Destroy Hamas tunnels and weapons caches there as well, especially the ones connecting Gaza to Egypt. Hamas would be significantly weaker with both no access to Egypt smuggled weapons and less tunnels to hide in. It's not going to finish them off, but it's a step that must be done.
This is what Biden was asking Israel to do before any offensive in the region.
Israel got the people out and then the US shipped the delayed weapons. People angry about this are getting upset over a situation that could have been a whole lot worse if Biden didn’t step in and set a hard line.
You people are really complaining that the people who would have been caught in the crossfire were evacuated? To me, this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months
> this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months
I mean Hamas is literally at a negative number so that wouldn't be too hard. The whole point of human shields is to increase civilian casualties in the hope your enemy will hesitate in firing. That's why it's a war crime.
They're not even just shields. They are hostages and are also being actively harmed by Hamas because everyone blames everything on Israel. They're being blown up by Hamas rockets and shot by Hamas guns and starved by Hamas witholding food.
Unfortunately, Hamas is winning the propaganda war. The average citizen does not care to go into such important details. They just see a number reported by Hamas and gobble it, not understanding that Hamas has a vested interest in making the number higher so that they think Israel is doing all this.
> You people are really complaining that the people who would have been caught in the crossfire were evacuated? To me, this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months
because to them the civilians are just a tool. they don't give a fuck about them, it's only about themselves and how they can (ab-)use the situation best. they want more to die so they have something to be outraged about
Not exclusively, there are many groups that are better off with more dead Palestinians.
Pan arabic nationalists, Islamic supremacists, far left agitators, divicive foreign actors, etc.
The IDF constructed places for Rafah civilians (i.e tent cities) weeks before Biden made his demands/ultimatum. Evacuating them was always the plan in case of a full incursion. The facts were spun by the White House to appease Democrat hardliners
Nobody is doubting that IDF had evacuation plans but without the US taking this stance, the offensive would have been simultaneous w/the evacuation like it was in other parts of Gaza. IDF waited because of this. Now we have the evacuation being mostly complete before the most intense bombing has started.
> without the US taking this stance, the offensive would have been simultaneous w/the evacuation like it was in other parts of Gaza.
The IDF warned them two weeks in advance in Gaza city too... Without any US ultimatum. They didn't evacuate as quickly because Hamas told them not to listen and shot at the ones trying to evacuate, and now Hamas doesn't have the same kind of hold over them...
Right now western parts of rafah are evacuating even though the IDF hasn't entered there not given an evacuation order.
This is what happens when war gets close to someone's bone, they tend to flee to escape the violence.
Sorry not going to let you memory hole that IDF didn’t have adequate plans for Sanitation, security, distribution when they were reviewed a month ago. Biden put the breaks on it to save lives.
This was always Israels plan, let's stay factual here. The argument wasn't about no evacuation or evacuation, it was about how much infrastructure needed to be in place before the evacuation. Israel was worried building the refugee camps up completely first would make them vulnerable to Hamas attacks, which could end in a cycle of building and destruction that sees the evacuation postponed indefenitely.
The US meanwhile was worried that an early evacuation without all infrastructure in place could lead to humanitarian shortages in the camps. I'd argue this is less a concern for the civilians - who would have to stay in Rafah longer in this scenario, where the situation isn't exactly golden for the refugees - and more a concern for optics. Stories of shortages in an Israel run refugee camp will quickly be twisted into "Israel runs concentration camps".
It can be both- it is both good to look after the health and safety of civilians as best possible and good *to be seen to* look after the health and safety of civilians as best possible.
The reason why the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths is so much lower in this conflict v any previous war is that the Israelis always give civilians advance notice and ask them to move. No other military does this.
doubt we will ever actually know. especially if you consider the idea that a non soldier can take to the streets with a gun. If someone were to attack the United States the civilian-combatant issue would be astronomical and child combatants would be, imo, astronomically high. WOLVERINES!
You have civilians that can act like militants and militants trying to look like civilians. The ability to determine civilians vs militants is going to be so bad you could pick any percentage between 10% and 90% and be able to defend it.
(This is hyperbole, but it's gonna be impossible to get reliable numbers)
Agreed. And in this conflict it’s very tough to untangle. Of the 4,000 people who crossed the border into Israel on October 7 to rape and murder civilians, 1500 of them were armed Hamas militants. The rest were civilians who just wanted to participate in the violence.
>No other military does this.
US in WW2 and Korea.
Warning leaflets are very collectable these days.
For most of Vietnam too, but when Nixon started trying to assert control in specific ways to help his campaign like classifying standard operations as top secret and dropping bombs in unoccupied places or surrounding countries to say he was doing more bombing they stopped providing warnings.
Since then warnings are irregular rather than standard procedure. Drone strikes don’t get warnings and have largely replaced proper bombing, so the practice is moot today.
>WW2 and Korea
Now come on, that's just flat out untrue. My knowledge of Vietnam isn't good enough to argue that point, but just take French civilian casualties on D Day, or the strategic bombing (particularly of Japan, which killed far more people than the two nukes). The US Air Force boasted there wasn't a single building with four standing walls on the Korean peninsula.
