Gaza/Israel Update (04/02): Israeli airstrike kills foreign workers of World Central Kitchen (Chef José Andrés food aid charity)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Bringing broken survivors of the Israel Nova festival attack back from darkness

WWW.BBC.COM

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"I just wanted them to be held": Inside the centre helping survivors of the 7 October attacks.

 

 

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"You can cry here," the sign reads in pale blue lettering on a clean white background.

 

Beyond it, comfortable sofas piled with cushions are screened off from the rest of the room. It's a safe, private corner where survivors of the Nova music festival can be with others who went through the same ordeal on 7 October, and get the mental health support many of them desperately need.

 

More than 360 young partygoers were shot, beaten or burnt to death by Hamas attackers, who stormed the festival site near the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence early that morning. Another 40 were taken hostage.

 

First, social media posts showed panicked crowds fleeing from rockets fired from Gaza and gunmen on the ground. Later, distressing videos from first responders began to confirm the scale of the massacre, as they filmed scores of murdered partygoers.

 

In the following days, Dr Lia Naor realised that - unlike those who'd been evacuated from their nearby kibbutzim - the young people from the festival who lived through the ordeal didn't have a community already around them to give support.

 

So she built one.

 

"I just wanted them to be held," Dr Naor explains.

 

"They were so fragmented and so frozen. Then there was the brokenness of faith that they that had felt - there'd been nobody there for them, not their parents, not the army, not the police. Nobody was there to save them. So the first thing was just getting them to feel secure and in a healing space."

 

[Link200]

I'm just curious. Does Israel actually need aid? Compared to the Gaza Strip, Israel has a huge economy that would support their war efforts. I would understand giving them aid if they were actually attacked by their surrounding countries but we are talking about an oppressed small stretch of people they could have literally bulldozed at any moment over the last several decades.

 

I only ask since aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine seems to have different priorities in congress yet Israel certainly has the upper hand and has had it for a long long time.

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

33 minutes ago, Link200 said:

I'm just curious. Does Israel actually need aid? Compared to the Gaza Strip, Israel has a huge economy that would support their war efforts. I would understand giving them aid if they were actually attacked by their surrounding countries but we are talking about an oppressed small stretch of people they could have literally bulldozed at any moment over the last several decades.

 

I only ask since aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine seems to have different priorities in congress yet Israel certainly has the upper hand and has had it for a long long time.

They probably don’t to fight Hamas, but I’ll bet the realpolitik calculus is that promises of aid by the West are needed to prevent the Israelis from being gobbled up by regional foes.  The Jewish state isn’t exactly surrounded by trusty comrades.  Organizations like Hezbollah in countries like Lebanon might be more adventurous in their military aggressions against Israel if they didn’t think they’d have to take on the US and friends in addition to the IDF.  Or so the thinking of the military establishment goes.

[Jwheel86]

49 minutes ago, Link200 said:

I'm just curious. Does Israel actually need aid? Compared to the Gaza Strip, Israel has a huge economy that would support their war efforts. I would understand giving them aid if they were actually attacked by their surrounding countries but we are talking about an oppressed small stretch of people they could have literally bulldozed at any moment over the last several decades.

 

I only ask since aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine seems to have different priorities in congress yet Israel certainly has the upper hand and has had it for a long long time.

 

Mobilization of the reserves is a big deal in Israel. Calling up 300,000 is the equivalent of the US calling up 11 million troops over the weekend and removing them from the economy for 2 months and counting. It's mostly an economic problem for them, US military aid means domestic funds can be shifted to offset mobilization costs and US funds can used to fund their US military imports (155mm shells, F-35, Iron Dome).

[Link200]

22 hours ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

Mobilization of the reserves is a big deal in Israel. Calling up 300,000 is the equivalent of the US calling up 11 million troops over the weekend and removing them from the economy for 2 months and counting. It's mostly an economic problem for them, US military aid means domestic funds can be shifted to offset mobilization costs and US funds can used to fund their US military imports (155mm shells, F-35, Iron Dome).

 

22 hours ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

They probably don’t to fight Hamas, but I’ll bet the realpolitik calculus is that promises of aid by the West are needed to prevent the Israelis from being gobbled up by regional foes.  The Jewish state isn’t exactly surrounded by trusty comrades.  Organizations like Hezbollah in countries like Lebanon might be more adventurous in their military aggressions against Israel if they didn’t think they’d have to take on the US and friends in addition to the IDF.  Or so the thinking of the military establishment goes.

