That was mostly due to the blockade, it doesn't justify the rockets. That mostly damages a private company and doesn't cost Israel much in the grand scheme of things considering Israel has 2 additional large ports.
> They aren't detered by Israeli bombs because they've been bombed by the Saudis for over a decade in their ongoing civil war.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Death of their own people doesn't fit into their equation.
> But all of this talk about nuclear bombs and jihad is hypothetical. Meanwhile only one country in the MidEast has an ACTUAL undeclared nuclear arsenal, and it's the country that has occupied territory in multiple neighboring countries while conducting an ethnic cleansing that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of women and children.
That mixes a lot of different things and is mostly false.
Unlike them Israel never called for an annihilation of a different state. It called for a regime change. It never made a threat related to nukes other than one idiotic member of parliament who said something stupid.
Israeli demonstrators never called for death to Iran and even now the targets in Iran focus on the people/infrastructure behind the nuclear program while Iran targeted many civilian areas.
The claim of ethnic cleansing is also false and shows a deep misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza. There are Israelis who are justifiably warning that Israel is headed in that direction, but it physically hasn't happened yet. There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
If you're such a believer in Islamic logic then please explain why Hamas is still holding 53 Israeli hostages?
That is Israels main excuse for the war, without them the war will be over. What is the logic behind that?
Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse. In that sense the western outrage over the violence in Gaza is fuel to Hamas, it gives them incentive to keep the violence going and encourages them to use children. It encourages them to hoard the aid sent by the west and produce a picture of starvation amongst their own people.
The Israeli right-wing also benefits from this. They know that if the west abandons support for Israel it will allow them to do whatever they want. They believe that no amount of compromise will ever satisfy Palestinian extremists and they encourage taking harder action against them to fuel a war.
These sorts of stances and misinformation in the west is contributing to more violence and Palestinian death.
Oh wow. A floor of 50,000 dead, every city razed, barely any functioning infrastructure and a blockage on medical and food assistance.
Israel chooses this.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/05/far-past-time-to...
Or archived link: https://archive.is/D85m0
Israel didn't start this war. Hamas started it and is keeping it going by refusing to release the 53 civilian hostages it is holding. They are hiding under the cities, under the hospitals and all over the region.
I think the Israeli right-wing took that Hamas bait and used that to commit far more violence than it should have. Hamas is using it to prop western outrage which it believes will bring down Israel. The Israeli right-wing is happy about western outrage because they believe it will force Israel into isolation and let them do whatever they want.
Ansar Allah suppresses the port of Eilat while Iran suppresses the port of Haifa ( https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/shipping-company-m... ). I don't think Israel can be adequately supplied by the throughput of Ashdod alone.
> That mixes a lot of different things and is mostly false.
No, it is NOT "mostly false".
Does Israel have an undeclared nuclear arsenal? YES.
Does Israel occupy territory in multiple neighboring countries? YES (in both Syria and Lebanon, see: https://www.972mag.com/southern-syria-new-israeli-occupation... and https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-will-leave-...)
Is Israel conducting an ethnic cleansing? See my clarification below, but also YES.
>The claim of ethnic cleansing is also false and shows a deep misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza.
Well if we want to get technical, Israel is conducting a genocide, as ethnic cleansing is not precisely defined. Any rational human being can pull up the definition of genocide on the UN website and conclude for themselves by assessing each criteria, particularly #1 and #3. It's not complicated. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
We see the stream of images of dead, maimed, and starving children. We have the first-hand accounts of western aid workers and doctors trying to save lives in Gaza, reporting anomalies that even veteran conflict doctors haven't seen before (such as disproportionate head and torso small arms wounds on children). And perhaps more importantly, we see and hear the things Israeli politicians say about Palestinians.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/senior-israeli-official-s...
Should we not take a member of the Knesset at his word? https://kol-barama.co.il/item/%D7%97%D7%9B-%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A...
Should we not take Israeli Cabinet Ministers at their word, for establishing intent to destroy these people? https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-gaza-to-be-total...
and such language is not a new development, here's the Defense Minister back in 2018: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/there-are-no-inn...
> There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
Why are you using passive language? Why are there civilian casualties? They don't just magically appear on their own. There would be no civilian casualties if Israel wasn't dropping bombs on peoples' homes. There would be no civilian casualties if the IDF wasn't ambushing convoys of first responders.
> If you're such a believer in Islamic logic then please explain why Hamas is still holding 53 Israeli hostages?
I will not allow you to deflect from the core issue at hand by pivoting the conversation to Hamas. The point is to compare and assess the two principle STATE ACTORS, one of which sits on a nuclear arsenal while massacring civilians, and one of which is on the receiving end of "preemptive strikes" while not possessing equivalent weapons.
> Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse.
Hamas isn't wrong, which is probably why Israel spends such a massive amount of treasure and effort on propaganda directed at western audiences. The Israeli air force would have been grounded months ago if not for a blank check to get fuel and ordnance from the US. Israel's jets drink more aviation fuel than Israel can ever refine itself.
> It encourages them to hoard the aid sent by the west and produce a picture of starvation amongst their own people.
