Israel formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting rages on Israeli soil. The declaration comes after Hamas, an Islamist militant group, launched a surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 600 Israelis.

Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Israel and came after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis, with the long-running conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions remain over how the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.

Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as Israel responds with airstrikes in the densely-inhabited enclave. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation, warning his country would take “mighty vengeance” and was readying for “a long and difficult war.”

He urged Palestinians living in Gaza to “leave now.”

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So they can/could leave Gaza? People often say they can not just leave Gaza due to checkpoints and what not?

    • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Netanyahu is saying that for show. It gives the Israeli government a blanket justification to ignore any collateral damage caused in this conflict because they will just claim that they warned them to leave.

      Does anybody really believe that the insanely sophisticated security apparatus of Mossad didn’t know these attacks were coming in advance? This has the same stink of the Bush administration ignoring repeated warnings of attacks by Al Qaeda pre-9/11 to justify war in the middle east all over again.

      • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There’s going to be some warcrimes coming. I’m not looking forward to this, nor am I looking forward to the increase of Nazis and Communists using this as justification to tar all Jewish people as evil.

        • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          My thoughts exactly. The reality of sectarian violence (whether it be ethnic or religious in nature) is the justification of more atrocities. Hurt people hurt people, and the historically oppressed can sometimes find themselves becoming the most effective oppressors. It’s all bad, it’s all sad, and it’s all a reflection on the failures of humanity in extending the saber far more often than the olive branch…

        • chowder@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Coming? My guy there are already decapitations, slaughtering civilians in their homes, the music festival massacre, POW executions, rape, idk if it’s specifically a war crime, but the whole kidnapped Jewish children in cages.

          • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Not really. The Communists were quite happy to play into antisemitism and even encouraged it painting all Jewish people as bourgeois elites.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union

            I’m already seeing users from .grad and .ml defending Hamas’ actions.

            Doesn’t matter if left, right, religious, secular, whatever, fascists who think any means justify the ends of the “perfect” state are an ideological cancer and therefore should not be tolerated in a tolerant society.

      • QHC@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is standard policy for Israel, the same entity that pretends giving people a ‘warning’ before blowing up their home is a good enough excuse.

        • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What a stupid take.

          Israel goes out of us way to destroy terrorist INFRASTRUCTURE instead of people, and you whine about it like it’s a bad thing?

          If some organization thought my home was an enemy base, and sent me an SMS message to give me enough time to get my kids out, I’d be pissed about the house, but my family would be alive.

          Compare that to Hamas who deliberately target civilians.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        We need to get the hard proof out there so we can discredit Bibi and destroy the Israeli far right altogether. It’s the only road to lasting peace

        • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The only road to lasting peace is for Palestinians to agree to a peace deal that doesn’t call for the dismantling of Israel.

          They won’t. They choose terrorism every single time.

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        This has the same stink of the Bush administration ignoring repeated warnings of attacks by Al Qaeda pre-9/11 to justify war in the middle east

        but did he wanted a war in the middle east?(not trolling i never knew about that teory)

        • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That is such murky territory that any answer requires some degree of speculation.

          What is clear is that the Bush administration ignored direct warnings from the CIA regarding credible threats of attacks from Al Qaeda within the United States, and both the FBI and CIA were aware of the identities of some of the hijackers previous to the attacks.

          Additionally, the Bush administration overtly and continuously lied about the presence of WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in order to justify their offensive invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.

          So, whether they were complicit in allowing 9/11 to occur through malice or incompetence is almost irrelevant because it was still used as a carte blanche excuse to push pre-existing neo-conservative foreign policy objectives.

        • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          He wanted an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein, who had reportedly put together and assassination attempt on Bush Sr during a trip to Kuwait. Bush Jr was also surrounded by the PNAC crowd, who had published (before getting into the white house) goals to have a permanent US military presence in theiddle east to secure oil interests, and that they would likely need some catalyzing event to garner public support in the US.

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
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          Bush wanted to finish his daddy’s war, because the Saudi government wanted Iraqi oil production disrupted/brought to heel.

          Bush was trying to drum up support for military action against Saddam from day one, but in a sort of lazy way. He spent several months of his first year in office on vacation.

          Anyway, Bush had been told about Bin Laden, and Bin Laden’s people being in the US in early August 2001.

          There were other warnings, but all of them were ignored.

          Here’s another fun fact, Daddy Bush was in a meeting of the Carlyle group on 9/11. Also present, were members of the Saudi royal family, and the Bin Laden family.

          Baby Bush personally granted exemptions to the nationwide no-fly zone after 9/11 to let the Bin Laden family members flee to Saudi Arabia.

          Also of note, the Carlyle group made a shitload of money in the newest venture, Defense Contracting. Specifically, they owned the production facilities that made the Abrams tank.

    • jscummy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      There are multiple cities in the Gaza Strip, the largest being Gaza City. They can leave Gaza City to another city in Palestinian territory but can’t cross the border into Israel/Egypt.

        • jscummy@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m not sure what you mean by that, the West Bank is on the other side of the country

          Edit: Nevermind, I get it. I’m really not sure, I guess Egypt/Jordan could facilitate people moving from Gaza to the West Bank