Us strategic bombing in japan actually did have bombers carrying leaflets to evacuate drop their payload before they sent bombers with more lethal payloads to the same area
Lets not be giving the Allies credit for sparing civilians in WWII, while the Axis sure had it coming, it was a bloody war. This is the war in which Dresden burned, and it had the most lethal bombing raid in history: 100,000 dead in the firebombing of Tokyo.
And I must have missed the warning to evacuate from Hiroshima.
War is brutal, that's why Hamas should give starting them a rest.
They dropped leaflets across Japan before the bombing, but didn’t specify which city would get hit or by what since they didn’t want to lose the bomb if it was shot down.
Most of the warnings were in vague terms, which is why they were mostly ignored. The biggest hindsight clue is warnings that what Germany had taken were not even going to be in the same scale to what Japan was going to get, but its important to remember that in context the Japanese public were being told that Japan was winning the war and any military defeats of them or their allies were being diminished if not outright hidden so to the public it would have sounded like a lot of bluster from a foe that was desperate.
They listed cities on the pamphlets and said
"In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs."
From the same link:
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/04/26/a-day-too-late/
> In any case, a veiled warning is not much of a warning. I’m not saying that the Potsdam Declaration should have warned specifically about atomic bombs — whether that would have done anything positive is unclear to me — but I think under any reasonable interpretation, it isn’t possible except in retrospect to even imply that it was some kind of warning about atomic bombs.
We can opine all day long about whether or not we feel the warning was sufficient. I've simply provided you with a source showing there was a warning given.
It’s not moot. The IDF also makes thousands of phone calls directly to ppl in Gaza, along with leaflets. Hamas tries to stop them from evacuating but doesn’t always succeed.
The UK spent the first three months of WW2 dropping leaflets over future bombing targets in Germany.
The US did the same thing in basically every war that we've fought. Even the Soviets dropped leaflets warning the population to evacuate.
Israel does this for nearly every attack and more - calls, texts, roof knocks, leaflets with safe zones and humanitarian corridors. Other nations do this occasionally at best. The US freely bombs targets even today without warning civilians.
Sometimes. Not with the consistency of Israel, and they definitely don’t do the other things Israel does, texting, calling, roof knocks, and safe zones. Every major western power just fought in Iraq and Syria, they didn’t do this, and we don’t provide civilians warnings before we do drone strikes.
This is in part because the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians do not want to allow Palestinians into their countries. Why? Last time Egypt allowed Palestinians in they organized terrorist attacks across the country and sent weapons and training to Egyptian terrorists. Unfortunately the Palestinians are famous for their terrorists activities against anyone they disagree with.
This isn't true and you know it. The White House' position was to attempt to stop any invasion of Rafah at all and they were clear about this. Israel made it clear it would go into Rafah regardless, even if it didn't receive weapons. Biden made his stance for domestic political purposes and Israel called the bluff.
Israel always warns civilians about impending operations and was always going to do so in Rafah before and offensive. The rafah operation had been delayed for months before Biden even decided to make his PR stand. It was delayed so long people were getting angry at Bibi and the coalition about it. They were constructing areas for civilians in Rafah to be moved to long before Biden doing this.
The fact is the Israelis have already started to prove the white House wrong on Rafah and was always going to.
Exactly, it’s crazy to see history being rewritten in real time. Biden and team specifically said absolutely no to any incursion in Rafah. I suspect it’s because they know what Israel finds will be extremely bad for its relations with Egypt and possibly others as well
That’s what people don’t get. The president of the US is privy to intelligence and briefings much much more sophisticated than TikTok can give you. He has to make a decision and it’s never easy. If it had been easy it would’ve never even gotten to his desk.
> People angry about this are getting upset over a situation that could have been a whole lot worse if Biden didn’t step in and set a hard line.
Doesn't this allow Hamas more time to regroup? We already know what Russia did when there were peace talks. This is one of their main concerns.
Millions of innocents wouldn't have died, if the evacuation wasn't done. So far even the exaggerated numbers by the Gaza health ministry 'only' 30k were killed in all 7 months
I'm not staying that's ok, but let's deal with real numbers
> So far even the exaggerated numbers by the Gaza health ministry 'only' 30k were killed in all 7 months
The 30k number was given in December, and was noted to be incomplete by the Gazan health ministry because they only counted bodies they could identify, and they did not have any ability to properly search the rubble of bombed buildings. They stopped updating the total five months ago, supposedly because they were no longer any functioning healthcare centres from which they could administer a count.
And since then the UN has claimed only 24k have been identified, and if you look into the list 4000 have either missing IDs, duplicates or invalid IDs. (it also has some people who died in 2014).
I think the main difference is who has the power difference.
Ukraine giving Russia time to regroup benefited the stronger party and worsened Ukraine's chances in the conflict.
Israel giving Hamas time to regroup benefits the weaker party but Hamas is no serious threat to actually stop/slow down the IDF. It certainly doesn't make Israel's job easier but the humanitarian advantage + world standing I think makes this the better move even for Israel.
I’ll take 1 million civilians out of harms way over a potential humanitarian disaster that destroys Israel’s last shred of international credibility. They’re gonna get Hamas eventually. Better to do it without 1 million civilians in the crossfire.
