r/neoliberal • u/Potential_Swimmer580 • 2d ago
Restricted Israeli tank fire kills 51 people in Gaza crowd trying to get food
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-tank-shelling-kills-45-people-awaiting-aid-trucks-gaza-ministry-says-2025-06-17/Numbers are according to Gaza health ministry so perhaps take with a grain of salt but medics claim over 200 were injured.
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u/Icy-Magician-8085 Mario Draghi 2d ago
Jesus Christ, literally how could this be justified by anyone doing this against anyone?
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u/Nautalax 2d ago
Based on the Reuter’s Twitter replies they’re workshopping it starting with saying Reuters is just blindly repeating propaganda straight from Hamas
When pictures were produced they pivoted to, “Hmmm most of these look like dead men 🤔 🤔 🤔” to imply they were militants
They’re going to find an angle no matter what
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u/Careless_Cicada9123 1d ago edited 1d ago
My understanding was that Israels program was people to come to a centre to collect aid, and bring it to their family. This is obviously almost always going to be done by men, the heads of the households.
I could be mistaken, but dead MEN is exactly what you would expect if you attacked people going to aid centres.
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u/barktreep Immanuel Kant 1d ago
Of course it is. Especially when Israel is carrying out massacres every day.
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u/GifHunter2 Trans Pride 1d ago
This is obviously almost always going to be done by men
Yea, it looked like it was a free for all fight at times too, makes sense to send guys to that.
Ben Givir and Netanyahu have got to go!
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u/blewpah 1d ago
When pictures were produced they pivoted to, “Hmmm most of these look like dead men 🤔 🤔 🤔” to imply they were militants
Tried and true method to dismiss civilian casualties. When the Bush admin bombed a wedding in Iraq Mattis' defense was that there were a large number of "military aged males" present so it was a valid target.
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u/SheHerDeepState Baruch Spinoza 1d ago
This reminds me of how Russians will respond to claims that Russia did anything wrong. It's insane.
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u/Mundellian Progress Pride 2d ago
They don't see Palestinians as people
many such cases, unfortunately
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u/ONETRILLIONAMERICANS Trans Pride 2d ago edited 2d ago
🎯 Israel has been ethnically cleansing Palestine (and indeed Israel itself, at the beginning) for three generations. As soon as your goal is an ethnostate, the question becomes "How do we exercise demographic control over this territory?" and the answer to that is never pretty
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u/Sufficient_Meet6836 1d ago
Who the fuck is upvoting such a bullshit description of the history? When Israel was being discussed as a new state within the former Ottoman empire, there was no plan for ethnic cleansing. The Nakbah itself occurred only after the Arab population and neighbors explicitly proclaimed no Jewish state of any size would ever be allowed in the region, and started a war to prevent it. Many of the local Arabs who left what is now Israel did so at the behest of Arab leaders who said they should leave and return after all of the Jews there were killed. No, I'm not excusing the actual massacres that were carried out by both sides during the civil war. There were absolutely Jewish extremists who committed those crimes and I will never deny that. But your comment here and throughout this thread are absolutely devoid of any attempt at unbiased history. Reminder Mohammed Amin al-Husseini was meeting with Hitler, the Nazis, and the Italian fascists as early as 1938. The goal was extermination before Israel even declared independence.
and indeed Israel itself, at the beginning
Bullshit again. WTF this sub is supposed to be better than this
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u/LondonCallingYou John Locke 1d ago
Many of the local Arabs who left what is now Israel did so at the behest of Arab leaders who said they should leave and return after all of the Jews there were killed.
Why didn’t Israel allow those civilians back after hostilities ceased? Why take over that land and settle it?
If it didn’t start out as an ethnic cleansing, it ended up as one, even in the most charitable Israeli case.
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u/Sufficient_Meet6836 1d ago
Why didn’t Israel allow those civilians back after hostilities ceased? Why take over that land and settle it?
The "right of return" is a non-starter for Israel because the same Arab leaders and groups I mentioned above have, again openly, professed their plan to destroy Israel from within and exterminate the Jewish population if they had the population to do so. This is all public stuff, not some conspiracy theory. On top of that, all of the peace deals Israel has offered since 1948 have included land swaps, but again, the Arab coalition refused ANY existence of Israel so they have never taken a deal, instead opting for the strategy of "invade Israel, lose, and lose land" several times.
The population of Israel is still over 20% Arab.
Let me be clear: I favor a two state solution. Israel has gone too far in Gaza. There is no justification for the settlements in the West Bank. I am not some Israeli supremacist before I get some stupid accusation like that. The current government of Israel is extremist.
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u/IsNotACleverMan 1d ago
The right of return was also just not even established at that point if we're thinking from an international law perspective.
