They exchanged text messages and emojis. Brief status updates with words of encouragement. A picture of the beloved family dog “Tutsi.”
Until no more messages came.
And then, Cindy Flash, an American, and her Israeli husband Igal vanished into the violence, presumed kidnapped by Hamas.
Four days after Hamas attacked Israel, more than 100 Israelis and potentially dozens of foreign nationals are thought to be held captive in the Gaza Strip. At least 14 U.S. citizens have been killed and an unknown number are still unaccounted for.
Flash, 67, originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of them. She lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz in southern Israel near Gaza, where some of the most harrowing and grisly stories have been emerging during the last few days.
“They are breaking down the safe room door,” Flash said in one of her final messages to her daughter Keren, 34. “We need someone to come by the house right now.” She had been communicating with her parents from a few houses away.
Keren described her mother, who worked as an administrator in a local college, as someone who had the “sweetest biggest heart,” who everyone knew and loved, and who had spent a lifetime advocating for the rights of Palestinians, including those who live in Gaza where she may now be held.
Hamas ≢ Palestine
Questions: Who is fighting for Hamas? From where the “boots on the ground” come from? How can they organise amidst civilian population to take any coordinated actions?
Assuming that your questions are rhetorical and that you are placing blame on all Palestinian citizens for the actions of Hamas. By the same logic, all Americans are guilty for the Jan 6th attack on the capital and all the other horrific acts America have committed around the world.
No, my questions are not rethorical. Any such movement cannot live separated from the local population. They cannot organise in secret if nobody is keeping that secret. They cannot train if the others don’t keep the secret. They cannot manufacture, hide and launch thousands of small range rockets if other don’t keep a secret.
I’m not arguing about justifications or who did what and why. It’s not relevant for this discussion.
Sure. And Netanyahu is a right-wing asshole. But he isn’t a terrorist.
You see the difference?
Hamas was never elected as sole leadership in Palestine. They never won a plurality of votes, ever.
They formed a unity government, then fought the other government, usurped control, and cancelled elections forever.
Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats. They did it with 44 percent of the vote. Not sure how that worked.
Anyway, you’re kind of right, kind of wrong.
And the Palestinian authority is really a puppet government that Israel allows Palestine to have, so it’s not like any available option is really good
20 years ago. Around half of today’s population didn’t vote and of the ones that did many didn’t vote for hamas. Find a new way to blame innocent people, this one doesn’t work.
Half of the population is below 19 years old. So they weren’t even born when Hamas was elected.
The average age of Palestinians is 19. The average age of Israelis is 30. That tells you one thing, that you don’t live a long life if your Palestinian.
The article clearly states “advocate for Palestinians, then Hamas came for her” like it’s some “voting for the face eating leopards” situation. It’s a valid distinction. Also, no, the Israeli army isn’t all Israelis.
It’s hard to see the difference between Palestinians and Hamas when they had a pro Palestine rally in my city and their signs were peppered with “death to all Jews” and pictures of Jewish caricatures being hanged.
This seems more like an example of wrong place wrong time because nowhere in the article does it state that they were specifically targeted. What it does say is that they lived right next to the fence and that they and their neighbors both had safe rooms. To me, when you (and your neighbors) feel the need to build a fortified room to protect yourselves during a potential attack that says this area is potentially very dangerous.
Also, stop conflating the Palestinian people with Hamas. Not all Russians are committing war crimes in Ukraine. Not all Americans stormed the US capital on J6. Not all Saudis were on planes on 9/11. We do not need to further dehumanize ANY of the people who are now suffering through this now and the MANY who are continuing to have suffering brought upon them.
Nobody can excuse attacks on civilian populations for revenge. This goes both ways. And whether or not this poor sweet lady and her husband are still alive, I’m sure she would be equally abhorred that her life’s work is being used as an excuse to undo the very thing she worked towards.
Edit: I’ve been informed all homes in Israel must have safe rooms by law.
Israeli here:
- Every house in Israel has to have a safe room by law
- The place where she lived was close to the border but completely within Israel. It wasn’t a settlement at all.
- Most kibbutzim in Israel are known to be centre-left. This is well-known to anyone who even vaguely follow the Israeli media (and Hammas follow)
Hammasb (not the Palestiniens, Hammas) knew exactly who they murder. There is no excuse to wash their hand.
So then Israel (not it’s people, but the military) know exactly who they murder now? So when they now and in the past murder civilians there’s also no excuse?
