this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023

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'I’m calling from Israeli intelligence. We have the order to bomb. You have two hours' (www.bbc.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

149 comments fedilink hide all child comments

By Alice Cuddy BBC News, Jerusalem

The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.

It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.

He'd been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.

He'd heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. "You need to escape," somebody in the street shouted, "because they will bomb the towers".

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[–] [email protected] 199 points 10 months ago (115 children)

Everytime I read an article like this, my immediate reaction is posting a comment expressing my disgust with the Israeli State's actions and everytime I hesitate because I don't want to suffer the inevitable wave of people defending the Israeli State's actions as somehow justifiable because Hamas did something vile first.

It's a continuing cycle of violence and the Israeli State holds a humongous power advantage. They don't use that power disparity to deescalate and integrate the Palestinian people to prevent Hamas from having support. Instead they do shit like this where they drive Palestinians straight into Hamas' hands, because the Palestinian people are given no other option to turn to.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (21 children)

Your last point is why I feel like what Israel is doing is just straight up illogical, even from a purely selfish point of view. The only thing they are doing here is basically proving Hamas "right" in the eyes of many Gazans, and fueling a fervent desire for revenge. If someone living in Gaza wasn't already a terrorist, they sure as hell are much much more likely to be one now.

Imagine how you would feel if your home and possibly moved ones were bombed like this, losing you everything or nearly everything you hold dear. You lose autonomy over your own life, you lose your independence and rights. I imagine it feels a lot like losing rights as a minority, or something like getting an abortion becoming illegal, turned to the extreme. And these things being threatened to be done to me already cause me to feel strong contempt against the perpetrators. If pushed far enough, things like this would cause me to become a "terrorist", in the sense of being willing to strongly resist it in an attempt to maintain my rights and autonomy.

But of course, whether I would be called a terrorist or not depends on how it's framed, and how much compassion or understanding people would give me. Hell, in the US LGBTQ+ activists, or anti-racist/anti-fascist activists are already called terrorists sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago

Their plan is to eliminate all Palestinians and take their land. The more each side escalates, the closer they can get to that; sure, some Israeli may die, but that gives them justification to exterminate scores of Palestinians every time.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (12 children)

There are three lenses through which the Israeli government's actions make sense:

They are supremacists who were looking for an excuse to escalate an ethnic cleansing they have no way to complete without a goddamn good framing for the Western press.
They're a far right government looking to appease far right voters who only want to solve a blood conflict with more blood, and never by taking advantage of their superior position to force de-escalation. These are politicians merely trying to conserve their own seats, no matter ethical considerations or what's good for their country.
Racism, ethnic supremacism, religious bigotry, emotional meltdowns and the unability to see a conflict in any other way than seeing you as the first and last victim are all great ingredients to enter into a spiral of terribly irrational decisions. All of these ingredients are present in the Israeli government and in a good portion of Israeli society.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

I think in the eyes of the Government it makes a lot of sense to act the way they do, it’s a great casus belli that has been dropped into their lap to ‘finally’ wipe out Gaza.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

No, what Israel is doing makes sense from a strictly selfish point of view.

The question of 'Why doesn't Israel integrate the Palestinians?' is a good one. The answer is numbers.

Israel was founded as a Jewish ethnostate. Those who have immigrated there have done so because they wanted to live in a Jewish ethnostate. So one of the core values of the country is that it is primarily a place for Jews.

If Israel absorbed the populations of Gaza and the West Bank into Israel, the Jewish population would become a minority in Israel if not immediately then within a generation.

I don't agree with the idea of ethnostates in general and I do believe establishing Israel as one was a mistake.

... But if you imagine the viewpoint of someone who does want a Jewish ethnostate like so many in Israel you can see why this solution is a non starter.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

It's because their corrupt far-right government wants to wipe out Palestinians. That's their end goal apparently.

I just hope enough decent people both Palestinian and Israeli get the fuck out of there before the genocide shit show truly begins.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago

May Hamas, the Israeli gov't, and the IDF spend an eternity in Hell for the crimes they've committed against humanity and innocent civilians.

If the mods/admins want to ban me for saying that, feel free. I don't want to be part to any group that supports and advocates for murders and war crimes.

[+] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's because Netanyahu has a long history of supporting Hamas for his own political gains.

For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces, Times of Israel, 8 October 2023

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

The symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas, The Hill, October 22, 2023

Netanyahu’s policy, however, was in direct opposition to most of the Israeli defense and security establishment, which viewed cooperation with the PA to be in Israel’s security interest. Fans of the Netflix series “Fauda” will recognize that cooperation. Most security experts felt the PA needed to be strengthened, not weakened.

Since returning to power in 2009, Netanyahu made no secret of his desire to keep Hamas and the PA apart for his own political purposes. For example, in 2017, the PA and Hamas were negotiating a possible takeover by the PA of civilian control of the Gaza Strip. Even though the United States and Egypt supported this reconciliation, Netanyahu was adamantly opposed — lest it empower the PA.

Why Netanyahu helped fund Hamas and how that backfired for Israel, India Today, November 1, 2023

“Whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Prime Minister Netanyahu as saying in 2019.

Video: Ex-Saudi intel chief accuses Israel of 'funnelling' Qatari money to Hamas, India Today, October 31, 2023

Prince Turki al-Faisal's accusation against Israel comes days after a report by Reuters, citing a source privy to the matter, stated that Qatar's financial aid to the Palestinian families in Gaza passes through Israel. The funds are transferred electronically from Qatar to Israel, following which Israeli and United Nations (UN) officials hand-carry the same over the border to the Gaza Strip.

How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel, CBC News, October 28, 2023

Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."

In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's "strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah."

Netanyahu's current finance minister, West Bank settler Belazel Smotrich, explained the approach to Israel's Knesset channel in 2015: "Hamas is an asset, and (Palestinian Authority leader) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is a burden."

"But each time Netanyahu was asked, 'Why don't you negotiate with Abbas,' he would say, 'I can't negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that doesn't represent all Palestinians.' And so he would use Hamas and this division to justify his absolute objection to any negotiated peace agreement."

Liberman: Netanyahu sent Mossad head, general to Qatar, ‘begged’ it to pay Hamas, Times of Israel, February 20, 2022

“Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas, as though it was an environmental organization. This is a policy of submission to terror,” he said, adding that Israel was paying Hamas “protection money” to maintain the calm.

Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided, Jerusalem Post, March 12, 2019

The prime minister also said that, “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

This story made me cry. I am disabled and not always mobile. There are loved ones in my family who are elderly, cannot walk far, and depend on medication.

I cannot even imagine what it must be like to try to evacuate at short notice, with nowhere to go.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is brutal, just incredibly sad. Israel’s military has a long history of weaponizing disability, as you may know, and it’s been illuminating to examine that further.

When you’re ready, the excellent disability-focused podcast Death Panel offered some insights I had never encountered elsewhere. Please listen to the following episodes on SoundCloud or wherever you would like. I hope they can offer some solace and empowerment.

Public Health and Palestine with Danya Qato

Body Politics with Jasbir Puar

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 10 months ago (8 children)

I can't imagine packing up and leaving in 2 hours with my whole family and all my cats and everything

[–] [email protected] 93 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You dont have two hours to pack. You have two hours to not be in the area anymore

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If you still live in Northern Gaza to this day, after all that's being going on, and all the warnings to GTFO... you better keep your cats and belongings pre-packed and ready to be several blocks away in 30 minutes, don't even wait the 2 hours.

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