A minute-by-minute reconstruction of the massacre by Earshot and Forensic Architecture found Israeli soldiers fired over 900 bullets at the aid workers, killing 15.
Drop Site is a reader-funded, independent news outlet. Without your support, we can’t operate. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation today.
Israeli soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets during the massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025—with at least eight shots fired at point blank range—according to a joint investigation by the independent research groups Earshot and Forensic Architecture. The report, based on eyewitness testimony and audio and visual analysis, shows that a number of aid workers were executed and that at least one was shot from as close as one meter away.
In Tel al-Sultan that day, Israel killed eight aid workers with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six from Palestinian Civil Defense, and a UN relief agency staffer. It immediately triggered international condemnation and was described as “one of the darkest moments” of the war by PRCS.
The Israeli military was forced to change its story about the ambush several times, following the discovery of the bodies in a mass grave, along with their flattened vehicles, and the emergence of video and audio recordings taken by the aid workers. An internal military inquiry ultimately did not recommend any criminal action against the army units responsible for the incident.
The report by Earshot and Forensic Architecture reconstructs, minute by minute, how the massacre unfolded. Using video and audio recordings from the incident, open-source images and videos, satellite imagery, social media posts, and other materials, as well as in-depth interviews with two survivors of the attack, the groups were able to digitally reconstruct the scene and events surrounding the massacre.
The investigation’s findings include:
Israeli soldiers ambushed and subjected Palestinian aid workers to a near continuous assault for over two hours even though the soldiers never came under fire.
At least 910 gunshots were documented across three video and audio recordings of the attack. The vast majority of these gunshots, at least 844, were fired over just five minutes and 30 seconds.
At least 93% of the gunshots recorded in the first minutes of the attack were fired directly towards the emergency vehicles and aid workers by Israeli soldiers. During this time, at least five shooters fired simultaneously. Witness testimonies suggest as many as 30 soldiers were present in the area.
Israeli soldiers were initially positioned on an elevated sandbank by the road, with no obstructions limiting their line of sight. The emergency lights and markings of the victims’ vehicles would have been clearly visible to the soldiers at the time of the attacks.
Israeli soldiers first maintained fixed firing positions from the elevated sandbank, then walked toward the aid workers while continuing to shoot. Upon reaching the aid workers, the soldiers moved between them and the vehicles and executed some of the aid workers at point blank range, as close as one meter away.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Israeli military conducted extensive earthworks at the site. In the days and weeks that followed, the area was further transformed by the Israeli military’s construction of the “Morag Corridor,” a security zone splitting the southern Gaza Strip, and the erection of an aid distribution site operated by the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“This seems to be a very well documented case using a number of forms of credible evidence that are cross referenced,” Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Drop Site after reviewing a detailed summary of the investigation. “It presents a very compelling case, and honestly, a very devastating one.”
The Israeli military did not respond to specific inquiries from Drop Site and instead pointed to the findings of an internal investigation published on April 20 that found “the incident occurred in a hostile and dangerous combat zone, under a widespread threat to the operating troops.” It also “found no evidence to support claims of execution,” which it called “blood libels and false accusations against IDF soldiers.”
The joint report will be released February 24 at a gathering at British parliament in Westminster hosted by the British Palestinian Committee with Earshot, Forensic Architecture, and the international humanitarian law coordinator for PRCS, Dana Abu Koash. The full report is available here.
On March 23, 2025 at 3:52 a.m., PRCS dispatched two ambulances from two different areas to the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Al-Hashashin, an area near Rafah. Israel had resumed its scorched earth bombing campaign on Gaza a few days earlier after abandoning the January 2025 ceasefire agreement.
The attack on the aid workers began at approximately 4:00 a.m. when one of the ambulances driving along Gush Katif road in Al-Hashashin came under Israeli fire. The vehicle had its emergency lights turned on at the time. Mustafa Khafaja, who was driving, lost control of the vehicle, which veered left off the road and stopped near an electricity pole. Khafaja and his colleague, Ezz El-Din Shaat, who was in the passenger seat, were both killed. A third PRCS worker, Munther Abed, who was in the back of the vehicle, threw himself to the floor of the van and survived.
After the shooting stopped, Israeli soldiers approached the ambulance and dragged Abed out of the car, beat him, and detained him at a nearby pit. Sometime later, two Palestinian civilians—a father and son from the Bardawil family—were also detained and brought to the pit. The Israeli soldiers then took the three detainees to an elevated area behind a tall concrete structure some 38 to 48 meters southeast of the ambulance, where an additional group of Israeli soldiers were positioned.
By 4:35 a.m., the second ambulance, having completed its mission in Al-Hashashin, was dispatched to search for the first ambulance, which had lost contact with PRCS headquarters at 3:55 a.m. The second ambulance was joined by two more PRCS ambulances, one belonging to Civil Defense, and a Civil Defense fire truck. The five-vehicle rescue convoy arrived at the scene of the attack of the first ambulance shortly after 5:00 a.m. All vehicles were clearly marked and had their emergency lights turned on.
A PRCS worker in one of the ambulances, Refaat Radwan, began filming on his phone as they drove to the site. His recovered videos as well as recordings of phone calls by two other aid workers at the scene to PRCS dispatch provided crucial evidence of the massacre. Forensic Architecture and Earshot’s analysis of the recordings corroborated eyewitness testimony on the positions and movements of the Israeli soldiers throughout the attack.
At 5:09 a.m., as the aid workers parked and approached the first ambulance by foot, Israeli soldiers positioned on the elevated sandbank opened fire. A digital reconstruction of the scene shows that the soldiers would have had an uninterrupted view of the arrival of the convoy. Abed, who was being detained at gunpoint on the elevated sandbank, testified that the soldiers were kneeling and aiming their weapons at the convoy as it approached.
Locations of all emergency vehicles at the incident site at 5:10 a.m. relative to Munther Abed and the Israeli soldiers who detained him. From their position, the soldiers would have been able to clearly see the convoy’s arrival with their emergency lights on. (Forensic Architecture, 2026).
The Israeli soldiers remained on the sandbank while firing continuously at the aid workers for four minutes. The soldiers then advanced towards the aid workers at a walking pace of approximately one meter per second while continuously shooting.
Echolocation of Israeli soldiers approaching the aid workers during the final 1 minute and 30 seconds. (Earshot, 2026).
Upon reaching the vehicles, the Israeli soldiers continued to fire as they walked in between the ambulances and the fire truck, shooting the aid workers at close range in execution-style killings.
At approximately 5:13 a.m., PRCS aid worker Ashraf Abu Libda called the group’s headquarters. The recording, which overlaps Radwan’s video, provided additional details. In this recording, Earshot found that at least eight gunshots were fired from positions between the emergency vehicles. One of the gunshots captured on Abu Libda’s phone call was fired from a range of one to four meters from him. The gunshots coincide with the last time Abu Libda’s voice is heard on the call, suggesting these are the gunshots that killed him.
Echolocation of Israeli soldiers as close as 1 to 4 meters from aid workers and most likely close-range execution. (Earshot, 2026).
At least 844 gunshots were fired over a period of five minutes and 30 seconds, with at least 93% of the shots fired toward the emergency vehicles. The audio ballistics analysis confirms the presence of at least five shooters—and possibly many more—firing simultaneously. The two surviving PRCS aid workers, Munther Abed and Asaad Al-Nasasra, testified that between 12 and 30 soldiers were at the scene.
