I have no special reason for posting this. It's a Google Maps picture of a small piece of Gaza City:
Roughly speaking, this is about 1% of Gaza City, which itself is only about a tenth of the Gaza Strip. Multiply this by about a thousand and it's what "house-to-house" fighting looks like.
FWIW, almost all of the fighting is happening along the periphery of Gaza City where it is the least dense. It's not difficult to discern their tactic: They're encircling Gaza City and the last part of that is the coast.
And from what I've read, not entered into the tunnel system except to destroy the entrances within their security zone.
I was just wondering, while Hamas was acquiring massive amounts of munitions were they also acquiring massive amounts of food?
Most assuredly there are rations stored in those tunnels, now entombed.
That is not likely; there are extensive interconnections and multiple access points. The tunnels are deeper than I thought. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/10/world/europe/hamas-gaza-tunnels.html
I wonder if the tunnels were copied after Osama's in Afghanistan?
Or those used by the Viet Cong?
I don't understand what we are looking at. Are the black and brown areas bombed-out areas? Or are the black areas trees and the brown areas empty lots? How is this "house-to-house fighting"?
The whole of the gaza strip is on average as densely populated as this piece of gaza city?
I think MrDrum’s point is only to show basically how dense it is? And therefore “house-to-house” fighting will be, I dunno, difficult? Not sure though.
His actual point is totally opaque, other than "here's some stuff to look at".
House to house will consist of drop a 2000lb bomb on a house. Drop another 2000lb bomb on another house. Rense and repeat.
I'm assuming this sat photo was pre-invasion? Lots of those buildings are now rubble. In "rooting out Hamas", it seems that any old (or young, or infant) Palestinain will do.
Of course all this bombing and destruction would end instantly if the Hostages were released, (hostage takers of babies, women and general civilians is a bad-bad thing {isn't this true? No one is in favor of hostage taking are they?!?}), and Hamas or rejoicing Gazans were to publicly abjure their charter and statements such as this:
Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese TV that his organisation was determined to repeat the massacre of 7 October, when the men of Hamas murdered some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians, torturing and maiming their victims in ways too cruel to recount. Hamad promised that 7 October was “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth”. He was asked if Hamas was bent on Israel’s annihilation. “Yes, of course,” he replied.
^^^^^^^^^
Really pretty simple.
Best Wishes, Traveller
I don't think "Best Wishes" is an honest sentiment at all.
Israel adjusted its toll of Jewish victims to 1,200. Meanwhile, at least 11,000 Gazans have been killed -- all of them were "Hamas fighters"? Even the "infants and children"?
It's naive to think Israel would stop when all hostages were released. Who's to make them? Government position documents have been released stating that this "terrible terrorist attack" is what they were waiting for, to "justify" totally leveling Gaza and forcing all its residents into the Egyptian desert. Never to be allowed to return.
Israel truly seems to believe they can kill their way to peace. It doesn't work that way with human beings. It's like the hydra: for every head lopped off, seven more sprout. Israel is making enemies throughout the Arab world, and with Palestinians everywhere.
No justice, no peace.
Please define what you mean by "Justice?" Traveller
No, it would not end with the release of hostages. The Israeli government's announced policy is to destroy Hamas and prevent any repeat of October 7.
Of course all this bombing and destruction would end instantly if the Hostages were released
Netanyahu has publicly announced he's not willing to consider a "hostages for cease fire" deal.
Tactical nukes.
This poster should be banned.
It eliminates the need for house to house fighting. If that’s what you are interested in. Get over yourself. This whole thing is a joke.
Cry me some tears…
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) besieged a camp for displaced people on November 2 after attacking a nearby army base in West Darfur. Over the next three days, the paramilitary group committed what may amount to the single largest mass killing since the civil war erupted in April.
Local monitors told Al Jazeera that about 1,300 people were killed, 2,000 injured and 310 remain missing.
It's been my belief that one of the key reasons why the US sent 2 carrier strike groups to the region is because they were worried that an expanded war would trigger Israel's use of tactical nukes in response to some grotesque event like the use of chemical weapons by Islamic groups on Israelis.
Oh keep your panties on. Hes just as asshole.
