Death toll surpasses 1,300 as Israel strikes Gaza and fierce battles intensify between Hamas gunmen and Israeli troops.

Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has threatened to execute Israeli captives if Israel continues to bombard and kill civilians in Gaza.

“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.

“We regret this decision but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership the responsibility for this,” he said.

  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
    4218·
    1 year ago

    If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine. It is their historical sensitivity to genocide and limitations placed on them by international law and foreign pressures that imposes on them very different standards of behavior in this war. If they operated by the same set of rules that Hamas does, this conflict would have been over long ago.

    Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. “I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,” one survivor recalled. “They’re kids, but they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience … Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.”
    Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
    One survivor who’d returned to the scene later in the day to look for his friends spoke, in a breaking voice, of what he’d seen. Of the bodies, mainly of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Of scantily clad corpses, many of whom appeared to have been shot at point-blank. Of cars, perforated by bullets or blown up by grenades.
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-account

    Israel does not perform atrocities like this. This wasn’t collateral damage, this wasn’t an attack on a valid military target, it was intentionally kidnapping, raping, and murdering civilians. This sort of behavior makes it very hard for me to swallow the, “both sides are equally bad,” narrative. I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian situation before, it is quickly evaporating.

    • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      142·
      1 year ago

      I’m not denying that some of this is factual reporting, but that particular source can be very biased with respect to Israel.

      Overall, we rate Tablet Magazine as right-center biased based on an editorial bias that moderately favors the pro-Israel nationalist right. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to the promotion of conspiracy theories despite a clean third-party fact check record.

      Source

    • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      188·
      1 year ago

      Israel has turned Gaza into an open air prison. Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide, but I’ll save that criticism until it actually plays out. In general, Israel is an apartied state. Hamas is a bunch of murderous terrorists committing war crimes, doing far more harm to their supposed cause than good. This attack will result in far more of their people suffering. But they count on that, hate within the Palestine community in Gaza is what gives them political power, so the civilians Isreal is currently killing will just continue to fuel the cycle of violence.

      Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”. If you compare Nazi Germany to apartied South Africa, the former is going to win the evil country contest everytime. But that doesn’t make apartied South Africa good. If it wasn’t for the Book of Revelations, America (it’s government and it’s people) would care as much about this conflict as it does about various civil wars and genocides happening all over the world, which is to say not at all (unless oil or other natural resources are imperilled).

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
        71·
        1 year ago

        Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide

        My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.

        Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”.

        You make a good point about no one having clean hands in this conflict, but one party here seems willing to commit atrocities that the other is not. One party is historically willing to compromise and negotiate for a viable solution and the other has not, and in fact has it in their charter that they will not negotiate or compromise.

        [Hamas’s charter,] article 13, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

        What we need to end this amicably is a solution that neither party is happy with, one they are equally dissatisfied with, because that is a hallmark of compromise. If one or both parties are unwilling to compromise, the erosion of Palestinian lands and power will continue as it has, and such atrocious acts may serve to hasten it.

        • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.

          The border crossing to Egypt is usually only for people when it’s open. As I understand it, all goods have to use a different crossing passing into Israel first and then Gaza.

          • jcit878@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            1 year ago

            The border crossing to Egypt is usually only for people when it’s open.

            why all the innocent palestinians arent rushing for the border to get out is beyond me. you know what’s coming. being dead and saying ‘i told you the bastards would kill me’ sounds great up until the point you are dead.

            Hoping Israel doesnt unleash possibly the most intense campaign of this generation is a fools dream really and unless you are a combatant, you’d get the hell out ASAP. Hamas is going to be blown to limbs and those that survive the bombings and full scale assaults are going to wind up Munich’d after all this is over. They cant do what they did and not expect utter retribution

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      102·
      1 year ago

      If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine.

      Hate to point out the irony, especially in this context… but at the rate things are going, in another 5 years there probably won’t be a Palestine.