Due to the severity of the situation and the fast flowing news cycle, we have decided to create a general megathread for discussion regarding the conflict.
Informal/Satirical news sources are not allowed on the main feed of the community but you are free to post them in this thread.
Please remember that all community and instance rules apply to this thread hence keep is civil.
Some facts about the Gaza Strip:
- Population: ~2.3 Million
- Area: 365 km² (141 sq mi)
- 41 km (25 mi) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide
- Population density: ~6300/km² 1
Gaza is very densely populated. In Gaza live as many people as in Houston. But Houston has an area of 1658.6 km² (640.4 sq mi). Thus Gaza has nearly five times the population density of Houston. New York City is the only city in the US with a population of more than a million and a higher population density than Gaza. 2 The tallest building in Palestine stands at 76.1 m (255 ft). 3
A little less than half of the population of Gaza is made up of children. 4
There are only three (“legal”) ways in and out of Gaza:
- Rafah Crossing into Egypt in the south
- Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel in the south
- Erez Crossing into Israel in the north
Gaza has a very small port. It can only be used by small fisher boats. 5
Israel built a wall and fences around Gaza. 6
Water runs out at United Nations shelters in Gaza
Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity to Gaza, pounded neighborhoods with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of Israel’s planned attack. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted last weekend.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza. But the spokesman for Israel’s energy and water ministry, Adir Dahan, said it was only flowing at a single location in southern Gaza. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back and a Gaza government spokesperson said it was not flowing.
Hmm! Why would the US spread Israeli misinformation? It’s a mystery! 🙃
About half a million Gaza residents have taken refuge in U.N. shelters across the territory and are running out of water, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency, known by the acronym UNRWA. “Gaza is running dry,” she said, adding that U.N. teams have also begun to ration water.
Touma said a quarter of a million people in Gaza moved to shelters over the past 24 hours, the majority of which are U.N. schools where “clean water has actually run out,” said Inas Hamdan, another UNRWA spokeswoman.
Across Gaza, families rationed dwindling water supplies, with many forced to drink dirty or brackish water. Many resorted to going to dirty wells and the sea, increasing the risk of dehydration, water borne diseases and more deaths.
“I am very happy that I was able to brush my teeth today, can you imagine what lengths we have reached?” said Shaima al-Farra, in Khan Younis.
Settlers are sick.
Everyone knows that the UN is a Hamas front. Providing the UN with water is akin to providing Hamas with the heads of babies.
I’m curious what disinformation you’re talking about given what you quoted? And you implied that it is known, but why do you think said disinformation would be spread?
Also, there are no settlers in Gaza. Haven’t been for around 18 years.
The misinformation is the Zionist lie that they turned the water back on, when actual people on the ground in Gaza are telling us they don’t have water.
Also, everyone living on stolen Palestinian land and benefiting from land theft and apartheid is a settler. From the river to the sea.
To be clear, there’s one lie and then that lie got spun into something pro-Israeli.
Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza. But the spokesman for Israel’s energy and water ministry, Adir Dahan, said it was only flowing at a single location in southern Gaza.
Sounds like Jake got told the same lie, and he spun it and omitted the “one location” part. Dahan lied (saying it was on at one location when it wasn’t) and Sullivan made it sound even better by conveniently dropping the “one location” part and implying that water is fully restored.
From Sullivans perspective he may be reporting the “truth”, based upon what he knows/knew at the time, but said it in such a way to imply the Israelis are better than he “knows”.
When your illegitimate regime is definitely not losing every front including the information front and is definitely not about to eat a major L: Israel has announced that consuming “Hamas media” will now be a federal offense punishable by a year in prison, even if no actions were taken. Visiting Hamas websites is considered an offense.
Here’s the original article
I dont see anything like what you’re stating mentiond Please don’t spread misinformation
I read the source article but I’m not seeing a reference to what you’re quoting? It mentions that the government are planning to create an “independent” regulatory body that oversees media outlets and can issue them fines if they don’t behave in a way that the “independent” body sees fit, i.e. what the current government thinks is right or wrong, but I didn’t see anything about this being actual policy or anything mentioning hamas websites.
I don’t think the original article is the best source on its own, but…
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67100274
That’s the current UK policy, which of course condemns discussion on the massacres of babies (of which no proof has been given and which the White House has been forced to retract statements regarding) as “glorifying terrorism.”