Thank you. 😂. There are already 10-15 thousand dead and more seriously injured. In another week, it will be 20000 dead. 50,000 by January? Israel will level northern Gaza at least. At this point the difference between death by nuke and death by 2000 lb bomb is getting blurred. Oh well.
Drum is not making the point he thinks he is. The IDF won’t have to fight “house to house” because hamas doesn’t have the troops required to turn all those structures into fighting positions. Instead, they will have to either pick one area of the city and turn it into their Alamo, or pick many areas and use some sort of mobile defense moving between them. The second option is better but still really hard given they will still almost always be surrounded. Hell for hamas but they don’t really care. Clearing Gaza will be hard for sure but the IDF is more than capable of doing it.
Again, I recommend the NYT article on the tunnel system of Gaza. Hamas will be able to move forces throughout a large area unseen; they will be able to surface behind Israeli patrols and fire from unexpected directions. The IDF is facing a difficult task.
This may be an unpopular point to make, but this really does demonstrate restraint of sorts. Going house-to-house is far slower, more dangerous, expensive and grueling that carpet bombing or (Russia's favorite) thermobarics.
It isn't the line I'd draw, but it is a line.
I don't think there is much choice. The tunnels are too deep to be affected by conventional bombs, too extensive and too little mapped to be destroyed by bunker-busters or thermobarics. Most of Hamas' personnel and weapons stores would survive aerial bombardment.
Israel is answering an obscenity with an obscenity. There is no end to this.
Answering an obscenity with an obscenity is a pretty good definition of war. By the standards that are now applied to Israel, however, it would’ve been extraordinarily difficult for the WWII Allies to respond as effectively (that is, brutally) as they did to Nazi Germany.
Are we all Mahatma Gandhi now? Or do we only assume that role when Israel is involved? Either way, Israel could not care less. It is obviously determined to destroy the fundamentalist murderers on their border, and rightfully so.
Count me among those who never before saw so clearly with his own eyes why the state of Israel must exist. The Leftist fools supporting Hamas have had what I assume is the unintended consequence of convincing me to support Zionism. The fanatical American Left, with its images of paragliders (in support of Hamas) and its obviously genocidal chants of “from the River to the sea” (spare me the Tlaib-style gaslighting on that one), has managed to make me dislike it even more than I dislike Netanyahu.
So, indeed, war is obscene. But it’s obscene everywhere. It’s obscene in Ukraine, it’s obscene in Yemen, and it’s obscene in Syria too. War does not suddenly become an obscenity that must be protested in the streets only when it’s practiced by Jews, no matter how much the arrogant, narrow-minded, and bigoted American Left may believe otherwise.
Some of the Allied actions that caused massive civilian casualties, including the firebombings of cities, were of questionable effectiveness. Most came late in the war, when militarily significant assets had been dispersed and/or moved underground.
By the standards that are now applied to Israel, however, it would’ve been extraordinarily difficult for the WWII Allies to respond as effectively (that is, brutally) as they did to Nazi Germany.
Israel is not existentially threatened by Gaza. They (the Netanyahu government) were asleep at the wheel and failed to prevent a heinous attack resulting in mass atrocities. But Israel—a rich, technologically advanced nuclear power and outpost of the American Empire—is not in any way existentially threatened by Hamas in the way Russia and the democracies were threatened by Nazi Germany.
Israel's reaction at this point has long since ceased to bear any resemblance to a just war, which requires that the violence inflicted be proportionate to the threat.
If someone really wants to get into the weeds regarding a compare and contrast between nazis and Hamas then, yes, there will be differences.
But this statement is highly misleading and, therefore, doubtful:
“Israel is not existentially threatened by Gaza..”
Israel is currently facing off with Hamas (not just “Gaza”). And Hamas is supported by Iran.
If we had a terrorist organization on our border, supported by a regional superpower, demanding in writing that we must be destroyed, and killing thousands of our civilians, we’d treat them as an existential threat and destroy them.
Not existential? If we define Israel as a place where Jewish people can live as they want and govern themselves, then surely you can see this is existential? Hamas, Hizbollah and a large number of Arabs will only be satisfied with "from the river to the sea". How many Jews live in Egypt? Syria? How long do you think Jewish people would last under a "single state" solution?
Remember back during the Iraq war when we were "shock and aweing" their cities, killing SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND civilians... it was like wall to news coverage about how awful it was and how we should withdraw immediately. The world recoiled in horror at our disproportionate response.