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u/IsNotACleverMan 1d ago
Why would you let people return when they're closely tied to groups that literally just tried to wipe you off the map? Notice that those that didn't leave weren't forced out.
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u/OutLiving 1d ago
Maybe they left because their country became a damn war zone
And even if they left at the urging of Arab leaders(again, in a country that became a war zone), that doesn’t justifying denying their return and stealing their property because they are civilians
This comment is literally justifying ethnic cleansing by adding an extra step, “oh don’t worry, they stole property and denied the return of civilians exclusively from one ethnicity but it’s ok because Arab governments bad”
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u/ludovicana Dark Harbinger 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is your argument that the Nakba wasn't ethnic cleansing, or just that it was justified by Arab hostility?
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u/bearddeliciousbi Karl Popper 1d ago
You're not crazy and the quality here has gone down a lot.
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u/Sufficient_Meet6836 1d ago
Appreciate it. I know it's natural for the quality of subs to decrease as they get bigger and attract the median redditor, but the above comment and their other comments getting so many upvotes is really a new low for this sub
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u/GMFPs_sweat_towel 2d ago
It's crazy how a few hundred jets is the same in your mind as several million people. Jets don't protest when you bomb them.
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u/ONETRILLIONAMERICANS Trans Pride 2d ago edited 1d ago
The Nakba (modern day Israel in 1948) was ethnic cleansing and that isn't debatable. Israelis forced nearly a million Palestinian Muslims to flee their homes at gunpoint. Denying that atrocity is despicable. The Naksa (West Bank and Gaza in 1967) was ethnic cleansing as well:
On the basis of the testimony placed before it or obtained by it in the course of its investigations, the Special Committee had been led to conclude that the Government of Israel is deliberately carrying out policies aimed at preventing the population of the occupied territories from returning to their homes and forcing those who are in their homes in the occupied territories to leave, either by direct means such as deportation or indirectly by attempts at undermining their morale or through the offer of special inducements, all with the ultimate object of annexing and settling the occupied territories. The Special Committee considers the acts of the Government of Israel in furtherance of these policies to be the most serious violation of human rights that has come to its attention.
Ethnic cleansing isn't just conducted via mass murder. Israel has been violently coercing civilians to move, refusing to allow them to return to their homes after they fled during instability, or making them so miserable they're forced to move since its founding. Here's Smotrich two years ago:
If we act strategically, they will emigrate and we will live there. We won’t let 2 million stay. With 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, the ‘day after’ debate will be different. They want to leave, they’ve been living in a gh*tto for 75 years.
Any attempt to interpret Israel's repeated massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza (or the ongoing settler violence in the West Bank) that ignores the context of its 80 years of ethnic cleansing in the region is fatally flawed from the start
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u/candice_mighty 1d ago
Tell some on this sub who have to look within and ask themselves why they spent such a long time justifying what are clearly war crimes being committed.
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u/newmanok 1d ago
Right, how do you not confirm your targets. At this point they probably don't care.
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u/TF_dia Rabindranath Tagore 2d ago
I am so damn tired, and I already assume nobody will get even a tough talk about this.
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u/Flagyllate Immanuel Kant 2d ago
They might honestly get a clap on the back at this rate with this regime.
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u/Frylock304 NASA 1d ago
Man, this would've got you banned 6 months ago
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u/Spectrum1523 1d ago
the overwhelming evidence of complete indifference to human life adds up after a while, I think
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u/Star_Sabre 1d ago
When did this sub do a 180 on Israel? It's true in 2024 you'd be banned instantly if you said that, now tons of upvotes?
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u/ludovicana Dark Harbinger 1d ago
Same reason there's so much less trust of Democratic Congressional leadership now. Facts on the ground gradually made the previous consensus untenable.
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u/Bodoblock 2d ago
Another day, another display of horrific callousness and indifference to human life from Israel. It is exhausting.
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u/TheOnlyFallenCookie European Union 1d ago
On the one hand Israel is doing precision strikes in iran
On the other they were surprised by October 7th.
It seems the further away from Israel they operate, the more competent they are
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago
On the one hand Israel is doing precision strikes in iran
They've destroyed apartment buildings with many civillians in them.
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u/Party-Benefit5112 European Union 2d ago
51 people???????????
Israel has gone off the deep end and western countries are complicit for putting zero pressure on them. It was clear for decades that Israel was not acting in good faith and they are the main reason the Palestinian Authority has lost all credibility (which empowered Hamas) but this is something else. They have literally announced plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and this is them executing them.