Netanyahu is further to the right than the Tories, is more emotionally invested in the conflict, and has more to lose if pro-Hamas sentiment spreads. Moreover, given the context of how the Israeli government has enforced media laws in the past, it’s not that far of a stretch. The big leap being made I think is that the government is “planning” to do this, not that it’s already done so.
That’s the current UK policy, which of course condemns discussion on the massacres of babies
Does it condemn discussion of Hamas or does it condemn glorification of Hamas? There’s definitely a difference. I would find it hard to believe there’s an explicit law that prevents people discussing the massacres of babies.
From the article:
At a pro-Palestinian rally in Manchester on 8 October, a day after Hamas attacked Israel killing hundreds of civilians, a man wearing a red football shirt with “Palestine” written on the back told the crowd: “We have all seen the scenes and it is the most inspiring act of resistance.”
Emphasis mine. He’s not in trouble for discussing Hamas, he’s in trouble for glorifying the massacre. Not really the same thing as visiting a website.
But anyway, this is a bit of a distraction as we’re talking about Israeli policy, not the UK’s. I was just clarifying that the parent user made a statement as if it were a law, but it’s not, and the link to the article doesn’t mention anything about it being a crime to visit a Hamas website. From what I understand from the article the planning is about fining media outlets that I assume won’t toe the party line, not individual people for visiting websites. Yes, I agree, it’s not a stretch to assume this could be a thing in the future, but based on the linked article it doesn’t seem to be the case right now.
IDF misinformation from the start of the conflict until now:
1. Hamas beheaded forty babies
Context: the reports of Hamas beheading babies came from an interview by i24 News of an IDF commander. This quickly spread through Western media outlets such as CNN, NBC, MSNBC, FOX News, the Telegraph, Daily Mail, etc. I haven’t done a comprehensive sweep of who picked up the story and who didn’t (and of course now it’s much harder to do so because of retractions, edits, my lack of direct TV access, and SEO), but from what I can tell AP News and Al Jazeera have been relatively reliable.
Lack of evidence: 6 days ago, Anadolu (Turkish state-owned media) reported that: Israeli army says it does not have ‘confirmation’ about allegations that ‘Hamas beheaded babies’. This was later confirmed by other sources.
Misinformation: 5 days ago, Biden stated "I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children,” said Biden, who described Saturday’s attack as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust”. The White House later posted a retraction of this claim: "A White House spokesperson later clarified that US officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently,” The Post reported on Wednesday.
2. Shani Louk, claimed to be naked, dead, and sexually assaulted
Context: images circulated online about a video purporting to show Shani Louk, a German national attending the Nova EDM festival, on the back of a truck, face-down. Claims that she appeared to be naked, dead, and sexually assaulted circulated on the same media sources discussed above.
Misinformation: given the videos we have, we know with a decent amount of certainty that the video being shown is of Shani Louk. However:
A. She’s clearly not naked in the video and you can see that she is wearing black shorts as well as boots. A top is also visible (but she is face-down, so we can’t see much of it). Neither her shorts nor her boots appeared to have been removed. From what I can tell, she was initially wearing a long skirt that was likely lost in the chaos.
B. Her family claims that she is alive and receiving medical attention at a hospital in Gaza, which does explain why they would be transporting her. There is visible blood on the back of her head, but she does not seem to be bleeding profusely when the video was taken.
C. I will not comment on whether or not she was sexually assaulted.
3. 260 dead Israelis at EDM festival
Context: many news sources independently verified that 260 bodies were pulled from the EDM festival. Many sources reported that this was an act of terror with no strategic objective and a massacre of innocent civilians.
Lack of context: Nova was held in Kibbutz Re’im, mere minutes from Gaza, and also mere minutes from the IDF Gaza Division’s Re’im base. Tanks are clearly visible in videos leaving the festival, as are armed personnel. Hebrew-language interviews of released prisoners are providing more insight into these attacks, but I do not speak Hebrew so I will refrain from commenting on this further. Hamas has claimed that fighters were told to avoid harming or killing civilians.
Potential misinformation: Hamas claiming that fighters were told to avoid harming civilians does not mean that Hamas fighters did not harm civilians, obviously.
