If you want to compare before and after:

https://earth.google.com/web/search/31%2e297226,+34%2e243649... - then click "show historical imagery" next to the search box.

The horror of the "Playground" marker here: https://earth.google.com/web/@31.28532193,34.25349609,77.611...

I'm a little confused by this one, because if you hit the "Show historical imagery" button, and go back through the prior years, I don't really see much or anything of a playground there.

It's sad that most world leaders do nothing to combat such genocide. There are so few sanctions against the state, or specific people, of Israel. Foreign forums are very much still open for business to them.

What do you think world leaders should've done differently?

Cut off weapon gifts+sales to Israel, impose sanctions. Same way we dealt with the South African apartheid state.

Israel has both nuclear weapons and the Epstein files, so that's not really an option (granted: SA had nuclear weapons too, but nobody really to drop them on).

Nuclear weapons sure, but what is this about Epstein?

Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell in particular) are widely believed to have operated as a massive Mossad blackmail operation, collecting (and creating) blackmail material against western politicians and influential individuals to ensure their support for Israel.

I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.

A lot.

Literally on Oct 7, Hamas tried to return civilian hostages, who the IDF killed. This is why Hamas changed policies to only give up hostages through 3rd parties. They reached out to israel to try and return hostages and were ignored. They reached out to the US to return hostages and were ignored. [1]

So for starters, the US could have pressured Israel to negotiate with Hamas to return the hostages.

As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times). The US could have at a minimum threaten to withhold aide. In fact, there are laws on the books that a country such as Israel committing war crimes is ineligible for aide.

Finally, the UN should have deployed peace keepers to gaza specifically to stop the genocide.

Actions could have been taken, but they weren't because our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money as to turn a complete blind eye to it's misdeeds.

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-09-...

So you feel like after October 7, there should've just been a talk about what happened and some form of negotiation ?

Hamas tried to return civilian hostages

What a bizarre claim and outright lie. They kept them locked up and starving. They could’ve just dropped them off near the border with Israel or Egypt, or handed them over to the Red Cross (which wasn’t even allowed to visit and check on the hostages).

Finally, the UN should have deployed

UN has no such power. I am still amazed how people do not get this.

Members need to vote for such things to happen. It wouldn't, not in this climate.

The question was

What do you think world leaders should've done differently?

Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.

This is where you notice that the world is more complicated than social media posts.

Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.

Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.

If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.

What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.

Hamas tried to return civilian hostages

Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.

They reached out and were ignored.

Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.

As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times)

Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.

the UN should have deployed peace keepers

Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.

our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money

I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.

Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.

You are making stuff up. Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card. And the fact still remains that they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.

Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.

Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the agreement and change the terms. That was all public. It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.

Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.

Two wrongs don't make a right and yes, it's relevant when the IDF explodes clearly marked aid vehicles rendering aid. There's no reason to do that.

Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.

Does that really matter? The question wasn't "how effective will this be" it's "What world leaders should have done". That's what world leaders should have done.

I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.

These are weaker lobbies because of US laws. The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens (in behest of Israel). No other nation has that sort of organizations in the US. The closet you can find is things like the weirdo Shen Yun cult.

This allowed them to spend $60M in a democrat primary. You won't find that sort of direct spending from Qatar or the Saudis (barring the clear bribe in the Jet. They aren't exactly giving away jets to every primary run).

Do not forget that world leaders are heads of sovereign states that are in charge of their self defense. Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies, need to make public statements that are not hypocritical about what they would do for self defense. This is why both U.S. administrations support Israel's actions

Pretty sure that's not why US administrations support Israel's actions.

Its really telling to see the destruction limited to where the structures used to be rather than to all of the surrounding green spaces. If the destruction of civilian dwellings was purely an accident you'd expect to see the destruction spread evenly over the area. Instead it looks much more like a prolonged set of surgical strikes to destroy the buildings while preserving as much of the surrounding areas as possible.

For a great example of this, look at this pin https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA

And here's a pin of where the farms were spared https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9

I don't quite understand your argument here. In your first pin I'm struggling to find a single building that isn't leveled, or at least severely damaged. Even buildings far away from the city center in the boonies are leveled.

