Thread

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. 4gotunameagain · 1790668528 · focus · HN ↗
    An alternative to levelling entire cities to the ground to find tunnels, would be to stop the expanding of the settlers, stop the apartheid within Israel, stop the blockade and starving on Gaza, and try to actually foster peace instead of constant conflict, pain and misery in order to retain power.
    This is despicable, inhumane. It is generational trauma that started with the Nazis, now propagated to the poor souls around the new western colony of Israel.
    jameshilliard · 1790724575 · focus · HN ↗
    > An alternative to levelling entire cities to the ground to find tunnels, would be to stop the expanding of the settlers, stop the apartheid within Israel, stop the blockade and starving on Gaza, and try to actually foster peace instead of constant conflict, pain and misery in order to retain power.
    Israel left Gaza back in 2005 after forcibly expelling all Jews and only later on only blockaded Gaza due to weapons being smuggled in, so they tried that and it clearly didn't work. It seems unilateral disengagement is simply not a strategy that can be succesful here.
    4gotunameagain · 1790748497 · focus · HN ↗
    This is such a spin. A 20 year blockade (and allowing Qatar to fund Hamas) leading to the Oct. 7 attack - the justification - for the ongoing atrocities, framed as "unilateral disengagement" that was not successful. Therefore it is the Palestinian's at fault.
    It is clear that Israel is the source of violence. Which makes sense, as it is a new Western colony occupying (and constantly expanding) land where people lived for thousands of years, under the justification THAT IT'S IN THE BIBLE.
    A religious fundamentalist colony, funded and armed by the west.
    It is unjustifiable. It is vile.
    rantoniol · 1790751808 · focus · HN ↗
    > A 20 year blockade (and allowing Qatar to fund Hamas)
    The blockade only started after Hamas was elected into power, to reduce their access to more missiles and weapons. The money from Qatar was still allowed in for humanitarian reasons. But no matter what Israel does it is accused of being evil - both allowing the money through and blocking it would be considered wrong by the haters.
    > a new Western colony occupying (and constantly expanding) land
    The total land under control by Israel has shrunk by more than 50% over the past 50 years (with the return of Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace).
    Millions of Arabs have migrated to the West, but only when Jews migrate East are they “vile colonizers”.
    4gotunameagain · 1790761819 · focus · HN ↗
    > The blockade only started after Hamas was elected into power
    Israel has been restricting Gaza's economic viability since the 90s, much before the official blockade.
    > The money from Qatar was still allowed in for humanitarian reasons
    Is this a joke ? The humanitarian Israel that does not let international flotillas with aid reach Gaza ? Or the humanitarian Israel that kills children ?
    > The total land under control by Israel has shrunk by more than 50% over the past 50 years
    The spin of the century. They gave back uninhabitable desert, while continuing expansion all over Palestine.
    > Millions of Arabs have migrated to the West, but only when Jews migrate East are they “vile colonizers”.
    Firstly, it has nothing to do with religion. Secondly, migration is quite different than a formation of a military state that constantly occupies land and expands, attacking its neighbours that has been there for millennia.
    You are spewing propaganda.
    rantoniol · 1790764278 · focus · HN ↗
    > Is this a joke ?
    Israel is currently allowing in thousands of truckloads carrying 35,000 metric tons of aid per month, according to the UN: <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-newsitem-7aug26/" rel="nofollow">https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-newsitem-7aug26/
    What they blocked was a sailboat carrying a bag of oranges and anti-Israel activists trying to carry out a media stunt for attention and virtue-signalling.
    You obviously have an agenda here and are being disingenuous. I will disengage and leave you spewing your lies.
    4gotunameagain · 1790766920 · focus · HN ↗
    35000 tons of aid, 60% percent of it food. So.. 10kg of food per person, per month.
    How noble and humanitarian of the state of Israel.
    Please do disengage, you refuted none of my statements while continuing to spread propaganda from your 3 hour old account.
    jameshilliard · 1790799200 · focus · HN ↗
    > 35000 tons of aid, 60% percent of it food. So.. 10kg of food per person, per month.
    That's for UN 2720 Mechanism aid AFAIU, for totals I think you need to look at COGAT data which shows much higher numbers for total food aid.
    4gotunameagain · 1790857852 · focus · HN ↗
    COGAT is an Israeli military unit.
    Trusting their statements is like trusting the statements of the Nazis during the previous genocide.
    jameshilliard · 1790874649 · focus · HN ↗
    > COGAT is an Israeli military unit.
