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Israel blows up Rafah water facility amid mounting war crimes accusations (www.msn.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Deceptichum@quokk.au to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] Reverendender@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago

Do the IDF soldiers stop following these illegal orders at some point? Or have they been desensitized to what they’re doing?

[-] Deceptichum@quokk.au 33 points 1 month ago

You’re speaking like they don’t want to do this of their own accord?

[-] Reverendender@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 month ago

if any soldier (IDF or not) refuses orders they will either be shot on site or imprisoned unless they either have enough $$$ or connections to overturn it.

[-] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nuremberg_defense

(ethics, international law, idiomatic) An explanation offered as an excuse for behaving in a criminal or wrongful manner, claiming that one acted in this way because one was ordered by others (particularly superiors) to do so.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

What if the soldiers and superiors stop shooting people on the spot. Okay wait, wait. What if... people stop obeying some lunatic single elderly people that tell us to kill other men, period, and just... not do it?

That would be neat. Imagine if humans knew what it means to be many against few, strong against weak. What we could accomplish...

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago

There was a massive protest by ex military and general public demanding the right of raping Palestinians. This is not about elderly people deploying orders.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

But where are they getting the idea that this is morally correct? Indoctrination. If our governments had no such power to influence its population, and/or limit its access to the truth, we could be so much wiser as a world population.

But it most certainly is, in general, about elderly giving orders. So many soldiers do not want to go to war. You really think the majority of soldiers in the world want to be in a war? That is ridiculous.

[-] Reverendender@lemmy.world -2 points 1 month ago

Can you cite this for me? I need to read up. Somehow I’ve been understanding that they were protesting in support of the Palestinians.

[-] Juice@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago

Jesus, you want a citation for this?

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israelis-protest-arrest-of-soldiers-accused-of-gang-raping-gazan-detainee/3288825

There have been protests inside Israel for ceasefire, the org Standing Together has done a lot of good organizing inside the country.

But one thing that Oct.7 accomplished was show the divisions in society wrt Palestinian apartheid. Its getting more difficult for people who can't abide it to coexist with people who are okay with it; and the people who believe there should be even more brutality and violence against Palestinians are becoming a major problem for both of those groups. The state of Israel is fracturing, while groups like the PFLP, Hamas and Fatah are coming together for the first time in decades. While some of the tactics of Hamas are unconscionable, and Fatah has a long collaborationist history with Israel, it definitely indicates a dramatic change of the dynamics in the region. We'll see what holds together and what breaks apart. Its very sad that Marwan Barghouti is currently imprisoned, he's one of the most popular figures in Palestine whereas Fatah and Hamas are fairly unpopular

[-] Zakkull@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

People like citation so as to not blindly believe anything and everything they just mindlessly read on the internet. Its kinda suspicious that youre being antagonistic about someone wanting to see a source on an outrageous claim like that.

[-] Juice@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago

I didn't mean it to be antagonistic, and I provided a source. Its just such a disgusting story, bereft of any humanity. I wish I had never heard about it, I just couldn't believe someone wanted to like read about it

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

What we could accomplish…

a lot outside the military.

there is no such thing as an egalitarian military; they're tools of oppression and hegemony, not improvement.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Yeah, no, what I meant was to imagine what we could accomplish as a world population, if we realized that the many outrank the few, and we just stopped fighting each other. That would speed us all along so freaking fast, towards daily food and water and shelter for every single person on earth.

But no, we gotta kill each other for nonsense.

[-] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

No sane military in the world does that anymore. Although I do doubt the sanity of the IDF

[-] Juice@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago

Pat Tillman has entered the chat

[+] JustZ@lemmy.world -12 points 1 month ago

Or the story is hysterical exaggeration and lies.

It's a second-hand account of somebody who saw a video, anyway.

[-] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

The original video is linked in the article. Looks pretty damning to me.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Broken link for me.

[-] snek@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I sent it to you in another comment. Here:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-investigating-demolition-of-water-facility-by-troops-in-southern-gaza

[-] OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Have you watched the video yet?

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

Yes. I don't know enough about the people or place to say if it's legit or not. I know I often see links to "smoking gun" videos like this that do not show what they claim to show. I think this video requires you to take a lot on faith; that it is what it's claimed to be or that the video is even from Gaza and not so.e other war somewhere. Is shows some pipes and then a building blowing up shown from far away. The account that posted it apparently is deleted or private now.

Maybe the video is legit. Israeli army says they are investigating. Maybe the water system was supplying the tunnels, which would make it a legit target.

If claims about the video are true, it certainly flies in the face of other evidence like the fact that Israel lets new water infrastructure into Gaza all the time and new water desalinization plants have opened (and haven't been destroyed) even just since the war began.

[-] snek@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

"Ahhh what is this horror? This video mounting even more evidence of Israeli war crimes?? IT CANNOT BE TRUE!"

LOL.

[-] OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If it turns out to be legit, which I would stress - since it was posted by the IDF soldiers themselves* - seems likely: would you not agree that this is likely a war crime?