 

To an extent sure, but the aid they are getting is specifically military aid. I wouldn't say that is a large economic benefit. The aid certainly would help them resupply their military but I'm not exactly convinced that is necessary at this point. Hell, it would be pretty embarrassing if they are critically low any any of their military supplies. Going after a poorly equipped terrorist group on a small stretch of land would be nothing compared to an actual attack from their neighbors.

[Spork3245]

To see some people (Democrats) try to justify rape as a “tactic/tool of war” is the most disappointing thing I’ve seen in recent memory. Holy fuck. Yea, they ultimately condemn it, but in the most mealy-mouthed way imaginable.

PS: I’m not going to search out links and interviews for this shit, if you “need to see it for yourself”, go to google; it absolutely disgusts me too much. And, no, it’s not isolated to one person, though I wish it was (it’s not even close to a majority, of course and thankfully)

[SuperSpreader]

4 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

To see some people (Democrats) try to justify rape as a “tactic/tool of war” is the most disappointing thing I’ve seen in recent memory. Holy fuck. Yea, they ultimately condemn it, but in the most mealy-mouthed way imaginable.

PS: I’m not going to search out links and interviews for this shit, if you “need to see it for yourself”, go to google; it absolutely disgusts me too much. And, no, it’s not isolated to one person, though I wish it was (it’s not even close to a majority, of course and thankfully)

 

It's not even "just rape" it goes way beyond that. It's serial killer SAW torture/bondage/psychotic shit. 

[TUFKAK]

20 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

To see some people (Democrats) try to justify rape as a “tactic/tool of war” is the most disappointing thing I’ve seen in recent memory. Holy fuck. Yea, they ultimately condemn it, but in the most mealy-mouthed way imaginable.

PS: I’m not going to search out links and interviews for this shit, if you “need to see it for yourself”, go to google; it absolutely disgusts me too much. And, no, it’s not isolated to one person, though I wish it was (it’s not even close to a majority, of course and thankfully)

I’ve seriously considered leaving the Democratic Party over it, I’ll just be the most left independent I know.

[Spork3245]

3 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

I’ve seriously considered leaving the Democratic Party over it, I’ll just be the most left independent I know.

It’s made me think GenZ is potentially brain dead and some politicians are too scared to upset them tbh.

[TUFKAK]

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

It’s made me think GenZ is potentially brain dead.

Violence towards trans women, never acceptable!

 

violence towards cis women, well it depends on political context.

 

 

[SuperSpreader]

4 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

GenZ is potentially brain dead

clout rizz gen

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

How Israel Secretly Propped Up Hamas - The New York Times

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.

 

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Just weeks before Hamas launched the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the head of Mossad arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with Qatari officials.

 

For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.

 

During his meetings in September with the Qatari officials, according to several people familiar with the secret discussions, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?

 

Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes. The Israeli government still welcomed the money from Doha.

 

 

Quote

 

In interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli, American and Qatari officials, and officials from other Middle Eastern governments, The New York Times unearthed new details about the origins of the policy, the controversies that erupted inside the Israeli government and the lengths that Mr. Netanyahu went to in order to shield the Qataris from criticism and keep the money flowing.

 

The payments were part of a string of decisions by Israeli political leaders, military officers and intelligence officials — all based on the fundamentally flawed assessment that Hamas was neither interested in nor capable of a large-scale attack. The Times has previously reported on intelligence failures and other faulty assumptions that preceded the attacks.

 

Even as the Israeli military obtained battle plans for a Hamas invasion and analysts observed significant terrorism exercises just over the border in Gaza, the payments continued. For years, Israeli intelligence officers even escorted a Qatari official into Gaza, where he doled out money from suitcases filled with millions of dollars.

 

 

Quote

The money from Qatar had humanitarian goals like paying government salaries in Gaza and buying fuel to keep a power plant running. But Israeli intelligence officials now believe that the money had a role in the success of the Oct. 7 attacks, if only because the donations allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations. Separately, Israeli intelligence has long assessed that Qatar uses other channels to secretly fund Hamas’ military wing, an accusation that Qatar’s government has denied.