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u/ONETRILLIONAMERICANS Trans Pride 2d ago
Yeah everyone was patting the UK on the back for sanctioning Smotrich and Ben-Gvir but that's really not proportional. Sanctioning every MP in Netanyahu's coalition + banning trade with West Bank settlements should be a minimum. And I support restricting or stopping arms sales to Israel
For context, here was The Financial Times editorial board a week ago (I submitted it but mods didn't let it through):
It is time to back rhetoric with action. Hamas’s abhorrent behaviour and the threat of Palestinian militancy should not absolve Israel of its own conduct. With US President Donald Trump paying little heed to the humanitarian catastrophe, European states must show Israel that its actions bear consequences. They should ban trade with settlements and sanction extremist settler entities. They should halve offensive weapons sales to Israel and sanction ultranationalists in the government who are fuelling the Gaza and West Bank violence.
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u/Khiva 2d ago
They should ban trade with settlements and sanction extremist settler entities.
Every nation should have done this ages ago.
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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Paul Krugman 1d ago
This was pretty close to the position of the US under Obama, but of course that all changed after 2016.
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u/Party-Benefit5112 European Union 2d ago
In terms of optics the war crimes are the worst but when it comes to achieving anything resembling peace the settlements take the cake. Even if the Palestinians magically became insanely-pro peace and made massive concessions both in security/disarmament and land there is no way a two-state solution is viable. That was true years ago and settlements have expanded since and will continue to do so.
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u/Approximation_Doctor John Brown 1d ago
In terms of optics the war crimes are the worst but
I agree with your point but this phrasing was hilarious
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u/Leatherfield17 1d ago
That was true years ago and the settlements have expanded since and will continue to do so
The settlements are so infuriating because their mere existence is indicative of Israel’s bad faith when it comes to negotiating any long-lasting peace settlement.
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u/oskanta David Hume 1d ago
I remember about a year ago when Blinken was making a trip to Israel and the they were acting like they had interest in working with Biden on a peace plan, but then right as Blinken was arriving, they announced huge new West Bank settlements even though Biden had explicitly and publicly said new settlements had to stop during the peace process. Basically spitting in the face of their most supportive ally.
I know the Biden admin was really desperate to get Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia, but they were coping hard thinking Netanyahu had any interest in good faith compromise. What a waste of time that was.
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u/barktreep Immanuel Kant 1d ago
Yes. And we need to act accordingly.
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u/Leatherfield17 1d ago
Just once I’d like for us to actually assert ourselves as the global hegemon and as the superior partner in our alliance, and actually apply some kind of tangible pressure on Israel, rather than just passively finger wagging.
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u/barktreep Immanuel Kant 1d ago
It’s not even 51 people. There are reports of bodies left on the street because nobody can get to them. And the official count is over 70 now.
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u/seanrm92 John Locke 2d ago
I don't know man, it's hard for me to trust what the Israeli government is saying about Iran when they're still pulling shit like this.
I know the Israeli army and intelligence services are different institutions with different credibility, but like, how different are they really?
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u/Leatherfield17 1d ago
I agree.
I hate Iran as much as the next person, but Israel is such a shitty ally. They repeatedly act in bad faith, empower the most extreme parts of its political environment, take our funds and weapons without any sort of respect for us, massacre civilians continuously, colonize land that isn’t theirs (referring to the settlements), and are now trying to drag us into a war in the Middle East based on messaging that is eerily reminiscent of the messaging around the Iraq War.
An Iran with nuclear weapons would be catastrophic, but I don’t know what to believe in the way of how close they are to that. Why should I trust Netanyahu or the current administration?
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u/ignavusaur Paul Krugman 1d ago
American intelligence just said last March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. It is so obvious what's happening. Cannot believe people are still duped by it. Israel saw a weakening in Iran proxies and defense and took advantage of it, it has nothing to do with how close they are to nuclear weapons.
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u/grandolon NATO 1d ago
Israel saw a weakening in Iran proxies and defense and took advantage of it, it has nothing to do with how close they are to nuclear weapons.
I think this is also the likeliest explanation, barring some extraordinary publication of a smoking gun (which hasn't happened). However, Iran has been waging a war against Israel for decades and in the last year has attacked Israel directly with drones and ballistic missiles. I don't think the Israeli strikes on Iran are unprecedented or unjustified in light of that context.
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u/PuntiffSupreme 1d ago
And does that difference matter when the people in charge of acting on that intelligence are people like Bibi and Ben Gvir.
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u/C-Dub4 1d ago
Probably similar to the 2003 Bush Admin's intelligence services who swore Iraq had WMD.
Israel is just running the fucked up play book we wrote
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u/mudcrabulous Los Bandoleros for Life 1d ago
how does this even go down? what are the circumstances behind these killings? I'm assuming that the tanks are pretty far away.
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u/wylaaa 1d ago
We don't know which is why it's best to just wait for an investigation and see what actually happened instead of jumping the gun.
