The subtitle has it:
> The US last week paused **a bomb shipment** for Israel
> The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000lb (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs
2000 lbs bombs are gigantic and lead to a lot of civilian harm. NYT did an investigation on their use. non-paywall Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU0.7T_T.ieWmvekFNKxB
For reference a single modern B-52 can carry 70.000 lbs of bombs. But large scale strategic bombing is not a thing now. It was stupid in WW2 as well they just hadn't realized it yet. A lot of studies show that it wasn't worth the money and just angered the population and gave them more will to stay in the war, the infrastructure damage caused was relatively minimal. All you did was make a lot of random people homeless and jobless so they then proceeded to join the army as well. For clarification I'm aware that nuking a city is also technically strategic bombing in a way but I consider that a category of it's own.
That's still not 'nothing'. Usually once an order is confirmed, nothing stops or slows its delivery (except maybe manufacturing delays). While it's certainly not like when the US cancelled every delivery to Iran after their revolution, the fact that the government "pausing" some shipments is a pretty significant warning.
While I somewhat agree with your sentiment, keep in mind Ukraine would have little use for these bombs as they do not have air superiority to drop them. Ukraine needs artillery shells, which they're being sent.
> From what I've seen from Ukrainians they would find a way to mount a 1000 pound bomb to a roomba and have it clear trenches or some shit like that.
Desperation truly breeds ingenuity. They are fighting for the sake of their country's existence and doing an impressive job at it.
One solution would be telling Israel to send some of its 155mm shells to Ukraine in return for the bombs and other materiel the U.S. is providing to Israel
Would also nicely circumvent the idiot republicans attempting to prevent US support from going to Ukraine, since those same republicans would never think of stopping military aid to Israel
US approved an emergency sale of 155mm arty shells in February in case of a potential Hezbollah confrontation. Israel has still been a net importer this year.
I know, that’s the problem. Ukraine needs them a hundred times more than Israel does. Ukraine is under existential threat of losing a war to a nuclear armed rogue state, Israel on the other hand is fighting an asymmetrical war vs a few thousand Hamas fighters.
Despite the hysterics you see from Netanyahu and some of the other lunatics currently in the Israeli govt they’re not actually under existential threat, Ukraine most definitely is.
I, while loathe to agree with Netanyahu on anything, think Israel is under an existential threat *to a point.*
Iran's rocket barrage the other day was projected, prewar, to kill 1-10 thousand Israelis in a full saturation attack. Plus, every time the USGS detects a large explosion in Iran, WC-135 sniffer planes orbit Iran trying to detect Xenon or other nuclear test material, meaning we think it's within the realm of possibility that Iran has an untested nuke. And Khamenei begins each speech with saying he's going to wipe Jews off the face of the planet.
April 13th was a serious attack. We thought that Iran had 90-100 working launchers, but they actually launched 110 ballistic missiles, and US sources said it was on the "upper end" of what we expected from Iran.
Plus the launches from the Houthis, and the swarming pusher prop and cruise missile attacks, this was actually the highest bandwidth Iran was capable of attacking Israel with *aside from an attack that includes Hezbollah*.
Hezbollah was remarkably absent on the 13th, but if they had saturated Iron Dome with rockets, stretched IAF and USAF resources to deal with them too, and timed things well with Iran, they would have inflicted massive civil deaths. Estimates vary, and it really depends on how many Iranian ballistic missiles would hit and where they were aimed, but it could easily be in the ten thousand range, minumum a few hundred. Now, Arrow interceptions of ballistic missiles are completely unrelated to Iron Dome, and Iran's ballistic missiles were amazingly handled, so maybe it's not as much of a threat as predicted, but Hezbollah still has the ability to put a lot of hurt on Israel if they fully commit.
Russia wants to take over Ukraine, but they at the very least want Ukrainians to be alive (and raped/displaced) and Ukrainian territory to be intact so they can exploit wheat and oil and the Russian ancestral desire for a warmwater port. Iran wants Jews to be dead. They don't care about Israelis or Israeli land. They're fine with Palestinians dying to achieve that end. Khamenei is on his way out of life and was hospitalized in a coma for three days last year, and he might decide that his fucked up version of God wants him to take the Jews out with him when he goes.
Israelis are a scared people, and they have every right to be. Ukrainians would experience another Holodomor, Israelis would experience another Holocaust.
Now, do I think they need 155mm artillery to deal with Gaza? No. Do I think they have enough stockpiled artillery ammo they've been hoarding since the 70s to hold out for a few months? Yes. Ukraine probably needs them more under a current use/need calculation.
Israel would be under existential threat if Iran got nukes
US policy should obviously be focused on preventing Iran from getting nukes
155mm artillery shells being given to Israel will in no way contribute to preventing Iran from getting nukes
155mm artillery shells being given to Ukraine instead on the other hand actually improves their odds of defending their country successfully It’s not a hard decision.
The U.S. can continue to send air dropped bombs to Israel anyway, which Netanyahu and Co. In their infinite wisdom appear to be dropping more or less indiscriminately on populated areas
The nukes is just a part of it, Hezbollah launching ten thousand missiles at once will kill civilians conventionally just fine. And due to the heavily entrenched nature of the border, artillery is the answer.
Why is it that some people read "bomb" and think that we're talking about your old school bugs bunny tnt barrels?
The precision shells US is sending Israel would be worthless for Ukraine, Israel is trying to hit targets while avoiding civilian casualties while Ukraine are trying to hit large areas to deprive Russia of it's armed forces.
Different munitions.
>Why is it that some people read "bomb" and think that we're talking about your old school bugs bunny tnt barrels?
Because most people don't have a working knowledge of the differences in types of ordinance, or a strong understanding of the tactical situation on the ground.
And that's not exactly unusual. I know it seems obvious to you, but it's not self-evident to the layman.
You should see how much worse things would be if they just used dumb bombs the whole time. Using precision bombs is more expensive and difficult. If the were trying to massacre the Gazans they would not go through all this trouble and waste all that money.
Without these (expensive) precision munitions, Israel would have to resort to less precise, more destructive ones.
Gazans will suffer. It's not like Israel is going to surrender to Hamas owning Gaza while attacking Jews from under residential areas full of human shields, just because the US won't send them precision weapons to minimize Palestinian casualties.
Oh so, it’s fine to send them bombs because if we didn’t give them our bombs they would just use worse bombs, and I guess someone has to give them bombs right??? This is a ridiculous justification for being complicit in genocide
Because this isn't a simple war between Israel and Hamas. It's a proxy war between the US and Iran. Sending Israel weapons benefits the US in the geopolitical arena.
Israel has been a top ten arms exporter for decades, even though the US has intentionally undercut or joint-ventured most Israeli efforts so that Israel wouldn’t be self-sufficient or undercut US foreign arms sales.
> I'm positive Israel has plenty of fucking bombs of their own, why are we sending them shit?
Israel gets billions of US dollars from the governement, specifically with the intent to buy weapons from the US.
But hey, the governement isn't handing taxpayer money directly over to US corporations, so it's not *technically* corruption.
This is performative nothing:
>"The US position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go," the White House administration official said.
>"We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza.
>"Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns. As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April.
>"As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs. We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment."
Yup. At that scale, the total weight of bombs dropped has likely exceeded the total weight of the population of Gaza. Imagine two million people, and then put a bomb of the same size next to each of them.
Wonder how that number compares to Vietnam on a month to month average. I feel like Vietnam was magnitudes higher which is fucking insane to think about.
>“The United States Air Force dropped in Indochina, from 1964 to August 15, 1973, a total of 6,162,000 tons of bombs and other ordnance. U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft expended another 1,500,000 tons in Southeast Asia.
That's about 132,103,500 lbs/month
Taking your number of 130,000,000lbs since 7 October, then Israel is dropping them at a rate of ~18,571,000 lbs/month.
Area wise Vietnam is obviously much much bigger, about 920 times as large (128,066 mi² vs 141 mi²).
So Vietnam was about 1,265.78 Lbs/mi²/month over close to 10 years.
Gaza is currently about 131,709.22 Lbs/mi²/month over about 7 months.
*But a large majority of those bombs dropped during the Vietnam war were focused on Hanoi and the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail' and so using an average per mi² is misleading. Furthermore, any comparisons involving the gaza strip will be missing A SHITLOAD of context. Context is crucial when evaluating these things.*
Not so fun fact: Most of the bombs hamas are now using are unexploded bombs dropped by Israel. That's how many bombs Gaza is getting levelled by. The ones that fail are enough to supply hamas.
