Another excellent segment, if this was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she would've been dragged all day long on media mainstream, rightfully so.
Although why I broke my own rules for indulging this nonsense on non-weekend days.
| LurkerJ said:
Another excellent segment, if this was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she would've been dragged all day long on media mainstream, rightfully so. Although why I broke my own rules for indulging this nonsense on non-weekend days. |
Great segment, summarizes a lot of the double speak and outright lies.
It's not just the White house and mainstream western media that's complicit, big tech is just as complicit in making it possible for this genocide to go on.
As violence on the ground continues, emotions on social media are higher than ever – with critics asking if platforms need more transparency around their algorithms
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/21/techscape-israel-gaza-war-social-media-content-censorship
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/digital-rights-groups-urge-meta-stop-silencing-palestine
In the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing backlash on Palestine, Meta has engaged in unjustified content and account takedowns on its social media platforms. This has suppressed the voices of journalists, human rights defenders, and many others concerned or directly affected by the war.
This is not the first instance of biased moderation of content related to Palestine and the broader MENA region. EFF has documented numerous instances over the past decade in which platforms have seemingly turned their backs on critical voices in the region. In 2021, when Israel was forcibly evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem, international digital and human rights groups including EFF partnered in a campaign to hold Meta to account. These demands were backed by prominent signatories, and later echoed by Meta’s Oversight Board.
Meta’s censorship of content showing the scale of current devastation and suffering in Palestine by loosely using categories like nudity, sexual activity, and graphic content, in a situation where the UN is urging the entire international community to work to "mitigate the risk of genocide", interferes with the right to information and free expression at a time when those rights are more needed than ever. According to some estimates over 90% of pro-Palestinian content has been deleted following Israel’s requests since October 7.
Not the first time either that Meta has been complicit in genocide
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/8/25/facebook-should-pay-for-what-it-did-to-my-people-rohingya
I blame Facebook, its parent company Meta, and the man behind it all, Mark Zuckerberg, for helping create the conditions that allowed the Myanmar military to unleash hell upon us. The social media company allowed anti-Rohingya sentiments to fester on its pages. Its algorithms promoted disinformation that eventually translated into real-life violence.
The chilling numbers:
Even in time of genocide, Big Tech silences Palestinians
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/12/even-in-time-of-genocide-big-tech-silences-palestinians?utm_source=ground.news&utm_medium=referral
The scorching violence against the people of Gaza has been unprecedented. And so have its reverberations online. Palestinians documenting and speaking up against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza have faced relentless censorship and repression, accompanied by an explosion of state-sponsored disinformation, hate speech and calls to violence on social media.
Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, Big Tech set to eliminate content on the war that they claimed violated their rules. TikTok removed more than 925,000 videos from the Middle East between October 7 and 31. As of November 14, X, formerly known as Twitter, had taken action on over 350,000 posts. Meta, for its part, removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 posts in the first three days of the attack.
This elimination frenzy, run by ill-trained algorithms and further fuelled by pressure from the EU and Israel, has resulted in the disproportionate censorship of critical Palestinian voices, including content creators, journalists, and activists reporting from the ground in Gaza.
While being accused of promoting pro-Palestinian content, TikTok actually arbitrarily and repeatedly censored content on Palestine. For example, on October 9, United States-based media outlet Mondoweiss reported that its TikTok account had been permanently banned. It was reinstated only to be suspended again a few days later. The company did not provide any explanation.
X has also been accused of suppressing pro-Palestinian voices. For example, the account of the US branch of Palestine Action group was not able to gain any new followers; the issue was only resolved after public pressure mounted.
Meta, of all companies, holds the lion’s share in this digital repression campaign. It has arbitrarily removed Palestine-related content, disrupted live streaming, restricted comments, and suspended accounts.
Among those who have been targeted is Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who had gained over 15 million followers on Instagram for documenting the Israeli atrocities in Gaza; his account was later reinstated. The Facebook page of Quds News Network, one of the largest Palestinian news networks with over 10 million followers, was also permanently banned.
On Instagram, people posting about Palestine have experienced shadowbanning – a stealth form of censorship where an individual is rendered invisible on the platform without being notified. Meta also reduced the threshold of certainty required for automated filters to hide hostile comments from 80 percent to 25 percent for content originating from Palestine. We have documented cases where Instagram hid comments containing the Palestinian flag emoji for being “potentially offensive”.
