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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed 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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In regards to the recent hospital explosion, it's looking increasingly likely that Israel did not cause the explosion.

https://manifold.markets/MilfordHammerschmidt/did-the-idf-just-now-blow-up-a-hosp

I saw this however on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1714670858914894046?t=UcPxGEUM5ShnUpc8Hav3Vw&s=19

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1714548529538953637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1714548529538953637%7Ctwgr%5E4bbaa419eb9133e336435eb810800500af090537%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hindustantimes.com%2Fworld-news%2Fidf-shares-audio-of-hamas-allegedly-talking-about-rocket-that-hit-gaza-hospital-it-misfired-101697630817752.html

That the IDF released audio of Hamas operatives saying it was from Islamic Jihad, but the audio is clearly faked with bad Palestinian accents and crappy acting. Why do you think the IDF would release obviously doctored audio? Stupidity thinking that no one would call them on it? Rationally making the calculation their supporters would eat it up and it won't make their detractors any angrier than they are? That maybe it isn't actually faked and some Hamas operatives actually do just talk like that? But even to me, I don't speak a lick of Arabic, the tone of voices does sound like script reading and it felt very convenient how they described so much incriminating and explanatory information in a minute of conversation, like exposition from the beginning of a bad movie. Thoughts?

It’s insane to me that anyone would even consider using an alleged “intercepted call” as evidence. At a certain point, something is so easy to fake that it should be ignored completely unless there’s some way to independently verify the data on the call. All it takes is one sound expert employed at the IDF to double check that the lines and phraseology have the same cadence as typical Palestinian speech.

For the hospital blast, I would only trust the information that (1) can be independently verified as having an origin date of around the time of the blast, (2) was immediately posted online in the aftermath, eg within 20 minutes, (3) cannot be faked by a gainfully employed intelligence agent with an IQ higher than 115.

Does Israel’s security branches not employ people with natively Palestinian accents? I would be shocked if they didn’t have at least a few in the relevant departments.