Israel/US - Iran War News

Israel's request for people to leave Gaza is impossible

by Tom Bateman

BBC Middle East correspondent, Jerusalem

It is impossible for 1.1 million people to leave their homes within 24 hours.

It would involve 40,000 people per hour.

The UN said the order included everyone - all those sheltered in UN facilities including schools and health centres.

That’s why they’ve urged the Israelis to withdraw the announcement, saying that it would lead to calamity.

On the ground convoys of the International Red Cross and United Nations humanitarian agency staff have been spotted travelling south from Gaza City towards the southern part of territory, which may be in preparation for possible evacuation operation.

But it would bring chaos to try to carry out an evacuation order on this scale within 24 hours - with a civilian population in such a densely populated area including children, the elderly, and those in hospitals already packed to capacity with the wounded and those sheltering from Israel’s bombardments.

traed said:
I could see a scenario where Russia steps in to make threats against Israel if they don't give more time for people to clear out. That would be amusing. Though they may not want any direct involvement like that but it still is just throwing threats so that much is possible.

One of its recommendations was that the Palestinians’ abandonment of their homes should be considered an irrevocable fait accompli and that Israel should support their resettlement elsewhere. The committee also recommended that Arabs who had remained in the country should be encouraged to emigrate and that the state should buy the land of Palestinians who were willing to leave. In addition, Palestinian villages should be destroyed and Palestinians should be prevented from working the land, including a ban on harvesting field crops and olive picking − this in the wake of attempts by refugees to cross back into Israel, to the villages and fields they had left behind.

In the country’s first decade of existence, the leaders of the ruling Mapai party ‏(the precursor of Labor‏) and its coalition partner Ahdut Ha’avoda, together with the senior officers of the Military Government ‏(Israel’s Arab citizens were under military rule until 1966‏), believed that at least some local Arabs would draw the “right conclusions” from the outcome of the War of Independence, and consider emigrating of their own volition. In 1950, Palmon wrote to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett that the majority of the propertied Arabs aspired to leave if they could also take their assets. The Christians among them would choose to move to Lebanon, he noted, while the Muslims would opt for Egypt. Palmon confirmed that he had examined possibilities of a property exchange between Arabs from Israel and Jews in Egypt and Lebanon. His conclusion was that an arrangement to that effect could be worked out.

We have to remember that the natural growth rate among the Arabs is approximately 6,000 a year, and emigration could solve that issue.”

The largest and most comprehensive plan, involving the transfer of thousands of Christian Arabs from Galilee to Argentina and Brazil, was given the secret codename “Operation Yohanan,.

The Middle Eastern department in the Foreign Ministry dealt with the subject of resettling the Palestinian refugees outside Israel from the day the department was created. Its mission was to find places where the Palestinian refugees could be settled, raise funds and obtain international support for settling the Palestinian refugees abroad.

. In 1956-1957, another plan was devised to acquire farms near Tripoli and bring in a core group of 50 to 70 refugee families. Codenamed “Uri,” the plan was to be carried out by a development and construction company which would be registered in Switzerland, with its shares held by a Swiss bank.

He also looked into the possible acquisition of land in Cyprus at a rock-bottom price in order to exchange it for property held in Israel by Arabs wishing to emigrate.

In the first half of the 1960s, the Foreign Ministry continued to examine plans to encourage the emigration of Palestinian refugees from the Middle East to Europe, particularly to France and Germany. One option that was considered was to find them jobs in Germany, which was then in dire need of working hands. During 1962, Israeli officials examined the possibility of finding employment for Palestinian refugee laborers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The initial checks done for this plan, known as “Operation Worker,” and the correspondence involved, were kept completely under wraps.

In February 1966, the possibility of settling Palestinian refugees from Jordan in France was also examined.

The armed group is calling it psychological warfare telling people not to heed it.

MalchikRepaid said:
U.S. role in creating Mideast disaster becomes clearer by the day

Kinda reasonable. America created this mess.

Meusnier said:
They have not exactly created this situation,

Meusnier said:
What do you think about this meme by the way?

The Israeli Embassy in China locked down its comment board on Weibo after receiving widespread backlash for publishing a sour post in which it blamed China for not adopting its side.

The Marines heading to the Mediterranean have a 40-year blood feud with Hezbollah

Well, embarked aboard the USS Bataan, the 26th MEU is now on its way to the eastern Mediterranean. It will join the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, which is already there. Another carrier strike group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is also on its way to the Mediterranean and will arrive by the month’s end. Any mission in Lebanon would carry personal import for the Marines.

We asked whether the available evidence - including the size of the explosion and the sounds heard beforehand - could be used to determine the cause of the hospital blast.

So far, the findings are inconclusive. Three experts we spoke to say it is not consistent with what you would expect from a typical Israeli air strike with a large munition.

J Andres Gannon, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, in the US, says the ground explosions appeared to be small, meaning that the heat generated from the impact may have been caused by leftover rocket fuel rather than an explosion from a warhead.

Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, agrees. While it is difficult to be sure at such an early stage, he says, the evidence looks like the explosion was caused by a failed rocket section hitting the car park and causing a fuel and propellant fire.