They are saying that this is genocidal destruction. In a war sometimes civilian infrastructure is hit as collateral. But here, all infrastructure is destroyed and it's clear this wasn't done by 1 or 2 errant bombs but rather because of direct targeting. It can't be argued to be an accident because in farmland you see no bombs which hit the farmland by mistake. In other-words, this is entirely purposeful.

this is entirely purposeful

Please check Norman Finkelstein's latest book namely Gaza's Gravediggers on this matter [1].

He also has a very telling and chilling interview recently on Palestine and Gaza [2].

[1] Gaza's Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places [book].

[2] Norman Finkelstein Reveals Shocking Discoveries While Researching History of Israel’s Gaza Obsession [video]:

https://youtu.be/Jmv2h1WYnNo

What a nice, objective guy:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/uyqjn2/norman_fink...

He also promotes transphobia. Chomsky was friends with Epstein and acquaintance of Steve Bannon. I don’t think that discredits his entire body of work, but I think we should stop promoting him when there are sources that are less problematic.

A war requires at least two militaries. This is what happens when a well armed military engages a mostly unarmed civilian society unable to mount significant opposition.

"Before the October 7, 2023 attacks, the total size of Hamas’s military wing (the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades) was estimated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence agencies to be between 25,000 and 30,000 fighters, with some intelligence assessments placing the upper limit as high as 40,000. This army was organized into five regional brigades and 24 battalions."

"Hamas's military force prior to October 7, 2023, was roughly 3 to 4.5 times larger than the United States military when measured as a percentage of their respective total populations."

There were a lot of arms used over the border on October 7th, more confiscated on video and being used on video against the IDF, and the constant stream of unguided rockets being shot at civilians year after year. Rockets are weapons.

Hamas describes its fighters as their “military wing”. They engage in military training exercises and wear uniforms (when not fighting). That’s a military.

While it may be dumb, gross, and a hate crime against their civilians: war was the exact and predicted outcome of the attacks Hamas launched. They made statements to that effect, kicking off a regional war was central to the plan on October the 7th.

almost as if they didn't have the best interest of the civilians in mind uh

If it was genocide, why would you spare the farmers? Doesn’t really make sense.

It’s more efficient to spend your ammo on housing and city buildings.

Wouldn’t it actually be much more efficient to just destroy all the food infrastructure and just have everyone die from hunger instead of destroying all the houses?

Looks the same in Ukraine, and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.

Doesn't mean that here the targeting couldn't have been done with the primary goal of displacing the population, but the buildings being destroyed doesn't prove the motive.

Does it look the same in the Ukraine? I haven’t seen any footage of entire cities leveled like this.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-26/damage-data-reveals-e...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/5/24/satellite-...

And that just from the start of war.

Yeah, we can look at how Mariupol looks on satellite images. It looks nothing like Rafah. You have to be completely blind to not see the difference.

Seriouslly?

You can find lots of videos of Russia firing thermobaric weapons into populated areas - you will find none fired by Israel into Gaza. And I don't think that's because IL doesn't have them.

Looks the same in Ukraine

It does not.

and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.

What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position. Everything gets pounded, even forests and tree lines. It’s more like Verdun than anything that happened in Gaza.

A lot of destruction is from bulldozers like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9

The way the IDF fought in Rafah and other areas is leading with bulldozers that can take RPGs, IEDs, mines etc. to clear way for troops behind. That's how the tunnel and other guerrilla advantages are neutralized.

So yes, the destruction is absolutely purposeful, its purpose is to take away the advantage of the tunnels and guerrilla tactics, and enable excavations for tunnel access and detection.

The sequence was something like this (AI assisted):

Early May 2024, the IDF issued extensive, phased evacuation orders. This prompted an estimated 1 million to 1.4 million civilians—many of whom had previously fled to Rafah from other parts of Gaza—to evacuate to designated zones like Al-Mawasi.

Once ground troops secured these largely emptied areas, the IDF Combat Engineering Corps moved in. Objective satellite damage assessments show a massive spike in structural destruction in Rafah beginning in the summer of 2024, directly correlating with the ground invasion.

