An American mom, 67, spent her life advocating for Palestinian rights. Then, Hamas came for her.
An American mom, 67, spent her life advocating for Palestinian rights. Then, Hamas came for her.
Some 100 people were kidnapped by Hamas this past weekend in Israel. Here is the story of one Minnesota family who was taken from their Kibbutz.
They exchanged text messages and emojis. Brief status updates with words of encouragement. A picture of the beloved family dog "Tutsi."
Until no more messages came.
And then, Cindy Flash, an American, and her Israeli husband Igal vanished into the violence, presumed kidnapped by Hamas.
Four days after Hamas attacked Israel, more than 100 Israelis and potentially dozens of foreign nationals are thought to be held captive in the Gaza Strip. At least 14 U.S. citizens have been killed and an unknown number are still unaccounted for.
Flash, 67, originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of them. She lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz in southern Israel near Gaza, where some of the most harrowing and grisly stories have been emerging during the last few days.
"They are breaking down the safe room door," Flash said in one of her final messages to her daughter Keren, 34. "We need someone to come by the house right now." She had been communicating with her parents from a few houses away.
Keren described her mother, who worked as an administrator in a local college, as someone who had the "sweetest biggest heart," who everyone knew and loved, and who had spent a lifetime advocating for the rights of Palestinians, including those who live in Gaza where she may now be held.
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Hamas ≢ Palestine
Palestinians knew who they were when they elected them.
Israel knew who Netanyahu was when they elected him.
Sure. And Netanyahu is a right-wing asshole. But he isn't a terrorist.
You see the difference?
I'm not here to argue semantics, Hamas are terrorists, Netanyahu is a terrorist.
If a terrorist is someone who attacks civilians for political aims, then yes.
That is pretty much textbook. Someone or some party that uses violence and the threat of violence to create fear in the pursuit of political goals.
Problem is that applies to most nation states that are active on the global scale. So the political use can be reduced to "terrorists are always the others"
It's pretty much always "terrorist are when those without power use the tools of fear against those with power." All "freedom fighters" are terrorists who won pretty much. All nations are terrorists who get to use their power and influence to convince others they aren't.
A terrorist is a member of a non-government military group that uses violence for political gains
Attacking civilians isn’t related
Yeah, if I was dead wrong about what words mean, I wouldn't want to argue semantics either.
Then why do you keep replying when you are dead wrong? Can't even be consistent on keeping your word.
What is your definition? It's got to be interesting if it isn't the one everyone else has decided is the correct one.
Hamas are terrorists, Netanyahu is a terrorist. If a terrorist is someone who attacks civilians for political aims.
I find it hard to discriminate Civilian A who was killed from Civilian B who was killed by the other side. Apparently that is a controversial statement around here. Ya'll are fucked.
Hamas are terrorists because the target civilians for death.
Netanyahu is a corrupt right-wing asshole, but he doesn't target innocent civilians for death.
If you broaden the word "terrorist" to apply to anyone you don't like for any reason, the word ceases to have any meaning or weight.
And that gives cover to ACTUAL terrorists.
Deliberately cutting off water, electricity and medical aid will result directly in children dying. Again I find it hard to see the difference between civilian A and civilian B being killed just on the basis of WHO killed them. But you do you.
Again, you're pretending that INTENTION doesn't matter. That collateral damage is morally equivalent to a targeted killing.
I just 100 percent disagree.
What other result is there for INTENTIONALLY cutting off food, water and electricity. BTW I just asked my 12 yr old if I cut off the food water and electricity to a population would mean I be responsible for the deaths and her answer was "DUH!" This isn't hard man.
That's fine. Maybe if we ask Hamas to be nice and come out, they'll stop using all those people as a human shield.
Go lecture them. You're very persuasive.
They're intentionally killing civilians. It's equally targeted. It's not just collateral damage any more than nuking a civilian populace to kill one person is collateral damage. They also intentionally targeted and bombed the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza after telling civilians to flee there.
Just because one side can kill the other with technology and superior firepower doesn't make it morally different.
Netanyahu has every opportunity to tell his army not to target civilian dwellings.
But he isn't. Because he and his ilk have repeatedly stated their opinions that Palestinians don't matter. They aren't people.
Israel has been waiting on an excuse to genocide the Palestinians for at least a decade now. Hamas just gave it to them.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/no-such-thing-as-palestinian-people-top-israeli-minister-says
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-election-idUSKBN0MC1I820150316
It's wrong-headed to try to absolve either side of any blame here. Hamas are terrorists. So is the Israeli state.
Israel has a right to be paranoid and militant. They've had to fight for their right to exist as a nation for 70-80 years now. Constantly under attack. Constantly at war.
And the Palestinians have the right to be angry. Their land was stolen from them to make room for a Jewish State. They were displaced with no attempt to compromise. And they've been discriminated against and murdered systematically since.
So course extremist factions popped up on both sides.
Innocent people have been murdered by both. Hamas might have started this most recent fight, but Israel has had no qualms in using its superior firepower just as ruthlessly.
Hunting down children with machine guns will directly result in children dying.
Not sure if you refer to Hamas, or the possible Israeli land invasion.
Hamas , since killing civilians was not collateral damage for their plan on oct 7 , it was sanctioned and approved by every level of the Hamas command structure as an objective of their attack.
Interesting you'd say this 19 days later, after:
- GAZA: 3,195 children killed in three weeks surpasses annual number of children killed in conflict zones since 2019 - https://kbin.social/m/world@lemmy.world/t/580789
How many times "collateral damage" is fine? All of it?
bro you can you read? hear words? Israel is currently bombing apartments, ambulances, etc. Specifically with the goal of killing every last citizen in gaza that doesn't flee.
