2023 Gaza−Israel conflict

 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict (Israeli–Palestinian conflict,  bombing,  murder,  cover-up)

Date	7 October 2023 - Present
Location	Israel,  Gaza Strip,  Golan Heights,  Lebanon
Participants	Israel, Hezbollah, Iran, Houthi, Yemen
Perpetrators	Hamas, IDF
Deaths	12200
Injured (non-fatal)	30000
Description	A new attack on dozens of illegal Israeli settler towns in Southern Israel. Called an Israeli "9-11".

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas infiltrated Israel from the Gaza Strip, breaking through the Gaza–Israel barrier and forcing entry via the Gaza border crossings, into nearby settlements in Israel and military installations, in Operation Al Aqsa Flood.

Israeli forces claim that Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Be'eri and a similar number in the Kfar Aza kibbutz. Israel responded by bombarding and laying siege to Gaza in Operation Iron Swords. IDF officials reported that the bodies of 1,500 Hamas militants had been recovered from Israeli territory.

By 11 November 2023, the death toll in Gaza had reportedly exceeded 11,000 Palestinians whilst the Israelis revised downward their death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel to around 1,200 from a previous government estimate of 1,400.

Official narrative

Full article: Israeli–Palestinian conflict

GRAPHIC RAW FOOTAGE: Massacre Across Israel From the Eyes of Hamas - Footage of CCTV At least 3,000 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip as a large number of Hamas militants broke through the border and entered Israel, killing at least 900 Israelis and prompting Israel's government to declare a state of emergency. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel "is at war" in a national address following the beginning of the attacks. Palestinian militants who infiltrated Israel made their way into several kibbutzim as well as the city of Sderot.

Israeli military prisoners-of-war and civilians, including children, had been taken hostage by Palestinian militants; several of these hostages have reportedly since been taken to the Gaza Strip. Numerous cases of violence against Israeli civilians have occurred since the beginning of the Hamas offensive, including a massacre at a music festival in Re'im that killed at least 260. Hamas called it "Operation Al Aqsa Flood". In response, the IDF launched Operation Iron Sword.

The IDF has called up 300,000 reservists and massed tanks and other heavy armour both near Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire continue. The military said its forces had largely reclaimed the embattled south and the border around Gaza and dislodged holdout Hamas fighters from more than a dozen towns and kibbutzim.

4 weeks into the conflict, Houthi rebels fighting Yemeni authorities announced a bunch of missile and drones attacks on Israel.

Problems with official narrative

Full article: Israel

Full article: Palestine

The land that is now known as Israel and Palestine has been contested for millennia. World War 2 and the Balfour Declaration caused the formation of a Zionist deep state of Israel at the will of Zionists many of whom settled there in the 1800s. Israel was founded in 1948 and remained and expanded ever since, despite numerous attacks.

Given the reputation of Israel, and the enormous reach and capabilities of Israel's military-intelligence apparatus, the attack is unlikely to have been unexpected, as has been acknowledged by IDF and Egyptian officials, who repeatedly warned Tel Aviv that an escalation was imminent Stories in corporate media also say that US intelligence officials also had warned that Hamas was preparing a large-scale operation.

Iran denied any involvement.

UNRWA statement

Statement by the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings, on the hostilities between Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel;

Jerusalem, 10 October 2023

Palestinian armed groups infiltrated Israel on 7 October, killing and capturing hundreds of Israeli civilians and members of the Israeli forces while indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets into Israel. On 8 October, the Government of Israel declared war, launching intensive air strikes into the densely populated Gaza Strip over the past three days. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and over two thousand now injured. The magnitude of the ongoing hostilities has led to grave humanitarian consequences. Homes, schools, medical facilities, and other infrastructure have been damaged and destroyed. In Gaza, at least 200,000 of the 2.2 million residents, have been displaced after fleeing for fear of their lives or their houses were destroyed by airstrikes. Most of them are taking shelter in UNRWA’s schools, at least two of which have already been damaged by airstrikes in the area. The numbers of those affected by the hostilities are only expected to increase. Israeli authorities have cut their water supply to Gaza, reducing an already scarce availability of potable water. And in accordance with the complete siege ordered by the Israeli Government on Gaza, access to electricity, food, and fuel have also been severed, inevitably worsening the already dire humanitarian situation. Palestinians in Gaza now only have electricity to 3-4 hours per day. This hinders the ability of health facilities to function and treat those injured.

