Wednesday saw the heaviest fire by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon into northern Israel yet, Thursday was just a bit lower. Israeli counterfire Wednesday was very intense, and almost nothing Thursday.
That is a very bad sign.
Genuine dialog and peace negotiations that allow aid, water, food and fuel to get into Gaza.
If the 2 parties arenāt willing to negotiate with each other, then they remove themselves and allow a fellow country to represent them. Israel has for a long period seen Jordan as a strong ally and trading partner (so if they havenāt pissed that relationship against the wall) they could use Jordan to negotatiote on their behalf.
Who the Palestinians would trust I have no idea as everyone seems to have shat on them at every opportunity, so not sure if the look at any country with any sort of trust or good will
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One of the coalition partners presented a plan in the Parliament to include Jordan 
in the Greater Israel 
.
I suppose the reverse is true in case of Jordan. Jordan allowed Palestinians in and the PLO attempted a coup
Do you know if Nasrallah has actually been given an ultimatum (to withdraw north of the Litani) or is it just implicit in what Gantz has been saying ?
Without optimism, thereās just insanity.
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I linked an article a few weeks ago. Aside from Fatah and Hamas, most of the top leaders of Palestinian organisations are either killed or in prison.
No, I donāt know. The Israeli position may not be that specific, the withdrawal to north of the Litani is merely a means to an end. But I doubt they will be negotiating much past this weekend, ultimatum or otherwise.
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Good, itās about time someone had the balls to call out Israel for their bullshit claims that this is targeting just Hamas rather than attempting to wipe out all Palestinians
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āItās just the sheer speed of the damage,ā said Van Den Hoek. āAll of these other conflicts that weāre talking about [Ukraine, Syria, Yemen] are years long. This is a little over two months. And the sheer tempo of the bombing ā not just the scale of it but the sheer tempo ā thereās nothing that tracks [like] this in such a short timeframe.ā
Not that hard to achieve in an area that is 45 km2. To put some comparative context, Bakhmut is about 42 km2. Thatās probably a better basis for thinking about what is happening than āUkraineā. If you were to plot all ordnance that has exploded in that 45 km2, I suspect you donāt need a particularly large radius to cover every building in Gaza. More to the point, if you plot every 100+ kg bomb or similar by blast radius, it is probably covers a very large percentage of the territory.
Once you start thinking about larger ordnance used at times, it isnāt much of a surprise given the pace. That October 31 strike in Jamilya appears to have used a 1000kg bomb which has a lethal fragmentation area of 400,000 m2ā¦roughly 60 football pitches, or about 1% of Gaza in one blast.
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Thatās a somewhat misleading comparison.
You are comparing the size of cities (Gaza City is 45km2, however Gaza Strip itself is 365 Km2). So effectively an area 9 times larger than Bakhmut. Per km2 there are are 3x as many people which shows itās even more densely populated.
As you mention Israel is using 1000kg bombs (many unguided), in comparison to what Western forces in modern conflicts which use 250kg bombs, Which where all guided bombs in populated areas. The amount of damage could have been far less and far more targeted.
The article does mention comparisons with cities, and the level out of destruction. Given the increased land area, much larger scale than Bakhmut. Also surpasses the likes of Cologne and Dresden in terms of percentage of destruction.
The scale and level of destruction puts this at among the worst in modern history. World Food program currently estimates that 90% of population regularly go without food for a full day, the UN estimate 0.5M at risk of starvation. This war could surpass other metrics in terms of conflicts.
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I was making the Gaza to Bakhmut comparison to get at the sheer amount of ordnance that has hit the comparable area. Yes, the whole strip is larger, but not at a scale that makes Gaza Strip vs. Ukraine the more relevant one - particularly because most of that ordnance would have been on urban areas, and most of that would have been on Gaza City. IDF claimed to have conducted 10,000 airstrikes on Gaza up to December 10.
My fundamental point was that Syria and Ukraine arenāt relevant, the comparison should be Aleppo and Bakhmut. Without wishing to trivialize the Syrian conflict, I suspect Aleppo pales by comparison. Bakhmut for practical purposes has been destroyed. As you say, I think the other comparators are the likes of Cologne, Dresden, and Hamburg, all of which were subjects of massive focused strategic bombing operations.
As another comparison, the Blitz is estimated to have seen 19,000 tons of bombs dropped on London. Israel appears to be using a mix of GBU-31 JDAM bombs (2000 lbs) and the M117 750lbs (unguided iron bomb). The sorties are being flown largely by F-15s and F-16s. To simplify, consider just the GBU-31s. The F-15s would carry 3, the F-16s 4. Call it 3.5, so 7000 lbs, so 3.12 tons per sortie. Almost half again the tonnage dropped on London over 8 months - Iām not sure what Londonās area was in 1941, but much larger than the entire Gaza Strip.
In terms of focused use of airstrikes, there are very few comparators to this kind of intensity.
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I think the Israel army is looking at this bombing being a deterrence to future attacks. That seems to be a part of the reason along with Israel trying to render Gaza uninhabitable so as to force Palestinians out. There is absolutely no way these surface attacks will reach Hamas tunnels.
Either way , that wonāt work. The more you push the Palestinians into a corner , the more you will drive them into joining Hamas and related terrorist outfits.
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In related news. Probably too traumatized by the hostage taking to see that her being with a family could have spared her much worse treatment. Speculating ofcourse as we donāt know what she was forced to go through in hostile hands.
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The more this conflict drags on, the more likely that it will be again relegated to a regional conflict. Which is exactly what Israel wants again.
Hamas succeeded in bringing up the Palestinian issue but they seemed to have counted on Iranian help which isnāt forthcoming not with US moving their ships there. The scale of the attack as mentioned before , has also caught Hamas out with regards to perception. If the hostage taking were simply restricted to military forces , they would have had a bigger hand in negotiations. By taking civilians , they shot themselves in the footā¦ Again.
This whole incident and the reactions to it have been a meaningless waste of lives between two equally despicable regimes.
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I watched the interview with her last night. We might consider her to be one of the lucky ones but I doubt whether sheāll ever recover from her ordeal. She still looked to be in a state of shock.
Was just think about Dresden or Heilbronn (probably others also) which, are smaller than London but had focused attention designed to achieve a similar outcome in terms of physical destruction - if not death.
Incidents like these leave lasting scars. I do hope she gets the right medical care though.
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