aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/28/23 11:35 a.m.

Israel MAY be starting a new larger incursion.  This of course does not mean a general invasion, they could still pull out and this could be their general tactic to reduce exposure.  Was this a response to a fairly large missile attack (some of which got through) on Tel Aviv?

I would imagine their primary concern is the tunnel network. I am sure they have them somewhat mapped (they have struck them before) but they certainly don't want to be surprised by ones they don't know about.

The Israeli military late Friday into Saturday "expanded" its ground operation in Gaza while also ramping up its bombardment of the Strip, targeting what the IDF said were Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure.

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/27/israel-hamas-ground-invasion-gaza

 

  • The Israeli military says it is inside Gaza after saying Friday it would expand its ground operation following the October 7 Hamas attacks. A spokesman said “the forces are in the field and continue the fighting."

 

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/28/23 1:45 p.m.

Another tidbit (link is behind paywall but someone extracted the text).  From NY Times and does reference Arab sources, so likely not just relying on what Israel says.

Arab and Western officials say there is substance to Israeli claims of Hamas stockpiling supplies, including desperately needed food and fuel.

Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine, the officials said. A senior Lebanese official said Hamas, which is estimated to number between 35,000 and 40,000, had enough stocked away to keep fighting for three to four months without resupply.

While the blockade has left Gaza’s roughly 2 million people scraping by with what little food and water they scrounge up, it does not yet appear to have begun to degrade Hamas’s ability to fight.

Hamas has said little of its supply situation — combatants rarely do — but the government it runs in Gaza says it has an emergency fuel stockpile that is quickly being depleted. “Hospitals, the ambulances and fire fighters’ machinery and civil defense trucks have been using the government emergency fuel store,” said Salama Marouf, who runs the government’s media office in Gaza.

Fuel has taken on growing importance in recent days. Israel has so far refused to allow any fuel to be delivered to Gaza, even as other aid begins to trickle in, leaving much of the enclave without electricity to power hospitals, desalinate or pump water, fire bakers’ ovens and run internet and cellphone services. The United Nations, which handles the bulk of humanitarian relief work in Gaza, said on Thursday that it “has almost exhausted its fuel reserves and begun to significantly reduce its operations.”

As supplies of virtually every basic human necessity dwindle in Gaza, one group in the besieged enclave remains well-stocked: Hamas. 

Arab and Western officials say there is substance to Israeli claims of Hamas stockpiling supplies, including desperately needed food and fuel. Hamas, they say, has spent years building dozens of kilometers of tunnels under the strip where it has amassed stores of virtually everything needed for a drawn-out fight. It is a reality that Israel may soon find itself grappling with if it makes good on its threat to invade Gaza. 

Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine, the officials said. A senior Lebanese official said Hamas, which is estimated to number between 35,000 and 40,000, had enough stocked away to keep fighting for three to four months without resupply. 

One of the four Israeli hostages released by Hamas even described the group providingcaptives with medicine, shampoo and feminine hygiene products. All are now said to be extraordinarily scarce in Gaza more than two weeks after Israel, aided by Egypt, imposed what it called a “complete” blockade following the attack by the terrorist group on Oct. 7. 

The Arab and Western officials who described Hamas’s supply situation all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were disclosing information gleaned from human sources, communications intercepts and other streams of intelligence. The stockpiles are typically kept underground, they said, and cautioned that precise details on Hamas’s supplies were difficult to come by. 

While the blockade has left Gaza’s roughly 2 million people scraping by with what little food and water they scrounge up, it does not yet appear to have begun to degrade Hamas’s ability to fight. The group has launched hundreds of rockets at Israel since the blockade began and have fended off preliminary Israeli incursions into the enclave

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/world/middleeast/palestine-gazans-hamas-food.html

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/28/23 3:09 p.m.

IDF begins ground operation in Gaza Strip - Israeli Prime Minister

Israeli army Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military is slowly ramping up ground operations in the Gaza Strip: "The Israeli army is gradually expanding its ground operations in Gaza and the scope of its forces”

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/29/23 3:20 p.m.