“The reconstruction was jointly achieved with the two survivors of the incident, with an immersive spatial model they could walk through and amend. Together with spatial and audio analysis we established the position of the soldiers on an elevated ground with an unobstructed line of sight to the emergency vehicles. The soldiers could clearly see the aid workers, shot at them continuously and deliberately from this position and then approached to execute them one by one at close range,” Samaneh Moafi, assistant director of research at Forensic Architecture, told Drop Site. “Locating the massacre within the evolution of Israel’s campaign in Gaza shows that it was not an isolated incident but part of the genocide.”
Earshot used echolocation to analyze the audio on the recordings in order to arrive at precise estimates of the shooters’ locations. Echolocation is the process of locating the source of a sound based on an analysis of the sound’s echoes and the environment in which the sound travels. The Israeli military destroyed and cleared so many buildings in the Tel Al-Sultan area where the ambush of the aid workers took place that very few structures remained. This destruction actually strengthened Earshot’s ability to determine the positions and movements of Israeli soldiers, based on identifying the surfaces responsible for clearly distinguishable gunshot echoes. Rather than having multiple buildings reflecting the sound waves, there were only a few standing walls and the emergency vehicles themselves.
The analysis of the video and audio corroborated Al-Nasasra’s eyewitness testimony that Israeli soldiers “came down [from the sandbank], got close to [the aid workers] and shot them from close range,” and “were walking between [the aid workers] and shooting.”
“Earshot forensically analyzed over 900 gunshots fired at aid workers. It took one whole year of careful listening to reconstruct an auditory picture of what happened that dark night,” Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the director of Earshot, told Drop Site. “I am so proud that our work has corroborated the survivors’ testimony, establishing their brave accounts as accurate and reliable documentation of what occurred that day. Yet, it is the echoes of this event that continue to haunt us: the destruction and clearing of Tel al-Sultan left only three structures standing at this crime scene. While the few echoes reflecting off these buildings brought light to this crime, they have also revealed a scale of erasure of life beyond this one event.”
According to autopsy reports first reported by the Guardian, the aid worker who filmed the video—Radwan—was shot in the head, while Abu Libda and another aid worker, Muhammad Bahloul, were shot in the chest. A doctor who examined the bodies reportedly described the “specific and intentional location of shots at close range” as indicative of an “execution-style” shooting.
More than two hours after the initial attack, a clearly marked UN vehicle, a Toyota Hilux, passed by the site. Israeli soldiers fired on the vehicle, killing the driver. The UN lost contact with the vehicle at 6:00 a.m. A second UN vehicle, a minibus, arrived in the area minutes later and was brought to a stop by gunfire a little over 200 meters away. The driver was able to escape.
Between 6:55 and 7:13 a.m., Al-Nasasra made a phone call to PRCS headquarters that captured at least 42 additional gunshots and the sound of vehicle movement. The recording also captured the sound of an explosion the investigation identified as the firing of an Israeli-made Spike LR guided missile.
Following the ambush, Israeli forces crushed all eight vehicles using heavy machinery and attempted to bury them under the sand.
The body of Anwar al-Attar was found near the ambush site on March 27, and the bodies of the other 14 aid workers, all wearing identifying uniforms or volunteer vests of their respective organizations, were found in a mass grave near the site on March 30.
The 15 aid workers killed were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad al-Hila, and Raed al-Sharif with PRCS. Zuhair Abdul Hamid al-Farra, Samir Yahya al-Bahapsa, Ibrahim Nabil al-Maghari, Fouad Ibrahim al-Jamal, Youssef Rassem Khalifa, and Anwar al-Attar with Civil Defense. Kamal Mohammed Shahtout with UNRWA.
One of the survivors, Abed, was released hours after the ambush. The other survivor, Asaad, was held in Israeli custody without charge for 37 days, tortured, and interrogated in relation to the incident at the Sde Teiman detention camp, a notorious Israeli prison camp in the Negev desert, before being released on April 29.
Jonathan Whittall, a senior UN official in Palestine between 2022 and 2025, was one of team members on the ground when the mass grave was discovered on March 30 and provided evidence to Forensic Architecture and Earshot for their investigation. “Following our discovery of the mass grave, the narrative from Israeli forces shifted multiple times; we were fed several versions of a blatant lie,” Whittall told Drop Site. “The men we retrieved on Eid last year were medics. We found them in their uniforms, ready to save lives, only to be killed by Israeli forces fully aware of their protected status.” Whittall, who is now executive Director of KEYS Initiative, a political affairs and strategic advisory organization, has also contributed reporting to Drop Site News.
“This illustrates an abhorrent disregard for international law,” he continued, “where any Palestinian in an Israeli-designated evacuation zone is targeted regardless of their civilian status. It highlights the total lack of accountability under which these forces operate. International governments continue to arm and trade with a leadership accused of genocide, whose soldiers massacred medics and buried them in a grave marked by the siren light of the ambulance they destroyed.”
In the aftermath of the massacre, the Israeli military provided several conflicting versions of events to justify the killings. On March 28, after the discovery of al-Attar’s body, the Israeli military admitted that its soldiers had fired on “ambulances and fire trucks.” Three days later, after the remaining bodies were discovered in a mass grave, the Israeli military claimed that “several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals.”
After footage from Radwan’s phone was first published by the New York Times a few days later, the Israeli military backtracked on its claims that the vehicles did not have emergency signals on when Israeli troops opened fire, saying the statement was inaccurate.
The Israeli military then announced on April 20 that an internal inquiry into the incident had found the killings were caused by “several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident.”
The Israeli military said troops from the Golani reconnaissance battalion were involved in the attack. However, it said soldiers did not engage in “indiscriminate fire” during the incident, but that they opened fire on what they believed to be a “tangible threat” amid what the military called an “operational misunderstanding.” It blamed the attacks on “poor night visibility” and maintained the incident had unfolded in a “hostile and dangerous combat zone, under a widespread threat to the operating troops.” Six of the fifteen Palestinians killed, the military said, “were identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists,” but provided no evidence to support the claim.
“On the specific question of Israel justifying the attack on clearly marked medical personnel because of suspicions of membership in groups or links to groups or terrorism—because there is an affirmative duty to respect and protect medical personnel, you don’t shoot first, you protect first,” Gallagher told Drop Site. “But what this investigation reveals is that there was a shoot first policy, and that is unlawful under international law.”
As for the burial of the bodies in a mass grave, the Israeli military said in its report “it was decided to gather and cover the bodies to prevent further harm and clear the vehicles from the route in preparation for civilian evacuation. The body removal and vehicle crushing were carried out by field commanders.” It concluded, “removing the bodies was reasonable under the circumstances, but the decision to crush the vehicles was wrong. In general, there was no attempt to conceal the event.”
As a result of the investigation, the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade received a letter of reprimand for “his overall responsibility for the incident,” while the deputy commander of the Golani reconnaissance battalion involved in the incident was “dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”
The inquiry did not recommend any criminal action be taken against the military units responsible for the incident. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, Civil Defense, and the UN humanitarian agency in Gaza all rejected the Israeli military report.
“Attacks on medical personnel and those who are identified as medical personnel are patently unlawful under international law, and there is an affirmative obligation to protect medical personnel in the context of armed conflict. So the very first thing is that there’s a breach of that very clear and time honored principle of international humanitarian law,” Gallagher said. “When you zoom out and look at this in the context of the way the Israeli assault has been carried out over many months and years in Gaza and we see that there is a pattern and practice of attacks on medical personnel—similar to journalists and other groups that are explicitly and uniquely protected as classes of civilians in international humanitarian law—it raises even more questions and deep concern about the lack of accountability, because what we know is that impunity breeds repetition.”