Meta’s content moderation has never been forgiving of Palestinian speech, especially in times of crisis. The company’s rules, developed in the aftermath of the US-led “war on terror”, have disproportionately disfavoured and silenced Arabic-language political speech. For example, an overwhelming majority of individuals and organisations on its secret “terrorist” blacklist are from the Middle East and South Asia – a reflection of the US foreign policy posture.
The company’s policy on Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) Policy, which prohibits the praise, support and representation of these individuals and groups, is the catalyst behind the company’s heavy-handed censorship and discrimination against Palestinians.
Back in 2021, this policy was responsible for silencing pro-Palestinian individuals when they took to the streets and to social media to protest Israel’s attempt to forcefully expel Palestinian families from their homes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
In the context of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, Meta stated they apply their policies equally around the world and refuted claims that they were “deliberately suppressing voice”. Evidence, however, suggests otherwise.
Two weeks into Russia’s war on Ukraine, Meta bent its rules to allow Ukrainians to express themselves freely. It allowed, for instance, calls for violence against Russian invaders. It even delisted the neo-Nazi group, the Azov Battalion, designated under its DOI policy, to allow for their praise.
In defence of these exceptions, the company’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote: “If we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable.”
Have any adjustments been made to ordinary Palestinians “expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces”? Quite the opposite. In a blog post that was last updated on December 5, Meta stated that it has disabled hashtags, restricted live streaming, and removed seven times as many pieces of content as it did in the two months prior to October for violating its DOI policy.
Even on the humanitarian front, double standards are on full display. Meta went to great lengths to coordinate humanitarian relief for Ukrainians, including enabling a feature that helps them stay informed, locate their family members and loved ones, and access emergency services, mental health support, housing assistance and refugee aid among others.
No such support has been afforded to Palestinians in Gaza who face communications blackouts and a humanitarian catastrophe of unspeakable scale.
This discrimination transcends to how Meta dedicates its resources and enforces their policies. Arabic language content is heavily over-moderated, while Hebrew content remains under-moderated. Up until September 2023, Meta didn’t have classifiers to automatically detect and remove hate speech in Hebrew even though its platforms were used by Israelis to explicitly call for violence and to organise pogroms against Palestinians. A recent internal memo revealed they were unable to use the newly built Hebrew classifier on Instagram comments due to insufficient training data.
This is deeply worrying in light of the fact that Meta significantly relies on automated content moderation tools. Some 98 percent of Instagram’s content moderation decisions are automated and almost 94 percent are automated on Facebook. These tools have repeatedly been revealed as poorly trained in Arabic and its various dialects.
According to one internal memo leaked in the 2021 Facebook papers, Meta’s automated tools to detect terrorist content incorrectly deleted nonviolent Arabic content 77 percent of the time.
This partially explains the egregious impact we are seeing on people’s ability to exercise their rights and document human rights abuses and war crimes. It also explains some unjustifiable system glitches, including labelling Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest mosque in Islam, as a terrorist organisation in 2021; translating the bios of Instagram users with a Palestinian flag to “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom”; and deleting footage of dead bodies from the al-Ahli Hospital bombing for violating its policy on adult nudity and sexual activity, no less.
Meanwhile, Meta is allowing verified state accounts that belong to the Israeli government – including politicians, the Israeli army and its spokespeople – to disseminate war propaganda and disinformation that justifies war crimes and crimes against humanity including attacks on hospitals and ambulances, filmed confessions of Palestinian detainees, and almost daily “evacuation” orders for Palestinian civilians.
Instead of protecting Palestinians in Gaza as they are facing what 36 UN human rights experts and other genocide scholars have warned amounts to genocide, Meta has approved paid ads that explicitly called for a “holocaust for the Palestinians” and wiping out “Gazan women and children and the elderly”.
Such disturbing calls for violence have made their way to other platforms as well. In fact, X seems to be leading other platforms on the amount of hate speech and incitement to violence targeting Palestinians. According to Palestinian digital rights organisation 7amleh, there have been more than two million such posts on the platform since October 7.
Telegram also hosts a number of Israeli channels which openly call for genocide and celebrate the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. In one group, named “Nazi Hunters 2023”, moderators post pictures of Palestinian public figures with crosshair marks on their faces as well as their home addresses and call for their elimination.
So far, social media companies do not seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation at hand. Meta, in particular, seems to have learned very little from its role in Myanmar’s genocide of the Rohingya in 2017.
The silencing of Palestinians, while promoting disinformation and violence against them, may have been the modus operandi for social media platforms in the absence of any meaningful accountability. But this round is different. Meta is risking being implicated again in genocide and it must correct course before it is too late. The responsibility to protect users and uphold freedom of expression applies to other social media platforms, too.
