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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
As desperation in Gaza grows, Israel pledges to block vital aid until Hamas releases hostages By JOSEPH KRAUSS and WAFAA SHURAFA 1 hour ago JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military pulverized the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said Thursday its complete siege of the territory — which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine — would remain in place until Hamas militants free some 150 hostages taken during a grisly weekend incursion.
A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of U.S. weapons, offered a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that forces “are preparing for a ground maneuver” should political leaders order one.
A ground offensive in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas and where the population is densely packed into a sliver of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.
Hamas’ assault Saturday and smaller attacks since have killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers — a toll unseen in Israel for decades — and the ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,530 people in Gaza, according to authorities on both sides. Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead in Gaza are Hamas members. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
As Israel pounds Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel. Amid concerns that the fighting could spread in the region, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday put two Syrian international airports out of service.
The relentless barrage on Gaza — which the military said has so far involved 6,000 munitions — left Palestinians running through streets, carrying their belongings and looking for safety
A strike Thursday afternoon in the Jabaliya refugee camp took down a residential building on families sheltering inside, killing at least 45 people, Gaza's Interior Ministry said. At least 23 of the dead were under the age of 18, including a month-old child, according to a list of the casualties.
The home belonging to the al-Shihab family was packed with relatives who had fled bombing in other areas. Neighbors said a second house was hit at the same time, but the toll was not immediately known. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We can’t flee because anywhere you go, you are bombed," one neighbor, Khalil Abu Yahia, said. "You need a miracle to survive here.”
The number of people forced from their homes by the airstrikes soared 25% in a day, reaching 423,000 out of a population of 2.3 million, the U.N. said Thursday. Most crowded into U.N.-run schools.
Families were cutting down to one meal a day, said Rami Swailem, a 34-year-old lecturer at al-Azhar University, who had 32 relatives sheltering in his home. Water stopped coming to the building two days ago, and they have rationed what’s left in a tank on the roof.
Alaa Younis Abuel-Omrain has been staying in a U.N. school after a strike on her home killed eight members of her family — her mother, aunt, a sister, a brother and his wife and their three children. Most bakeries stopped producing bread for lack of electricity.
“Even if there is food in some areas, we can’t get to it because of strikes,” she said.
On Wednesday, Gaza’s only power station ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.
Hospitals, overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and running out of supplies, have only a few days worth of fuel before their power cuts off, aid officials say.
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Newborn incubators, kidney dialysis machines, X-ray equipment and more, are all dependent on power, he said.
Ambulance crews carrying bodies to the morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Shifa, found no space left. Dozens of full body bags were lined up in the hospital parking lot. Fourteen health facilities have been damaged in strikes, health officials said Thursday.
With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that airstrikes on Rafah have prevented it from operating. Egypt has been trying to convince Israel and the United States to allow aid and fuel through the crossing.
Israel is employing a new tactic of leveling whole neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings. Hecht, the military spokesman, said targeting decisions were based on intelligence on locations being used by Hamas and that civilians were warned.
“Right now, we are focused on taking out their senior leadership,” Hecht said. The military said strikes have hit Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, including command centers used by the fighters in Saturday’s attack, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative used to store weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas after the militants stormed into the country’s south on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killings of children in their homes and young people at a music festival. Netanyahu said Hamas' atrocities included beheading soldiers and raping women, descriptions that could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Amid grief and demands for vengeance among the Israeli public, the government is under intense pressure to topple Hamas rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
In a video released Thursday, civilian Hamas figures defended the group’s rampage and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from six days of Israeli airstrikes. The solemn video lacked the bravado of a recording aired Saturday by Hamas’s military wing that hailed “the greatest battle” as the massacres were still taking place.
Basem Naim, a former Hamas government minister, said that in the “swift collapse” of the Israeli military on Saturday, “chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation." The claim is contradicted by countless videos and survivor accounts of Hamas militants deliberately targeting and killing civilians in Israel.
