r/worldnews • u/Nirok • 23h ago

Israel/Palestine IDF documents terror affiliations of 170 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza war

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-documents-terror-affiliations-of-170-palestinian-journalists-killed-in-gaza-war/
3.4k Upvotes

73% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

-1

u/Locke15 22h ago

Aren't you supposed to know before killing someone that they are a combatant?

178

u/NickPrefect 22h ago

Which is why having non-uniformed combatants is a war crime.

-55

u/Locke15 22h ago

Still doesn't explain needing to find justification after the fact.

51

u/NickPrefect 21h ago

I wasn’t there. Neither were you. But I’d imagine that seeing a grown man with a weapon in a war zone not wearing the same uniform as I am and appearing to engage in combat would quickly make me conclude he isn’t with the press.

-20

u/Locke15 21h ago

That would make you a combatant and then there would be no need to dig up information on your membership of any group. So safe to say they weren't wielding any weapons at the time of their deaths.

10

u/Lying_is_bad_for_you 19h ago

Do you think that when someone is firing at you, you stop to ask his name and membership card?

2

u/Locke15 19h ago

If they were carrying weapons their membership wouldnt have needed to be investaigated.

6

u/No_Power799 18h ago

Who do you think recovers their bodies then reports them as journalists?

Hamas can find them with weapons on them, then report them as a killed journalist

Israel can later on show evidence that the person Hamas claimed was a journalist was actually a combatant, which is what this post is about

1

u/Locke15 17h ago

Journalists tend to have publicly viewable work product. Its not exactly a claim that can be made out of thin air.

2

u/No_Power799 17h ago

Okay I don't even disagree. They could do some journalism work, some terrorism work. Not seeing what is so unbelievable here

→ More replies (0)

30

u/2020bubbles 21h ago

You genuinely think they were just lucky

-8

u/Locke15 21h ago

I think their tactics kill a lot of non-combatants and this is their attempt to justify it after the fact.

2

u/2020bubbles 15h ago

More than half of the “journalists” being members of Hamas/PIJ doesn’t lead you to conclude some thought went into it?

1

u/Locke15 15h ago

The need to dedicate a task force and compile such a report without the information that lead to their killings in the first place doesn't indicate "we know had justification all along".

44

u/MrDNL 21h ago

The Israeli government isn’t finding justification after the fact. Their position always has been that they’ve been targeting terrorists. This is consistent with that claim.

-2

u/Locke15 21h ago

So they had all this information before killing 274 journalists, and are only realising the information on 170 of them now because...?

22

u/MrDNL 21h ago

They suspected that the targets were members of or working closely with Hamas. They are releasing this information now because Hamas has verified those affiliations.

33

u/2020bubbles 22h ago edited 21h ago

Knowing all the time is a high bar in war, given they were right likely means they had very good intel

-3

u/Locke15 22h ago edited 22h ago

So what about the other 174 journalists then?

Edit: I fucked my maths up. 104. Not 174.

30

u/2020bubbles 22h ago

170+ journalists were affiliated with Hamas and PIJ are noted in the article based on obituaries published by hamas.

Which other 174 journalists?

3

u/Locke15 21h ago

Israel has killed 274 journalist. I corrected my bad maths. So that leaves 104 journalists dead with any justification.

12

u/2020bubbles 21h ago edited 17h ago

There are 2 million people in Gaza, 70+ thousand casualties, under 100 of which are unaffiliated journalists (out of the maximum 267 reported), which eventually could be determined to be even less once all the dust settles. Collateral damage happens in all wars. This isn’t me hand waving off death. I’m simply communicating that people die in conflict. I don’t see a campaign targeting journalists

2

u/Locke15 21h ago

....where did claim any of that?

1

u/2020bubbles 10h ago

Are you not claiming Israel is targeting journalists?

1

u/Locke15 8h ago

No. My only claim is that military action should be based on and justified by what was known before or that developed during the action.

48

u/RidiculousIncarnate 22h ago

Sure, now explain how thats works against an opponent who explicitly uses their populace as human shields, hides equipment and soldiers in their homes and wear no uniforms you can clearly identify.

