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'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

aljazeera.com

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#391

Post by wahnfrieden »

biorach wrote: post #360
rehitman wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement is very uninformed. Isreal left Gaza very logn time ago. They had an election and Hamas came to power, and they never hold an election after. There is no land dispute between Isreal and Gaza (Unlike Westbank where there are serious disputes). The main problem is that Hamas and its supporter Iran consistentnly in word and in practice declared that want to wipe out and destroy Isreal. It is not about som…

> Hamas need to agree that Israel has the right to exist. Agreed And maybe Israel needs to agree that Palestine has the right to exist

The Hamas charter literally says that Israel will exist:

>It advocated for a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, describing this as a "formula of national consensus".

1967 borders means two state.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#392

Post by wolverine876 »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #294
regularjack wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe rockets wouldn't be shot if Israel would not illegally occupy territories. It seems pretty logical to me that when a state starts illegally extending its borders pretty much immediately after its formation, their neighbors will not be happy about it and will fight back. No need to be an antisemite to understand this, it's just common sense.

> Maybe rockets wouldn't be shot if Israel would not illegally occupy territories. Tell me you know nothing about this conflict without telling me you know nothing about it. Israel was inches away from just having to give the Palestinians their own state. Why then, did Hamas attack just before that? The answer is simple: it is and always has been about removing Israel. That's true for Hamas and all their supporters.…

> Israel was inches away from just having to give the Palestinians their own state.

I follow that situation pretty closely and my understanding is that it was the opposite: The Palestinians' supporters were about to make deals with Israel - deals they refused to make while Palestinian territory was occupied - and leave the Palestinians mostly in the cold. Interview with Hamas leaders after the attack, iirc, said the same - they were going to be forgotten and needed to put the Palestinians back at the center of the issue. For years before the attack, Israel had openly disparaged and abandoned the two-state solution, and expended settlements in the West Bank (which is supposed to be Palestinian territory under the two-state solution).

Do you have anything that says a two-state solution was imminent?

> don't act like it's about Israel not being a nice neighbour

Could it be both? Hamas did something horrible. Murdering civilians isn't justified (why do I need to type that?) but history didn't start that day.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#393

Post by ImJamal »

pimpampum wrote: post #303
megaman821 wrote: post #78

Taken in isolation there is nothing wrong with this type of reporting, the IDF should be held to high standards. In the context of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, there is a tendency to hold Israel to a much higher standard and excuse the Palestine side as if they were naive children. I don't see how that could possibly set up any lasting peace. Israel will become more deaf to outsiders, and Palestinians will not be…

IDF kills more innocent people, woman and children (percentwise and in amount) than Hamas.

Maybe? We are trusting Hamas' numbers on the number of people in Palestine who died. Not exactly the most objective source...

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#394

Post by r00fus »

edanm wrote: post #295
tmnvix wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rafah crossing is one of about half a dozen border crossings in Gaza. Is it really so out of the question that Israel allow civilians to seek refuge within Israel while they wage their campaign? I am fully aware that it would be politically unpopular, but without allowing that to happen I find it hard to take Israeli politicians at their word when they claim they are doing everything to minimise civilian casualti…

It is absolutely impossible. There is no way to tell who are civilians and who are Hamas militants - they purposeful wear civilian clothing and hide amongst civilians. If Israel were to let them through the border into Israel, there is no possible way to prevent Hamas militants from killing many many more people. (Unless you mean to create temporary refuge camps heavily armed within Israel that would still be closed…

It's really interesting how the IDF claims to be doing targeted strikes and operations while at the same time there is the general "we can't tell who is civilian vs. militants".

It all codes to attitude of "there is no such thing as a non-combatant Palestinian" which leads to collective punishment which is a war crime according to the Geneva convention.

I can't imagine Israelis haven't thought this through - so it seems premeditated.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#395

Post by nerdponx »

ido wrote: post #48
dang wrote: post #2

All: if you're going to comment in this thread, please do not do so in the spirit of battle. The latter is off topic here, and the last thread HN had about this did not do well enough at keeping to the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Instead, ask first whether you can find a place of compassion in yourself before commenting. If you can't, that's understandable, but then please don'…

Thank you, Dang. As someone on the Israeli left I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place- I do not condone Netanyahu and his government and am indeed very critical of Israeli governments of the past decades. But on the other side, my 78 year old mother is fleeing to shelter every couple hours as my hometown (not anywhere near the west bank or the Gaza strip) gets hit by rockets, as do my young nieces and nephe…

A close friend of mine lived in Israel for a long time, and I got the sense that your feelings are echoed by many.