Naim added that there would be no action to free the 150 captives taken back into Gaza while Israel's operation continued.
Israel was a nation in mourning. At a funeral for a 25-year-old woman killed with at least 260 other people at a desert rave, and at another service for a slain Israeli soldier, mourners sat cross-legged on the ground next to caskets, wailing or quietly weeping.
In Gaza, too, mourners buried families together in shrouds. At one funeral, they placed the battered body of a little girl in the arms of her slain father.
Brewing anger over Israeli military and intelligence failures in the surprise attack is being directed at Netanyahu’s far-right government, which for months advanced a contentious legal overhaul that divided the country and affected the military.
In what appeared to be a first admission of fault from a government member, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told Israeli news outlet Ynet: “We are responsible. I, as a member of the government, am responsible. We were dealing with nonsense.”
Israel’s public diplomacy minister quit, the first fissure in Netanyahu’s government since the onslaught.
Four previous conflicts ended with Hamas still firmly in control of the territory it has ruled since 2007. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, massed forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from nearby communities. A new war Cabinet, which includes a longtime opposition politician, was sworn in Thursday to direct the fight.
A high-ranking Hamas official, Saleh Al-Arouri, warned Thursday that any Israeli invasion of Gaza “will turn into a disaster for its army,” saying the group was prepared to respond.
Blinken’s visit underscored American backing for Israel’s retaliation.
“You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists, you will never have to,” Blinken said after meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
Blinken said he told Netanyahu that it was “so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.”
Blinken will also meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin planned to visit Israel on Friday.
___
Shurafa reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem; Sam McNeil in Be’eri, Israel; Jack Jeffrey and Samy Magdy in Cairo; Samya Kullab in Baghdad and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
UN spokesperson says evacuation order affects 1.1 million people and
will spark ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’, amid expectations of
Israeli ground assault
"The U.N. said that moving the approximately 1.1 million people affected within the 24-hour deadline given by Israel would have dire consequences."
-NY Times
A.P. News :
"JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday
of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City
ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The order comes after Hamas
militants, and the United Nations said Israel has warned it wants the
evacuation of all 1.1 million people from the northern part of the Gaza
Strip.
The directive, which comes on the seventh day of the war
after a deadly Hamas assault on Israel, directs residents of Gaza City
to flee deeper south into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory.
Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels
under the city.
“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military said, in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians."
Is Israel trying to dissuade support from the rest of the
world? When they have the support of so many people and several major
countries, why do this?
(Yeah, I know, so much for ignoring this thread.)
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
what comes to mind is to force egypt to open up. force the whole population there, then slam the door shut behind them. completely decimate gaza , then clean it up and make new settlements...
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
what comes to mind is to force egypt to open up. force the whole population there, then slam the door shut behind them. completely decimate gaza , then clean it up and make new settlements...
Would Egypt go a long with that?
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
what comes to mind is to force egypt to open up. force the whole population there, then slam the door shut behind them. completely decimate gaza , then clean it up and make new settlements...
Would Egypt go a long with that?
the end result? no. I dont believe they would. I don't believe they've ever opened their border up for people , only for goods. But I don't know that for a fact
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
what comes to mind is to force egypt to open up. force the whole population there, then slam the door shut behind them. completely decimate gaza , then clean it up and make new settlements...
Would Egypt go a long with that?
the end result? no. I dont believe they would. I don't believe they've ever opened their border up for people , only for goods. But I don't know that for a fact
Me neither, I honestly don't know. I just hope as many innocent souls as possible make it out safely.
And yes, hoping for no more casualties in Israel either. Too many deaths on both sides.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Isreal is about to eradicate any sort of high ground or sympathy and really hit the hornets nest... which is frightening.
Fighting terror isn't making things go boom. This is probably the response Hamas was hoping for. What even is their objective in Gaza? Revenge?
