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Mass Grave in Gaza Points to “Execution-Style” Killings by Israeli Forces
(www.democracynow.org)
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Taking everything here as fact no person would deny it. But misinformation and agendas are everywhere.
Looking into the article:
comment of one civilian (not named)
witnesses decomposing bodies in an area of mass conflict
potentially/probably bound and/or gagged
assumed to be civilians
instantly placed blame on one group they are heavily biased against
blaming Israel is nearly half the article
No investigation on who they are, how they were killed, who killed them or collaborated from multiple sources. These could be innocent Palestine civilians, executed Israeli hostages, executed POW from either side, soldiers killed in conflict and dumped in one spot with torn clothes, soldiers tied up to transport easier.
Democracynow.org is a heavily left leaning publication (could be irrelevantbut not balanced), cant find anything on accuracy, owned by non profits. Not published by a well known and accurate source. Assigned blame on Israel without any investigation (this is the big red flag for me).
This is a very vague article, with little backing and authority behind it. If it is true, it should absolutely be investigated and considered as a crime against humanity - but this looks like a piece with poor reporting and a heavy agenda behind it.
And before anyone calls me a genocide denier - take a step back and look at who writes the articles you read and what their agenda is. This conflict has soo much propaganda from both sides and uninformed and uneducated opinions it horrendous. My list of what is missing is longer than the article.
Al Jazeera has more detailed eye witnesses statement's and video about the mass grave found. Independent investigations are being called for but this is breaking news so that could take some time
Also reported on Common Dreams and Middle East Eye.
The first paragraph of the Al Jazeera article shows the biggest difference in the quality of reporting
mass grave found
calling for investigations
Palestine authorities blame Israel.
This is the big concern I have about the original article - instantly called it executions of civilians, Israel did it. AL stated the facts, and you said it yourself - breaking news and investigation takes time, so why is it ok to scream genocide and Israeli did it? I can guarantee you Democracynow won't release a massive recant of its statenents and apologize if it was wrong - it just put out the fastest article it could that stired up the most anger.
I got downvoted to shit because because I believe in waiting for the evidence and can see there is a clear bias in the article.
Well I wouldn't say there isn't precedent to think so
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/un-human-rights-office-opt-unlawful-killings-gaza-city
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6049
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/11/israel/palestine-unprecedented-killings-repression
First article discusses a killing of 11 civilians, and other isolated events. Each individual one absolutely needs to be investigated and those responsible held to account but its not genocide.
Second discusses the effects on the elderly population and how nearly 1% of those over 60 have been killed - most killed by rubble. Again, not genocide. It sucks but civilians do die in war - those that were killed in cold blood do need justice however.
Third one discusses the changes in human rights over the last year (actually a really good read), how war crimes have been committed by both sides. Mentions numerous crimes against civilians, including events of executions. Like the first - those should be held to account but its not genocide... or if it is its a pretty crap attempt.
Is there precident that Israel could have done this - yes.
Is there also precident that Hamas could have done this - yes.
Thanks for the links by the way - pretty accurate and unbiased reporting. They are discussing that there are human rights violations happening from both side in this conflict, and hopefully international pressures will bring those responsible to account - but its not genocide. Happy to change mind as new evidence comes to account.
Those articles all show execution style killings Israel has done in this war, reported by human rights orgs. Hamas has done public executions before 2015/2007 and 2022 which while equally abhorrent isn't quite the same as Israel has been doing to Palestinians. So I don't think they are equally likely, to me it seems Israel is a lot more likely due to the circumstances here.
But I am grateful that you are willing to discuss in a civil manner and interested in credible sources. That's not as common as it should be, insults and sourceless claims should be left to reddit imo lol.
As for genocide, the ICJ case is very detailed. I'll link what I have found here:
ICJ Ruling archived here
Experts on Genocide at US Court on the issue
800+ Legal Scholars on International Law and Genocide on whether it amounts to genocide
5 more experts on the subject
Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide
GDF has a pretty good video on it imo
Also linking this Foreign Affairs article which is quite good on the topic of a one state solution archived here
It's insane how infested Lemmy is with anti-Western shills stirring the pot against the West in any way they can. My fiancee is Jewish but I'm not religious so we have debates/arguments about the war, but it's clear here that any comment not "Israel is literally Satan" is downvoted to hell.
