Cliff.Booth said:

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IDF confirmed on X that their forces accidentally killed 3 hostages misidentified as Hamas during an intense firefight
So incredibly sad for the families of the hostages and the IDF fighters this will weigh upon forever.

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I do not see it that way one bit.
Hamas kidnapped those innocent people and they died under their care or lack there of. **** hamas.

Obviously Hamas kidnapped them and endangered their lives, but if you think the IDF troops who mistakenly fired on them won't carry that burden for a long time, I think you're fooling yourself. It's something that could happen to even highly trained operators, but still sucks. **** Hamas.

LMCane said:

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The Iron Dome intercepting Gazan missiles over Al Aqsa. pic.twitter.com/ufkkVi0uXf

— Uri Kurlianchik (@VerminusM) December 15, 2023

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It would be poetic justice if one of those randomly fired Hamas missiles hit dead square middle of the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque.

They're tied and blindfolded

And a high UN official deletes her X account because…
" Sarah Douglas, UN Women's Deputy Chief of Peace and Security, scrubbed her social-media account after a United Nations watchdog group revealed that she endorsed 153 anti-Israel posts on X."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-women-deputy-chief-deletes-x-account-after-endorsing-anti-israel-social-media-posts/ar-AA1lGZ9d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=ee03ca1a13414077899c0d2a8e2816d2&ei=26

Yep. Everything said by Israel is an unverified claim despite a mountain of video evidence. Everything said by hamas is presented as fact, and the fact that hamas said it is conveniently disguised as if it came from some neutral party that isn't a bunch of terrorists.


ETA Honestly, with the media coverage being what it is, Israel should just stop trying to be nice and purge to the world they're doing things justly. Most of the rest of the world doesn't care. They would demonize Israel for curing cancer.

UTExan said:

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And a high UN official deletes her X account because…
" Sarah Douglas, UN Women's Deputy Chief of Peace and Security, scrubbed her social-media account after a United Nations watchdog group revealed that she endorsed 153 anti-Israel posts on X."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-women-deputy-chief-deletes-x-account-after-endorsing-anti-israel-social-media-posts/ar-AA1lGZ9d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=ee03ca1a13414077899c0d2a8e2816d2&ei=26

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All of the various agencies that have been complicit in allowing Hamas to thrive in Gaza are loaded with people like this. I felt the same way about the claims from the Catholic leader in Gaza that was making claims about IDF snipers the other day. No way a Catholic church is allowed to operate in Gaza without bending over for Hamas. Just like the UNRWA would not be allowed to operate in Gaza if they were not working with and complicit in Hamas' activities. And Hamas is not going to put weapons and tunnels in and near their own mosques, schools, hospitals, etc. and leave a buffer around Christian compounds. So I totally believe the report that there was a rocket launcher placed near the convent that drew the Israeli attack.

Evangelical Christian soldier dies for Israel
https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-778494

" IDF Sgt.-Maj. Urija Bayer succumbed to his wounds on Sunday after being seriously injured in battle in the southern Gaza Strip on December 14, the IDF reported. Bayer, 20, from Ma'alot-Tarshiha, was a member of the Maglan Special Forces unit of the Nahal Brigade and a German Evangelical Christian who chose to volunteer in the army. His grandparents moved to Israel to help support Holocaust survivors."
" He always wanted to be a combat soldier," a fellow Evangelical IDF volunteer told The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity. "He was a good combat soldier, focused on defending the State of Israel."

" Urija and his siblings Rachel, Odelia, Zuriel, and Eliaw were all born in Israel. Despite being Gentiles and not eligible for citizenship, all the family members volunteered to serve in the IDF in combat roles. Two of Urija's brothers are fighting in Gaza now.
According to Juergen Buehler, president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and also a German Christian, there are around 100 Evangelical Christian volunteers in the Israeli army, including two of his sons."

"Most of these children were born here. They live here. Israel is their home,"
///
RIP, Brother.

Good piece from Powerlineblog about the news/analyses 'we' are not regularly provided in fake news coverage:

Quote:

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You don't hear about the IDF's revelations of the Hamas way of war in contravention of international law unless you follow the IDF or any of its several trustworthy spokesmen on Twitter. You don't hear about the risks and casualties taken by the IDF to mitigate civilian deaths. No, you hear the constant public shaming of the IDF by President Biden and his senior officials such as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Their conduct disgraces the United States.