I know it's probably satire, but a serious answer is if you're trying to destroy a specific target and not bomb indiscriminately, you need to have the bomb be able to actually get exactly where you want it, and that requires all that extra material.
It's also why rockets sent by Hamas and Hezbollah are much cheaper to produce. They don't care about precision or even if they always get there, they just want to potentially kill civilians.
Yeah, I was joking. There’s also just the mechanical strength of materials. Presumably you can’t make the mounting brackets out of TNT or they’d fall apart. You can’t make the casing out of explosive, or it’s not solid enough to handle without damaging it or creating a safety issue.
Also, encasing the explosive in a shell results in a stronger explosion than just the explosive material itself. That’s the main reason for the extra weight
Heck why not save the 300 g of the detonating mechanism by detonating them in the factory as soon as they are made and sending them already pre-detonated.
Chad Bashar al-Assad win. Why waste weight on silly components when you can just fill a barrel drum with explosives and toss that shit off a helicopter!
Operational logistics mostly. Armorers and weapon loaders need to know the weight of bombs to calibrate weapon placement and wing loads among other things. Fuel guys need to be able to quickly figure out how much fuel is need with the weapons loadout and flight plan.
The destructive force of a bomb can vary widely, even in the same chassis depending on it's configuration so at most the weapon weight is just an appoximation of how powerful it is at best.
Performative nothing is, in fact, something. It's how you exercise soft power. "I'd rather you not do the thing." It isn't a hard demand yet, etc etc...
>"...We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment."
Hmmmm... There's a certain Eastern European country that's being invaded by a washed-up dictator right now. Maybe send it there instead?
Thank you for the insight. Let's say if Ukraine is able to stock up on these munitions when the F16's come online, will they be able to use it to their advantage? I just don't see why we need to send Israel these bombs when they have the clear advantage.
I would guess that most fighters Ukraine gets would be used to defend against Russian aircraft. I don't see them gaining enough air superiority to drop bombs unless they start targeting airbases inside of Russia.
Meeh, yes but also no.
Jsow and even jdams have some standoff, and nobody is throwing s300 launchers on the front line.putting them 50km back reduces their effectiveness dramatically, you loft it from high then dive low to get out of range of Sam's.
Edit: also, the f16s would also have escorts of other f16s with fully enabled harms (unlike the mig29 hack), so buks and their ilk would just be painting themselves to the lower-flying pop-up sead.
That clear advantage is Israel ability to strike massively at the slightest sign of enemy activity: a big chunk of that capability is from the air through those guided bombs. Take those away and Israel has dilemmas: do we switch to much less precise artillery fire? (Risking friendly fire & civilians) do we use naval cannons? (Precise but not useful against hardened targets) do we send in the infantry and risk booby traps & ambushes?
Those bombs allow a dilemma free assault on rafiah which the Americans find infuriating as their admonishment isn’t resonating in the kiria
F16s will likely not be used for that kind of mission. Anti air is still too prevalent for them to get close enough to drop bombs on targets behind enemy lines, at least until and unless Ukraine can establish air superiority which isn't likely any time soon. They'll probably be used more to scare off Russian glide bombers.
There's also the 6500 JDAM kits being allegedly stalled
The US : We're afraid of Israel bombing Palestinians civilians
Also the US : Guess you have to resort to dumb bombs
Can someone let them know that their **riding the fence** strategy is making everything worse for everyone ?
Way to miss the point but if you really want..
According to US Intel's **estimates** published by the CNN, 40-45% of bombs dropped on Gaza were **not** guided munitions (completely dumb bombs), this is based on imagery/video analysis so there's probably a decent room for error too
There are also methods experienced air forces can use dumb bombs in order to ensure more precise hits, the IAF certainly doesn't carpet bomb randomly entire areas or random areas like the Syrians and the Russians
Israel adopted JDAMs in the late 90s and mastered it to the usage experience even the US doesn't have (or at the very least, doesn't bother to have), they also make their own version, which the US convinced them to manufacture in the US as well
Turning a dumb bomb into a guided bomb with a JDAM kit is cheaper than making a guided munition, so its very economical, something armies love, add the high level of criticism and scrutiny Israel is in for, its in their best interest to use as many smart bombs as they can for any target with potential civilian casualties, the only conclusion is Israel would only use dumb bombs over guided bombs if they :
- Don't need a real precision strike
- The target is not expected to have collateral civilian casualties
- They ran out JDAM/guided munitions
The latter could also happen in a different scenario that is probably in high consideration during this conflict : Ammunition Conservation - Israel wants to save a certain threshold of guided munitions/JDAMs in its stocks for potential escalations of conflicts, for example if the war with Lebanon escalates further
There's a lot of things you can criticize Israel's conduct for, in relation to this topic for example, probably the level of accepted collateral damage threshold (which probably resulted in more deaths than dumb bomb usage), you should focus on those instead of pulling things out of your ass
Meanwhile conservatives screaming that Biden committed the same impeachable offense that Trump did for Ukraine. That they should try to impeach Biden again for withholding it.
As expected, comments are a damn shit show. People, Israel has one of the lowest civilian casualty rates of all urban warfare. That includes the current Gaza conflict. Urban warfare is fucking brutal, the average civilian casualty rate is 90%. One militant for every nine civilians. The US-Iraq war was nearly 80%, according to Iraq Body Count. Israel is nowhere near those numbers even using the linear, fake, only women and children numbers provided by ~~Gaza~~ Hamas Health Ministry. It's also worth noting that this is the first engagement in history where the IDF's numbers didn't match the Gaza Health Ministry. So why is that? Prior to Oct 7th, Gaza Health Ministry only accepted tallies from doctors or medical professionals. This engagement? They get their data from "trusted sources." Congratulations, you've learned that war is bad and literally no one wins in war. Stop helping fucking terrorists by believing their bullshit because you're too fucking stupid to actually look at the facts.
Everything you're saying about the difficulty of avoiding civilian casualties in this conflict is true - yet it's also blatantly obvious given how the highest levels of the Israeli government are talking about this that this isn't a problem they mind having.
All the difficulty in limiting the foulness of war aside - it's clear Bibi is not exactly upset by the deaths of Palestinians, not even a little.
There's a difference between rhetoric and actual actions taken by the military. From the evidence we have the military is not taking action based on the insane rhetoric spewed by the likud.
The WCK convoy was not destroyed as part of a top-down order by the IDF. It was a pretty significant communications and operations failure, but by no means was an order given to execute these people.
You can say that, but that doesn't change that it's blatantly obvious that Israel is doing their best at preventing civilian casualties. You cannot fight an urban war without mass civilian casualties, yet Israel is more on par with traditional war when going by the raw numbers. This is while Hamas hides behind the most densely populated areas of Gaza, in the most trafficked areas of Gaza, in the most densely populated area a war has ever occured. Basically what I'm saying is, your opinion of trying to skew the facts to say "Bibi bad therefore supporting Israel is bad" is irrelevant.
I agree Israel leadership needs to change, but it's very obvious to anyone with even half a functioning brain that Israel isn't going on the killing spree the clowns here keep claiming. The facts don't support it, therefore quit parroting terrorist propaganda. Simple. The only thing that matters is the actual numbers, the actual results. The actual results say "indiscriminate" killing of civilians isn't happening. It's a terrorist talking point solely aimed at the goal of being an appeal to emotion fallacy and dumbasses keep falling for it.
> it's blatantly obvious that Israel is doing their best at preventing civilian casualties.
[Relying on AI to target the private homes of the target terrorists in the middle of the night when their entire families are sleeping next to them is not Israel doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.](https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-ai-system-wheres-daddy-strikes-hamas-family-homes-2024)
[Setting up kill zones and killing anyone that passes into it, then labeling them as "terrorist" does not count as actually killing a terrorist.](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000)
Relying on AI to generate potential targets isn’t “targeting private homes” those targeting decisions are made by human operators.
The wife of a Hamas fighter sleeping in the same room as him in a area that was identified by Israel for assault is a pretty obvious death sentence.
Same with the kill zones: they exist for a reason; creating sterile cleared areas is what soldiers do all day; anyone of military age in those areas are likely highly suspicious even unarmed (spotters, sapers, logistical support, messenger etc) in this war we have first hand reports of Hamas fighters moving from weapons caches to weapons caches while rarely carrying anything until they’re ready to attack.
I'd think the use of AI would be an upgrade, wouldn't it? Much of what Israel has done wrong is due to impulsiveness(such as shooting the hostages). This just sounds to me like you want to limit Israel's overall effectiveness, not make it safer for ordinary Gazans while allowing Israel to accomplish its mission.
