Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) called some of his colleagues’ quickness to blame Israel for the hospital blast in Gaza “disturbing” in a statement Wednesday.

“It’s truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza,” Fetterman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    And it looks more and more like Fetterman is right. That video showing the rocket launch from Gaza arcing back towards the hospital is pretty damning.

    Israel should still be held to account for its oppression and subjugation of Palestine, but it’s important not to forget that Hamas is a brutal terrorist regime that murders and “disappears” Palestinians who speak up against them. Hamas is not Palestine, and the Palestinians deserve better.

    • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Yeah frankly I’m tired of this rhetoric that you have to either be 100% pro Isreal or 100% pro hamas. It’s possible to condemn Hamas while also condemning the treatment of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel

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    9 months ago

    “Who would take the word of a group that just massacred innocent Israeli civilians over our key ally?” he added.

    Anyone who knows the history of our ‘key ally’.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        You’re right, Israel would never knowingly harm innocent Palestinians, thank you for the correction.

        • WidowsFavoriteSon@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Hey, don’t sass me, you’re the guy going “yay team” for the folks raping and beating civilans then carting at least one person’s body around the streets to be spit upon.

          • drislands@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            “Don’t sass me”, eh? You their dad or something?

            And that’s a mighty bold claim you’ve made there. They’re cheering on Hamas, are they? Mind linking the parts that say that? Cuz all I’m seeing is skepticism of Israel. Hardly the same thing. Don’t make me bust out the definition of “false dichotomy”, sport.

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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    9 months ago

    Anybody who has been through a war knows the term “fog of war” is absolutely accurate. The first story is rarely true. But, it’s the first story, and it will be believed, due to bias confirmationm, even after it has been disproved.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      “A lie can get round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

      But the truth is that these two sides have been killing each other since before my parents were born and I’m too sick of all of it to give a damn. Nothing will stop either of them so maybe if they kill each other entirely we will finally have peace in The Holiest Place on Earth.

      Oh wait, no, Christians will still get into fights there.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I mean, if you want to forget about specific nations, they’ve been keeping this grudge sharp …since what? Late bronze age to early iron?

        Sure the State of Israel has only existed for 75 or so years, but they have a much, much longer history than that- and both Palestinians and Israelites have a very old claim to the land- and both are more less equally valid.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          Islam wasn’t founded until 610 CE, which was almost 200 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Definitely not the Bronze Age and at best the late Iron Age.

          Also, between then and now, Europe was a far more dangerous place to be a Jew than the Middle East. Pogroms were common in the Middle Ages, while cities like Jerusalem and Baghdad were multicultural and tolerant. After the siege of Jerusalem during the first Crusade, Christians massacred the Jews living there along with the Muslims.

          This conflict specifically started with the Sikes-Picot Agreement in which the western powers reneged on their deal to establish an Arab homeland. But the real conflict didn’t start until the UN’s Partition Plan, which gave most of the land to the Jewish minority.

          So, no, I don’t think this goes back thousands of years. More like hundreds, with worst of the actual fighting in the last 76 years.

          • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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            9 months ago

            You have to consider the Tanzimat reforms in the waning Ottoman Empire, specifically the Land Code of 1857 and the Nationality Law of 1869. The Land Code misappropriated much of the tribal land in current day Israel/Palestine to Ottoman administrators, which was later brought under the control of Britain after WWI. Particularly after the Nationality Law, which granted citizenship rights irrespective of religion, the Jewish National Fund was able to purchase and settle that land. Under British rule, the settlement accelerated. It’s worth noting that there was massive migration to the Holy Land of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. During the late Ottoman period, 1850 to 1915, the Muslim population doubled (+300k), and the Jewish & Christian populations tripled (+26k and +54k respectively). By the British Mandatory period, the majority of the population in the Holy Land were immigrants.

            But anyway, you’re right. Although there was always tension between Muslims and Dhimmis, the specifics of the contemporary conflict can’t be traced back much further than the late 1800s. Perhaps if the original negotiated Arab homeland consisting of the Arabian Peninsula, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon had been honored, the entire region would be much more stable today. Hard to say what would have happened to the Jews during WWII, though.

        • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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          9 months ago

          Both of you respond by showing your own bias. Bomb damage assessments happen all the time. There is really nothing to indicate that an Israeli bomb was used. There is all sorts of evidence that point to a rocket failure. You can leave it at that without blaming one party or another for problems. But, denial of reality is the problem.

            • norbert@kbin.social
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              9 months ago

              This bomb was purportedly Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, but otherwise I don’t disagree with what you said.

            • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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              9 months ago

              Actually it was probably a Islamic Jihad missile. They are another gang in Gaza. Let’s put it this way…if you were disturbed when you thought Israel was to blame, yet you shrug off when Islamic Jihad is proven to have done it…they you just might need bias confirmation.

                • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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                  9 months ago

                  Then you almost join my club, however, there are two other certainties. 1. Terrorism is always wrong and the brutality of Hamas on Israel was way way over the line. 2. Since that is true, there is absolutely no way a war would not result and there is no way that ideological rhetoric is going to stop it.

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      What’s sad is all these media companies race each other to be the first one out there. In the digital realm it is simple to offer contractions and edits so they have no reason to wait until all the facts.

      Just pump out anything that will generate engagement, who cares if most don’t see the retraction. They got their clicks so they don’t care

      https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/02/trump-campaign-bad-america-good-cbs

      Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? This is pretty amazing… Who would have thought that this circus would come to town?

      But, you know–it may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.

      So what can I say? It’s–you know, the money’s rolling in, and this is fun.

      • CBS CEO
    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      They’re being very indiscriminate and almost certainly committing a copious amount of war crimes, but what they are doing is not carpet bombing. If it was, there would be nothing left of Gaza by now, and one particular building being bombed would not be noteworthy.

    • Ghost33313@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      They had actually stopped their air raids before this happened. I am not saying they aren’t going to bomb more but I am pointing out that people jumped to point the finger suspiciously fast.

      • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        Maybe I’m crazy, but the series of events seems incredibly obvious from the videos linked in that article. A rocket is fired from a position far away from the hospital that seems typical of the ones used by Hamas. Israel intercepted it above the hospital and it broke apart. The explodey bit fell out of the sky and landed near the hospital, making a big boom and killing people.

        This is what happens when you hurl deadly explosives at each other over densely populated areas. Everyone sucks here.

        • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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          I think it’s the missile failing and breaking apart, I don’t think interceptor missiles would be able to meet them so soon after launch

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Fucking for real. They’ve done shit like this before. Before this current war. Maybe the thing people should be disturbed about, is that Israel is so well known for these types of war crimes, that they’re the first one everyone thinks of when it happens.

  • kava@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    What we know

    • Israel had shelled the hospital 2 times before the attack on Oct 17
    • Israeli military had demanded the hospital evacuate multiple times before the attack on Oct 17
    • Israeli military has been hitting hospitals and civilian areas since Oct 17
    • The majority of the Palestinian rockets do not have the payload to do so much damage
    • Israeli government has consistently lied about these types of things in the past
    • IDF Digital Spokesman posted a tweet admitting responsibility for the attack, only to quickly delete it
    • The sound and damage is consistent with weapons Israel has, for example the MK84

    So if we are just to do some basic considerations. Occam’s Razor.

    If Israel did not hit the hospital then

    a) out of all the rockets to misfire, of which we haven’t heard of any significant misfires up until now, it had to be the rare and few powerful ones that Palestinians have. This is a low probability event. Much more likely that in a barrage of rockets, the small ones misfire because the overwhelmingly majority is small

    b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible. Another low probability event. Realistically, the vast majority of failed rockets would land in areas that are not strategically relevant or are not a humanitarian area.

    c) this rocket just happens to land on the same exact hospital that Israel had attacked multiple times previously and had demanded evacuation of. another low probability event.

    d) israel has been known on multiple occasions to outright lie about something when it looks like they are committing war crimes. during the killing of the journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh the playbook went like this…

    • Deny something happened
    • OK, something did happen but it was the Palestinians who did it. Here’s a video that proves it
    • OK, it wasn’t the Palestinians. We don’t know who did it
    • OK, we did it but it was an accident because Palestinians were shooting at us. USA does an “investigation with Israeli data” and finds that it was totally accidental and not deliberate.

