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Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

CNT36 said:
Anyone have any idea of the death toll now? I've heard 471 confirmed killed but was hoping as we're being told there is less damage than initially thought that it may be lower.
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Hard to find anything definitive, and we probably will never know, but have seen reports of less than 100, e.g.



This was in the WSJ today: “At the moment, the preponderance of evidence does point to it being a Hamas or PIJ rocket hitting the area,” said Blake Spendley, an open-source intelligence analyst. He said videos and photos he has reviewed showing the scene were more consistent with a death toll of about 50 rather than the 500 initially claimed by Hamas." https://archive.ph/4aPYm

Who knows though. No munitions fragments from either Hamas or IDF have been reported as found, and it's unlikely that any independent analysts will be allowed to investigate the blast site.
 
strung out said:
Hard to find anything definitive, and we probably will never know, but have seen reports of less than 100, e.g.



This was in the WSJ today: “At the moment, the preponderance of evidence does point to it being a Hamas or PIJ rocket hitting the area,” said Blake Spendley, an open-source intelligence analyst. He said videos and photos he has reviewed showing the scene were more consistent with a death toll of about 50 rather than the 500 initially claimed by Hamas." https://archive.ph/4aPYm

Who knows though. No munitions fragments from either Hamas or IDF have been reported as found, and it's unlikely that any independent analysts will be allowed to investigate the blast site.
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How many independent analysts would be bonkers enough to go there right now anyway?
 
A380 said:
Sadly this thread has mostly become an echo chamber for the worst of Urban's non-critical thinkers. It's almost a mirror of the Daily Mail universe.

The U75 boards are interesting, but there is a propensity to this kind of uncritical posturing, normally it is held in balance, and is quite refreshing; but I think the true horror of what happened during the Hamas attacks on Israel and the decades long ongoing tragedy of Gaza and the recent Israeli actions mean that most of the 'grown-ups' on the boards (and that is people with a range of opinions across the issue, most of whom I don't agree with ) have basically given upon this thread over the last few days as it leaves a particularly bad taste in the mouth to engage in the style of debate normal on Urban in the face of such death and human suffering on an immense scale.
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👍 I'm only reading 3 posters on the thread now. Just skip over the others.
 
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strung out said:
Hard to find anything definitive, and we probably will never know, but have seen reports of less than 100, e.g.



This was in the WSJ today: “At the moment, the preponderance of evidence does point to it being a Hamas or PIJ rocket hitting the area,” said Blake Spendley, an open-source intelligence analyst. He said videos and photos he has reviewed showing the scene were more consistent with a death toll of about 50 rather than the 500 initially claimed by Hamas." https://archive.ph/4aPYm

Who knows though. No munitions fragments from either Hamas or IDF have been reported as found, and it's unlikely that any independent analysts will be allowed to investigate the blast site.
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Thanks.
 
strung out said:
Hard to find anything definitive, and we probably will never know, but have seen reports of less than 100, e.g.



This was in the WSJ today: “At the moment, the preponderance of evidence does point to it being a Hamas or PIJ rocket hitting the area,” said Blake Spendley, an open-source intelligence analyst. He said videos and photos he has reviewed showing the scene were more consistent with a death toll of about 50 rather than the 500 initially claimed by Hamas." https://archive.ph/4aPYm

Who knows though. No munitions fragments from either Hamas or IDF have been reported as found, and it's unlikely that any independent analysts will be allowed to investigate the blast site.
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If that all proves to be the case, it shows Hamas are just as good at the propaganda war as Israel is. Though without spending millions on Xitter ads. (I probably threw up in my mouth a little the first time that popped up)
 
Rimbaud said:
Israel has track record of blaming Palestinians for attacks they have conducted and then flooding the digital space with misinformation to muddy the waters, aided by friendly western media.
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Yes, this. I read this morning (sorry, can’t remember where, probably Graun or BBC websites) that (a) Israel was still denying it had been one of their missiles that destroyed the hospital.
And (b) were also disputing the number of casualties, claiming the death toll had been greatly over-estimated by Palestinian sources, suggesting it was “only” a few dozen dead.

But (a) & (b) are incompatible, surely - if Israel is confident the explosion was caused by a misfiring Hamas rocket then why would they wish to minimise the death toll?