You Tube is also rife with comment deletion, but at least they allow critical videos to stay up. For everyone pointing the finger at China for its suppression on free speech, the west is not much better. Maybe even worse doing it under the guise of removing hate speech. Something that is needed, but not in a selective way while still allowing hate speech towards some groups while suppressing their voices without good reason. AI used to stifle free speech, MGS2 predicted it all...
While Israel is escalating the war on the West Bank, Jenin refugee camp now under total siege
“More than 100 Palestinians have been seized in Jenin … The Israeli army has repeatedly, violently invaded the Jenin refugee camp where The Freedom Theatre is situated, with each attack escalating in violence.”
At least six people have been killed in the latest invasion, which saw armoured bulldozers tearing up streets, drones dropping bombs on Palestinian homes, and a siege of the hospital blocking ambulances.
The IDF seems to have moved on to straight up execution of civilians
Exclusive video and images obtained by Al Jazeera this morning show bodies piled up inside the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the al-Faluja area, west of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
At least two people at the school said a number of people including women, children and babies were killed execution-style by Israeli forces while sheltering inside the school.
“The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire on them,” a woman at the scene said. “They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her.”
The woman said there were newborn children among them. “The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families at point blank,” she added.
Back in Washington:
The Biden administration currently has no plans to place conditions on the military aid it is providing to Israel, officials told CNN, despite growing calls by Democratic lawmakers and human rights organizations for the US to stop providing weapons unless Israel does more to protect civilians in Gaza.
Speaking to Democratic donors in Washington this week, President Joe Biden acknowledged that he has had tough conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s military campaign, how Israel is losing international support, and the need for a two-state solution led by the Palestinian Authority.
Echoing that sentiment, US officials told CNN that the US has no plans to shift its position and draw any red lines around the transfer of weapons and munitions to Israel.
They noted that the administration already expects allies and partners to use US-made equipment in accordance with international humanitarian law and pointed to Israel’s practice of embedding military lawyers with Israel Defense Force units who determine beforehand whether a strike will be proportional and legal.
Wtf?
https://x.com/UNRWA/status/1734951306974871822
(Can't figure out how to embed Twitter)
its over you can forget about the US doing anything but supporting israel considering it run by the israel.
| zeldaring said: its over you can forget about the US doing anything but supporting israel considering it run by the israel. |
What part of the US constitution (or other documents) grants administration of the US to Israel? What offices in the US are elected or appointed by Israel? What mechanisms, positions, and committees of Israel appoint US officials? Is it through elections by the Israeli people, is it the or are there executive offices that make the appointments?
To me it looks like the US’s actions relates mainly to its own bullshit: Old Testament thumping factions, and other factions that believe that ethnostates are a great idea (which is not exclusively American bullshit, but bullshit you can find around the world). It has nothing to do with Israel controlling the US.
Want the conflict to stop, don’t go anti-Israel. That’s more likely to result in anti-Semitism than anything that will lower military support to Israel or solve issues in Israel. Maybe figuring out a way to end support for ethnostates and Old Testament worshipping brands of Christianity would be the best - it’s what Jesus would have wanted.