Show restraint, finish their deal with the saudis, figure out the intelligence holes, improve intelligence and take out Hamas leadership with special ops. Doesn't play well on TV, but the best way forward.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach
By MICHAEL BIESECKER and SARAH EL DEEB
Today
Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall” and launched an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.
A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.
The Islamic militant group’s live-fire exercise dubbed operation “Strong Pillar” also had militants in body armor and combat fatigues carrying out operations that included the destruction of mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real in the deadly attack last Saturday.
While Israel’s highly regarded security and intelligence services were clearly caught flatfooted by Hamas’ ability to breach its Gaza defenses, the group appears to have hidden its extensive preparations for the deadly assault in plain sight.
“There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up,” said Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute. “Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn’t spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening.”
The Associated Press reviewed and verified key details from dozens of videos Hamas released over the last year, primarily through the social media app Telegram.
Using satellite imagery, the AP matched the location of the mocked-up town to a patch of desert outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. A large sign in Hebrew and Arabic at the gate says “Horesh Yaron,” the name of a controversial Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Bowman said there are indications that Hamas intentionally led Israeli officials to believe it was preparing to carry out raids in the West Bank, rather than Gaza. It was also potentially significant that the exercise has been held annually since 2020 in December, but was moved up by nearly four months this year to coincide with the anniversary of Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
In a separate video posted to Telegram from last year's Strong Pillar exercise on Dec. 28, Hamas fighters are shown storming what appears to be a mockup Israeli military base, complete with a full-size model of a tank with an Israeli flag flying from its turret. The gunmen move through the cinderblock buildings, seizing other men playing the roles of Israeli soldiers as hostages.
Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli colonel who previously led the military intelligence department overseeing the Palestinian territories, said he was aware of the Hamas videos, but he was still caught off guard by the ambition and scale of Saturday’s attack.
“We knew about the drones, we knew about booby traps, we knew about cyberattacks and the marine forces … The surprise was the coordination between all those systems,” Milshtein said.
The seeds of Israel’s failure to anticipate and stop Saturday’s attack go back at least a decade. Faced with recurring attacks from Hamas militants tunneling under Israel’s border fence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a very concrete solution — build a bigger wall.
With financial help from U.S. taxpayers, Israel completed construction of a $1.1 billion project to fortify its existing defenses along its 40-mile land border with Gaza in 2021. The new, upgraded barrier includes a “smart fence” up to 6-meters (19.7 feet) high, festooned with cameras that can see in the dark, razor wire and seismic sensors capable of detecting the digging of tunnels more than 200 feet below. Manned guard posts were replaced with concrete towers topped with remote-controlled machine guns.
“In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts,” Netanyahu said in 2016, referring to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. “At the end of the day as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety.”
Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Hamas fighters pushed through Netanyahu’s wall in a matter of minutes. And they did it on the relative cheap, using explosive charges to blow holes in the barrier and then sending in bulldozers to widen the breaches as fighters streamed through on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks. Cameras and communications gear were bombarded by off-the-shelf commercial drones adapted to drop hand grenades and mortar shells — a tactic borrowed directly from the battlefields of Ukraine.
Snipers took out Israel’s sophisticated roboguns by targeting their exposed ammunition boxes, causing them to explode. Militants armed with assault rifles sailed over the Israeli defenses slung under paragliders, providing Hamas airborne troops despite lacking airplanes. Increasingly sophisticated homemade rockets, capable of striking the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, substituted for a lack of heavy artillery.
Satellite images analyzed by the AP show the massive extent of the damage done at the heavily fortified Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The images taken Sunday and analyzed Tuesday showed gaping holes in three sections of the border wall, the largest more than 70 meters (230 feet) wide.
Once the wall was breached, Hamas fighters streamed through by the hundreds. A video showed a lone Israeli battle tank rushing to the site of the attack, only to be attacked and quickly destroyed in a ball of flame. Hamas then disabled radio towers and radar sites, likely impeding the ability of the Israeli commanders to see and understand the extent of the attack.
