War in Gaza

[Ernie]

There is another thread about Hamas's major attack on Israel.

This thread is to discuss what is happening in Gaza as Israel retaliates.

Please keep partisan comments/debates out of this thread - avoid comments that reflect negatively on either right-leaning or left leaning political persuasions. Please keep this thread focused on the topic.

[Ernie]

Can anybody point me to a website that shows how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza each day, particularly how many in the north as compared with the south? Thanks.

[Ken]

Can anybody point me to a website that shows how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza each day, particularly how many in the north as compared with the south? Thanks.

I doubt you will find any such information online. Israel is being very secretive about its war operations and I doubt anyone else including Hamas has the capability to track that sort of thing in real time. This article was in today's Washington Post. Here is gift link to avoid the paywall: https://wapo.st/3SoA4jx

As Gaza death toll soars, secrecy shrouds Israel’s targeting process
By Louisa Loveluck, Susannah George and Michael Birnbaum
November 5, 2023 at 5:15 p.m. EST

JERUSALEM — The Israeli airstrikes that hit the Jabalya refugee camp on Oct. 31 sent buildings tumbling down on families displaced from across the besieged enclave. More than 110 people were killed, many of them women and children crushed beneath the rubble, doctors said.

The Israeli military said the operation achieved its aim.

“We were focused on our target,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said Monday, referring to Ibrahim Biari, a high-ranking Hamas commander. “We know that he was killed.”

Since the conflict began, nearly 10,000 Palestinians have already been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, as the IDF presses for the destruction of the Hamas militant group that rules the enclave. Although Israeli officials insist that each strike is subject to legal approval, experts say the rules of engagement, which are classified, appear to include a higher threshold for civilian casualties than in previous rounds of fighting.

“There was always a conscious effort to limit the amount of civilian casualties in the few occasions that we have struck in areas where we knew that there would be civilian casualties,” said Jonathan Conricus, the international spokesman for the IDF. He would not comment on whether Israel has changed its rules of engagement and accused Hamas of inflating the death toll.

“Essentially, the laws of armed conflict strike a balance” between the military advantage of the attack and the expected harm to civilians, said Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a former IDF legal adviser.

“The higher the military advantage, the higher harm to civilians would still be considered proportionate,” she said, describing Israel’s logic, saying that any harm to civilians is collateral, not intentional.

The consequences of those calculations are spread across the floors of Gaza’s hospitals and morgues. Entire families have been killed; infants are buried with their parents in mass graves. Strikes have hit water towers and bakeries, schools and ambulances. Human rights groups have flagged a growing number of strikes as potential war crimes and urged an international investigation. . . .

[JimFoxvog]

Aljazeera seems to give the most complete coverage that I've seen.
https://www.aljazeera.com/

[Ernie]

Can anybody point me to a website that shows how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza each day, particularly how many in the north as compared with the south? Thanks.

???

[Ken]

Can anybody point me to a website that shows how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza each day, particularly how many in the north as compared with the south? Thanks.

???

I doubt you will find such information anywhere.

The Israelis certainly aren't making it public.

And much of Gaza is without power and effective communications. So I doubt Hamas or any other independent entity like the UN has the capacity to track and report this information either.

[Josh]

Can anybody point me to a website that shows how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza each day, particularly how many in the north as compared with the south? Thanks.

???

There were NGOs that gathered this data in prior conflicts (Al Jazeera was one of them), but nobody seems to be doing it this time.

[Ernie]

I can understand why Israel thinks they need to eliminate Hamas.

What if Israel had not begun the bombing campaign/ground invasion right away, had secured the border between Israel and Gaza, and then began a long campaign to destroy the evil doers one-by-one and their stockpiles of weapons.

Can someone help me understand why Israel feels a need to do a massive war, ground invasion included? Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

The news media seems to think that Israel only has a short time to exact its revenge, or it may result in a wider conflict with Arab nations. I think the wider conflict has already begun, due to the atrocities Israel is committing against civilians, and can't imagine the Arabs are less outraged now than what they would be if Israel had taken a more measured and targeted approach.

For the record, I am not encouraging the destruction of evil doers. The Bible seems to indicate that this is the job of such people and I let that up to God and them.
I'm simply asking this question from the perspective of how nations go about accomplishing their strategies and agendas.

[Robert]

Can someone help me understand why Israel feels a need to do a massive war, ground invasion included?

To stop the terror.

Hamas fires hundreds of rockets into Israel. It's documented purpose for existence is to rid Israel of Jews.

When battling terror, one must make the retaliation so bad the side enacting the terror considers stopping.

At this time, Israel has just decided to pretty much wipe out Hamas. I am sure there are plenty of foot soldiers, but they seem intent on taking out the leadership and the stockpiles of resources they have. Resources that should be for the people of Palestine, but are being held in tunnels for Hamas.

This is the same game plan the US did with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. I suspect it will work out about as well.

Without disrupting the Iranian backing, it will just pop up somewhere else.

[JimFoxvog]

Another aspect of the war on Gaza we should keep in our prayers:

Gaza’s Christians fear ‘threat of extinction’ amid Israel war
Israel’s assault on Gaza could spell the end of the Christian community’s long history in the enclave.


[personal stories omitted for brevity--go to the full article]
...

Only 800 to 1,000 Christians are believed to still live in Gaza, constituting the oldest Christian community in the world, dating back to the first century.

Mitri Raheb, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor and founder of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, said it was conceivable that the current conflict would spell the end of its long history in this strip of land.

“This community is under threat of extinction,” Raheb told Al Jazeera. “I’m not sure if they will survive the Israeli bombing, and even if they survive, I think many of them will want to emigrate.”

“We know that within this generation, Christianity will cease to exist in Gaza,” he added.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023 ... israel-war