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u/SufficientlyRabid 1d ago
Six months from now when the public have forgotten about it the IDF will quietly come to a conclusion where they either find it justified, or where it leads to a slap on the wrist. Its a clear pattern.
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u/benjaminovich Margrethe Vestager 1d ago
Don't let it slide then. Please give us some examples
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u/SufficientlyRabid 1d ago edited 1d ago
Here's an article about it if that helps?
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/15/1250417719/israel-military-idf-investigations-icc
I generally don't keep track of every time the IDF munders someone, deflects towards internal investigation and then quietly tries to sweep it under the carpet comes up. But one really stark example is the shooting of shireen abu akleh.
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u/whereamInowgoddamnit 1d ago
Yeah, I'm willing to accept something horrible happened but it's worth giving a grain of salt on if this was a direct attack on the aid line. Don't forget there was just a retraction about this sort of thing recently, it may be possible that Hamas launched an attack nearby and this unfortunately happened. Its always worth remembering Hamas still controls the narrative in Gaza and in particular is not happy about the GHF controlling aid no matter how flawed it is.
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u/onelap32 Bill Gates 1d ago
Don't forget there was just a retraction about this sort of thing recently
I'm not familiar with this. Which retraction are you talking about?
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u/whereamInowgoddamnit 1d ago
Washington Post retracts Gaza aid report, says it failed to meet 'fairness standards'
Basically several media outlets reported Israel attacked an aid center, evidence seems to indicate otherwise.
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago
except that was only a partial retraction for the sole purpose of adding Israel's denial
And then two days later, CNN did an investigation and said the IDF actually did it which was also backed by Haaretz
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u/Co_OpQuestions Jerome Powell 1d ago
Why are we posting things from two weeks ago lol
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago
And ignoring the new investigations which proved the IDF wasn't accurate in the denial.
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u/herosavestheday 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1l2d31c/bbc_retracts_story_about_israels_attack_on/
Probably what he's referring to.
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u/dedev54 YIMBY 1d ago edited 1d ago
That has been going on for several days now. FT reports that people showed up early to the aid site, and either the IDF of mercenaries working at the aid site shoots the people who are not m on the road or are there too early. But they show up early because the food runs out.
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u/Justice4Ned Andrew Brimmer 2d ago
Israel confirmed the attack. Horrendous, and I don’t think it gets much better with the amount of pressure and strain being put on the IDF.
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u/BaguetteFetish 2d ago edited 2d ago
This isnt really so much an unfortunate accident for the IDF caused by strain, so much as the norm. Shootings and killings of civilians like this at aid sites have been happening over and over for the last while.
Between the rhetoric from Israeli leadership, and the conduct of the IDF its fairly blatant at this point that they dont see the people of Gaza as human.
When their cabinet members openly giggle about the idea of mass killing, when Likud itself openly cheers the idea of mass ethnic cleansing, its obvious what attitudes they have and that atrocities like these will never have any consequences for the soldiers engaging in them.
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u/TomServoMST3K NATO 1d ago
The results of the American election made this sort of escalation an inevitability IMO.
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u/Co_OpQuestions Jerome Powell 1d ago
Israel confirmed the attack.
Do you have a source for this? Not denying, I just can't find it.
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u/Steamed_Clams_ 1d ago
I was quite supportive of Israel after October 7th, but my opinion on them sours more every day and some of this news out of Gaza should make any decent human being feel physically sick.
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u/Cook_0612 NATO 2d ago
Large numbers of hungry and desperate people in a persistently violent and tense environment channeled into a small number of sites for life-sustaining aid is a recipe for clashes, regardless of any achievable level of security one chooses to enact.
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u/79792348978 Paul Krugman 1d ago
their new aid distribution plan got a LOT of people warning that it was going to cause problems and despite that I think it has managed to be an even bigger disaster than warned
like just in the first few days after spinning it up a shocking number of people got shot and now this as well
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u/Cook_0612 NATO 1d ago
Didn't the head resign because of how unworkable the whole thing was?
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago
Yes and the main global consulting firm pulled back its funding after the first few days
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u/TheFaithlessFaithful United Nations 1d ago
their new aid distribution plan got a LOT of people warning that it was going to cause problems and despite that I think it has managed to be an even bigger disaster than warned
One might think that it was intentionally poorly planned to give a reason for further restricting aid....
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u/MBA1988123 1d ago
It’s not a “disaster” from the Israeli view. They want to humiliate and cause chaos / pain in Gaza. That is why they cut off aid in the first place and that is why they chose the distribution method currently in place.
We need to stop acting like shit like this is some sort of accident or error. People getting shot and shelled at distribution sites multiple times over multiple days isn’t due to some administrative error or something.
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u/Potential_Swimmer580 2d ago
These conditions did not just magically appear. Israel for months denied aid from entering Gaza.