 

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Hamas as ‘an Asset’

 

Among the team of Mossad agents that tracked terrorism financing, some came to believe that — even beyond the money from Qatar — Mr. Netanyahu was not very concerned about stopping money going to Hamas.

 

Uzi Shaya, for example, made several trips to China to try to shut down what Israeli intelligence had assessed was a money-laundering operation for Hamas run through the Bank of China.

 

After his retirement, he was called to testify against the Bank of China in an American lawsuit brought by the family of a victim of a Hamas terrorist attack.

 

At first, the head of Mossad encouraged him to testify, saying it could increase financial pressure on Hamas, Mr. Shaya recalled in a recent interview.

 

Then, the Chinese offered Mr. Netanyahu a state visit. Suddenly, Mr. Shaya recalled, he got different orders from his former bosses: He was not to testify.

 

Mr. Netanyahu visited Beijing in May 2013, part of an effort to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties between Israel and China. Mr. Shaya said he would have liked to have testified.

 

“Unfortunately,” he said, “there were other considerations.”

 

While the reasons for the decision were never confirmed, the change in tack left him suspicious. Especially because politicians at times talked openly about the value of a strong Hamas.

Shlomo Brom, a retired general and former deputy to Israel’s national security adviser, said an empowered Hamas helped Mr. Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state.

 

“One effective way to prevent a two-state solution is to divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he said in an interview. The division gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse to disengage from peace talks, Mr. Brom said, adding that he can say, “I have no partner.”

 

Mr. Netanyahu did not articulate this strategy publicly, but some on the Israeli political right had no such hesitation.

 

Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the year he was elected to Parliament.

 

“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”

 

 

Quote

 

Suitcases Full of Cash

 

During a 2018 cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu’s aides presented a new plan: Every month, the Qatari government would make millions of dollars in cash payments directly to people in Gaza as part of a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

 

Shin Bet, the country’s domestic security service, would monitor the list of recipients to try to ensure that members of Hamas’s military wing would not directly benefit.

 

Despite those assurances, dissent boiled over. Mr. Lieberman saw the plan as a capitulation and resigned in November 2018. He publicly accused Mr. Netanyahu of “buying short-term peace at the price of serious damage to long-term national security.” In the years that followed, Mr. Lieberman would become one of Mr. Netanyahu’s fiercest critics.

 

During an interview last month in his office, Mr. Lieberman said the decisions in 2018 directly led to the Oct. 7 attacks.

 

“For Netanyahu, there is only one thing that is really important: to be in power at any cost,” he said. “To stay in power, he preferred to pay for tranquillity.”

Suitcases filled with cash soon began crossing the border into Gaza.

 

Each month, Israeli security officials met Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari diplomat, at the border between Israel and Jordan. From there, they drove him to the Kerem Shalom border crossing and into Gaza.

At first, Mr. Emadi brought with him $15 million to distribute, with $100 handed out at designated locations to each family approved by the Israeli government, according to former Israeli and American officials.

The funds were intended to pay salaries and other expenses, but one senior Western diplomat who was based in Israel until last year said that Western governments had long assessed that Hamas was skimming from the cash disbursements.

 

“Money is fungible,” said Chip Usher, a senior Middle East analyst at the C.I.A. until his retirement this year. “Anything that Hamas didn’t have to use out of its own budget freed up money for other things.”

 

Naftali Bennett, who was Israel’s education minister in 2018 when the payments began and later became the defense minister, was among members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government who criticized the payments. He called them “protection money.”

 

And yet, when Mr. Bennett began his one-year stint as prime minister in June 2021, he continued the policy. By then, Qatar was spending roughly $30 million a month in Gaza.

 

 

[SuperSpreader]

Bibi gotta go 

[SuperSpreader]

Also makes sense now why Qatar are the negotiators

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 12/10/2023 at 7:35 PM, SuperSpreader said:

Also makes sense now why Qatar are the negotiators

 

Qatar literally asking "Do you want us to turn off the money spigot?" and Bibi responding with "Nah, dawg - we're good!" is something that should never be forgiven by the Israeli population.

[CastletonSnob]

Biden at Hanukkah reception: You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist and I’m a Zionist

WWW.ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.COM

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Biden hosts annual Hanukkah celebration at the White House: We will provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas.

 

Serious question: Is Biden actively TRYING to lose in 2024?