    Independent investigation show that the killing was likely deliberate and nobody was shooting at the Israelis at the time of her death. She was shot in cold blood, in what some people believe is a targeted killing. But at this point, both the US and Israel refuse any criminal investigation.

    This playbook, coincidentally, looks very similar to the US’s response to their airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan. Deny, blame the Afghanis, eventually concede it was them and claim it was an accident. No criminal investigations.

    Turns out countries that openly preach about their “humanitarian values” have a lot of incentive to lie when events like this get mass media coverage. So, is this a low probability event or a high probability? I don’t know.

    e) the digital spokesman for the israelis openly admitted to the bombing and then quickly deleted the tweet. is it because he was mistaken or because he was told to delete the tweet? high probability or low probability? I don’t know.

    Let’s do a little formula. LPE = low probability event, UPE = unknown probability event

    LPE x LPE x LPE x UPE x UPE

    Let’s try some different values to get a broad estimate.

    LPE = 20% UPE = 50% 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.002 = 0.2%

    LPE = 50% UPE = 80% 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.08 = 8%

    LPE = 80% UPE = 90% 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.9 * 0.9 = .41 = 41%

    So depending on how likely you believe the above events, you can estimate a different probability. For example, if you think that the chances of the Palestinians having their rocket misfire over virtually the worst possible spot it could have is 80%, you may reach a different conclusion than if you believe the chances are actually let’s say 20%

    The point of the exercise is to show that there’s a lot of reason to believe Israel did it and there’s a lot of reason to believe Israel is lying (including making up videos, like they’ve done in the past), and there’s a lot of reason to believe the US is blindly backing up their lies (like they’ve done in the past)

    Please don’t mistake this for some sort of serious scientific attempt at proving the Israelis wrong. It’s just a thought exercise to illustrate the point that for this to have been the Palestinians, there would have had to be a lot of little coincidences. Which CAN happen. Unlikely events happen all the time. But in situations like this, I think we have to be realistic and look at the simplest answer. I personally think it’s very likely Israel did it. I don’t know, and I don’t think we’ll ever know.

    But maybe in some time we’ll have an independent investigation and Israel will ultimately own up to it. Only time will tell.

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Math only provides accurate conclusions if the starting assumptions are correct. If you put bullshit in, you get bullshit out.

    • smitty@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible.

      didn’t it land in a parking lot? in the pics of the npr article it was at least a building-length away from the hospital

      • kava@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        here’s a map of the area showing a rough radius of what the explosion damaged

        we can see the center is somewhere around the parking lot. however, there is damage to the southern roofs of the buildings 45m away. so while perhaps the center radius of the explosion was on top of the parking lot, the reach of the bomb certainly touched the hospital

        however, the reason it killed so many people (i think 500 is probably exaggerated for propaganda, real number probably closer to ~200) is because a lot of people were sheltering outside this hospital around that parking lot. for example west of the parking lot there were many people sleeping on blankets and such. people on the second story of the hospital also got killed.

        it’s really hard to get an objective view of the situation right now because the propaganda wings of both sides are out in full force.

        here’s a video by aljazeera- https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1714984258358391057

        coincidentally the only news outlet that caught the whole thing live

  • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’d still say there’s a chance it was them… And it was just the most logical assumption to make.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    called some of his colleagues’ quickness to blame Israel for the hospital blast in Gaza “disturbing” in a statement Wednesday.

    “It’s truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza,” Fetterman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

    In a follow-up post, Fetterman pledged to “always stand with Israel” and said he “look[s] forward to supporting any military, intelligence, or humanitarian aid to get the job done.”

    The Democratic senator’s pointed comments come after U.S. intelligence on Wednesday independently determined that a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza was the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian militants, not by an Israeli airstrike.

    Some members of Congress reposted reports that blamed Israel for the attack, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who also sharply criticized President Biden for not encouraging a ceasefire.

    “We must support Israel in their efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children.


    The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    They’ve already hit 20 hospitals in addition to apartment buildings and schools.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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      The IDF seems incapable of telling the truth, so I don’t know whatever they’re saying, but evidence is pointing towards a misfire at the moment. I’m not sure if I agree with Al Jazeera’s conclusion here, because it would mean the coverage and responsiveness of the iron dome would be insane.