I’m struggling with everything on this article. On the one hand anytime a hostage has been freed, that’s good news. On the other, at what cost. 40 000 dead. That’s the easy stat. Amputations are also incredibly high. Most of them kids and performed without anesthetic. This is the first time the IDF has rescued hostages. So I’m sitting here with my initial feeling of ‘oh, that’s good news’ ,and then I think about the wider picture and context, and it doesn’t seem so good anymore.
Maybe the Palestinians themselves devalue their own lives compared to Israeli lives. Just look at when they agreed to a ceasefire and traded hostages for prisoners: each hostage was worth multiple prisoners released by Israel.
This is also noticeable when Hamas use their own population as human shields, exemplified by when they hide their soldiers and weapons in hospitals and schools. Or when they blend in with civilians on purpose by not using any combatant uniform like the IDF do. They really don’t care for their own civilians. These are only useful for acting as human shields and, if they’re killed or injured, strike a pose for NatGeo-style photos in their attempts to appeal to western sentiment.
Maybe the Palestinians themselves devalue their own lives compared to Israeli lives.
You should just stop right there. If your logic depends on saying “they actually don’t value their lives as much as others” then please stop and ask “what the hell is wrong with yourself?”. People who think like this probably value their life least of all. /s
When I see how easily the Hamas uses their own population as sacrifices, I have doubts they really value their lives. Remember: the Gazan population elected the Hamas with more than 60% of the votes. It’s not too farfetched to say a significant part of the Gazans think like the Hamas in terms of sacrifice, and by extension, how they value their lives.
I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen any independent verification that Hamas has been using hospitals and schools for bases, but I’m positive that there’s been debunked Israeli reports that schools and hospitals have been used as Hama’s bases.
Same thing for human shields. IDF admits to using Palestinians as shields. To my knowledge, there’s no Hamas equivalent.
This ‘war’ isn’t about Hamas anyways. If it was, there wouldn’t be 1000 people killed in the west bank. Hamas isn’t in the west bank. Why is the IDF letting people kill Palestinians in the west bank?
And half a dozen months ago they could have had a ceasefire to have them released, along with the ones that STILL aren’t released.
“we don’t negotiate with terrorists” and that stance is “non-negotiable.” If only these terrorists would just stop and do what we want.
Yo mods why you remove my comment?
Edit: Essentially asking the same questions as JayTreeman.
Edit 2: It appears my comment was reinstated after I provided a source to counter the misinformation report. I would expect better of the mods to do some due diligence before just censoring comments. There is enough of this in the MSM and it does nothing to further allow people to see what is happening. Thank whichever mod undid the action, hoping it was little_cow but not sure.
… And massacred a bunch of Palestinians but they’re not white so who cares amirite???
The Israeli military had US support in rescuing four captives from Gaza in a “complex daytime operation” in Nuseirat that killed over 200 Palestinians.
The Palestinian government media office in Gaza said the death toll from Israel’s attack on central Gaza had reached at least 210, with 400 more wounded.
The Palestinian health ministry confirmed that a large number of dead and wounded Palestinian had arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital. It said that most of them were children and women.
"I came from the camp to here in the hospital on foot. I can’t describe how we fled. I saw dead children and body parts strewn all over as we fled. No one was able to assist them. I saw an elderly man killed on a animal-drawn cart.
“Nuseirat was being annihilated. It was hell.”
210 people killed 4 rescued. Mission accomplished everyone. Don’t forget to thank Biden for his direct military involvement in this operation.
50 civilians killed indiscriminately per 1 hostage freed. And that’s not counting everyone that’s already been killed in this war.
I think anyone with a shred of morality is heavily conflicted by this. Saving hostages? Great. Killing 50x as many people as those saved? Not great. Not great at all.
It naturally leads itself to the question we’re all thinking – was it worth it?
And I think many of us have the same answer, although we may not like it – no. It pains me to say it, but it would’ve been better to let them stay hostage for longer while developing a plan which wouldn’t kill civilians.
Unfortunately, the alternate option was not “let them stay hostage a while longer”. It was “let the hostages die”. And maybe that would have been the more ethical call. But let’s not delude ourselves that they could have been kept alive any other way.
