At least 40 people in Israel have died and more than 700 were injured after rockets were fired from Gaza by Hamas militants, Israeli officials said Saturday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 160 were killed in Gaza and over 1,000 were injured Saturday in retaliatory attacks from Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces have declared “a state of alert for war,” according to a statement issued by the IDF early Saturday morning.

“The IDF declares a state of alert for war. Over the past hour, the Hamas terrorist organization launched massive barrages of rockets from Gaza into Israel, and its terrorist operatives have infiltrated into Israel in a number of different locations in the south,” according to the IDF.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    How can Hamas even think they have an iota of a chance against a military power like Israel?

    It makes no sense.

    • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      It makes sense, but not the way you think. They know they are going to lose. They know they are going to suffer greater retaliation. But they will have to endure it. And they know many of them will die because of it. They were ready to face the consequences.

      I don’t think this campaign is against the Israeli government. It’s a strategic move targeted towards the illegal Israeli settlers and those who dare to encroach into the disputed Palestinian land! - to instill traumatic fear. It’s a warning message to these people, even though the have the best military and the best surveillance techs, the government can’t protect them. A stern message to them: If you dare to take this land from us, one day we will come to take it back from you, even your life, at the time you least expected and every efforts you put before will be in vain.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        You’re forgetting the key aspect – they want Israel to attack. These are hardcore committed militants. They want to kill their enemies or die trying. They want other people to feel the same way, but too many Palestinians are just trying to live their lives and survive day-to-day.

        By attacking Israel, they know they’re going to prompt a vicious counter attack that will kill and maim a lot of Palestinians. That’s good from the point of view of the Palestinian militants. More people who lose their loved ones to Israeli attacks means more angry people wanting to lash out. That means more of them will hate Israel even more, and be even more willing to risk their lives to try to destroy Israel.

        It’s also a gift to Netanyahu and the right-wingers in Israel. They want the Israeli population to be scared and angry, because when they’re scared and angry they support the right-wingers. This instantly solves all the political and legal problems that Netanyahu had.

        This is the same strategy that Osama bin Laden used with the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, and it worked perfectly. He knew that the US would flip out and overreact and kill hundreds of thousands of people as a result. He hoped they’d attack Saudi Arabia because his biggest conflict was not with the US, but with the government there. Instead the US attacked Iraq and Afghanistan, but that was almost as good. It drove recruitment for al Qaeda, and later for the Islamic State.

        • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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          9 months ago

          Not surprisingly, I do agree with your perspective: They want Israeli to attack. They want to chance change the status quo.

          They want other people to feel the same way, but too many Palestinians are just trying to live their lives and survive day-to-day.

          When you say ‘many Palestinians’, I would say those are the ones who live in the West Bank, controlled by Fatah. Fatah made acceptable deals with Israeli, and somenow their live are getting better, more survivable. But Hamas doesnt agree with these deals. They have a very narrow mindset which is: No deals with the Israel, period. And the people of Gaza supported this POV and they elected Hamas in the first place, which means they are ready to suffer the consequences when giving the support.

          Palestinians are divided into two fractions. In some ways, the attack could be an attempt to reunite and change it back to one.

          • Skates@feddit.nl
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            9 months ago

            They have a very narrow mindset which is: No deals with the Israel, period

            Hmm, I’ve heard that before, with slightly different phrasing: “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”.

            It seems like a good view.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It still makes no sense to me from that perspective. Shouldn’t they, of all people, understand that trying to frighten people into submission can instead embolden them? Israel’s brutal actions against Palestinians didn’t crumble Hamas. It created more support for it.

        What do they think will happen now? They’ve attacked and kidnapped civilians. Even people sympathetic to the Palestinians plight are horrified at this.

        All Hamas has done here is turn more of the world against them, brutalized civilians, and actually given Israel partial justification for their response. This is the first time in my adult life that I’ve seen such violence against Israel.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          People can only take so much. It’s part of the bully play book. Push them until they break and then blame them for everything.