The United Nations and its humanitarian partners in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are working to meet acute needs, in particular shelter, in dangerous circumstances. However, access for humanitarian staff and supplies into Gaza has also been cut and the intensity of the hostilities is limiting the ability of staff to deliver aid. As the security and humanitarian situations continue to escalate, all parties must comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law. All military and armed groups must abide by the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution when conducting their operations. Civilians, especially children, medical facilities, humanitarian personnel health workers, and journalists must be protected. Captured civilians must be released immediately and unconditionally. Anyone captured or detained, including combatants, must be treated humanely and with dignity.

All relevant actors must allow humanitarian teams and goods to immediately and safely reach the hundreds of thousands of people in need.

Disinformation

Ben Shapiro shared an image of "burned Jewish babies" during the October 20233 "surprise" Hamas attack on Israel. The picture was soon exposed as an AI generated fake

On 11 October 2023, Jonathan Cook posted on X:

"So Western journalists simply accepted without any evidence that Hamas beheaded 40 Israeli babies. It's not like they don't know there's a precedent for this kind of disinformation.

"Remember how a US ally spread lies in 1990 about Iraqi soldiers pulling babies from incubators.

"The fake testimony was supplied by a schoolgirl, 'Nayirah', who it much later turned out was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US. Her lies helped pave the way to the US launching the 1991 Gulf War."

Israel Military

Israeli Air Force

Dozens of Israeli air force reservists said 2 months earlier they’ll refuse to show up for duty if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government moves ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary. Israeli Army suspended its navy commander 2 months before the attack. A protest signed by thousands of reservists over the last seven months up to the attack, had mostly remained threats. Up to the attack, 161 critical air force personnel announced they will stop their service, raising concerns about the military’s readiness in the face of similar refusals at a time of heightened violence and tensions on several fronts. Hundreds of reservists from various units joined a rally in Tel Aviv in august 2023, declaring they would not report for duty anymore.

Intelligence Failure?

Did Israel's security agencies underestimate Egypt's repeated warnings about a potential strike by Hamas? A senior Egyptian intelligence officer has made a startling revelation. He claims, Jerusalem ignored multiple warnings on potential hamas strike - Gravitas

In 2021, Israel completed a sensor-equipped underground wall on its side of Gaza, a countermeasure developed after Hamas used tunnels to repel its troops during a 2014 invasion of the besieged Palestinian territory. The project also includes an above-ground fence, a naval barrier, radar systems and command and control rooms. The barrier includes hundreds of cameras, radar and other sensors, and spans 65km (40 miles). 140,000 tonnes of iron and steel were used in its construction, which took three-and-a-half years to complete. Israeli officials just argued that intelligence failed because of Sabbath and a Jewish holiday on top of that.

Israeli journalist Efrat Fenigson, who served in Israel's intelligence forces, said "No military involvement, no police, no arms on the ground for hours and hours. This is something that is non-typical and unusual for Israel defence forces...[The fact that the border was breached in 15 places] is completely ridiculous because normally with one breach of the fence, the whole army is triggered and things start moving immediately. Things start moving immediately and here there was nothing for hours."

Hannibal Directive in action

The Israeli forces used the Hannibal Directive, which states that kidnappings "must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces," and also allows for no consideration to be taken to save friendly civilians.

Yasmin Porat, a survivor from the Kibbutz Be’eri, told Israeli radio that Israeli security forces "undoubtedly" killed a large number of their own civilians following the Hamas assault on 7 October. Porat stated that the Palestinian fighters – who she says treated her and the other Israeli civilians "humanely" – intended "kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us"..."After we were there for two hours with the abductors, the police arrive. A gun battle takes place that our police started....They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. Because there was very, very heavy crossfire."

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published an interview with a man called Tuval who lived in Kibbutz Be’eri, but who was away on 7 October. Tuval’s partner was however killed in the events. Haaretz reported: "According to him [Tuval], only on Monday night and only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages – did the IDF [Israeli army] complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri people were killed. Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble."