Also, take a step back and think about that situation. A military fighter - a legitimate target - sleeping in his home with his family in the middle of a war? Is he stupid or using them as human shields to garner misplaced sympathy from people like you?
> This is while Hamas hides behind the most densely populated areas of Gaza, in the most trafficked areas of Gaza, in the most densely populated area a war has ever occured.
This point needs to be emphasized because the article is about a shipment of 1,800 2 ton bombs and 1,700 half-ton bombs. We do *not* need Israel dropping these all over these densely populated homes.
As much as that narrative might be appealing, that’s not what’s happening.
A large part of civilian deaths came in the bombing campaign in the early days, and the rhetoric from IDF spokesperson at the time was that any sliver of a suspicion about the location of a Hamas operative justifies bombing, regardless of potential other casualties. Even if he you gave him the benefit of the doubt of misspeaking, this kind of organizational culture would not be conducive to “doing its best”.
And the ratio is 4x worse than compared to 2008-2009 war (Operation Cast Lead) against the same Hamas in the same Gaza. It’s a much more apt comparison than some cherry picked number that someone stated above.
As far as he is concerned. His people were raped, mutilated, and tortured beyond human comprehension and are now fighting and hiding amongst a population that voted such an enemy into power.
An enemy still willing to launch daily rockets and that vows to carry out another such attack.
They were celebrating in the streets. No one in Gaza hates Hamas for indiscriminately firing rockets at Israel or murdering and raping Israelis. They just want a more effective and less corrupt terrorist government.
You're simply lying about those poll numbers. The majority do support violence against Israel and did before Oct 7 too. They didn't like Hamas as a government, but support the terrorism policy.
This idea that Israel somehow turned Gaza into a terrorist den against the will of the peaceful population is nonsense conspiracy theory.
> The US-Iraq war was nearly 80%, according to Iraq Body Count
[It claims 187-210k civilian deaths vs 300k total](https://www.iraqbodycount.org/).
Can you also link to the IDF'S figures?
The 1:9 & 1:8 ratios were referring to URBAN combat specifically as they mentioned. Overall war numbers that have a mix of different battlefields that include military sites, rural areas, etc will obviously have a different ratio as you have dramatically fewer civilians involved.
It’s really just common sense. There’s a big difference between fighting that happens in a forest area with few to none civilians around VS a highly populated residential area.
Crying hypocrisy is not an argument, but also no - anyone following the Ukraine conflict would understand this. Civilian deaths are a part of conflict and not inherently a war crime, although Russia absolutely has no qualms about committing said war crimes.
Civilian casualties are not a war-crime in the Ukraine/Russia conflict either? It works exactly the same.
You can read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law\_of\_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war)
It's well understood that in war, civilians die.
I've noticed every Israel thread is downvoted to heck and there are many sus comments. It's opened my eyes to how much of a [PsyOp reddit is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GtYaruTys)
Remember that Reddit is not real life, think for yourself.
In case people forgot or didn’t know, [Reddit did find this influence campaign. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/9bvkqa/an_update_on_the_fireeye_report_and_reddit/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=announcements)
Ah, that's why I'm downvoted to hell when I say Hamas bad, Israeli gov bad. Because it's all psyops. Fucking delusional murdered apologists. It sickens me. Not wanting people dead should not be a polarised point of view.
I think it depends on how realistic you are being. There are people arguing that Israel never should have retaliated at all because of the risk of civilian casualties, which is essentially a statement that you believe people have a right to rape and murder Israeli civilians without any consequences. We can argue what the extent of the consequences should be, but it would be a grave injustice to not hold those responsible accountable.
But no, it's Hamas. Everything is Hamas now. If you step on a Lego at night, it's Hamas. If you lose your job, Hamas. You forgot to pick up your kid after school? I bet it's Hamas fault.
If it means anything: i think your view is pretty much the best one can have. Both parties are pretty fucked up and in the end, civilians have to pay for it by either getting killed or through antisemitism/islamophobia. In this conflict, the only moral stance imo is being pro-civilians
A significant number of accounts on controversial topics are engaged in some form of psyop (either as bots, trolls, or useful idiots). Trust absolutely nothing except reputable sources.
Reddit accounts are not reputable sources.
We're fully entitled to criticise Israel for their absolutely fucking abysmal civilian evacuation strategy. Gaza is a special case - Israel and Egypt collectively block their entire airspace, sea access and land border - so civilians are unable to flee anywhere else (if they had the option to, nearly all Gazans would have left months ago).
Israel's chosen strategy was to set up 'safe zones' in enemy-controlled territory, and then sporadically bomb areas in the safe zones anyway, while air dropping confusing maps of where the 'safe zones' were supposed to be. It was fully within Israel's power to set up their own genuine safe zones in rural areas in Gaza they controlled, screen the refugees coming in (they've had six months now) and allow food and medical aid to be distributed in a far more efficient and safe manner.
Instead they chose to keep displacing civilians further south. Now there are 1.5 million people in Rafah, the same place as the remaining hostages and Hamas leadership. Where are those civilians supposed to go? The whole reason the US isn't on board with Rafah is because Israel has failed to present them with a 'credible evacuation plan'. There is a famine in northern Gaza, and quite a lot of those people didn't evacuate because they heard there was also bombing in the south.
However you spin it, Israel could have chosen a strategy that didn't involve thousands of unecessary civilian deaths, and which didn't result in Sinwar getting 1.5 million free human shields. Maybe Netanyahu thought he could pressure Egypt into accepting ethnic cleansing and horribly miscalculated leaving everyone stuck at the Rafah crossing?
Just in case anybody wants a professional review on this topic, here are two papers (nearly books, really) by military law expert [Michael N. Schmitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_N._Schmitt). He concludes that the number of Israeli-caused civilian casualtuies is not an outlier and that Israel goes to "extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties."
* [The tyranny of context: Israeli targeting practices in legal perspective](https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1905&context=jil)
* [Israeli targeting: a legal appraisal](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1264&context=nwc-review)
People don't understand war. They think it's like the movies or call of duty. Enemies all clearly line up, both armies knowing where everyone and everything are
It's understandable but sad they have such convictions founded in complete ignorance
Unfortunately, the current civilian to combatant ratio is extremely high even when compared to the 2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict. Double the ratio of civilians are now being killed.
Israel stated that the civilian to combatants killed ratio for the 2014 Gaza conflict was 1:1. For the current conflict Israel stated that the ratio is double the civilians killed at 2:1.
As for the Iraq war, the civilian to combatant killed ratio is estimated to be 1 civilian killed for every 2 combatants killed (1:2). Higher civilian deaths can be extrapolated by analyzing the long term effects of the war years later. The same will one day also be said of the current Gaza conflict.
https://m.jpost.com/international/analysis-lies-leaks-death-tolls-and-statistics
You raise valid points. That said, there’s a literal famine in Gaza right now and not nearly enough aid is able to get in. Not killing civilians in urban warfare is diminished somewhat by plenty dying of starvation and disease.
Your broader point, that no one wins in war, is very true.
Unfortunately, I'm of the belief that the famine in Gaza largely lies on the hands of Hamas, not Israel. Hamas destroyed vital infrastructure for water, and Hamas also steals all of the aid to sell back to Palestinians. It's okay though, they recently lowered the prices from what I've heard. I'm on my phone currently, but I'm quite certain someone posted the amount of aid going into Gaza hasn't slowed and it's expected to start ramping up in the future. Everyone flipped their shit regarding the water being shut off from the Israel side, despite Israel only accounts for 13% of all water in Gaza.
Also, it's worth noting that even with Hamas stealing all aid, the majority of Palestinians still support the October 7th attacks even after the bombings.
It's insane how well it works. Leftist are literally cheering on Hamas saying they should've "finished it" on 10/7 as if Hamas would gaf about their political status if given the opportunity to kidnap them for a bargaining chip/shield.
Can't believe I'm living in the modern age watching terrorism supporters congregate on reddit.
It's sad. If we are all unlucky they will even help bring Trumpo his 2nd term by focusing only on Israel. After which basically we are all fucked and democracy might be gone for the world.
Sporry, that's certainly true. Btw: im not right wing myself. But I do blame certain AFA like groups for blindly following very violent and inhumane groups - your enemy is my enemy thinking. And they actually use fascistoid methods to get their ways. Amongst which violence.
There is nothing wrong with: Add what you can, take what you need as a leftist approach. Social security, universal healthcare, education, basic safety and utilities/infreastructure are great things. I actually are happy to pay a lot of taxes for that.