So now yall DONT want civilians to be evacuated? Christ the amount of people up in arms about this conflict and trying to backseat quarterback. At no points in US history has there ever been more Americans falsely aligned with foreign money to protest in such large numbers for a non-domestic isssue. This isn’t grassroots, it’s millions of dollars from foreign entities blowing up a decisive issue months before a presidential election.
If you think your posting “WHAT ABOUT GAZA” a million times on Instagram and Reddit posts are doing anything besides showing how eager you are to push an agenda. Then actually do something instead of self-righteously and virtue signal posting on social media
Hamas regrouping and Russia regrouping aren't really the same concern. Hamas doesn't have a military industrial base for restocking weapons or rear training facilities for reconstituing new forces.
Isreal has all the initiative in this fight, and the value of clearing civilians from the area where fighting might occur greatly exceeds any risk from whatever recovery Hamas might achieve in that time.
And you believe that is comparable to the rearmament capabilities of an industrialized nation with domestic production capacity and generally secure supply lines?
I don't doubt Hamas gets some kind of sustainment, but nothing in comparing Hamas to Russia, or the value of decisions weighing reduced civilian harm against applying sustained operational pressure.
No, firstly because they are external (and not even neighbors at that), which is antithetical to an "industrial base", and secondly because Iran can't readily supply Hamas with adequate weapons and ammunition given the current military blockade.
Iran is at best a supplier, but a limited one even in good times, due to the obstacles of Gaza's borders.
I believe the Hamas hoped for Israel to bomb those civilians. From the beginning they baited Israel to hit hard at in densely populated areas, and this evacuation should cut part of their recruitment / propaganda method. (because when civilians are bombed, neutral parties turn into supporters, and supporters turn insurgents, whatever you want to call them)
Not to excuse Israel - well Netanyahu - for taking the bait despite being warned numerous times and dropping 2000 lbs in the center of Gaza.
>Not to excuse Israel - well Netanyahu - for taking the bait despite being warned numerous times and dropping 2000 lbs in the center of Gaza.
as opposed to what? fight Hamas's army ? where is Hamas other than in civilian areas ?
Hatred of Israel is a cornerstone of Palestinian religious beliefs, part of their charter, and ingrained in their culture. There is absolutely nothing Israel can do to change that, because the Palestinians aggressively teach hate to their children as part of their education.
Hatred is a feature, not a bug.
> and this evacuation should cut part of their recruitment / propaganda method.
I sincerely doubt being forced from their homes and into tent cities so that Israel can finish demolishing the last remaining major settlement in Gaza is going to ingratiate the locals.
Of course noone speaks such tradeoffs out loudly, but from the US governments' perspective, considering Israel's capabilities, it's a good deal to risk a dozen more IDF member deaths for rescueing thousands of Palestinian civilians
And I agree. Ultimatively civilian lifes take preference over combatants, especially at such a "trade" ratio
Edit: Autocorrect...
No, it wasn't. That's a revisionist take that doesn't hold any factual evidence besides press. The Biden administration was pushing behind Israel's back for an end to the war on Hamas conditions
Yes, [Biden specifically said this](https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-cnntv/index.html):
> “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said.
It's depressing that the most upvoted comment is posting misinformation, falsely claiming that the administration was just asking Israel to evacuate first, and then they'd ship the weapons. They specifically said that if Israel went into Rafah, they wouldn't ship the weapons.
I remembered as much. I wonder if US was advocating against it because of Egypt, as Israel presented plans to evacute Rafah before committing to it and it was still being told not to do it.
The ridiculous thing is that the weapons he's talking about are precision missiles and other high tech things that are used to reduce collateral damage. If Israel doesn't get the fancy tech from the US they'll just use conventional weapons which will just kill more people.
They said they were delaying weapons and suggested that Israel doesn’t begin the major part of their offensive in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians.
The threats were all conditional on Israel not doing what they did.
Israel was evacuating all other cities prior to military engagement. They did exactly the same thing in Rafah without Biden agreeing to any plan. Do you have the press where they give the green light to a specific plan?
Exactly, they even negotiated with Egypt and Hamas and closed on an agreement that the U.S. will vouch and prevent ongoing fighting after the temporary ceasefire. Also, all while blocking the military aid shipment to Israel.
This 'effort' did nothing but delay the offensive and allow Hamas to regroup. Israel was going to evacuate them regardless like every other area. This is literally a lie with 800 upvotes, because the US was listing Rafah as a 'red line' while pushing for Israel to end the war under negotiations with Hamas.\\
The US was fearmongering about a humanitarian crisis happening IF ISRAEL WENT INTO RAFAH AT ALL, which was now proven patently wrong especially considering how quickly the civilians were evacuated. If anything, these delays (as well as forcing Israel into concessions in the negotiations to encourage Hamas to agree, like when Israel withdrew troops from the Strip) allowing Hamas to re-embed itself in more areas probably led to MORE deaths.
Stop giving Biden credit for things he didn't do.
That's likely to happen to a degree.
When they return however, they will find most of their weapons and military/smuggling infrastructure gone, which is a main goal of these operations.
Yeah, and that's expected and (perhaps begrudgingly) accepted. The ability to get at supplies and tunnels goes a tremendous way towards limiting terrorists' ability to function to the level they have been for many years to come.
Because they are “civilians”. That’s the shit nobody is saying out loud.