Gallagher, who previously worked at the UN’s International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, said that a legal analysis of the massacre would find serious violations of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. “When you’re talking about grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, in particular war crimes, you have obligations, not just the possibility, but obligations, to open investigations,” Gallagher said.
Satellite imagery from the morning of the ambush shows that extensive earthworks were carried out at the incident site. The images reveal the construction of an earth berm approximately 220 meters north of the ambush location and another roughly 410 meters to the south. These two positions later functioned as checkpoints, restricting access and controlling passage along an evacuation route established that morning by the Israeli military leading toward the coastal Al-Mawasi area.
The earthworks that began shortly after the attack were used in the construction of a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “aid distribution” site, at which civilians were targeted and shot at. (Forensic Architecture, 2026).
In the days and weeks that followed, the area surrounding the incident site was further transformed by the Israeli military’s construction of the “Morag Corridor” security zone and the erection of an aid distribution site operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“On that same site of the mass grave, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation established a distribution point where desperate people were gunned down trying to access food,” Whittall told Drop Site. “Now, the U.S, under the so-called Board of Peace, plans to build a ‘New Rafah’ over this crime scene. Without meaningful accountability, ‘New Rafah’ will be a monument to impunity.”
Read the original article
Comments
Forensic Architecture is a truly remarkable work. If anybody is unfamiliar with Eyal Weizman, I would highly recommend checking out more of his work. Including the 2014 series Rebel Architecture and some of his talks. He recently did a presentation called "Conditions of Life Calculated" at the David Graeber Memorial Lecture at CIIS that I think gives a lot of insight into why the work being done at Forensic Architecture is so remarkable. He also talks about his work with David Wengrow and the Nebelivka Hypothesis based on novel archeology of ancient Ukrainian cities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfD1y7WZLpM
alternative FE: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bfD1y7WZLpM
By jcul 2026-02-256:40 The last time I came across Forensic Architecture was their report on the Beirut Port Explosion, someone posted it here on HN.
Mind blowing analysis.
https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/beirut-port-...
This is very thorough. Thanks for the direct link.
The case seems pretty clear, especially since the soldiers tried to hide all evidence.
By ignoramous 2026-02-2420:201 reply > case seems pretty clear, especially since the soldiers tried
Even if the 'soldiers' didn't, it wouldn't have mattered as the governing apparatus usually goes out of its way to protect their own militants.
Ex A:
https://www.counterfire.org/article/cold-blooded-murder-and-...Detainees executed, unarmed civilians killed in their sleep, a child, handcuffed and shot, all covered up by the chain of command – this is the testimony of more than 30 eyewitnesses, former members of UK Special Forces ... Panorama – Special Forces: I Saw War Crimes ... reported a series of cold-blooded murders by UK military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan over a period of ten years, followed by years of official cover-up.By austin-cheney 2026-02-2420:303 reply Yes and no. It does matter because it illustrates both malicious intent and evidence of guilt, as in the guilty party knew they were perpetrating a criminal action.
However, you are also correct, the IDF has little or no accountability for criminal behavior.
By bawolff 2026-02-255:57 > evidence of guilt, as in the guilty party knew they were perpetrating a criminal action.
That might be a little strong. A cover up can happen for other reasons than covering up crimes (for example covering up bad PR that doesn't raise to the level of criminality). It does seem like a crime is what happened in this case, but i don't agree with applying that logic in general.
The IDF has some accountability for criminal behavior. If you search you will find plenty of examples were soldiers were held criminally responsible for their actions. It's true that the default (and maybe the correct default) is to shield soldiers from actions taken during the course of war. This is not unique to the IDF, it's true for all western armies. Try and find me if the US pilot that bombed a hospital in Kandahar, or the US security contractors that mowed down people in the Baghdad market, were ever held criminally responsible.
And just to be clear, my position is that if there was a criminal act here the IDF should absolutely prosecute. To my understanding this is still not settled for this case, i.e. there has not been a decision to not prosecute. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is somehow different.
By SiempreViernes 2026-02-254:55 Indeed, and a fig leaf does technically provide some amount of coverage.
For an example of how big this accountability is, when 3 of the hostages escaped they were killed by the IDF and that's ok because there was no malice in the act of shooting bare chested unarmed civilians waving a white flag as they approach.
By kakacik 2026-02-258:10 Was there ever a serious prosecution and serious punishments by IDF personnel? They always make PR circus how they investigate another war crime, but nothing ever happens from what I could find.
You are correct about others but it doesn't change anything here - war crimes and atrocities are the worst of human behavior. Whataboutism shouldn't diminish outrage, and every such person should be extremely severely punished and ostracized by rest of humankind till end of their days, no exception, doesn't matter what passport they hold. Basic morality and all that.
By ignoramous 2026-02-2420:341 reply > the guilty party knew they were perpetrating a criminal action ... the IDF has little or no accountability for criminal behavior.
May be the brazenness is why they make the best Tech CXOs?
"The Israeli tank commander who has fought in one of the Syrian wars is the best engineering executive in the world. The tank commanders are operationally the best, and are extremely detail oriented. This is based on twenty years of experience — working with them and observing them." Eric Schmidt (Start-up Nation / Saul Singer et al / pg. 41)By actionfromafar 2026-02-2420:40 The tank commanders of another, bygone war also had the reputation for attention to detail. Funny how history rhymes.
I think the only defense here would be if the soldiers came up with some reasonable explanation of why they thought the vehicles were hostile. Its kind of hard to imagine, especially with shooting the follow up vehicles, but motive seems like the only unclear part where there is any potential for a defense.
One part that is really confusing, is if they knowingly intentionally targeted the ambulance because they thought they could get away with it if they destroyed the evidence, why leave witnesses alive? If you assume the motive was an intentional massacare with point blank executions, it doesn't entirely make logical sense to leave witnesses.
By 542354234235 2026-02-2514:56 The motive was pretty clear i.e. to murder aid workers helping Palestinians and assumed to be Palestinian. The report is very clear that the IDF could see the vehicle lights the entire time, making it clear they were protected aid workers. They attacked the first ambulance, the follow up ambulances, the UN truck, and the UN bus, before and after dawn, with plenty of time between. If this were a movie, there could be a clever twist to show some other motive, but in the real world, this is as clear as you get without confessions to tell you what was in their heads.
Why didn’t they murder everyone? As testimony says [0], when one of the survivors called out that his mother was Israeli, the IDF soldiers lowered their weapons and helped him up. It seems to me that these are soldiers that have decided that Palestinians are less than human, or that Palestinians will never coexist and it is “them or us”. This mindset happens in many wars, but actual incidents depend on leadership at all levels and how much it is implicitly allowed. I think their cover up actions speak the loudest to how widespread these things are. The on the ground commander clearly wasn’t worried about destroying any and all evidence or leaving witnesses. Buring everything was to make it too difficult for outsiders confirm what happened, not to prevent leadership from putting them in jail. They were counting on being protected, and they were. A letter of reprimand for the commander, and losing his position as deputy commander (not loss of rank or being kicked out of the military) is little more than a speedbump to their military careers.
[0] Page 36-37 of report
> One part that is really confusing, is if they knowingly intentionally targeted the ambulance because they thought they could get away with it if they destroyed the evidence, why leave witnesses alive? If you assume the motive was an intentional massacre with point blank executions, it doesn't entirely make logical sense to leave witnesses.
Couldn't the ability to make this very argument be a reason why?
Without the witness we probably wouldn't be having this conversation at all.
By ceejayoz 2026-02-2514:55 We probably would.
