[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28654229[/url]
[quote]Israel has announced the withdrawal of all of its troops to "defensive positions" outside the Gaza Strip.
Lt-Col Peter Lerner told reporters Israeli forces would have left Gaza before a 72-hour truce, scheduled for 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT).
Israeli media reports had claimed the main aim of the conflict - to destroy militants' tunnels - had been achieved.
Gaza officials say the four-week conflict has killed 1,800 Palestinians. Some 67 Israelis have also died.[/quote]
Well despite the loss of life, I'm pleased to see that I was wrong by saying it was going to be permenant.
1,800 lives to collapse some tunnels that will probably be rebuilt a month from now. Mission accomplished, eh?
Let's hope Hamas doesn't ruin this good news.
[QUOTE=andololol;45596359]Let's hope Hamas doesn't ruin this good news.[/QUOTE]
Just because Israel withdrew doesn't mean the rockets will stop.
Defensive positions means Eli has a better chance of getting caught and not being shot :v:
Doesn't mean much, major bombing still going on Rafah and rocket sirens all over Israel atm. If anything, it will only curtail Hamas ability to brag about their reversed ratio of 65 Israeli soldiers, and two Israeli civilians dead total.
[editline]4th August 2014[/editline]
Israel always primarily operates from above. Boots leaving doesn't mean shit for the conflict until the bombs stop.
[QUOTE=ScottyWired;45596423]Defensive positions means Eli has a better chance of getting caught and not being shot :v:[/QUOTE]
he already went to a gaza patrol gate and [URL="https://twitter.com/IcyPlayboi69/status/495936885429374976"]almost got shot like the idiot he is.[/URL]
so right now he's just hanging around on the gaza border, haven't heard from him since yesterday/ 2 days ago.
(for those wanting context on what we are talking about: [URL]http://wiki.teamgamerfood.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Operation_Tupacalypse[/URL] , Come join us at the FP thread about it [URL="http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1404117"]here [/URL] if you want to talk about it)
But yea, hopefully this shit ends soon, this is really taking too long.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;45596352]1,800 lives to collapse some tunnels that will probably be rebuilt a month from now. Mission accomplished, eh?[/QUOTE]
I like that this is being dumbed when it is legitimately incredibly disturbing that 1800 is an acceptable death toll when the majority of them comprise of civilians.
Will Israel support the Palestinians in rebuilding?
[QUOTE=MuTAnT;45596664]Will Israel support the Palestinians in rebuilding?[/QUOTE]
Probably not. I'm assuming the flow of construction materials are going to be stemmed as well - things like concrete and steel, seeing as how those were used to construct the tunnels.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;45596410]Just because Israel withdrew doesn't mean the rockets will stop.[/QUOTE]
Especially with all the civilian deaths, they probably just boosted recruitment for hamas because people want revenge for their family and friends deaths. Thus, this whole shit storm of a cycle continues.
[QUOTE=Rofl my Waff;45596634]I like that this is being dumbed when it is legitimately incredibly disturbing that 1800 is an acceptable death toll when the majority of them comprise of civilians.[/QUOTE]
Still no official report on who is considered a civilian and who is not. Hamas doesn't use uniform.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;45597076]If Hamas death toll isnt as high as 900, then this is not acceptable, at least in 21st century, age of precision.
Mind you, a bit OOT but, Nanjing massacre happened because of the Chinese soldiers mixed among civilian populace, so "That mightve been the enemy too!" isnt really a good excuse[/QUOTE]
The IDF currently claims about 900 of the casualties are militants.
I think the Palestinians claim around %70-%80 of the casualties are civilians.
We will probably never know for sure because only Hamas and Israel have actual lists of Hamas members and both have an interest in skewing the count.
There was [URL="http://www.israellycool.com/2014/07/26/latest-analysis-of-gazan-casualties-in-operation-protective-edge-as-of-july-25th/"]an analysis of the casualty lists[/URL] as published in al-Jazeera that claimed the number of male victims in fighting age is statistically much larger than their percentage in the general Gaza population, which would point to more of them being militants than just random civilian victims.
But the analysis is by a clearly Israeli-biased site, so take that as you will.
As for Nanjing, you may recall that westerners in the city established the "[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Safety_Zone"]Nanking Safety Zone[/URL]", an area where civilians could take shelter and no soldiers were allowed, and that area was mostly respected by the Japanese and was mostly safe from attacks.
