Due to the severity of the situation and the fast flowing news cycle, we have decided to create a general megathread for discussion regarding the conflict.

Informal/Satirical news sources are not allowed on the main feed of the community but you are free to post them in this thread.

Please remember that all community and instance rules apply to this thread hence keep is civil.

  • HMH@lemmy.ml
    ·
    1 year ago

    Some facts about the Gaza Strip:

    • Population: ~2.3 Million
    • Area: 365 km² (141 sq mi)
      • 41 km (25 mi) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide
    • Population density: ~6300/km² 1

    Gaza is very densely populated. In Gaza live as many people as in Houston. But Houston has an area of 1658.6 km² (640.4 sq mi). Thus Gaza has nearly five times the population density of Houston. New York City is the only city in the US with a population of more than a million and a higher population density than Gaza. 2 The tallest building in Palestine stands at 76.1 m (255 ft). 3

    A little less than half of the population of Gaza is made up of children. 4

    There are only three ("legal") ways in and out of Gaza:

    • Rafah Crossing into Egypt in the south
    • Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel in the south
    • Erez Crossing into Israel in the north

    Gaza has a very small port. It can only be used by small fisher boats. 5

    Israel built a wall and fences around Gaza. 6

    • masquenox@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      That and the outright censorship you see escalating all over the western world points to one thing - the massive failure of the western propaganda model itself.

    • nohaybanda [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Only Democracy* in the Middle East, bby!


      *Rules and conditions may apply.

    • library_napper@monyet.cc
      ·
      1 year ago

      Here's the original article

      https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-floats-government-controlled-watchdog-that-could-levy-heavy-funds-on-outlets/

      I dont see anything like what you're stating mentiond Please don't spread misinformation

  • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Israel is doing a genocide, the us and its puppets are funding or arming the genociders, and Europe is banning protests of the genocide.

    Western capitalist hegemony is a fascistic death cult that will destroy us all unless we destroy it first, and every day we don’t millions are condemned to horrific deaths

    • cosecantphi [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I really wish I could have a permanent record of everything every liberal has ever said so I could easily demonstrate how full of shit they are in 10 to 20 years when they all collectively deny ever having supported Israel through the Palestinian genocide.

      • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I'd say, "It's the Internet", but these days institutional powers seem to be able to convince even Internet archives to remove shit that's too inconvenient for them.

        • thoro@lemmy.ml
          ·
          1 year ago

          https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/14/these-animals-can-no-longer-live-says-israels-oldest-reservist

          To believe this is uncommon sentiment would be naive

            • MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml
              ·
              1 year ago

              what do you call walling in 2 million people and cutting off food water and fuel then bombing the shit out of the walled enclosure? Israel is doing genocide right now it doesn't matter if its official or not

        • brain_in_a_box [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Isreal is currently perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. Kind of hard to argue they don't want to when it's exactly what they're doing.

  • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    IDF misinformation from the start of the conflict until now:

    1. Hamas beheaded forty babies

    Context: the reports of Hamas beheading babies came from an interview by i24 News of an IDF commander. This quickly spread through Western media outlets such as CNN, NBC, MSNBC, FOX News, the Telegraph, Daily Mail, etc. I haven't done a comprehensive sweep of who picked up the story and who didn't (and of course now it's much harder to do so because of retractions, edits, my lack of direct TV access, and SEO), but from what I can tell AP News and Al Jazeera have been relatively reliable.

    Lack of evidence: 6 days ago, Anadolu (Turkish state-owned media) reported that: Israeli army says it does not have 'confirmation' about allegations that ‘Hamas beheaded babies’. This was later confirmed by other sources.

    Misinformation: 5 days ago, Biden stated "I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children,” said Biden, who described Saturday’s attack as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust”. The White House later posted a retraction of this claim: "A White House spokesperson later clarified that US officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently,” The Post reported on Wednesday.