The most concrete evidence of this incident is clear video, not eyewitness testimony. It was obtained about a year ago from the dead when the grave was unearthed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...
> A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.
Intimidation tactics do not work well without someone to tell the story.
By naasking 2026-02-2513:43 I think people being murdered is pretty good intimidation frankly.
By jalapenos 2026-02-2510:44 Maybe it's like a kind of brag?
Like, it the monsters massacre people and no one's left to report on how awful it was then they kind of "lose the gloat value" to a degree?
By vibeprofessor 2026-02-2421:341 reply [flagged]
By breakyerself 2026-02-254:031 reply What's more suicidal? Wanting to reach a peaceful settlement with your neighbors or funding the radical segments of that society while preaching intolerance towards them? Because that's what the Israeli right has been doing for years.
By vibeprofessor 2026-02-2522:39 [flagged]
By basilgohar 2026-02-251:211 reply That's because it's not a war. It's a genocide. An occupied people have the right to resist their occupation. Occupiers do not have the right to prolong their occupation of said peoples. Israel is on the wrong side in all cases from its inception.
By basilgohar 2026-02-256:101 reply You're right. It wasn't under occupation, it was worse. It was an open-air prison and concentration camp.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-pr...
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/20/norman-finkelstein-gaza-...
If you're hung-up about the word occupation, then use the word under seige. Gaza was under seige the entire time you claim it was under no occupation. Israel completely controlled what went in and went out, operated a naval blockade over Gaza, and performed military operations known as "mowing the lawn" (population reduction measures) as well as shooting peaceful protestors. They literally counted calories of nutrition going to keep them barely above a starvation diet.
Nothing else you said in your reply is relevant. Israel has been occupying Gaza or worse the entire time. Typical Zionist deflection.
Ironically, your framing is the failure and your Zionism is showing. Don't defend genocide. Just don't do it.
By kakacik 2026-02-258:23 Its entirely possible to despise hamas and wishing them horrible death, while despising what state of israel was and is and will be doing there. Defenders of israel often bring the masacre of 2023 like its good enough excuse to perform another civilian masacre. Heck, you want to drag people who dare to speak out into automatic hamas supporters, thats a bit cheap trick. What about focusing on civilians here, on all sides, like a normal moral human being should do? What did those murdered kids and rest of civilians on both sides did to deserve any of this?
Yes it is a concentration camp, the very definition of it. Maybe you are mixing this with nazi extermination camps, those were a different category - then I suggest some reading on that topic.
Let me ask - how easy it was, even before current war for regular palestinian to lets say move to another part of the world? I don't mean som israeli farmers using/abusing them as extremely cheap labor, I mean normal travel. Stateless people, kept in utter poverty by design, almost malnourished, effectively forbidden to leave what looks like the definition of open prison or what say US did to its japanese population during WWII. Some digged tunnels don't change anything here.
By trelane 2026-02-253:55 [flagged]
When the first attack on an aid convoy to provoke outrage came out, I saw someone put it best: there is a difference between "war is chaos, and no matter how hard we try, some incidents regrettably occur" and "our rules of engagement are designed in such a manner to make these incidents almost certain." And the IDF... is pretty clearly in the latter category.
> I imagine most of the armchair critics here have never been in a situation where they have to make these sorts of calls. Being in an ambush in a war with an enemy that, let's say, uses "unconventional" tactics (aka war crimes) to try and kill you while vans are approaching you.
Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise, which is something that guarantees horrific civilian casualties. It's not actually requisite that soldiers have this mindset; instilling this requires training, and the fact that it seems to be so pervasive in the IDF is a sign that it's not just a criminal failure of a few soldiers but rather a core part of the IDF strategy that needs to be addressed.
The only clarity here is in the eyes of those who made their decision in advance and are cherry picking. Yes- There have been quite a few incidents but the percentage is still small. There were also many friendly fire incidents. All of these happen in every war. The difference is this war is being put under a microscope and there are powerful actors trying to push a narrative.
It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here and the consequences. Not the "instilling via training".
By kennywinker 2026-02-257:341 reply > It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here
When the bad guys use human shields, it’s on the “good guys” to somehow resist the “good guy” urge to blow the whole city up.
Hamas has killed something in the order of 800 idf soldiers during this conflict, if we exclude the ones killed on oct 7th. In that same time at least 75,000 palestinians have been killed - most of which were women and children. So, unless you’re saying this is a justified collective punishment for oct 7th, what on earth are you possibly referring to? Hamas isn’t “waging war” in any real sense.
I think he's saying that this is par for the course for asymmetric conflicts with deeply rooted insurgent groups.
So if you are going to say the handling of this conflict has more to do with Israeli training/mindset/etc and is not related to the type of conflict, do you have other armies in mind that have fought similar conflicts and done better?
Battle of Fallujah? The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s?
Before the most recent invasion of Gaza started, there was an interview with an Israeli general about the imminent invasion. And when the question came up about what lessons Israel was drawing from other urban conflicts like the Battle of Fallujah, the response was a very indignant we-don't-need-to-learn-anything. Small wonder that the IDF claims to have achieved unprecedentedly low civilian casualty ratios in their invasion of Gaza when in reality, they're commensurate with WW2 ratios and well above the urban assaults of the US's Iraq War.
By bawolff 2026-02-2517:00 > Battle of Fallujah
Which one? There was five, and they generally were pretty bloody.
For the second battle of Fallujah (seems like the one you are talking about), US estimated that most civilians had already left the city. However that is somewhat disputed with some people claiming usa used that as an excuse to claim everyone left in the city was a combatant.
To quote the guradian:
> Before attacking the city, the marines stopped men "of fighting age" from leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian's correspondent estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They leveled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population".
Another guardian quote:
> "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans."
> The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s?
So according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017... there was 200,000 killed and 5 million displaced.
To quote from the human rights section of the article "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group", which doesn't sound great.
So i think it raises the question of if the Americans were really better than the Israelis or just better at the PR game.
By kennywinker 2026-02-258:511 reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
> the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Costs of War Project
Does that sound like “par for the course”?
By that measure, every other army in every other war prior has done better.
This “war” (genocide) is not normal.
This list seems to include people who were journalists but weren't killed while acting in the capacity of a journalist (as far as i can tell). If this is how you define journalist then world war 2 was certainly much much deadlier for journalists. To put it bluntly, i have my doubts that its making an apples to apples comparison with other conflicts.
By kennywinker 2026-02-2616:551 reply The nature of journalism has changed since ww2, but the comparison isn’t ww2 vs gaza - it’s EVERY SINGLE WAR SINCE.
So unless you have some clear evidence that the definition of journalist is different in other conflicts, you’re just making excuses.
The post used the phrase "all known conflicts in the history of the world". Is world war 2 not a known conflict?
I do not know how many journalists were killed in most conflicts. I do know more than 242 were killed during world war 2, so on its face the claim seems false that it is the deadliest war for journalists in the history of the universe.
The only way their claim can possibly make sense is if they are using different definitions between wars. I'm assuming that to give them the benefit of the doubt. The only alternative explanation i can see is they are straight up lying.
I don't know enough to verify related claims, like deadliest for journalists post world war 2. However given the source seems to be blatently incorrect, i'm not really inclined to believe them on related claims.
By kennywinker 2026-02-278:25 It takes like 30s of reading to figure out their criteria: an average of 13 journalists per week. That is the number they are usung to compare conflicts. Do you know how many journalists were killed on average per week of ww2? Because unless you know, you are just denying based on vibes i guess? When I google it the number that comes up is 69 - so unless ww2 was a lot shorter than i remember, fewer than 13/week seem to have been killed - at least by the records we have.
