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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   29934 thread views

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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Explosion, substantial structure collapse, many dead at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius

GeoConfirmed

<200m away from al-Ahli Hospital (the one from 2 days ago)

Same church 1 week ago: "Posts falsely claim Israel bombed historic church in Gaza"

I wish your first link was something other than a google search result, which will of course change drastically over time, complicating any analysis or discussion.

It looks like Israel bombed a neighboring residence (I would expect an apartment building but the current results refer to a "house"). It seems strange that the Israelis would bomb a single family residence (aka "house"). And the damage extended, presumably unintentionally, to the church.

I suppose we'll see if there is a characteristic Israeli crater or not. And at this point, maybe Israel can drop the equivalent of small barrel bombs as a false flag to implicate Hamas, etc.

I doubt Israel intentionally bombed a church unless it was a legitimate military target, which is entirely possible given the defensive strategy of Hamas, etc. I tend to defer to Arnold Kling's reasoning for this type of situation: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-gaza-hospital-tragedy

I doubt Israel intentionally bombed a church unless it was a legitimate military target, which is entirely possible given the defensive strategy of Hamas

Supposedly Hamas wasn’t using Christian churches as human shields, which is why they’ve been overrun with refugees(who think they’ll be safe from bombing there). This might be collateral damage from another strike.

It seems strange that the Israelis would bomb a single family residence (aka "house").

Why? People put command posts in residences in Ukraine all the time. You're not getting any money either there if your house gets blown up because the army thought "I'll put my unit HQ here".

The Wall Street Journal says Israel confirmed this one. Note that Hamas is quoted as saying it left a “large number of martyrs and injured”... isn't "martyrs" what they call their fighters and suicide bombers who die for their cause?

It also was not the main church building hit.

I think Hamas considers any dead Palestinian, at Israeli hands, to be a martyr. Combatant or not, civilian or otherwise.

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