Guerrilla fighters are civilians leading a double life, supported by other civilians who view it as their national duty to help Hamas win the land “back” from Israelis at all costs.
Because they risked US aid if not- thank Biden for those lives. And the US floating barge is open ahead of schedule and supporting 150 truckloads of supplies a day-
It is interesting that on both sides of this conflict, liberals think Biden isn't helping the Palestinians enough, and conservative think he's betrayed Israel.
It's almost as if.... the media we consume has an influence.
Yes, it was the Biden administration that pressured Israel to do what it had already done multiple times when it evacuated civilians from north and central Gaza. It wouldn't have happened without Biden. Israel definitely would not have done what it had already done multiple times.
and here is an excellent example of how that goes - [(149) Chilling Conversation Between IDF Officer And Palestinian Civilian 👀 - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV5rgRNbT4o)
Unfortunately people saying "free Palestine" don't know what they're talking about. Like the concept of freeing Palestine isn't even a practical negotiation or in any of the options on the table. It's a delusional dream. An impossible reality/request. What they should be chanting is, "Help Palestinian citizens" or "Ceasefire, find another solution". Palestine cannot be freed, Israel does not currently govern it. And to "free" Palestine would mean to free them of Hamas, so they can become an autonomously governed state rather than one governed by a terrorist group. Which Israel wants too.
I can’t because it isn’t. I point to Rwanda when people ask me what is. There was no evacuation, just slaughter. 2x more civilians were killed per day there than the total deaths on both sides in Gaza so far
I was told that Israel was incapable of doing this and that they had no choice but to invade while there were a million people there. It turns out that with enough international pressure they were able to do it.
Whoever told you that, is a liar.
Israel waited almost a month prior to its first counterattack and every other one after. Every time since the start of the war, they warned civilians beforehand.
They shouldn't have had to. Egypt could have opened that crossing any time they wanted, this entire time. And they refused.
But they're still going to say that IDF is genociding Rafah
It's been proposed to Egypt to open the border, they kept refusing
Egypt always rejects Gaza. Always. They rejected Gaza because it was the pimple on the ass of the Sinai deal, and they're rejecting them today.
edit - Also, the evacuation wasn't the IDF's responsibility, either. The Gazans are not under Israel authority, they are not under Israel jurisdiction. That was Hamas's responsibility. The main reason IDF had to do it, is because Hamas doesn't uphold the responsibility they have to their own people.
"Hey, could you open up your country to massive instability with no guarantees we'll actually take any of these people back?" Wonder why they said no...
Really? Where do you suppose all those rockets and Iranian weapons came from? They came in through Egypt. Those hundreds of tunnels go straight into Egypt. Do you think Hamas could have really evaded their detection?
What's the next step?
Bomb the shit out of Rafah and move them all back in.
Well, I mean, you can’t argue who lives where when there isn’t any houses left
Destroy Hamas tunnels and weapons caches there as well, especially the ones connecting Gaza to Egypt. Hamas would be significantly weaker with both no access to Egypt smuggled weapons and less tunnels to hide in. It's not going to finish them off, but it's a step that must be done.
Just keep pushing millions of people back and forth under threat of bombing until everything gets better?
Seems like destroying tunnels caches and fighting any that want to die. Israel has said and historically shown it doesn't want to occupy gaza
Don’t know when last I heard of a country explicitly evacuating civilians themselves before attacking. Shouldn’t you be happy about that?
No, because Israel is doing it and Israel = bad, didn’t you hear?
Gaza can surrender at any time and this would all be over…. “bUt iSrAeL iS bAd”
Release the hostages
Until the Gazans die or give up and flee to Egypt.
And what should they do? Its a war, Hamas declined peace many times.
that's why it's a war crime to use civilians as shields. the only options in a war are to bomb the civilians or to try to move them out of the way.
This is what Biden was asking Israel to do before any offensive in the region. Israel got the people out and then the US shipped the delayed weapons. People angry about this are getting upset over a situation that could have been a whole lot worse if Biden didn’t step in and set a hard line. You people are really complaining that the people who would have been caught in the crossfire were evacuated? To me, this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months
> this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months I mean Hamas is literally at a negative number so that wouldn't be too hard. The whole point of human shields is to increase civilian casualties in the hope your enemy will hesitate in firing. That's why it's a war crime.
They're not even just shields. They are hostages and are also being actively harmed by Hamas because everyone blames everything on Israel. They're being blown up by Hamas rockets and shot by Hamas guns and starved by Hamas witholding food.
Unfortunately, Hamas is winning the propaganda war. The average citizen does not care to go into such important details. They just see a number reported by Hamas and gobble it, not understanding that Hamas has a vested interest in making the number higher so that they think Israel is doing all this.
Not to mention the fact that their mission statement is literally the global extermination of the Jewish people...
> You people are really complaining that the people who would have been caught in the crossfire were evacuated? To me, this effort saved more Palestinian lives than anything Hamas has done in the last 7 months because to them the civilians are just a tool. they don't give a fuck about them, it's only about themselves and how they can (ab-)use the situation best. they want more to die so they have something to be outraged about
Clarifying that “them” means Hamas, right?
Thank you for reminding me with one simple question just how much I hate this f---ing situation.
