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Comment by LAC-Tech | Hacker News Reader

wow... so in response to 1400 people being murdered what do you believe the correct response should have been

Those figures are from Israeli sources[1]. We must be careful using figures from active combatants to assess something. To paraphrase an earlier post of yours [2] "All of those come from Israel, is that a source you trust?"

Was any military action "justified"

Yes. I don't think many people would have been upset with extrajudicial assassinations by the IDF in Gaza. But displacing 1.7 million people[3] is disproportionate.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israe...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38453490

[3] https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-repo...

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>>All of those come from Israel, is that a source you trust?"

Yes... It is

>>But displacing 1.7 million people[3] is disproportionate.

This is where we disagree. These was no way to do it any more surgical then they did. All militaries soften a entrenched enemy with Ariel bombing. That is standard practice.

People that claim "they should have just killed Hamas only" are highly ignorant of military tactics and have unrealistic expectations for military conflict

If bombing was off the table, then you are effectively saying there is no reponse what you would find justified

What kind of military tactic is cutting off water, denying food and humanitarian aid in a "total siege" and deliberately causing a humanitarian crisis? As in, they didn't cause the crisis as a side-effect of the bombing, they very purposefully starved them of food and water.

Hamas caused humanitarian crisis but redirecting decades of humanitarian aid money to their military efforts and not to building up internal infrastructure

I find it holy ironic that given the opportunity to build internal infrastructure instead they build rockets and bought guns and then relied upon their "enemy" for their basic needs

> In November 1967 the Israeli authorities issued Military Order 158, which stated that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. Since then, the extraction of water from any new source or the development of any new water infrastructure would require permits from Israel, which are near impossible to obtain. [...] They are unable to drill new water wells, install pumps or deepen existing wells, in addition to being denied access to the Jordan River and fresh water springs.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occu...

> Yes... It is

Israel has been demonstrated to wildly lie. Not as much as Hamas, but they've been caught red handed many, multiple times in the past few weeks.

> If bombing was off the table, then you are effectively saying there is no reponse what you would find justified

Boots on the ground. Progressive capture of terrain. That's one way to do it.

One of the interesting things of this "war" is that it shows the IDF to be way weaker than it was 20 years ago, btw. This is changing the calculus in the region.

No military in history since the invention of the airplane would go boots on the ground without first doing aerial bombardment.

Name any conflict in which the side going into a nation has aerial superiority that did not do aerial bombardment to soften the target before going boots on the ground to limit casualties on your side

It is absolutely naive and asinine to say they should have gone boots on the ground without doing any bombing whatsoever

As far as it being weaker I don't know if they're weaker I do believe they became complacent just like in many ways the US military has

> But displacing 1.7 million people[3] is disproportionate.

Firstly, you fight to win, not to be proportionate. If the Americans were proportionate in WW2 they would never have invaded Nazi Germany because the Nazis never invaded the USA.

Secondly, displacing people is so they don't die. Apparently you'd prefer them to be human shields.

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