2023 Israeli-Gazan War

[Albany Rifles]

Safe to say the potential Israel-Saudi normalization agreement is dead?

I would say on pause for now.

[statquo]

I would say on pause for now.

Are the Israelis going to let the Iranians off the hook?

[TopHatter]

I thought Israel withdrew from Gaza years ago.

Assuming there is a deeper plan here I would have thought the Israel-Saudi agreement, Iran trying to boost its support outside its Shia base & possibly some HAMAS attempt to destablize the PA in the West Bank might be involved.

Honestly don't know one way or the other. It's also hypothesized that this was timed to destroy the normalization of relations with the Saudis.

What a f--king mess

[TopHatter]

This Will Be a Pyrrhic Victory for Hamas
Israel could go much further than it has in the past in responding to the group’s attacks.



In the hours following Hamas’s large-scale surprise attack on Israel early this morning, Israelis on social media quickly dubbed the day a “second Yom Kippur”—referring to the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria in 1973—or an “Israeli 9/11.” Not since the 1947–49 Arab-Israeli War had Palestinian or Arab forces captured Israeli villages.

Hamas executed a stunning military surprise, breaching the Israeli border in multiple ways and attacking more than 20 Israeli population centers, as well as military bases. Militants kidnapped dozens of Israelis—apparently including children and the elderly—and captured military personnel. Israeli social media and news outlets filled with calls for help from families in southern Israeli towns occupied by Hamas, sheltering in their homes as armed terrorists went door-to-door. The failure of Israel’s intelligence and preparedness is second only to that in 1973.

But this Hamas victory might prove Pyrrhic. In fact, Hamas itself might have been surprised by the extent of its initial success. The trauma in Israel today should give pause to those thinking that Israel will simply acquiesce to a short tit for tat. As bad as things have been in Gaza in the past two decades—and they have been terrible—the coming weeks could prove even worse.

Israel will now likely go to great lengths to hunt down those involved. The Israel Defense Forces have already begun bombarding the Gaza Strip. Once they finish clearing Israeli towns of Hamas militants, they will turn their focus in earnest toward Gaza.

The government will feel immense pressure to send ground troops into the Gaza Strip, perhaps even to end the decade-and-a-half-long bloody and stifling stalemate with Hamas and topple the group militarily. Israel has refrained from doing so to date in part because it would be an extremely bloody affair. Israel has had no answer to the question of what might replace Hamas, and still doesn’t. Yet the Israeli public will demand decisive action, including ground operations, even if these again fall short of a complete takeover of the Strip.

Israeli sensitivity to POWs and MIAs is world-record-setting. The current Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was himself released from an Israeli prison with more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Sinwar now holds dozens of Israelis. The Israeli government faces a conundrum: Enter with force and risk many more Israeli casualties, both military and civilian. Refrain from it, and find yourself at the mercy of a terrorist organization on your border. Freeing all Hamas and Islamic jihad operatives from Israeli prisons, as these organizations demand, would be difficult for the Israeli government to agree to. Israel might eventually try to negotiate, or it might embark on risky rescue operations inside the Gaza Strip with the best-case outcome being only partial success.

Israel’s foes to the north shouldn’t overlook this moment either. In 2006, less than three weeks after Shalit was captured and taken prisoner in Gaza, Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel’s northern border, starting a bloody war that lasted more than 30 days and brought terrible damage to Lebanon. Israel’s northern neighbor, already suffering a devastating economic collapse, should hope that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, does not make the same mistake now. Because Israel is feeling cornered and under grave threat, its response might be harsher than Hezbollah imagines, especially in an already reeling Lebanon.

The United States has a difficult but vital role to play. Israel and Hezbollah have no direct contact. To help contain this deadly situation, Washington could make clear to Nasrallah the price he would pay for intervening. President Joe Biden has already publicly warned “against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation.”

Hezbollah and Hamas are not Egypt or Syria. Israel doesn’t face an existential threat from these groups, despite the horror Hamas inflicted today. In that sense, the current warfare is not remotely a repeat of 1973. Yet the psychological effect of these attacks, the public outrage already emerging at the authorities who failed to prevent it, the sense of military blunder—all of these factors are reminiscent of the trauma of that war, exactly 50 years and a day ago. And although not as audacious or sophisticated an attack as 9/11 was, the death toll, relative to Israel’s size, is comparable.

Today’s attack resembles these prior attacks in another way too: Israel is in a genuine state of war—not merely one more round of Israel-Hamas fighting. The psychological impact of these attacks creates political cover, and political demand, for Israel to go much further than it has in the past, to be willing to pay and to exact prices it has previously stopped short of.

