Thread

Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah

943 points · 947 comments · slowin

Leonard_of_Q · 1790616838 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
1. lotadicarus · 1790616970 · focus · HN ↗
  this is not war, it is genocide
  1. bjork · 1790617242 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    lotadicarus · 1790617561 · focus · HN ↗
    try using a source other than the Israeli government: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanitarian_and_human_rights_groups_accusing_Israel_of_genocide_in_Gaza" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanitarian_and_human...
    Leonard_of_Q · 1790617964 · focus · HN ↗
    Try using another source than Wikipedia which is edited by "interested groups" and as such not a reliable source for contentious issues like this one.
    lotadicarus · 1790618376 · focus · HN ↗
    good thing there's 100+ cited sources in that article
    Leonard_of_Q · 1790618878 · focus · HN ↗
    I'll take your 100+ sources and raise you 200+ sources:
    <a href="https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Genocides,_Cultural_Genocides_and_Ethnic_Cleansings_under_Islam" rel="nofollow">https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Genocides,_Cultural_Genoc...
    Does that make this link twice as truthful as the one you sent?
    iaaan · 1790619672 · focus · HN ↗
    What, succinctly, is your point? You first claimed that this was not a genocide, then posted a link to a list of other genocides. Are you saying that none of the genocides in your list happened? Or that they are miscategorized?
    Leonard_of_Q · 1790621482 · focus · HN ↗
    My point is that wikis are not reliable sources no matter how many sources they link to. You'd have to check all the other sources to verify their veracity and that only gets harder the more sources are linked.
    constantius · 1790627516 · focus · HN ↗
    Lazy dismissal ,but then again, you don't really have a leg to stand on to defend your point.
    You don't have to check all the links mate, just check a few for the organisations or institutionsnyou know. Unless you think they're all Hamas, of course.
    Leonard_of_Q · 1790710669 · focus · HN ↗
    Which of these organizations should I trust on their word? Give me 5 of them and I'll see if I feel like I can trust them. As to them "all being Hamas", well, who knows. The Swedish television special reporter from that region is so it isn't unheard of. It is not as if it is possible for anyone to just barge in there and report anything he sees, interview anyone he wants and visit any place he cares.
    sjoedev · 1790619557 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t use TikTok, but I’ll chip in and cite the United Nations [1], the International Association of Genocide Scholars [2], Physicians for Human Rights-Israel [3], Amnesty International [4], Human Rights Watch [5], and Doctors Without Borders [6] to get started.
    While the genocide case brought against Israel hasn't concluded as of now, to say there's no reason to believe this is genocide is incorrect.
    If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.
    [1] <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds" rel="nofollow">https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...
    [2] <a href="https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS-Resolution-on-Gaza-FINAL.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
    [3] <a href="https://www.phr.org.il/en/genocide-in-gaza-eng/" rel="nofollow">https://www.phr.org.il/en/genocide-in-gaza-eng/
    [4] <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...
    [5] <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza" rel="nofollow">https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...
    [6] <a href="https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-israel-gaza-war" rel="nofollow">https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-is...
    mittensc · 1790619797 · focus · HN ↗
    Imagine this was Jerusalem
    would you say the same?
  2. Leonard_of_Q · 1790618693 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    lotadicarus · 1790618967 · focus · HN ↗
    was always a lurker so never had an account. I just think it's important to counter Israel's misinformation campaign :) very telling you think those words have lost their meaning though. I don't think we need further discussion
    Leonard_of_Q · 1790621174 · focus · HN ↗
    Well yes we do need more discussion because each of these words used to indicate serious wrongdoings on the part of the accused while nowadays they are used to indicate "strong disagreement" at most. What, now, if a real nazi were to appear? You've been calling so many people nazi for nothing more than ideological disagreements that people just treat it as a hooting car alarm: "yeah sure, shut up already, we've heard you before and it never meant anything so stop bothering us". Good for the nazi but had for the rest of us.
    mittensc · 1790621748 · focus · HN ↗
    > What, now, if a real nazi were to appear?
    Way to miss the point entirely
2. dumberquestions · 1790617507 · focus · HN ↗
  History didn't start on October 7th.
3. biimugan · 1790618890 · focus · HN ↗
  What belief is being expressed in your comments? That if someone wins a military conflict, any action they took is justified? That seems like either moral relativism or ahistorical, blind patriotism. The Soviets also won that war -- does that mean they were justified in their constellations of gulags?
  If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.
  It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.
  Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.
  1. catlikesshrimp · 1790655414 · focus · HN ↗
    "The end justifiesthe means" <a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_end_justifies_the_means" rel="nofollow">https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_end_justifies_the_mean...
    I glad you are not AI!
    biimugan · 1790711676 · focus · HN ↗
    Haha, yes, that's what I meant. Written in haste :)

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.