*some edits to add.

From the Times of Israel article about it:

In the video, posted by a soldier to Instagram and later circulated on X, troops can be seen rigging up the water facility, known as Canada Well, with explosives. Another clip shows the site being blown up.

The video was tagged with the caption: “Demolishing the water reservoir of Tel Sultan in honor of the Sabbath.”

The Canadian government, who built the plant, also agrees that the video shows it being destroyed: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-calls-for-probe-into-demolished-canadian-water-treatment-plant-in-gaza-1.7281666

Seems very unlikely an IDF soldier would post a video claiming to be destroying a facility, which we know exists, and the people who paid to build it would identify it was the same building, and it would turn out to not be in Gaza at all. It is almost certainly the plant discussed in these articles.

In fact, it is an act of genocide, since depriving the population of water is "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Maybe the water system was supplying the tunnels, which would make it a legit target.

Isn't the main issue whether the facility was supplying the civilian population? What about proportionality?

it certainly flies in the face of other evidence like the fact that Israel lets new water infrastructure into Gaza all the time and new water desalinization plants have opened (and haven't been destroyed) even just since the war began.

We spoke about this before. Here is the link to the facts again: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68969239

Half of Gaza's water sites had been damaged or destroyed as of that report.

And here is the image of three specific examples again:

It certainly doesn't "fly in the face of other evidence," the evidence is all pointing in the same direction.

When we spoke about this previously, you speculated (based on "probability," in your words) that the facilities were maybe collateral damage during an attack on Hamas fighters. In this case, we have the video footage. No Hamas fighters. Charges specifically placed on water infrastructure. No attempt to access or destroy a tunnel. This is simply naked evidence of an intentional attack on the necessities of life for the civilian population.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I can accept lsrsel destroying infrastructure that is used to sustain Hamas holdouts at this point in the war, as long as Israel is bringing in water and opening new infrastructure, outside the influence and control of Hamas. That seems uncontroversial. I don't know if that's what happened here.

I join Canada and Israel and calling for a full investigation and if it is found to be true, then I join in calling for the perpetrators to be hanged. That also seems uncontroversial.

Three or four people have posted counterpoints to me now, and various links, and of course the video itself. All of these sources cite the video.

The video shows some guys standing around some pipes and then an exterior shot of an explosion. That's accompanied by some text and audio. It's posted on TikTok. As far as I can tell, the claims haven't been independently verified, that is, confirmed by credible, factual reporting extrinsic to the video.

And here we are once again with a most sensational claim being shared as if it was truth despite the fact that the only two or three credible sources that even bothered to run a story about the video make clear that it hasn't been independently verified. There's one credible story from Israel about the IDF acknowledging the video and saying it will investigate. There's one credible story out of Canada from some low-level diplomat saying that they saw the video and calling for independent investigation. That also seems uncontroversial.

[-] OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

The video shows some guys standing around some pipes and then an exterior shot of an explosion. That's accompanied by some text and audio. It's posted on TikTok. As far as I can tell, the claims haven't been independently verified, that is, confirmed by credible, factual reporting extrinsic to the video.

Ok but there are two stories you say are credible just below this, and they establish clear facts.

So two questions:

Do you believe this was posted by an IDF soldier, as reported by the Times of Israel?

Do you believe the video shows the Canada Well plant, as stated by both the original poster and a representative of the Canadian government?

If the answer to both of these is yes, what remaining reason is there to doubt the video? You say the "claims" haven't been verified but no claim is needed. It is on video. Do you mean the claim that the facility was destroyed, and that the external shot was not of something else being destroyed?

I am not being obtuse here, I just really don't understand what you mean

[-] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Darn it X. There’s mirrors but I don’t know where to look. Regardless this wasn’t some hearsay, I saw the video posted too.

[-] snek@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

"Hysterical" to gaslight like it's the 60's.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 21 points 1 month ago

Add another one to the list.

[-] Juice@midwest.social 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If the Israeli government was trying to nationalize their oil or mining resources, we'd invade their ass so fucking fast; but they're just murdering tens or hundreds of thousands of people, starving children, bombing infrastructure, destroying culture, and traumatizing generations, so let's just ask sternly for a cease fire, and frown a bit for the cameras -- if that

[-] febra@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

Nazis

[-] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 month ago

please don't share MSN links

[-] spacemanspiffy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Not OP, but why? Is there a reason to hate MSN now?

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

They take lots of time to load for me at least, they sometimes won't show (there is a continue reading button that sometimes only asks to login) and most annoyingly they have more visibility than the original article from the original news site, which is harder to find in first place and msn doesn't even link to. Those are my personal gripes with it.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 6 points 1 month ago

There were Hamas leaders in the pipes!

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah but Israel says there's a Top Hamas Leader inside every civilian target! So that means it's totally 100% A-Okay to start blastin'. Totally what the "good guys" do! ;)

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Impunity creates the greatest criminals

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024

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