So what is your response to the report that IDF missiles are hitting hospitals in Gaza and nearly killing MSF workers?
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gaza-situation-catastrophic-hospitals-are-overwhelmed
Hamas's well-documented use of its own civilians as human shields, as well as its use of mosques, hospitals, schools and private homes as weapons storage facilities and firing platforms, violates international humanitarian law.
More apologetics for Netanyahu killing civilians that you deem worth killing. You are fuckin sick in the head dude. Stop makin excuses for people committing war crimes no matter the side.
KILLING civilians happens in every war, no matter how just.
The issue is who is being TARGETED.
Hamas targets civilians. Israel targets Hamas.
Hamas hides among civilians, to use them as human shields.
So when Israel targets Hamas, of course civilians are going to die. That's on Hamas's hands as well.
If each faction had the ability to only kill exactly who they wanted, Israel would be killing only militants, and Hamas would still be killing children.
People who don't blame Hamas for building HQs in fucking hospitals are too dumb to deserve a voice in this conflict
There aren't any Hamas fighters in those hospitals unless they're among the wounded. MSF put up a report yesterday about hospitals being hit by missiles and there's been a bunch of reports of entire high-rise residences getting bombed today. Hamas is not as ubiquitous as your ilk seem to think and the overwhelming majority of the people in Gaza are civilians with no food, no water, no fuel, no medical supplies, and nowhere to go to escape Israel's genocidal artillery.
Lmao ok
See my above post.
Obviously not.
Hamas was never elected as sole leadership in Palestine. They never won a plurality of votes, ever.
They formed a unity government, then fought the other government, usurped control, and cancelled elections forever.
Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats. They did it with 44 percent of the vote. Not sure how that worked.
Anyway, you're kind of right, kind of wrong.
Same way Republicans do it in Ohio, one assumes. Heavy concentration in minority-population areas.
And the Palestinian authority is really a puppet government that Israel allows Palestine to have, so it's not like any available option is really good
No lol. One of Israel's dumbest moves ever was empowering Hamas as they saw it as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority
This should be said more often and more forcefully, as its knowledge people (including myself) are not generally aware of.
20 years ago. Around half of today's population didn't vote and of the ones that did many didn't vote for hamas. Find a new way to blame innocent people, this one doesn't work.
Half of the population is below 19 years old. So they weren't even born when Hamas was elected.
The average age of Palestinians is 19. The average age of Israelis is 30. That tells you one thing, that you don't live a long life if your Palestinian.
Living in what human rights groups and the UN describe as an open air prison under bombarded from a neighboring country isn't exactly the best thing for life expectancy.
Roughly 2.3 million people live on the Gaza Strip out of the roughly 5 million people living in Palestine BTW, which is the area currently being bombarded by Israel in response to the terrorist attack by Hamas.
I wouldn't put a lot of stock in how the United Nations describes anything to do with Israel. Their bias is of the charts.
Remember, this is an organization that officially denounced Israel for human rights violations 20 times in one year, and for every other nation on Earth, with all the modern slavery, sex trafficking, genial mutilation, honor killings, murder of LGBTQ, marriage and rape of 7-yr-girls, denying basic education to women, forcing women to fully cover their bodies, mass incarcerations, etc,etc... For all the rest of the world, 6 denouncements.
So yeah, the UN is not a serious organization when it comes to Israel.
Maybe Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch is better.
Any organization that calls Israel "apartheid" is comically biased.
Israel is the only country in the region where a lesbian Muslim woman can vote, get an education and hold elected office.
Claiming it's apartheid is like claiming the US was apartheid when occupying Iraq because we didn't allow Iraqis to be citizens of the US.
Words have meanings, and the accusation is demonstrably absurd.
I can't help but notice your only issues here is with how terms are used in regards to Israel and Palestine but not with the bombardment of Gaza in response to a terrorist attack from Hamas. A place where nearly half of Palestine's population lives.
Do you not have an issue with Israel's response or something?
I have no idea who Israel is targeting, but if history is any guide, it is Hamas terrorists.
And Hamas terrorists make it a POLICY to hide among civilians.
For now, I'm giving Israel the benefit of the doubt because they have very much earned it.
I have no idea who Israel is targeting, but if history is any guide, it is Hamas terrorists.
Then you were living through an alternate timeline. Israel has killed more than 10.000 Palestinian civillians since 2008 before this weekend. Now they have declared the Palestinians animals when announcing the blockade starving them to death now.
Also they told the Palestinians to flee into Egypt and then bombed the road close to the border crossing.
Even if Hamas didn't have a policy to hide amongst civilians, do civilians really have a choice but to be close to possible Hamas members? There's 45 square kilometers of Gaza with 2.3 million people. That's 50,000 people per square kilometer that's 51 people per meter approximately. So where the hell can you be in that tight space without being close to 50 or more other people.
Take the word of some random guy on internet, or an international NGO? Tough call 📞
Or, just use your brain.
Already did.
You go first.
Amnesty international wasn't the one that faked reports on Russian concentration camps in kherson?
50% of the persons living in palestina are under 18
Edit: had a stroke
Yeah. I wish their parents loved them more than they hate Israel.
Are you a troll or something?
No he's just right.
Hamas ≢ Palestine
Ok, but how truish are "Hamas ≠ Palestine" and "Hamas ≈ Palestine"? At what point do we draw the line?