It's too easy for people in America and Europe to sit at their desks and repost propaganda on social media in favor of "their side".

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#396

Post by nahumfarchi »

qwertthrowway wrote: post #210
nahumfarchi wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think that is a reasonable take at all. 1. This is warfare, not civil law. Hamas, which is the sovereign in Gaza (there has been no Israeli military presence there for years), commited an act of war in which hundreds were killed, raped, and kidnapped. Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen an…

I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank ha…

As a Jew, I have quite a few qualms with the comparison to Warsaw. I'm not denying the suffering in Gaza in any way, but it's far fetched to put this on the same grounds as Warsaw, in which an estimated 300-400k Jews were murdered, and which was just one of an industrial system of mass murder.

I agree that the settlements are an obstacle to peace, no argument there. But there are solid reasons why the border between Israel and Gaza has been closed (putting aside the fact that we're not obligated to open our borders, especially when the other side isn't exactly friendly). Note that they also have a border with Egypt, how come that's pretty much closed as well? (I'll give you a hint - Gaza is ruled by what is basically a fanatic death cult, and Eygpt wants nothing to do with it).

Your proposed solution is "end occupation and oppression". I'll ignore the one-sided phrasing and just say we've tried that with the Oslo accords, the disengagement from Gaza, and numerous negotiations, all leading to this point in time. So again, what would you do?

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#397

Post by wolverine876 »

EvgeniyZh wrote: post #342
qwertthrowway wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank ha…

Gaza has border with Egypt not controlled by Israel. In fact, ~150k people left Gaza in 2022, and numbers from 2023 are of similar scale [1]. I wouldn't call it a prison [1] https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1665745935589076992

I'm sure you're aware of the indefinite blockade? And what Hamas did before that? etc. Let's not have another debate that brings out the facts piecemeal; it's polarizing, for one thing, and it's also misleading to bring them out in isolation. Many following the issue know them by now.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#398

Post by edanm »

shihab wrote: post #362
edanm wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time somebody says this, I always ask the same question - what is the alternative? What should Israel do instead ? This is war. War is horrible and tragic, and far more so because Hamas hides within civilian buildings and used human shields. What should Israel do instead to protect itself and to fight Hamas?

Please, go through the images first. Then explain to me, how bulldozing a park aids in Israel's effort to fight Hamas? Again, Israel has the right to fight and fight hard, anyone would do that in their place. But I think many people in the west are awefully unaware of just the scale and magnitude of the destruction Israel has unleashed.

Yes, Israel has destroyed a lot of Gaza. This is a big problem, especially for the "day after" the war. As for many people being unaware - most people are unaware of anything to do with this conflict and only know a couple of slogans.

To your question - how does bulldozing a park help? I have no idea. Nobody outside of the IDF really knows the specific reasons for bombing some locations. I trust the IDF to not be shooting rockets at targets for no reason, which is probably a level of trust that most people don't share.

I'm sure someone with more military understanding could offer plausible theories, but if you're inclined to believe that Israel is trying to level Gaza just to hurt Gazans, I doubt any theory they offer would sound convincing.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#399

Post by xpl »

lossolo wrote: post #135
tomp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: 1. the aggression is still happening, Hamas is still launching rockets into Israel, so I'd personally say this is Israel defending itself

They have been firing rockets for decades. They killed 28 people over 20 years with 20k+ rockets[1]. Israel killed 17 000 people in two months. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#400

Post by megaman821 »

password54321 wrote: post #378
megaman821 wrote: post #78

Taken in isolation there is nothing wrong with this type of reporting, the IDF should be held to high standards. In the context of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, there is a tendency to hold Israel to a much higher standard and excuse the Palestine side as if they were naive children. I don't see how that could possibly set up any lasting peace. Israel will become more deaf to outsiders, and Palestinians will not be…

> Excuse the Palestine side as if they were naive children. I am not seeing this anywhere, unless being treated as civilians (which they mostly are) is now equivalent to being treated as "naive children".

It depends on the characterization you give Palestinian citizens; are they captives of Hamas, are they complicit in Hamas holding hostages and firing rockets at civilians, or are they just part of Hamas?
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