Israel Hits Refugee Camp, Targeting Hamas Leaders
Muddled reporting of a messy situation.
The latest NYT live blog is headlined “Israel Hits Dense Gaza Area, Targeting Hamas; Hospital Reports Many Deaths.” Selected snippets, arranged in a more coherent fashion:
Photographs taken on Tuesday showed at least one large crater and significant damage to buildings at the Jabaliya neighborhood in northern Gaza, home of a long-established refugee camp.
The Gazan health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said the damage was the result of an attack by Israel that killed and wounded “hundreds” of people, a statement that could not be immediately verified. A spokesman for Israel’s military said it was looking into the reports.
The Israeli military said that Israeli fighter jets had struck Hamas militants, including Ibrahim Biari, a commander, in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp. According to the Israeli military, Biari — who it said had been killed in the attack — was a key plotter of the Hamas-led massacres in Israel on Oct. 7. “As a result of the strike, a large number of terrorists who were with Biari were killed,” the Israeli military said, adding that “underground terror infrastructure” beneath the buildings had collapsed following the strike.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, denied that a Hamas commander had been in the area struck by Israel fighter jets in Jabaliya.
The director of the New York office of the United Nations’ human rights agency has resigned, accusing the U.N. in a sharply worded letter of abandoning its own principles and international law, and of failing to stop Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza, which he called a “genocide.”
The former director, Craig Mokhiber, a human rights lawyer, wrote in the letter dated Oct. 28: “I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”
In the letter, which was viewed by The New York Times and which the U.N. confirmed was authentic, he accused the U.S. and Britain governments and much of Europe of being “complicit.” He described as “a textbook case of genocide” Israel’s offensive in Gaza and in the West Bank, which has killed at least 8,000 Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza; and has damaged schools, medical facilities, mosques and residential buildings, including U.N. offices.
BBC’s live blog, headlined “Israel military confirms deadly strike on Gaza refugee camp” adds:
The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has confirmed that Israeli fighter jets carried out the attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, which he said killed a senior commander and caused the collapse of Hamas’s underground infrastructure.
Here’s a bit more from Hagari. He says the attack also killed several other Hamas members who were with the commander both “in the building and underground”.
He says the targeting of the building led to the collapse of other buildings, which he said had “very extensive infrastructure”.
“The purpose of that infrastructure”, Hagari says, “was to carry out terrorist activities against our forces”.
He says the entire infrastructure collapsed.
Hagari says that Hamas continues to use the civilian population as shields intentionally “and in a very cruel and brutal manner”.
He then says (current Hamas leader in Gaza) “Sinwar does not care about the people of Gaza”, saying he “intentionally built Hamas infrastructure beneath people’s homes”.
Hagari then reiterates the IDF’s call for people in the north of the Gaza Strip to head south. Israel has declared northern Gaza an evacuation zone.
Given the weeks of warnings for civilians to evacuate and the unquestioned military value of Hamas leadership, I would argue that the strike is well within the bounds of proportionality under International Humanitarian Law. Whether Biari was killed in the strike makes no difference in that regard; he’s an extremely high-value target.
None of this, of course, makes the killing of women and children less awful.
Still, the outsized voice being to aid workers who seem to have no understanding of the law of war continues to be a bit much. As does the stenographic reliance on death counts provided by Hamas as though they were gospel.
You mean, the kind of people who were likely at the hospital that just got hit? The ones who will die while pundits versed in the law debate in safety?
Aid workers don’t need to “understand the law of war”. Their job is to deal with the reality on the ground, not the finer points of “is it okay to kill the meat shields being held hostage in a hospital because extra-bad guy is here”? They’re always going to be against blowing up a hospital or refugee camp regardless of who’s there because it’s a goddamn hospital and refugee camp.
Most people would be. A great example of how legal and moral are not the same thing at all.
I think this gets to a fundamental issue–namely where are the people supposed to go? For example, one of the reported problems that Americans trapped in Gaza has been getting out. They have been going to the designated exit points and cannot leave.
I think there has also been a concern that if Palestinians evacuate Gaza into other areas, they are unsure if they are ever going to be allowed back in (which there is historical precedence for).