        • Zanz@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          The only options are be genocided or be genocided quicker if there’s no fear of retaliation. They’re choosing to go out on their own terms.

          • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Hamas sets up military operations in a civilian building by force - the civilians have no say in this and get killed if they protest Hamas then uses that building to launch rockets, store ammunition, communication stations How the fuck should Israel proceed to neutralize those sites? Because what they do is:

            “Roof knocking”: Hitting the building’s roof with a small explosive to announce that it will fall in 15 minutes (see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teevWpXlRZY example from yesterday) Automatic SMS and phone calls impacted areas warning and urging to evacuate Precision strikes that make the building fall vertically with minimal damage to the areas As a result, civilians (and potentially military personnel) are given a chance to evacuate while ammunition stashes, rocket launching stations etc stay in the building and are destroyed.

            To be honest, I’m shocked those protocols are still used after Hamas’s attack. I would absolutely not be surprised of these measures stopped.

            The anti-Israel don’t care that Israel is bending over backwards to minimize human suffering while fighting a decades long war against people who are deliberately trying to kill their children.

            Remember how upset they are when Israel does something 100 percent defensive, like build a security fence to keep out an endless stream of suicide bombers?

            This isn’t good-faith criticism.

            These people hate Israel for this that they works be applauding other countries for. And we all know why

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          All Hamas has done here is turn more of the world against them

          Sure, until Israel overreacts and starts a war that kills tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Then people’s sympathies will go back to the underdog in the fight, which is the Palestinians.

      • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        A combination of this and a religion that brainwashed them into thinking that if they die while trying to murder other people that they will go to paradise and have a bunch of little girls as wives.

    • ToxicWaste@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      They are desperate, frustrated, angry… They are human.

      Neutrally looked at, a couple of french farmers and craftmen had no chance against the french military of 1789. But they where pushed to a point where they believed doing nothing is worse than dying trying. By chance they actually stormed the Bastille and kickstarzed a very dark chapter in french history.

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      They’re genocidal lunatics covering their hatred in colors of justice and victimhood

      They don’t care about an actual chance, they just follow the directions their masters in tehran give them because they’ll happily make themselves dogs if it means they get to go full turner diaries wet dream mode.

    • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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      9 months ago

      A victim of bullying will eventually lash out whether or not they think they have a chance because they become desperate.

      • protovack@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Why leave out the fact that the Jews also have an equally legitimate claim on the land, in addition to having been taken close to the brink of total extermination by circumstances completely beyond their control? A normal, compassionate individual would welcome these people in, make room for them, and live at peace under a stable society, tolerant of different points of view. However, that is not what the Jews encountered upon the creation of Israel. It was just a continuation of the campaign to exterminate them, from a different group. Are you going to argue that it’s bad for Germans to murder Jews, but it is okay for Muslims?

        • V H@lemmy.stad.social
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          9 months ago

          Firstly, see “The law of belligerent occupation in the Supreme Court of Israel”, David Kretzmer, Professor Emeritus of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published in the International Review of the Red Cross, 2012:

          Not even the Israeli government or the Israeli Supreme Court agree with you that Israel has a legitimate claim to the territories beyond their internationally recognised borders. Maybe somebody here is talking about the entirety of Israel, but I am not, nor have I ever. If Israel were to withdraw to their borders, and Palestinian attacks still continue, then there’d be at least room for discussion of blame.

          Until then, as long as Israel itself legally recognizes that it is an occupying power, there is none.

          Secondly, people’s experience of being oppressed does not recognize law. Irrespective of who has ownership of what, Israel is engaged in treating Gaza in particular as an Apartheid-style bantustan, and is committing crimes against humanity by doing so.

          Whether or not you agree with the legal position on that, when someone places people in those conditions, then it is entirely on them when they hit back.

          Blaming people for resisting gross abuse because you don’t like how they do it when you’ve put them in a situation where they have no realistic opportunity to fight clean is victim-blaming.

          Are you going to argue that it’s bad for Germans to murder Jews, but it is okay for Muslims?