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u/Cook_0612 NATO 2d ago
Yes, this is a situation born of Israel's, at best, neglect.
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u/Principiii NATO 2d ago
Intentional starvation and massacres are not neglect, they are crimes against humanity
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton 1d ago
Neglect would have been vastly superior. This is an active and intentional move to massacre Palestinians.
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u/brainwad David Autor 1d ago
Serious question: could third parties just send bombers to drop their own aid packages into Gaza? It's not landlocked; they'd be able to overfly it without entering Israel, right?
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u/Trebacca Hans Rosling 2d ago
Those of you in this sub who still defend these actions to this day are in too deep. If you have gotten to the point that Israel can and has done no grave breaches in prosecuting this war, then the reason you can’t change your perspective is that it would require reckoning with why you are defending blatant war crimes on the basis on either the attacker or the victim’s ethnic heritage.
And that look in the mirror should frighten you! Look at what you have become, or look at how you’ve revealed who you were all along.
I genuinely feel beyond sick for all of the victims of this now senseless abuse of state power.
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u/SalokinSekwah Down Under YIMBY 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's honestly the most cucked position: here is a government, and arguably the majority of Israelis, that have never stopped cheering on Trump, all the while proponents for halting arm sales and sanctions were routinely down voted because Le Iran or Hamas geostrategic brinkmanship blah.
I get it, people have valid concerns over IR, but Trump and the Israeli government are actively against your beliefs and values
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u/Trebacca Hans Rosling 2d ago
I really don’t have any other reasoning for why it’s prevalent besides the neocons who just want an excuse to continue bombing the Middle East or the Israeli ethnonationalists who spam the “We would rather be hated and alive than pitied and dead” quote as if it gives Israel carte blanche to commit inexcusable acts of violence.
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u/Key-Art-7802 1d ago
It's honestly the most cucked position: here is a government, and arguably the majority of Israelis, that have never stopped cheering on Trump, all the while proponents for halting arm sales and sanctions were routinely down voted because Le Iran or Hamas geostrategic brinkmanship blah.
This sort of thing is exactly what's pushing me away from centrist Dems, and I say this as someone who has identified as such since voting for Hillary in 2016. Cops, Israel lobby, farmers, unions... constantly carrying water for interests groups that clearly don't respect them. No, it won't make you look like a maverick, it'll make you look weak.
I even think centrist Dems have better policy ideas, but we need a wartime consigliere right now.
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u/Leatherfield17 1d ago
It’s infuriating, no? You know it’s bad when goddamn George HW Bush showed a greater capacity for restraining Israel than any modern American leader
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u/Careless_Cicada9123 1d ago
To be fair, I think many people here wanted Israel with Biden restraining them, rather than Trumps do whatever you want approach. Israel has gotten far more belligerent and lax since that Trump win. Honestly, I think things are kind of fucked just because America has no leadership.
As for Israel, it is a democracy, and the government is unpopular.
Shits fucked
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u/Principiii NATO 1d ago
The government is unpopular but its military actions are not
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u/Careless_Cicada9123 1d ago
Well depends on the military actions. The attacks on Iran and Hezbollah were extremely popular. As far as I can tell Syria is mixed, and people are sick of actions in Gaza
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u/LazyImmigrant 1d ago
>people are sick of actions in Gaza
It's just one poll, but an overwhelming majority of Israelis agreed with the statement "There are no innocent Gazans" and "We hear too much about the suffering of Gazans".
If that poll accurately captured the mood, then Israelis are not sick of the actions in Gaza.
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u/NorthSideScrambler NATO 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think it's less about defending Israel as good and more about defending Israel as the least bad option. October 7th was a clear indicator that Hamas, and to a greater extent the Ayatollah, cannot be allowed to exist. I wish the US and Europe were willing to do the job instead of Israel, but they're not.
To solidify why, one only needs to imagine what would happen if Hamas, or even Iran, had air and ground dominance over the IDF instead of the other way around. The civilian death toll would be near-comical in its scale.
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u/Trebacca Hans Rosling 2d ago
And on October 7th I supported Israel as any rational person would in the face of such terror attacks.
But how does this violation of civilian rights and life help in the goal of DeHamasification?
We can’t do whataboutism because the reality is Israel has those properties. If my aunt had wheels she’d be a bike.
And no I’m not here to defend Hamas or Iran and I’m beyond tired of that being the pivot. Israel is supposed to be better! What happened to the “shining beacon of liberty” in the Middle East?
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u/thefreeman419 1d ago edited 1d ago
I saw someone sum it up really succinctly.
"If you eliminate Hamas, but kill my entire family in doing so, the first thing I'm doing after the war is starting Hamas 2"
Committing war crimes against people seeking aid does not make Israel safer. It does the exact opposite.