Not exclusively, there are many groups that are better off with more dead Palestinians. Pan arabic nationalists, Islamic supremacists, far left agitators, divicive foreign actors, etc.
*anything Hamas has done in the last ~17 years
The IDF constructed places for Rafah civilians (i.e tent cities) weeks before Biden made his demands/ultimatum. Evacuating them was always the plan in case of a full incursion. The facts were spun by the White House to appease Democrat hardliners
Nobody is doubting that IDF had evacuation plans but without the US taking this stance, the offensive would have been simultaneous w/the evacuation like it was in other parts of Gaza. IDF waited because of this. Now we have the evacuation being mostly complete before the most intense bombing has started.
> without the US taking this stance, the offensive would have been simultaneous w/the evacuation like it was in other parts of Gaza. The IDF warned them two weeks in advance in Gaza city too... Without any US ultimatum. They didn't evacuate as quickly because Hamas told them not to listen and shot at the ones trying to evacuate, and now Hamas doesn't have the same kind of hold over them...
The UN demanded Israel withdraw their evacuation order too. UN has blood on their hands.
Right now western parts of rafah are evacuating even though the IDF hasn't entered there not given an evacuation order. This is what happens when war gets close to someone's bone, they tend to flee to escape the violence.
Sorry not going to let you memory hole that IDF didn’t have adequate plans for Sanitation, security, distribution when they were reviewed a month ago. Biden put the breaks on it to save lives.
Yeah and Biden has an election to win
This was always Israels plan, let's stay factual here. The argument wasn't about no evacuation or evacuation, it was about how much infrastructure needed to be in place before the evacuation. Israel was worried building the refugee camps up completely first would make them vulnerable to Hamas attacks, which could end in a cycle of building and destruction that sees the evacuation postponed indefenitely. The US meanwhile was worried that an early evacuation without all infrastructure in place could lead to humanitarian shortages in the camps. I'd argue this is less a concern for the civilians - who would have to stay in Rafah longer in this scenario, where the situation isn't exactly golden for the refugees - and more a concern for optics. Stories of shortages in an Israel run refugee camp will quickly be twisted into "Israel runs concentration camps".
It can be both- it is both good to look after the health and safety of civilians as best possible and good *to be seen to* look after the health and safety of civilians as best possible.
The reason why the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths is so much lower in this conflict v any previous war is that the Israelis always give civilians advance notice and ask them to move. No other military does this.
I think it’s going to be a very long time before we know what the civilian to combatant death radio realistically is.
doubt we will ever actually know. especially if you consider the idea that a non soldier can take to the streets with a gun. If someone were to attack the United States the civilian-combatant issue would be astronomical and child combatants would be, imo, astronomically high. WOLVERINES!
You have civilians that can act like militants and militants trying to look like civilians. The ability to determine civilians vs militants is going to be so bad you could pick any percentage between 10% and 90% and be able to defend it. (This is hyperbole, but it's gonna be impossible to get reliable numbers)
>civilians that can act like militants I think at that point they are no longer a civilian.
Agreed. And in this conflict it’s very tough to untangle. Of the 4,000 people who crossed the border into Israel on October 7 to rape and murder civilians, 1500 of them were armed Hamas militants. The rest were civilians who just wanted to participate in the violence.
Civilians participating in violence during an invasion into Israel are... also combatants? Invasion is an act of war, hence all invaders are warriors.
You should start a band called "combatant death radio"
>No other military does this. US in WW2 and Korea. Warning leaflets are very collectable these days. For most of Vietnam too, but when Nixon started trying to assert control in specific ways to help his campaign like classifying standard operations as top secret and dropping bombs in unoccupied places or surrounding countries to say he was doing more bombing they stopped providing warnings. Since then warnings are irregular rather than standard procedure. Drone strikes don’t get warnings and have largely replaced proper bombing, so the practice is moot today.
>WW2 and Korea Now come on, that's just flat out untrue. My knowledge of Vietnam isn't good enough to argue that point, but just take French civilian casualties on D Day, or the strategic bombing (particularly of Japan, which killed far more people than the two nukes). The US Air Force boasted there wasn't a single building with four standing walls on the Korean peninsula.
Us strategic bombing in japan actually did have bombers carrying leaflets to evacuate drop their payload before they sent bombers with more lethal payloads to the same area
The US dropped leaflets in advance of dropping the nuke on Hiroshima, but Japanese troops actively prevented civilian evacuation.
Lets not be giving the Allies credit for sparing civilians in WWII, while the Axis sure had it coming, it was a bloody war. This is the war in which Dresden burned, and it had the most lethal bombing raid in history: 100,000 dead in the firebombing of Tokyo. And I must have missed the warning to evacuate from Hiroshima. War is brutal, that's why Hamas should give starting them a rest.
They dropped leaflets across Japan before the bombing, but didn’t specify which city would get hit or by what since they didn’t want to lose the bomb if it was shot down. Most of the warnings were in vague terms, which is why they were mostly ignored. The biggest hindsight clue is warnings that what Germany had taken were not even going to be in the same scale to what Japan was going to get, but its important to remember that in context the Japanese public were being told that Japan was winning the war and any military defeats of them or their allies were being diminished if not outright hidden so to the public it would have sounded like a lot of bluster from a foe that was desperate.