Israeli helicopter pilots told how they focused on vehicles streaming back into Gaza from the Nova electronic music festival and nearby kibbutzes, attacking cars with knowledge that Israeli captives could be inside. One Apache pilot reflected on the difficult dilemma of whether to shoot at people and cars returning to Gaza. He knew that many of those vehicles may have contained Israeli captives. But he chose to open fire anyway. In 4 hours, 300 cars were targeted.

Re'im music festival

The official narrative holds that Hamas massacred 260 civilians, injured a greater number, and took an unknown number of hostages at the "Supernova Sukkot Gathering", an open-air psychedelic trance music festival. The event was held near a Gaza Regiment military base. The concert was not meant to be held so close to the base and the location of the event was moved just two nights before. These circumstances should normally have led to a long list of security precautions in a super-militarized state such as Israel. Witness reports from survivors indicate most died in crossfire, after an IDF roadblock hindered the participants from escaping.

Foreknowledge

A month after the attack, President Netanyahu removed the following tweet very quickly after being pressued by intelligence agencies and the IDF, hinting at internal deep political interference. The BBC mentioned "the post on X unleashed a wave of furious reactions by high-ranking Israeli security officials, exposing deep internal divisions".

“Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of war intentions on the part of Hamas. On the contrary, the assessment of the entire security echelon, including the head of military intelligence and the head of Shin Bet, was that Hamas was deterred and was seeking an arrangement".”
Benjamin Netanyahu (October 2023) 

Iranian officials helped plan Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut a week before the attack, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah. Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said. Although the US denied this, Syrian advisors and EU officials repeated the claim, in a rare agreement with Iran. In case, these claims are true, the picture painted by the US and Israel of a pure intelligence failure is even more suspicious.

US Claims

Iran was reported in the Washington Post to give "Hamas (...) $70 million in military assistance from Iran. According to a US State Department report from 2020, Iran provides about $100 million annually to Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command Current and former intelligence officials confirmed that Iran had provided technical help to Hamas in manufacturing the more than 4,000 rockets and armed drones launched into Israel. At least some Hamas militants also have undergone training in advanced military tactics, including at Lebanese camps staffed by technical advisers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.

US Weapons

US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene argued the weapons used in the attack appeared to be American and were moved from Ukraine to Gaza.

"Israel might use nuclear bomb"

On 5 November 2023, Sky News reported that an Israeli junior minister who said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was "one of the possibilities" in the Hamas war has been suspended, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying the statement was "not based in reality".

Junior minister Amihai Eliyahu, of the right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, made the claim in an interview with Kol Beramah radio.

Reactions

Interestingly enough, a spokesperson for Hamas admitted Israel to be practically undefeated with US support, but wants to maintain the strategy of tension between Gaza and Tel Aviv, seemingly not trying to advance the cause of the Palestine with other means, apart from bloodshed.

President Joe Biden and his top advisers were reported by CNN after 2 months to be warning Israel "with growing force" that it will become increasingly difficult for it to pursue its military goals in Gaza as global outcry intensifies about the scale of humanitarian suffering there.

Israeli Pulls Gaza Internet to conduct operations

By November 2023, Israel had started a tactic of killing of the internet in the entirety of Gaza for hours before a large scale attack to curb social media outrage.

Hamas representative in Lebanon Ahmad Abd Al-Hadi said in an October 12, 2023 show on NBN TV (Lebanon) that the goal of its “strategic deception” was to make Israel “fall asleep for a while, making it believe that Gaza was not going to do anything.” He said that this is the reason that Hamas did not join the August 2022 and May 2023 rounds of fighting between Gaza and Israel. Abd Al-Hadi added that Hamas and other factions had managed attacks against Israel in the West Bank from Gaza in order to move Israel’s focus from Gaza to there. Later in the interview, he said that in this operation Hamas has made several steps forward in its enterprise to liberate Palestine and destroy Israel. Abd Al-Hadi stated that another goal of the operation was to land a blow to the normalisation of relations between Israel and several Arab countries - Memri TV

A good example of how this event has played into PM Netanyahu's hand; Al Jazeera wrote; The Israeli military is bombarding Gaza, Hamas is launching more rockets and the death toll on both sides of the divide is rising. Splashed across Israeli media headlines is ‘Israel at War’ with many outlets reporting events as they happen, while some op-eds – and even high profile figures – have been using rhetoric criticised as dangerous and inflammatory.