I said that the nature of journalism has changed since ww2, because there’s a lot more citizen-journalism - which probably means there are more journalists around to be killed today than during most conflicts in history. So it doesn’t actually surprise me that the highest number would be from a conflict post-2010.
Yeah - for example Abdullah Ahmed Al-Jamal was killed because he was holding three hostages in his apartment, yet he was included in the list of "journalists killed" anyway.
By kennywinker 2026-02-2617:142 reply That’s not quite right.
There were three hostages in his father’s apartment. He was also staying there, but the home belonged to his father.
But ok, have a look at what went down that day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre
> the Israeli military killed at least 276 people and injured over 698
Or if you don’t want to believe anybody but the IDF, “The Israeli military acknowledged fewer than 100 Palestinian deaths”
In order to what? What was the cause of the murder of 276 (or 100) people?
To rescue 4 hostages.
Well, I should say more likely in retribution for the holding of those hostages… the air strikes that killed the majority of people appear to have happened AFTER they had extracted the hostages.
The 276 figure is a claim from Hamas. I don't think they regularly make up casualty numbers, but they certainly did in the Baptist Hospital case, where they initially claimed Israel killed "at least 500" before it became clear it was actually a PIJ rocket. It's highly plausible that they made another exception to their usual casualty reporting process for this embarrassing incident.
Even if we accept the claim at face value, it's just a total. It includes Hamas fighters who were trying to kill fleeing hostages and their rescuers, and anyone killed by them.
In any case, Israel has a responsibility to try to rescue its citizens that were kidnapped. The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers.
If some terrorists kidnapped several American citizens on US soil, and the US determined that any rescue plan would risk disproportionate harm to the country that kidnapped them, would you expect the US to just give up and ignore the hostages?
By kennywinker 2026-02-278:081 reply > The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers.
So, if your neighbour kidnaps a canadian citizen, and mark carney blows up your entire neighbourhood - that’s on your neighbour? Really? You believe that? Like, yeah - we would all wish our neighbour hadn’t kidnapped someone, but i’m pretty sure the moral culpability for murdering an entire neigbourhood is on the ones who sent the bombs.
But ok - the moral culpability is on the kidnappers. Let’s roll with that. So by that logic, it seems like israel is responsible for everyone who was killed on oct 7th. I mean, they were holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges prior to the attacks. That seems like, again by your logic, that it justifies the killing of israeli civilians
So pick one: oct 7th was israel’s fault and hamas is culpable for the deaths that have followed, OR oct 7th was hamas’ fault, and israel is culpable for the deaths that have followed.
Oct 7th and the deaths that followed both being on hamas is not a logically consistant position.
> if your neighbour kidnaps a canadian citizen
In this scenario it would not be some random Canadian doing the kidnapping, it would be a team of soldiers under official orders from our president. So Carney can't collaborate with Trump to surgically rescue the Canadians, because Trump was the one who had them kidnapped in the first place, and is actively holding them hostage.
In that case, yes absolutely, I'd put the blame squarely on Trump if Canadian rescuers operated in my neighborhood, and it got destroyed during the fighting as US soldiers tried to prevent the hostage rescue.
> holding thousands of palestinian civilians without charges
Every country on the planet detains suspects before formal charges are filed. But sure, we can assume Hamas had some valid casus belli, it doesn't really change things.
> it justifies the killing of israeli civilians
Nothing justifies targeting civilians. Hamas didn't incidentally harm some civilians while attempting to free prisoners, they went out of their way to systematically kill, rape and kidnap as many Israeli civilians as possible.
By kennywinker 2026-02-289:371 reply > Nothing justifies targeting civilians.
Well I am glad we can agree on that, at least. When the israeli missles were aimed at the apartment blocks, during the raid we are discussing, that was quite literally targeting civilians. And I agree it was un-justified. As was the distruction of all the hospitals in gaza. As was the attacks on clearly marked aid convoys. As was the numerous air strikes on tent cities. Because all of these are targeting civilians, quite literally putting them in the cross hairs and firing, and as you said - nothing can justify that.
> that was quite literally targeting civilians
So Israel carried out some airstrikes at the same time that Hamas fighters were trying to kill the fleeing hostages and their rescuers, but you're claiming that the two were unrelated? Israel wasn't targeting the terrorists trying to kill them, but murdering unrelated civilians just for fun in the middle of the rescue operation? Any evidence behind this extraordinary claim?
By kennywinker 2026-02-2823:35 Flagrant disregaurd for human life.
We only have their word they were “under fire”, and no idea if the shots were coming from in the building.
Like the journalist and his family who were killed. Did they have weapons, were they a threat to the soldiers in any way when they were killed? Afaik the idf doesn’t even claim any about that. For all we know they were also being held there against their will - unlikely, but why would i carry water for a gov that’s shown it doesn’t mind killed 100-300, including 3 of their own, to extract 3 people.
> There were three hostages in his father’s apartment. He was also staying there, but the home belonged to his father.
Does it matter who owns the apartment? It seems likely based on this description he could be deemed as participating.
Like in normal domestic law, if someone is kidnapped, and the fbi raids the apartment where the kidnapped person is being held, i imagine everyone living in the apartment is going to jail. Who owns the apartment isn't really relavent.
By kennywinker 2026-02-278:03 You’d turn your own father in?
Maybe he deserved jail. Maybe he didn’t. We’ll never know because he was executed by special forces.
> Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise
All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this.
I'm trying to say this dispassionately because I'm aware that people get defensive, but lets say that you have to fight some enemy but they present as the most vulnerable of a population, how can you fight them without looking awful?
Though "it's complicated" is not, by itself, a conclusion - and neither is "better training" a sufficient answer to a problem this structurally difficult."
> All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this.
So let me check this reasoning: if there was a single US soldier in the WTC towers, the 9/11 attacks were justified because the soldiers were hiding among the civilians?
Or if Hamas killed a single israelian soldier in their horrendous attacks in private homes, then it's justified because there were soldiers in those houses?
Or if the israelian reservists have their weapons at home and can be called upon directly from home to action, does that mean Iran or Hamas are justified at flattening residential buildings in Israel because those could host soldiers?
You've collapsed two meaningfully different things into one: 'soldiers exist near civilians' and 'soldiers deliberately operate from within protected populations as a systematic tactic.' Your three examples all illustrate the first. I was describing the second. These are not the same argument, and treating them as equivalent doesn't advance the discussion.
I have conflated those two, but my main point is the monstrous, one-sided destruction Israel has caused in Gaza is a clear proof Israel has gone way, way, way into the genocide territory and not just into the "hamas fighters were hiding among the civilians and after considering the international laws for such cases SOME civilians were killed".
Israel demonstrated complete disregard for human life for the sake of expediency to say in a gentle way, but in a harsher way, you could say the aftermath and details that are emerging point to malicious collective punishment.
By dijit 2026-02-259:35 The scale of the destruction doesn't retroactively validate the tactics that made it more likely. 'It got very bad' is not a justification for abandoning the framework that might have contained it.
If anything it's an argument against it.
Also trying to speak dispassionately: If your enemy presents as the most vulnerable as the most vulnerable of a population, shouldn't that be an indication that you're colonizing? That you're squeezing so hard, oppressing so vehemently that an entire people become your enemy? Or the entire people were your enemy the whole time.