Retired British Colonel Richard Kemp is an outsider to Israel's conflict who knows what he's talking about. He is embedded with Israeli troops in combat in Shijaiyahin Gaza, with respect to which he recorded the following video.

The video is posted with his Ynet column on the friendly fire incident that took the lives of three IDF soldiers taken hostage by Hamas. He writes: "Sickeningly, the usual suspects in the media have gleefully rushed to judgment, wheeling out so-called experts to say how this tragedy shows just how trigger-happy, ill-disciplined and gung-ho the IDF is. That's because they don't understand the situation in Gaza, have limited understanding of hard fighting on the ground and only too often want the IDF to be the bad guys."

Colonel Kemp's Ynet column must run some 800 words. You have to keep clicking "Read more" to get it all. He writes toward the end, where he also draws on his own personal experience in combat with terrorists:

Quote:

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In Gaza, the hostages were waving a makeshift white flag and calling out in Hebrew. One escaped into a building and then re-emerged before running back. Each of these actions could easily have been read as a dangerous terrorist ploy and presumably were by the soldiers on the ground.

There is every reason for that. Hamas has previously feigned surrender and then tried to kill IDF troops moving to capture them. In this same area and elsewhere, terrorists have also used Hebrew voices to simulate hostages in order to lure soldiers into a trap. In one example that I've been told about, also in Shijaiyah, they used a speaker inside a building with a recording of a child's voice crying out for "abba" (father). The soldiers, knowing every second could count, rapidly entered the booby-trapped building and some were killed and wounded. Just a couple of days ago terrorists used a talking doll stolen from a child hostage for the same lethally cynical purpose….

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More:

Quote:

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Inside Gaza, I watched two tunnel entrances being blown up, both inside civilian houses. This extensive tunnel network, estimated to be over 300 miles long, brings another incomparable challenge to urban warfare, which is already widely recognized by soldiers as the most difficult battle environment that exists. Fighting in built-up areas diminishes the advantage of tanks, renders air and artillery support much more difficult and is characterized by exceptionally high casualty rates, especially for attacking forces.

I've been into Hamas's tunnels. They are heavily fortified, concrete-lined and with electric lighting and air supply. Pre-prepared with concealed sniper positions and rigged with explosives, some are fitted with heavy blast doors which further complicate any assault.

But that's not all. IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari has reported that Hamas have been using suicide attackers, a uniquely difficult and lethal enemy to counter. An opponent who wears civilian clothes and operates within the civilian population can only really be identified if he is carrying or firing a weapon. If you don't make the right split-second decision when someone appears in front of you in civilian clothes, without a rifle, with his hands up and with an unseen suicide vest beneath his outer clothing, you and your comrades could be vaporized. Or if there is no suicide vest you might just have killed an innocent civilian. There is no tougher call.

Inside Gaza, I witnessed scenes of destruction the like of which I had only before seen first-hand in Mostar in Bosnia nearly 30 years ago and in Bakhmut in Ukraine earlier this year. Most of the houses and other buildings were either totally destroyed or badly smashed up. Why has such devastation been necessary? You will have a better idea when I tell you that in almost every alleyway and something like every other house in Shijaiyah the IDF have found explosives, weapons and booby-traps, not to mention terror tunnel entrances. I entered one partly destroyed house and saw boxes of Iranian-supplied hand grenades that had been stored in a child's bedroom.

In the midst of this hell, IDF soldiers are daily risking their lives to hunt down Hamas terrorists and to find and rescue Israeli hostages held at gunpoint. I spoke to many of them inside the Strip and saw some of them in action. What I found deeply impressed me. The standards of professionalism and battle discipline of these young conscripts are remarkable, especially when you consider that most are straight out of high school, as well as the older reservists who dropped what they were doing in their offices and factories, grabbing rifles and uniforms to answer the call of duty.

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I doubt you'll be seeing Colonel Kemp's findings in a mainstream media source any time soon.

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Wowhttps://t.co/pAbtipPC4g

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) December 20, 2023

'We have to think in terms of managing the situation and improving the situation, not resolving it. The Gaza Strip is a sort of problem without a solution'

Professor @kobimichael24 breaks down the different visions for who should be in charge of running #Gaza the day after pic.twitter.com/DobPtnwNGU

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 20, 2023

Hundreds of Hamas fighters Killed, 500 surrender to IDF in Jabalia battles

https://t.co/GGVFfyKOZU

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 20, 2023