This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
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Notes -
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
[From the BBC news live tracker]
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
Good framing from Israel but I half expect Hamas to retaliate by killing hostages until the siege is lifted.
The Israeli’s need to act as if the hostages are already dead. The moral play here is correct and it’s about the only play they have here to have a chance at getting the hostages back. It’s a bit of a Russian play of escalating to deescalate.
That being said I thought people die after 3 days of no water so it’s a bit scary to shut it off.
Palestinian dead are fairly easy to put in Hamas and IDF equally. It’s a bit like MAD doctrine where if group A does X you know that group B will do Y. The entire security framework in place to keep the peace requires group B to commit to doing Y to prevent group A from doing X. If Israel isn’t brutal now then in an future short term peace group A would now know they can do X because group B is morally uncomfortable with doing Y.
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