By dlubarov 2026-02-2517:39 How could Israel be "colonizing" Gaza when they've repeatedly tried to hand it off to other governments? They offered it back to Egypt after the six-day war (Egypt refused), and included it in several offers which would have created a new Palestinian state, and finally failing that, unilaterally withdrew in 2005. They removed all Jewish settlements, which is literally the opposite of colonizing.
By dijit 2026-02-2510:02 Think of another conflict like that and you’ll have an answer.
the Taliban are an occupying force that do his.
By int_19h 2026-02-2523:53 Israel knows that full well. One of prominent figures of the Zionist movement wrote all this back in 1923:
https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot
"There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority."
"My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage."
"Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators."
"This is equally true of the Arabs. Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine. ... We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims, watering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want. They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies. To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system."
"All Natives Resist Colonists. There is no justification for such a belief. It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously, and which even the Papuans will never sell. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised."
"This Arab editor was actually willing to agree that Palestine has a very large potential absorptive capacity, meaning that there is room for a great many Jews in the country without displacing a single Arab. There is only one thing the Zionists want, and it is that one thing that the Arabs do not want, for that is the way by which the Jews would gradually become the majority, and then a Jewish Government would follow automatically, and the future of the Arab minority would depend on the goodwill of the Jews; and a minority status is not a good thing, as the Jews themselves are never tired of pointing out. So there is no "misunderstanding"."
"This statement of the position by the Arab editor is so logical, so obvious, so indisputable, that everyone ought to know it by heart, and it should be made the basis of all our future discussions on the Arab question. It does not matter at all which phraseology we employ in explaining our colonising aims, Herzl's or Sir Herbert Samuel's.
"Colonisation carries its own explanation, the only possible explanation, unalterable and as clear as daylight to every ordinary Jew and every ordinary Arab. Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed. "
"We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say "non" and withdraw from Zionism. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."
"In the first place, if anyone objects that this point of view is immoral, I answer: It is not true: either Zionism is moral and just ,or it is immoral and unjust. But that is a question that we should have settled before we became Zionists. Actually we have settled that question, and in the affirmative. We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not. There is no other morality."
> Upon reaching the aid workers, the soldiers moved between them and the vehicles and executed some of the aid workers at point blank range, as close as one meter away." -> we know not all the aid workers were killed. I believe two were taken alive.
This is the part that gives me the most pause. The FA report makes it sound like they went on a murder spree for the hell of it and then tried to cover up the evidence (i.e. they knew it was an ambulance and intentionally targeted it). But if that was the case, and they had no qalms about killing people, why would they leave witnesses and then release said witness a month later. If the motive was some ethnic hatred fueled revenge, why leave witnesses?
You leave witnesses because a) you know nobody will prosecute the IDF, and b) it allows people like you to question whether the clear mass murder was a mass murder.
By bawolff 2026-02-257:34 > you know nobody will prosecute the IDF
Then why bother with the cover up at all?
FWIW, to me what it looks like based on the very limited information we have, is initially the soldiers thought (for whatever reason, possibly unreasonably) the vehicle was an acceptable target. At some point it becomes clear it wasn't and they have an "oh shit" moment and engage in a cover up after the fact.
If this is actually what happened (obviously,very big if), whether or not a war crime was comitted would come down to what the soldiers knew when they attacked the vehicle (and what would have been reasonable for them to have known at that time) since war crimes do have an intent element.
Which to be very clear, even with all the above, its very plausible a war crime was comitted. But i'm not sure its certain based on the publicly available information.
By nearbuy 2026-02-258:43 > "The emergency lights and markings of the victims’ vehicles would have been clearly visible to the soldiers at the time of the attacks." -> speculative. The soldiers argued they were wearing night vision equipment and did not see either the markings or the emergency lights. This is at least plausible (as someone who has used thermal night vision equipment).
Is it plausible?
There were four ambulances and a fire truck with flashing lights on the roofs and the report says the soldiers had a clear view from the elevated sandbank. Night vision would obscure the markings, but lights still show in both thermal and image-intensified NVG. Even if they weren't sure they were ambulances, they should still be wondering about the emergency lights. And if they weren't sure, did no soldier look even briefly without night vision? This occurred during twilight, about half an hour before sunrise.
If they could see so little that they couldn't recognize 4 ambulances and a fire truck with emergency lights, and the aid workers never fired shot, why did they open fire?
It doesn't explain well why they initially said the vehicles were acting suspiciously by driving with their lights off and only changed their story after video emerged. And it doesn't explain why they shot at the "clearly marked UN vehicle" when it arrived well after sunrise.
By RobertoG 2026-02-257:54 You forgot to mention that there were two separate incidents. That's why the thing took two hours. They shoot an ambulance, I suppose you could argue that was a mistake. They check the ambulance (at that moment they had to know that there were not fighters there). Later, when more help vehicles appeared they shoot everybody in them too. That's the five minutes shooting.
You forgot to mention that they destroyed the vehicles and they buried the dead with them in the sand. And that, was not made by the same people that killed the help workers.
You forgot to mention that they lie about what happened.
You forgot to mention that, after the investigation, one of the official was demoted, and that's it.
All this seems to point, not to a mistake, but to a pattern of behavior, in my opinion. Personally, I'm done with the 'mistakes', like blocking baby formula from entering Gaza and all that.
I don't know anything about how things work in situations like this, but logic would lead me to think a convoy of aid workers wouldn't be returning fire so shooting at them with all the shots coming from the IDF side might indicate some sort of mistake quite early in the encounter. The fact they carried on shooting for 5 minutes is either a signal that they knew and just didn't care, or that they're some of the worst trained soldiers imaginable.
By bawolff 2026-02-257:50 I don't really think that follows.
5 minutes is a really short period of time, i can easily believe that a convoy of combatants might not return fire in that time period, especially if taken by surprise at night and the people shooting are under cover and far away so its not immediately clear where to even return fire to.
> We know that the soldiers lied about some of the facts and some have been disciplined and removed from command.
Removed from command for killing aid workers point blank? That seems like a light wrap on the wrist, not commensurate with the severity of the deed, no?
By YZF 2026-02-256:43 There is no actual evidence that they killed people blank point knowing they were aid workers. As I mentioned references an article from the Guardian as "proof" of that where even the Guardian acknowledges this is not known.
Removing from command is a pretty serious penalty as far as the military goes. Yes, it is not a criminal punishment but that action was taken "out of the loop" of the investigation towards criminal charges.
By bawolff 2026-02-256:07 > Removed from command for killing aid workers point blank?
But we don't know that that was the reason they were removed from command. E.g. if they failed to cooperate with the investigation but the investigators didnt find enough evidence charge them with something, then removal sounds like an appropriate choice.
By moxifly7 2026-02-258:25 Do you want to comment on the point where the IDF presumably realised what happened and decided to (physically) bury the evidence, and then gaslight the world until video evidence emerged?
I think you're being a bit too forgiving to what's become a clear documented pattern of behaviour during this genocide [1]
> That the anti-Israelis are going to latch on it as proof that Israel is evil is an unfortunate side effect.
Defenders of Israel always try to put a label on us: anti-Semites, anti-Iaraelis etc. You are trying to make it seem like this was some kind of isolated incident, an unfortunate consequence of the war. It wasn't: Gaza is in ruins, Israel continues ethnic cleansing in West Bank all while gaslighting everyone who opposes it. Israel is evil.
By assaddayinh 2026-02-255:49 [dead]
By johnmaguire 2026-02-257:21 > So this label is not accurate? You are not anti-Israel but rather pro-Israel?
This is a form of splitting or black-and-white thinking and it's not rational. If doesn't make you anti-Semitic to refuse to defend Israel with every breath as they commit a genocide against a people under their steward.