[TUFKAK]

22 minutes ago, CastletonSnob said:

Biden at Hanukkah reception: You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist and I’m a Zionist

WWW.ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.COM

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Biden hosts annual Hanukkah celebration at the White House: We will provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas.

 

Serious question: Is Biden actively TRYING to lose in 2024?

Hamas needs to be destroyed and any American who would pull support from Biden to trump over that stance will absolutely love president trump v 2.0, the revenge. 

[Subzwari1987]

7 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

Hamas needs to be destroyed and any American who would pull support from Biden to trump over that stance will absolutely love president trump v 2.0, the revenge. 

Love how you think bombs will destroy Hamas. It’s the same exact thinking we had after 9/11 and that really served us well!

[TUFKAK]

2 minutes ago, Subzwari1987 said:

Love how you think bombs will destroy Hamas. It’s the same exact thinking we had after 9/11 and that really served us well!

Fourth Anniversary of the Global Coalition’s Territorial Defeat of Daesh/ISIS in Syria and Iraq - United States Department of State

WWW.STATE.GOV

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Fourth Anniversary of the Global Coalition’s Territorial Defeat of Daesh/ISIS in Syria and Iraq Four years ago, the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS and its local...

 

[Subzwari1987]

6 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

Fourth Anniversary of the Global Coalition’s Territorial Defeat of Daesh/ISIS in Syria and Iraq - United States Department of State

WWW.STATE.GOV

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Fourth Anniversary of the Global Coalition’s Territorial Defeat of Daesh/ISIS in Syria and Iraq Four years ago, the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS and its local...

 

Did all that without destroying 90% of the area, bombing hospitals, schools and mosques indiscriminately and killing 10,000+ people while calling them all Hamas supporters. 
 

Hamas (or its followers and allies) will emerge stronger from this all thanks to a spineless, dickwad politician trying to save his grip on power. 

[TUFKAK]

21 minutes ago, Subzwari1987 said:

Did all that without destroying 90% of the area, bombing hospitals, schools and mosques indiscriminately and killing 10,000+ people while calling them all Hamas supporters. 
 

Hamas (or its followers and allies) will emerge stronger from this all thanks to a spineless, dickwad politician trying to save his grip on power. 

Ignoring the utter destruction that the area experienced leading up to the victory is interesting. And turning a hospital into a valid military target is on those who did that, not the military operating within ROEs, the same happened in OIF. I can again reference phantom fury if need be. MOUT is always more destructive by its very nature. 
 

I’ve made my feeling on Bibi clear, but there is no way the Israeli govt is going to negotiate a permanent ceasefire with the people who hammered nails into women’s orifices, speaking of spineless. It’ll never happen therefore more people are going to die, or Hamas surrenders and turns over the butchers. 

[Spork3245]

20 minutes ago, Subzwari1987 said:

Did all that without destroying 90% of the area, bombing hospitals, schools and mosques indiscriminately and killing 10,000+ people while calling them all Hamas supporters. 
 

Hamas (or its followers and allies) will emerge stronger from this all thanks to a spineless, dickwad politician trying to save his grip on power. 

What’s your solution? Building to building ground invasion?

[TUFKAK]

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

What’s your solution? Building to building ground invasion?

It may honestly take that though unfortunately, Street by street door by door, and nobody should have any illusions what that will mean.

[SuperSpreader]

Yes yes protest Biden before Trump outlaws protesting.

[Spork3245]

9 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

It may honestly take that though unfortunately, Street by street door by door, and nobody should have any illusions what that will mean.

Ultimately yes, however the bombings are to clear the areas to get somewhat of a retreat/dispersement while taking out military targets prior to going in (correct me if I’m mistaken). Going straight to a ground invasion though, I believe that causalities would be just as horrific if not higher, I think it might also allow Hamas to more-easily “fight back”.

[Spork3245]

4 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

Ultimately yes, however the bombings are to clear the areas to get somewhat of a retreat/dispersement while taking out military targets prior to going in (correct me if I’m mistaken). Going straight to a ground invasion though, I believe that causalities would be just as horrific if not higher, I think it might also allow Hamas to more-easily “fight back”.

BTW, I certainly don’t want to sound like an armchair general or whatever: I just honestly don’t know if there’s an actual way to noticeably reduce casualties in any realistic way.