Hamas forces also struck a nearby army base near Zikim, engaging in an intense firefight with Israeli troops before overrunning the post. Videos posted by Hamas show graphic scenes with dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.
They then fanned out across the countryside of Southern Israel, attacking kibbutzim and a music festival. On the bodies of some of the Hamas militants killed during the invasion were detailed maps showing planned zones and routes of attack, according to images posted by Israeli first responders who recovered some of the the corpses. Israeli authorities announced Wednesday they had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Hamas militants, though no details were provided about where they were found or how they died.
Military experts told the AP the attack showed a level of sophistication not previously exhibited by Hamas, likely suggesting they had external help.
“I just was impressed with Hamas’s ability to use basics and fundamentals to be able to penetrate the wall,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Stephen Danner, a combat engineer trained to build and breach defenses. "They seemed to be able to find those weak spots and penetrate quickly and then exploit that breach.”
Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based senior Hamas official, acknowledged that over the years the group had received supplies, financial support, military expertise and training from its allies abroad, including Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he insisted the recent operation to breach Israel’s border defenses was homegrown, with the exact date and time for the attack known only to a handful of commanders within Hamas.
Details of the operation were kept so tight that some Hamas fighters who took part in the assault Saturday believed they were heading to just another drill, showing up in street clothes rather than their uniforms, Barakeh said.
Last weekend’s devastating surprise attack has shaken political support for Netanyahu within Israel, who pushed ahead with spending big to build walls despite some within his own cabinet and military warning that it probably wouldn’t work.
In the days since Hamas struck, senior Israeli officials have largely deflected questions about the wall and the apparent intelligence failure. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged the military owes the public an explanation, but said now is not the time.
“First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.
In his push to build border walls, Netanyahu found an enthusiastic partner in then-President Donald Trump, who praised Netanyahu’s Iron Wall as a potential model for the expanded barrier he planned for the U.S. Southern border with Mexico.
Under Trump, the U.S. expanded a joint initiative with Israel started under the Obama Administration to develop technologies for detecting underground tunnels along the Gaza border defenses. Since 2016, Congress has appropriated $320 million toward the project.
But even with all its high-tech gadgets, the Iron Wall was still largely just a physical barrier that could be breached, said Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst with the London-based consulting firm Control Risks.
“The fence, no matter how many sensors ... no matter how deep the underground obstacles go, at the end of the day, it’s effectively a metal fence,” he said. “Explosives, bulldozers can eventually get through it. What was remarkable was Hamas’s capability to keep all the preparations under wraps.”
___
Biesecker reported from Washington and El Deeb from Beirut. AP reporters Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Beatrice Dupuy in New York, and Aaron Kessler and Fu Ting in Washington contributed.
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
These extremist posts are just a bunch of propaganda bullshit. Go ahead and cue up the 1/06 footage and let the rest of the world see that the US is a nation of psychopaths.
These extremist posts are just a bunch of propaganda bullshit. Go ahead and cue up the 1/06 footage and let the rest of the world see that the US is a nation of psychopaths.
If we’re gonna sit here and post tweets please also post the chants and scenes from the Palestinian demonstrations as well.
To be fair, on Facebook, what you see is based on what you've engaged with and who your friends are. On Twitter, it's what you've engaged with and who you follow. Depending on consumption patterns, it could be pretty tricky to find a steady stream of content that deviates so far from your own viewpoints (based on what you've revealed about yourself to Twitter). I also don't put the onus on mickeyrat to argue against a point he's trying to draw attention to - that's for others who know enough to believe it false, and who care enough to rebut.
@mickeyrat - feel free not to answer this (I'm only asking out of genuine curiosity), but do you see a plurality of opinions on the situation in Gaza on your Twitter, or mostly pretty consistent?