I'm pretty sure that if the UN or the Palestinians themselves were able to establish areas free of Hamas militants the IDF would have no reason to attack these areas, and civilians there would have been much safer for the duration of the operation.
Regardless, generally speaking massive civilian deaths as the result of military operations were not considered war crimes at the time of WWII. See: the mass bombing of European cities by the allies during the later phases of the war. The actions of Nazi Germany and Japan were considered war crimes because they specifically and systematically targeted civilian populations in areas they already occupied and had no military goals in. So WWII is not the best example here. Or we could compare the situation to what the allies did to Berlin (civilians included) following the V1 rocket attacks on Britain, I guess. Still a terrible analogy.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;45597347]The analogy I made was of the excuses, not the massacres itself. Like, The Japanese used the soldiers among civilians excuse too, that was my point. And UN zones' point is proving a Hamas-free zone, right? For civilians only. Still, Israel strikes those areas too. And The civilian bombings of Axis nations must be considered terror acts too, as their aim was really terror, terrorising civilians to cripple war effort.
Isreallycool? I dont know what to think about that. Lets forget about it, but, what would you say to [URL="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4570/gaza-civilian-casualties"]this[/URL]? I just skim-read, but it occurs me that the points are the same.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately the UN facilities were not entirely Hamas free, as (at least according to the IDF, some reporters in Gaza and UNRWA press releases) the buildings and their vicinity were used for storing military supplies, providing shelter and launching rockets into Israel and attacks against IDF soldiers. Starpluck and Lamar would probably disagree.
The site you linked to appears to be by some kind of[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute"] neo-con think tank[/URL]. And it appears the analysis they refer to is the one I posted above, based on the lists published in Al-Jazeera.
This is[URL="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20687"] the full analysis[/URL], by an Israeli intelligence and terrorism institute.
About the truce: both side accepted the 72 hour truce, which seems to be holding so far.
The Palestinians have a cease-fire agreement supposedly base on the original Egyptian proposal, which Israel already accepted before so it seems likely it will accept it again.
I'm guessing negotiations between everyone (Hamas, Fatah, Egypt, Qatar, USA and Israel) are already ongoing. Hopefully they can reach a permanent agreement before the 72 hours run out. Nobody else needs to die.
Yes
[QUOTE=Rofl my Waff;45596634]I like that this is being dumbed when it is legitimately incredibly disturbing that 1800 is an acceptable death toll when the majority of them comprise of civilians.[/QUOTE]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II]Bombing of Hamburg: 2.5% dead[/url]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II#B-29_raids]Firebombing of Tokyo:[/url] [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Imperial_Japan]1.4% dead in a single night[/url]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Pforzheim_in_World_War_II]Bombing of Pforzheim: 31.4%[/url]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29#Civilian_casualties_.282001.E2.80.932003.29]Initial stages of the War in Afghanistan: 0.03 - 0.6%[/url]
1800 dead Gazans: 0.1% - if every single Palestinian killed was a civilian.
[QUOTE=SpaceGhost;45596736]Especially with all the civilian deaths, they probably just boosted recruitment for hamas because people want revenge for their family and friends deaths. Thus, this whole shit storm of a cycle continues.[/QUOTE]
A whole new generation of vendettas.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;45597668]yeah i guess you could say israel has the power of the entire allied army in ww2 and the power of the current us army[/QUOTE]
You do realize that the total population of Gaza does not equal the population of Hamburg, Tokyo or Afghanistan, right?
[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;45597878]The population of Gaza is actually around 1/30th the population of Tokyo[/QUOTE]
Which is still a fucking huge number of people.
[QUOTE=ScumBunny;45597257]The IDF currently claims about 900 of the casualties are militants.
I think the Palestinians claim around %70-%80 of the casualties are civilians.
We will probably never know for sure because only Hamas and Israel have actual lists of Hamas members and both have an interest in skewing the count.
There was [URL="http://www.israellycool.com/2014/07/26/latest-analysis-of-gazan-casualties-in-operation-protective-edge-as-of-july-25th/"]an analysis of the casualty lists[/URL] as published in al-Jazeera that claimed the number of male victims in fighting age is statistically much larger than their percentage in the general Gaza population, which would point to more of them being militants than just random civilian victims.
But the analysis is by a clearly Israeli-biased site, so take that as you will.