- I didn’t know that about the safe rooms, thank you for the context.
- The article states she lived “right next to the security fence” and while I’m sure it’s within the border that still doesn’t mean it’s a great place to build. Nobody said it was a settlement.
- There’s no excusing the attack, rationalizing who they attacked or how they went about it. Again thank you for pointing this out because it highlights that this was either an indiscriminate attack against anyone and anything Israeli or that they were purposely trying to spoil the sentiment of those who would speak out against what now comes after. Were they just that diabolical or was it an attack of opportunity in terms of location and defense? You tell me.
Edit: also, aside from all that. I’m truly sorry this happened to your country and your people. I wish you all peace and an end to the bloodshed.
“It wasn’t a settlement at all.”
Your entire country is a settlement.
There are Palestinians that are older than your “state”.
Palestine became a state at the same time. there was never a Palestine before that.
nowhere in the article does it state that they were specifically targeted.
Basically nobody was specifically targeted. Hamas simply flooded in and started raping, murdering, destroying and taking hostages indiscriminately. People from various countries and religions, old women, children and babies, even pro-Palestinians advocates like these people. It was straight up terrorist madness, and now innocent people in Palestine are suffering as a result. A textbook cycle of violence.
The raping allegations stuff doesn’t make sense. Imagine you are in an attack. Bullet flying, and you stop to rape someone.
Usually these things happen in occupied territory over time noy during the time of taking over.
I hate to break it to you, but sadly rape during war and violent conflict go back as far as the dawn of humanity.
It’s a very well documented thing and has been for a very long time.
I really don’t understand why people decided to live in these kibbutz right next to the Gaza border and never realize that this might happen.
It’s like sitting right on the very edge of the shoulder of a very busy highway. Eventually you will be hit by a fast moving car.
It’s disputed territory with the potential of becoming a war zone at any moment and people decided to buy expensive real estate and build beautiful homes next to impoverished people that have nothing.
And we should be surprised that this happened?
What the Palestinians did was terrible … but we should all be reading the headlines with a lot of history and context. None of it is justified by any side … but at the same time, none of it is a surprise.
Seoul is 11 km from the North Korean border. People just assume things won’t go wrong until they do.
Moving a city is quite the feat compared to just not building houses blocks from a military DMZ
If you’re a lifelong Palestinian advocate, as this women was, it makes a lot of sense to live near the Gaza border.
What doesn’t make much sense is someone like her being killed by an indiscriminate Hamas terrorist attack…
People in South Korea are not regularly bombed in rocket attacks, SK does not require houses have steel-reinforced concrete bunkers.
The last time a North Korean killed a South Korean was a long time ago, I don’t know that I would call these situations comparable.
If NK did start shelling Seoul and attacking civilians near the DMZ, that would legitimately be unexpected.
wow. this is the best comment I have seen on it. I feel sorta similar. Whats been done is just monsterous but man the situation is so ridiculous and I wish the US and the rest of the world had done many different things post ww2.
It’s a common misconception that Israel and Palestine were created post WW2 but the roots go all the way back to turn of the 20th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine
People like to blame America for all things, but this region has been under conflict and conquest for literally thousands of years. It was controlled at points by Egypt, Babylon, Assyrians and Persia, In biblical times it was essentially tribal (Israelites, canaanites, samaratins, philistines who were in conflict with israelites…) until the Roman Empire took over. Then Rome broke up into two and it become part of the (Eastern Roman) Byzantine Empire, then after Muhammad’s death it was conquered by the Muslim Caliphate, then taken under control of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. Religiously it has been Jewish, Christian and Muslim and I think has historical significance to all 3. I’m sure I’ve left a bunch of stuff out because I’m no historian.
It’s one of the most complicated and protracted conflicts in history, and the people who want to make this out to be simple are either plain dumb or have some kind of alterior motive.
There’s really no point in history we can use to say “there, this makes X side justified and Y side the bad guys!”
Pogroms in Russia left Jewish scholars to conclude that they would only see respect and freedom if they had their own state. That morphed over time into a nationalist movement with violent insurgents.
Palestinians were just living under British colonial rule. They wanted freedom and independence too, and cooperated against violent insurgents. They wanted their land in full and to not have to give it away to and accommodate other people. And over time that’s morphed into groups like Hamas that want every Israeli dead and Israel destroyed.
Their causes have all done damnable things at some point. Their causes started from wanting fundamental freedom and independence and safety.