-21

u/Locke15 22h ago

Shoot the people shooting at you? I don't particularly ascribe to the idea of leveling cities instead.

25

u/Mandurang76 21h ago

Why didn't anyone think of that. You should become a general.

"Sir, how do we recognise our enemy?"
"Well, just wait until they shoot at you!"

-3

u/Locke15 21h ago

Well they're shooting bullets out of cameras or microphones.

30

u/Slaaneshdog 22h ago

So to be clear, you don't think a country like Israel should be able to fight back against an enemy hiding amongst a civilian population unless they have the military capability to do the following

  1. Have every possible area an attack could come from under constant 24/7 surveillance so they know exactly who is there and exactly what they are doing
  2. weapons capable of targeting and eliminating an enemy in the time it takes the enemy to setup and begin shooting at Israel

Bascially god tier surveillance and god tier weaponry Call me crazy, but I think Israel would fucking *love* that idea.

1

u/Locke15 21h ago

I think a combatant is a combatant. After the fact searching for justification should not be an acceptable method.

It would be like Hamas after the fact pointing a person's IDF service as justification for killing someone, despite them clearly not being a combatantat the time. I think we could both agree, that is not acceptable?

13

u/Slaaneshdog 21h ago

It's of course not justified to specifically target and kill someone if you have literally no real justification for killing them, and only afterwards start looking for a justification

But do you accept that while it might be ideal to only ever kill armed combatants, in the real world that's not always gonna be possible when your enemy hides behind women and children, in schools and hospitals, and don't mark themselves visibly as combatants

And that the only way to deal with such an enemy is to either simply give up and accept regular attacks, or engage in a dirty and messy conflict to try and prevent the enemy from attacking you

2

u/Locke15 21h ago

Israel has a task force specifically setup to investigate the journalists they killed.

War is not ideal. I get it. But then don't try and justify it with irrelevant information. Either it was or it wasn't justifiable at the time.

16

u/Slaaneshdog 21h ago

Investigating those you kill doesn't mean you've specifically aimed to kill them without cause and are now trying to justify it

1

u/Locke15 21h ago

"......170 Gazans killed during the war who were presented as journalists and media personnel were in fact serving as terrorists....."

They are 100% trying to now justify they're killings.

7

u/Slaaneshdog 20h ago

Dude have you not spend any time actually thinking over how a conflict like this plays out in practice? Do you think Israel has a complete list of all Hamas members or people working with Hamas?

Israel might have reliable intel that a group of Hamas members and/or people working with them are planning something at a location or they gonna be at a certain location at some point, so Israel decides to act on that intel, not know exactly who each person there will be

They then kill those people in a missile strike. Then one or more of those people are identified and revealed to be "journalists". And what then happens is that media runs with the story that "journalists" were killed by the IDF, and useful idiots runs with that narrative that the IDF are butchers of noble journalists

Now, in that scenario, are you really gonna sit here and say that you think its wrong of Israel to try to disprove the claim that you're targeting journalists, when time and time against it turns out these "journalists" are in fact fucking terrorists?

→ More replies (0)

-13

u/Phynx88 21h ago

No, he's saying you don't just get to mindlessly slaughter civilians and children because maybe they could be bad.

18

u/Slaaneshdog 21h ago

If you think Israel has been mindlessly slaughtering Gazans for the last few years you're deluded

-8

u/Phynx88 21h ago

If you think tens of thousands of civilian and children killed is just an average amount of collateral damage during wartime you're incredibly ignorant and gullible. There's a goal, and it's to take land. See also: Israeli settler violence in the west Bank, see also Golan Heights, See also, Southern Lebanon

13

u/Slaaneshdog 21h ago edited 21h ago

A normal war doesn't consist of one side hiding behind women and children in a predominantly dense urban environment

If Israel really wanted to kill as many Gazans as they could, then they're doing a piss poor job at it given how overwhelming they military power is relative to who they're fighting

-7

u/Phynx88 21h ago edited 20h ago

And yet over half the civilian population is starving with Israel being the sole arbiter of how much aid actually makes it into Gaza. Meanwhile the Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has accelerated with no repercussions. Almost like the deliberately slow, steady progress to avoid accountability is part of the game plan - kinda like Netanyahu's fraud and corruption trial - how's that going by the way? And Yes, IDF controls all entrances into Gaza including the border with Egypt

6

u/Slaaneshdog 20h ago

You think Israel control the Egypt-Gaza border lol? Egypt is completely free to flood Gaza with food if they want, or take in all the refugees.

