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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30314 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

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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Explosion, substantial structure collapse, many dead at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius

GeoConfirmed

<200m away from al-Ahli Hospital (the one from 2 days ago)

Same church 1 week ago: "Posts falsely claim Israel bombed historic church in Gaza"

Looks like a hall near the church rather than the church itself, but this is more of what I'd expect from an actual larger explosive. Looks confirmed by the IDF, although the number of reported deaths has dropped by about half what people were saying last night (from 40-100 to 17-18, and that's the Gazan sources).

The IDF claims the destroyed council hall was used as a command and control center, but there's not really much way to prove or disprove that.

I think the larger number of deaths was a result of media-style not-quite-lying; there were reports that the building was destroyed and that hundreds were sheltered in the church -- but the hundreds were sheltered in a different building.

I wish your first link was something other than a google search result, which will of course change drastically over time, complicating any analysis or discussion.

It looks like Israel bombed a neighboring residence (I would expect an apartment building but the current results refer to a "house"). It seems strange that the Israelis would bomb a single family residence (aka "house"). And the damage extended, presumably unintentionally, to the church.

I suppose we'll see if there is a characteristic Israeli crater or not. And at this point, maybe Israel can drop the equivalent of small barrel bombs as a false flag to implicate Hamas, etc.

I doubt Israel intentionally bombed a church unless it was a legitimate military target, which is entirely possible given the defensive strategy of Hamas, etc. I tend to defer to Arnold Kling's reasoning for this type of situation: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-gaza-hospital-tragedy

I doubt Israel intentionally bombed a church unless it was a legitimate military target, which is entirely possible given the defensive strategy of Hamas

Supposedly Hamas wasn’t using Christian churches as human shields, which is why they’ve been overrun with refugees(who think they’ll be safe from bombing there). This might be collateral damage from another strike.

It seems strange that the Israelis would bomb a single family residence (aka "house").

Why? People put command posts in residences in Ukraine all the time. You're not getting any money either there if your house gets blown up because the army thought "I'll put my unit HQ here".

The Wall Street Journal says Israel confirmed this one. Note that Hamas is quoted as saying it left a “large number of martyrs and injured”... isn't "martyrs" what they call their fighters and suicide bombers who die for their cause?

It also was not the main church building hit.

I think Hamas considers any dead Palestinian, at Israeli hands, to be a martyr. Combatant or not, civilian or otherwise.

This happens to bring up one of the more interesting things I've seen in this conflict that I've never had an opportunity to talk about anywhere. The convenient erasure of Palestinian Christians.

The political motivations for pro-Israeli apologists and their "red tribe" coding should be obvious. To hear people talk there are nothing but Muslims. Israel (Jews, let's be honest) discriminates against Christians, and atheists, just as much as Muslims. All would ideally be purged from the "Holy Land." I always wonder if the ostensibly Christian Israel fanboys have just successfully purged this from their mind or if they are genuinely unaware.

Could you give some specific examples if Christians being discriminated against in Israel, for being Christians?

The erasure of Christians from Gaza (and Beit Lehem, by the way) was more literally done by their Muslim neighbors. The one place where Christians can prosper between the river and the sea is in Israel proper.

Gaza is 99% Sunni. There are less than 2,000 Christians there.

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