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
If we’re gonna sit here and post tweets please also post the chants and scenes from the Palestinian demonstrations as well.
To be fair, on Facebook, what you see is based on what you've engaged with and who your friends are. On Twitter, it's what you've engaged with and who you follow. Depending on consumption patterns, it could be pretty tricky to find a steady stream of content that deviates so far from your own viewpoints (based on what you've revealed about yourself to Twitter). I also don't put the onus on mickeyrat to argue against a point he's trying to draw attention to - that's for others who know enough to believe it false, and who care enough to rebut.
@mickeyrat - feel free not to answer this (I'm only asking out of genuine curiosity), but do you see a plurality of opinions on the situation in Gaza on your Twitter, or mostly pretty consistent?
I wouldn’t know, I’m not on any social media besides here and YouTube.
If we’re gonna sit here and post tweets please also post the chants and scenes from the Palestinian demonstrations as well.
To be fair, on Facebook, what you see is based on what you've engaged with and who your friends are. On Twitter, it's what you've engaged with and who you follow. Depending on consumption patterns, it could be pretty tricky to find a steady stream of content that deviates so far from your own viewpoints (based on what you've revealed about yourself to Twitter). I also don't put the onus on mickeyrat to argue against a point he's trying to draw attention to - that's for others who know enough to believe it false, and who care enough to rebut.
@mickeyrat - feel free not to answer this (I'm only asking out of genuine curiosity), but do you see a plurality of opinions on the situation in Gaza on your Twitter, or mostly pretty consistent?
I wouldn’t know, I’m not on any social media besides here and YouTube.
To his point if you're only looking here you shouldn't necessarily expect any particular curation. If you have one mega poster it's gonna slant heavily in their direction.
To wit this is one of the last fucking places I'd be interested in discussing the topic. I just poke around in a few corners to see if artists I enjoy who seemingly have something to say about everything have anything to say yet. Still a lot of conspicuous silence. Cynically expect to start seeing opinions once a war is in full swing.
what comes to mind is to force egypt to open up. force the whole population there, then slam the door shut behind them. completely decimate gaza , then clean it up and make new settlements...
Would Egypt go a long with that?
They tried something like this a while ago and no one wanted to claim the Palestinians, so here we are.
Comments
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
-I believe it is not only OK to question everything and everyone, I think it's a smart idea.
By JOSEPH KRAUSS and WAFAA SHURAFA
1 hour ago
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military pulverized the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said Thursday its complete siege of the territory — which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine — would remain in place until Hamas militants free some 150 hostages taken during a grisly weekend incursion.
A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of U.S. weapons, offered a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that forces “are preparing for a ground maneuver” should political leaders order one.
A ground offensive in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas and where the population is densely packed into a sliver of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.
Hamas’ assault Saturday and smaller attacks since have killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers — a toll unseen in Israel for decades — and the ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,530 people in Gaza, according to authorities on both sides. Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead in Gaza are Hamas members. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
As Israel pounds Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel. Amid concerns that the fighting could spread in the region, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday put two Syrian international airports out of service.
The relentless barrage on Gaza — which the military said has so far involved 6,000 munitions — left Palestinians running through streets, carrying their belongings and looking for safety
A strike Thursday afternoon in the Jabaliya refugee camp took down a residential building on families sheltering inside, killing at least 45 people, Gaza's Interior Ministry said. At least 23 of the dead were under the age of 18, including a month-old child, according to a list of the casualties.
The home belonging to the al-Shihab family was packed with relatives who had fled bombing in other areas. Neighbors said a second house was hit at the same time, but the toll was not immediately known. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We can’t flee because anywhere you go, you are bombed," one neighbor, Khalil Abu Yahia, said. "You need a miracle to survive here.”
The number of people forced from their homes by the airstrikes soared 25% in a day, reaching 423,000 out of a population of 2.3 million, the U.N. said Thursday. Most crowded into U.N.-run schools.
