Israel’s military began a heavy aerial bombardment of Gaza after nightfall on Friday and announced that it is “expanding” its ground operations into the territory—but did not declare a full-scale ground invasion that has been expected for weeks.Internet and phone service in Gaza has been mostly, if not entirely, cut off amid the bombing. The International Committee of the Red Cross cannot reach its medical personnel. A Washington Post reporter said the paper cannot reach its colleagues, either.S

Some people, communicating via satellite phones, have described the attack as the “heaviest bombardment yet,” according to independent journalist Sharif Kouddous.

“People can’t call ambulances or civil defense. We are being bombed in an unprecedented manner,” said an unidentified journalist at a Gaza hospital, according to a translation by The Nation’s Palestinian correspondent, Mohammed El-Kurd. “The sky around us just lights up [with explosions], and no one knows what’s going on.”

    • Why9@lemmy.worldEnglish
      204·
      1 year ago

      You seem to be confused. I’ll help you understand. It’s a matter of perspective:

      For Israel, this ‘invasion’ has nothing to do with Hamas. They were just waiting for a reason to seize more land, and this was the perfect opportunity to get the international community behind them. War crime upon war crime under the pretext of defense. Calls for a ceasefire will be ignored because this is their best chance in decades to take a sizeable chunk of Gaza.

      For Hamas, the constant, near century-long murdering of innocent men, women and children is causing the survivors of those attacks to take up arms in anger and fight back. They’re not getting a proper education. A Palestinian child born in the early 2000s has already survived 5 wars by now. Hamas is their only vocation. Yes, they’re terrorists to us (sitting in our armchairs and engaging in backseat politics from the comfort of our homes), but not to the Palestinian people who seem to be “shielding” them. No one in Palestine is blind to the real terrorists, i.e. Israel.

      This is a land grab pure and simple, and Israel is prepared to dig deep.

        • Why9@lemmy.worldEnglish
          72·
          1 year ago

          but you meant that Israel’s real purpose for invading Gaza is not to stomp out Hamas.

          I mean, kind of?

          The ultimate goal is to have all of Palestine become Israel, and have no more Palestinians live here - have them die, resettle in Egypt, or have other Arabian or European nations take in the refugees. They don’t want Palestinians sharing the land, when in reality the Palestinians were forced to share their land with Israel. After this they would have a complete patch of land (formerly the whole of Palestine) belong entirely to them. That’s the goal.

          Hamas is Netenyahu’s greatest gift from Palestine. If Palestine never retaliated, no one would ever be able to justify Israel’s terrorism (raiding innocent settlements, evicting people who have lived there for 10+ generations, saying “well if I don’t steal your home, someone else will”). With Hamas as a retaliatory force, they’ve been able to convince the world through incendiary and dehumanising language that Hamas are terrorists. IDF’s recent actions have been deemed “acceptable” by the world because they are retaliating and defending themselves from a Hamas attack, not taking into account that the Hamas attack itself was a retaliation for years upon years of Israeli attacks.

          When Hamas retaliates, they can use this brand of excessive force, where they bomb entire neighborhoods for the possibility of killing some Hamas members. Somehow the world is watching on - America says Israel is allowed to continue to defend itself, when that’s clearly far beyond what they’re doing now.

          If some Hamas soldiers die in the process, then so be it! Israel definitely does not want to eliminate all of Hamas until they have all of Palestine though, since they need an enemy to make their war legit, but at the same time, it’s impossible to eliminate Hamas without Palestine, because Hamas is comprised of untrained, uneducated kids who have seen nothing but war since they were children.