Stay safe fam

When Zionist’s calling for “no cease fire"

Is there any valid premise for it?

Hamas will exist w/O gaza but would a ceasefire be even valuable for either atp?

Idk much I’ve posted sparsely itt but but not trying to instigate

I hear/read alot of mockery/tongue In cheek posts regarding tunnel stuff itt

I am uninformed but largely holding a negative outlook towards Israel and idf etc

But re tunnels, I am curious what others have to say or their opinion

You already know

Hamas does utilize underground tunnels. They've released footage themselves using them. The issue is Israel and others claiming all this stuff is above hospitals, schools, churches, and mosques they are bombing.

To my understanding ceasefire is the bare bare minimum to stop the killing at least so something else can be figured out,

It's the bare minimum that massive amounts of people can advocate for without feeling like they're promoting violence by being vocally supportive of the resistance,

But even people who are calling for a ceasefire are getting called terrorist apologists and all that by people who think all of palestine/arabs are terrorists. Which once again is ironic or a farce given the brutal use of force used on them by the more 'accepted' government of the occupation

There is a reason the occupation government knew there were tunnels below there because they built them in the 80s (1983? someone correct me if i am wrong)

But TL;DR ceasefire is something that shouldn't even be that problematic. it really is just saying "stop killing"

That alone doesn't fix anything at all but it stops the genocide from going further

One last thing, on your first point, for me the sheer amount of civilian casualties invalidates some idea of "eliminating hamas" because the killing is so indiscriminate that it cannot be seen as just "targeting terrorists" thats not whats going on here in the bigger picture and I don't even know if they're even trying to keep up with that narrative any more

not sure how much you've seen of some of the politicians/military leaders dehumanizing palestinians but that might give insight to some of the mindset they have going into it, even see some videos of people spouting that dehumanizing rhetoric in the US and other places

tunnels don't warrant mass slaughter of children and families, cutting off all clean water and electricity food supplies to a population of millions while bombing every aspect of their life out of existence eliminating countless family lines

Been keeping active locally. A lot of good happening on the ground level a lot of mobilizing and hopefully radicalizing going on

One of my coworkers to a leave of absence from work on Friday to go help in Israel. He’s gonna be doing EMT work out there apparently. He’s very much Pro-Israel

He’s a Jewish guy from NJ or some s***. For the last week n a half it’s felt like he’s been trying to bait everybody at work into talking about the genocide — or rather “watch Israel turn Gaza into a parking lot.” Before this latest conflict, he was a pretty chill and well liked guy lol.

So scary to see people reveal themselves as genocidal monsters so easily

Excitedly trying to get your coworkers to talk about 'turning Gaza into a parking lot' is disgusting

Hope everyone's safe

S*** man, didn't realise anyone here was there.... Wish all the safety for you and your family

If history is any lesson....... this won't eliminate Hamas, it will create a new generation of it.

Great point overall.

Chiraqis sounds so much better than chicagoans

I'm in Lebanon

The death count at this point is likely greater than 15,000-20,000 (the Gaza Health Ministry has been crippled atp and power is scarce so getting numbers updated to their data base right now isn't easy anymore -- the official 11k-12k figure you see hasn't moved at all since Nov 6 as mass power shortages/internet blackouts/many healthcare officials killings prevent updates; additional many bodies remain unrecovered from the rumble -- people report walking through gaza hearing moans/screams coming from under the concrete)

They've at best taken out a 100-300 Al Qassam Brigade members (actual armed wing of Hamas) -- the bridgades are a fraction of 30,000 total Hamas members.

So how much more killing? You did 20,000 deaths for only 100-300 fighters at best and completely destroyed your international support to the point where even western media in the US like CNN needs to show degrees of separation between the US and Israel.

The crazy part is they haven't released any footage of the tunnels, hostage rescues, or given an alternative plans for Palis in the South now that Egypt has completely dead ended any possibility of moving Gazans out there (as they should btw because every arab country knows this was bibi's OG strategy to push Gazans out by the bombing campaign/have Blinken/US pressure Egypt to open the border)

On top of that, there was no 'control center' or tunnel network found under Al-Shifa -- no justification for the death/raids/power cuts/bombing campaigns in the North around the hospital that led to thousands of deaths.

The reason you see Israelis chanting for no ceasefire is because without meaningful results, this bombing campaign on civilians has completely destroyed their international credibility. They've generated zero net benefit from this as the original goal was to have Egypt give in and let the forced expulsion of Gazans into the Sinai happen -- leading to the annexation of Gaza.

Here's a report from the CSIS -- one of the biggest and most pro-war/US interference think thanks for geopolitical strategy in America titled "Israel Could Lose" -- the author more or less is pro-israeli/zionist but they give perspective on how Israel is harming itself/becoming a potential liability to the US/West:

The barbarousness of Hamas’s massacres in Israel have drawn comparisons to the Islamic State and al Qaeda, but that can distract from what is really important: that Hamas’s concept of military victory, like those other organizations, is all about driving long-term political outcomes. Hamas sees victory not in one year or five, but from engaging with decades of struggle that increase Palestinian solidarity and increase Israel’s isolation. In this scenario, Hamas rallies a besieged population in Gaza around it in anger and helps collapse the Palestinian Authority government by ensuring Palestinians see it even more as a feckless adjunct to Israeli military authority. Meanwhile, Arab states move strongly away from normalization, the Global South aligns strongly with the Palestinian cause, Europe recoils at the Israeli army’s excesses, and an American debate erupts over Israel, destroying the bipartisan support Israel has enjoyed here since the early 1970s. Rumblings of a regional war suit Hamas well, prompting global debates about the cost of an alliance with Israel. Israel’s ability to sustain its own solidarity through this process is not Hamas’ main concern. Rather, its goal is to estrange Israel from its international partners and turn it into the pariah that Hamas believes it to be.

Hamas need not be strong to follow this strategy; it merely needs to be steadfast. Rather than relying on enough strength to defeat Israel, it seeks instead to use Israel’s far greater strength to defeat Israel. Israel’s strength allows the country to kill Palestinian civilians, destroy Palestinian infrastructure, and defy global calls for restraint. All those things advance Hamas’s war aims.

Hamas plans on losing a slew of battles along the way, as it has before. But the group’s improbable successes of October 7 will inspire future generations of Palestinians who cherish even small victories against impossible odds. While Hamas seeks to reclaim Jerusalem, that goal is akin to Jewish views of the coming of the messiah and Christian views of the Second Coming. The obligation to work toward it is irrespective of the likelihood of seeing it in one’s lifetime.

(source: csis.org/analysis/israel-could-lose)

"additional many bodies remain unrecovered from the rumble -- people report walking through gaza hearing moans/screams coming from under the concrete)"

Had to fight back immediate tears upon reading this

Thank you for the post @Shoeman97

The premise that Israel publicly pronounces for it is that Hamas needs to be destroyed for what they did on october 7th

But if we would accept that premise as valid, what should happen to Israel for what they have done for 75 years? The Al-aqsa flood wouldn't even come close

The real reason however is that Israel doesn't want to lose its "deterrence capacity". Or in other words: arabs need to stay scared of what Israel will do to their people if they pursue their right to self-determination

My unwavering respect goes to the people that probably spend most of the day trying to rescue as many people as they can from the rubble