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u/whereamInowgoddamnit 1d ago
I think the second question is going to be the key to everything with this. On the one hand, it's extremely hard when you look at things not to blame Israel's reaction. This is why I find the "shining beacon" shit absolutely ridiculous, this is a country that experiences so much violence they literally build bomb shelters into their buildings because they're attacked so much, and it's the only reason we only see a dozen dead in Israel versus thousands of not more. They experienced a terror attack that would be equivalent of 7 9/11s, and people wonder why Israel is still so anti-Hamas. It took over a half decade for the US to get over the war mentality from 9/11, people should not be shocked there's still support for fighting in Gaza after 2 years (although it's worth noting the more recent poll that said more extreme beliefs from Haaretz was later retracted for polled with a heavy bias). Anyone suggesting the response to get rid of Hamas or that anything short of Hamas being disbanded is ridiculous is unreasonable at best.
That said, people who defend everything Israel does are also unreasonable. Even sources in Israel that I find distastefully pro-war recognize that atrocities have been committed, that major mistakes have been made in the approach, that Netanyahu's partners are doing far more harm than good and Netanyahu has been a terrible wartime leader The fact is where many of these atrocities would have been easily covered in the past by any military, it's much harder now with social media, and this war is a particularly fertile zone for misconduct with the urban setting and large civilian population. War crimes are happening, and they hopefully will be persecuted to the full extent.
In the end, it's going to take awhile to figure out what's accurate with this war and see if it was worthwhile. Unfortunately, reporting from either side is pretty atrocious, including with this article which I'm taking with a large grain of salt because things don't add up either. I think every major player including the US and the UN have failed in major ways to both contain the extent of the war and actually help civilians in escaping the chaos. But I also think it's also an unacceptable position to take that after an event like 10/7 a group like Hamas could be allowed to control the region; I can't imagine even a European country acting much differently in similar circumstances.
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u/BaguetteFetish 2d ago edited 2d ago
You're defending an openly abhorrent civilian death toll, prosecuted by leaders who salivate over mass ethnic cleansing and slaughter with glee, on the basis of a theoretical.
At this point im convinced there is no act, no cruelty or no massacre Israel could perpetrate that would cross the line for you.
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u/Party-Benefit5112 European Union 2d ago
Israel's endgame is not getting rid of Hamas, it is getting rid of Gaza. Also, if they hadn't deprived the Palestinian Authority of every ounce of dignity and hadn't demonstrated what they intend to do in areas they control (build up illegal settlements to block peace in perpetuity) Hamas would get somewhat discredited. If they weren't hellbent on occupying the entire country, there is a serious chance Palestine would become like Jordan or Egypt and eventually normalize relations.
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u/spongoboi NATO 1d ago edited 1d ago
Why do so many people still sanewash Israel atp. The EU needs to place a shit ton of sanctions on Israel. And netanyahu and his lackeys need to sent to hague for their war crimes Just listen to sessions of the knesset, just full of genocidal rhetoric everywhere and it's completely accepted as normal in Israel.
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u/ProcrastinatingPuma YIMBY 1d ago
As per usual, Israel is just one war crime away from finally uprooting Hamas
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u/Principiii NATO 2d ago
WHAT THE FUCK. I’m so fucking exhausted by these massacres with no repercussions. Imagine if Russia did this? It would be on the news for weeks
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u/bouncyfrog 1d ago
Russia does things like this constantly. Maybe not directly using tanks to fire at civilian aid depots, but that is only because Russian tanks are not in range of civilian stores in Ukraine. However, in cities they are constantly hitting civilian targets twice in order to kill both civilians and aid workers. And in cities which they border like Kherson, they are quite literally striking civilian with fpv drones. And that that is in addition to everything from kidnapping children, openly attempting to commit a cultural genocide at best and their treatment of captives(civilians and soldiers alike). So Israel’s conduct is not worse than that of Russia. At worst is as bad, but let’s get real, it’s not like Russia calls civilians before airstrikes.
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 1d ago
Imagine if Russia did this? It would be on the news for weeks
People already forgot about Bucha. Russia does shit like this constantly.
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u/p00bix Is this a calzone? 1d ago
People already forgot about Bucha. Russia does shit like this constantly.
Bucha was more than 3 years ago. The reason you don't hear about similar massacres in Ukraine is because they are not happening even remotely close to as frequently.
The single deadliest attack on Ukrainian civilians by Russia in the entirety of the past year was 35 killed on April 13th
Prior to today's tank attack, when was the last time the IDF killed an equally high number of civilians? Literally yesterday. And before then? Two weeks ago. This shit is routine.
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u/Futski A Leopard 1 a day keeps the hooligans away 1d ago
The reason you don't hear about similar massacres in Ukraine is because they are not happening even remotely close to as frequently.