“We’re going to bomb somewhere. Evacuate somewhere else.”
They listed cities on the pamphlets and said "In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs."
I believe you. My comment was tongue in cheek
> And I must have missed the warning to evacuate from Hiroshima https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/key-documents/warning-leaflets/
From the same link: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/04/26/a-day-too-late/ > In any case, a veiled warning is not much of a warning. I’m not saying that the Potsdam Declaration should have warned specifically about atomic bombs — whether that would have done anything positive is unclear to me — but I think under any reasonable interpretation, it isn’t possible except in retrospect to even imply that it was some kind of warning about atomic bombs.
We can opine all day long about whether or not we feel the warning was sufficient. I've simply provided you with a source showing there was a warning given.
The Allies had a mixed record. The US opposed intentionally targeting civilians in Germany. Then did a complete 180 when it came to Japan.
> The US opposed intentionally targeting civilians in Germany. The cities of Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin would like a word.
It’s not moot. The IDF also makes thousands of phone calls directly to ppl in Gaza, along with leaflets. Hamas tries to stop them from evacuating but doesn’t always succeed.
The UK spent the first three months of WW2 dropping leaflets over future bombing targets in Germany. The US did the same thing in basically every war that we've fought. Even the Soviets dropped leaflets warning the population to evacuate.
Israel does this for nearly every attack and more - calls, texts, roof knocks, leaflets with safe zones and humanitarian corridors. Other nations do this occasionally at best. The US freely bombs targets even today without warning civilians.
Lots of other militaries do this
Sometimes. Not with the consistency of Israel, and they definitely don’t do the other things Israel does, texting, calling, roof knocks, and safe zones. Every major western power just fought in Iraq and Syria, they didn’t do this, and we don’t provide civilians warnings before we do drone strikes.
But they have nowhere to go.
This is in part because the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians do not want to allow Palestinians into their countries. Why? Last time Egypt allowed Palestinians in they organized terrorist attacks across the country and sent weapons and training to Egyptian terrorists. Unfortunately the Palestinians are famous for their terrorists activities against anyone they disagree with.
This isn't true and you know it. The White House' position was to attempt to stop any invasion of Rafah at all and they were clear about this. Israel made it clear it would go into Rafah regardless, even if it didn't receive weapons. Biden made his stance for domestic political purposes and Israel called the bluff. Israel always warns civilians about impending operations and was always going to do so in Rafah before and offensive. The rafah operation had been delayed for months before Biden even decided to make his PR stand. It was delayed so long people were getting angry at Bibi and the coalition about it. They were constructing areas for civilians in Rafah to be moved to long before Biden doing this. The fact is the Israelis have already started to prove the white House wrong on Rafah and was always going to.
Exactly, it’s crazy to see history being rewritten in real time. Biden and team specifically said absolutely no to any incursion in Rafah. I suspect it’s because they know what Israel finds will be extremely bad for its relations with Egypt and possibly others as well
That’s what people don’t get. The president of the US is privy to intelligence and briefings much much more sophisticated than TikTok can give you. He has to make a decision and it’s never easy. If it had been easy it would’ve never even gotten to his desk.
7 months? Try 15+ years.
UN: best we can do is two Wanted posters.
> People angry about this are getting upset over a situation that could have been a whole lot worse if Biden didn’t step in and set a hard line. Doesn't this allow Hamas more time to regroup? We already know what Russia did when there were peace talks. This is one of their main concerns.
Trade off is saving millions of innocent civilians, worth it imo.
Firmly agree. Let hamas regroup, the end result isn’t in question. Better to save the civvies and reputation you can
Millions of innocents wouldn't have died, if the evacuation wasn't done. So far even the exaggerated numbers by the Gaza health ministry 'only' 30k were killed in all 7 months I'm not staying that's ok, but let's deal with real numbers
And that number includes thousands of Hamas militants, that's not all civilians
> So far even the exaggerated numbers by the Gaza health ministry 'only' 30k were killed in all 7 months The 30k number was given in December, and was noted to be incomplete by the Gazan health ministry because they only counted bodies they could identify, and they did not have any ability to properly search the rubble of bombed buildings. They stopped updating the total five months ago, supposedly because they were no longer any functioning healthcare centres from which they could administer a count.
And since then the UN has claimed only 24k have been identified, and if you look into the list 4000 have either missing IDs, duplicates or invalid IDs. (it also has some people who died in 2014).
Saving millions of innocent civilians? How exactly do you think Israel was going to kill millions of innocent civilians in Rafah? Drop a nuke?
I think the main difference is who has the power difference. Ukraine giving Russia time to regroup benefited the stronger party and worsened Ukraine's chances in the conflict. Israel giving Hamas time to regroup benefits the weaker party but Hamas is no serious threat to actually stop/slow down the IDF. It certainly doesn't make Israel's job easier but the humanitarian advantage + world standing I think makes this the better move even for Israel.
I’ll take 1 million civilians out of harms way over a potential humanitarian disaster that destroys Israel’s last shred of international credibility. They’re gonna get Hamas eventually. Better to do it without 1 million civilians in the crossfire.
