The Israeli military said it was carrying out a raid on Wednesday against Palestinian Hamas militants in Al Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital, and urged them all to surrender.
I’ve generally assumed that the majority of the hostages taken on the initial attack are now dead and have been for some time. The offer of “70 hostages” by Hamas suggested to me that 150+ were already dead.
We’ll see how the operation plays out.
Part of my surprise at the US statements is the high potential for the whole thing going to shit and catching the blowback. The Hamas spin team have already managed to get several headlines of “Hamas blames Biden/the US for what’s happening at Al Shifa” because of those comments.
If there wasn’t some kind of strategic win on the table that the US administration was attempting to connect itself to for credit after the fact, opening itself up to the potentially large political loss if the operation goes south seems plain stupid.
So my guess is still that there’s a real goal of a politically beneficial outcome for the US at the end of the operation such that it motivated preemptive involvement.
Edit: As for “calling the shot” - that’s literally part of the international law. For going into the hospital that’s being used for military ops by an enemy not to be a war crime IDF needed to provide advance notice of an operation, give Hamas the opportunity to cease activities, show demonstrable proof it was continuing, and then go in while taking every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
I think the problem is just how effective the Hamas/(allegedly)Iran spin team has been.
Al Jazeera have been going REALLY hard on reminding people they are state funded media. Hard to tell because we are in a post truth society, but it also looks like they are actively cutting off people who attest to their being Hamas terrorists in said hospitals (which would be true even if it weren’t a base since they are likely wounded). Just look at how fast the entire world decided Israel bombed that hospital a few weeks back (… as opposed to the hospitals they HAVE bombed before and after).
So push the narrative that the IDF care about the hostages and are trying to rescue them. Use allies to accomplish that. If it fails, it fails. It is no different than if they did nothing. But if even a few hostages are rescued (and have sob stories of their treatment by Hamas) then it is a major win.
At this point, the only political win for the US is to not put boots on the ground in yet another Middle Eastern country that has been destabilized.
I’ve generally assumed that the majority of the hostages taken on the initial attack are now dead and have been for some time. The offer of “70 hostages” by Hamas suggested to me that 150+ were already dead.
We’ll see how the operation plays out.
Part of my surprise at the US statements is the high potential for the whole thing going to shit and catching the blowback. The Hamas spin team have already managed to get several headlines of “Hamas blames Biden/the US for what’s happening at Al Shifa” because of those comments.
If there wasn’t some kind of strategic win on the table that the US administration was attempting to connect itself to for credit after the fact, opening itself up to the potentially large political loss if the operation goes south seems plain stupid.
So my guess is still that there’s a real goal of a politically beneficial outcome for the US at the end of the operation such that it motivated preemptive involvement.
Edit: As for “calling the shot” - that’s literally part of the international law. For going into the hospital that’s being used for military ops by an enemy not to be a war crime IDF needed to provide advance notice of an operation, give Hamas the opportunity to cease activities, show demonstrable proof it was continuing, and then go in while taking every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
I think the problem is just how effective the Hamas/(allegedly)Iran spin team has been.
Al Jazeera have been going REALLY hard on reminding people they are state funded media. Hard to tell because we are in a post truth society, but it also looks like they are actively cutting off people who attest to their being Hamas terrorists in said hospitals (which would be true even if it weren’t a base since they are likely wounded). Just look at how fast the entire world decided Israel bombed that hospital a few weeks back (… as opposed to the hospitals they HAVE bombed before and after).
So push the narrative that the IDF care about the hostages and are trying to rescue them. Use allies to accomplish that. If it fails, it fails. It is no different than if they did nothing. But if even a few hostages are rescued (and have sob stories of their treatment by Hamas) then it is a major win.
At this point, the only political win for the US is to not put boots on the ground in yet another Middle Eastern country that has been destabilized.