Of course these two contradictory statements may well have come from different Israeli sources and suggests a lack of coordination, but the effect, as Rimbaud says, is the same - “flooding the digital sphere with misinformation”, absolutely this.
 
scalyboy said:
Yes, this. I read this morning (sorry, can’t remember where, probably Graun or BBC websites) that (a) Israel was still denying it had been one of their missiles that destroyed the hospital.
And (b) were also disputing the number of casualties, claiming the death toll had been greatly over-estimated by Palestinian sources, suggesting it was “only” a few dozen dead.

But (a) & (b) are incompatible, surely - if Israel is confident the explosion was caused by a misfiring Hamas rocket then why would they wish to minimise the death toll?

Of course these two contradictory statements may well have come from different Israeli sources and suggests a lack of coordination, but the effect, as Rimbaud says, is the same - “flooding the digital sphere with misinformation”, absolutely this.
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Those statements are also coming from independent analysts, not just the Israelis.

We know that both Hamas and the IDF lie, which is why it's important to look for independent verification before jumping to conclusions. All the independent analysis is pointing towards the likelihood of a Palestinian rocket misfiring, and lower casualties than initially reported (while also admitting that without a presence on the ground, it's virtually impossible to say for sure). Surely the lack of malicious intent (on this occasion) and lower casualties is good news, in amongst all the misery?
 
strung out said:
I'm assuming that Hamas intend to hit military targets rather than innocent civilians with their rockets, but maybe I'm being charitable.
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They've never shown any restraint about it before, I suspect they would consider a military target a bonus but have never shown any reluctance to hit civilian targets either.
They have no guidance systems remember, they just fire them upwards as fast as they will go and let them fall where they may.
 
strung out said:
I'm assuming that Hamas intend to hit military targets rather than innocent civilians with their rockets, but maybe I'm being charitable.
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Given that there's more than a few on the left (and some on here) who think any Jewish or Israeli person (adult or child) is a legitimate target for Hamas (or any Palestinian and then by extension maybe also their supporters) I suspect you might be being charitable about what PIJ and Hamas consider 'innocent' or not tbh.
 
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MickiQ said:
They've never shown any restraint about it before, I suspect they would consider a military target a bonus but have never shown any reluctance to hit civilian targets either.
They have no guidance systems remember, they just fire them upwards as fast as they will go and let them fall where they may.
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I'm assuming strung out means that they were pointed at Israeli targets, not Palestinians in Gaza - but the rocket broke up, and instead of whizzing off into Israel, it landed in bits rather closer to home.

If it can happen to NASA, it can happen to PIJ building rockets in a cellar.
 
kebabking said:
I'm assuming strung out means that they were pointed at Israeli targets, not Palestinians in Gaza - but the rocket broke up, and instead of whizzing off into Israel, it landed in bits rather closer to home.

If it can happen to NASA, it can happen to PIJ building rockets in a cellar.
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Most of them land in bits in Israel anyway, the Iron Dome system brings a lot of them down, interestingly I was reading an article that reckons Hamas can knock up a rocket for $300-$400 a pop, weld some tubes together and fill it with their home made rocket fuel which they make out of sugar and fertiliser. The missiles that the Iron Dome uses cost at least $20,000 each since they need loads of fancy gubbins like radar and groundlinks.
 
strung out said:
I'm assuming that Hamas intend to hit military targets rather than innocent civilians with their rockets, but maybe I'm being charitable.
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If they do, they’d need to be aiming at an otherwise unpopulated area. These are not sophisticated rockets.

Edit: sorry, I see point was well addressed before I got to it..
 
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Gramsci said:
This whole thread is getting to be about the missile.

Any other discussion is getting drowned out

Such as who here supports calls for an immediate ceasefire?

I do
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Immediate ceasefire with a view to what?
Have Hamas made noises about releasing hostages?
 
Gramsci said:
This whole thread is getting to be about the missile.

Any other discussion is getting drowned out

Such as who here supports calls for an immediate ceasefire?

I do
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Who here wouldn't support calls for an immediate ceasefire? We're in the extraordinary position where such people would be lining up alongside the likes of Sunak, Starmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ursula Von der Leyen. But what decent person would not call for a ceasefire?
 
I know that there is at least one poster on here who knows about Ordnance I am very much not he but wouldn't it be passing strange if one Palestinian rocket caused scores if not hundreds of deaths? A quick Google suggests that Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza in the ten years preceding Iron Dome killed some fifty Israelis and fourteen Palestinians
 
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