I say this, since the Western news media seems to have stopped pretending to care about a pretence of neutrality and bringing up human shields and the “savage Islamic radical hordes” again…
Idc if it’s IDF soldiers and political figures they’re only capturing, but it seems to also include settler civilians, specifically some women, others elderly, and a few youths (may or may not be teens).
It’s an unknown amount, but it seems like a lot more than some dozens
What the hell do they need them for? As a bargaining chip?
Edit 1: What if they left the collaborator settler “civilians” alone, but kept the important political and military figures with them
Edit 2: On second thoughts, the settlers can seem to be indirectly, if not fully committed to this settler-colonial project, considering by the presence of paramilitaries and settling alone…
Personally, if I didn’t want to be held captive by colonized and oppressed people seeking revenge and liberation, I would live somewhere that’s not the house those people used to sleep in. But hey, that’s just me.
Now that I think about it, if the Ukrainians already did the same to ethnic Russians, and the libs decided to proclaim their predicament as potential Darwin awards… by that logic…
Being in illegal settlements is being part of the occupation force. That’s how Hamas views it and it’s correct. I imagine civilians from “legal” settlements are also being taken, which I personally oppose but that’s fairly typical with prisoners of war.
That explains a lot…
Completely made necessary by Israel’s policy of collective punishment via aerial bombardment. These motherfuckers bomb hospitals and universities without a second thought. This is perhaps the ONLY thing that will make them think twice.
Prisoners are bargaining chips to win the return of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and also potentially shields to prevent bombing.
Idk about Palestinian prisoners being the elderly, women, or children (though civilian areas wouldn’t better than one)
On the other hand, wait, so they can hit Palestinian human shields and thus justify it, but not Israeli human shields?
Tbh Israel doesn’t have a problem with killing Jews if they can get away with it and it’s strategic. Mossad bombed Jewish institutions across the middle east to scare Jews into moving to Israel
Mossad bombed institutions across the middle east to scare Jews into moving to Israel.
I don’t seem them killing Jews, but terrorizing them into Israel…
4 Jews died in the Baghdad bombings? There were many instances like this over the decades.
Tell me more about it…
Oh, yeah, I know that one alright…
The Israelis trade captives at a very high ratio, like one Israeli for dozens or more Palestinians.
Israel has no civilians outside the children too young to have been pressganged into the IDF. Ergo, it’s just settler invaders getting taken hostage; which is to be expected during a war of existential question.
How much of them do you think have decent military training to be a threat anyway (of the total Israeli adults)? More than 50% to technically captured as military POWs?
Not sure if I can immediately spitball if only because then you have to start asking qualitative questions about how removed from active duty service the hostages are, how gung-ho they were about keeping their training up, et cetera. Start getting a wide range of dispositions just from those questions alone, dig?
I’m just asking how much of them do you think have enough military training to be a threat…
Enough of them to be a problem if left unchecked.
All they’d need to know is how to pull the trigger on a firearm.
What about knowledge of closest military locations to them? or anything miscellaneous they might use to get some of the Resistance whacked…
I mean, sure. But given the state of things during in a warzone, what they’d know is kinds useless until they can get it to to the IDF, and then the IDF has to consider if the intel is legit or missinfo.
the IDF has to consider if the intel is legit or missinfo.
For all I know, they’re not just begging for intel, no matter what… (just look on the news for the alleged 40 beheaded Israeli babies)
Its not a matter of “begging”… its a matter of battlefield intelligence gathering and how commanders respond to it.
There isn’t time to vet and verify and it will all depend on the what is actually happening and the mood of the command staff receiving the intel. If they’re tired, burned out… they might not care if some rando walks up ranting about an armored column they ran away from that is just over the hill. If they’re amped up and jittery, they might jump at every little thing somebody brings to them, spreading out forces, tying up communications lines, exhausting forces who needed to be rotated for rest periods.
The babies thing isn’t intelligence gathering, its propaganda.
Hmm, I mean, whatever sticks, I suppose, to the Israeli command staff… as long as the propaganda and military data seems believable enough to them…
Note: I must ask, are you thinking from a theoretical standpoint or from a bit of experience? From how you’re talking, seems to create the impression of the latter…
If they keep them in Gaza then it means Israel can’t do what they normally do which is airstrike the shit out of Gaza. If israel wants the hostages back they must either negotiate with Hamas or do a ground invasion of Gaza. I suspect Hamas wants the ground invasion and has made extensive preparations to maul the shit out of the IDF when they do.
Yeah its brutal but what else are they going to do? Go to the UN again? They can’t hold onto any of the territory they took back.