By tsimionescu 2026-02-257:471 reply > Gaza is in ruins because it attacked Israel.
Gaza has been under Israeli occupation for 50+ years. It didn't "attack Israel", it attacked its occupiers, it is an occupied part of Israel itself, de facto.
> As to the Israeli policy in the west bank I generally do not support it but it's mostly only tangentially related.
It is much more than tangentially related. It shows that the Hamas attacks was mostly just a pretext, and that the Israeli government and some part of the population is going to attack or steal land from Palestinians regardless of any provocation. If there were no ongoing oppression in the West Bank, you could maybe make a case that the razing of Gaza is really strictly a reaction to the October 7th attack. But that is an absurd position when you look at the ongoing and accelerating oppression happening in the West Bank, despite no provocation motive there.
> If the Palestinians had been serious about a peaceful win-win solution we wouldn't be here.
If the Israeli government had been serious about democracy and had any acceptance of peaceful coexistence, they wouldn't be occupying these territories in the first place, and oppressing and refusing to extend citizenship rights to the people inside them.
You can invent your own version of what the Israeli government wants, and it sounds nice. But Netanyahu has been clear: his life's work has been to prevent any chance of a two-state solution ever being reached. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are even more extreme, and have been quite clear that their goal is to get rid of what they consider sub-humans living in these territories. Herzog has been clear that he considers that the people of Gaza are collectively responsible for the October 7th attack, making the razing of Gaza at least a clear case of collective punishment. Members of the Knesset have been much more virulent. What the heads of colonist movement say goes even further beyond that.
This version of the world in which any major Israeli political force has any intention whatsoever of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian people is completely fictitious, and not supported by any public statements any of them make.
If you are seriously claiming the attack on Gaza was not a reaction to October 7, you need to explain why Gaza was not attacked in the 20 years prior to Oct 7, but was attacked shortly after it. If you think that Israel always intended to occupy Gaza, you also need to explain why they withdrew from it in 2003.
By tsimionescu 2026-02-2515:11 I'm claiming that October 7th was a pretext. If October 7th hadn't happened, they would have done the exact same thing with some other occasion (and they could always provoke some kind of attack from Gaza by killing a few people with no reason, as they have periodically done for the last 30 years).
And the reasoning for why now and not in 2003 is simple. In 2003, they had a much weaker international position - USA leadership was slightly less zionist, and the Arab states around them were much more belligerent towards Israel, and would have likely intervened directly at that time. Israel itself was also much weaker militarily - it has only increased its military spending in all the time since. And finally, a much smaller percentage of the Israeli population in 2003 was actively rooting for ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, especially since the population had been less exposed to the violent anti-Palestinian propaganda, and that propaganda itself had been less rabid.
> you need to explain why Gaza was not attacked in the 20 years prior to Oct 7
Is this a joke?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2012_Gaza%E2%80%93Israel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Gaza_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2018_Gaza%E2%80%93Isr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2019_Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2019_Gaza%E2%80%93Isr...
(and another dozen or so in the list on Wikipedia)
> If you think that Israel always intended to occupy Gaza, you also need to explain why they withdrew from it in 2003.
I would note that the current PM of Israel resigned in protest when that happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/international/middleeast/...
By dash2 2026-02-2718:35 I’m aware of those times but none of them are comparable to the most recent war.
I don’t think your point about Netanyahu contradicts mine. I was talking about Israeli policy, not what he would have preferred that policy to be.
By kakacik 2026-02-258:26 You keep deleting and entirely rewriting your posts here, so posting something so its not lost (own your opinions and don't be ashamed of them, how else you want to discuss this?) :
> It was not any of these things. It was not an open air prison or a concentration camp. That's the truth. Both these accusations are cheap propaganda that doesn't stand the most cursory fact checking. Look into how many people traveled to and from Gaza a year. Check out the vast tunnel network and rocket arsenal Hamas manged to build. That Hamas preferred to smuggle CNC machines and lathes and explosives from Egypt instead of food for the Gazan population is on them.
> Hamas took over Gaza by force, killing their Palestinian brothers, tossing them from roof tops. Israel just responded to Hamas' war on it. You know, rockets and such. All along Gaza had a border with Egypt which Israel did not control.
> Don't defend Hamas. Just don't do it.
Its entirely possible to despise hamas and wishing them horrible death, while despising what state of israel was and is and will be doing there. Defenders of israel often bring the masacre of 2023 like its good enough excuse to perform another civilian masacre. Heck, you want to drag people who dare to speak out into automatic hamas supporters, thats a bit cheap trick. What about focusing on civilians here, on all sides, like a normal moral human being should do? What did those murdered kids and rest of civilians on both sides did to deserve any of this?
Yes it is a concentration camp, the very definition of it. Maybe you are mixing this with nazi extermination camps, those were a different category - then I suggest some reading on that topic.
Let me ask - how easy it was, even before current war for regular palestinian to lets say move to another part of the world? I don't mean som israeli farmers using/abusing them as extremely cheap labor, I mean normal travel. Stateless people, kept in utter poverty by design, almost malnourished, effectively forbidden to leave what looks like the definition of open prison or what say US did to its japanese population during WWII. Some digged tunnels don't change anything here.
By Daishiman 2026-02-254:42 > That the anti-Israelis are going to latch on it as proof that Israel is evil is an unfortunate side effect. There is never a clean war and certainly not the kind of war that has been fought in Gaza.
That and the abundant evidence of genocidal intent in Gaza and the explicit ethnic cleansing of the West Bank with full support of the Israeli society is the reason why it is evil. This incident is one of literal hundreds.
By igravious 2026-02-259:55 The reason your comments are being flagged is because you are defending the patently indefensible.
Do you currently serve or have you over the last two-and-a-half-years served in the IDF (or one of its supporting directorates) or do you currently work or have you over the last two-and-a-half-years worked in one of the Israeli intelligence agencies?
I ask this because you admit to having used thermal night vision equipment, you know what is being discussed in Hebrew-language Israeli media; and you call your interlocutors armchair critics implying you do more than just sit in an armchair. In the interests of full disclosure -- are you a neutral third-party or do you have skin in the game?
By proshno 2026-02-258:31 [dead]
By scrollop 2026-02-257:14 Nausea inducing attempt at whitewashing.
Soldiers vs aid workers, and you're defending the murderers, and propagating a particular stereotype, thus further hindering your cause.
Can't tell if this is due to a lack of self insight, institutionalised delusion or cold hearted intentional weaponisation in a self declared war.
The team involved in this analysis, Forensic Architecture, have a pretty decent youtube channel showing how they do things: https://www.youtube.com/@forensicarchitecture1967/videos
By cyberdick 2026-02-254:23 [flagged]
By richardfeynman 2026-02-2423:222 reply [flagged]
can you provide that history? the best I can find is a single story where they incorrectly reported four children as dead, which I can only really find being discussed in reddit comments. surely if they have a 'documented history of being wrong' you're referring to something more material?
By darig 2026-02-251:58 [dead]
This seems pretty damning.
By denkmoon 2026-02-252:08 Depends how much you weight you place on 'anti-Israel NGO'. Assessing for myself by simply watching the content, I do not find it objectionable. Referring to what is happening in Gaza as 'ethnic cleansing' is not biased language, it is calling a spade a spade. IMO.
By austin-cheney 2026-02-252:031 reply I skimmed through that page but did not notice anything remotely negative.