As for Nanjing, you may recall that westerners in the city established the "[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Safety_Zone"]Nanking Safety Zone[/URL]", an area where civilians could take shelter and no soldiers were allowed, and that area was mostly respected by the Japanese and was mostly safe from attacks.
I'm pretty sure that if the UN or the Palestinians themselves were able to establish areas free of Hamas militants the IDF would have no reason to attack these areas, and civilians there would have been much safer for the duration of the operation.
Regardless, generally speaking massive civilian deaths as the result of military operations were not considered war crimes at the time of WWII. See: the mass bombing of European cities by the allies during the later phases of the war. The actions of Nazi Germany and Japan were considered war crimes because they specifically and systematically targeted civilian populations in areas they already occupied and had no military goals in. So WWII is not the best example here. Or we could compare the situation to what the allies did to Berlin (civilians included) following the V1 rocket attacks on Britain, I guess. Still a terrible analogy.[/QUOTE]
Mind you, males in fighting age tend to be predominantly targeted in conflicts no matter if they are actually militants or not.
In part due to the whole protect the women and children mentality (while the men stay exposed) and in part due to a higher belief of enemy forces that they will pose a threat.
as a rule of thumb, every conflict will see more men dead than woman, even if they are all civilians. Unless you go to extremes like the a bombs, the dresden firebombings and other things that indiscriminately target civilians.
The thing with Israel versus Palestina is that we aren't still looking at a normal military operation, but strikes into relatively densely populated areas from a very well equipped army against irregulars which come from an ethnic which has faced some sort of oppression for quite a while.
You're still looking at a very large number of noncombatant deaths though. Some estimates, including some linked here put the noncombatant death to roughly 50% of the overall one. Which is huge and is probably more a result of the strike strategy than the boots on the ground one. Even more if you add in more culture pressure in palestina for women to not be direct combatants.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;45598423]Mind you, males in fighting age tend to be predominantly targeted in conflicts no matter if they are actually militants or not.
In part due to the whole protect the women and children mentality (while the men stay exposed) and in part due to a higher belief of enemy forces that they will pose a threat.
as a rule of thumb, every conflict will see more men dead than woman, even if they are all civilians. Unless you go to extremes like the a bombs, the dresden firebombings and other things that indiscriminately target civilians.
The thing with Israel versus Palestina is that we aren't still looking at a normal military operation, but strikes into relatively densely populated areas from a very well equipped army against irregulars which come from an ethnic which has faced some sort of oppression for quite a while.
You're still looking at a very large number of noncombatant deaths though. Some estimates, including some linked here put the noncombatant death to roughly 50% of the overall one. Which is huge and is probably more a result of the strike strategy than the boots on the ground one.[/QUOTE]
The IDF is accused of indiscriminately attacking the general population in Gaza with strikes against concentrations of civilians like UN facilities. If that was indeed the case you would expect the distribution of genders and ages among the killed to be more or less the same as that of the general population. According to some accusations, perhaps even more women and children than their part in the general population.
If indeed the majority of casualties are young men it would point to the fact that the IDF did manage to mostly engage likely combatants and not just randomly explode people all over the place. Whether those young men are in fact all or most militants would be impossible to tell until everyone involved publishes their numbers.
For example, despite similar Palestinian and UN accusations of an overwhelming majority of civilian casualties in the Gaza war of 2008, the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War"]final estimates[/URL] are that 500-700 of the 1200-1400 killed in the war were combatants.
Edit:
Expecting an obvious followup question to that wikipedia link: yes, the IDF counts Hamas police as militants and not civilians. This is because they are, in fact, militants.
See this [URL="Hamas police"]Times article from 2010[/URL]:
[QUOTE]And there is a third security force that Gazans fear: Hamas' highly secretive Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the movement's armed resistance wing, which carries out violent attacks on Israel and whose members have a reputation for being some of Hamas' most steadfast adherents. [B]Referring to both the uniformed police and the plainclothes Internal Security, one civilian says, "They're all Qassam." The government does little to deny it. "Many of the Qassam operate within both the Qassam brigades and the Internal Security," Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghossain tells TIME.[/B] "In our laws, we do not prevent any resistance fighter from joining the police or a security service, provided that he is committed to the rules and regulations of the department he belongs to ... We make sure that their activities, outside of their official jobs, remain separate."[/QUOTE]
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