Some info on the location of Israeli operations (purple areas).  As you can see, mostly in the more rural areas at this point:

Violent armed clashes with Israeli forces near the separation fence in two axes in the northern Gaza Strip

(north west area):

Al-Qassam Brigades: Our mujahideen confront the Israeli forces penetrating northwest of Beit Lahia and engage in armed clashes with them

North area:

Hamas movement announces the implementation of a landing operation behind the Israeli army forces' rally lines near the Erez crossing

Israel post list of Hamas leaders they claim to have killed:

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/29/23 3:37 p.m.

Internet connectivity was mostly knocked out in Gaza recently, but is apparently coming back a bit:

 

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/29/23 4:39 p.m.

Israel may have bombed the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza.  From the video, looks like just part of it.

If true, expect even more poop on the fan.  The fan may be full of poop at this point.

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter)
AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) UltraDork
10/30/23 4:35 p.m.

There's a decent summary of the current situation here: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/operation-iron-swords-2023-10-29.htm Too long to copy/quote.

Regarding the hospital:

Tommaso Della Longa, Spokesman, Intl. Fed. of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies said how his colleagues move around with ambulances, “just with the idea of finding the injured”. He added that they “did it the old way”, by following the sound of bombardments and then going to the specific area to see if they could find wounded individuals.

“The Israeli army deliberately continues to launch rockets directly near al-Quds hospital with the aim of forcing medical staff, displaced individuals and patients to evacuate the hospital,” the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement. “This has caused significant damage to hospital departments and exposed residents and patients to suffocation,” the statement added.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it has received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip. "Since this morning, there has been raids 50 meters away from the hospital," it added in a statement on Facebook. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that reports the Palestinian Red Crescent had received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip were "deeply concerning". "The Palestinian Red Crescent report of evacuation threats to Al-Quds hospital in Gaza is deeply concerning," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X. "We reiterate - it's impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives."

In response to the last statement, I'd have to reply that NOT evacuating that hospital endangers their lives.

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/30/23 7:08 p.m.

Israelis have cut the main north / south road.

------

Bloomberg reports: “The war between Israel and Hamas has rattled the Houthis.” The Houthis are a large militant group of radical Shiite Muslims, supported by Iran: based in northern Yemen. Sources tell Bloomberg: "Saudi forces are on high alert after a deadly clash with Houthi rebels that left four Saudi soldiers dead." The deaths of Saudi soldiers are the first known casualties for the Kingdom's armed forces since the previous truce with the Houthis last April.

--------

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/understanding-the-hamas-net-worth/ar-AA1ivwb7

Of note of course is most Palestinian civilians are quite poor.  This contrast is a long standing tradition amongst those who claim to lead / support the Palestinians apparently:

...So far, Prince's team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.

Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat. And, Prince says, none of these dealings were made public...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arafats-billions/

------

Perhaps maybe the Hezbollah rockets coming from your country may need to stop first?

Prime Minister of Lebanon Mikati: The decision to go to war is in Israel's hands if it continues to violate borders and violations

Recon1342
Recon1342 SuperDork
10/30/23 7:27 p.m.

Hamas has two options here- they can admit they kicked the hornet's nest one too many times, surrender, and distribute their stockpiles of supplies to the people they claim to speak for, thereby easing the suffering of the civilian populace of Gaza... 

 

or they can continue to be greasy taint smears. 
 

 

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter)
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) PowerDork
10/31/23 12:22 a.m.

In reply to Recon1342 :

You'll find the evil people that profit from the suffering of others are incapable of admitting anything.  This is universal.  The mere thought of people being that evil will make a lot of people turn a blind eye to it all as well.  

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
10/31/23 12:59 p.m.

In relation to the above:

Interview of one of the heads of Hamas, Abu Marzouk:

- You built 500 km of tunnels for weapons, but nothing for the civilians of Gaza, why?
- And we should not take care of civilians, it is the UN who should take care of them.