    2. Shani Louk, claimed to be naked, dead, and sexually assaulted

    Context: images circulated online about a video purporting to show Shani Louk, a German national attending the Nova EDM festival, on the back of a truck, face-down. Claims that she appeared to be naked, dead, and sexually assaulted circulated on the same media sources discussed above.

    Misinformation: given the videos we have, we know with a decent amount of certainty that the video being shown is of Shani Louk. However:

    A. She's clearly not naked in the video and you can see that she is wearing black shorts as well as boots. A top is also visible (but she is face-down, so we can't see much of it). Neither her shorts nor her boots appeared to have been removed. From what I can tell, she was initially wearing a long skirt that was likely lost in the chaos.

    B. Her family claims that she is alive and receiving medical attention at a hospital in Gaza, which does explain why they would be transporting her. There is visible blood on the back of her head, but she does not seem to be bleeding profusely when the video was taken.

    C. I will not comment on whether or not she was sexually assaulted.

    3. 260 dead Israelis at EDM festival

    Context: many news sources independently verified that 260 bodies were pulled from the EDM festival. Many sources reported that this was an act of terror with no strategic objective and a massacre of innocent civilians.

    Lack of context: Nova was held in Kibbutz Re'im, mere minutes from Gaza, and also mere minutes from the IDF Gaza Division's Re'im base. Tanks are clearly visible in videos leaving the festival, as are armed personnel. Hebrew-language interviews of released prisoners are providing more insight into these attacks, but I do not speak Hebrew so I will refrain from commenting on this further. Hamas has claimed that fighters were told to avoid harming or killing civilians.

    Potential misinformation: Hamas claiming that fighters were told to avoid harming civilians does not mean that Hamas fighters did not harm civilians, obviously.

    Potential misinformation: the reports indicate that 260 bodies were found, but their origin has not been confirmed. We know that armed personnel discharged their weapons against Hamas fighters (and vice-versa). How many of the dead are civilians, IDF, armed security, or Hamas?

    Much of the media coverage on this conflict has been used to spread misinformation, even from traditionally "reliable" sources in the Western sphere. As a result, I would strongly recommend supplementing coverage of these events with those outside the Western sphere. The journalism being done is lazy.

    • GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee
      ·
      1 year ago

      The impression I had gotten from interviews (Al Jazeera, the Guardian, Haaretz) was that Israeli civilian police were there and exchanged fire with Hamas but that it was HOURS before they came across any IDF personnel. I've been focusing on this less as the time goes on and the catastrophic situation in Gaza gets worse and worse, so maybe further sources have come out regarding the Nova Festival.

      Regardless I would like to see consequences to the people who authorized a festival so close to Gaza in the first place...

      • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
        ·
        1 year ago

        That's the part that really doesn't make sense to me.

        There's literally an active military base RIGHT THERE. It's literally based in Re'im. There's no way the IDF could be that incompetent. It's not like forces had to be deployed from elsewhere in the country.

        Supposedly, they had another location in mind but it fell through so they had to use Re'im with two days notice.

        • GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don't know how to confirm this myself but I have read and heard that before anything else, after it was known Hamas fighters were inside Israeli territory, the IDF first move militarily was to start bombing Gaza. No one can argue honestly that the IDF defends Israelis - its literally just the most reactionary of religious Zionists that they serve.

          Secular Jewish Israelis? Nah they can fend for themselves for a few hours, we've gotta attack Palestinian civilians, says the IDF. And that's not even bringing up that 20% of Israeli citizens ARE ARABS, some of whom were also attacked in their homes in Southern Israel 10 days ago, but of course the same people calling Hamas human animals will go after them next (not to suggest they aren't already, only that Gazans face more immediate extermination).

          • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
            ·
            1 year ago

            That sounds pretty correct. From what I remember of the reporting at the time, we heard of the offensive, then immediately we had multiple reports, videos, and streams of the IDF bombarding Gaza.

