Political Thread in memory of David Reid. (R.I.P.)

[GodsTeeth]

Its been 30 years since I left Burnley and if some of the people on here are representative of its current inhabitants then its a shame to the world. There are people on here who belong in the 3rd Reich but unfortunately for them they wouldn't have the brain cells necessary to join the Hitler Youth, (hint: its a low bar) and w***ing all day in a dark room would not get you past the physical exam for the SS.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Welcome on board GodsTeeth, you will go down a storm on here.

[sinkov]

Welcome on board GodsTeeth, you will go down a storm on here.

Just what we need, another fecking moaner.

[sinkov]

Here you are mon ami, try reading about the actual situation on the ground in Rafah, instead of the terrorist propaganda you continually fixate upon.

Written by Andrew Fox.
Major (Ret.) Andrew Fox served as an officer in the British Army from 2005-21, completing three tours of Afghanistan. He is Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

"The heat, the sand, the soldiers. I’m in Rafah, a war zone unlike any other. As a former soldier, it’s an unsettling experience. Every time we get out of a vehicle, I reach for a weapon I do not have. Instead of my army fatigues, I’m wearing lightweight trousers, a polo shirt and a blue helmet signifying I’m a civilian guest of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

There’s one thing that hits me more than anything else while I’m here: the damage to Gaza. It is appalling. Almost every building is damaged, and many are destroyed outright. After 7 October, Hamas had to be removed from Gaza. But they aren’t an easy adversary to take on.

Hamas has turned the whole place into one giant booby trap

There are 500 km of tunnels below Gaza, longer in distance than the entire London underground. In Rafah alone, the 162nd Division, who I’m alongside, have found ten tunnel-hidden rocket launching sites, 21 subterranean weapons production sites, and they have destroyed 200 tunnel entry shafts. Here’s the issue: each one of those tunnel shafts led to a mosque; a school; a person’s home. To destroy the tunnel system, there is inevitable damage to the buildings under which the tunnels run and to which they are connected.

Homes in Gaza, many concealing tunnel shafts, are almost all booby-trapped. The IDF has adapted to this. They now enter houses first with drones, then with dogs. Only when a house is seemingly clear do they enter, and even then only in four-man squads to minimise casualties if a bomb goes off. Hamas has cameras in each home, with cables running into the tunnels. If they see the IDF have missed an IED, they wait for troops to enter, then detonate the device.

When the IDF finds an IED, they will not enter and will simply destroy the house. They have neither the capacity nor the desire to clear every IED from Gaza. There are just too many to even try. All of this explains the damage in Rafah. Hamas has turned the whole place into one giant booby trap and the IDF’s only realistic option is to clear it explosively.

We visited an IDF brigade halfway through an operation. Armoured vehicles were grinding away behind us, and special forces teams were searching for tunnels. A machine gun fired sporadically, 100 metres away.

One IDF squad had some downtime in one of the ruined buildings in Swedish Village, named after the UN soldiers who once served here. The young Israeli soldiers, all men, are taking a moment to rest and are pranking each other. They reminded me of my own platoon in Afghanistan. The brigade’s deputy commander is my age, in his 40s. As one of the few full-time professional soldiers in the IDF, he bears the heavy weight of command on a long and violent tour. We exchange a few war stories and as we leave, he slaps his brigade patch onto my body armour. It’s a nice touch.

But why risk it? Why go into Rafah at all? Simply because the aim is to destroy Hamas. That involves finding and degrading their capability, and that capability hinges on the supply tunnels from Rafah into Egypt, some of which run 2 km beyond the Egyptian border. Hamas has created conditions which mean the IDF has no option but to destroy buildings in Gaza. The alternative is to face inestimable casualties.

Even so, the IDF has incurred significant casualties in this war. In this division alone, of 30,000 total troops, 4,039 have been injured, with 2,904 returning to combat afterwards. There have been 966 helicopter medical evacuation missions.

The division’s statistics for vehicle combat damage are fascinating. 2,831 vehicles have needed some level of repair due to enemy damage. Every single repaired vehicle has made it back to the front line. Hamas has only succeeded in destroying four armoured vehicles in nine months (two main battle tanks and two armoured personnel carriers). Objectively, this is pitiful by Hamas. They are taking an astonishingly one-sided battering.

But what about the huge civilian casualty figures? In Rafah, the IDF estimates the total number of civilians killed is fewer than 100. The place is empty. Civilians heed the IDF’s warnings and flee to the humanitarian zones when they are told to do so.

Being alive is not the same as living, however. Gazans’ homes are destroyed. As it stands, the parts of Rafah I have seen are unliveable.

Hamas must indeed be destroyed operationally. This does not mean there is not the strongest of duties on Israel and the international community to rebuild Gaza from the rubble. Gazans face a truly miserable existence for the foreseeable future. This level of destruction, necessary though it is, will be challenging to come back from. And so Israel and the international community must ensure that proper, enduring reconstruction comes afterwards."

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Some of us on here need to be very careful, Section 12 of the TACT 2000 “makes it an offense to invite support for a proscribed organization; express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization and in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organization; or to arrange, manage or assist in arranging or managing a meeting in support of a proscribed organization.”

Another knock on the door probably imminent. Meanwhile last night the Jews continued to grab land, kill and injure innocent Palestinians, setting cars and homes ablaze and from Starmer and Lammy not a single word of condemnation.

[sinkov]

Some of us on here need to be very careful, Section 12 of the TACT 2000 “makes it an offense to invite support for a proscribed organization; express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization and in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organization; or to arrange, manage or assist in arranging or managing a meeting in support of a proscribed organization.”

Another knock on the door probably imminent. Meanwhile last night the Jews continued to grab land, kill and injure innocent Palestinians, setting cars and homes ablaze and from Starmer and Lammy not a single word of condemnation.

Is Hamas a proscribed organisation ?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Is Hamas a proscribed organisation ?

You know it is.

[sinkov]

You know it is.

In which case section 12 of TACT 2000 doesn't seem to work very well in practice. Two Tier policing ?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

In which case section 12 of TACT 2000 doesn't seem to work very well in practice. Two Tier policing ?

No Kier Policing unless it suits the Tory Mk 2 manifesto mon ami.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

The official Palestinian death toll from Israel’s 314-day assault on Gaza has now surpassed 40,000 — a figure that U.N. officials say is made up of mostly women and children and likely a vast undercount.

Meanwhile, half a million are on the brink of starvation, a polio outbreak threatens, and health experts project that the total number of dead from all causes related to the war could easily reach 180,000.

Yet last Tuesday, in the face of what the U.N. calls an “endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale,” the Biden administration approved another $20 billion in new weapons sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Most Western news outlets dramatically scaled back their coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza in recent months, some of us remain committed to exposing the ongoing atrocities in Gaza every day, as well as the complicity of the U.S. as Israel’s primary weapons dealer and political patron.

Hard to believe we live in 2024 and the Holocaust was more than 80 years ago. Whatever happened to "Never again?