Full article: Israeli Deep state

Full article: “9-11/Israel did it”

Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces, compared it to a "Pearl Harbour-type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today."(which was accused in OP-EDs and books by historians to not be that much of a surprise), while the Intercept compared the attack to 9-11, which is ironic of itself as 9-11 is suspected to have been made possible with help of the Israeli Deep state.

Blockade

Israel announced a total blockade of the already besieged Gaza Strip. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said they would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel as part of "a complete siege" on Hamas-run Gaza, where about 2.3 million people live in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, as well as two of the three border crossing points; the third is controlled by Egypt. Independent United Nations experts condemned the Israel Defense Forces' actions in Gaza, saying Israel had resorted to "indiscriminate military attacks" and "collective punishment".

Covert operation

US Navy Seals were reported to enter the conflict. Israel was - according to Human right watch - using banned white phosphorus artillery projectiles - on harbours in Gaza, and denying it thereafter.

Deep state leadership

PM Netanyahu rallied the country and even his enemies in Israeli parliament, as he even was able to form a new coalition in Israeli parliament, which is very important as Israel has no constitution and Israeli parliament has a final say since 2023 is nearly all affairs as they control the judges.

Colonists

“There had already been a significant increase in violence by Israeli settlers this year, even before the Hamas attack, according to UN data, with more than 100 incidents reported each month and about 400 people driven from their land between January and August.

Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem told the BBC that since the attack, it had documented "a concerted and organised effort by settlers to use the fact that the entire international and local attention is focused on Gaza and the north of Israel to try to seize land in the West Bank". Partial data compiled by B'Tselem, covering the first six days after the Hamas attack, recorded at least 46 separate incidents in which it said settlers threatened, physically attacked or damaged the property of Palestinians in the West Bank.

"A lot of shepherding families and communities have fled because they were threatened in the past week by settlers," said Roy Yellin, a spokesman for B'Tselem. "Settlers have been giving residents a deadline to leave and telling them if they don't they will be harmed. And some villages have been totally emptied out."”
Joel Gunter,  BBC (2023) 

The attack also gave the IDF a window to raze several villages in the West Bank and remove Palestinian villages. A crime according to NGOs.

Hamas Hospitals Bases

Hamas hospital base revealed as IDF video shows lair filled with guns, grenades and rockets - The Sun

During the Israeli revenge operation dubbed a removal of Hamas, the IDF released footage of Hamas bases according to them, apparently hidden in WHO hospitals and others in children bedrooms. A French doctor acknowledged claims by Italian journalist that they've seen the same hospital procedures.

“When I was first asked to work there [at Shifa], I was told there was a part of the hospital I was not to go near, and if I did, I’d be in danger of being shot. No, but implicit was that it was being used for non-medical purposes. I stayed away, but I saw a few dodgy-looking non-medical characters going in and out all the time. It was a ward leading to a basement. As I said, I didn’t go there; so I behaved myself. I was welcome everywhere else, and as I say the doctors and nurses there were very welcoming and very kind and the hushed tones under which this was said was very consistent with all the other hushed tones with which Hamas was discussed. You know people were genuinely fearful. I cannot emphasise too much, the air of collective paranoia that existed there. If hospital staff were 10 per cent frightened of possible Israeli airstrikes, they were 90 per cent frightened of being persecuted by Hamas.’”
Nick Pisa,  Daily Mail (2023) 

Journalists who have reported from al-Shifa throughout the years have also backed Israel’s claim that Hamas operates in the hospital. In 2008, a New York Times journalist watched armed Hamas members inside the hospital wearing civilian clothes. The journalist also witnessed Hamas execute a Palestinian man accused of collaborating with Israel. In 2015 Amnesty International issued a report, also stating that Hamas interrogated and tortured Palestinians accused of working with the IDF or Shin Bet.

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