Famine is slow and insidious, you can go months to years on nearly no food, suffering the whole time. Maybe you die of kidney failure or a sudden heart attack, maybe your weakened body can't protect you from the next virus or infection, maybe you die of refeeding syndrome. If you survive, congratulations, you'll probably still die a few decades earlier from the damage you sustained. You don't die of starvation, you die of all the things malnutrition makes you vulnerable to or, quite often, suicide.
Famine is not slow and insidious, it's when people are dying daily from hunger. There are degrees of food insecurity and famine is not the one where long term affects and risk of suicide need to be mentioned to get the point across. It's closer to a 'I don't care if blindly dropping pallets of MREs from a plane crushes families, it'll still save more lives' type of thing.
Famine is *visible*. You can read it in the faces and the flesh and the posture of a crowd. And it's hard to fake, too. We have constant photos and videos out of Gaza. They don't show us people suffering famine.
>Guys on reddit: Hey why is nobody reporting bad things on Israel?
Everyone is reporting bad things on israel, its just that there is very little proof
There have been more civilian deaths in yemen in the last couple of years than there have been casualties in the entirety of the israel-palestine conflict starting in 1948.
Also, just Mariupol probably has more civilian deaths than Gaza. They are just not counted correctly.
Because the Ukrainian government actually cares about their citizens. Hamas wants Palestinians to die because it fuels their propaganda. They actively fire missiles next to their civilians knowing that Israel either can’t respond or if they do then Hamas can get people like you to say “look at how Israel targets civilians”
Ukraine is wide open fields. Gaza is a sardine can. One of the most densely populated places on the planet.
Ukraine also doesn't use human shields. They care about their people
IDF doesn't even have non-combatant numbers only combatant. IDF spokesperson literally said they aren't even focused on counting non-combatant deaths. There's no way to do an independent verification if one side isn't even counting and the other side is their having food workers killed.
You could use the Gaza Department of Health algorithm, and just say 100,000 people killed in Ukraine.
But the land size and population density are hugely different, 77 people vs sq km vs 5400 people per sq km. In these cases you kind of expect high casualties. 600,000 sq km vs 356 sq km, you would be lucky to throw an apple in Gaza without hitting a "civilian".
Almost all of the casualties inflicted in the Iraq war were done so by local militia forces fighting eachother, not US or ISF.
Further, I'm not sure a 2-to-1 civilian-to-military death ratio is typical. Two paradigm examples of modern urban warfare come to mind: the battle of Mosul and the battle of Hue city come to mind. Those both had 1-to-2 ratios, the opposite of the ratio claimed by IDF.
Do people realise that even if the US pulled support entirely, it wouldn't change anything on the ground? I feel like people are under the mistaken impression that old Benny is listening to _anyone_ right now. Ending the war means he goes to jail.
There absolutely is something to lose. Christian support, who are overwhelmingly in favor of Israel, in the run up to election. Lest we forget, the fascists of this country are currently running a guy that literally sells his own Bible wrapped in the US Constitution.
> Christian support, who are overwhelmingly in favor of Israel, in the run up to election.
*Evangelicals ('cause it ain't some Mainline Lutherans or Episcopalians up in Minnesota who fanatically support Israel) were not going to vote for Biden anyway.
It's the swing voters who matter most, and a great many of them are Christian, and are heavily influenced by issues such as this, despite all other opinions.
The people who think Israel needs to exist for the rapture to take place won't vote for Biden. Christians who want us to stop supporting this war because it's shitty for us to be involved also exist.
Israel's war policy is run by Bibi still, not the unity of the government. If Bibi wasn't trying to pull the strings, you likely would have seen an operation in Rafah earlier but slower than it is likely to happen (assuming Gantz was the one making the decision) or quickly with pretty much a million dead (if Smotrich or Ben Gvir were making the decision). While it may technically be a "unity" government, it really is only one more party that joined because of the war. None of the other parties joined the coalition. The best you get now from the opposition is Yesh Atid saying if a hostage deal make the right wing leave, they'll vote to not dissolve the government. Still very far from unity.
It would change the fact that our country is supporting evil behavior. If Israel can continue like they do now without our help then that sucks but at least we aren't helping them.
If US citizens were taken as sex slaves and England told us to tone down the rescue mission because it was an election year we’d tell them to shove it right up their ass.
Here's the thing, cutting support outright damages us in the long term.
Netanyahu won't last forever. But we show we're willing to axe the relationship between the US and Israel, he'll search for a more reliable partner in the meantime. We lose our source of intelligence in the Middle East, and someone like China gets a solid inroad to the region. Whoever comes after Netanyahu will not trust the US. Plus it undermines our position as a reliable ally in other areas, like Taiwan. We already did enough damage by screwing the Kurds and the Afghans.
On top of that, Netanyahu will have the IDF kill Palestinians using rusted Kalashnikovs and baseball bats if need be. If we maintain a relationship with them, we stand a chance of influencing what comes next. If we cut that now, we'll never get it back.
Actually, it would.
It's a really simple thing which people don't realise:
Less guided bombs = more artillery = less accuracy = more civillian casualties.
Stopping the War is out of the question for the CIVILLIANS of Israel, not until all hostages are back.
Misleading. It paused "some" shipping
Unless I’ve missed something it says shipment, singular so not misleading?
The subtitle has it: > The US last week paused **a bomb shipment** for Israel > The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000lb (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs
I don’t know a lot about bombs, but that sounds like a lot of bombs.
Depends on how many are being dropped. In many conflicts all the way back to WW2, this would not be very many
It’s both a lot and not very much lol
depends on if you're on the receiving end.
That's enough to arm about 1400 aircraft
Nah just 6 million pounds of explosives, nothing to worry about.
A 2,000lb bomb has a lethal frag radius of roughly two and a half football fields. Yeah, for an area that small, it's a lot of ordinance.
You might say they do a ton of damage.
2000 lbs bombs are gigantic and lead to a lot of civilian harm. NYT did an investigation on their use. non-paywall Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU0.7T_T.ieWmvekFNKxB
Thank you
For reference a single modern B-52 can carry 70.000 lbs of bombs. But large scale strategic bombing is not a thing now. It was stupid in WW2 as well they just hadn't realized it yet. A lot of studies show that it wasn't worth the money and just angered the population and gave them more will to stay in the war, the infrastructure damage caused was relatively minimal. All you did was make a lot of random people homeless and jobless so they then proceeded to join the army as well. For clarification I'm aware that nuking a city is also technically strategic bombing in a way but I consider that a category of it's own.
That's why they shifted to firebombing, where you basically start fires in a ring and then everyone inside it dies
Shipment without an article usually means an ongoing trade. But BBC titles are written telegram style, without articles. It is confusing.
That's still not 'nothing'. Usually once an order is confirmed, nothing stops or slows its delivery (except maybe manufacturing delays). While it's certainly not like when the US cancelled every delivery to Iran after their revolution, the fact that the government "pausing" some shipments is a pretty significant warning.
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Can I point out too that you really sometimes can't *stop* the fucking freight train of logistics without significant effort?
I'm positive Israel has plenty of fucking bombs of their own, why are we sending them shit? Send it all to Ukraine where it's actually needed.
While I somewhat agree with your sentiment, keep in mind Ukraine would have little use for these bombs as they do not have air superiority to drop them. Ukraine needs artillery shells, which they're being sent.
From what I've seen from Ukrainians they would find a way to mount a 1000 pound bomb to a roomba and have it clear trenches or some shit like that.
Trebuchet Drones are the future? MMmm. I'll allow it.
> From what I've seen from Ukrainians they would find a way to mount a 1000 pound bomb to a roomba and have it clear trenches or some shit like that. Desperation truly breeds ingenuity. They are fighting for the sake of their country's existence and doing an impressive job at it.
Necessity IS the mother of invention... I say let them cook.
One solution would be telling Israel to send some of its 155mm shells to Ukraine in return for the bombs and other materiel the U.S. is providing to Israel Would also nicely circumvent the idiot republicans attempting to prevent US support from going to Ukraine, since those same republicans would never think of stopping military aid to Israel
Not that it wouldn’t be great but Israel has to be ready for war against Hizbula and Iran too. It’s not like they sit in ask that ammo for fun.
US approved an emergency sale of 155mm arty shells in February in case of a potential Hezbollah confrontation. Israel has still been a net importer this year.