These attacks are uniting Israelis—temporarily, of course—after years of growing division, allowing the government more room to maneuver aggressively if it so chooses. The massive demonstrations in the country in recent months have now been halted, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul Israel’s democratic institutions will likely have to wait. Reservists have shown up for duty by the thousands, including many who had refrained from volunteering in recent months in protest of the government’s radical agenda.

A popular theory holds that Israelis compromise only after being attacked, the prime example being 1973, when Israel reached a peace agreement with Egypt in return for giving up the whole Sinai Peninsula. In truth, because Israelis are often attacked, this argument is overdetermined: Any compromise can be retroactively explained by a prior attack.

The current situation might prove, not for the first time, something else entirely: If you convince Israelis that they are in a fight for their lives, for the lives of their families, they will fight. And Israel remains far stronger than its enemies, today’s debacle notwithstanding.
__________

[Monash]

I think the Saudi-Israel normalization is central to these attacks.

A normalization there may be the first domino to fall which will a) sideline further normalization and b) and hinder Iran's goals in the area.

It may not. This time at least its pretty clear that the Hamas was the one who pulled the trigger first and pulled it hard! There won't be any prevaricating over who started this particular round of violence. Oh the usual talking heads will try trying to justify or excuse Hamas's attack but only the most delusional speaker will try to claim that this time Israel initiated it. So as long as the Saudis issue public statements calling for an end to hostilities and the return of all hostages yarda, yarda, plus keep private LOC with Israel open I don't think either side will want to reverse course, if only because they know that's what Iran want's.

[Monash]

Trying to make Gaza untenable for the Israel, would be my guess.

I don't know how untenable it's going to get for the Israeli's but I can guarantee the strip is going to get pretty untenable for the Hamas and the Palestinians within oh, say the next 72 hours or so. When the dust settles in Gaza after this there won't be two bricks left standing on top of one another.

Normally BTW my position on Israeli/Palestinian situation can more or less be summed as 'Not my circus, not my monkeys' but this could spill out into a wider much conflict.

I half expect that Hezbollah, might try to get in on the act and add their 10c worth to the carnage. Not out of any sympathy for Hamas of course but for fear of being seen as 'weak' or inept for failing to take advantage of the opportunity. There has to be pressure Hezbollah's leadership right now to do something and prove the organization is a force to be reckoned with, especially with Israeli attention focused on Hamas. And if they do act? Then Israel might well decide put the Assad regime in Syria on the menu as well.

[Bigfella]

I would say on pause for now.

Might depend on the attitude of the Palestinean Authority. If the Sauds can persuade them to get onboard it might be an opportunity for everyone to get rid of HAMAS. Maybe if Israel can sufficiently crush them a deal can be struck putting the PA in charge of Gaza with Saudi money backing them.

Just spitballing, but stranger things have happened.

[Goatboy]

It may not. This time at least its pretty clear that the Hamas was the one who pulled the trigger first and pulled it hard! There won't be any prevaricating over who started this particular round of violence. Oh the usual talking heads will try trying to justify or excuse Hamas's attack but only the most delusional speaker will try to claim that this time Israel initiated it. So as long as the Saudis issue public statements calling for an end to hostilities and calling for the return of all hostages yarda, yarda, and keep private LOC with Israel open I don't think either side will want to reverse course, if only because they know that's what Iran want's.

Gaza wasn't some independent nation like Ukraine circa Feb 2022, it was an entity that considered itself justifiably fully sovereign except for the "interfering restrictions" placed on it by another sovereign: Israel. This isn't a partisan analysis, this is a description of fact without regard to culpability. If you say Hamas was the one who pulled the trigger, I might retort with a slightly strawman point: who in the Palestinian West Bank "pulled triggers" to justify the cancellation of an independent Palestinian West Bank despite no Hamas level attacks on Israelis in the West Bank by Palestinians? No car bombs, nor rockets, but still Israeli settlers do what they do?

Hamas is not justified in attacking by any measure, but I don't see Israel giving the relatively peaceful Palestinians in the West Bank any suffrage as a counterpoint to their peaceful ways compared to their brethren in Gaza.

Anyone else see Israel doing a damn thing to figure out a solution that doesn't involve endless occupation of Palestinians in the Levant regardless if they're peaceful or not? I don't.

[Monash]

Gaza wasn't some independent nation like Ukraine circa Feb 2022, it was an entity that considered itself justifiably fully sovereign except for the "interfering restrictions" placed on it by another sovereign: Israel. This isn't a partisan analysis, this is a description of fact without regard to culpability. If you say Hamas was the one who pulled the trigger, I might retort with a slightly strawman point: who in the Palestinian West Bank "pulled triggers" to justify the cancellation of an independent Palestinian West Bank despite no Hamas level attacks on Israelis in the West Bank by Palestinians? No car bombs, nor rockets, but still Israeli settlers do what they do?

