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Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah

943 points · 947 comments · slowin

bognition · 1790616426 · focus · HN ↗
Its really telling to see the destruction limited to where the structures used to be rather than to all of the surrounding green spaces. If the destruction of civilian dwellings was purely an accident you'd expect to see the destruction spread evenly over the area. Instead it looks much more like a prolonged set of surgical strikes to destroy the buildings while preserving as much of the surrounding areas as possible.
For a great example of this, look at this pin <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA" rel="nofollow">https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA
And here's a pin of where the farms were spared <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9" rel="nofollow">https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9
1. YZF · 1790663982 · focus · HN ↗
  The buildings were levelled with bulldozers for the most part after the civilians left during combat operations against the tunnel infrastructure and any remaining combatants. Not sure what the "surgical strikes" comment is about. Are you asking why weren't open spaces destroyed or attacked?
  1. a_paddy · 1790665596 · focus · HN ↗
    How does bulldozing a family home have any affect on a tunnel?
    vkou · 1790666102 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    fesoliveira · 1790666664 · focus · HN ↗
    That is a definition of a genocide[1].
    [1] <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition" rel="nofollow">https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
    mb2100 · 1790667986 · focus · HN ↗
    Not quite. Perhaps you were thinking of "ethnic cleansing" ?
    latexr · 1790670709 · focus · HN ↗
    It seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives, like some kind of deranged Clippy. Talk about loss of perspective.
    The link provided in your parent post explicitly says there is no precise definition of “ethnic cleansing”, so I don’t even understand why you’d think the distinction matters.
    JumpCrisscross · 1790672642 · focus · HN ↗
    > seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives
    The OG genocides involved deaths in the millions [1]. That requires killing with industrial efficiency, something that made it categorically unique from the "wipe out the village" warfare that goes back to, probably, before civilisation. (Chimpanzees do it. To my knowledge, they're the only other species that annihilates versus merely fighting off enemies.)
    At lower kill volumes, even in the tens and possibly even hundreds of thousands, the line between conventional warfare done conservatively, conventional warfare done brutally and a process that, if left unhindered, will reach a million-man death toll.
    (Then you have the ambiguity, one which does not apply in Gaza, introduced by displacement also being included in genocide and it starts to intersect pretty much perfectly with war.)
    If we want these words to keep having meaning, we have to nitpick around their use. Otherwise, overinclusivity will consume them.
    [1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
    well_ackshually · 1790688069 · focus · HN ↗
    .. any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
    (a) Killing members of the group; (check) (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (check) (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (check) (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (check) (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[8] (check)
    Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state and the biggest threat to the stability of the middle east. Whataboutism will not change facts.
    kyboren · 1790794977 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, Israel certainly doesn't intend to destroy Arabs, Muslims, or brown-skinned people more broadly, and you can't honestly claim "Palestine" is a nation:
    - no defined territory--and certainly none broadly recognized
    - no unique language or ethnicity
    - a culture only distinguished from Egypt and the Levant by their penchant for terrorism
    - a history that only meaningfully diverged from their neighbors within the last half-century, and which divergence springs entirely from their consistent unwillingness to pursue peace with Israel
    So even if Israel had the intent to commit genocide--which, unfortunately[1], they don't--the Arabs in Gaza don't qualify as a distinct group that can be subjected to genocide.
    If Colombia had decided to annihilate the FARC, just kill them all--would that have qualified as a genocide, too? It seems to me they meet at least as many tests for nationhood.
    [1]: See also: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49912637">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49912637

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