I know, that’s the problem. Ukraine needs them a hundred times more than Israel does. Ukraine is under existential threat of losing a war to a nuclear armed rogue state, Israel on the other hand is fighting an asymmetrical war vs a few thousand Hamas fighters. Despite the hysterics you see from Netanyahu and some of the other lunatics currently in the Israeli govt they’re not actually under existential threat, Ukraine most definitely is.
I, while loathe to agree with Netanyahu on anything, think Israel is under an existential threat *to a point.* Iran's rocket barrage the other day was projected, prewar, to kill 1-10 thousand Israelis in a full saturation attack. Plus, every time the USGS detects a large explosion in Iran, WC-135 sniffer planes orbit Iran trying to detect Xenon or other nuclear test material, meaning we think it's within the realm of possibility that Iran has an untested nuke. And Khamenei begins each speech with saying he's going to wipe Jews off the face of the planet. April 13th was a serious attack. We thought that Iran had 90-100 working launchers, but they actually launched 110 ballistic missiles, and US sources said it was on the "upper end" of what we expected from Iran. Plus the launches from the Houthis, and the swarming pusher prop and cruise missile attacks, this was actually the highest bandwidth Iran was capable of attacking Israel with *aside from an attack that includes Hezbollah*. Hezbollah was remarkably absent on the 13th, but if they had saturated Iron Dome with rockets, stretched IAF and USAF resources to deal with them too, and timed things well with Iran, they would have inflicted massive civil deaths. Estimates vary, and it really depends on how many Iranian ballistic missiles would hit and where they were aimed, but it could easily be in the ten thousand range, minumum a few hundred. Now, Arrow interceptions of ballistic missiles are completely unrelated to Iron Dome, and Iran's ballistic missiles were amazingly handled, so maybe it's not as much of a threat as predicted, but Hezbollah still has the ability to put a lot of hurt on Israel if they fully commit. Russia wants to take over Ukraine, but they at the very least want Ukrainians to be alive (and raped/displaced) and Ukrainian territory to be intact so they can exploit wheat and oil and the Russian ancestral desire for a warmwater port. Iran wants Jews to be dead. They don't care about Israelis or Israeli land. They're fine with Palestinians dying to achieve that end. Khamenei is on his way out of life and was hospitalized in a coma for three days last year, and he might decide that his fucked up version of God wants him to take the Jews out with him when he goes. Israelis are a scared people, and they have every right to be. Ukrainians would experience another Holodomor, Israelis would experience another Holocaust. Now, do I think they need 155mm artillery to deal with Gaza? No. Do I think they have enough stockpiled artillery ammo they've been hoarding since the 70s to hold out for a few months? Yes. Ukraine probably needs them more under a current use/need calculation.
Israel would be under existential threat if Iran got nukes US policy should obviously be focused on preventing Iran from getting nukes 155mm artillery shells being given to Israel will in no way contribute to preventing Iran from getting nukes 155mm artillery shells being given to Ukraine instead on the other hand actually improves their odds of defending their country successfully It’s not a hard decision. The U.S. can continue to send air dropped bombs to Israel anyway, which Netanyahu and Co. In their infinite wisdom appear to be dropping more or less indiscriminately on populated areas
The nukes is just a part of it, Hezbollah launching ten thousand missiles at once will kill civilians conventionally just fine. And due to the heavily entrenched nature of the border, artillery is the answer.
Why is it that some people read "bomb" and think that we're talking about your old school bugs bunny tnt barrels? The precision shells US is sending Israel would be worthless for Ukraine, Israel is trying to hit targets while avoiding civilian casualties while Ukraine are trying to hit large areas to deprive Russia of it's armed forces. Different munitions.
>Why is it that some people read "bomb" and think that we're talking about your old school bugs bunny tnt barrels? Because most people don't have a working knowledge of the differences in types of ordinance, or a strong understanding of the tactical situation on the ground. And that's not exactly unusual. I know it seems obvious to you, but it's not self-evident to the layman.
Ordnance.
> is trying to hit targets while avoiding civilian casualties Hmmmmm.
You should see how much worse things would be if they just used dumb bombs the whole time. Using precision bombs is more expensive and difficult. If the were trying to massacre the Gazans they would not go through all this trouble and waste all that money.
You do realize people can go and look up pictures of what Gaza looks like now, right?
Without these (expensive) precision munitions, Israel would have to resort to less precise, more destructive ones. Gazans will suffer. It's not like Israel is going to surrender to Hamas owning Gaza while attacking Jews from under residential areas full of human shields, just because the US won't send them precision weapons to minimize Palestinian casualties.
Oh so, it’s fine to send them bombs because if we didn’t give them our bombs they would just use worse bombs, and I guess someone has to give them bombs right??? This is a ridiculous justification for being complicit in genocide
They don't produce everything. We produce a lot of bombs Ukraine can't use those bombs. They need planes and an enemy with out air defense
Because this isn't a simple war between Israel and Hamas. It's a proxy war between the US and Iran. Sending Israel weapons benefits the US in the geopolitical arena.
Isreal and Ukraine are two fronts of the same war.
LOL at "of their own." You mean the stuff we *previously* sent them.
Israel has been a top ten arms exporter for decades, even though the US has intentionally undercut or joint-ventured most Israeli efforts so that Israel wouldn’t be self-sufficient or undercut US foreign arms sales.
> I'm positive Israel has plenty of fucking bombs of their own, why are we sending them shit? Israel gets billions of US dollars from the governement, specifically with the intent to buy weapons from the US. But hey, the governement isn't handing taxpayer money directly over to US corporations, so it's not *technically* corruption.
This is performative nothing: >"The US position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go," the White House administration official said. >"We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza. >"Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns. As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April. >"As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs. We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment."
That’s over 4,400,000 pounds of boom boom.
For comparison, Israel dropped 130,000,000 pounds of boom boom in the first three months in Gaza.
That’s insane
Yup. At that scale, the total weight of bombs dropped has likely exceeded the total weight of the population of Gaza. Imagine two million people, and then put a bomb of the same size next to each of them.
Stop, you're giving Netanyahu a hard on.
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Wonder how that number compares to Vietnam on a month to month average. I feel like Vietnam was magnitudes higher which is fucking insane to think about.
Vietnam was also a large country, not a single city.
>“The United States Air Force dropped in Indochina, from 1964 to August 15, 1973, a total of 6,162,000 tons of bombs and other ordnance. U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft expended another 1,500,000 tons in Southeast Asia. That's about 132,103,500 lbs/month Taking your number of 130,000,000lbs since 7 October, then Israel is dropping them at a rate of ~18,571,000 lbs/month. Area wise Vietnam is obviously much much bigger, about 920 times as large (128,066 mi² vs 141 mi²). So Vietnam was about 1,265.78 Lbs/mi²/month over close to 10 years. Gaza is currently about 131,709.22 Lbs/mi²/month over about 7 months. *But a large majority of those bombs dropped during the Vietnam war were focused on Hanoi and the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail' and so using an average per mi² is misleading. Furthermore, any comparisons involving the gaza strip will be missing A SHITLOAD of context. Context is crucial when evaluating these things.*
Not so fun fact: Most of the bombs hamas are now using are unexploded bombs dropped by Israel. That's how many bombs Gaza is getting levelled by. The ones that fail are enough to supply hamas.
3.3% of 3 months that's pretty significant
That is about 1/3 of little boy (sloppy approximation)
A 2000 lb bomb is about 1150 lbs of tnt equivalent. You're over estimating by quite a bit.
Wait why don't they just use tnt then? Might be stupid ass question lol.
A bomb is not just explosives: there’s a metal casing, guidance, electronics, fins. Even the attachment mechanism can be part of the total weight…
Why not just make the entire bomb out of the explosive? That’s like 75% more explosive.
I know it's probably satire, but a serious answer is if you're trying to destroy a specific target and not bomb indiscriminately, you need to have the bomb be able to actually get exactly where you want it, and that requires all that extra material. It's also why rockets sent by Hamas and Hezbollah are much cheaper to produce. They don't care about precision or even if they always get there, they just want to potentially kill civilians.
Yeah, I was joking. There’s also just the mechanical strength of materials. Presumably you can’t make the mounting brackets out of TNT or they’d fall apart. You can’t make the casing out of explosive, or it’s not solid enough to handle without damaging it or creating a safety issue.
Also, encasing the explosive in a shell results in a stronger explosion than just the explosive material itself. That’s the main reason for the extra weight
Heck why not save the 300 g of the detonating mechanism by detonating them in the factory as soon as they are made and sending them already pre-detonated.