A bit of a map update.  Reports of Israel starting to enter tunnels.  Prisoners being taken.  Israeli soldiers being killed.  Hamas fighter surrendering.  Of note if you see any vids or pics of surrendered Hamas fighters:  It is common practice to strip them down to try and avoid suicide bombers.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says the IDF is making "significant" achievements during the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, but that it is also "paying a heavy price.". "We are deploying forces on a large scale, deep in the Strip," says Gallant to troops of the Air Force's elite Shaldag and 669 units. "There are battles against the forces that are operating [in Gaza] and the results and achievements on the battlefield are very high. Unfortunately, in war, there are also prices, and the prices in the last day were heavy prices. Despite that, we are also determined to continue and win," he adds.

 

Yemen Houthis officially declared war on Israel

The Yemeni Armed Forces launched ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as a large number of drones, at various targets in Israel. “We will continue to carry out better attacks using missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops,” said Yemeni military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya al-Sari.

https://report.az/en/other-countries/yemen-officially-declares-war-on-israel/

 

Hezbollah and Iran have informed America that they have a deadline until dawn on Friday (before Seyed Nasrallah's speech) to end the aggression against Gaza or enter into a direct and open war with the entire resistance axis. Hassan Nasrallah informed Hamas and Islamic Jihad that every time he gave a speech on television, he would announce a major event, perhaps the party's entry into the Battle of Al-Aqsa.

TJL (Forum Supporter)
TJL (Forum Supporter) SuperDork
10/31/23 1:36 p.m.

Driven5
Driven5 PowerDork
10/31/23 5:24 p.m.

Confirmed Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp, that may or may not have included a Hamas 'senior commander' affiliated with the Oct 7 attacks. Not good optics even if they did get the guy they were after... And absolutely terrible if it turns out they didn't.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/middleeast/jabalya-blast-gaza-intl/index.html

jmabarone
jmabarone HalfDork
11/1/23 9:56 a.m.

Not making excuses for civilian casualties, but this is what happens when you use civilian populations as meat shields.  One would hope that the innocents involved would get fed up and distance themselves...but I have no idea how difficult that would be. 

Similar to the status in Russia...how many people are fed up with the status quo but are powerless to do anything about it?  

I did hear an interesting statistic on the radio (haven't spent a ton of time trying to find the poll, but this host is a guy that doesn't say something he cannot back up) that roughly 50% of Palestinians in Gaza supported Hamas BUT 70% felt that Israel need to be destroyed.

bobzilla
bobzilla MegaDork
11/1/23 10:10 a.m.
aircooled said:

 

Hezbollah and Iran have informed America that they have a deadline until dawn on Friday (before Seyed Nasrallah's speech) to end the aggression against Gaza or enter into a direct and open war with the entire resistance axis. Hassan Nasrallah informed Hamas and Islamic Jihad that every time he gave a speech on television, he would announce a major event, perhaps the party's entry into the Battle of Al-Aqsa.

This right here is what Hamas was shooting for all along IMO. hold out long enough to encite a regional holy war. Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon all attacking Israel at once while they have much of their forces tied up in the strip. I am no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express a few times.

02Pilot
02Pilot PowerDork
11/1/23 10:31 a.m.
jmabarone said:

Not making excuses for civilian casualties, but this is what happens when you use civilian populations as meat shields.  One would hope that the innocents involved would get fed up and distance themselves...but I have no idea how difficult that would be. 

Similar to the status in Russia...how many people are fed up with the status quo but are powerless to do anything about it?  

I did hear an interesting statistic on the radio (haven't spent a ton of time trying to find the poll, but this host is a guy that doesn't say something he cannot back up) that roughly 50% of Palestinians in Gaza supported Hamas BUT 70% felt that Israel need to be destroyed.

As usual, it's much easier to complain than to do something. In both Russia and the Middle East, there are many problems that are largely domestic in origin, and could be very problematic for the respective regimes if blame was laid at their feet. Rather than risk this, they build up their enemies and blame them for everything bad thing that's happening. For ordinary people, many of whom lack the skillset necessary to see the larger picture with any sort of clarity, it's just easier to blame NATO or Israel for all your woes than it is to hold your arbitrary and violence-prone leaders to task.