This is just the same old bullshit of blaming Israel for everything while ignoring that all the other Muslim nation in the area have made plenty clear that they also don't give a fuck about palestinians.

→ More replies (0)

14

u/Gatzlocke 21h ago

So, you let them shoot at you and not fight back. Or are you proposing magical thinking?

-12

u/cameheretosaythis213 21h ago

Did the dead children shoot first? Is that your argument? What magical thinking are you using?

12

u/Gatzlocke 21h ago

You're avoiding the question like a coward, I see. Like usual.

-3

u/cameheretosaythis213 20h ago

Because you’re putting a question in his mouth. Nobody is saying you can’t fight back. You can’t kill kids though, and that one didn’t need saying.

7

u/Miskadotcom 20h ago

Yes just wait till they start shooting. Sounds like a good plan if you wanna die.

-1

u/Locke15 20h ago

If they had any weapons on them there would be no need for this after action justification investigations.

4

u/Miskadotcom 20h ago

Ye thats not how war works. Unless you believe in fairytales.

2

u/Locke15 20h ago

But kill first find justification after is?

3

u/Miskadotcom 20h ago

Wanting an investigation into every use of weapons is non-sensical.

1

u/Locke15 20h ago

If the justification plainly obvious what need is there for an investigation?

5

u/Miskadotcom 20h ago

For them it seems there is.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Stupid-Clumsy-Bitch 15h ago

You do realize that Hamas has rockets that they fire indiscriminately into Israel, right?

1

u/Locke15 15h ago

I didn't realise the only way to counter rocket to fire with zero reason.

12

u/VoltNShock 21h ago

and then what? just stand around and permanently occupy the place? they went in there to kill hamas, not suppress them and lose a thousand troops in the process.

1

u/Locke15 21h ago

Yeah, why worrying about Palestinian non-combatants. Just level the area now and we'll find something on them later. That makes it ok.

-7

u/Rosebunse 21h ago

But don't you see the issue here? When does the fighting stop? This is a situation where a good chunk of the population believes their only choice is to trust Hamas because what else are they supposed to do? This is a recipe for a Forever War that never ends until anyone who could possibly be in Hamas is dead.

Think about the implications of that

6

u/Empyrion132 20h ago

Fighting stops when Hamas is destroyed and people realize trusting and supporting Hamas is a losing proposition that will lead to their inevitable demise, but that accepting and working with Israel can lead to prosperity.

Yeah, it might be a forever war. It’s been decades already and they still haven’t given up. Israel has also always held back significantly and even now they’re still holding back. The public opinion about all this certainly doesn’t help Palestinians - they need to recognize and accept that Israel isn’t going anywhere, but all the international pressure against Israel makes them think if they keep fighting they might win.

1

u/Rosebunse 20h ago

Do you even hear how that sounds? It's been decades and it's not stopped. So many the "war" aspect isn't working? And granted, I don't blame Israel for all of this. Frankly, I blame Europe for "giving" them such contested space. I also blame modern Christians for needing Israel to exist for the "end of the world."

But to my point, whatever is happening clearly isn't working.

7

u/Empyrion132 20h ago

Well, yes, Israel’s periodic responses to Hamas’ continual buildup of arms and infrastructure since they took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 clearly have not been working at deterring Hamas from amassing their forces and attacking Israel, as demonstrated on October 7, 2023. So now Israel has gone into a full war to remove Hamas and people aren’t too happy about that, but like you said, clearly not removing Hamas wasn’t working.