Families were cutting down to one meal a day, said Rami Swailem, a 34-year-old lecturer at al-Azhar University, who had 32 relatives sheltering in his home. Water stopped coming to the building two days ago, and they have rationed what’s left in a tank on the roof.
Alaa Younis Abuel-Omrain has been staying in a U.N. school after a strike on her home killed eight members of her family — her mother, aunt, a sister, a brother and his wife and their three children. Most bakeries stopped producing bread for lack of electricity.
“Even if there is food in some areas, we can’t get to it because of strikes,” she said.
On Wednesday, Gaza’s only power station ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.
Hospitals, overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and running out of supplies, have only a few days worth of fuel before their power cuts off, aid officials say.
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Newborn incubators, kidney dialysis machines, X-ray equipment and more, are all dependent on power, he said.
Ambulance crews carrying bodies to the morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Shifa, found no space left. Dozens of full body bags were lined up in the hospital parking lot. Fourteen health facilities have been damaged in strikes, health officials said Thursday.
With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that airstrikes on Rafah have prevented it from operating. Egypt has been trying to convince Israel and the United States to allow aid and fuel through the crossing.
Israel is employing a new tactic of leveling whole neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings. Hecht, the military spokesman, said targeting decisions were based on intelligence on locations being used by Hamas and that civilians were warned.
“Right now, we are focused on taking out their senior leadership,” Hecht said. The military said strikes have hit Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, including command centers used by the fighters in Saturday’s attack, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative used to store weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas after the militants stormed into the country’s south on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killings of children in their homes and young people at a music festival. Netanyahu said Hamas' atrocities included beheading soldiers and raping women, descriptions that could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Amid grief and demands for vengeance among the Israeli public, the government is under intense pressure to topple Hamas rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
In a video released Thursday, civilian Hamas figures defended the group’s rampage and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from six days of Israeli airstrikes. The solemn video lacked the bravado of a recording aired Saturday by Hamas’s military wing that hailed “the greatest battle” as the massacres were still taking place.
Basem Naim, a former Hamas government minister, said that in the “swift collapse” of the Israeli military on Saturday, “chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation." The claim is contradicted by countless videos and survivor accounts of Hamas militants deliberately targeting and killing civilians in Israel.
Naim added that there would be no action to free the 150 captives taken back into Gaza while Israel's operation continued.
Israel was a nation in mourning. At a funeral for a 25-year-old woman killed with at least 260 other people at a desert rave, and at another service for a slain Israeli soldier, mourners sat cross-legged on the ground next to caskets, wailing or quietly weeping.
In Gaza, too, mourners buried families together in shrouds. At one funeral, they placed the battered body of a little girl in the arms of her slain father.
Brewing anger over Israeli military and intelligence failures in the surprise attack is being directed at Netanyahu’s far-right government, which for months advanced a contentious legal overhaul that divided the country and affected the military.
In what appeared to be a first admission of fault from a government member, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told Israeli news outlet Ynet: “We are responsible. I, as a member of the government, am responsible. We were dealing with nonsense.”
Israel’s public diplomacy minister quit, the first fissure in Netanyahu’s government since the onslaught.
Four previous conflicts ended with Hamas still firmly in control of the territory it has ruled since 2007. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, massed forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from nearby communities. A new war Cabinet, which includes a longtime opposition politician, was sworn in Thursday to direct the fight.
A high-ranking Hamas official, Saleh Al-Arouri, warned Thursday that any Israeli invasion of Gaza “will turn into a disaster for its army,” saying the group was prepared to respond.
Blinken’s visit underscored American backing for Israel’s retaliation.
“You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists, you will never have to,” Blinken said after meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
Blinken said he told Netanyahu that it was “so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.”
Blinken will also meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin planned to visit Israel on Friday.