Don't get me wrong it was bad on Reddit but Lemmy is on another level.
That's a problem with decentralization that needs to be solved because at the moment the only tools to deal with any of the tens or hundreds of Lemmy instances plagued by propaganda is to defederate them (on the Admin side) or block each individual user/server/sub (on the User side).
At least with centralized services you can detect and (shadow)ban obvious bot activity quite easily. As far as I know of Lemmy infrastructure, your IP/User-Agent/other identifying metadata only goes as far as the server you're registered to.
Running a popular Lemmy server is probably a nice way to collect some juicy 0days from governments though, if you have the skillset.
What does yours and your fiance's religious differences have to do with it? Many Jewish people think the Israeli state is violent and illegitimate. There maybe some shills here, but is it possible that there are just more users aware of the history than you are used to? A lot of users are here because they don't buy into the Western propaganda that inundates Reddit and most English media, not that we are anti-west shills. There are many perspectives in the world outside of the US and western countries, millions of people are in agreement in their desire for Palestinian freedom and the end of Israeli state genocide.
Turns out committing genocide isn't a popular position. Who knew?
Thanks for the AJ link, genuinely. That as good as confirms it.
Christ, I'm speechless.
AJ confirms these people were found, and Palestine blames Israel.
It doesn't confirm who did it or who they were, and saying investigation is needed.
Democracy Now have a left-wing bias, but are a factual source. . That said, I'm not here to defend them - nor do I have much interest in this particular article or event.
I was asking about the broader situation, action, policy and rhetoric. My views are based more on the history of the situation, the casualty counts, reporting from the likes of AP and Reuters, UN oversight, and significantly, the words of the Israeli leadership themselves. If nothing else, when a political leader tells you they want to exterminate a group they've been keeping in brutal conditions, then kills tens of thousands of them, I tend to believe them.
I'm not going to call you a genocide denier, but I will ask you - are you denying the genocide, and if so, on what grounds. If you have any thoughts on the differentiation from the Nazis of that era, I'd like to hear those too.
I don't deny that a genocide was attempted on 10/7. I also believe that Israel has the right to ensure it's security, especially if the Palestinian public refuses to do so themselves. You might say "But Palestinians have no responsibility to do so" and you'd be wrong. 80 years of terrorism against the Israeli people means that Palestinians have a responsibility to stop the violence.
Until they do, Israel must take actions to defend itself. If you have suggestions for how this should be done, I'm all ears.
Are Palestinians entitled to defend themselves?
Except Gaza shares a border with Egypt that Israel was not controlling before the Oct. 7 war and I'm not sure if they are controlling it now.
Israel is preventing Palestinians from overthrowing Hamas? Why would that be true and what evidence of that claim do you have?
You can't defend people and strip them of all agency at the same time.
So to the best of your knowledge, there has not been a single uprising attempt against Hamas, and the Jews in Israel are to blame?
Wow.
So your argument is essentially that the Jews are to blame for terrorist actions against them and the terrorists themselves should not be held accountable because the Jews won't allow it...
I'm not sure if you personally are an antisemite but the people telling you this nonsense clearly are and I think you should start considering how these arguments come across to people who aren't antisemites.
It gets even worse, because it means they don't have great access to information either.
There was a video soon after Oct 7 that showed Palestinians celebrating in the streets. They hadn't been told about the civilian deaths or kidnappings though, only that a prison had been liberated. And that context wasn't shown alongside their celebrations when Israelis saw it.
The suppression of information has led to misunderstandings that perpetuate the hate and the war. Just as Netanyahu wants, I suspect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and displaced Israelis that had been living in Gaza since the 1940s because of two decades of terror bombings of busses in Israel.
I vehemently oppose the use of violence to achieve political goals in all forms.
I would suggest educating yourself on this conflict and the historical reasons for the state of the conflict today.
You got your sides mixed up, it's been 80 years of terrorism, subjugation, blockades, land grabs, against the Palestinian people, and the Palestinians have a right to ensure their security. Have you considered why Israel needs to 'defend itself'? Why do you think Palestinian people have been fighting for 80 years?