Satellite imagery confirms that ground forces used controlled explosive demolitions and heavy earth-moving equipment, including armored D9 bulldozers, to systematically clear residential blocks, agricultural land, and infrastructure.

This mechanical destruction was particularly concentrated along the Philadelphi Corridor (the Gaza-Egypt border) and in eastern Rafah. The military objective of these block-by-block clearing operations was to uncover and destroy cross-border smuggling tunnels and to establish a widened, flattened security perimeter where structures previously stood.

In summary, while aerial bombardment occurred prior to and during the invasion, you are correct that the wholesale, block-by-block leveling of Rafah was heavily driven by engineering operations using bulldozers and controlled demolitions after the majority of the civilian population had evacuated the targeted areas.

You can also see a lot of buildings demolished on the Egyptian side too.

In 2015, the Egyptian government announced a plan to demolish the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in order to deter smuggling with the Gaza Strip. More than a decade on, most of it is gone. The residents were forcibly relocated to elsewhere in Egypt.

It also looks similar to Mosul in Iraq before and after the ISIS and Iraq and coalition forces fought:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...

Urban warfare is brutal, especially when one side systematically digs in and uses IEDs and booby traps in civilian buildings.

The buildings were levelled with bulldozers for the most part after the civilians left during combat operations against the tunnel infrastructure and any remaining combatants. Not sure what the "surgical strikes" comment is about. Are you asking why weren't open spaces destroyed or attacked?

How does bulldozing a family home have any affect on a tunnel?

It encourages the former occupants leave the country. Once they all leave or die, there will be no more tunnels or insurgents.

That is a definition of a genocide[1].

[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

Not quite. Perhaps you were thinking of "ethnic cleansing" ?

It seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives, like some kind of deranged Clippy. Talk about loss of perspective.

The link provided in your parent post explicitly says there is no precise definition of “ethnic cleansing”, so I don’t even understand why you’d think the distinction matters.

seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives

The OG genocides involved deaths in the millions [1]. That requires killing with industrial efficiency, something that made it categorically unique from the "wipe out the village" warfare that goes back to, probably, before civilisation. (Chimpanzees do it. To my knowledge, they're the only other species that annihilates versus merely fighting off enemies.)

At lower kill volumes, even in the tens and possibly even hundreds of thousands, the line between conventional warfare done conservatively, conventional warfare done brutally and a process that, if left unhindered, will reach a million-man death toll.

(Then you have the ambiguity, one which does not apply in Gaza, introduced by displacement also being included in genocide and it starts to intersect pretty much perfectly with war.)

If we want these words to keep having meaning, we have to nitpick around their use. Otherwise, overinclusivity will consume them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides

Its called something like collective punishment, something that many cultures practiced around the world.

have you seen the extent of tunnels that were there?

An alternative to levelling entire cities to the ground to find tunnels, would be to stop the expanding of the settlers, stop the apartheid within Israel, stop the blockade and starving on Gaza, and try to actually foster peace instead of constant conflict, pain and misery in order to retain power.

This is despicable, inhumane. It is generational trauma that started with the Nazis, now propagated to the poor souls around the new western colony of Israel.

Israeli here. Maybe I can give some helpful context.

Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this - any “support” for Palestinians is seen as a very far-left idea after Oct 7. There are still many here who oppose the extent of the war - I see regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for peace. I will note that there seems to be fairly universal agreement that _something_ needed to be done after Oct 7. If you want to understand the Israeli perspective (doesn’t seem like most commenters do, but I’m not writing this for them), you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.

But anyways, don’t take my word for anything, pay attention to our upcoming elections. We will see how big the tents are then.

Wishing for peace, for saner voices to rise, and for an end to this cycle of violence.

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America didn't do things like this after 9/11, we tried to build democracies in a naive way, failed, and got a lot of people killed unnecessarily. Iraq was completely unjustified and based on fabrications.

But we weren't trying to wage war against the entire civilian populations as revenge. That's an entirely different category of crime.

A lot of the stories that came out of Abu Ghraib sure sound like they have very strong parallels to what is happening today. At the level of "poorly trained reservists trying to do something difficult without sufficient oversight and getting frustrated and turning to torture" it sounds very similar.

