Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is “embarking on a long and difficult war” as it deals with an unprecedented hostage crisis after Palestinian militants launched a surprise land, sea and air attack from Gaza, killing hundreds and infiltrating into Israeli territory.

Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions are also swirling over how the entire Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.

Israel’s political-security cabinet convened late Saturday and made a “series of operational decisions aimed at bringing about the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, in a way that would negate their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come,” according to a statement from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister.

  • @fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee
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    391 year ago

    If Israel had just stuck to its original borders, none of this would have happened.

    The right ring / orthodox of any religion is always a loose cannon and dangerous to any nearby.

      • @SARGEx117@lemmy.world
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        301 year ago

        It’s fucking baffling to me that the same people who would be first in line to blame ALL JEWS (and do so in a derogatory manner) for all sorts of things (space lasers, anyone?), but the MOMENT you bring up halting monetary and military aid to Israel, they get extremely defensive about it, like the mere thought of not supporting Israel is so un-American you might as well be a terrorist.

        • @FrostyTrichs@lemmy.world
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          151 year ago

          Same thoughts here.

          Watching the world’s reaction to the Ukraine/Russia conflict compared to the Israel/Palestine conflict is equally baffling.

          The world’s moral compass spins like a top. At what point can we just declare all these attacks and wars unjust and a waste of life and resources?

          We have the technology and resources to make a utopia for all humanity but instead we spend our time and money coming up with new ways to kill each other and reasons to be hateful. It’s only going to get worse as the world shrinks from climate shift.

          What a time to be alive. History will look back on us with disgust.

        • @Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          131 year ago

          It’s not baffling, they need Israel to exist for their end times prophecy to happen.

          It’s not that they suddenly like Jewish people, they just want that box ticked.

          • @SARGEx117@lemmy.world
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            91 year ago

            Yeah, that’s honestly what I’ve always figured. Gotta have Israel around as a shape and name on a map, otherwise sky daddy can’t come home.

            • @Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              81 year ago

              Most of them? No. They just believe what their preachers tell them to believe, even if it’s contradictory. Jews are bad, Israel is good. They’re do heavily propagandized they don’t even think in the normal sense really.

              But the preachers have that rationale, and the military industrial complex loves the situation, so they push it.

        • @DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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          41 year ago

          Relief of white guilt and a democratic ally in a strategically important region dominated by theocratic regimes.

          This “long war” business is a pack of bullshit. The Gaza Strip, Hamas’s stronghold, could be occupied by the Israeli army in a week.

          Netanyahu will be looking to drop the “democratic” part of what the West gets from the alliance with the surge in public support for “extreme measures,” there isn’t a doubt in my mind.

          • Quokka
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            11 year ago

            No one in politics gives a shit about “white guilt”, that’s some Fox-esque talking point that means nothing.

            And a country that promptly installs and supports authorities and genocidal dictators gives no shit about democracy in the M.E.

            The reasons are much simpler, oil, conflict, and Christi-Fascist end days dogma.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    81 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory.

    Netanyahu announced Israeli forces have started an “offensive formation” which will “continue without reservation and without respite until the objectives are achieved.” Among the decisions made by the cabinet is to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

    The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

    “We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.

    “This Iron Dome is being fired up all around us right now, it’s illuminating the sky here,” said CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson in Zikim, Israel, referring to the Israeli rocket defense system.

    On Saturday he tracked her phone and saw it was located in Gaza; later that day he recognized her in a viral clip of people loaded into the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants.


    The original article contains 1,772 words, the summary contains 219 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @Agent641@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It boggles the mind that the army and mossad fumbled the bag here so bad.

    I mean, you live in a dodgy neighbourhood, you aggro the neighbours, you know their mates are arming them, and you just sleep on it so hard that they smuggle in thousands of weapons, build thousands of rockets, and start an airborne division, some fellas with aks can overrun your army outposts and the 3 tanks you parked near the fence? Its really no black swan event, its just more of the same.

    The whole Israeli govt and army leadership needs to be sacked for their incompetence.