Hamas aren't the ones intercepting aid shipments in international waters. Israel is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/02/europe/gaza-flotilla-ship...
Well... It isn't. It's a big port. We're doing perfectly fine and the shops are full.
> Does Israel have an undeclared nuclear arsenal? YES.
Probably. But assuming it does, did it ever threaten anyone with it even when it was under attack? Nope.
> Does Israel occupy territory in multiple neighboring countries? YES (in both Syria and Lebanon
Lebanon shot rockets into Israel for a year at an average of 10 rockets per day targeting civilian population killing children etc. They dug huge tunnels in an attempt to do a full out invasion/massacre on the north border. Israel responded "gently" at first. Gave them a year to back down.
Now there's a price to pay after that.
In Syria Israel is being cautious. Just like Turkey is being cautious. It's an unstable region. Furthermore, the Druzi population in Syria is under threat: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/05/03/syria-c...
Israel is there to protect the family members of Israeli Druzi minorities and make sure they aren't murdered by the new regime.
> Well if we want to get technical, Israel is conducting a genocide, as ethnic cleansing is not precisely defined.
> 1. Killing members of the group; - Israel doesn't satisfy that criteria. There is a war which Israel didn't start. It's targeting Hamas which is in a specific region still holding hostages. People don't die because they are Palestinians.
Yes, civilian casualties happen a lot and it's tragic. But that isn't genocide by even the most lax definition of that.
> 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Again, war isn't that.
But let me help you with the arguments. First there's the ethnic cleansing which essentially means displacement. Initially when Palestinians were cleared from the north there were fears that they won't be able to return home. Some right-wing extremists even advocated for that. However, they have since returned.
The second claim is about starvation which I agree is terrible. Unfortunately, it's not as clear cut. Israel did plenty of stupid/evil stuff in that regard (cutting water, electricity and holding aid trucks). These were indeed bad. But they got restored.
The logic they had was that this is stolen by Hamas and then resold on the black market to fund their operation. This is also 100% true. That's why Israel is trying a different way around Hamas to bring down the organization for good.
That's horrible, but so are the other guys.
> > There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll. > > Why are you using passive language?
Because I never killed anyone and always voted for peace. I didn't do this, Hamas did it. I feel terrible for Palestinians. I can (and do) demonstrate against my government, I hope they will get a deal to release the hostages and end this.
A Palestinian who tries to do the same thing in Gaza will find himself in a shallow grave and the people who will put him there are his own countrymen.
Ideally, if Israel had a decent government this war should have been about freeing Palestinians from the clutches of Hamas. But with the current government it's unfortunately just terrible.
> Why are there civilian casualties?
There always are in war.
But mostly because of you. Hamas believe that without western support Israel will collapse. So they are making the war as brutal as possible for their own populace in the hope of de-legitimizing Israel. The Israeli extreme right-wing is actually for it, they think that if western support is no longer an option then no one will hold them back from forcing Palestinians out of Gaza entirely.
> They don't just magically appear on their own.
In a war zone people don't carry flashy signs indicating their civilian status.
> There would be no civilian casualties if Israel wasn't dropping bombs on peoples' homes.
Maybe. But there would be a lot more if Israel wouldn't just call them up and tell them to leave https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67327079
> There would be no civilian casualties if the IDF wasn't ambushing convoys of first responders.
There were several cases of Hamas using Ambulances to drive around and move troops. There were cases of mistaken identity by the IDF. It's horrible and that's exactly what Hamas wants.
> I will not allow you to deflect from the core issue at hand by pivoting the conversation to Hamas.
Why is that deflection?
You're pretending that Israel is there shooting civilians while ignoring the reason it's there to begin with.
> The point is to compare and assess the two principle STATE ACTORS, one of which sits on a nuclear arsenal while massacring civilians,
Again. Not murdering civilians, you have no concept of what war is.
> and one of which is on the receiving end of "preemptive strikes" while not possessing equivalent weapons.
They didn't receive a "preemptive strikes". They were the people behind the rise of Hezbolla in Lebanon who attacked Israel repeatedly. They funded the Huttis who attacked the Saudis and shipping. They blew up embassies and were behind countless terrorist action. They are the trigger, training and a major driver for the October 7th attacks.
Once they gain nuclear weapons it would be too late and WWIII will start. This strike was essential to prevent that.
> > Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse. > > Hamas isn't wrong, which is probably why Israel spends such a massive amount of treasure and effort on propaganda directed at western audiences.
Israel is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of weapons. Why?
Because we were under embargo before and it helped us build up our economy and technology. When we first got American aircrafts we had to strip that junk down and rebuild it. Thanks to us Americas aircrafts are now far better. Missile defense systems actually work.
An embargo will hurt Israel a lot. But would probably be far worse to the Palestinians.
> The Israeli air force would have been grounded months ago if not for a blank check to get fuel and ordnance from the US. Israel's jets drink more aviation fuel than Israel can ever refine itself.
If Israel can fly fewer missions it would just have to make every bombing count.
> Hamas aren't the ones intercepting aid shipments in international waters. Israel is.