So at some point, evacuation warnings don’t work well when there are no places to effectively evacuate to.
Neither, apparently, does Israel.
Ezra Klein had a very good podcast about the Israel-Hamas war. And that based on reporting, Israel has no actual strategy here; they said they would invade, so they’re invading, but after that . . . “Once the rockets go up, who knows where they come down? That’s not my department, says Werner von Braun.”
And I sort of understand then UN Human Rights agency’s anger, but it’s unclear to me what he expects the UN to do, exactly. They have no army, and the US is a permanent member of the security council, and at least right now seems to be backing Israel’s actions.
@mattbernius: Well I warned you to get out of the way of my bombardment. Too bad.
It is precisely the understanding and impression in Arabic language, as like 48, 67, cover for permanent expulsión. Which in a Netanyahu lead government is quite the rational analysis.
There’s also this:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9jqx/israel-gaza-leak-displacement-nakba
It’s going to be drips and drabs and denials until the reality is that gaza has a population of 5 people trapped in collapsed basement.
@mattbernius: I stay with my mother in Texas because she is 82, has limited mobility, and has a history of going in and out of skilled nursing and hospitals. There is a 0% chance I could successfully navigate a treacherous 2+ mile evacuation route with her on foot, never mind a 10+ one.
If the Texas GOP made the final step tomorrow of announcing that all LGBTQ+ folks like me had a week to leave or face whatever violent consequences come next, I still wouldn’t leave my mom and abandon her to her fate.
One has to dehumanize a hell of a lot of people before one can say “Well, we *told* you to leave. *shrug*”
Evacuate toooooo…¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Neither Egypt nor Israel is allowing any mass of citizens to leave Gaza — not even citizens of their erstwhile allies. And for all their big talk and chest-beating, the Muslim/Arab world doesn’t want a flood of Palestinian refugees either. Maybe they’re supposed to evacuate into the Mediterranean Sea?
@Kevin:
The strategy is covering up for Netanyahu’s abject failure as a person, a man, and a leader — including his making Israel less safe by stoking hostilities and bolstering Hamas, thereby undermining Israelis and Palestinians who sought a two-state solution. And to cover for the Israelis who have enabled, voted for, and empowered Netanyahu and his rightwing extremist yahoos.
Biden has erred bigtime in embracing an anti-democratic monster like Netanyahu, tying America’s global reputation to the demonstrated poor judgment of Israel’s terroristic Putin-wannabees. There’s valid criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy, but him putting appropriate distance between his goverment and Bibi’s looked prescient then and now.
Perhaps the saddest sight I’ve seen since this war began is a Palestinian father rushing into the hospital with his unconscious child in his arms. This followed by group of dead children, babies really, stacked like cordwood on the ground.
It is often the images of an event that determines the worlds opinion. The most enduring images of the war that I and some others of us in this group fought, are not of heroism and sacrifice, but of a naked child running from a napalm blast or the picture of the Saigon chief of police executing a suspected VC with a bullet to the head.
I fear that the lasting images that the world will have of this war, regardless of its justification, will not be of the patriotic Mount Suribachi type but that of the heartless destruction of the innocent.
@a country lawyer:
There were some pretty sad images of dead bodies from the terror attack against Israel on Oct 7. Not that I wish to compare or contrast because pox on both their houses.
I think most of us agree that Hamas needs to be eradicated but that does not mean random bombing attacks that disproportionately kill civilians. One does not believe Hamas propaganda to see that too many civilians are getting killed.
Allow me to add that events such as this one are the hothouse in which militants of any sort are grown. Eradicate Hamas? Probably not. (Especially given that Bibi played a role in creating it to begin with. 🙁 )
@Raoul: Sure. But how do you eradicate an enemy that is dressed as civilians and does its work intermingled with them? It’s almost as if you need a completely different plan than going in with soldiers and jets intent on killing them all by destroying the places they are.
Lawyers Gun and Money just stated that targeting a refugee camp with a high number of civilians is wrong. I agree. I will let others discuss specific tactics required to address the situation. I know someone mentioned Fallujah type tactics (basically block fencing). The United States has a spotty record avoiding civilians deaths but we try. There is a reason why we just didn’t bomb OBL house in Abbottabad or we used a specific type of missile to kill Al-Zawahiri. To be clear the minimizing of civilian casualties serves the interests of Israel not Hamas.
