Gaza blockaded

[NotAllThere]

Now if only Egypt had opened its borders days ago and the UN had built some refugee camps in Egypt! Maybe we would get to 90%+

That area in Egypt is pretty unstable. And wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh in Cairo will probably get you slung in jail. The Egyptians don't like Palestinians much - probably why they handed the Gaza Strip over to Israel in the first place.

1.8m Afghan refugees have been chucked out of Pakistan. I wonder if there will be protests in London about that?

[vetran]

That area in Egypt is pretty unstat ble. And wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh in Cairo will probably get you slung in jail. The Egyptians don't like Palestinians much - probably why they handed the Gaza Strip over to Israel in the first place.

1.8m Afghan refugees have been chucked out of Pakistan. I wonder if there will be protests in London about that?

Seems only selective "victims" count.

Odd the Uyghur Muslims don't get support and the many other abused tribes around the world.

You would think the UN and charities would be pragmatic and save the innocents.

[NotAllThere]

From Private Eye.

Hamas Watch (from Private Eye 3 Nov 2023):

THE sheer brutality Hamas displayed against innocent people in Israel on 7 October shocked and appalled the world.

Partly this is because people cannot comprehend how any human being can carry out such acts. But had they studied Hamas’s record, they might have been less surprised: Hamas has been honing its brutality for years on another group of innocents – the people of Gaza whom it purports to protect.

Hamas may claim to want freedom for Gaza. But its actions show it is not freedom it wants but control; and it is equally prepared to torture Palestinians to achieve this.

This was clear in 2014 when Hamas used the cover of an Israeli attack to carry out a campaign of abductions, torture and unlawful killings against those it accused of “collaborating”, including Fatah supporters.

At least 23 people were extrajudicially murdered, some of whom had been in jail for years. They included Atta Najjar, a former police officer with a mental disability, who was jailed in 2009 for “collaboration”. His body was returned to his family looking, his brother told Amnesty International, “as if you’d put it in a bag and smashed it.”

The pattern has continued ever since. A 2018 Human Rights watch investigation, based on 147 interviews and a review of photographic and video evidence, medical reports and court documents, concluded that Hamas used arrest to deter and punish criticism, with torture in custody not only routine but actual Hamas government policy.

In 2021, Palestine’s Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) received 193 complaints of torture by Hamas in Gaza, but said no steps are taken to investigate this. Accounts of torture included beatings with truncheons, gun butts, hoses and wire, whipping of soles of feet and prolonged and painful stress positioning, forcing detainees to stand or sit on tiny chairs for hours or even days.

Torture sites included Internal Security’s Gaza City detention centre and a disused outpatient clinic besides Al-Shifa hospital. In 2022, a UN Human Rights Council Report accused Hamas of using excessive force against its people, who have occasionally tried to complain peacefully to their “government” about living conditions and shortages.

When, this August, the complaining turned to peaceful protest, Hamas responded with violence, restricting public access to the streets and arresting and assaulting Palestinian journalists like Ihab Fasfous, Mohammed Abdlrazeq al-Baba and Bashar Ahmed Taleb. That same week it was announced that six men were to hang for “collaboration”, the sudden escalation to death sentences looking like a clear warning to others.

While Gazans have been living under a terrorist dictatorship, with no right to complain, dissent, or, since 2006, to vote, Hamas has practiced its brutality on them, erasing its own humanity in the process. Now, in brutalising Israelis, it has turned Gazans not just into human shields, but into weapons, probably hoping that provoking their deaths by hiding among them will eventually lead to the destruction of Israel. It is as disgusting as it is cynical.

Hamas has failed its people, but we should not. All of which means the near-impossible must be achieved. Gazans must be protected, but Hamas must be held to account.

[SueEllen]

Most likely the same people giving out the casualty numbers...



Israel building anything in the West Bank is likely to cause trouble. The existing settlements are despised by the local Palestinians. they could park them in the Negev but there wouldn't be a hell of a lot for them to live on. And Egypt doesn't want a large number of disaffected refugees parked on their land either. LEbanon would be a more logical move.

Lebanon's economy has been screwed for the last few years so they don't have enough water and food.

They have a large number of refugees from Syria and other neighbouring countries so definitely don't want more Palestinians. Apparently they have the largest number of refugees per capita with 1 in every 5 a refugee.

Basically Palestinians in Gaza, of whom a large number are children, have nowhere to escape to.

[SueEllen]

That area in Egypt is pretty unstable. And wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh in Cairo will probably get you slung in jail. The Egyptians don't like Palestinians much - probably why they handed the Gaza Strip over to Israel in the first place.

1.8m Afghan refugees have been chucked out of Pakistan. I wonder if there will be protests in London about that?

No because only the well read who can keep up with this tulip have any idea what is happening to the Afghans, Ukrainians and others.

People not effected directly by any of it are getting conflict fatigue and switching of the news.

[vetran]

From Private Eye.

Hamas Watch (from Private Eye 3 Nov 2023):

makes the IRA look like amateurs who only kneecap people.

[vetran]

No because only the well read who can keep up with this tulip have any idea what is happening to the Afghans, Ukrainians and others.

People not effected directly by any of it are getting conflict fatigue and switching of the news.

About time our journalists laid this out in public and realised the Israelis are just taking the terrorists out!

[NotAllThere]

makes the IRA look like amateurs who only kneecap people.

Well, not quite as nasty as Hamas, but they did use waterboarding and other torture methods. And extra judicial killing.

[vetran]

Well, not quite as nasty as Hamas, but they did use waterboarding and other torture methods. And extra judicial killing.

NAT meet Sarcasm!

[JustKeepSwimming]

I can't say I have seen any evidence that removing Hamas will solve anything (other than improve Israel immediate security). If there isn't an active resistance to Hamas currently what evidence is there that Palestinians won't just 'elect' another extremists group?

I know people don't like to accept it, as it can come across as victim blaming, but populations tend to get the 'government' they deserve, ie if they aren't willing to fight with blood for democracy then democracy won't prevail.