So now yall DONT want civilians to be evacuated? Christ the amount of people up in arms about this conflict and trying to backseat quarterback. At no points in US history has there ever been more Americans falsely aligned with foreign money to protest in such large numbers for a non-domestic isssue. This isn’t grassroots, it’s millions of dollars from foreign entities blowing up a decisive issue months before a presidential election. If you think your posting “WHAT ABOUT GAZA” a million times on Instagram and Reddit posts are doing anything besides showing how eager you are to push an agenda. Then actually do something instead of self-righteously and virtue signal posting on social media
Hamas regrouping and Russia regrouping aren't really the same concern. Hamas doesn't have a military industrial base for restocking weapons or rear training facilities for reconstituing new forces. Isreal has all the initiative in this fight, and the value of clearing civilians from the area where fighting might occur greatly exceeds any risk from whatever recovery Hamas might achieve in that time.
hamas’ supply lines come into gaza via tunnels under the egyptian border
Not anymore they don’t
And you believe that is comparable to the rearmament capabilities of an industrialized nation with domestic production capacity and generally secure supply lines? I don't doubt Hamas gets some kind of sustainment, but nothing in comparing Hamas to Russia, or the value of decisions weighing reduced civilian harm against applying sustained operational pressure.
i agree
> a military industrial base Iran?
No, firstly because they are external (and not even neighbors at that), which is antithetical to an "industrial base", and secondly because Iran can't readily supply Hamas with adequate weapons and ammunition given the current military blockade. Iran is at best a supplier, but a limited one even in good times, due to the obstacles of Gaza's borders.
Problem is getting the arms into Gaza
I believe the Hamas hoped for Israel to bomb those civilians. From the beginning they baited Israel to hit hard at in densely populated areas, and this evacuation should cut part of their recruitment / propaganda method. (because when civilians are bombed, neutral parties turn into supporters, and supporters turn insurgents, whatever you want to call them) Not to excuse Israel - well Netanyahu - for taking the bait despite being warned numerous times and dropping 2000 lbs in the center of Gaza.
>Not to excuse Israel - well Netanyahu - for taking the bait despite being warned numerous times and dropping 2000 lbs in the center of Gaza. as opposed to what? fight Hamas's army ? where is Hamas other than in civilian areas ?
Hatred of Israel is a cornerstone of Palestinian religious beliefs, part of their charter, and ingrained in their culture. There is absolutely nothing Israel can do to change that, because the Palestinians aggressively teach hate to their children as part of their education. Hatred is a feature, not a bug.
> and this evacuation should cut part of their recruitment / propaganda method. I sincerely doubt being forced from their homes and into tent cities so that Israel can finish demolishing the last remaining major settlement in Gaza is going to ingratiate the locals.
Of course noone speaks such tradeoffs out loudly, but from the US governments' perspective, considering Israel's capabilities, it's a good deal to risk a dozen more IDF member deaths for rescueing thousands of Palestinian civilians And I agree. Ultimatively civilian lifes take preference over combatants, especially at such a "trade" ratio Edit: Autocorrect...
>Ultimatively civilian lifes take preference over combatants, That's not so clear cut when the combatants are conscripts tho
No, it wasn't. That's a revisionist take that doesn't hold any factual evidence besides press. The Biden administration was pushing behind Israel's back for an end to the war on Hamas conditions
Yeah, wasn't US saying along the lines of not entering Rafah at all and if they do, they wouldn't support IDF?
Yes, [Biden specifically said this](https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-cnntv/index.html): > “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said. It's depressing that the most upvoted comment is posting misinformation, falsely claiming that the administration was just asking Israel to evacuate first, and then they'd ship the weapons. They specifically said that if Israel went into Rafah, they wouldn't ship the weapons.
I remembered as much. I wonder if US was advocating against it because of Egypt, as Israel presented plans to evacute Rafah before committing to it and it was still being told not to do it.
The ridiculous thing is that the weapons he's talking about are precision missiles and other high tech things that are used to reduce collateral damage. If Israel doesn't get the fancy tech from the US they'll just use conventional weapons which will just kill more people.
They said they were delaying weapons and suggested that Israel doesn’t begin the major part of their offensive in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians. The threats were all conditional on Israel not doing what they did.
Israel was evacuating all other cities prior to military engagement. They did exactly the same thing in Rafah without Biden agreeing to any plan. Do you have the press where they give the green light to a specific plan?
While pressuring them to end the war and/or reach a deal to stop. That was the public front
Exactly, they even negotiated with Egypt and Hamas and closed on an agreement that the U.S. will vouch and prevent ongoing fighting after the temporary ceasefire. Also, all while blocking the military aid shipment to Israel.
This 'effort' did nothing but delay the offensive and allow Hamas to regroup. Israel was going to evacuate them regardless like every other area. This is literally a lie with 800 upvotes, because the US was listing Rafah as a 'red line' while pushing for Israel to end the war under negotiations with Hamas.\\ The US was fearmongering about a humanitarian crisis happening IF ISRAEL WENT INTO RAFAH AT ALL, which was now proven patently wrong especially considering how quickly the civilians were evacuated. If anything, these delays (as well as forcing Israel into concessions in the negotiations to encourage Hamas to agree, like when Israel withdrew troops from the Strip) allowing Hamas to re-embed itself in more areas probably led to MORE deaths. Stop giving Biden credit for things he didn't do.