    That doesn't mean the data is unreliable.
    > Trusting their statements is like trusting the statements of the Nazis during the previous genocide.
    Comparing Israeli's to Nazi's is a common antisemitic trope.
    manyaoman · 1790880704 · focus · HN ↗
    > Comparing Israeli's to Nazi's is a common antisemitic trope.
    That doesn't mean the comparison is inaccurate.
    dang · 1790900525 · focus · HN ↗
    We've banned this account because it has been using HN exclusively for political/national/etc. battle for many months. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're for or against.
    If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
    4gotunameagain · 1790956762 · focus · HN ↗
    What about that jameshilliard guy that has tens of flagged dead comments about Israel ?
    jameshilliard · 1790967590 · focus · HN ↗
    > What about that jameshilliard guy that has tens of flagged dead comments about Israel ?
    I think overall most of my comments are positive. Some people seem to flag comments as a way of disagreeing I guess.
    > Since 2024, 99% of his comments are political and about Israel.
    I don't think that's really an accurate characterization, it's certainly not 99%, are comments correcting factual inaccuracies/misinformation in threads related to Israel considered political just because the surrounding topic is politically contentious?
    Most of my comments on threads involving Israel are me just correcting some of the more obvious misinformation/conspiracy theories and/or trying to provide more factual background context/nuance to the discussions. I try not to push a specific political agenda/ideology for the most part. It's not like I'm trying to start political/ideological discussions either, there just seems to be more factual misinformation around topics involving Israel and that happens to be something where I know a lot of the history.
    dang · 1790977414 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't feel comfortable with "what about that X guy" responses to moderation comments, but in fairness the GP has a point: your account has overwhelmingly been posting in political flamewars for quite some time, and that's not allowed here.
    I had to go back 79 days and what felt like hundreds of posts to find any exception (something about heat pumps I think!), but then scrolling further back just led through reams more of the same. That means your account is definitely on the wrong side of the "primarily" test (<a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...)
    To say that you're simply correcting inaccuracies and misinformation doesn't really work because the question of what counts as accurate vs. misinformation is hotly disputed. It is basically the entirety of the battle.
    On the other hand, your comments have mostly (though not entirely) been avoiding the more degraded forms of guidelines breakage that people resort to in these threads - things like snark, name-calling, and from there into personal attacks, slurs, and so on. That's good, but it's not enough—if you want to keep posting on HN we need you not to use the site primarily for political battle (broadly construed).
    [editing - bear with me...]
    jameshilliard · 1790987490 · focus · HN ↗
    > I had to go back 79 days and what felt like hundreds of posts to find any exception (something about heat pumps I think!), but then scrolling further back just led through reams more of the same.
    I went and checked myself and it's not exactly quite that bad, I quite regularly comment on posts unrelated to Israel/politics, these are comments of mine newer than 79 days that seem entirely unrelated for example: 7 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49846584">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49846584 19 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49687187">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49687187 28 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49569325">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49569325 52 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49252558">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49252558 59 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163184">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163184 59 days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163014">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163014 79 days ago(the supposedly non-political one you found about heat pumps is quite ironically titled "The politics of air conditioning in Switzerland"): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915330">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915330
    > To say that you're simply correcting inaccuracies and misinformation doesn't really work because the question of what counts as accurate vs. misinformation is hotly disputed. It is basically the entirety of the battle.
    I think it's more complex than that, for example in this thread I was pointing out that one shouldn't use UN aid delivery data to justify that sufficient aid is reaching Gaza, because UN aid data doesn't support that conclusion by itself, I then pointed out what data does support the conclusion that sufficient aid is being delivered. So I think there are cases where it's entirely possible to correct misinformation without even challenging the conclusion.:
    <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49879645#49906915">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49879645#49906915
    > On the other hand, your comments have mostly (though not entirely) been avoiding the more degraded forms of guidelines breakage that people resort to in these threads - things like snark, name-calling, and from there into personal attacks, slurs, and so on.
    Yeah, I try and avoid that in general.
    > That's good, but it's not enough—if you want to keep posting on HN we need you not to use the site primarily for political battle (broadly construed).
    I guess the main issue is that I tend to get more replies to my comments in Israel related threads and I get drawn in responding back if I think there's more to be said on the topic, most of my Israel related comments(in terms of absolute numbers) seem be from these super deep back and forth threads and not top level comments.

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