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Soriek  5mo ago (text post)   1780 thread views

Transnational Thanksgiving (comes one day early)

Posting this a day early because I won’t be around tomorrow.

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Israel-Palestine

Supposedly a deal is almost in place to conduct a prisoner swap, with Qatar and the US helping to manage the negotiations:

As it stands now, the tentative deal would include around 50 women and children hostages being exchanged for around 150 Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners in a first phase, according to a senior U.S. official. The numbers are subject to change. There would also be a pause of four to five days in fighting to allow for hostage exchanges and for more fuel trucks to enter Gaza.

A source familiar with the talks in the region said that Israel would choose which Palestinian prisoners it would release — pending a security check. The source also said the deal would include a suspension of overhead drone flights for up to six hours per day so that Hamas could consolidate the remaining hostages. Some hostages are being held by other groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

This could of course fall apart at any time.

Hundred have been evacuated from the Al-Shifa hospital Israel targeted the previous week (more discussion on the main thread here), and currently tanks have surrounded an Indonesian run hospital. It’s unclear to me if this is a suspected Hamas base of organizations like Al-Shifa was or if this is just a response to a random attack:

The Israeli military said its forces targeted "terrorists" who had opened fire at them from within the hospital.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he was "appalled"...

The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, cited medical sources as saying that dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles were in the surrounding area and that snipers were on rooftops, preventing ambulances from reaching the hospital.

The health ministry said 12 wounded patients and people with them were killed and dozens more were wounded when an Israeli shell reportedly hit the second floor of the facility.

Take the latter two sources with a grain of salt, but a dozen casualties actually seems plausible and civilians and patients do both seem to be evacuating.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 5 days. Number one, Israel expects Hamas to violate the the ceasefire, per usual. Of course this suggests a false flag attack as well, where Israel stages a pretext for a retaliatory response. I expect that Hamas accepts the cease-fire posture at the top, but there may be provocations and skirmishes at low levels originating on both sides. I doubt we will get to the first 5 days without a major violation or conflict.

Prediction: 5 day ceasefire is honored by both sides, as judged by lack of hostilities or contention by the end of the period: 50%

This includes a successful hostage exchange. I expect there to be minor quibbles and contention. But we should know, broadly and deeply, whether each side is reasonably satisfied.

If the first 5 days go acceptably for both sides, the next 5 are likely to as well.

Prediction: 10 days of ceasefire and hostage exchanges are "successful" (not without hurdles and reversals): 10%

Again, are both sides reasonably satisfied?

Expecting a false flag attack by Israel seems to me unusually uncharitable to Israeli motives. Israel wants as many hostages released as possible. That is one of two overarching goals of the war, and the only reason for it to agree to a temporary ceasefire in the first place. Staging a false flag attack and retaliating based on it would end the hostage exchange.

That is one of two overarching goals of the war

If the other is "no more hostages taken in the future", successful exchanges go against it, I believe.

True, if Israel wanted to reduce hostage-taking to almost zero it would announce that there will be no more hostage deals ever under any circumstances and use only military means to rescue the hostages, even if that might endanger some of the current hostages. It's possible that that would reduce the number of hostages at risk in the long run, even if it would greatly endanger the current hostages. It's not possible politically though, since the plight of the current hostages is a huge political issue that the Israeli electorate cares very deeply about.

The other overarching goal is the elimination of Hamas and its ability to rule in the Gaza Strip.

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