Well I was talking more than just the creation of isreal which was technically britain but the american end times christians who feel they need to make biblical prophesies come to pass so they can say. See look the bible prophecy we made happen came to pass so its really magic for sure darn diggety. I did not explain myself well because my little comment represents a whole bunch in my head but essentially I wish the democratic world would have gotten together and worked to protect itself and had nothing to do with the non democratic world until such time as they had evolved into decent democracies. It still cracks me up the UN is a democratically run (sorta) body that had non democratic members.
Man, if I could upvote this comment more than once I would.
Expresses my sentiments exactly.
I visited Israel years ago - shortly after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - and remember coming across a class (girls, around 7-8 years old) out on a school trip … and they had 3 guys carrying assault rifles to protect them. And I remember thinking: “whatever it is you’re fighting for … isn’t worth it if you have to live like this”
And sadly I think it’s only got worse since that time.
Yesterday on TV over here, they showed a satellite picture of an area of Hamas’ incursion across the border were you can see both sides of the border line and the border itself.
And the commentator said: “Here you can see the destruction caused by the attack”
And it’s only after a few seconds of looking at the area that looks like a junkyard and a mess and thinking “yes indeed, it’s all trashed” that you notice that actually the black smoke is all on the opposite side of the border, the one with lots of space and nature, with little villages, which would look idyllic if not for the smoke.
The overpopulated slum on the left side that looks like a junkyard on a satellite picture is the Gaza side and just a wall away on the right side is this idyllic area with lots of space and nature, a place were the people from the left side will never be allowed to live or even just visit.
How could anybody ever imagine that it would be safe to live in spacious homes and comparative luxury, right next an area were people are forced to, since the day they were born, live in what’s basically an overcrowded slum?
I was under the impression that the border was extremely well guarded and secure. At least at some point it must have been. It seems like the government recently moved troops to the west bank in order to protect settlers instead. https://lemmy.world/post/6616736
It still begs the question.
Who would want to buy real estate and settle into a home right next to a militarized border that separates you from a country that has many individuals that want to murderously destroy you and your entire family? In an area that might at any time turn into a war zone?
I guess that applies to the whole of Israel, though. Gaza is the most dangerous hot spot right now. But I don’t know if that has always been the case. Hamas came to power in 2006. I guess people just carried on, hoping for the best and trusting in the security forces. But honestly all of that is speculation. My point was just, that the reasons for people living there are complicated.
Why it should happen to us, exactly? People build up tolerance to accept this kind of gambling-as-a-routine, especially if the rules are obfuscated and conditioned by other things. Consider now how suicidal is a process of driving a car to work – but you can’t avoid it this morning and there are many safeguards at place to make it less risky. They just go with it, they rationalize it before they stop giving a fuck. And it is layered, as many parties approved such a thing to be.
Politicians push to approve construction there and guarantee it’s safe because their career depends on it, like one of safety-promising Benj. Companies buy a plot and develop this place into housing because high risk => high reward and FOMO. Young people and re-pats buys them because they need a house, it’s their best affordable option and two other parties said it won’t get them killed. Such a snowball, growing bigger at each turn, and each next party has less agency there. And it could be stopped at any of them, I guess?
I’ve seen that with Crimea: occupiers waving a hand to their rich oligarch friends in the biz, companies taking random bits of land to develop, building apartments in the middle of nowhere, people buying property there. I knew some of the latter. They had a fascinating list of reasons why to buy it and none of them thought that there’s any chance of water and energy limiting, escalation and, for sure, Ukrainian advancement. But at the time they’ve settled there, these phantom risk were outweighted by Crimea’s good climate and them not getting any housing otherwise for that price.
Frugal person pays twice, as our saing goes.
And it’s not like they are talking about cheap real estate either
The new houses, each sitting on a 500 square meter (5,380 square foot) plot, go for between NIS 1.2 million ($335,000) for 90 square meters (970 square feet) to NIS 1.8 million ($500,000) for 180 square meters (1,940 square feet).
By comparison, a 94 square meter (1,012 square foot) first floor apartment in Rishon LeZion in central Israel sold last week for NIS 1.96 million ($546,000) while a 184 square meter (1,980 square foot) house with a 247 square meter (2,660 square foot) garden sold in the same city for NIS 2.7 million ($752,500), according to the Globes business newspaper.
If I had access to half a million dollars to purchase or invest in real estate … I wouldn’t want to invest in a location that could be destroyed by war or risk me and my family to violence or death.