By jaimex2 2026-02-252:13 [flagged]
The Wikipedia page for ngo-monitor.org is quite revealing:
> NGO Monitor is a right-wing organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO (non-governmental organisation) activity from a pro-Israel perspective.
By richardfeynman 2026-02-252:411 reply [flagged]
Huh. You, a comment earlier: "They also have a documented history of being wrong."
Care to "refute the claims" in the linked report instead of attacking the messenger?
Even the IDF had to admit it happened when the video came out. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...
By richardfeynman 2026-02-255:123 reply [flagged]
By JasonADrury 2026-02-2519:52 >- Headlin eexaggeration. "point blank range" reads like the whole event was muzzle-close. In the report it’s basically "8 shots from between vehicles" + one inferred 1–4m shot. That’s not killed point blank.
I'm sure all those distances are well below the point blank range of the weapons used by the IDF soldiers.
By ceejayoz 2026-02-2515:07 None of these are refutations.
For example:
> Overconfident negatives: no exchange of fire is a strong claim based on limited recordings. Absence of audible return fire in a few clips isn’t proof.
> - Quick search reveals names of 15 dead are PRCS: Mustafa Khafaja; Ezz El-Din Shaat; Saleh Muammar; Refaat Radwan; Muhammad Bahloul; Ashraf Abu Libda; Muhammad al-Hila; Raed al-Sharif. Civil Defense: Zuhair Abdul Hamid al-Farra; Samir Yahya al-Bahapsa; Ibrahim Nabil al-Maghari; Fouad Ibrahim al-Jamal; Youssef Rassem Khalifa; Anwar al-Attar. UNRWA: Kamal Mohammed Shahtout.
Even the IDF itself won't go this far in trying to muddle the waters.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-85076...
"The IDF did not use the six Hamas terrorists who were wearing dual hats, as medics and terrorists, as an excuse for the mistakes made in the episode, given that the IDF forces involved did not know whether they were Hamas – and when the soldiers got up close to them, they found that they were unarmed."
By Arainach 2026-02-256:53 None of those things is "a history of getting things wrong". You've failed to link to any evidence criticizing their past investigations.
By King-Aaron 2026-02-252:372 reply [flagged]
By richardfeynman 2026-02-252:401 reply [flagged]
By OsrsNeedsf2P 2026-02-252:45 The problem GP is the claims and the messenger are the same in this case. I have now spent 15 minutes trying to validate your claims and can't find anything substantial. It's a waste of reader's time.
By BurningFrog 2026-02-252:48 [flagged]
With a specificity of the number of shots and the spatial reconstruction of the scene, there's some impressive uses of tech to bolster reporting:
>A digital reconstruction of the scene shows that the soldiers would have had an uninterrupted view of the arrival of the convoy.
>The reconstruction was jointly achieved with the two survivors of the incident, with an immersive spatial model they could walk through and amend. Together with spatial and audio analysis we established the position of the soldiers on an elevated ground with an unobstructed line of sight to the emergency vehicles.
By NicuCalcea 2026-02-2419:412 reply Forensic Architecture, the people who did the spatial reconstruction, have been around for a while. You can see more examples of their investigations here: https://forensic-architecture.org/
By netsharc 2026-02-2421:42 What a depressing portfolio...
Their reconstruction of the Beirut Port explosion was incredible though: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/beirut-port-...
By lilytweed 2026-02-2420:45 Forensic Architecture are great. I remember their work being very hot in the international art scene around ~2018 (when they were nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize, among others - https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/turner-prize-2...).
Not sure if they're still fêted as artists or have moved away from that label. I still find their approach completely mesmerizing nevertheless.
By LorenPechtel 2026-02-2423:44 * * *
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2422:181 reply [flagged]
> They took a witness…
And the satellite photos showing the scene, and the cell phone video showing the shooting...
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2423:151 reply From the report:
> The report by Earshot and Forensic Architecture reconstructs, minute by minute, how the massacre unfolded. Using video and audio recordings from the incident[1], open-source images and videos[2], satellite imagery[3], social media posts[4], and other materials[5], as well as in-depth interviews with two survivors of the attack[6], the groups were able to digitally reconstruct the scene and events surrounding the massacre.
So out of multiple "sources", some of which aren't even mentioned ("other materials"?), only the first one is actually from the scene. Sources 2 through 5 are not from the actual scene. The "interviews" are eye witness accounts which are extremely unreliable in this context, especially in a gunfight in the dark.
I don't know. Doesn't seem all that high-tech impressive or even reliable to me. There's also a huge problem with the team conducting this report being consistently biased in their terminology, having team members with titles like "activist", and having researchers from Ramallah and other places who are clearly a side in the conflict.
I will be glad to see a neutral, journalistic research of this incident trying to actually get to the truth and determine if there were hamas militants in the convoy, rather than see some self proclaimed activists play with google maps.
You can see the video at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr....
Decide for yourself if the initial Israeli claims that it was an unmarked, unlit convoy check out. Only need to see the first few seconds, if you don't wanna hear all the shooting and dying.
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2423:391 reply I was addressing the "digital reconstruction", replying to what you said about satellite images "showing the scene" (which is wrong), not claims on whether or not emergency light was on. It would be appreciated if you actually replied to my comment.
The satellite images start on page 39 of the report, showing the cover-up efforts.
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2423:552 reply Sorry to nitpick here, but using satellite from literally a different time cannot be part of the reconstruction of the events they appear to be showing in the post. So, this is just one of numerous small but misleading details. The actual reconstruction is not an incredible feat of technology, they have very little work with and have to lean heavily on eye witness accounts from people trying to make it through a gunfight at night time. This wouldn't pass any scrutiny by a real publication which is probably why it's on their blog and nowhere else.
By glenstein 2026-02-2514:50 >but using satellite from literally a different time cannot be part of the reconstruction of the events they appear to be showing in the post.
I'm struggling to understand why you think satellite data "cannot" be part of a scene reconstruction. Satellite data establishes things like distance, field of view, and clarifies what kinds of details would plausibly be known to the soldiers at the scene and what interpretations of events are more or less plausible. Geography of a landscape only changes over the scale of 100,000 years or more, over the time scales involved here satellite data is consistent.
The satellite shows the cover-up.
The shooting is on video, and admitted to by the IDF. After a while, when it was dug out of the grave.
Again, the video is available, from the very real publication The New York Times.
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2513:231 reply > The satellite shows the cover-up.
The satellite shows something from a time after the events which were recreated and is therefore not relevant to the "digital recreation" which is what the post is about.
Also, there is absolutely zero proof it was a coverup as multiple explanations for this were given. Sure you may choose to believe what you will. But the right way to put this, if you're truly neutral and looking for the truth, is that the satellite imagery shows a later occurance where the vehicles were uncovered, several reasons for this were suggested, and a coverup is also possible, but couldn't be verified with any factual data.
“the examination identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”
“The deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion will be dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”
Sure seems like the IDF thinks someone covered shit up.
By magic_hamster 2026-02-2518:171 reply Once again, no. Nowhere does it say the intent was to cover it up. Failure to portray the situation accurately can be a result of several factors, like participating soldiers being in recovery and not able to fully describe the events, misunderstanding, failing to prioritize this event, or just incompetence. It's fair the deputy commander was let go, but this isn't an admission of a cover up.
I'd appreciate if you stopped portraying events in a biased manner and presenting speculation as fact. This is exhausting and I'm losing interest.
By ceejayoz 2026-02-2519:03 > I'd appreciate if you stopped portraying events in a biased manner and presenting speculation as fact.
This is a really wild statement from someone who claimed the US doesn't give Israel military aid.