The edumedicated professors have spoken. The attack was a military action by the military arm of the elected government (See Jimmy Carter) of Gaza. And as a military action, the HAMAS Operations Order from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood taken from dead and captured Hamas as well as statements by Hamas fighters in calls to home and from interrogations the official orders of Hamas were to specifically commit war crimes by purposely targeting civilians for murder and kidnapping.
Hamas specifically drove the body of the now confirmed dead German Israeli teenager so that the “innocent” civilians of Gaza could spit on and beat the woman or her dead body as her condition in the jeep is uncertain but her limbs weren’t in normal positions. Hamas stood a kidnapped 4-yr old Israeli boy in the street to be beaten and harassed by Gaza children. Hamas cooked an infant in an oven.
Hamas is a war criminal organization that directed its members to commit war crimes. All legitimate militaries on earth have an obligation to oppose war criminals.
If you support Gaza, you support a people whose elected government is intentionally war criminal. Or is Hamas just psychopathic rapists and murderers who don’t represent Palestinians even as those Palestinians celebrate and participate in their war crimes.
@JKB: If you support Israel, you support a people whose elected government is internationally war criminal. And they have actually elected that government in the past few years, rather than over a decade ago and have that government just not leave office.
Dude, I know that this is just a game of gotcha with no middle ground for you, but you have to make it at least a little more convincing.
Also, can we get a link to this:
I’m curious to know who actually supported the Hamas attack. A lot of people figure something like this has been inevitable for over a decade, and aren’t going to get worked up about it, but that is not the same thing as supporting it.
Roasting children is bad. They should be braised.
Bombing civilians while cutting off food, water and fuel is also bad.
Now that is a crater and damage that could have been made by an Israeli bomb, as opposed to the famous Gaza hospital explosion.
No one has a word of criticism for Hamas deliberately hiding behind human shields? None of this is their fault? Nah. Of course not.
@Michael Reynolds: Do we have independent confirmation that anyone in Hamas was at the refugee camp? Stories change and evolve over days, so I’ll reserve judgement.
Also, does Israel not have commandos or drones that could have done a more targeted attack?
No one here is defending Hamas. Let’s stipulate that the actions of Hamas on October 7th were unspeakably inhumane and they, in violation of the rules of war use civilians as human shields. But is turning Gaza into Berlin of 1945 the way to win this war. I think JB32 had it right in yesterday’s forum, targeted small unit and basic infantry tactics to clear the area. It can be done. I saw it done up close in 1968 when the 5th Marines cleared Hue. It was done the old school way, house to house, door to door without fixed wing CAS or heavy artillery. It was bloody, but at the end while there was damage to the city it was not destroyed and the NVA was beaten. Could not the IDF do the same?
@JKB: I guess this is just more proof for you that dropping out of high school instead of continuing your education was a great idea.
@Michael Reynolds: “No one has a word of criticism for Hamas deliberately hiding behind human shields? None of this is their fault? Nah. Of course not.”
And how come everyone is blaming the cops in Maine for not doing anything to stop the psychotic shooter before he killed nineteen people even though they had weeks of warnings about him? No one has a word of criticism about the actual shooter? None of this is his fault? Nah, of course not.
Ladies and gentlemen, this has been another straw man argument brought to you courtesy of Michael Reynolds’ House of Straw.
A further complicating factor in all of this is “the metro”–the complex network of tunnels under Gaza. In some cases the Israelis are striking targets that are below the ground which leads to a broader redefinition of “hiding in civilian areas” and the degree to which civilians might even necessarily know someone is beneath them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/28/a-spiders-web-of-tunnels-inside-gazas-underground-network-being-targeted-by-israel
Al Jazeera is reporting that Israel has bombed the refugee camp again.
@Michael Reynolds: “Don’t make me kill this kitten!”
@wr:
You’re a fool, a historical type of fool: the Jew who doesn’t know there’s a target on his back.