The amount of aid in these flotillas is minuscule. They are for show only. Aid comes through trucks. Gaza has no port large enough for a ship, Biden tried to build one and failed.
These flotillas try to present the Israeli blockade as illegal. It isn't. Hamas is a threat and blockades are legal. Starvation tactics are illegal, but whether Israel is at fault here is debatable.
The problem I have with people like yourself is that you have a lot of criticism but no actual solutions. It's really easy to blame Israel, but what would you have Israel do exactly?
Go nicely and ask Hamas kindly to return the hostages? Stop firing rockets?
You say don't kill civilians, which school of urban warfare did you study in?
Give Palestinians a state: Israel tried it twice, arguably three times (leaving Gaza).
Leave Gaza: tried that before. That's how we got here.
> Probably. But assuming it does, did it ever threaten anyone with it even when it was under attack? Nope.
It's not a "probably". It's in Wikileaks emails from Colin Powell. https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-leaked-emails-colin-powell-...
Plus anyone in the DoD with an elevated clearance can read US intel info about various aspects of the Israeli WMD program in surprising detail, which I won't elaborate on here.
As for threats, have you not heard of the Samson Option? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_option#Martin_van_Creve...
> Again. Not murdering civilians, you have no concept of what war is.
Twenty years of military service, and I've worked with Fallujah veterans. Even we in the notoriously heavy-handed Marine Corps somehow manage to not annihilate as many families as the IDF does in Gaza. Don't think we have a systemic history of using human shields either: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-arm...
> They are the trigger, training and a major driver for the October 7th attacks.
The world didn't start on October 7th. How many Palestinians were killed by the IDF prior to October 7th? This is from 4 months earlier than that event: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/israel-opt-ci...
And from 2019: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/02/no-justifica...
> In a war zone people don't carry flashy signs indicating their civilian status.
A responsible military would establish Rules of Engagement that assumes people are civilians, and only opens fire when there are CLEAR indications of a threat (visual confirmation of weapons, incoming fire of clear origin, etc...). It helps keep you from shooting your own hostages because you mistook them for unarmed Palestinians, for example.
> You say don't kill civilians, which school of urban warfare did you study in?
I've been an infantryman in the US National Guard and an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I know what it's like to be expected to clear rooms while only having Reservist-level training (like most of the mobilized IDF ground forces). We were fortunate because we had a bunch of prior Active Duty NCOs (with both Army and Marine combat vets) who were experienced and understood restraint. Working as an Aviation C2 officer, I understand the killchain of air support missions, which is why I'm highly critical of how much ordnance is landing on the heads of entire families. The Israeli air force has a reputation for competence, so the only rational explanation is malevolence.
> If Israel can fly fewer missions it would just have to make every bombing count.
The implication in this statement is that you aren't making every sortie count now....which is coherent with the conclusion that you are bombing the population as punishment, not judiciously targeting actual military threats.
> The amount of aid in these flotillas is minuscule. They are for show only.
It's not the quantity of aid that is significant, it is the purpose, process, and optics of aid delivery. Members of the international community are attempting to relieve human suffering, and you are boarding their ships, shooting them, and attacking them with drones. That is objectively evil.
> The problem I have with people like yourself is that you have a lot of criticism but no actual solutions.
We have a lot of criticism because you are killing women and children using OUR taxpayer dollars, protected by OUR diplomatic influence with the UN/ICC/etc. We've presented solutions: a one-state solution with complete emancipation for the Palestinian population. The problem is the Jewish demographic refuses to accept this, because population trends will soon lead to Jews becoming a minority, which the Jewish population, traumatized by a history of persecution, refuses to accept.
Plan B would be to lift the Gaza Blockade and allow foreign investment to build up Gaza's transport links and offshore natural gas resources, so the Palestinians have sovereign control of their economic development. Also completely halt West Bank settlement expansion. Combine this with expanded UN peacekeeping patrols (maybe some sort of joint patrols, with one European Christian and one Pakistani/Indonesia/etc. Muslim) to try to keep violence to a minimum until both sides get past their collective traumas.
>Leave Gaza: tried that before. That's how we got here.
You removed your ground troops, but you destroyed the Gaza airport before you left (why?), destroyed the foundations of the Gaza seaport as well (why?), and as you said insist on maintaining a maritime blockade. The population has no transportation links to establish meaningful trade relationships and economic prosperity. The young men who make up the backbone of Hamas foot soldiers circa 2023 were probably all the children you traumatized in ~2006. That's how you got here.
> 1. Killing members of the group; - Israel doesn't satisfy that criteria.
> I didn't do this, Hamas did it.
I'm honestly glad that you engage online. I think it is important for as many eyes as possible to see into the thought processes and state of mind of the apparently moderate Israeli demographic. Because you guys come across as total fucking psychopaths, with NO sense of introspection whatsoever. I work with Marines who have fought house-to-house in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are more well-adjusted and humane that what I hear from the average Israeli internet commenter, even on a fairly "enlightened" site such as HN (this place isn't a dumpster fire like Reddit or 4Chan).