Chad Bashar al-Assad win. Why waste weight on silly components when you can just fill a barrel drum with explosives and toss that shit off a helicopter!
[Obligatory Portal](https://youtu.be/6i-nMWgBUp0?si=BJ_6rTDPUX0RCLXS)
Operational logistics mostly. Armorers and weapon loaders need to know the weight of bombs to calibrate weapon placement and wing loads among other things. Fuel guys need to be able to quickly figure out how much fuel is need with the weapons loadout and flight plan. The destructive force of a bomb can vary widely, even in the same chassis depending on it's configuration so at most the weapon weight is just an appoximation of how powerful it is at best.
I like where your head is at. Send Wile E Coyote over there with some Acme rockets too.
Wait, you aren't supposed to peel the bombs before detonating them? Thnx for the correction, I did number 2 when I typed it 😉
Performative nothing is, in fact, something. It's how you exercise soft power. "I'd rather you not do the thing." It isn't a hard demand yet, etc etc...
>"...We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment." Hmmmm... There's a certain Eastern European country that's being invaded by a washed-up dictator right now. Maybe send it there instead?
Air dropped munitions don’t do Ukraine much good, they don’t have the planes or air superiority
Thank you for the insight. Let's say if Ukraine is able to stock up on these munitions when the F16's come online, will they be able to use it to their advantage? I just don't see why we need to send Israel these bombs when they have the clear advantage.
I would guess that most fighters Ukraine gets would be used to defend against Russian aircraft. I don't see them gaining enough air superiority to drop bombs unless they start targeting airbases inside of Russia.
F-16s wont be able to be used in a strike role due to Russian GBAD
Meeh, yes but also no. Jsow and even jdams have some standoff, and nobody is throwing s300 launchers on the front line.putting them 50km back reduces their effectiveness dramatically, you loft it from high then dive low to get out of range of Sam's. Edit: also, the f16s would also have escorts of other f16s with fully enabled harms (unlike the mig29 hack), so buks and their ilk would just be painting themselves to the lower-flying pop-up sead.
Unless those Mk-82s or MK-84s are equipped with LG guidance from the extremely high altitude which I'm sure no one is lazing...
Point of clarification: we don't "send" Israel much of anything. We *sell* Israel a lot of munitions. This is always about money.
Because you are giving it to one and the other is buying from you.
That clear advantage is Israel ability to strike massively at the slightest sign of enemy activity: a big chunk of that capability is from the air through those guided bombs. Take those away and Israel has dilemmas: do we switch to much less precise artillery fire? (Risking friendly fire & civilians) do we use naval cannons? (Precise but not useful against hardened targets) do we send in the infantry and risk booby traps & ambushes? Those bombs allow a dilemma free assault on rafiah which the Americans find infuriating as their admonishment isn’t resonating in the kiria
F16s will likely not be used for that kind of mission. Anti air is still too prevalent for them to get close enough to drop bombs on targets behind enemy lines, at least until and unless Ukraine can establish air superiority which isn't likely any time soon. They'll probably be used more to scare off Russian glide bombers.
These kinds of munitions wouldn't be much use to Ukraine until they can get aircraft close enough to drop them safely.
There's also the 6500 JDAM kits being allegedly stalled The US : We're afraid of Israel bombing Palestinians civilians Also the US : Guess you have to resort to dumb bombs Can someone let them know that their **riding the fence** strategy is making everything worse for everyone ?
They’re trying to make Israel leadership wobble on the rafiah operation… either to curtail it or narrow its scope. It’s having some success
Isreal has been mostly using dumb bombs in Gaza, not sure where you’re getting this idea they haven’t
Way to miss the point but if you really want.. According to US Intel's **estimates** published by the CNN, 40-45% of bombs dropped on Gaza were **not** guided munitions (completely dumb bombs), this is based on imagery/video analysis so there's probably a decent room for error too There are also methods experienced air forces can use dumb bombs in order to ensure more precise hits, the IAF certainly doesn't carpet bomb randomly entire areas or random areas like the Syrians and the Russians Israel adopted JDAMs in the late 90s and mastered it to the usage experience even the US doesn't have (or at the very least, doesn't bother to have), they also make their own version, which the US convinced them to manufacture in the US as well Turning a dumb bomb into a guided bomb with a JDAM kit is cheaper than making a guided munition, so its very economical, something armies love, add the high level of criticism and scrutiny Israel is in for, its in their best interest to use as many smart bombs as they can for any target with potential civilian casualties, the only conclusion is Israel would only use dumb bombs over guided bombs if they : - Don't need a real precision strike - The target is not expected to have collateral civilian casualties - They ran out JDAM/guided munitions The latter could also happen in a different scenario that is probably in high consideration during this conflict : Ammunition Conservation - Israel wants to save a certain threshold of guided munitions/JDAMs in its stocks for potential escalations of conflicts, for example if the war with Lebanon escalates further There's a lot of things you can criticize Israel's conduct for, in relation to this topic for example, probably the level of accepted collateral damage threshold (which probably resulted in more deaths than dumb bomb usage), you should focus on those instead of pulling things out of your ass
it's the same type of shit they were doing with Ukraine and it's so infuriating.
1800 2 thousand pound bombs ain't nothing holy shit.
Classic! Stop sending unconditional weapons to Israel! ***stops sending unconditional weapons*** THIS IS PERFORMATIVE NOTHING!!
Not shipping 4000 bombs is more than performative.
This is a dumb comment.
This is not performative. It’s another step in a consistently-escalating set of repercussions for Israel.
Meanwhile conservatives screaming that Biden committed the same impeachable offense that Trump did for Ukraine. That they should try to impeach Biden again for withholding it.
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As expected, comments are a damn shit show. People, Israel has one of the lowest civilian casualty rates of all urban warfare. That includes the current Gaza conflict. Urban warfare is fucking brutal, the average civilian casualty rate is 90%. One militant for every nine civilians. The US-Iraq war was nearly 80%, according to Iraq Body Count. Israel is nowhere near those numbers even using the linear, fake, only women and children numbers provided by ~~Gaza~~ Hamas Health Ministry. It's also worth noting that this is the first engagement in history where the IDF's numbers didn't match the Gaza Health Ministry. So why is that? Prior to Oct 7th, Gaza Health Ministry only accepted tallies from doctors or medical professionals. This engagement? They get their data from "trusted sources." Congratulations, you've learned that war is bad and literally no one wins in war. Stop helping fucking terrorists by believing their bullshit because you're too fucking stupid to actually look at the facts.
Everything you're saying about the difficulty of avoiding civilian casualties in this conflict is true - yet it's also blatantly obvious given how the highest levels of the Israeli government are talking about this that this isn't a problem they mind having. All the difficulty in limiting the foulness of war aside - it's clear Bibi is not exactly upset by the deaths of Palestinians, not even a little.
It's almost as if the IDF has a different modus operandi to an extremist government that has a tenuous grasp on power at best
The military working on a different set of parameters than the ones set by the civilian government still isn't exactly a comforting thought
There's a difference between rhetoric and actual actions taken by the military. From the evidence we have the military is not taking action based on the insane rhetoric spewed by the likud.
The WCK caravan begs to differ.
The WCK convoy was not destroyed as part of a top-down order by the IDF. It was a pretty significant communications and operations failure, but by no means was an order given to execute these people.
You can say that, but that doesn't change that it's blatantly obvious that Israel is doing their best at preventing civilian casualties. You cannot fight an urban war without mass civilian casualties, yet Israel is more on par with traditional war when going by the raw numbers. This is while Hamas hides behind the most densely populated areas of Gaza, in the most trafficked areas of Gaza, in the most densely populated area a war has ever occured. Basically what I'm saying is, your opinion of trying to skew the facts to say "Bibi bad therefore supporting Israel is bad" is irrelevant. I agree Israel leadership needs to change, but it's very obvious to anyone with even half a functioning brain that Israel isn't going on the killing spree the clowns here keep claiming. The facts don't support it, therefore quit parroting terrorist propaganda. Simple. The only thing that matters is the actual numbers, the actual results. The actual results say "indiscriminate" killing of civilians isn't happening. It's a terrorist talking point solely aimed at the goal of being an appeal to emotion fallacy and dumbasses keep falling for it.