Potential misinformation: the reports indicate that 260 bodies were found, but their origin has not been confirmed. We know that armed personnel discharged their weapons against Hamas fighters (and vice-versa). How many of the dead are civilians, IDF, armed security, or Hamas?
Much of the media coverage on this conflict has been used to spread misinformation, even from traditionally “reliable” sources in the Western sphere. As a result, I would strongly recommend supplementing coverage of these events with those outside the Western sphere. The journalism being done is lazy.
The impression I had gotten from interviews (Al Jazeera, the Guardian, Haaretz) was that Israeli civilian police were there and exchanged fire with Hamas but that it was HOURS before they came across any IDF personnel. I’ve been focusing on this less as the time goes on and the catastrophic situation in Gaza gets worse and worse, so maybe further sources have come out regarding the Nova Festival.
Regardless I would like to see consequences to the people who authorized a festival so close to Gaza in the first place…
That’s the part that really doesn’t make sense to me.
There’s literally an active military base RIGHT THERE. It’s literally based in Re’im. There’s no way the IDF could be that incompetent. It’s not like forces had to be deployed from elsewhere in the country.
Supposedly, they had another location in mind but it fell through so they had to use Re’im with two days notice.
I don’t know how to confirm this myself but I have read and heard that before anything else, after it was known Hamas fighters were inside Israeli territory, the IDF first move militarily was to start bombing Gaza. No one can argue honestly that the IDF defends Israelis - its literally just the most reactionary of religious Zionists that they serve.
Secular Jewish Israelis? Nah they can fend for themselves for a few hours, we’ve gotta attack Palestinian civilians, says the IDF. And that’s not even bringing up that 20% of Israeli citizens ARE ARABS, some of whom were also attacked in their homes in Southern Israel 10 days ago, but of course the same people calling Hamas human animals will go after them next (not to suggest they aren’t already, only that Gazans face more immediate extermination).
here’s literally an active military base RIGHT THERE
Practically the complete IDF was in the West Bank at that time, when you have minimal staffing at a military base you really don’t want to leave it but hunker down as it getting captured would be even worse.
There’s no way the IDF could be that incompetent.
I’d say that’s a reasonable assessment. That Netanyahu and his goons are as competent, however, is a much more tenuous claim, or they wouldn’t have sent the IDF o the West Bank (to back up settlers harassing (and worse) Palestinians).
I had a frustrating conversation with one person around the “40 beheaded babies” claim. Snopes dug into the claim. The IDF never I think we’ll never be able to verify that particular claim. The flip side is that in the end, a dead baby is a dead baby regardless of how it got that way. My objection is that facts matter, particularly with claims of particular brutality or when the situation is a powder keg.
Hamas has claimed that fighters were told to avoid harming or killing civilians.
I don’t buy this for one minute. Not a minute. Palestinian civilian casualties are high because Hamas and other organizations operate from inside of neighborhoods as guerrilla forces. Israel has separate forces. You wouldn’t get massive civilian casualties from Hamas targeting the IDF’s bases. They can make all the claims they want, but it doesn’t fit with the facts.
A lot of these settlements have either contracters or the IDF directly providing security. So the idea that Hamas could have broken out of Gaza and just found all the soldiers neatly in their bases seems unbelievable. The IDF is an occupying force, not a European military where it’s just some dudes with their thumbs up their asses in a barracks near some nature reserve.
Ultimately we can’t know how Hamas leadership told their soldiers to behave. But they do have a clear incentives not to condone the killing of civilians: they want to capture hostages and use them as leverage. They need to create the expectation that these hostages are treated fairly and can be returned safely so that it is entirely up to Israel whether it wants those civilians to die.
Tragically, civilians always die in wars. Both sides always propagandise this to claim that it is the other side that is just killing civilians as policy. The facts however, are abundantly clear when it comes to the question of which side shows the greater disregard for civilian casualties.
Seems like a mistake to place the danger zone on that side of the Kerem Shalom goods crossing, but then again they left that moron Netanyahu in charge so I’m sure that’s no mistake.
I heard Egypt actually warned Israel of the exact date of the initial attack and Israel still failed to react, it becomes harder every day to think this whole war wasn’t the intention of Israel leadership.