And the destruction of Fallujah from Phantom Fury ended up only marginally better than what happened to Rafah (destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Fallujah and damaged another quarter).

Abu Ghraib was a scandal, some people got punished, probably not all of the right ones.

When it came out that Israel was systematically sodomizing detainees with nightsticks, they had protestors come out in favor of the guards. It's still ongoing, all charges have been dropped. Nobody is scandalized by it.

That's a very flat take. That ignores the fact that the doctor that saw the prisoner reported it for investigation or that the military had chose to prosecute it, also you don't mention this was one case, not "systematic"

Even ignoring the fact that protests do not imply popular support, there is no comparison as 9/11 did not include widespread sexual violence and ongoing hostage rape was still going on at the time this happened.

So even if this seemed terrible to most Israelis, it was hard to find someone who will publicly defend a rapist from rape in jail

Sure if you ignore the UN Commission of Inquiry report from March 2025 that concluded sexual and gender-based violence was used systematically against Palestinian detainees.

the UNHR is comically biased against Israel though and controlled by totalitarian countries with less than stellar human rights records

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9/11 did happen to us.

Admittedly, this was before social media but back then you didn't get 50% support for gassing anybody.

That ended in a million dead over bi-partisan 20 years of war. Without 9/11 including massive hostage taking, rape or mass murder with torture in people homes.

The other main difference is that 9/11 ended within a few days, the hostage part of 7/10 made it an ongoing disaster for years in Israel.

I support Israel, but not wholeheartedly. I understand how Nakba was a matter of survival of your people. But why is this still going on today? Why is Israel continuing to expand settlements? Can you not understand how Palestinians must feel to constantly live in fear of being pushed out of their own homes? This is what gives me heartache. Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?

Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?

I did a study abroad in Israel in 2005 (not jewish, just for middle eastern studies) when Israel pulled out of Gaza and did essentially that. They forcibly removed settlers and left Gaza. As I recall most Israeli's thought it'd be good step toward peace.

Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel over the next 20 years, and then launched Oct 7.

Unfortunately now there seems to be far less interest in Israel now in restricting settlers in the West Bank. I also feel for the Palestinians, particularly the Arab Christian communities, however extremists on both sides don't want peace.

They [..] left Gaza.

Sure, if you ignore the part where they kept bombing Gaza, assassinated political leaders, did ground incursions, and blocked it by land, sea, and air.

If Israel wanted a peaceful two-state solution, why did they keep occupying Gaza by turning it into an open-air prison?

The position you’re describing is essentially the modern left position in Israeli politics. Again, we’ll see in the upcoming election, but not everyone here supports the current goings on in the West Bank. The “Palestinian situation” is a major question in Israeli politics, both wrt Gaza and the wb.

One thing you will find across the board is that nobody is willing to compromise on security. Most voters today remember the second intifada. There is no serious political position where Israel fully withdraws from the wb. But there’s a big difference between “massively expanse settlements” and “phase out settlements and make room for the possibility of a future Palestinian state”.

The words “Palestinian state” are usually political suicide here in Israel, but the fact that Palestine is recognized to various extent by many countries in the world means that eventually these two realities are going to have to clash.

The question is what did the government know before October 7th https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/09/ra-vivian-repor...

If we have to look at how October 7 shaped Israeli culture, we also have to look at how all of the dates leading up to October 6 shaped Palestinian culture. How many people were killed in the West Bank on October 6 - does that register, anywhere?

Can you try to free your brain from political bullshit for a moment and think which kind of a person can come up with a plan to kill civilians not in the heat of battle, but with premediation and purpose? And in which kind of society this idea could have a wide enough support to be implemented.

For comparison, here's Mosul in Iraq after the defeat of ISIS:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-east/2016/11/01/battl...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mosul-satellite_n_596d34a3e4b...

This should be higher I think - it is pretty clear that cities get demolished during war, whether purposefully or not.

It's pretty clear you didn't look at the pictures. The destruction in Mosul appears very limited compared to the annihilation of Rafah.