[LazyPiranha]

7 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

Ignoring the utter destruction that the area experienced leading up to the victory is interesting. And turning a hospital into a valid military target is on those who did that, not the military s ting within ROEs, the same happened in OIF. I can again reference phantom fury if need be. MOUT is always more destructive by its very nature. 
 

I’ve made my feeling on Bibi clear, but there is no way the Israeli govt is going to negotiate a permanent ceasefire with the people who hammered nails into women’s orifices, speaking of spineless. It’ll never happen therefore more people are going to die, or Hamas surrenders and turns over the butchers. 

The Israeli government as it currently stands isn’t going to want a ceasefire regardless of what Hamas have or haven’t done.  The current government wants no Palestine at all, a ceasefire does not serve the goal in the slightest.  Let’s not pretend that they’re so offended by the actions of Hamas that they’re taking out righteous anger, that’s a convenient justification for something they’ve wanted to do since forever.  

[Spork3245]

11 minutes ago, LazyPiranha said:

The Israeli government as it currently stands isn’t going to want a ceasefire regardless of what Hamas have or haven’t done.  The current government wants no Palestine at all, a ceasefire does not serve the goal in the slightest.  Let’s not pretend that they’re so offended by the actions of Hamas that they’re taking out righteous anger, that’s a convenient justification for something they’ve wanted to do since forever.  

I just feel as though it’s worth noting that the current Israeli government represents less than 30% of Israelis who voted in the most recent elections, and 66-70% of Israelis support a two state solution and co-existence with a Palestinian state.

[SuperSpreader]

27 minutes ago, LazyPiranha said:

current government wants no Palestine

 

Potato potAto

[SuperSpreader]

Not to defend Bibi but it sounds like he was literally backdooring millions to Hamas, what more good will did they need? The answer is they want all Jews dead. That is their end goal and there can be no peace. 

[TUFKAK]

26 minutes ago, LazyPiranha said:

The Israeli government as it currently stands isn’t going to want a ceasefire regardless of what Hamas have or haven’t done.  The current government wants no Palestine at all, a ceasefire does not serve the goal in the slightest.  Let’s not pretend that they’re so offended by the actions of Hamas that they’re taking out righteous anger, that’s a convenient justification for something they’ve wanted to do since forever.  

Even if that were the case, maybe don’t hand those people a casus belli. If Israel wanted to wipe Gaza from the map it could, saying otherwise is delusional. As spork said, most Israelis want a two state solution. I personally wish Israel would just pull back and wash their hands of the situation but the religious nutters make that hard.

[TUFKAK]

4 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Not to defend Bibi but it sounds like he was literally backdooring millions to Hamas, what more good will did they need? The answer is they want all Jews dead. That is their end goal and there can be no peace. 

Maybe they should just die quieter? That’ll engender some good will.

Qatar sent millions to Gaza for years – with Israel’s backing. Here’s what we know about the controversial deal | CNN

EDITION.CNN.COM

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Qatar has come under fire by Israeli officials, American politicians and media outlets for sending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza, which is governed by the...

 

[SuperSpreader]

Hamas/Palestinians could have done anything with that money, instead they built tunnels and bombs. How do you ceasefire with that? At least in Mexico when they pay off the cartels they stop killing people so Americans make influencer videos from San Miguel de Allende. 

[Jwheel86]

5 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Hamas/Palestinians could have done anything with that money, instead they built tunnels and bombs. How do you ceasefire with that? At least in Mexico when they pay off the cartels they stop killing people so Americans make influencer videos from San Miguel de Allende. 

 

It would also give the world permission to go back to ignoring the conflict for another decade. 

[TUFKAK]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

Ultimately yes, however the bombings are to clear the areas to get somewhat of a retreat/dispersement while taking out military targets prior to going in (correct me if I’m mistaken). Going straight to a ground invasion though, I believe that causalities would be just as horrific if not higher, I think it might also allow Hamas to more-easily “fight back”.

It provides more targets for Hamas for sure, but it’s also more precise, CAS will always have more collateral damage as ordinance from above isn’t the same as ground engagement

 

. But that is the standard doctrine, although of note in OIF the ground invasion kicked off before the aerial campaign so it can be done. 

 

I only did counter insurgency and primarily trained for that as well, there we basically activated to “establish an American presence” aka draw out the insurgents to destroy them and then call in air strikes or steel rain. I didn’t engage in a typical force on force engagement.