On a separate but related topic: My thoughts on the conflict
I’m not an expert here, but some of the issues that appear, hut Israel’s major problem is that nationalistic factions in the country are pushing for an ethnostate. This doesn’t represent all of Israel, just the ruling alliance in parliament and a portion of its supporters. The problem isn’t purely from Israel’s side either, but also Palestine - which also has corrupt and corrupt and violent factions. Both sides have diseases that need to be eliminated or taken out of conflict in order to eliminate the nationalistic conflict. Either this will be a single or a dual state solution. A dual state solution would be the easiest and by far the fastest way to remove much of the conflict, it would save many more lives in the short term (which might be 2-4 decades), but objectively worse than a single state solution because Palestinians will get the shittier end of the deal (shittier lands, probably losing rights to claims). A single state solution that works for both Hebrew descended groups will be significantly more difficult, as it would require an end of nationalism for both Jewish and Islamic groups and a suitable solution to the land disputes and wealth distribution. It would be multi-generation long process. which one is best and what are the effective methods of achieving either, I don’t know.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
Jumpin said:
What part of the US constitution (or other documents) grants administration of the US to Israel? What offices in the US are elected or appointed by Israel? What mechanisms, positions, and committees of Israel appoint US officials? Is it through elections by the Israeli people, is it the or are there executive offices that make the appointments? To me it looks like the US’s actions relates mainly to its own bullshit: Old Testament thumping factions, and other factions that believe that ethnostates are a great idea (which is not exclusively American bullshit, but bullshit you can find around the world). It has nothing to do with Israel controlling the US. Want the conflict to stop, don’t go anti-Israel. That’s more likely to result in anti-Semitism than anything that will lower military support to Israel or solve issues in Israel. Maybe figuring out a way to end support for ethnostates and Old Testament worshipping brands of Christianity would be the best - it’s what Jesus would have wanted. On a separate but related topic: My thoughts on the conflict I’m not an expert here, but some of the issues that appear, hut Israel’s major problem is that nationalistic factions in the country are pushing for an ethnostate. This doesn’t represent all of Israel, just the ruling alliance in parliament and a portion of its supporters. The problem isn’t purely from Israel’s side either, but also Palestine - which also has corrupt and corrupt and violent factions. Both sides have diseases that need to be eliminated or taken out of conflict in order to eliminate the nationalistic conflict. Either this will be a single or a dual state solution. A dual state solution would be the easiest and by far the fastest way to remove much of the conflict, it would save many more lives in the short term (which might be 2-4 decades), but objectively worse than a single state solution because Palestinians will get the shittier end of the deal (shittier lands, probably losing rights to claims). A single state solution that works for both Hebrew descended groups will be significantly more difficult, as it would require an end of nationalism for both Jewish and Islamic groups and a suitable solution to the land disputes and wealth distribution. It would be multi-generation long process. which one is best and what are the effective methods of achieving either, I don’t know. |
The jewish lobby controls this issues of Israel/palestine even netanyahu has interview saying we can control america on the issue of palestine.
I agree with your thoughts and peace could have been achieved and would have been in a vastly better place if israel actually give the people of palestine equal rights. look at the west bank for example they have been peaceful for the most part and what they get in return land taken by force and extremists settlers put on those lands that terrorize the people and are never charged with any crimes, check points every where it takes a 30 minute trip for a 2 hour ride. if israel would get rid of its collective punishment method for any murder committed by Palestinian it would also go along way in having peace, it a system with no justice and no rights for Palestinians, yes there are of course some extremists but if you start treating them like humans and kindly it will eventually work with time, but they have to be committed to it and no go back to collective punishment as soon as anything bad happens.
Last edited by zeldaring - on 13 December 2023
At least the US is starting to take Settler violence more seriously:
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/13/us-israel-rifle-sale-delay-west-bank-violence
The Biden administration is again holding up the licenses for selling more than 20,000 U.S.-made rifles to Israel over concerns about attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, two U.S. officials told Axios.
Behind the scenes: Several weeks after the deal was approved, the U.S. State Department decided to slow-walk the process and put the licenses under a new review, the U.S. officials said.
However the shipments of tank shells and heavy bombs continues.
https://abc7chicago.com/hamas-israel-war-tank-ammunition-joe-biden/14163284/
Going around Congress, the Biden administration said Saturday it has approved the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million as Israel intensifies its military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.
More attacks on free speech and the freedom of assembly, more distractions
Rutgers University has issued an "interim suspension" of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on its New Brunswick campus, in response to complaints of disruptive behavior and vandalism by the group.
"You allegedly have had multiple cases of disrupting classes, a program, meals, and students studying," Associate Dean of Students Michelle Jefferson told the organization in a letter sent Monday. She also cited "allegations of vandalism occurring at the Rutgers Business School while your program was taking place."
In a statement on Wednesday, the student group defended its protests as peaceful and said Rutgers had punished it based on unsubstantiated allegations. It accused the school of applying a "racist double-standard," alleging it had failed to act upon allegations of harassment and doxxing directed at Palestinian and Muslim students.
Geneva - Israel has killed more than 10,000 infants and children since the start of its attack on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported in a statement issued Saturday.
Euro-Med Monitor said that 23,012 Palestinians have been killed so far in the intense Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip, including 9,077 children. As hundreds of additional children remaintrapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings with little chance of survival, the total number of child deaths is likely to exceed 10,000.
According to Euro-Med Monitor figures, roughly 700,000 children have been affected by Israel’s Gaza genocide, a number that includes those who were killed, injured, and internally displaced.
The rights group said that United Nations agencies such as UNICEF have declined to disclose the actual number of casualties, as this would require confronting their own inability to perform their roles, which supposedly entail saving trapped or wounded victims and effectively preventing the deaths of countless children in Gaza.