The sad thing is that in a way the terrorist won.

Internationally Israel is probably positioned weaker than before and there is a fissure running through liberal societies from Ireland to France, from Portugal to Germany and probably similar in the US.

This is conflict polarizes. A good example is the recent election in Berlin, which was focused on the housing crisis but now devolved into name calling based on how people think of Israel. A minority might have voted “pro Palestine” but most people wanted affordable flats.

Sowing dissent among your adversaries is very effective.

"Sowing dissent among your adversaries is very effective"

Yes it is, and some countries have become very good at doing that

I take a harsher stance: that we should expect division to be sewn among us by our adversaries, and harden ourselves accordingly through open mindedness, debate, clear info, leaders who discuss deeply and write essays, integrity, best-faith debate (rather than flame wars, especially in popular contexts like tv and social media).

I find it strange that the antidotes to a lot of the bad stuff going on today is basic enlightement stuff: cultivating a citizenry who value evidence-based worldview, education and rule of law. Yet it feels like that is increasingly slipping from our fingers.

The sad thing is that in a way the terrorist won.

So did Netanyahu. His far-right policies require an eternal enemy to distract the people and blame for everything going wrong. The October 7 attack definitely didn't hurt his position in national politics.

I don't have a strong position on this but seems at least plausible that the Israeli security services did in fact know about Oct 7th but chose not to act.

I mean come on... Hamas were seen practising flying hang gliders around the strip and one of the most paranoid states in the world didn't think that merited some investigation?

And everyone just happened to not be at their posts?

"The sad thing" is that 100k+ humans were brutally killed and the lives of 2 million others were destroyed. The second sad thing is that Germany will never learn. Also, I'd suggest you look up the definition of the word "terrorist".

Hamas's own Health Ministry says 70,000 dead, not 100,000, including around 10,000 natural - all deaths for the last 3 years have been labelled as matryr - and that figure does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. By Hamas' own military figure pre-war and Israel's war assessments, up to half could be non-civilian.

Those numbers don't account for people still under the rubble.

By Hamas' own military figure pre-war and Israel's war assessments, up to half could be non-civilian.

No a single estimation are near your number : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war#Civ...

Most are about 80 to 90% civilian killed.

You are quoting Wikipedia which quotes an article by the Guardian that the IDF had identified ~9000 Hamas/PIJ casualties by name. It is a logical fallacy to then assume the remainder are not part of Hamas/PIJ. Further, identifying adversary combatant deaths by name is an extraordinary high standard for warfare and is applied to no other conflict on earth.

The Israel stock market is up about 100% since October 7.

The Israeli Shekel is so strong against the dollar it is causing issues with exports.

Israel has signed major missile defense deals with many European countries and just signed a major new one with Greece.

Gaza is in near complete ruins, the tunnel infrastructure Hamas spent the past 2 decades building is being destroyed.

Nasrallah was killed and Hezbollah is severely diminished militarily and politically in Lebanon.

Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile capabilities have been severely damaged and no longer pose an existential threat, at least for the time being.

Israel is doing very well since October 7 whereas Hamas and Gaza is not.

I think he was talking about a political war. Now we have on HN's home page a link pointing to someone using the term holocaust against Israel/Jews, which is quite perverse if you know history.

Strange way to measure success, reducing everything to a powerpoint with graphs, its almost like humans dont exist.

I have no stake in this conflict.

The flip side of your statement is that more nations than before decided to recognize a Palestine state and that it seems for the first time in decades US support for Israel is waning.

Israel is military and economically strong. It’s also a small country in a difficult region that needs trade partners and international connections, probably more so in a future full of climate change.

Rafah is like Nazi Germany Dresden. You start a war, You Lose a war, You pay the price.

But Israel started the war, in 1948.

Against whom? The British mandate?

Not only should we be critical of how Israel wages this war, but we should also recognize the role of Hamas. Deliberate killing of non-combatants, civilian abductions, unguided rocket and mortar fire, use of human shields, perfidy and disguise, all war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Most of us here in the US don't have to worry about threats of terrorism like this. It doesn't excuse Israel's (many) war crimes but often we don't acknowledge the horror of Hamas on Israel and Palestinians when talking about this conflict.

