And Hamas still has prisoners they took Oct 7, 2023…
Israel marked the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack that began its longest war in subdued fashion on Tuesday, with new hopes of ending the conflict but with hostages still in captivity and its exhausted military adding to the death toll of Palestinians and to the destruction in Gaza.
The arrival of the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot, a national and religious holiday, shut down most businesses across Israel for the day. The government delayed official remembrances of the war’s traumatic first day until Oct. 16, after the High Holiday season.
But Tuesday’s milestone was inescapable.
There were quiet gatherings at some of the kibbutzim near Gaza that suffered the most in the massacres of Oct. 7, 2023, and informal events drew participants throughout the country.
Full article, HERE from the NY Times. And I’m surprised at how honest the article is…
Two years… And thousands of lives affected directly, with an untold number who will never forget what happened two years ago yesterday…
As an ‘nonparticipating’ third party, I have to admire Israel for their restraint they have showed. I will be honest when I say I thought they would level Gaza within 6 months, salt it, and turn it into a desert again…
What has happened is that many of the ‘supporters’ are no longer supporting Hamas, thanks to the US and others who have helped defend from the almost continuous rocket and missile attacks day after day. Hezbollah is pretty much gone, the Houthi ‘rebels’ have been bombed back to the stone age (again), Iran has been taken off the table as a funder and their nuke plans set back years if not destroyed, and the world has been put on notice that Israel is willing to strike anywhere to take down the leadership of Hamas and the sponsors of terror in the mid-east.
I do believe the change in administration here has mitigated at least ‘some’ of Israel’s responses. They could have done a lot worse…
The other thing that has come out is the accuracy of the strike teams and weapons, including smart bombs and missiles. Hitting ONE apartment in a building? Nobody could do that 10 years ago… The whole building? Sure, that was easy.
The attacks on the Iranian nuke sites? Done, with ‘new’ weapons. And they weren’t nuclear. Although I do believe Israel reserves the right to go that route if they need to.
I truly hope Hamas gives the hostages back soon, as all the other players are tired of waiting and tired of being strung along. Because the ‘Palestinians’ truly have no where to go. None of the muslim countries will allow refugees in, even Egypt won’t take them. And Syria isn’t capable of supporting any who might sneak across that border, after Israel went after Hezbollah and the Syrian regime (and Assad ran to Russia with most of the country’s funds apparently).
I said yet another prayer for those still held, the families, and the families of those who died. That is all I know to do at this point.
That the other Muslim nations won’t take the Gazans says a lot.
Jordan took in the PLO refugees after the 1967 war. The PLO of course began launching terror raids into Israel, with the Israelis pursuing them back across the border. Faced with escalating conflict and the prospect of a bigger war, Jordan told Arafat and the PLO to “knock that crap off.” The PLO repaid Jordan’s kindness by launching an attack on the Jordanian government with the intent of installing themselves instead. It ended poorly for the PLO. They eventually wound up in Lebanon where they did successfully destabilize (with Iran and Hezbollah’s help) the Lebanese government spawning years of sectarian violence and a Lebanese government that still has a tenuous hold on the southern half of the country, though Beruit is no longer a war zone.
The other Arab nations aren’t about to take Palestinians in again.
A reasonable proposal I have heard is to declare Gaza a nature preserve and a public beach, no future residents permitted, and dump the survivors of the current residents in Syria.
Off topic rant removed.
They say sincere change often comes from trauma.
Have the Gazans been traumatized enough?
If allowed to stay in Gaza and outside funds are allocated to rebuild it into a resort, would they be a changed people?
Or would they revert to their indoctrinated behavior?
What else to do with them?
They can rationalize the strikes against them as part of a holy war in which their dead go straight to paradise. You can’t beat that sort of enemy in a conventional fashion.
“When there’s an argument there’s wrong on both sides.”
Hamas is a terrorist organization and has never kept, completely, any agreement. The people of Gaza voted them into power years ago. They still support them. Witness Israel offering $1,000,000 reward for help in securing one hostage with zero takers.
I’m no Israel fanboy (settler’s behavior, for example). That said, Israel will do what they need to do to survive. Why should they care about world opinion when most of the world is against them?
I suspect most of the “hostages” are corpses and Hamas doesn’t want to admit that and lose whatever leverage they provide.
Yeah, I’ve been figuring that ‘getting the hostages’ out is a sucker’s gamble, but then again I am not a policy maker.
I think Bibi has actually been able to justify a policy that has been a bit less ‘caedete eos’ than my early impulses would have been, so I think the IDF is maybe staffed with wiser heads than I.
I think the US does have some fairly insane enemies domestic who were basically cheering Hamas and cheering the murder of Charlie Kirk for precisely the same reasons.
Don’t forget poisoning the wells in addition to salting the fields.
All- Good points. Is there a right answer? I don’t know.
It’s worth noting that the uranium enrichment gear used uranium hexafluoride gas. Highly likely that the bombing cracked some of that open, flooding the underground cavities with heavy, toxic, corrosive gas. Not much salvage going on there.
Ritchie- Good point, and NOT one anybody is bringing up…interesting.