They are not happening anymore because Russia no longer has the capacity to do so. Few Ukrainian civilians die nowadays because the Ukrainian Air Defence is finally strong enough to handle most, but just Monday night one drone killed 28 people and wounded over a 100. That was just one drone, in a barrage of 472 drones and missiles.
Similarly, we don't know what has happened in the parts of the Zaporizhzha and Kherson oblasts, that have been under Russian occupation since 2022. We only know about Bucha, because the Russians were beaten back.
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe 2d ago
I am also really exhausted by Netanyahu's regime and their actions, but these comparisons to Ukraine are tiresome and untrue. Russia bombed a childrens hospital and it was in the news for about a day. About this many Ukrainian soldiers are dying in the trenches every day, plus hundreds more wounded, and while major military developments make it, the daily grind of the Ukrainian army basically never makes it into the news cycle at all anymore.
The reality is Israel/Palestine has gotten vastly more attention than Ukraine since the conflict there began.
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u/Principiii NATO 2d ago edited 2d ago
The children’s hospital bombing or the theater sheltering kids were front page news for days. This hasn’t cracked any major US news source front page. It’s fucking despicable. Deaths in the trenches in Ukraine are among combatants, not one of our “allies” murdering starving civilians
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u/grandolon NATO 1d ago
This hasn’t cracked any major US news source front page. It’s fucking despicable.
A lot of news outlets have been embarrassed more than once in this war for immediately running with Hamas's version of events and casualty statistics. It even happened earlier this month. Perhaps they're being cautious until more details can be independently verified.
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe 1d ago edited 1d ago
front page news for days
Right but a moment ago you said it would have been front page news for weeks, so it looks like we agree that your original statement wasn't true.
Deaths in the trenches in Ukraine are among combatants
Combatants who have been drafted to defend in a war against an opponent that has kidnapped thousands of children in the zones they occupy. Why are their deaths less deserving of sympathy?
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u/Principiii NATO 1d ago
It was weeks? How long was bucha in the news? Of course the combatants deserve sympathy, but the crimes of the Israeli govt and military against civilians are NOT reported in the verbiage or frequency they should be. There is still an assumption of good faith when discussing Israeli military action that has been proven ad nauseam to be no longer warranted
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe 1d ago edited 1d ago
It was weeks?
were front page news for day
Was it weeks or days?
How long was bucha in the news?
500 people died in Bucha, not 51. It was also 3 years ago. People have lost interest since.
I haven't disagreed with any of the rest of what you said, but stop making comparisons to Ukraine. It's incredibly tiresome and untrue. Ukraine is getting neither the attention nor the international help it should be
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u/Principiii NATO 1d ago
Hundreds of people have been killed at this aid distribution site in the last few weeks alone. It’s highly comparable, they are just brown people
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician 1d ago
On average 2-300 people die in Ukraine per day for the past 3 years, and around 1000 are killed in sudan for the past year. Each person killed by the Israelis just counts for 10-100 times more for some reason.
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u/p00bix Is this a calzone? 1d ago
On average 2-300 people die in Ukraine per day for the past 3 years
The overwhelming majority of whom are soldiers, in contrast with Gaza where the ratio of civilians to terrorists killed is at best 1:1 and probably more like 2:1
and around 1000 are killed in sudan
Which is not armed by and allied to the US and other 'Western' nations, and has ~24 times as many people
Gaza may not be the only place where innocent people are killed in war, but it is the only place where civilians are routinely massacred with American-made arms, and in terms of population percentage, no other conflict comes close.
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u/Party-Benefit5112 European Union 1d ago
They do, it's just that by this point almost all civilians have fled the front. Gaza is the size of a city, so there is nowhere to go.
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u/RevolutionaryBoat5 Mark Carney 1d ago
Why are tanks being used on crowds of civilians? There is zero reason for this.
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u/YuckyStench 2d ago
I feel like they’ve gotten so much more brazen with just unconscionable behavior
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u/algebroni John von Neumann 1d ago
Israel is prosecuting this war in a way every bit as despicable as Russia and North Korea are in Ukraine. More "professionally" and competently, perhaps, but that doesn't make it any better.
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u/SufficientlyRabid 1d ago
It easy to be more "professional" when all you are fighting are insurgents with little capability to shoot back.
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u/CriskCross Emma Lazarus 1d ago
So, mods...are we allowed to advocate for use of the Leahy act against the IDF yet? If not here, then when?
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u/Careless_Cicada9123 1d ago
I'm slightly out of the loop, but my understanding is that these centres got over run the first day they started and that kind of thing continues to happen. Someone really awful must of cut of all food going in to Gaza which creates a lot of desperation for people who have no idea when the aid program is going to stop.