Also Russians have just bombed a Dobrobut hospital in Kyiv. One of many war crimes happening every day. We also need to be talking about that conflict as well.

The main difference here is that Russia is not funded by western nations nor is it an ally to most of NATO countries. The gripe many of us have with Israel's actions is that we enable them directly by providing money, weapons and manpower. No nation in the west will hesitate to condemn Russia's war crimes, whereas just recently we started seeing some manner of blowback to Israel's.

You forgot the extensive tunnel infrastructure dug under all these civilian areas. The fighting in civilian clothing. Weapon caches and tunnel entrances in civilian buildings. Booby trapping civilian structures to kill soldiers that attempt to search/enter them. Mining roads in civilian areas to inflict damage on invading forces.

None of Israel's critics is able to suggest some significantly different strategy that would allow Israel to after Hamas. So the discussion inevitably ends up (with said critics) at Hamas had a right to commit these crimes, because they are the oppressed/occupied, and Israel has no right to defend itself by going after and defeating Hamas while minimizing its casualties like any other western army would do and has done (see Mosul or many other examples).

It should be noted that Hamas exists because of the occupation and atrocities that Israel has been committing for decades and decades. All war is atrocious, the actions of terrorists are disgusting, BUT you cannot discuss the actions of Hamas in a vacuum and forget why they even formed in the first place and continue to carry out their actions.

As soon as you murder civilians you lose all your justification. I mean both sides.

if you mean that all war is unjustified, consider stating that plainly. if that's not what you mean, then perhaps there is some nuance left out of your statement.

You mean, Hamas, one of the only armies that doesn't fight with a uniform and hides artillery in civilian buildings?

Pin-pointing Hamas and Oct 7 is pretty much a logical trap, because Netanyahu and Hamas had been symbiotic -- which put them in the very same ballpark. Both enjoyed their own external threats, and, through that, established strong political influence.

The one difference is that Israel always had been able to control the situation for decades to its liking, while Hamas had been passively reaping the hatred that Israel had sown -- only until October 7.

So, Israelis fearing Hamas? That's a horror they created through their democracy, purely by abusing powerless people. Total hypocrisy.

It's sad that so much of this conversation has devolved into technicalities of whether this is a genocide.

You can't look at this, at reports coming out of Gaza and the West Bank, at Israel's own government officials' statements, and not, at minimum, believe that brutal war crimes were committed on a massive basis here. Whether it's "Holocaust level" or "genocide" is a red herring. It needs universal condemnation, it needs to stop, and the people who did it need to be held accountable.

it needs to stop

It did stop. When the hostages were freed and Hamas gave up. Which they could have done at any point. Or you know, they could not have started the war too.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/18/run-get-away-w...

At this stage I just feel nihilism/defeatism towards the Middle East. In 500 years they’ll still be killing each other with all sides genuinely believing in their righteousness and that it’s all the other sides fault

It is absolutely fascinating to see how people are justifying a genocide right before your eyes in this comment thread.

From a psychological point of view, watching what is happening in Israel right now could really help understand human behavior in previous historical events involving genocide and mass killings.

It's no secret that people get blinded by their own belief and faith. They forget how to see, how to smell, how to taste, and how to hear. They get trapped in a virtual world inside their own minds -- a gigantic Matrix, but without sophisticated machinery.

Look at the current physical state of the city, the raw sight of it -- no amount of fair punishment can justify this scale of pure, one-sided destruction of lives, daily-lives, and futures. This is directed violence, clearly beyond practical necessity -- unless practicality is defined in terms of ethnic cleansing.

Any logic that jumps through the hoops of background material (history, religion, beliefs, politics, and so on) is mere mind tricks, designed to draw your eyes away from reality -- the horrific nature of the Israeli genocide.

(EDIT: grammar check)

Stupid question but if Israel is willing to flatten cities, how have they not won the war yet?

Nice job being impartial @dang. I get you let Israel discussions happen here every now and then, but how come the source post is always blatantly anti Israel? This one falls far below HN standards, even as a flamewar submission.