02Pilot
02Pilot PowerDork
11/1/23 10:41 a.m.
bobzilla said:
aircooled said:

 

Hezbollah and Iran have informed America that they have a deadline until dawn on Friday (before Seyed Nasrallah's speech) to end the aggression against Gaza or enter into a direct and open war with the entire resistance axis. Hassan Nasrallah informed Hamas and Islamic Jihad that every time he gave a speech on television, he would announce a major event, perhaps the party's entry into the Battle of Al-Aqsa.

This right here is what Hamas was shooting for all along IMO. hold out long enough to encite a regional holy war. Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon all attacking Israel at once while they have much of their forces tied up in the strip. I am no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express a few times.

Just for clarity, it is quite unlikely that you're going to see Syria (which has a world of trouble to deal with already), Lebanon (ditto), and Yemen (double ditto) officially join any war against Israel. Iran is possible, but doing so formally opens them up to a massive E36 M3storm if Israel decides now's the time to start popping their nuclear facilities (they're buried deep, but I have a feeling the Israelis have contingencies in place to deal with them, which may or may not be military in the conventional sense; think sleeper agents and cyberwarfare). Far more likely is Iran mobilizing all the proxy groups in the area - Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. - and letting them do the fighting and dying. It serves Iran's purposes better to confine the messiness to a battlefield hundreds of miles away from their own restive population.

Now, if Israel decides to strike first against Iran (which I'm sure the US is pleading for it not to do), then all bets are off. I don't think it's terribly likely right now, but this is a dynamic situation. I would not be at all surprised to see actions against assets like Iran's shipping, increased cyberwarfare, and perhaps even fomenting protests inside Iran, but a direct strike feels risky and potentially very costly at the moment.

volvoclearinghouse
volvoclearinghouse UltimaDork
11/1/23 11:33 a.m.

In reply to 02Pilot :

"As usual, it's much easier to complain than to do something. In both Russia and the Middle East, there are many problems that are largely domestic in origin, and could be very problematic for the respective regimes if blame was laid at their feet. Rather than risk this, they build up their enemies and blame them for everything bad thing that's happening. For ordinary people, many of whom lack the skillset necessary to see the larger picture with any sort of clarity, it's just easier to blame NATO or Israel for all your woes than it is to hold your arbitrary and violence-prone leaders to task."

Glad that's something that only happens in other countries.  Not here. 

Driven5
Driven5 PowerDork
11/1/23 5:03 p.m.

Second confirmed airstrike on the same refugee camp, potentially killing a second Hamas commander.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-jets-strike-gaza-camp-says-hamas-commander-killed-2023-11-01/

 

Latest UN and WHO backed numbers...

Israeli children killed by Hamas in 1 day: 30+ (2% of total estimated casualties)

Palestinian children killed by IDF in subsequent 23* days: 3,500+ (41% of total estimated casualties)

 

* Does not include either of the refugee camp airstrikes.

jmabarone
jmabarone HalfDork
11/1/23 5:15 p.m.

Just shows that Hamas knows how work the PR game and maximize collateral damage.  

Boost_Crazy
Boost_Crazy Dork
11/1/23 5:16 p.m.

In reply to Driven5 :

A second airstrike has been carried out on the same refugee camp, potentially killing a second Hamas commander.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-jets-strike-gaza-camp-says-hamas-commander-killed-2023-11-01/

 

Latest UN and WHO backed numbers...

Israeli children killed by Hamas in 1 day: 30+ (2% of total estimated casualties)

Palestinian children killed by IDF in subsequent 23* days: 3,500+ (41% of total estimated casualties)

 

* Does not include either of the refugee camp airstrikes.

Number of Israeli children Hamas had tried to/intends to kill: All of them. 
 

Number of Israeli soldiers hiding behind children: Zero. 

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
11/1/23 5:35 p.m.