Mr Gannon says it is not possible to determine whether the projectile struck its intended target from the footage he has seen. He adds that the flashes in the sky likely indicate the projectile was a rocket with an engine that overheated and stopped working.

Valeria Scuto, lead Middle East analyst at Sibylline, a risk assessment company, notes that Israel has the capacity to carry out other forms of air strike by drone, where they might use Hellfire missiles. These missiles generate a significant amount of heat but would not necessarily leave a large crater. But she says uncorroborated footage shows a pattern of fires at the hospital site that was not consistent with this explanation.

MalchikRepaid said:
@Meusnier We have to blame the Brits for this. At least the French authorities tried to organize the political situations in Lebanon and Syria.

That's exactly how Chinese people think of this situation.

Savvy geopolitics people who support anti-war stance support Palestine.
Savvy geopolitics people who believe in social Darwinism support Russia.
America-loving nutjobs who believe in social Darwinism support Israel.
America-loving nutjobs who support anti-war stance support Ukraine.

FYI, social Darwinism in a Chinese sense can also mean Western democracy or Western style individualist thinking.

That's also exactly what Wang Yi (high-ranking CPC official, China's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the "Godfather of East Asian diplomacy") thinks about.

Meusnier said:
They certainly have some responsibility, but the one of the French is not negligible.

Meusnier said:
Thank you for your reply. Not a fan of the "I stand with" attitude though.

MalchikRepaid said:
The whole Palestine issue is a British thing by origin. Can we at least respect this fact?

traed said:
Technically Byzantine then German then British then UN origin.

Israel just bombed the world's third oldest church.

Four missiles hit the building tonight.

Church authorities estimate there are already 150 dead.

Saint Porphyrius was Bishop of Gaza from 395 to 420. The church was built in 425 to house his remains. This means that the church is more than 20 times as old as the State of Israel.

A statement from the Israeli Prime Minister's office confirms that the two US hostages, mother Judith Raanan and daughter Natalie, were "released from the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas".

The statement adds that Brigadier General Gal Hirsch and other security forces "received them at the border of the Gaza Strip and at this moment they are on their way to a meeting point at a military base in the center of the country, where their family members are waiting for them".

There are still close to 200 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

Southern command units, this is the commander.

We are going on the offensive against Hamas and the terrorist organizations in the Gaza strip.

Our only goal: victory

No matter how long the fight takes and no matter how hard it will be, there is no other result than victory.

We will fight professionally, powerfully and according to the principles of the defense forces that we were brought up on and in their forefront; being determined to achieve the mission, and constant striving for victory.

We will fight in the alleys, the tunnels and wherever we need to. And we will strike this brutal enemy that we are facing.

My brothers in arms; the residents of Be'eri, Sderot, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, the towns of the west of Negev, and with them all the people of Israel, are watching us now.

Like me, they trust you and believe in you. You are the victory generation.

This is the commander, move to achieve your missions, strike the enemy. Over."

UN human rights office: Jabalia camp strike could amount to war crimes

The UN's human rights office has posted on X, formerly Twitter, about Tuesday's Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp:

"Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes." from Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights"

Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes."Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Meusnier said:
@Fate_Saber88 This message sounds like a bad script from a video game.

UN human rights office: Jabalia camp strike could amount to war crimes

The UN's human rights office has posted on X, formerly Twitter, about Tuesday's Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp:

"Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes." from Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights"

Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes."Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

MalchikRepaid said:
@Meusnier Let's organize, shall we?

New York Times, July 17th, 2021

In 1981, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, Israel’s military governor of Gaza, told me that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. The funding was intended to tilt power away from both Communist and Palestinian nationalist movements in Gaza, which Israel considered more threatening than the fundamentalists.

Wall Street Journal, January 24th, 2009

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East by David Seddon, page 237

Arafat declared that 'Hamas is a creature of Israel, which at that time of Prime Minister Shamir gave it money and [funded] more than 700 institutions, among them sools, universities, and mosques'.

Jerusalem Post, March 12th, 2019

Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided

Storing weapons inside hospitals and hiding among civilians is also a war crime let alone going on a rampage killing civilians, there is only one way to erase Hamas, by bombing them wherever they are, everyone in Gaza is facing the consequences and Hamas knew this would happen.

Meusnier said:
Conspiracy theorists who pretend to establish causality by "following the money" will never cease to amuse me. Where does it say that Netanyahu has organised the October 7 attacks?

"Erasing Hamas" is not a realistic objective by the way.

MalchikRepaid said:

@Meusnier Hamas is an Israeli operation, so it's obvious that Netanyahu is the ringleader for this.

The whole war is essentially Israel vs. Israel at this point.

"Erasing Hamas" is not a realistic objective by the way.


This reminds me of my time in Montreal with the Haredi population protesting with one of the signs in English. Judea instead of Israel.

Let's at least celebrate that there will be a huge change in the political order in the Middle East.

Meusnier said:
No, it is not obvious, it is an obvious leap of logic. This is exactly what all conspiracy theories are about. People "follow the money" and pretend that it allows them to establish causality. Netanyahu might not be a saint (litotes), but he did not order Hamas to slaughter his own civilians, that is for sure...