Just kidding!
Except, our shock and awe campaign wasn't targeting civilians; it was laser-guided targeting of military and government infrastructure with some palaces and power stations in-between.
So we accidentally killed SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND civilians while we were totally not targeting civilians? Got it!
My recollection is that the large majority of civilian deaths in Iraq occurred, not during the few weeks of 'shock and awe', but during the years of counterinsurgency.
True, we ONLY killed 25,000 civilians during the few weeks of "shock and awe". But apparently we weren't aiming at them, so it was all good.
Not saying we shouldn't be horrified regardless, but it does seem like a bit of a double standard... especially considering that Iraq hadn't even attacked us.
Oh, of course, the entire war was unjustified.
It follows that, if war = death, and crimes against war = targeting of civilians, then not aiming at them in war = expected outcome of a war.
Not to get into semantics of what Iraq did or did not do, but, with a great sense of irony, they did prolifically use chemical weapons on Iranians, with the US looking the other way, in the early and mid-80s.
Remember how the Assad regime killed half a million people in Syria and somehow that was our fault, too?
See: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/pdf/a_dossier_of_civilian_casualties_2003-2005.pdf
Just under 7000 civilians were killed by Americans during "shock and awe".
Actually, precision guidance just means your bomb/missile/shell hits very close to where you aimed it. After that, there is very little precise about the results. And chunks of a concrete building, with or without rebar, can do a nasty job on anyone nearby or in the building. There are also problems with people using precision guided ordnance with poor intel/recon on the target - as a fair number of Afghans and Iraqis found out.
We destroyed a whole skyscraper because we thought some official was having lunch on the bottom floor.
Just another day in mass murder. And none of you care either.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/corpses-on-streets-sudans-rsf-kills-1300-in-darfur-monitors-say
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) besieged a camp for displaced people on November 2 after attacking a nearby army base in West Darfur. Over the next three days, the paramilitary group committed what may amount to the single largest mass killing since the civil war erupted in April.
Local monitors told Al Jazeera that about 1,300 people were killed, 2,000 injured and 310 remain missing.
Dear Justin: Thanks for the link...I was unaware. This raises the question in my mind....are things worse or better in the world? 50 years ago, a hundred years?
I will say I found this article to be distressing and depressing in the extreme.
(I suppose I could go back to my call from 40 years ago...the US should be promoting all forms of birth control to all ages, all countries, to include abortion on demand. If you look at the caged rat studies on overpopulation one finds many of the adverse behaviors we see today...more simply said, population pressure is a main driver of these dysfunctions). Best Wishes, really, Traveller
Funny, I keep coming back to the same thought about birth control. With the very high Palestinian birth rate, high population density, high unemployment,etc, less population might improve the economics, and people would not be so willing to engage in war if they had more to lose.
"More to lose". Well, for the last near century, Palestinians have been constantly "losing" everything to Israeli encroachment, generally by violence re: "Mowing the grass". Nonetheless, Palestinians persist. At one time, Americans might have applauded this kind of keeping on in the face of adversity.
Both the Israelis and Palestinians are held hostage to religious fanaticism. I suspect the secular Jews and Palestinians could have lived together but it is made impossible by the lunatics. To one degree or another this is a problem in many places. Even here in the USA. One of these days we’ll decide we’ve had enough.
Overall? Worse I think. But my life here in the USA is ok. For now. Overpopulation is going to drown us all eventually.
Remember that time when Hamas claimed a single strike on this hospital had killed over 500? Remember how that strike was actually Hamas' accident and it was just a tiny crater of about 2 feet in diameter?
Tbf there were probably 60-80 casualties because the lot was being used as a shelter at the time.
European intelligence suggested it was 15-50.
The rocket misfire was blamed by Israel on Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Hamas.
You are correct. Still, all the same, Hamas claimed over 500 people died.
The tunnel system in Gaza is obviously intended as a trap, but it's a trap that could only work if they could goad the Israelis into attacking it.
This is the fight Hamas intended to have, it's the way they intended to be attacked. So, why is the burden on the Israelis and not Hamas? If they actually said we'll stop if you'll stop the whole stupid world would applaud how very reasonable they are.