TL:DR: Israel isn't defending itself by committing a genocide against a population they've subjugated.
There are a series of issues with this...
Genocide isn't an act of defence - it's an attempt to completely exterminate a group of people, and is the greatest act of aggression a group could possibly commit.
The response we're seeing is in no way proportionate, and causing a completely unacceptable level of civilian casualties (10k+ children alone in response to 1,200 total killed according to Israeli counts).
Israel have killed more Palestinians than the total number of Hamas members in existence with zero indication of progress, and no sign of stopping.
Israel have maintained Palestine in conditions described by the UN as an open air concentration camp, and have placed severe apartheid restrictions on Palestinians for years.
Israel have killed orders of magnitude more Palestinians than Hamas have killed Israelis.
Israel funded the rise of Hamas (who were no less violent then) over the secular moderates - as confirmed by both IDF leadership at the time she Arafat. I see no reason for them to do this other than to manufacture pretext for the genocide while maintaining US support.
Palestinians seem to have a lot more to "defend themselves" against - between the numbers killed and displaced and the very restrictive living conditions they're subjected to.
Israeli leadership have said pretty plainly and repeatedly that they intend to exterminate Palestinians - if all Palestinians were to lay down arms and submit to the apartheid conditions, movement restrictions, and conditions we've seen over the past decade, the well funded nuclear power with modern military simply won't stop.
What makes Israel's actions self-defence while Hamas's lesser actions are not?
By this point honestly I don't know. The quality of information that gets to the public, the bias and propaganda from both sides, even the mass bot account in lemmy.world that downvote everything not anti Israeli tells me there is alot of information missing.
Are we looking at individuals actions, groups of people, or a systematic process? The amount of suppressed information and incorrect reporting makes the latter appear to be all there is, but the reality is somewhere in the range.
Could it be a genocide - yes. Are there massive questions that need to be asked - absolutely. Have both sides committed crimes against humanity - very likely. Is it enough for media to be screaming genocide, make a biased article to inflame the masses without checking the facts - no.
What definition of genocide are you using? There's no way to credibly dispute the fact that Israel's actions comfortably meet both the UN and dictionary definitions.
Do you have any thoughts on my question about the meaningful differentiation between Novemberpogrome-era Nazi Germany and modern Israel?
UN definition
The key difference being we are seeing incidents of killing of civilians - either in conflict (expected) or execution (not expectedin conflict). What we aren't seeing is a focused attempt at destroying the entire group - 10 here, mostly men, building destroyed there - or clear instructions to destroy the group. Quality reporting is showing individual incidents, mass propaganda and biased articles are calling it genocide.
No sorry, I cant comment on the difference as that wasn't my area of study - mine was surface level Syria, Ukraine, Rwanda and War crime definitions, causes and responses. Id be limited to what the other poster said - one spoke German.
Here's the full UN definition:
A major portion of the Palestinian territory has been flattened, and supplies to rebuild have been blocked, people can't return, and are kept in concentration camp conditions. Israel have killed more civilians than the total number of Hamas members in existence, and are showing no signs of "progress" - let alone slowing down. There's also the small fact that they funded the rise of Hamas over the secular moderates - seemingly to create the pretext for the genocide they're now committing. Tens of thousands of dead isn't isolated incidents - particularly when they're just stating their genocidal intent. Here's some relevant quotes... I can provide admission that they were funding Hamas too if you'd like.
Prime Minister Netanyahu
and
and
"Defence" minister Galant
Kallner...
Atbaryan...
Halevi...
If someone tells you they want to commit a genocide before killing tens of thousands of civilians in a few months while subjugating the entire population they've said they want to exterminate, I think it's safe to believe them.
Here's the thing about calling us deniers:
The claim that Jews are attempting extermination and are being helped by the globalist liberals is the oldest conspiracy theory on earth. It keeps popping up somewhere every 20 or so years, in some rightwing shithole nation, and it's never true. It's solely a justification to begin a campaign of antisemitic policies and violence.
Why should we believe the anti-Semites are telling the truth now?
Not that you are anti-Semitic yourself, but everybody else who previously made this claim was. How can we trust that you are different and telling the truth this time?