The ongoing Israeli attacks have left over 18,000 Palestinian children injured, with many in critical condition. Dozens more have suffered amputations, and hundreds more have suffered severe burns to various parts of their bodies.
Euro-Med Monitor further estimated that between 24,000 and 25,000 children in the Gaza Strip have lost one or both parents, and approximately 640,000 have had their homes destroyed or damaged, leaving them without a place to live.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/horrific-testimonies-shared-field-executions-forced-displacement-and-random-arrests-gazan-civilians-including-children-enar
Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, says that during this war, “being a Palestinian woman or a child has really meant being stripped of any humanity, dignity, safety or any special considerations” usually accorded to them.
“I cannot think of any protection that civilians are entitled to according to the laws of war that have been upheld in this conflict,” she told Al Jazeera.
“And I cannot think of any violation of the laws of war and human rights that Palestinians – including women and children – have not been subjected to.”
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6030/Israel-turns-schools-into-military-centres,-conducting-field-executions-and-mass-killings
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-school-attack
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-biden-admin-to-respond-to-alleged-israeli-execution-style-massacre-of-women-children-and-babies-seeking-refuge-in-gaza-school/
https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20231213_israeli_organizations_to_president_biden_stop_the_humanitarian_catastrophe
Israeli Human rights and civil society organizations sent a letter yesterday (Tuesday, 12 Dec. 2023) to US President Biden, asking him to use his influence to change Israel’s policy and prevent the deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. The letter is also published as a print advertisement in the New York Times.
The problem is not the USA supporting Israel, it's the USA supporting and standing firmly behind the ultra right wing nationalist government in Israel.
https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir
Nationalist, exclusionist, and far, far right: The most extreme Israeli government in the nation’s history has taken shape.
The policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly sworn-in governing coalition brought out 80,000 protesters over the weekend in Tel Aviv. The protesters were largely focused on the government’s proposals to overhaul the judicial system, which could weaken the country’s democracy and separation of powers. But the effects of the policies on the 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel and the 5.2 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories will be catastrophic, building upon years of policies that Israeli human rights organizations say constitute crimes against humanity.
That was last Januari...
Just to mention something that happened in the States real quick, New York has officially thrown out their Congressional map. For those who were watching during redistricting, their previous map was notable by just how disastrous it was for Democrats. Basically there was a big fight and NY's highest court said "This is a partisan gerrymander" and gave it to someone who made NY a lot more red. A bunch has happened since then and the court has turned bluer (the fact that it was ever red is a monumental failure of NY Dems) and they have torn up the last map and said they were probably not going to do anything about future partisan gerrymanders.
So what does that mean? Well, on its own, this could flip enough house seats to give the Dems the House. We'll have to see how the final maps look, but a swing of 5-6 seats seems pretty dang likely. Definitely worth watching if your interested in the "inside baseball" side of US politics.
| sundin13 said: Just to mention something that happened in the States real quick, New York has officially thrown out their Congressional map. For those who were watching during redistricting, their previous map was notable by just how disastrous it was for Democrats. Basically there was a big fight and NY's highest court said "This is a partisan gerrymander" and gave it to someone who made NY a lot more red. A bunch has happened since then and the court has turned bluer (the fact that it was ever red is a monumental failure of NY Dems) and they have torn up the last map and said they were probably not going to do anything about future partisan gerrymanders. |
So what I'm hearing is that by redrawing they have an opportunity to dilute the black voters (along as in the other states that have been told to redraw).
This has been the pattern when Democrats redraw the Congressional Maps.
I think we need a 3rd party that isn't persuaded by money or politics to redraw the Congressional Maps, and they aren't shown any color of their redrawing until after they submit it. I think this would be the most equal way to ensure no one is trying to out do the other.
I dont like that America is a (basically) two-party political system. It causes too much hatred in America.
Lifetime Sales Predictions
Switch: 160 million (was 120 million, then 140 million, then 150 million)
PS5: 130 million (was 124 million)
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"The way to accomplish great things, is to be indefatigable and never rest till the thing is accomplished." - Joseph Smith Jr.
The US government is going to run out of adjectives soon
From CNN staff
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will conduct “extremely serious conversations” with Israeli officials during his visit this week, the White House said, as the US looks to press Israel to conduct a more “surgical” campaign against Hamas.
Sullivan is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with the Israeli war cabinet during the trip, which begins Thursday. He also plans to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The visit comes as the White House struggles to square President Joe Biden’s comments about Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza with the administration’s insistence that Israel’s “intent” is to limit civilian casualties.
