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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]

#541
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much my take. I thought Israel's actions were reasonable at first but out of hand now.

Israel has been blockading the Gaza Strip by air and sea for 18 years. The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters. This has been true since way before Oct. 7th 2023.

>The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters.

well, you're leaving out the UK wrt French fisherman invading, thus depriving them of the full extent of their territorial waters. And Ukraine's territorial waters have been curtailed.

but the only place I can think of that's similar to what you're talking about would be the Houthis. I guess they do have free navigation in their territorial waters, and turns out they make great neighbors! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3071vp2d8yo I guess nothing can go wrong!

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

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.

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…

> Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist

Funny, this seems to be a pretty accurate description of Netanyahu's current position. He understands that he exists politically only as long as he can keep the war going. So, of course there is going to be no end to the 'war' against Hamas, even though it has transformed into mass genocide of civilians using starvation.

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

#543
post #498
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Which Palestinians has Israel been a racist project to? The Israeli Palestinians that make up 20% of the population? Or the ones living on the other side of the border? I'm not sure it's only about race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel

Have you actually read the link you posted? There is like dozen different ways Arab population is discriminated described there.

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

#545

As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law. What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a r…

> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web. Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent. Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we t…

I would argue that we have democratized voices, the problem is that many of those voices want to lie, for the same reason that oligarchs want to lie.

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to be honest about all the horrors going on in the world, not just when they're committed by jewish people (I'm not jewish btw). For example there are recents vids of syrian muslims going door to door in villages in Syria and asking people if they are muslims or of the Druze faith: those answering they're from the Druze faith are shot on the spot. This qualify as war crimes too to me. But you don't get to r…

> Why is that? How comes it's so selective? The main reason is that Israel is materially supported by the West, so Westerners feel morally responsible for what it does. It has little to do with whether the perpetrators are Jewish or not[1]. There were gigantic protests against the Iraq war, whose main perpetrators (e.g. Bush) were not Jewish. 1: I edited this from "nothing" to "little". I concede it might have someth…

The current Syrian government is also supported by the west, just not to the same degree and not as publically. Myanmar is basically not mentioned at all in the Western press, nor Sudan or Libya or anywhere else war crimes are regularly taking place. I'd guess that the reason for Israel being in the media so much is that there are many more Palestinians and Jews than Rohingya or Burmese or Druze or Syrians in Western countries.

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

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because UNRWA gives the aid to Hamas, no fighting. GHF doesn't give Hamas power, Hamas attacks the GHF, Hamas shoots people trying to pick up food.

Right, except that all credible reports from the US government and senior Israeli military officials indicate there was never any large diversion of UN aid to Hamas. It was just a fog-of-war story made up by the Israeli government as a supposedly plausible reason to hermetically seal Gaza and prevent millions of civilians from receiving food. Sources: NYT: No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Off…

This is not as clear as you say. "No proof" and "no evidence" doesn't mean it didn't happen. Hamas controls Gaza with an iron fist. They are the ones carrying guns. They have no qualms about torturing, threatening, executing anyone who doesn't tow the line.

Hamas didn't just steal all the aid and put it in its tunnels. Hamas exerted influence by controlling the aid and its distribution. It did also steal some of it. You are to some degree misrepresenting the Israeli concern. Israel isn't simply concerned about Hamas stealing all the aid, it is concerned both about stealing and reselling (which does happen) and about control of the aid as means of continuing to establish itself as the governing body of Gaza. The UN agencies have and do work with Hamas in Gaza since nobody can be in Gaza without working with Hamas.

The NYT article is doing some hair splitting: "Over the course of the war, the Israeli military released records and videos purporting to show how Hamas has been exploiting humanitarian aid. The army also shared what it described as internal Hamas documents found in a headquarters in Gaza, which discuss the percentage of aid taken by various Hamas wings and dated to early 2024. But those documents do not specifically refer to the theft of U.N. aid."

"Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid. A Hamas representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment." - I like that last bit.

Your Reuters article also says: "A State Department spokesperson disputed the findings, saying there is video evidence of Hamas looting aid, but provided no such videos. The spokesperson also accused traditional humanitarian groups of covering up "aid corruption.""

and: "The study noted a limitation: because Palestinians who receive aid cannot be vetted, it was possible that U.S.-funded supplies went to administrative officials of Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza."

Also:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-us-humanitarian-envoy-pans-...

"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.

However, Satterfield maintained that “the bulk of all assistance delivered by the UN and by the international organizations has gone to the population of Gaza and not to Hamas. Full stop.”"

These are not contradictory, Hamas controlled the aid, but still the bulk of it got delivered. The problem is the control they asserted. Israel has tried, via GHF, to take them out of the loop. Nobody is disputing that when aid was flowing in it did eventually end up reaching the people (who sometimes had to buy it).

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

#549
post #431

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…

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

#550
post #339

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…

One could certainly argue about methods, but on October 8th, what options did Israel have except invasion of Gaza?

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