Hamas is not justified in attacking by any measure, but I don't see Israel giving the relatively peaceful Palestinians in the West Bank any suffrage as a counterpoint to their peaceful ways compared to their brethren in Gaza.

Anyone else see Israel doing a damn thing to figure out a solution that doesn't involve endless occupation of Palestinians in the Levant regardless if they're peaceful or not? I don't.

Not really the point of my post though is it? Sorry but it seems to me that it actually falls more under the heading something I mentioned in another post. Specifically my reference to 'not my circus, not my moneys'. While I fully recognize the validity of your opinions usually? This is the point where someone else would immediately jump in and offer exactly the opposite opinion. Me? I have better things to do than watch while other people butt heads all day long.

[Versus]

Gaza and Hamas are history after this.

[Versus]

Gaza wasn't some independent nation like Ukraine circa Feb 2022, it was an entity that considered itself justifiably fully sovereign except for the "interfering restrictions" placed on it by another sovereign: Israel. This isn't a partisan analysis, this is a description of fact without regard to culpability. If you say Hamas was the one who pulled the trigger, I might retort with a slightly strawman point: who in the Palestinian West Bank "pulled triggers" to justify the cancellation of an independent Palestinian West Bank despite no Hamas level attacks on Israelis in the West Bank by Palestinians? No car bombs, nor rockets, but still Israeli settlers do what they do?

Hamas is not justified in attacking by any measure, but I don't see Israel giving the relatively peaceful Palestinians in the West Bank any suffrage as a counterpoint to their peaceful ways compared to their brethren in Gaza.

Anyone else see Israel doing a damn thing to figure out a solution that doesn't involve endless occupation of Palestinians in the Levant regardless if they're peaceful or not? I don't.

There is no solution. They would behave the same regardless of what Israel does or not. Its the nature of their value system and their core belief and nothing can change that. I got some grim handy work from Hamas, same as Bosnia and same as Kosovo. They are posting it on facebook. It's no use, no matter what anyone thinks, these things cannot be changed. Like it or not, but that is reality.

[Versus]

This Will Be a Pyrrhic Victory for Hamas
Israel could go much further than it has in the past in responding to the group’s attacks.



In the hours following Hamas’s large-scale surprise attack on Israel early this morning, Israelis on social media quickly dubbed the day a “second Yom Kippur”—referring to the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria in 1973—or an “Israeli 9/11.” Not since the 1947–49 Arab-Israeli War had Palestinian or Arab forces captured Israeli villages.

Hamas executed a stunning military surprise, breaching the Israeli border in multiple ways and attacking more than 20 Israeli population centers, as well as military bases. Militants kidnapped dozens of Israelis—apparently including children and the elderly—and captured military personnel. Israeli social media and news outlets filled with calls for help from families in southern Israeli towns occupied by Hamas, sheltering in their homes as armed terrorists went door-to-door. The failure of Israel’s intelligence and preparedness is second only to that in 1973.

But this Hamas victory might prove Pyrrhic. In fact, Hamas itself might have been surprised by the extent of its initial success. The trauma in Israel today should give pause to those thinking that Israel will simply acquiesce to a short tit for tat. As bad as things have been in Gaza in the past two decades—and they have been terrible—the coming weeks could prove even worse.

Israel will now likely go to great lengths to hunt down those involved. The Israel Defense Forces have already begun bombarding the Gaza Strip. Once they finish clearing Israeli towns of Hamas militants, they will turn their focus in earnest toward Gaza.

The government will feel immense pressure to send ground troops into the Gaza Strip, perhaps even to end the decade-and-a-half-long bloody and stifling stalemate with Hamas and topple the group militarily. Israel has refrained from doing so to date in part because it would be an extremely bloody affair. Israel has had no answer to the question of what might replace Hamas, and still doesn’t. Yet the Israeli public will demand decisive action, including ground operations, even if these again fall short of a complete takeover of the Strip.

Israeli sensitivity to POWs and MIAs is world-record-setting. The current Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was himself released from an Israeli prison with more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Sinwar now holds dozens of Israelis. The Israeli government faces a conundrum: Enter with force and risk many more Israeli casualties, both military and civilian. Refrain from it, and find yourself at the mercy of a terrorist organization on your border. Freeing all Hamas and Islamic jihad operatives from Israeli prisons, as these organizations demand, would be difficult for the Israeli government to agree to. Israel might eventually try to negotiate, or it might embark on risky rescue operations inside the Gaza Strip with the best-case outcome being only partial success.