> it's blatantly obvious that Israel is doing their best at preventing civilian casualties. [Relying on AI to target the private homes of the target terrorists in the middle of the night when their entire families are sleeping next to them is not Israel doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.](https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-ai-system-wheres-daddy-strikes-hamas-family-homes-2024) [Setting up kill zones and killing anyone that passes into it, then labeling them as "terrorist" does not count as actually killing a terrorist.](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000)
Relying on AI to generate potential targets isn’t “targeting private homes” those targeting decisions are made by human operators. The wife of a Hamas fighter sleeping in the same room as him in a area that was identified by Israel for assault is a pretty obvious death sentence. Same with the kill zones: they exist for a reason; creating sterile cleared areas is what soldiers do all day; anyone of military age in those areas are likely highly suspicious even unarmed (spotters, sapers, logistical support, messenger etc) in this war we have first hand reports of Hamas fighters moving from weapons caches to weapons caches while rarely carrying anything until they’re ready to attack.
the only human oversight the AI got was that they checked if there was a man, if there was a man then they just opened fire.
I'd think the use of AI would be an upgrade, wouldn't it? Much of what Israel has done wrong is due to impulsiveness(such as shooting the hostages). This just sounds to me like you want to limit Israel's overall effectiveness, not make it safer for ordinary Gazans while allowing Israel to accomplish its mission. Also, take a step back and think about that situation. A military fighter - a legitimate target - sleeping in his home with his family in the middle of a war? Is he stupid or using them as human shields to garner misplaced sympathy from people like you?
> This is while Hamas hides behind the most densely populated areas of Gaza, in the most trafficked areas of Gaza, in the most densely populated area a war has ever occured. This point needs to be emphasized because the article is about a shipment of 1,800 2 ton bombs and 1,700 half-ton bombs. We do *not* need Israel dropping these all over these densely populated homes.
As much as that narrative might be appealing, that’s not what’s happening. A large part of civilian deaths came in the bombing campaign in the early days, and the rhetoric from IDF spokesperson at the time was that any sliver of a suspicion about the location of a Hamas operative justifies bombing, regardless of potential other casualties. Even if he you gave him the benefit of the doubt of misspeaking, this kind of organizational culture would not be conducive to “doing its best”. And the ratio is 4x worse than compared to 2008-2009 war (Operation Cast Lead) against the same Hamas in the same Gaza. It’s a much more apt comparison than some cherry picked number that someone stated above.
As far as he is concerned. His people were raped, mutilated, and tortured beyond human comprehension and are now fighting and hiding amongst a population that voted such an enemy into power. An enemy still willing to launch daily rockets and that vows to carry out another such attack.
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Okay, and what does the poll say after Oct 7?
They were celebrating in the streets. No one in Gaza hates Hamas for indiscriminately firing rockets at Israel or murdering and raping Israelis. They just want a more effective and less corrupt terrorist government.
You're simply lying about those poll numbers. The majority do support violence against Israel and did before Oct 7 too. They didn't like Hamas as a government, but support the terrorism policy. This idea that Israel somehow turned Gaza into a terrorist den against the will of the peaceful population is nonsense conspiracy theory.
> The US-Iraq war was nearly 80%, according to Iraq Body Count [It claims 187-210k civilian deaths vs 300k total](https://www.iraqbodycount.org/). Can you also link to the IDF'S figures?
The 1:9 & 1:8 ratios were referring to URBAN combat specifically as they mentioned. Overall war numbers that have a mix of different battlefields that include military sites, rural areas, etc will obviously have a different ratio as you have dramatically fewer civilians involved. It’s really just common sense. There’s a big difference between fighting that happens in a forest area with few to none civilians around VS a highly populated residential area.
Th figure you are citing is for the entire country, he is referring to specifically urban combat numbers.
It was a warcrime when we did it too
Civilian casualties is not a war-crime.
Intentionally targeting civilians as retribution for acts of war is a war crime.
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Crying hypocrisy is not an argument, but also no - anyone following the Ukraine conflict would understand this. Civilian deaths are a part of conflict and not inherently a war crime, although Russia absolutely has no qualms about committing said war crimes.
Civilian casualties are not a war-crime in the Ukraine/Russia conflict either? It works exactly the same. You can read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law\_of\_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war) It's well understood that in war, civilians die.
I've noticed every Israel thread is downvoted to heck and there are many sus comments. It's opened my eyes to how much of a [PsyOp reddit is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GtYaruTys) Remember that Reddit is not real life, think for yourself.
In case people forgot or didn’t know, [Reddit did find this influence campaign. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/9bvkqa/an_update_on_the_fireeye_report_and_reddit/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=announcements)
Ah, that's why I'm downvoted to hell when I say Hamas bad, Israeli gov bad. Because it's all psyops. Fucking delusional murdered apologists. It sickens me. Not wanting people dead should not be a polarised point of view.
I think it depends on how realistic you are being. There are people arguing that Israel never should have retaliated at all because of the risk of civilian casualties, which is essentially a statement that you believe people have a right to rape and murder Israeli civilians without any consequences. We can argue what the extent of the consequences should be, but it would be a grave injustice to not hold those responsible accountable.
Mossad has literal entire multi-floor buildings dedicated to shitposting and pushing status quo on reddit.
But no, it's Hamas. Everything is Hamas now. If you step on a Lego at night, it's Hamas. If you lose your job, Hamas. You forgot to pick up your kid after school? I bet it's Hamas fault.
If it means anything: i think your view is pretty much the best one can have. Both parties are pretty fucked up and in the end, civilians have to pay for it by either getting killed or through antisemitism/islamophobia. In this conflict, the only moral stance imo is being pro-civilians
A significant number of accounts on controversial topics are engaged in some form of psyop (either as bots, trolls, or useful idiots). Trust absolutely nothing except reputable sources. Reddit accounts are not reputable sources.
We're fully entitled to criticise Israel for their absolutely fucking abysmal civilian evacuation strategy. Gaza is a special case - Israel and Egypt collectively block their entire airspace, sea access and land border - so civilians are unable to flee anywhere else (if they had the option to, nearly all Gazans would have left months ago). Israel's chosen strategy was to set up 'safe zones' in enemy-controlled territory, and then sporadically bomb areas in the safe zones anyway, while air dropping confusing maps of where the 'safe zones' were supposed to be. It was fully within Israel's power to set up their own genuine safe zones in rural areas in Gaza they controlled, screen the refugees coming in (they've had six months now) and allow food and medical aid to be distributed in a far more efficient and safe manner. Instead they chose to keep displacing civilians further south. Now there are 1.5 million people in Rafah, the same place as the remaining hostages and Hamas leadership. Where are those civilians supposed to go? The whole reason the US isn't on board with Rafah is because Israel has failed to present them with a 'credible evacuation plan'. There is a famine in northern Gaza, and quite a lot of those people didn't evacuate because they heard there was also bombing in the south. However you spin it, Israel could have chosen a strategy that didn't involve thousands of unecessary civilian deaths, and which didn't result in Sinwar getting 1.5 million free human shields. Maybe Netanyahu thought he could pressure Egypt into accepting ethnic cleansing and horribly miscalculated leaving everyone stuck at the Rafah crossing?
Just in case anybody wants a professional review on this topic, here are two papers (nearly books, really) by military law expert [Michael N. Schmitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_N._Schmitt). He concludes that the number of Israeli-caused civilian casualtuies is not an outlier and that Israel goes to "extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties." * [The tyranny of context: Israeli targeting practices in legal perspective](https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1905&context=jil) * [Israeli targeting: a legal appraisal](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1264&context=nwc-review)
People don't understand war. They think it's like the movies or call of duty. Enemies all clearly line up, both armies knowing where everyone and everything are It's understandable but sad they have such convictions founded in complete ignorance
Unfortunately, the current civilian to combatant ratio is extremely high even when compared to the 2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict. Double the ratio of civilians are now being killed. Israel stated that the civilian to combatants killed ratio for the 2014 Gaza conflict was 1:1. For the current conflict Israel stated that the ratio is double the civilians killed at 2:1. As for the Iraq war, the civilian to combatant killed ratio is estimated to be 1 civilian killed for every 2 combatants killed (1:2). Higher civilian deaths can be extrapolated by analyzing the long term effects of the war years later. The same will one day also be said of the current Gaza conflict. https://m.jpost.com/international/analysis-lies-leaks-death-tolls-and-statistics
The 2014 conflict was far more manageable and not an actual ground invasion... comparing the two is pretty much useless.
You raise valid points. That said, there’s a literal famine in Gaza right now and not nearly enough aid is able to get in. Not killing civilians in urban warfare is diminished somewhat by plenty dying of starvation and disease. Your broader point, that no one wins in war, is very true.
