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‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

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Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m having trouble distilling the essence of your message in a way that leaves us with any common moral ground. Would you agree that “an eye for an eye” type justice is undesirable? Because it seems like you are advocating for genocide as a response to the oct attack, going well beyond “eye for an eye”!

Boiling it down to a catch phrase does it no justice. The war is being fought in a urban area, with an armed forced who refuses ceasefire and has repeatedly said it wont rest until all isrealis are dead. Again, my comment is, if you want them to stop fighting, what would you have them do next? Im not being rhetorical.

I guess if everyone in the region is ok with genocide as an option, the only thing Palestine’s doing wrong is losing.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#512

Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation? We're past that point now. Making Gaza unlivable by carpet-bombing the strip, telegraphing mass murder in unambiguous statements at the highest levels of government, dehumanizing the Palestinians and silencing anyone who dares to speak up? I, for one, am thankf…

> Anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all. Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put a…

> You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all.

Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put as many of their own people in harm's way as necessary to get to the world opinion to be what it is. And literally no one, including you, is questioning that.

Palestinians and Hamas are 2 different groups of people. Which 1 are you referring to when you say "they"? Only the Hamas can legally be punished as a result of Hamas's actions. Punishing Palestinians because you're mad at Hamas is a war crime.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#513

I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position: "I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally. And I think we need to…

There is no reason to believe that what you've described happened since those politicians knew about the "situation change" many months before the change in position, so they don't deserve the charitable acceptance

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#514
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans. Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians. There might be some. There's definitely a lot of hate to Gazans after Oct 7th which is understandable. As to the "what are we supposed to do" part- What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.? Israel has officially said many times they are not target…

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I'm not blind to the realities of Israel having blocked some aid and the realities of living in a war zone. I'm sure the Palestinians are suffering and I wouldn't want to live in Gaza these days. Israel will and is exerting the maximum possible pressure. However it is not starving the population.

You are blind to the Hamas' control of the narrative coming out of Gaza. You are also blind to the Hamas' ability to impact the situation and to their absolute control of any word coming out of the mouth of a "hospital director" or a "journalist" who are either Hamas or operating under the threat of death, torture, and violence to themselves and their families if they don't say what they're asked to say.

Here's some coverage: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-us-humanitarian-envoy-pans-... It's not super favorable for Israel but has some nuance that you're missing.

The article is an interview with: "David Satterfield, who served during early months of war, says dangerous transport routes, looting by desperate Palestinians severely hinder ability to pick up and deliver aid"

... "UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."

"UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."

"Moreover, looting carried out for purposes of commoditization will also dissipate because the value of assistance in the marketplace will drop due to the rise in supply."

So Palestinians are stealing food from other Palestinians to make a buck.

"Satterfield said “there’s no question” that the terror group has worked to take “political advantage and certainly some physical substantive advantage out of the aid distribution process.”

Hamas operatives have made a point of “flaunting” their presence at aid sites in a message to Palestinians that the group has no intention of ceding its role in the distribution process."

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#515

What's everyone's thoughts on the GHF? They're the only way that food officially enters Gaza. IDF is not supposed to be immediately present at the distribution sites, and yet are shooting civilians. As are contractors hired by GHF. In fact there are cases of nationals joining IDF for the explicit purpose of shooting civilians, seemingly. There are movements to disband the GHF, but how else would Gazans eat?

The reports that i've seen for most of those instances are reporting shootings of people on the way to a GHF site and one shooting at the site at night.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it from a logical perspective. Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist. They have taken the innocent civilian's of Gaza / Palistine / whatever you want to call the area hostage. They are also so ingrained into the region that resources are literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like hospitals into deep tunnels beneath; as just one example of re…

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Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here. We've had to warn you about this multiple times before.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidden, calculated motives they may have for changing it now, when they had plenty of information to reach the same conclusion over a year ago.

I think when a politician takes a principled stance, we should applaud them and encourage them to continue on this path.

It's not principled in the least. Politicians knew what they were supporting from the onset, but society at large was supposed to act like they ostensibly usually do and just start putting Israeli flags in their social media profiles after the media spammed out 'they're just defending themselves' and ran appeals to emotion enough. That didn't work, so politicians are swapping their public positions.

And this is important because what usually then happens in these scenarios is that there will be some token vote about ceasing shipping bombs to Israel which are then being dropped on civilians en masse, and it'll fail by 51/49, but the Senators who voted for it will be the ones who are up for elections in 2026. And as soon as they get back in power, they'll go back to cheering on Israel, while the next group up for election in 2028 will suddenly start taking a 'principled stance', with the net result that we can just manage to fail the next vote by 51/49 again as well.

Now - if these sort of motions start actually passing, then I'll happily eat crow. But, in general, this scenario has played out repeatedly in various forms, and it never changes.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#518
post #479
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc. I…

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1. I'm not talking about the West Bank.

2. There's plenty of Hamas in the West Bank. Some of the violence was the IDF proactively going after Hamas and PIJ in the west bank.

Reference to this "1000" number? Can you provide a breakdown between combatants and civilians?

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#519
post #467

Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation? We're past that point now. Making Gaza unlivable by carpet-bombing the strip, telegraphing mass murder in unambiguous statements at the highest levels of government, dehumanizing the Palestinians and silencing anyone who dares to speak up? I, for one, am thankf…

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Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#520
post #461

Something to keep in mind when listening to "first hand accounts" like this is that even if they're honest statements, everybody is subject to the fog of war and skewed statistics. An example that came up a few months ago was a surgeon in a Gaza hospital making the honest statement to BBC journalists that he had seen dozens of children coming into the hospital near death with a "single shot" to a vital organ. He clai…

There's a group signed letter by 99 American volunteer medical professionals stating: Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024

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