They were unarmed and likely had their arms raised. Further proof that the goal is ethnic cleansing, not just defeating Hamas.
... Israeli political and military leaders often say freeing all the hostages is their top aim in the war alongside destroying Hamas.
Still, in seven weeks since ground troops pushed into northern Gaza, troops have not rescued any hostages, though they freed one early in the conflict and have found the bodies of several others.
Pretty fair chance that many others have been killed by the IDF missiles and bombing.
... In southern Gaza, the Al Jazeera television network said an Israeli strike Friday in the city of Khan Younis killed cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and wounded its chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh. The two were reporting at a school that had been hit by an earlier airstrike when a drone launched a second strike, the network said....
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Abu Daqqa is the 64th journalist to be killed since the conflict erupted between Hamas and Israel. That number includes 57 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese journalists.
Guess who has murdered almost all of these journalists.
... The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Thousands more are missing and feared dead beneath the rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Its latest count did not specify how many were women and minors, but they have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead in previous tallies.
billy.pilgrim wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 12:10 am
We never held bush accountable and he knew.
As you say:
... U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed unease over Israel’s failure to reduce civilian casualties and its plans for the future of Gaza, but the White House continues to offer wholehearted support for Israel with weapons shipments and diplomatic backing.
The "expressed unease" is meant exclusively for domestic consumption, not to alter Israel’s actions.
... In meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday and Friday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed a timetable for winding down the intense combat phase of the war....
Sullivan also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss Gaza’s postwar future. A senior U.S. official said one idea being floated is to bring back Palestinian security forces driven from their jobs in Gaza by Hamas in its 2007 takeover.
Any role for Palestinian security forces in Gaza is bound to elicit strong opposition from Israel, which seeks to maintain an open-ended security presence there. Netanyahu has said he will not allow a postwar foothold for the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The U.S. has said it eventually wants to see the West Bank and Gaza under a “ revitalized Palestinian Authority " as a precursor to a Palestinian state — an idea soundly rejected by Netanyahu, who leads a right-wing government that is opposed to Palestinian statehood.
As neoplacebo posts above the strategy is to keep the Palestinian Authority impotent. Israel has not hidden this, the US is well aware of it and Joe will not do anything meaningful to deter Israel. Sullivan's efforts are pretense, again solely for domestic consumption.
... Meanwhile, Palestinian support for Hamas has tripled in the West Bank, with a small uptick in Gaza, according to the poll.
Good job, Nuttyahoo.
Still, a majority of Palestinians do not back Hamas, according to the survey.
Good.
Regardless, I have faint hope that Israelis hold Nuttyahoo accountable rather than the war making him stronger. It sure has distracted from his corruption trial and his efforts to cancel Supreme Court independence.