It’s a smart tactic and I was thinking the same thing. The whole situation has also shown how fragile their security really is. Watched Hasan comment on it earlier, he thinks that a Israelis killed by the IDF would collapse Israel so they need to go in on foot.
In the mean time, they might be taking these people around and showing them what their lives are like and what they’ve suffered… Maybe some get released later and go hard against the Israeli state. It’ll be interesting to see what actually plays out.
I saw an image of an old lady with a Palestinian fighter and she has his gun in her lap and looks pretty relaxed. Both of them are throwing up peace signs.
Damn sounds like Israel should immediately begin unconditional peace talks with the Palestinians
Hostages are a strategy. History will judge whether or not it was a good strategy.
The Israeli air assault has been measured because there are hostages located in Gaza.
We know, as our readers know, that the people are the resistance and vice versa: it is the relationship between the sword and shield, the heart and arm. Every Palestinian struggles under the occupation. As this historic battle rages on, we know that the tactics of the occupation will evolve. They will continue to target homes regardless of the presence of resistance activity in an attempt to demoralize the Palestinian people, draw blood, and accelerate their genocide.
As this happens, it is our obligation to our principles that dictates we must not fall into the trap of distinguishing between armed resistance fighters and non-combatants, as every Palestinian has a role in the current state of affairs. Every martyr must be mourned, and every zionist strike must be seen for the crime that it is. We will not allow the occupier or Western media to dehumanize us by creating distinctions between a colonized people whose remained existence on their lands is “militant.”
Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor, a soldier, and an occupier even if they are lounging on our occupied beaches. As the IOF calls up thousands of reserves, it is clear that all settlers are soldiers. There exists a colonizer and the colonized, an oppressed and the oppressor. The people cannot be dissociated from resistance, because we are in a constant state of resistance.
Certainly, an explosive response is coming.
This struggle has been imposed on us. To resist is to survive, and to resist is a right.
They’re not civilians, they’re invaders.
I know they’re settlers, but Wdym, it’s not like every women, child or elderly person there knows krav maga, if not military training, and stole Palestinian homes directly…
When you move into an illegal settlement you are directly stealing Palestinian homes. That’s how it works. “Civilians” do it all the time in cooperation with the military.
Yeah it’s worth emphasizing, part of the way the settlement has historically worked is more militant settlers deliberately putting themselves in harm’s way by going places the Israeli government isn’t currently occupying and taking provocative steps to remove people in their way. The IDF follows because the fallout of an asshole getting beaten to death by the people he is stealing land from would be bad politically for whoever is in charge of the Knesset. Many of these settlements are deliberate acts of theft by the individuals making them, not people who happened to buy a house in a subdivision without reading the history of the area.
Okey then…
It really is that simple. Settlers are actively invading and stealing Palestinian land and property, sometimes with their own guns, sometimes protected by the guns of the idf. They are not meaningfully civilians in the sense that the term is usually used. “Non-combatants” is probably more appropriate, though many of them are heavily armed and some engage directly in armed attacks on Palestinians.
Hmm, kinda like the United States…
Not every passenger on the Mayflower held a musket or sliced an Indian’s scalp either. Not every antebellum plantation family member tortured their slaves. And I’m sure not every Nazi personally shot a Jew. Yet, I don’t feel bad when they got what was coming to them.
Wait, on sec. thoughts, I kinda changed my mind when I realized that most of the adult civillians, when I realized they most likely had military training to become a citizen in it…
Still unsure why a few of the under-18 year olds are part of the hostages…
Was Geronimo justified in killing US frontiersmen?Was Tecumseh justified in burning down Detroit? Are Hamas and the PFLP justified in killing settlers?
I suppose so…
I simply would not fly thousands of miles to another country and kick people out their homes.
Yeah, me too…
“Uh, duh?”
You don’t leave people alone on the battlefield. They become variables you cannot control.
If they are actually non-combatants, they’ll wind up getting in the way and killed in cross fire.
If they are paramilitary forces who haven’t joined their units, getting them out of the fight before they can do any damage is objectively a tactical/strategic win.
If the Isreali forces decide to indiscriminately attack buildings that may/may no have their own people held captive in them, that says more about the IDF’s blood thirst than the Palestinian resistance that has taken prisoners to begin with.
So you’re saying its better to check them in and maybe nip them in the bud, if they’re potential paramilitary combatant threats?
If the Isreali forces decide to indiscriminately attack buildings that may/may no have their own people held captive in them, that says more about the IDF’s blood thirst than the Palestinian resistance that has taken prisoners to begin with.
I suppose it’s a good litmus test to check if they would want to retain a little bit of composure against the Resistance, or they would flatten it within a heartbeat…