Aka damage control with Netanyahu for Biden's slip of the tongue. Kirby had his hands full with that one already.
How serious?
US State Department address Israel's treatment of detainees: Israeli officials told the US that, going forward, they will give detainees their clothes back "immediately" if strip-searches are conducted, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Wednesday. The remark comes after images emerged last week of men in Gaza who were detained by Israeli forces, blindfolded and stripped down to their underwear.
Miller also said that Israeli officials told the US that the photos should not have been taken or released, "and they made it clear going forward that that will not be their practice."
Can't make this shit up. Make sure no more images come out please.
From CNN’s Kareem Khadder and Eyad Kourdi
A doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza told CNN on Wednesday that he and dozens of staff were taken from the premises by Israeli soldiers to a military screening center nearby.
The doctor, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, said in a telephone interview that men at the hospital had complied with an order from the Israel military on Tuesday to form a line outside the hospital. They were then led about 500 meters away to a what he called a "filtration military camp" in Al-Birawi area on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya.
At that location, he told CNN, they were ordered to remove their clothes and were given blue overalls. They were handcuffed and sorted into groups based on their perceived threat level, the doctor claimed. He claimed the detainees were physically and verbally abused while handcuffed. At one point, the doctor said, when clashes broke out, Israeli soldiers had taken cover behind the detainees.
Who is using human shields now...
The doctor’s claims cannot be verified. CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces for comment on how staff, patients and others at Kamal Adwan were processed after leaving the hospital. The doctor said that after several hours, the detainees — numbering about 1,000 people —were released and instructed to head toward specific areas in southern Gaza. Gunfire injured several of the group, he said, as they walked south.
“The IDF continues to act against Hamas strongholds in the north of Gaza, among them the area of Beit Lahia. The IDF takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to noncombatants, and is fighting against the Hamas terrorist organization, and not the civilians in Gaza or the medical teams operating there. This while following international law," the IDF said in a statement.
CNN received the same response from the IDF regarding several and separate instances about their operations in Gaza.
Tuesday’s casualties in Shejaiya are among the largest loss of life in a single incident for Israeli forces since their ground offensive began in Gaza.
The war "also comes with prices, but we will win,” the defense minister said. Gallant echoed the remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed earlier on Wednesday to continue the fight “until the end.” “I say this also in view of the great pain but also in the face of international pressures. Nothing will stop us. We go to the end, to victory,” Netanyahu said.
Gallant also said he was convinced that the continuation of Israel's military operation in Gaza will “pressure” Hamas to agree to another hostage release deal. When asked by a reporter whether Israel had reduced the number of air strikes in Gaza recently due to growing international pressure, Gallant said: “We are hitting the Gaza Strip with great force. Both in the north and in the south […] No one determines for us what to do.”
In response to a question about rising tensions between Israel and the US over the war in Gaza, Gallant said that US government officials are “doing a lot, above and beyond” to help Israel. “We will find the way to help the Americans support us, that’s the key. They want us to succeed,” he said.
Structure damage has doubled in the last month. Satellite analysis by researchers at the CUNY Graduate Center and Oregon State University suggests that between 33% and 42% of all structures in the strip were damaged as of December 11. Comparatively, those figures were between 16% and 21% on November 10.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza
Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment.
The assessment, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it, says that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided.
Asked for comment on the assessment, IDF spokesperson Nir Dinar told CNN, “We do not address the type of munitions used.”
Major Keren Hajioff, an Israeli spokesperson, said on Wednesday that “as a military committed to international law and a moral code of conduct, we are devoting vast resources to minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas has forced into the role of human shields. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza.”
But experts told CNN that if Israel is using unguided munitions at the rate the US believes they are, that undercuts the Israeli claim that they are trying to minimize civilian casualties.
“I’m extremely surprised and concerned,” said Brian Castner, a former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer who now serves as Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser on arms and military operations.
“It’s bad enough to be using the weapons when they are precisely hitting their targets. It is a massive civilian harm problem if they do not have that accuracy, and if you can’t even give a benefit of the doubt that that the weapon is actually landing where the Israeli forces intended to,” Castner added.
A US official told CNN that the US believes that the Israeli military is using the dumb bombs in conjunction with a tactic called “dive bombing,” or dropping a bomb while diving steeply in a fighter jet, which the official said makes the bombs more precise because it gets it closer to its target. The official said the US believes that an unguided munition dropped via dive-bombing is similarly precise to a guided munition.
Again you can't make this shit up. Not that it matters when taking out whole buildings with people inside.
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