Israel has announced that it will not make any humanitarian exceptions in its siege on the Gaza Strip until all terrorist hostages are released.
Fuel is running out for the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza. According to Reuters, even the gas used for hospital generators will run out within hours.
Israel Katz, Israeli Energy Minister, posted on X: “Humanitarian Aid to Gaza?” “No electricity switch, water hydrant, or fuel truck will be opened until Israeli hostages return home.” “Humanitarians for humanitarians.” “Nobody should tell us what to do.”
Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the ICRC, said that hospitals without electricity risk becoming morgues. The suffering caused by the escalation of violence is abominable, and I urge both sides to do their best to alleviate it.
What is happening in Israel goes beyond war. In Israel, “war crimes” is a concept that has become a throwback to an earlier civilized age. When your people are slaughtered in their own homes, your women are raped and stripped, there are no rules.
There are no rules for the Palestinians who celebrate the deaths of Israelis by dancing and laughing while praising their god.
In this conflict, there’s no bothsiderism or neutrality. And if that means supporting Israel in its stated purpose of destroying Hamas and killing a lot of Palestinian civilians, so be it.
This is a tragedy. Hamas’s actions were not tragic. They were cold-blooded, targeted murders. It’s worse because it was done for a political goal. Those who support Hamas’ political goals must now admit their complicity with the methods Hamas uses to achieve these ends. There is no moral equivalence. No stale platitudes about the “freedom fighters.”
Israel is planning an assault on the ground that will likely level most of Gaza and kill hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.
This is not retaliation. Israel will achieve the closest thing possible to Hamas’ extermination.
CBSNews:
A group of independent experts from the United Nations, citing the scale of Israel’s response, warned that, while condemning Hamas for its “horrific war crimes,” “indiscriminate” military attacks on the already tired Palestinians of Gaza amounted “to collective punishment,” which they said was “absolutely forbidden under international law, and amounts to war crime.”
No “collective punishment”? Maybe they should speak with American activists who insist on “collective punishment” of reparations against white people in the U.S.
As U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken arrived to show his support in Israel, it was expected that the war would escalate soon, with Israel’s military stating they were “preparing” for the widely anticipated ground offensive in Gaza. In recent days, tens of thousands of Israeli troops have massed on the Gaza border as well as Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, fearing that another front in the war could be opened if Hezbollah, a group based in Lebanon, but supported by Iran just like Hamas, is drawn into it.
After years of bitter division, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, a senior member of the opposition party, created a wartime cabinet on Wednesday. Netanyahu, Gantz, and the other Israeli leaders have “put aside all other considerations because our country’s fate is at stake.”
The United States has removed all restrictions on using American weapons. This is another sign that the coming offensive will be the largest and bloodiest ever in the miserable history of Gaza.
Austin stated in Brussels that “this is a professional army led by a professional leadership, and we hope and expect them to do the right thing in the conduct of their campaign.” We will let them decide how their operations should look, but there is no reason to think they would act differently,” said Lloyd Austin, Defense Secretary.
This is a bloodier war, and it has entered a new phase. Israel is unlikely to stop the attack even if Hamas begins executing hostages. Israel is determined to eliminate Hamas as a threat.