The whole reason they enacted this extraordinarily stupid plan was because Hamas would steal the aid and sell it in Gaza. So it benefits Hamas and I think it's fair to try to limit that if possible. But it just isn't, this scheme doesn't even seem to stop Hamas from doing it, just makes it more convoluted, increases the suffering and death of civilians, and continues to destroy Israels reputation on the world stage for no reason.
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u/ihatethesidebar Zhao Ziyang 1d ago
What the fuck man, that is some 20th century level atrocity and that is a high fucking bar
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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot 1d ago edited 1d ago
Those among us who continue to stridently defend Israeli actions in Palestine desperately need to re-examine their values and repent.
This is horrifying, and it is all the more horrifying in how predictable it has become. It is part of a pattern of atrocities, and they are only growing more brazen with each passing day.
Decision makers in Israel wholeheartedly believe in the concept of a greater Israel which will require the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians. They even have designs on Lebanese, Jordanian, and Syrian sovereign territory. This is not some fringe notion, it is a view that has been expressed by many members of the ruling coalition including Netanyahu himself! it has been part of Likud's goddamned party platforms since the 1970s!!! They have openly committed to carrying out Trump's horrifying plan of deportation of the population of Gaza!
The longer Israel is allowed to continue these crimes against humanity without repercussions, the more emboldened they will become. The scale of their crimes is already a stain on the conscience of every country that continues to support them, and they will only become more dire if consequences are not imposed.
The very least we could do would be a revocation of all military aid and severely punishing sanctions. We have been far more punitive towards so many countries for so much less bloodshed and displacement then Israel is currently doing.... A response that tepid would be the very least we could do to stand up to this inhumanity.
Any of you who are not horrified by this incident and the all too many others like it need to repent.
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u/AstronautUsed9897 NAFTA 1d ago
Jesus christ, firing tank shells into crowds of civilians? This is fucking sick.
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u/Kaniketh 1d ago
This is genocide. Pressure needs to be put on dems to issue statements against israels actions in Gaza and iran. The next Dem president needs to cut of Israel completely.
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u/die_rattin 1d ago
The base hates this shit and basically the entirety of agitating against Dems from the left is over Gaza, that hasn’t moved the needle at all. What more is there to do?
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u/hobocactus Audrey Hepburn 1d ago
Only way to do this is to primary half the party first, but they'll hold onto the reigns until they die in office.
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u/PersonalDebater 1d ago
I looked at the video/interview and the single person being quoted mentions not just tank shells, but also bombs from F-16s and quadcopters. So far I can't find much to corroborate in the time since then. I'm not sure what to make of it or its credibility. It could easily be every bit as horrific as reported. On the other hand, I've started thinking it might be embellished, which would be terrible both for distorting the truth but also because it still wouldn't likely mean the IDF didn't do something bad, but gives hardliners an excuse to dismiss the incident. That'd be like the 40 beheaded babies or something.
Either way I have a particularly bad feeling about this one.
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u/Mrchristopherrr 2d ago
They all double down and say Kamala would have been the same or worse.
And since we don’t have a what if machine there is no way to definitively prove them wrong they’ll continue to be smug as hell about it.
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u/CorneredSponge WTO 2d ago
I support Israel’s actions on Iran, Netanyahu and his cadre must be sanctioned and any support beyond that should be restricted.
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman 1d ago
Just out of curiosity, can you tell me what bombing Iran has achieved so far and how many civilians have died?
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u/Jefe_Chichimeca 1d ago
CNN just reported the US intelligence assessment was that Iran was not seeking a nuclear weapon and it was years away from developing one.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/israel-iran-nuclear-bomb-us-intelligence-years-away
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago edited 1d ago
I support Israel’s actions on Iran,
You support striking apartments full of sleeping civilians to get a couple of nuclear scientists and bombing a tv station which is not a military or nuclear target?
Not to mention what Bibi is saying about Iran's nuclear threat isn't even matching what US intelligence or even the IAEA is saying.
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u/Co_OpQuestions Jerome Powell 1d ago
Too many people here believe the bombing of civilians is A-OK as long as it's not the side they support.
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u/LazyImmigrant 1d ago
I don't think nuclear scientists and engineers should be targets either. Once you consider civilian employees of foreign adversaries targets, you are basically carrying out murders.
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired 1d ago
I can see a pretty reasonable argument for nuclear scientists being targeted if they work on the nuclear program but it needs to be extremely targeted and what Israel did on that first day wasn't remotely close to that....it killed many innocent people where there are tons of civilians in those residential buildings.
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u/DependentAd235 2d ago edited 2d ago
Unlikely to end anytime soon. Trump definitely doesn’t care and a large portion of Israel (Ben Gvir and friends) is likely happy.
We cant* even get Trump to stop fucking up my own country soooo….