Israel != Jews. Lots of Jews are calling out Israel for, to all outward appearances, committing genocide. One of Israelis own judges on the recent IJC hearing with South Africa concurred with South Africa on two points IIRC. Not to mention that Israel failed to make their case completely. So there's that.
Why is it that the people making the accusations of genocide don't like it when it is pointed out that the people they are specifically accusing the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors?
You may be refusing to use the word Jew, you may be talking only of specific Jews (in truth the majority of Israeli/American Jews, who are the majority of Jews worldwide, but I digress), and you may refuse to bear mention of their relation to genocide themselvea, but this is what you mean, clearly, unless you can decontextualize the Israeli government from the people of Israel, as if it is something placed on them and not of them. You aren't able to do that, I suspect.
I don't mind it being pointed out. It's especially damning because of that. You would think that they had learned better. But as is often the problem with humankind. We don't ever really learn. We just retaliate when given the chance.
When I say Israel that means government. When I say Israeli people. That means Israeli people. Like when people say America. Typically means American government. When they say American people. That typically means the American people. Is that clear? Hopefully that clears it up.
And to be 1000% clear. It is the Israeli government, specifically likud In the knesset that are the problem. Plenty of the Israeli people are aghast at their own government's actions.
Because there's physical evidence. It's one thing when it's a conspiracy theory about a world government. It's something else entirely when the IDF repeatedly kills unarmed people in the open with nothing else going on. It's another thing entirely when they're forcing Gazans to eat grass because they won't allow them actual food.
It's another thing entirely when it's the government of Israel being protested and not some nebulous concept of Judaism.
Physical evidence is presented to a court and tried, it isn't decontextualized videos on tiktok and news reports from the Qatar state's english propaganda directed at leftists.
Do you understand the difference?
It isn't blanket denials from the IDF when Reuters breaks it down with hard evidence, satellite photography, and eyewitness accounts from western Journalists.
You can try to discredit the accounts all you want but I've been in a war zone. I know what it's supposed to look like and this ain't it.
Please link me to Reuters accusing Israel of genocide and the evidence they are using.
There comes a time when you realize putting in the work to be logical and consistent means nothing to fanatics. They either have no idea what words mean, or they don't care, so keeping it short is just as good.
They don't care that making incredulous claims destroys their credibility. It's basically the Trump tactic of inundation the headlines with bullsht hoping something sticks.
Thank you for this. I noticed that there are no photos or other material that show any of the restraints, just the closed body bags with Hebrew tags. You would think that they would immediately photograph or film such restraints, but for some reason, they did not and they are only mentioned in the article text in both this article and the Al Jazeera source. The article on Al Jazeera's website, which includes a video overlayed with ominous music (not something a reputable outlet would do), includes the lie that the men stripped and restrained for processing a while ago were out in the cold, even though one could easily access weather data for Gaza that showed it wasn't cold at all at the time.
From a logical perspective, it would make no sense for Israel to leave the bodies behind with restraints, whereas burying bodies they come across is perfectly reasonable for the purposes of preventing disease. If the goal of this burial had been to hide executions or a massacre, then they wouldn't have tagged them, which would place the blame entirely on them.
The most reasonable explanation, in absence of more concrete evidence, is that these are either civilians found in the rubble or killed in the crossfire - or Hamas fighters who died in combat. They could also be people killed by Hamas (who just murdered a pro-peace activist after abducting and torturing him). I think what happened here is that IDF cleanup crews buried these people, likely without identifying them beyond checking if any hostages are among them, and now returning Palestinians are exhuming the bodies again in order to find missing relatives.
I also have a really hard time believing random unnamed eyewitness reports of mass executions. Given the enormous prevalence of smartphones and their extensive use to document this conflict, one would expect that an act this significant, this unquestionably monstrous would be filmed. It would be the single greatest rallying cry for the Palestinian cause imaginable. Watch any video of the aftermath of a bombing raid in Gaza and you see more people with cameras than people trying to help the wounded. If a random Belgian with a bulky camera can secretly film executions of civilians by German forces during WW1, then surely so can Gazans with much more readily available, much more concealable smartphones.