___
Shurafa reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem; Sam McNeil in Be’eri, Israel; Jack Jeffrey and Samy Magdy in Cairo; Samya Kullab in Baghdad and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1.1M in northern Gaza should evacuate within 24 hours, Israel tells U.N.
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The directive, which comes on the seventh day of the war after a deadly Hamas assault on Israel, directs residents of Gaza City to flee deeper south into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory. Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels under the city.
“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military said, in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians."
(Yeah, I know, so much for ignoring this thread.)
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Swim?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Would Egypt go a long with that?
the end result? no. I dont believe they would. I don't believe they've ever opened their border up for people , only for goods. But I don't know that for a fact
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Fighting terror isn't making things go boom. This is probably the response Hamas was hoping for. What even is their objective in Gaza? Revenge?
Show restraint, finish their deal with the saudis, figure out the intelligence holes, improve intelligence and take out Hamas leadership with special ops. Doesn't play well on TV, but the best way forward.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall” and launched an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.
A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.
The Islamic militant group’s live-fire exercise dubbed operation “Strong Pillar” also had militants in body armor and combat fatigues carrying out operations that included the destruction of mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real in the deadly attack last Saturday.
While Israel’s highly regarded security and intelligence services were clearly caught flatfooted by Hamas’ ability to breach its Gaza defenses, the group appears to have hidden its extensive preparations for the deadly assault in plain sight.
“There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up,” said Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute. “Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn’t spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening.”
The Associated Press reviewed and verified key details from dozens of videos Hamas released over the last year, primarily through the social media app Telegram.
Using satellite imagery, the AP matched the location of the mocked-up town to a patch of desert outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. A large sign in Hebrew and Arabic at the gate says “Horesh Yaron,” the name of a controversial Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Bowman said there are indications that Hamas intentionally led Israeli officials to believe it was preparing to carry out raids in the West Bank, rather than Gaza. It was also potentially significant that the exercise has been held annually since 2020 in December, but was moved up by nearly four months this year to coincide with the anniversary of Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
In a separate video posted to Telegram from last year's Strong Pillar exercise on Dec. 28, Hamas fighters are shown storming what appears to be a mockup Israeli military base, complete with a full-size model of a tank with an Israeli flag flying from its turret. The gunmen move through the cinderblock buildings, seizing other men playing the roles of Israeli soldiers as hostages.
Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli colonel who previously led the military intelligence department overseeing the Palestinian territories, said he was aware of the Hamas videos, but he was still caught off guard by the ambition and scale of Saturday’s attack.
“We knew about the drones, we knew about booby traps, we knew about cyberattacks and the marine forces … The surprise was the coordination between all those systems,” Milshtein said.
The seeds of Israel’s failure to anticipate and stop Saturday’s attack go back at least a decade. Faced with recurring attacks from Hamas militants tunneling under Israel’s border fence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a very concrete solution — build a bigger wall.
With financial help from U.S. taxpayers, Israel completed construction of a $1.1 billion project to fortify its existing defenses along its 40-mile land border with Gaza in 2021. The new, upgraded barrier includes a “smart fence” up to 6-meters (19.7 feet) high, festooned with cameras that can see in the dark, razor wire and seismic sensors capable of detecting the digging of tunnels more than 200 feet below. Manned guard posts were replaced with concrete towers topped with remote-controlled machine guns.
“In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts,” Netanyahu said in 2016, referring to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. “At the end of the day as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety.”
Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Hamas fighters pushed through Netanyahu’s wall in a matter of minutes. And they did it on the relative cheap, using explosive charges to blow holes in the barrier and then sending in bulldozers to widen the breaches as fighters streamed through on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks. Cameras and communications gear were bombarded by off-the-shelf commercial drones adapted to drop hand grenades and mortar shells — a tactic borrowed directly from the battlefields of Ukraine.
Snipers took out Israel’s sophisticated roboguns by targeting their exposed ammunition boxes, causing them to explode. Militants armed with assault rifles sailed over the Israeli defenses slung under paragliders, providing Hamas airborne troops despite lacking airplanes. Increasingly sophisticated homemade rockets, capable of striking the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, substituted for a lack of heavy artillery.
