various means. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/4/11/what-has-allowed-israel-operate-an-assassination-policy-for-decades The comments by historian Ilan Pappe on the background and motivation for such assassinations are quite astute.

There were times when Hamas stated that they would accept a 2-state solution, but without strong international pressure that has been out of reach for years because of the settlements. Back in the days of Camp David (2000), there were only around 100,000 settlers (not sure whether that includes East Jerusalem).

Thanks for the link. I was writing of a report on BBC World News which did not mention the martyrdom statement. Maybe I was confused about who was visiting the injured, not bereaved, as recounted in your link.

Unfortunately the settlers are not peaceable people, and there are too many. It would take an enormous prison and a a huge police force to arrest them. The Zionists manage to force 750,000 Palestinians out of present-day Israel in around 2 years, so with their technology it should not take to long to locate and transport the 700,000 setllers back to Israel or their countries of origin. Arab citizens of Israel do not enjoy equal rights. There is a more subtle form of aparthed practiced there than in the West Bank.

Regarding the targeted strike on a car with Ismail Haniyeh's sons and grancshildren, the BBC report didn't mention the quote that you cite. He was reported to have said that this loss is not greater than any other Gazan. While Israel claimed that they were out on a terrorist operation, the other side said that they were out visiting bereaved people. This sounds more plausible since the grandchildren were along. While it is denied, I wonder whether Netanyahu was involved in approving this in order to torpedo the ceasefire negotiations. The leader of World Central Kitchen, José Andrés, wants a top down independent investigation of the targeted strike on his staff. I guess that he wants to know who really ordered this. After worldwide condemnation, the resulting offer by Israel to open the northern Erez crossing to aid trucks has not happened. A top down investigation, perhaps by the next government, might show (if transparent) whether attacks on aid workers, their trucks and ambulances, was a deliberate policy.

These questions (see fine print) present such polar opposites that it would be hard for most people to choose the side criticizing Israel. It's human nature to not give the unfavored answer. If people were asked whether they approved of various tactics such as the starvation siege of the population, they would probably disapprove. A Wall Street Journal late February poll cited on page 6 of the April 3rd edition says that 60% of voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the war, up 8 points since December. If people approved of the execution of the war, why would they disapprove of Biden's stand?

Regarding divion between Church & State, you could be talking about Israel & the US, too.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch In 2001, [David A.] Harris announced that UN Watch had become a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Jewish Committee. According to a press release at the time, “UN Watch was established with the generous assistance of Edgar Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress. Eighteen months ago, the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress reached an agreement, approved by the international board of UN Watch, to transfer full control of the organization to AJC, an agreement that went into effect on January 1, 2001.”[11] Since 2013, UN Watch claimed it is no longer affiliated with AJC and is an independent organization. Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, praised UN Watch as "stalwart and invaluable".[64] The American journalist and political activist Phyllis Bennis described UN Watch as a "small Geneva-based right-wing organisation" that is "hardly known outside of UN headquarters".[65] She stressed that "undermining and delegitimising" Richard Falk through "scurrilous accusations" has been an "obsession of UN Watch" when he became Special Rapporteur.

A discussion on Al Jazeera last night claimed that Min Aing Hlaing was the behind the Pig Butchering scam operations near the Chinese border, that China is very annoyed by the operations, so China cooperated so that the opposition could take over the area to shut down these scams.

War crime: intentional starvation of civilians