This post has gone through a number of titles which of itself should tell you something about events. The first was, “So, It’s Going To Be This Sort of War”. That was when I had read the description of the Israeli attach on northern Gaza by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose at Reuters. Here’s the lede:
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Israeli airstrikes hit a densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least 50 Palestinians and a Hamas commander, and medics struggled to treat the casualties, even setting up operating rooms in hospital corridors.
Israeli tanks have been acting in Gaza for at least four days following weeks of air bombardments in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on mostly Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 and the taking of more than 200 hostages.
That changed to “When Is a Refugee Camp Not a Refugee Camp?”. I finally settled on the title above after reading Dov Lieber, Margherita Stancati, and Omar Abdel-Baqui’s reportage at the Wall Street Journal:
Israel said Tuesday it hit a Hamas command and tunnel network in northern Gaza, causing widespread casualties and damage in a crowded Palestinian refugee camp.
Israel said it killed dozens of militants, including a commander who it said led the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Hamas said hundreds were dead or wounded but didn’t say how many were militants, while hospital officials in Gaza reported receiving scores of bodies.
The Israeli strike flattened entire apartment blocks, leaving deep craters. Video footage aired by Palestinian television networks and Al Jazeera showed hundreds of people digging through the rubble with their hands to extract bodies and survivors, many of them children.
Israel’s military said the assault targeted “terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion,†saying militants had taken control over civilian buildings in Jabalia refugee camp north of Gaza City. It said the strike had killed large numbers of militants. Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and jet fighters, are expanding their invasion against Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the military had struck an underground bunker where a senior Hamas commander who played a pivotal role in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel was hiding. He said dozens of militants had been killed along with the commander. He also said the strike hit between buildings, but that the collapse of tunnels used by Hamas militants in the area led to significant structural damage.
You can barely tell the two articles are about the same events. Which is true? Both? Neither? I cannot tell.
If the entirety of what you read about it is like the Reuters story you might conclude that the Israelis are conducting indiscriminate attacks against civilian targets. If you read the WSJ article you might conclude that Hamas is deeply embedded in the civilian population and legitimate even necessary attacks against Hamas put civilians at risk.
I also don’t know whether this is just the “fog of war” or propaganda. I suspect there’s some of both.
Hamas is a terrorist group with a record of lying. Israel has poor leadership that doesnt like to admit to making mistakes. So I would surmise a bomb hit the area, a Hamas leader was there at one time and might have been killed, the number of civilians hurt/killed is less than Hamas claims/more than Israel claims there are tunnels in the area so maybe tunnels were destroyed but how can we know?
Steve
As I commented a few days ago, Hamas uses public opinion as a tool. Strike first and do your dirty work. Play the victim, or use civilians as victims, as the press subsequently and instinctively provides us with the profound insight: “war is hell.â€
I’d have gone with So it’s Going to be This Thpe of War. The die was cast on the 7th. What follows will be very ugly. What does anyone expect? Another video game war?