@Gustopher:
No, and you will almost certainly not get any, one way or the other.
For fairly obvious reasons.
If it was a buried hardened site, no drone would be suitable. And a commando raid on similar would have been suicidal.
@Michael Reynolds: “You’re a fool, a historical type of fool: the Jew who doesn’t know there’s a target on his back.”
Just because there’s anti-Semitism in the world doesn’t mean that every fatuous argument you come up with is valid.
“Why isn’t anyone blaming Hamas” sounds like one of Trump’s self-pitying whines. Just about everyone blames Hamas — the difference is they won’t use that to justify absolutely anything else.
And that you are reduced to calling anyone who is the slightest bit concerned about innocent victims who aren’t Jews “anti-Semitic” strongly suggests you know just how poor your argument is and have to fly into hysterics in hopes no one will notice.
Throwing this out, I have been thinking similar:
“Atlantic”
[…]
[…]
[…]
I do not see a path to a good outcome assuming Israel persists on the path it’s on.
@wr: If it’s any consolation at least the big gun wasn’t trotted out: the self-hating Jew label.
@charontwo:
I don’t entirely agree with Ibish.
I think it may be possible to arrange a third party administration, perhaps a UN arrangement, with the Turks and/or Egyptians providing the muscle and admin, the Gulf States the money, and Fatah PA riding in the baggage.
After the Israelis have broken the back of Hamas.
The reason being a lot of regional actors have good reasons for wanting Hamas to be scotched, Gaza to be quietened, and Iran baulked.
It will also probably require leverage re. Qatar on dumping Hamas, who are IMHO one (among several) of the Qataris schemes for survival if the sheikhdoms lose out re. the Iranians and/or Ikwanites and/or other parties various.
BUT.
No one is going to stick their hand next the fire to retrieve the chestnuts, unless Israel is willing to make an offer including curbing the kahanites on the West Bank, and moving back to a Taba-style offer for a settlement.
That ball is in the Israeli court: they cannot effectively pacify a post-war Gaza themselves, without measures that will cripple their support in the West. The question is, is there a political plurality in Israel now that realises that?
I suspect Netanyahu will not concede it; so maybe only after he departs the scene, which may not be that long. OTOH, given his eternal self-interest, maybe some sort of offer of legal immunity would get Bibi on board?
This rule of proportionality puzzles me. I wonder if there is some number of civilian causalities is beyond acceptance for a “high value target”. 10? 100? 1000?
There must be some stipulation to this stuff, or theoretically it would be legal to nuke an entire city to get one “high value target”. What constitutes a “high value target” anyway? Who was this guy who was worth killing hundreds? Why was it possible to track him to this degree but impossible to wait until a better time?
“Well within proportionality” begs a lot of questions. I suppose legalisms are irrelevant in war, at least in this one, anyway.
@dazedandconfused:
There is really no such thing as a “rule of proportionality” outside the imaginations of lawyers.
Absent a god who determines what is or is not “proportional” it’s a rather subjective judgement.
It may be a good thing to have in place for limited “anti-terrorist” operations.
But from a historical POV re state-level conflict (which is what the Gaza War is) it’s absurd.
It’s an attempt to stuff extrajudicial military operations into the entirely incommensurate container of the model of civilian judicial warrant.
The military principle of sparing civilians insofar as possible is reasonable enough, so long as one recalls that the rule is highly flexible and rather arbitrary.
Setting aside civilians who may or may not be regarded as involved in the support of “their” militaries, there are entirely and plainly innocent civilians who have been killed in the pursuit of objectives.
See some 70,000 French civilians killed by Allied operations from 1940 to 1944 IIRC.
@JohnSF:
“If”
I gotta hunch the IDF is regretting this one. Would’ve seen a profile on this alleged “high value target” by now, I reckon. Whoever this guy or guys were, it wasn’t worth the fallout.
@dazedandconfused:
It may not have been a person; could be a command/communication nexus.
Or they may have missed.
Either way, the Israelis have good reason for not releasing anything that may even possibly reveal intelligence sources/methods right now.