In reply to Driven5 :

It should be noted that the median age in the Gaza strip is 18 for females and 17 for males. Depending on how you define it, somewhere around 50% of the population could be considered children:  https://www.countryreports.org/country/GazaStrip/population.htm

If you are trying to draw some sort of equivalency / proportionality between the two incidents, you should also note the apparent intent of the two:  As far as we know, the Israelis would prefer to avoid civilian / child casualties.  Hamas specifically targeted civilian families / children and I am pretty sure would have been gleeful (based on how happy they were in their videos with their work) to find as many babies and children as they could.  They also of course hide amongst their civilians and appear (and even say) they are very willing to sacrifice them for their cause (or, if you will, have been fooled into believing that is a good idea).

That is to say, Hamas should certainly take (some/alot/all?) the blame for civilian / child casualties also.

I do see the question of "what is proportional" a lot (semi-implied above).  I am not sure that is terribly relevant here either.  The Israelis (at least declared) intent, is the destruction of Hamas, not to "return the favor". If they were doing the later, it would look far different. 

aircooled
aircooled MegaDork
11/1/23 6:11 p.m.

Map update.  It seems rather obvious the Israelis are going to cut off Gaza city from the south (not like it's a supply route or anything though).  They might be heading toward that hospital, which is northwest of the Gaza text below (about where the cross hairs are).

They are just getting into the built up areas.  Central Gaza has the potential to be a whole new level.  There are already videos of Hamas popping out of tunnels and sniping at Israeli tanks.

Driven5
Driven5 PowerDork
11/1/23 7:17 p.m.

In reply to aircooled :

The well known fact that the Israeli children were not being used as human shields makes their deaths entirely at the hands of Hamas. No argument there, nor was any intended. However, the fact that children make up such a low percentage of victims indicates that either their targeting of children was either largely a failure, or perhaps is even being being overstated.

Conversely, the well known fact that the Palestinian children were/are being used as human shields makes their deaths considerably more complicated, although the reasons for the high percentage is pretty obvious. Some would argue that the responsibility for their deaths lies entirely in the hands of those who choose to use them as human shields. Some would argue that the responsibility for their deaths are entirely at the hands of those who choose to pull the trigger anyway. And some would argue that the responsibility for their deaths is shared somewhere along a spectrum between the two.

I accept that there is no reasoning with either of the former absolutist groups. The real value in posting these numbers is the introspection among the 3rd group. How to place a value on where in the spectrum the truth lies? How many children should a 'good' person be willing to kill in order to kill a genuinely-bad person, and how many is too many before their indifference makes them no better themselves? At what point should support become conditional, and what conditions are reasonable? These are the questions that the 3rd group continues to actively struggling with, as they do not take answering such questions lightly.

Since the brutality of the Israeli children deaths is being used as part of the rallying cry to justify the scale and intensity of the counter attacks, then there is an inherent proportionality there, even if it's not 1:1 per the noted inequivalence. Much as I would counter that this also shows that Israel does not know how to work the PR game and minimize collateral damage, I would similarly argue that if Israel were trying not to 'return the favor' things would look different as well.

That's a fair point on the demographic differences being largely an unknown variable in trying to interpret the numbers.

wae
wae PowerDork
11/1/23 8:24 p.m.

In reply to Driven5 :

If you haven't already, you should listen to Dan Carlin's Logical Insanity episode of Hardcore History.  He's not talking about children specifically, but it is a very interesting discourse on the intentional and unintentional targeting of civilians in warfare.

At a high level, I sympathize with the Israelis and am generally supportive of them.  But even if they aren't targeting children and other civilians, and even if you assign 100% of the blame to Hamas for operating in such as way as to be using the civilian population as cover, and even if you assign the blame to the civilians for not doing anything to stop Hamas, it's a real human tragedy for the noncombatants that are stuck in a warzone.  Just as it is a human tragedy for the Israelis that were butchered or kidnapped -- or both -- by Hamas or who have had rockets rained down upon them.  I wonder what parallels could be drawn to the Viet Cong versus the American military in Vietnam, to the civilian populations that suffered when the USSR fought the Mujahideen or when the US fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, and to the people of Northern Ireland as the IRA and the British fought.

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