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naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   29943 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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Informative thread on the Hospital Blast

at 0:23 you can hear what sounds like an Israeli fighter jet in the background. It appears roughly 2 seconds before we see the explosion at the hospital and disappears at 0:30.

Airstrike Hypothesis: Pros - The main strength of this argument is the initial audio, due to its similarities with another IDF airstrike. Additionally, the strength of the impact/shockwave had the ability to launch a human body and a car into the air. Cons - The current shrapnel dispersion aligns with shrapnel from a projectile impacting the road, as more shrapnel fans upwards and out - but is obscured by the trees/cars. Windows in relatively close proximity are also not all destroyed.

Misfire Hypothesis: Pros - Depending on the type of rocket fired by Hamas/PIJ we could potentially get a similar sound of impact. Also, the crater location is directly next to where the victims were in the yard and the cars (with fuel) that moved -Crater size supports this.

Newly reached conclusion: Based on the audio of the explosion, the shrapnel dispersion, and the newly published video: Both the misfire hypothesis & the airstrike hypothesis hold equal weight. I will update this again after experts in the respective fields analyze these issues.

All around a highly informative thread by an (independent) Israeli researcher. Debunks some evidence and brings in new evidence — of particular note is a video that seems to confirm the sound of an Israeli jet. He disconfirms the interception hypothesis based on the sound of the projectile and the magnitude of the blast. His next post will apparently include evidence from Earshot.NGO which specializes in sonic analysis.

99.9% It was some Gazan org that hit a parking lot. Evidence: nobody cares about it anymore and the 500 dead claim disappeared in the morning light. If it were Israeli forces, it would still be in the news.

My priors are completely opposite. Zionists have more influence over American news, business, and foreign policy than the Arab world.

Evidence? The equivalent, Hamas hitting an Israeli hospital, has already happened twice. Did you hear about the that?

I did, yes. I don’t recall there being casualties.

So you are fine with targeting hospitals provided you suck at war and manage (despite your intentions) to not kill anyone?

This is pretty much the doctrine I've been hearing about in the context of collateral damage to civilians in Gaza from Israeli bombs targeted at Hamas -- so long as you are doing your best to hit military targets, if you accidentally hit a hospital it's OK, right? Hamas' best happens to be indiscriminately spraying crappy rockets across the border.

(to be clear, I think this is bad!)

The point I was making is if you for example attempt to kill a civilian but fail because you suck it doesn’t absolve moral consideration.

If your contention is Hamas was trying to hit a military target, the. That of course is different. But given Hamas targeting civilians this month in deadly encounters I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt.

so long as you are doing your best to hit military targets, if you accidentally hit a hospital it's OK, right?

That is in fact consistent with the laws of war. (Regardless of whether you're referring to Hamas or Israel). For Hamas to have been lobbing rockets at Israel all these years has been acts of war, but not necessarily war crimes if they were trying to hit military installations but just sucked at it. (It seems unlikely that's what they were up to, and certainly their attack a few weeks ago included war crimes, but lobbing rockets at acceptable targets and missing is not a war crime)

The main problem with it is (as with all doctrines that hinge on knowing the intent of belligerent parties) it seems pretty vulnerable to abuse...

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