    • pingveno@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      I had a frustrating conversation with one person around the "40 beheaded babies" claim. Snopes dug into the claim. The IDF never I think we'll never be able to verify that particular claim. The flip side is that in the end, a dead baby is a dead baby regardless of how it got that way. My objection is that facts matter, particularly with claims of particular brutality or when the situation is a powder keg.

      Hamas has claimed that fighters were told to avoid harming or killing civilians.

      I don't buy this for one minute. Not a minute. Palestinian civilian casualties are high because Hamas and other organizations operate from inside of neighborhoods as guerrilla forces. Israel has separate forces. You wouldn't get massive civilian casualties from Hamas targeting the IDF's bases. They can make all the claims they want, but it doesn't fit with the facts.

      • Stylistillusional [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        A lot of these settlements have either contracters or the IDF directly providing security. So the idea that Hamas could have broken out of Gaza and just found all the soldiers neatly in their bases seems unbelievable. The IDF is an occupying force, not a European military where it's just some dudes with their thumbs up their asses in a barracks near some nature reserve.

        Ultimately we can't know how Hamas leadership told their soldiers to behave. But they do have a clear incentives not to condone the killing of civilians: they want to capture hostages and use them as leverage. They need to create the expectation that these hostages are treated fairly and can be returned safely so that it is entirely up to Israel whether it wants those civilians to die.

        Tragically, civilians always die in wars. Both sides always propagandise this to claim that it is the other side that is just killing civilians as policy. The facts however, are abundantly clear when it comes to the question of which side shows the greater disregard for civilian casualties.

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    MSNBC had this doctor on to talk about the horrible situation in Gaza.

    3 years ago, MedGlobal was born - MedGlobal

    By Dr. Zaher Sahloul, MedGlobal President and Co-Founder

    Three years ago, I was in Yemen with three other medical volunteers, providing internal medicine and pediatrics services to people suffering from the effects of war and famine. MedGlobal had just been formed. In between medical consultations, we talked about the goals for the future of our organization, dedicated to providing innovative healthcare to crisis-affected and low-resource areas.

    I don't know anything about him - I copy and pasted that for context.

    I was listening to in the background so I don't know how long the interview was. I think ~7 minutes at least. I noticed something very unusual. Almost zero questions. Stephanie Ruhle was interviewing him. Ruhle isn't rude but it's her habit to pepper guests with questions. She always does that. I've never seen her be so quiet. Also - MSNBC's PR shtick is that they ask questions and it makes you smarter. I forget an recent tagline - it was something like "Never stop asking questions".

    It's the norm that anchors/reporters ask a lot of questions. In one way - the lack of questions was really great. He was highly knowledgeable and informed the audience in stark terms about how awful things are. That's the first time I've seen that on CNN or MSNBC. But the producers must have had him on because even though he didn't pull punches about the medical situation - they knew he was very politic and he'd avoid "politics".

    The end result was that the agent of the chaos, Israel, hardly came up at all. It was like these horrible unfolding health problems were happening all by themselves due to unknown or poorly understood causes.

  • HexbearGPT [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Israel should have to do what the whites in South Africa had to do after apartheid.

    But without the economic apartheid continuing.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        It can be an act of physiological and psychological desperation. There's thousands of years of recorded history of people dying of thirst drinking seawater as a coping mechanism before the end.

  • deezbutts@lemm.ee
    ·
    1 year ago

    A friend of mine is volunteering for this organization. We're trying to help as IT guys but if you know anyone stranded in Israel or Gaza, or want to aid them indirectly, I thought I'd pass the link.

    https://saveourallies.org/

    (They've helped in other crisis scenarios as well)

  • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is Egyptian/UN aid actually going to make it through the checkpoint? Egypt has had aid trucks parked outside for like days.

    • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes but see, clearly Hamas is everywhere and that clearly justifies the civilian casualties. Clearly.

      • masquenox@lemmy.ml
        ·
        1 year ago

        If you see a picture of a Palestinian child without a Hamas terrorist hiding behind them it simply proves how sneaky they are!