This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
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Notes -
Considering the counterfactual...
Over 12,000 Hamas rockets have been fired in the past 15 years, killing a total of 33 Israelis. What are the chances that a single "malfunctioning" Hamas rocket killed 800+ people? It happened to fall on a weapons cache? What are the chances of that?
It seems more likely this is the case of a weapon working extremely effectively as it was engineered. That means the two most likely possibilities are a Hamas false flag or Israeli strike... Betting markets seem to buy into the Israeli story, I can't wrap my mind around the unlikelihood of a rocket with such a poor mortality track record malfunctioning and then hitting what was possibly the most vulnerable space in Northern Gaza...
Presumably a rocket just fired is still full of fuel. The aftermath pictures don't show much blast damage, instead it burned out.
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what are the chances that Hamas is lying that 800+ people were killed by this strike?
Yeah, the blast zone doesn't look large enough for hundreds of casualties.
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The only reason Israeli casualties are so low is the Iron Dome, which obviously doesn’t defend Gaza, though.
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