          Nice try. I’ve not argued it is okay for anyone. I’ve argued in some threads that unless you’ve provided a better alternative (and not suggested it; actually tried to make it come to pass), then like the rest of us you’re not in a moral position to judge people for taking desperate steps to try to fight back.

          That doesn’t mean not feeling for the victims, because they had no power to end this either. It doesn’t mean not thinking it’s a horrible situation. It doesn’t mean you can’t get angry. It means resisting the urge to assign the blame to a people the vast majority of whom have been born into effective bondage under an apartheid regime for taking desperate and irrational actions to try to end a gross abuse they have no realistic power to change.

    • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They are targeting civilians not the military. They want to cause so much pain and suffering the Israeli people will push their govt to cede demands of Hamas to stop the fighting, or emmigrate somewhere else

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They have been pushed into a corner and kept on getting squeezed, so probably feel they have no other options (and might very well be right in light of what has happenned in the last decade).

      Had Israel stopped expanding “colonates” and taking palestinian land, I doubt the likes of Hamas would have the internal support and manpower to do what they just did, but over the last several decades Bibi and his predecessors have been just dubbling down and announcing ever more anexation of land.

      The massive difference in military power is also probably the reason for the kidnappings: I suspect it’s a “strategy” to try and get the Israeli authorities to not just bomb the whole of Gaza.

      Whilst I disagree with their methods I can see how over 70 years, given the trend in israeli politics and the lack of genuine and effective pushback from the international community against appartheid in Israel and the occupation, so many Palestineans have come to believe they have no other options than this kind of thing and personally I actually see no other option (even this they’re doing now is not really an option, more like a lashing out of the desperate).

      It is clearly impossible to solve this from the inside (to much hate by now, too many assholes on both side whose power rests in the assholes from the other side killing people), which is why I think the US’ and Europe’s treatement of Israel as if it’s a Developed, Democratic, Western nation, all the while it’s more akin to a Theocratic South Africa with a Russia-style leadership, is probably to blame more for this than anybody else (and I say this as an European) - they were the only ones who could have forced a peaceful resolution to this (rather than just mild criticism and no action, which is all that Europe did) by doing the same they did to South Africa, but instead they did nothing at all, effectivelly endorsing the choices of the Israeli leadership and totally disenfranchising the Palestinians, prolonging this cycle - want to see who has the most blood in their hands on this, go look in the White House, Number 10, Deutsche Kanselarie and the Palace Du Eliseé.

      • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        It’s a shame because western countries were starting to recognize the apartheid situation in Israel and were starting to criticize it. I think had things gone a bit longer there would have been an intervention.

        In any case, this whole thing is just sad. So many innocent lives are destroyed on both sides. And I sincerely think Israel, their government and the Jewish extremists are the root cause.

      • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Hamas sets up military operations in a civilian building by force - the civilians have no say in this and get killed if they protest Hamas then uses that building to launch rockets, store ammunition, communication stations How the fuck should Israel proceed to neutralize those sites? Because what they do is:

        “Roof knocking”: Hitting the building’s roof with a small explosive to announce that it will fall in 15 minutes (see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teevWpXlRZY example from yesterday) Automatic SMS and phone calls impacted areas warning and urging to evacuate Precision strikes that make the building fall vertically with minimal damage to the areas As a result, civilians (and potentially military personnel) are given a chance to evacuate while ammunition stashes, rocket launching stations etc stay in the building and are destroyed.

        To be honest, I’m shocked those protocols are still used after Hamas’s attack. I would absolutely not be surprised of these measures stopped.

        The anti-Israel don’t care that Israel is bending over backwards to minimize human suffering while fighting a decades long war against people who are deliberately trying to kill their children.

        Remember how upset they are when Israel does something 100 percent defensive, like build a security fence to keep out an endless stream of suicide bombers?

        This isn’t good-faith criticism.

        These people hate Israel for this that they works be applauding other countries for. And we all know why

    • Rengoku@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Well Hamas managed to kill hundreds of Jews in one sweep, for instance.