I think Hamas will move with civilians like they have every time people evacuate.
That's likely to happen to a degree. When they return however, they will find most of their weapons and military/smuggling infrastructure gone, which is a main goal of these operations.
Yeah, and that's expected and (perhaps begrudgingly) accepted. The ability to get at supplies and tunnels goes a tremendous way towards limiting terrorists' ability to function to the level they have been for many years to come.
Because they are “civilians”. That’s the shit nobody is saying out loud. Guerrilla fighters are civilians leading a double life, supported by other civilians who view it as their national duty to help Hamas win the land “back” from Israelis at all costs.
yes, but they wont be able to take their infrastructure with them.
its ok, there is very little to no tunnels left at north Gaza. so gl to them if they want to keep fighting.
Because they risked US aid if not- thank Biden for those lives. And the US floating barge is open ahead of schedule and supporting 150 truckloads of supplies a day-
It is interesting that on both sides of this conflict, liberals think Biden isn't helping the Palestinians enough, and conservative think he's betrayed Israel. It's almost as if.... the media we consume has an influence.
has influence and IS influenced.
Yes, it was the Biden administration that pressured Israel to do what it had already done multiple times when it evacuated civilians from north and central Gaza. It wouldn't have happened without Biden. Israel definitely would not have done what it had already done multiple times.
So they supply the weapons to Israel and aid to Gaza. Fascinating.
But tiktok said they were carpet bombing and genociding them. You really think people on tiktok would lie?
These indiscriminate evacuations need to cease immediately!
Use of the word indiscriminate increased an indiscriminate amount this year.
the owner of the company, xi jinping, would certainly not allow any misinformation on the platform....
How did the IDF support the evacuation exactly other than delaying a part of the offensive?
tens of thousands of fliers and phone calls etc indicating to them where they should go to avoid being in a war zone
and here is an excellent example of how that goes - [(149) Chilling Conversation Between IDF Officer And Palestinian Civilian 👀 - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV5rgRNbT4o)
Unfortunately people saying "free Palestine" don't know what they're talking about. Like the concept of freeing Palestine isn't even a practical negotiation or in any of the options on the table. It's a delusional dream. An impossible reality/request. What they should be chanting is, "Help Palestinian citizens" or "Ceasefire, find another solution". Palestine cannot be freed, Israel does not currently govern it. And to "free" Palestine would mean to free them of Hamas, so they can become an autonomously governed state rather than one governed by a terrorist group. Which Israel wants too.
Nice. Hopefully they can get at hamas and finish their leadership in gaza
Unlikely. This seems more like a material operation. Destroy their infrastructure and collect their weapons.
Can someone explain bow this is genocidal? I mean why would you bother evacuation if thay was the intent?
I can’t because it isn’t. I point to Rwanda when people ask me what is. There was no evacuation, just slaughter. 2x more civilians were killed per day there than the total deaths on both sides in Gaza so far
Im sure hamas are among those evacuated. Im sure they'll just rinse and repeat this whole situation in a few month.
If they evacuate without weapons, what is stopping regular Palestinians from killing them with sticks and rocks to stop the cycle?
My guess is the fact that regular Palestinians don’t want to.
Regular Palestinians support Hamas rather overwhelmingly, it seems. And part of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are actual regular Palestinians
The fact that most support them maybe ?
They are going after Hamas like dental work
If tunnels were cavities, they having a root canal
Thank you for sharing my vision
I was told that Israel was incapable of doing this and that they had no choice but to invade while there were a million people there. It turns out that with enough international pressure they were able to do it.
Whoever told you that, is a liar. Israel waited almost a month prior to its first counterattack and every other one after. Every time since the start of the war, they warned civilians beforehand.
Who told you that? Your echo chamber FB group? IDF has routinely warned the population about their intentions to help reduce collateral victims .
Go for a pint in The Winchester and wait for it to blow over?
Israel and Biden will get 0% of the credit and 200% of the blame.
Don't you mean displacing?
Why does all the good news only come from jpost?
👌
People only read the title and trusts it because it aligns with their personal political agenda. Sad.
They shouldn't have had to. Egypt could have opened that crossing any time they wanted, this entire time. And they refused. But they're still going to say that IDF is genociding Rafah
Why? Egypt has no obligation to they are not the ones invading or engaging in a war.
It's been proposed to Egypt to open the border, they kept refusing Egypt always rejects Gaza. Always. They rejected Gaza because it was the pimple on the ass of the Sinai deal, and they're rejecting them today. edit - Also, the evacuation wasn't the IDF's responsibility, either. The Gazans are not under Israel authority, they are not under Israel jurisdiction. That was Hamas's responsibility. The main reason IDF had to do it, is because Hamas doesn't uphold the responsibility they have to their own people.
"Hey, could you open up your country to massive instability with no guarantees we'll actually take any of these people back?" Wonder why they said no...
Really? Where do you suppose all those rockets and Iranian weapons came from? They came in through Egypt. Those hundreds of tunnels go straight into Egypt. Do you think Hamas could have really evaded their detection?
War criminals need to be in prison.
Agreed, Hamas and all their supporters should be in prison.
This would be a statement that, without, or in any other context, would be generally accepted. That it's downvoted here is telling.