Israel’s foes to the north shouldn’t overlook this moment either. In 2006, less than three weeks after Shalit was captured and taken prisoner in Gaza, Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel’s northern border, starting a bloody war that lasted more than 30 days and brought terrible damage to Lebanon. Israel’s northern neighbor, already suffering a devastating economic collapse, should hope that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, does not make the same mistake now. Because Israel is feeling cornered and under grave threat, its response might be harsher than Hezbollah imagines, especially in an already reeling Lebanon.

The United States has a difficult but vital role to play. Israel and Hezbollah have no direct contact. To help contain this deadly situation, Washington could make clear to Nasrallah the price he would pay for intervening. President Joe Biden has already publicly warned “against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation.”

Hezbollah and Hamas are not Egypt or Syria. Israel doesn’t face an existential threat from these groups, despite the horror Hamas inflicted today. In that sense, the current warfare is not remotely a repeat of 1973. Yet the psychological effect of these attacks, the public outrage already emerging at the authorities who failed to prevent it, the sense of military blunder—all of these factors are reminiscent of the trauma of that war, exactly 50 years and a day ago. And although not as audacious or sophisticated an attack as 9/11 was, the death toll, relative to Israel’s size, is comparable.

Today’s attack resembles these prior attacks in another way too: Israel is in a genuine state of war—not merely one more round of Israel-Hamas fighting. The psychological impact of these attacks creates political cover, and political demand, for Israel to go much further than it has in the past, to be willing to pay and to exact prices it has previously stopped short of.

These attacks are uniting Israelis—temporarily, of course—after years of growing division, allowing the government more room to maneuver aggressively if it so chooses. The massive demonstrations in the country in recent months have now been halted, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul Israel’s democratic institutions will likely have to wait. Reservists have shown up for duty by the thousands, including many who had refrained from volunteering in recent months in protest of the government’s radical agenda.

A popular theory holds that Israelis compromise only after being attacked, the prime example being 1973, when Israel reached a peace agreement with Egypt in return for giving up the whole Sinai Peninsula. In truth, because Israelis are often attacked, this argument is overdetermined: Any compromise can be retroactively explained by a prior attack.

The current situation might prove, not for the first time, something else entirely: If you convince Israelis that they are in a fight for their lives, for the lives of their families, they will fight. And Israel remains far stronger than its enemies, today’s debacle notwithstanding.
__________

Not this time.

[667medic]

Wow, it seems all this mayhem was orchestrated by around 1000 Hamas fighters, including land, sea and air assault. How did Israelis miss the training and logistic needed for these ops.Also who is the genius who thought holding a music fest close to Gaza was a good idea and also the people attending it. How did the security people miss the festival or give permissin to allow it. Wouldn't there be a exclusion zone near an area like Gaza. Looks like Gazans really duped Israel big time.

Also good luck with any retaliation with Gazans holding 1000 plus hostages. Hamas will be sure to milk Israel and allies to the hilt.

[Monash]

Wow, it seems all this mayhem was orchestrated by around 1000 Hamas fighters, including land, sea and air assault. How did Israelis miss the training and logistic needed for these ops.Also who is the genius who thought holding a music fest close to Gaza was a good idea and also the people attending it. How did the security people miss the festival or give permissin to allow it. Wouldn't there be a exclusion zone near an area like Gaza. Looks like Gazans really duped Israel big time.

Also good luck with any retaliation with Gazans holding 1000 plus hostages. Hamas will be sure to milk Israel and allies to the hilt.

Below is a link to Reuters Article that gives some background on what apparently happened. Basically Hamas ran a very successful, long term disinformation campaign creating the impression that their leadership really had no stomach for a major confrontation with Israel. Apparently the Israeli's bought it hook line and sinker because their military and Intelligence services then assumed all the training operations they were seeing were actually just that, training. i.e. part 'busy' work for their fighters to keep them out of trouble and part just PR for the local civilian population of Gaza to make it 'look' like Hamas was still committed to the fight. The Israeli's simply ended up seeing what they wanted to see.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...lt-2023-10-08/

[Versus]

Wow, it seems all this mayhem was orchestrated by around 1000 Hamas fighters, including land, sea and air assault. How did Israelis miss the training and logistic needed for these ops.Also who is the genius who thought holding a music fest close to Gaza was a good idea and also the people attending it. How did the security people miss the festival or give permissin to allow it. Wouldn't there be a exclusion zone near an area like Gaza. Looks like Gazans really duped Israel big time.

Also good luck with any retaliation with Gazans holding 1000 plus hostages. Hamas will be sure to milk Israel and allies to the hilt.

After they did in the first hour? Israel will end them, what ever the price might be.