Israel formally declares war against Hamas as it battles to push militants off its soil
Israel formally declares war against Hamas as it battles to push militants off its soil
Israel formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting rages on Israeli soil. The declaration comes after Hamas, an Islamist militant group, launched a surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 600 Israelis.
Israel formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting rages on Israeli soil. The declaration comes after Hamas, an Islamist militant group, launched a surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 600 Israelis.
Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Israel and came after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis, with the long-running conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions remain over how the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as Israel responds with airstrikes in the densely-inhabited enclave. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation, warning his country would take “mighty vengeance” and was readying for “a long and difficult war.”
He urged Palestinians living in Gaza to “leave now.”
Okay "Bibi"? Where are they supposed to go? Are you going to let Palestinian civilians enter Israeli territory? Is the border crossing with Egypt open? Will Egypt let them in? Or do you just want to say this so the thousands of dead civilians get blamed for not leaving?
If people actually cared about the Palestinian civilians, they would have been encouraging them to make peace.
Instead, for decades people have been cheering on their terrorism as if their indiscriminate killing of Jews was justified.
They've been pushed to evacuate to shelters further south from Gaza, which is kind of the only option aside from Egypt opening up. Given that this is all caused by Palestinian terrorists entering Israel, I don't think anyone can blame them for not opening up their border to let more in
And obviously there's plenty of innocent civilians who could be admitted no problem, but Hamas is still the governing party with majority support and would undeniably use that as an opportunity to sneak more militants in
Is the border crossing with Egypt open? Will Egypt let them in?
Honestly, what's up with Egypt? Just reading comments one could get the impression Gaza was entirely encircled by Israel. But Egypt is mostly Muslim, too? And shares a 12km border with Gaza.
Goes on to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt–Gaza_border
Ok, I'm at a loss.
Gaza was occupied by Egypt, then by Israel.
Israel is building a steel wall near the Gaza-Egypt border and demolishing homes while fighting terrorists.
Egypt is building a steel wall near the Egypt-Gaza border and demolishing homes while fighting terrorists.
Either way, it seems Egypt is also not an option.
Egypt was the first of the Arab countries to make peace with Israel (tired of getting their asses kicked). They tend to cooperate quite a lot with Israel with respect to the border checkpoints, blockade, etc. My question about it was semi-rhetorical as I know Egypt probably isn't going to let a flood of Palestinian refugees in.
Look up Black September and what's happened when Palestinians were allowed into Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Gaza gets called an "open air prison" and Israel gets blamed, but they are there because no one else will have them
From all the nations in the world one would expect that Jews should have learned that being an oppressor is not a recipe for peace.
At the end of the day all comes to politics and media propaganda on both sides. Both sides think they are morally right, but the truth is that neither is and that in most cases innocent civilians are suffering the most as a result. Really sad!
So they can/could leave Gaza? People often say they can not just leave Gaza due to checkpoints and what not?
Netanyahu is saying that for show. It gives the Israeli government a blanket justification to ignore any collateral damage caused in this conflict because they will just claim that they warned them to leave.
Does anybody really believe that the insanely sophisticated security apparatus of Mossad didn't know these attacks were coming in advance? This has the same stink of the Bush administration ignoring repeated warnings of attacks by Al Qaeda pre-9/11 to justify war in the middle east all over again.
Not all of them, no.
But that warning will surely save some lives.
I despise the government of Israel, and everyone who supports it, but killing civilians is not acceptable. I don't care about dead military personnel, soldiers are a legitimate target, but civilians? Th fuck, Hamas, THE FUCK.
In a country with mandatory military service, I disagree that soldiers are a legitimate target as a blanket statement. As the rich and powerful wage wars, it's the poor and those with limited options who die.
With the acknowledgement that the current attacks are mostly along the Gaza border, where do the West Bank settlers fall in that dichotomy? Because they're not just passive citizens of an oppressive nation, they're very much a participant in the oppression. And on the other side, military service in Israel is compulsory. There are soldiers who didn't want to be soldiers and think occupying the West Bank is wrong that are in that set of legitimate targets. Maybe it just sucks to be them and they should have tried harder to pursue a non-military service option, but it's not an easy sort where uniform = agent of oppression and civilian = neutral third party.
Settlers moving into occupied territories blur the line. They are neither fully civilian, nor clearly military. Something in between. They fulfill a strategic role, following and protected by armed forces. They also fulfill a strategic role for the negotiation table. And I guess they all know they run a greater risk, if alone for being closer to the frontlines.
The military is the main tool of oppression and as such is a valid target. The individual soldier might not be the issue but the military in its entirety. Of which said soldier is a part of. The individual soldier simply doesn't matter. And that has been the case in every war that was ever fought. The individual does not matter.
Whose soil? The soil that was handed to the Zionists by the British? Or the soil that the Zionists violently forced people off of to form a country on stolen land?
Ah yes, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria have no blame for this situation. It’s not like there was a major international body that attempted to create borders and one side agreed to and the other side attempted to exterminate the other in a belief they could win a war, then attempted again a few decades
A party that should be holding the major bag is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Hamas is a major wing of their organization and yet, they keep the border closed. They could set up a major airport in Rafah and open trade routes into Gaza. Israel would have no say, but they don’t.
The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't hold power in Egypt, a military dictator does. Egypt cooperates with Israel on most security matters concerning Gaza, and events of the past few days have shown why. They don't want extremists running around their country either.
whenever someone uses the term 'zionist', you already know they don't have a clue what they are talking about
The soil of the sovereign state of israel.
Well, this sucks
The only truth here
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory.
Netanyahu announced Israeli forces have started an “offensive formation” which will “continue without reservation and without respite until the objectives are achieved.” Among the decisions made by the cabinet is to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.
The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
“We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.
“This Iron Dome is being fired up all around us right now, it’s illuminating the sky here,” said CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson in Zikim, Israel, referring to the Israeli rocket defense system.
On Saturday he tracked her phone and saw it was located in Gaza; later that day he recognized her in a viral clip of people loaded into the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants.
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