“None of it is justified by any side …“
Strong disagree. Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself.
Israel doesn’t have a right to exist, but the Hebrews have a right to live on the land and to defend themselves from attack. The problem comes from people refusing to accept that Palestinians have a right to live there too and to defend themselves from attack too.
The borders have to come down, a new South Levantine Confederation must be established with equal rights, freedom of movement, and an absolute ban on supremacism and separatism as unassailable, reparations to all war victims must be paid out of a combined fund taken from Israel, Hamas, and the Fatah, and Northern Israel which features thriving mixed demographic communities must be used as a model to integrate the rest of the new state peacefully.
Did you see what happened? I mean all the killing of civilians, just targeting women, elderly and children on purpose? And you are not surprised in any way that humans can do that?
Ignoring the aspect that you might think that one of the best army in the world guards the border, do you expect human being to do such atrocities, especially if you are a person advocating for their rights?
If you’ve paid attention to the conflict in the region and you’re intelligent, yes, I would expect one to anticipate such a group could carry out such monterous acts.
Atrocities like this happen all over the world all the time. There’s just differing levels of media coverage/social interest.
This should sicken and disgust people to their core. But it really shouldn’t be surprising for a terrorist organization to commit evil acts.
Before all the crazies jump to conclusions about me, I don’t support Isreal’s expansionism or ethnic cleansing or Hamas and their terror attacks.
I agree … It’s absolutely atrocious.
But if you have a crazy person threatening to kill you or your family, do you just ignore that and believe that they will never carry through with their threat? How about if that person or group of people shouted that threat in a regular basis for years? Would you want to build your house next to them?
There’s a reason why there are laws against uttering threats.
None of the death and destruction is justified, it’s absolutely abismal that humanity can sink this low but both sides are guilty of fanatical followers that want the other side dead.
In the context of the hatred and fanaticism, we shouldn’t be surprised at the violence.
Hamas isn’t Palestine. They don’t represent the Palestinian people. It’s not because Hamas took her that she was betrayed by Palestinians.
Hamas was elected in 2006. The destruction of Israel was clear on its agenda. They are representing people of Gaza.
The problem with that argument is that the Israelis have also voted for the fascist, corrupt leader Netanyahu who needed to change the law to not land in prison and completely failed to protect Israel or to deescalate the situation in any way. You wouldn’t want to justify the killing of Israeli civilians either, so you shouldn’t try and do that with Palestinian ones.
A lot of people are trying to justify the killing of Israeli civilians however.
If there’s going to be an “open air prison”, we should make one for the far right nationalists of every country so the rest of the world can live in peace.
I voted for a way different party in 2006 than I do now. Opinions change.
No I guess you’re right. I mean if they represented no one, there wouldn’t be a Hamas. But I’m fairly certain that’s a minority. The rest, the regular people, just want peace and a normal life.
It does not matter in this case whether they have support or not. Israel funded Hamas against the PLO, hoping to deter a two state solution by pointing to the angry Islamists they funded. Netanyahu openly said it, and bragged.
They even assassinated other leg secular leaders. Netanyahu and the Mossad are responsible for tying the fate of the Palestinians to Hamas. And they share responsibility for the slaughter too.
The more I read the more it seem Hamas works for Bibi.
Bibi was having a popularity problem. Now it doesn’t matter.
The targets are mostly from the opposition to Bibi.
This gives him the excuse he was waiting to level Gaza.
Too many timely coincidences.
But maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Netanyahu and the Mossad literally funded Hamas against the left secular PLO. They have the blood of innocents on their hands.
They enjoy very wide support amongst the populace so they do represent many Palestinians, probably a majority?
Hamas isn’t in any way working for Palestinian rights. Hamas is not a synonym for Palestinian.
As an elected government, it’s a synonym for “most of Palestine”. AFAIK it’s direct representation with no gerrymandering fuckery like the states to make it only questionably true.
Pootie was elected in a land slide in Russia. Kimie was Elected unanimously in North Korea. Pooh Bear, oops, sorry, Xi was elected by a large majority. Nyet 'n Yahoo was voted into power by a good margin. Fat Joffrey was elected by mostly empty land. None of those leaders represent anyone but themselves.
You are simply trying to justify your bigotry.
Ceausescu won his last elections with 96% approval. In the same year he escaped the capital, was captured, sentenced to death, and immediately executed, which promted a coutry-wide celebration