As I said previously:
@JohnSF:
This is fantasy, as there is zero chance with Netanyahu & his Faction in place that anything credible to unwind the progressive Bantustanisation of West Bank will be done and there, PA remains an empty comprador puppet group, emasculated puppets like the old Bantustan regimes.
As there is zero sign that Israel will take any step that would render it attractive to any of those actors to do any such thing, certainly not the unloved Ahl Annile nor the Turks, old imperial overlords pre-British rule. Netanyahu faction has led Israel and Palestine into a nihilistic dead end.
Luce in FT has it rather similar and
https://www.ft.com/content/fbf48dcf-09f1-408e-825a-cc7bd6b1913e
and in agreement with
@DK:
I generally think Biden is quite competent, but not one is perfect allowing oneself to be photographed w Netanyahu was really an avoidable thing.
@Lounsbury:
Disagree.
Netanyahu is finished, politically IMO.
Just look at the polling, and the comments of “off the record” Likud MK’s.
That MAY enable a credible deal re. the West Bank.
If that is possible, then some sort of third party admin of Gaza is possible.
Because there is no way a long term Israeli occupation will resolve the basic issues.
It all depends on the dynamics of Israeli politics, and if they realise that, even after the outcome of the current Gaza War, a political outcome that meets the minimal of various parties is required.
Obviously, any Arab or Muslim state is going to be wary about getting involved on the ground.
But equally, there are also good reasons, IF Israel is prepared to be realistic, rather than Likudnik, re. West Bank, for turning down the temperature. And for reducing the openings for Iranian mullah/IRG mischief.
(Personally, still inclined to install Indonesia as mandate holder for Gaza, if only to see the consternation in various capitols. 😉 )
Seriously, there may be openings for the US to devise a political solution.
If the Israeli political consensus provides an opening.
OTOH, no one ever got rich betting on good outcomes in the Middle East.
Basically: a deal re. West Bank is the key.
Which has been the idiocy of Netanyahu and his acolytes these past 20 years and more, trying to ignore this patently obvious reality.
@JohnSF:
No good reason to justify hitting a refugee camp? Do you really believe that??
@JohnSF:
Easier said then done, can’t vouch for the accuracy but I have seen 670,000 as the current West Bank settler population. In any case there are lots of them, too many to make just buy them out feasible.
This may be unrealistic fantasy, but I can’t see how anything other than Palestinian sovereignty over the entire area including the settlements is workable, T.S. to the settlers if they do not like that.
@dazedandconfused:
It’s very misleading this keeps being called a “refugee camp.” The site was a refugee camp in1948, it has been since developed with residences, apartment buildings etc. – it is now basically just another urban neighborhood.
ETA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/01/israel-gaza-refugee-camp-strike-death-destruction/
The link contains aerial photos, pretty much a dense area of buildings.
@dazedandconfused:
Hamas, and some others, keep claiming almost all of Gaza is a “refugee camp”.
A Hamas spokesman statement along the lines (can’t find link now):
And from the context: this does not refer to Israel occupying the West Bank since 1967, or Gaza 1967 to 2005. But to the existence of Israel since 1948.
@JohnSF:
The actual camps are basically crowded urban slums.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/01/gaza-refugee-camps-jabalya-israel-strike/
@JohnSF:
Most of the reports from aid organizations described it as a refugee camp. Massive numbers if people have been rendered homeless so it’s quite plausible. Quibbling about terms is BS.
@dazedandconfused:
Massive numbers if people have been rendered homeless…
In the current Israeli offensive.
In the context, he was referring to events from 1948 onward.
That is the Hamas line: Israel is an illegitimate state; Gaza is a refugee camp of those forced to flee in 1948 and their descendants, therefore even IF Israel does not occupy Gaza, it is “the occupier”, all acts against it are justified, no acts by it are justifiable, “Palestine shall be free: from the river to the sea.”
Quibbling about that is not “BS” at all.
If that is the Palestinian position, then there is no way the Israeli’s will, or can, or ever could, negotiate a solution, that is not, from the Israeli POV, absolute surrender.
It’s fairly easy to see why, in that light, the Likud/Kahanite position of “they will never make peace: let us ensure our security by annexation and repression” gains an avid audience.