Satellite images analyzed by the AP show the massive extent of the damage done at the heavily fortified Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The images taken Sunday and analyzed Tuesday showed gaping holes in three sections of the border wall, the largest more than 70 meters (230 feet) wide.
Once the wall was breached, Hamas fighters streamed through by the hundreds. A video showed a lone Israeli battle tank rushing to the site of the attack, only to be attacked and quickly destroyed in a ball of flame. Hamas then disabled radio towers and radar sites, likely impeding the ability of the Israeli commanders to see and understand the extent of the attack.
Hamas forces also struck a nearby army base near Zikim, engaging in an intense firefight with Israeli troops before overrunning the post. Videos posted by Hamas show graphic scenes with dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.
They then fanned out across the countryside of Southern Israel, attacking kibbutzim and a music festival. On the bodies of some of the Hamas militants killed during the invasion were detailed maps showing planned zones and routes of attack, according to images posted by Israeli first responders who recovered some of the the corpses. Israeli authorities announced Wednesday they had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Hamas militants, though no details were provided about where they were found or how they died.
Military experts told the AP the attack showed a level of sophistication not previously exhibited by Hamas, likely suggesting they had external help.
“I just was impressed with Hamas’s ability to use basics and fundamentals to be able to penetrate the wall,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Stephen Danner, a combat engineer trained to build and breach defenses. "They seemed to be able to find those weak spots and penetrate quickly and then exploit that breach.”
Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based senior Hamas official, acknowledged that over the years the group had received supplies, financial support, military expertise and training from its allies abroad, including Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he insisted the recent operation to breach Israel’s border defenses was homegrown, with the exact date and time for the attack known only to a handful of commanders within Hamas.
Details of the operation were kept so tight that some Hamas fighters who took part in the assault Saturday believed they were heading to just another drill, showing up in street clothes rather than their uniforms, Barakeh said.
Last weekend’s devastating surprise attack has shaken political support for Netanyahu within Israel, who pushed ahead with spending big to build walls despite some within his own cabinet and military warning that it probably wouldn’t work.
In the days since Hamas struck, senior Israeli officials have largely deflected questions about the wall and the apparent intelligence failure. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged the military owes the public an explanation, but said now is not the time.
“First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.
In his push to build border walls, Netanyahu found an enthusiastic partner in then-President Donald Trump, who praised Netanyahu’s Iron Wall as a potential model for the expanded barrier he planned for the U.S. Southern border with Mexico.
Under Trump, the U.S. expanded a joint initiative with Israel started under the Obama Administration to develop technologies for detecting underground tunnels along the Gaza border defenses. Since 2016, Congress has appropriated $320 million toward the project.
But even with all its high-tech gadgets, the Iron Wall was still largely just a physical barrier that could be breached, said Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst with the London-based consulting firm Control Risks.
“The fence, no matter how many sensors ... no matter how deep the underground obstacles go, at the end of the day, it’s effectively a metal fence,” he said. “Explosives, bulldozers can eventually get through it. What was remarkable was Hamas’s capability to keep all the preparations under wraps.”
___
Biesecker reported from Washington and El Deeb from Beirut. AP reporters Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Beatrice Dupuy in New York, and Aaron Kessler and Fu Ting in Washington contributed.
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
@mickeyrat - feel free not to answer this (I'm only asking out of genuine curiosity), but do you see a plurality of opinions on the situation in Gaza on your Twitter, or mostly pretty consistent?
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
To wit this is one of the last fucking places I'd be interested in discussing the topic. I just poke around in a few corners to see if artists I enjoy who seemingly have something to say about everything have anything to say yet. Still a lot of conspicuous silence. Cynically expect to start seeing opinions once a war is in full swing.
Nobody will be accepting them.
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