I just remembered something from the drone attacks on ships, that military spokespeople were saying it's an expensive method shooting down drones, such as launching a million dollar missile at something like a drone is not sustainable in cost terms - not suggesting the iron dome uses anything like that cost though.
Right fellas, as a person who holds his hands up when proved wrong i must do that now. Just read a full article on the iron dome and it is indeed a ground to air based missile system which is only backed up by jets when under very heavy attack. Sorry but i really was going off reports i have read over the last week.
Fair enough, I'll take that point. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the IDF deliberately targeted UN soldiers and then tried to hush the whole thing up. It also isn't beyond the realm of possibility that Hezbollah are taking up positions deliberately close to UN outposts. Our biases will tend to determine which possibility we accept in the first instance. Just one point of clarification: my disdain of various UN bodies began long before my time working in Israel. I have viewed the HRC with contempt since around the age of 17, and UNWRA with a deep suspicion since on placement in New York a few years later. But yes, that suspicion only evolved into contempt after I'd spent some time in the region seeing first hand how little good they actually do. All 32,000 employees.
Here you go: EDIT: You might have heard reports today about the American THAAD system being deployed to Israel along with crew to man it. THAAD is equivalent to the Arrow system, with the advantage that it is mobile so can be moved from place to place like the Iron Dome. This will increase Israel's ability to defend itself from further Iranian attacks.
It doesn't justify any deliberate attack, but you can kind of see why the IDF would be pissed off with UNIFIL. The taxpayer has essentially funded an all-expenses paid trip to Lebanon where all you have to do is wear a blue helmet and watch a proscribed terrorist organisation stockpiling illegally smuggled weapons all day, without lifting a finger to stop them or even telling the potential targets where those weapons are located.
Whilst I take your point about biases, your personal disdain for an organisation that highlights Israel's atrocities in the region appears to be one of convenience imo. In fact, it's a time and tested device for those who have been committed heinous acts to denigrate and try to discredit the organisations that highlight the wrong doings. I'm still intrigued to know whether you think the following, which is echoed by other organisations, media outlets, doctors on the ground etc, is something that is being fabricated by the UN, because you haven't really given me a straight answer on this other than simply mentioning that the UN has member states like Eritrea among them.... Israel has carried out a concerted effort to destroy Gaza’s health-care system, including by deliberately killing medical staff in the war zone. The Israeli military has “deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured” health-care personnel and has targeted medical vehicles and facilities amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a UN-backed commission said in a report out Thursday. Those violations constitute war crimes. The commission also found that the Israel Defense Forces deliberately targeted pediatric and neonatal facilities, which has led to “incalculable suffering” especially among women and small children. Those actions could lead to the “the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group,”
Israeli attack on northern Gaza hints at retired general's 'surrender or starve' plan for war The suspicion among Palestinians, the UN and relief agencies is that the IDF is gradually adopting some or all of a new tactic to clear northern Gaza known as the "Generals’ Plan". It was proposed by a group of retired senior officers led by Maj-Gen (ret) Giora Eiland, who is a former national security adviser. In his office in central Israel, he laid out the heart of the plan. “Since we already encircled the northern part of Gaza in the past nine or 10 months, what we should do is the following thing to tell all the 300,000 residents [that the UN estimates is 400,000] who still live in the northern part of Gaza that they have to leave this area and they should be given 10 days to leave through safe corridors that Israel will provide. "And after that time, all this area will become to be a military zone. And all the Hamas people will still, though, whether some of them are fighters, some of them are civilians… will have two choices either to surrender or to starve." Eiland wants Israel to seal the areas once the evacuation corridors are closed. Anyone left behind would be treated as an enemy combatant. The area would be under siege, with the army blocking all supplies of food, water or other necessities of life from going in. He believes the pressure would become unbearable and what is left of Hamas would rapidly crumble, freeing the surviving hostages and giving Israel the victory it craves. It is not clear whether the IDF has adopted the Generals' Plan in part or in full, but the circumstantial evidence of what is being done in Gaza suggests it is at the very least a strong influence on the tactics being used against the population. The BBC submitted a list of questions to the IDF, which were not answered. The ultra-nationalist extremists in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet want to replace Palestinians in northern Gaza with Jewish settlers. Among many statements he’s made on the subject, the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said “Our heroic fighters and soldiers are destroying the evil of Hamas, and we will occupy the Gaza Strip… to tell the truth, where there is no settlement, there is no security.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e82yy0wxno
From the same BBC article: Palestinians in Gaza say, people on the move are fired on by the IDF. It insists that Israeli soldiers observe strict rules of engagement that respect international humanitarian law. But Medical Aid for Palestinians’ head of protection, Liz Allcock, says the evidence presented by wounded civilians suggest that they have been targeted. “When we’re receiving patients in hospitals, a large number of those women and children and people of, if you like, non-combatant age are receiving direct shots to the head, to the spine, to the limbs, very indicative of the direct targeted attack.” Does this sort of stuff concern you @Citizen Kane.
There is video, testimonial, and documented evidence of them deliberately shooting children dead in the streets where they live. There is also evidence of them deliberately shooting women, children, pensioners and non combatant people as they flee areas that are then bombed. IDF soldiers themselves have admitted it is 'permissible to shoot everyone' And IDF soldiers have admitted that they burn Palestinian homes after occupying them. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-eas...-palestinian-civilians-in-gaza-report/3270591
More women and children killed as Israel bombs a school sheltering people trying to find a safe space for their families. An Israeli attack on a school used to shelter displaced Palestinians has killed at least 15 people in central Gaza, officials say. Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence Agency said the site in Nuseirat camp was struck by a volley of artillery on Sunday, killing entire families and wounding dozens more. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was looking into the reports. Earlier, five children were reportedly killed by a drone strike while playing on a street corner in northern Gaza. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y8zj8qrn5o
There's been an update on this. It was 15 children that were killed. The total number of people killed by this Israeli strike was 22 Hamas-run authority says 22 killed, including 15 children, in attack on Gaza schoolpublished at 07:08 British Summer Time 07:08 BST An Israeli attack on a school being used as a shelter in central Gaza has killed at least 22 people, including 15 children, according to officials in the territory. The Hamas-run Civil Defence Agency says another 80 people were injured by the strike on the Nuseirat camp on Sunday.
that’s better @Horny 4 Hamas to confirm @Citizen Kane. to check if number is below world average for Monday morning war deaths