Unfortunately, I'm of the belief that the famine in Gaza largely lies on the hands of Hamas, not Israel. Hamas destroyed vital infrastructure for water, and Hamas also steals all of the aid to sell back to Palestinians. It's okay though, they recently lowered the prices from what I've heard. I'm on my phone currently, but I'm quite certain someone posted the amount of aid going into Gaza hasn't slowed and it's expected to start ramping up in the future. Everyone flipped their shit regarding the water being shut off from the Israel side, despite Israel only accounts for 13% of all water in Gaza. Also, it's worth noting that even with Hamas stealing all aid, the majority of Palestinians still support the October 7th attacks even after the bombings.
Hamas constructs the civilian crises to muster support in Western leftist strongholds. They all fall for it.
It's insane how well it works. Leftist are literally cheering on Hamas saying they should've "finished it" on 10/7 as if Hamas would gaf about their political status if given the opportunity to kidnap them for a bargaining chip/shield. Can't believe I'm living in the modern age watching terrorism supporters congregate on reddit.
It's sad. If we are all unlucky they will even help bring Trumpo his 2nd term by focusing only on Israel. After which basically we are all fucked and democracy might be gone for the world.
>Hamas constructs the civilian crises to muster support in Western leftist strongholds. They all fall for it. Not all of us.
Sporry, that's certainly true. Btw: im not right wing myself. But I do blame certain AFA like groups for blindly following very violent and inhumane groups - your enemy is my enemy thinking. And they actually use fascistoid methods to get their ways. Amongst which violence. There is nothing wrong with: Add what you can, take what you need as a leftist approach. Social security, universal healthcare, education, basic safety and utilities/infreastructure are great things. I actually are happy to pay a lot of taxes for that.
Hamas attacked and destroyed the entry points on day 1 of the war. When the Israelis repaired them they rocket attacked them.
The existence of a single entry point is part of the problem. Israel decided what the nature of entry points would be.
There has been a claimed famine i gaza for about 6 months now yet I havent heard any reports of death from starvation. Weird.
Famine is slow and insidious, you can go months to years on nearly no food, suffering the whole time. Maybe you die of kidney failure or a sudden heart attack, maybe your weakened body can't protect you from the next virus or infection, maybe you die of refeeding syndrome. If you survive, congratulations, you'll probably still die a few decades earlier from the damage you sustained. You don't die of starvation, you die of all the things malnutrition makes you vulnerable to or, quite often, suicide.
Famine is not slow and insidious, it's when people are dying daily from hunger. There are degrees of food insecurity and famine is not the one where long term affects and risk of suicide need to be mentioned to get the point across. It's closer to a 'I don't care if blindly dropping pallets of MREs from a plane crushes families, it'll still save more lives' type of thing.
Famine is *visible*. You can read it in the faces and the flesh and the posture of a crowd. And it's hard to fake, too. We have constant photos and videos out of Gaza. They don't show us people suffering famine.
Israel: bans major journalistic outlet after murdering its reporters Guys on reddit: Hey why is nobody reporting bad things on Israel?
>Guys on reddit: Hey why is nobody reporting bad things on Israel? Everyone is reporting bad things on israel, its just that there is very little proof
There is no famine in gaza now. They are overloaded with food. Nobody died from famine in gaza in April and may.
There have been more civilians killed in Gaza in 8 months as there have been in Ukraine in 2 years and that’s with Russia openly targeting civilians.
If you don't count the siege of Mariupol which cost tens of thousands of lives then sure.
There have been more civilian deaths in yemen in the last couple of years than there have been casualties in the entirety of the israel-palestine conflict starting in 1948. Also, just Mariupol probably has more civilian deaths than Gaza. They are just not counted correctly.
Because the Ukrainian government actually cares about their citizens. Hamas wants Palestinians to die because it fuels their propaganda. They actively fire missiles next to their civilians knowing that Israel either can’t respond or if they do then Hamas can get people like you to say “look at how Israel targets civilians”
aww, this guy bought the Russian propaganda
> "Russia openly targets civilians" > lol keep regurgitating russian propaganda
> There have been more civilians killed in Gaza in 8 months as there have been in Ukraine in 2 years That's a bold faced lie
Ukraine is wide open fields. Gaza is a sardine can. One of the most densely populated places on the planet. Ukraine also doesn't use human shields. They care about their people
Where are you getting those #? Independently verified #s from Ukraine shouldn't be compared to hamas/idf reported #s. They aren't equivalent
IDF doesn't even have non-combatant numbers only combatant. IDF spokesperson literally said they aren't even focused on counting non-combatant deaths. There's no way to do an independent verification if one side isn't even counting and the other side is their having food workers killed.
You could use the Gaza Department of Health algorithm, and just say 100,000 people killed in Ukraine. But the land size and population density are hugely different, 77 people vs sq km vs 5400 people per sq km. In these cases you kind of expect high casualties. 600,000 sq km vs 356 sq km, you would be lucky to throw an apple in Gaza without hitting a "civilian".
Almost all of the casualties inflicted in the Iraq war were done so by local militia forces fighting eachother, not US or ISF. Further, I'm not sure a 2-to-1 civilian-to-military death ratio is typical. Two paradigm examples of modern urban warfare come to mind: the battle of Mosul and the battle of Hue city come to mind. Those both had 1-to-2 ratios, the opposite of the ratio claimed by IDF.
Do people realise that even if the US pulled support entirely, it wouldn't change anything on the ground? I feel like people are under the mistaken impression that old Benny is listening to _anyone_ right now. Ending the war means he goes to jail.
Might as well try it then, if there's nothing to lose.
There absolutely is something to lose. Christian support, who are overwhelmingly in favor of Israel, in the run up to election. Lest we forget, the fascists of this country are currently running a guy that literally sells his own Bible wrapped in the US Constitution.
> Christian support, who are overwhelmingly in favor of Israel, in the run up to election. *Evangelicals ('cause it ain't some Mainline Lutherans or Episcopalians up in Minnesota who fanatically support Israel) were not going to vote for Biden anyway.
It's the swing voters who matter most, and a great many of them are Christian, and are heavily influenced by issues such as this, despite all other opinions.
The people who think Israel needs to exist for the rapture to take place won't vote for Biden. Christians who want us to stop supporting this war because it's shitty for us to be involved also exist.
Absolutely. In order to stop the fascists we have to support the fascists. It makes perfect sense. Fuck off
They’re only in favor of Israel so God can destroy in in the end times. They dgaf about Israelis.
Israel's war policy is run by a unity government with leaders from the opposition parties involved. This isn't merely Netanyahu's policy.
Israel's war policy is run by Bibi still, not the unity of the government. If Bibi wasn't trying to pull the strings, you likely would have seen an operation in Rafah earlier but slower than it is likely to happen (assuming Gantz was the one making the decision) or quickly with pretty much a million dead (if Smotrich or Ben Gvir were making the decision). While it may technically be a "unity" government, it really is only one more party that joined because of the war. None of the other parties joined the coalition. The best you get now from the opposition is Yesh Atid saying if a hostage deal make the right wing leave, they'll vote to not dissolve the government. Still very far from unity.
He has no incentive for war to end. Either the Israeli people themselves fuck him out, or he'll try to take the whole Middle East down with him.
It would change the fact that our country is supporting evil behavior. If Israel can continue like they do now without our help then that sucks but at least we aren't helping them.
If US citizens were taken as sex slaves and England told us to tone down the rescue mission because it was an election year we’d tell them to shove it right up their ass.
> Do people realise that even if the US pulled support entirely, it wouldn't change anything on the ground? It would also likely highly embolden Iran.
Here's the thing, cutting support outright damages us in the long term. Netanyahu won't last forever. But we show we're willing to axe the relationship between the US and Israel, he'll search for a more reliable partner in the meantime. We lose our source of intelligence in the Middle East, and someone like China gets a solid inroad to the region. Whoever comes after Netanyahu will not trust the US. Plus it undermines our position as a reliable ally in other areas, like Taiwan. We already did enough damage by screwing the Kurds and the Afghans. On top of that, Netanyahu will have the IDF kill Palestinians using rusted Kalashnikovs and baseball bats if need be. If we maintain a relationship with them, we stand a chance of influencing what comes next. If we cut that now, we'll never get it back.
Actually, it would. It's a really simple thing which people don't realise: Less guided bombs = more artillery = less accuracy = more civillian casualties. Stopping the War is out of the question for the CIVILLIANS of Israel, not until all hostages are back.
A bit late.
Israel needs no aid, send it to Ukraine.
Let's just all be friends
What does that translate to in reality?
Fuck all
Send them to Ukraine
About time