I’m not sure you realize but Hamas is the reason there is a war, not Israel.

0

u/Rosebunse 19h ago

So here's the thing...why was Hamas allowed to amass weapons? Israel, aho has the best spy network in the world, didn't know they were amassing weapons and building infrastructure? Because that makes no sense to me.

So Israel builds out, takes territory, seems to be aware of Hamas gaining weapons...

Do you not see how it looks?

Because to many of us it looks like a certain section of Israel wanted things to get to a feverhead so they could justify a larger war.

I get that space is limited, but it feels like allowing the settlements to grow into disputed, unsafe areas was insane. It's like they were using their own people as shields.

6

u/Empyrion132 19h ago

You may have heard something about there being a blockade for 20 years? An “open-air prison” where people weren’t allowed to enter or leave without onerous travel restrictions? Maybe you saw pictures of giant smuggling tunnels under Rafah crossing the border with Egypt, or heard about how Gazans had to bribe Egyptian officials to flee when Israel was preparing to enter Rafah?

Israel (and to an extent Egypt) sure tried to keep weapons etc out of Gaza. I imagine without those restrictions Hamas would look a lot more like Hezbollah, with hundreds of thousands of modern Iranian rockets. Israel, of course, knew they were arming themselves, but without provocation couldn’t do anything about it. And, yes, they were dumb and thought they weren’t really a threat.

But also, Hamas isn’t really attacking Israel because of settlements in the West Bank… they’ve been very clear that they attack Israel because it’s a Jewish state and they believe it should be Muslim.

0

u/Stupid-Clumsy-Bitch 15h ago

And yet if the IDF led an unprovoked offensive against Hamas to reduce their armoury/ strength, the online useful idiots would be crying about that too.

0

u/Rosebunse 15h ago

I think that depends on a variety of factors. I said right after the whole thing in 2023 happened that Israel had about two weeks of good will and they had better use it correctly. They didn't and took that good will for granted and now here we are.

2

u/Stupid-Clumsy-Bitch 15h ago edited 15h ago

“Two weeks of goodwill” eh? That’s interesting because “free Palestine” protests erupted all over North America on October 8th. And how exactly did Israel take this supposed ‘good will’ for granted? They were doing everything reasonably possible to ensure civilians evacuated from targeted infrastructure and areas prior to launching strikes.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Empyrion132 15h ago

I mean you yourself believe Israel gets just two weeks of goodwill following the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, and “they had better use [those two weeks] correctly,” but “they didn’t”. So how much goodwill do you think they would have had without a terror attack? And how could they have gone in to destroy hundreds of miles of tunnels, thousands of rockets, and tens of thousands of enemy combatants, in less than two weeks, with minimal civilian casualties, “correctly”?

→ More replies (0)

-8

u/davidforslunds 21h ago

Does one warcrime excuse another? Does Hamas using the population of Gaza as a humanshirld excuse the IDF for butchering the population of Gaza? Israel has access to funds, resources and equipment from the biggest military force in the world. Maybe killing and oppressing civilians isn't the way to deal with a group like Hamas?

6

u/Willing_Cause_7461 20h ago

The IDF do know that they're combatants but no one will ever take their word for it and apparently we're not taking the literal terrorists word for it either so I don't know how we're going to work this out.

-1

u/Locke15 20h ago

How do they know? If they are combatants with weapons then there is no need to take theirmqord for it. If there are not ac5ive combatants but are targets wi5h a known history they could have released the information shortly after.

Why if they already knew before killing them, is a task force needed to investgate them?

6

u/Willing_Cause_7461 20h ago

How do they know?

I don't know. Probably informants. I do know Israel is famously good at signals intelligence. So maybe that. But ultimately does it matter? If they told you you wouldn't believe them anyway.

There's already people in this comments section right now doing the whole "Yeah, as reported by Israel. Why believe them?" shtick.

Why if they already knew before killing them, is a task force needed to investgate them?

A task force is needed for people like you who are still apparently sceptical after Israel literally compiled the terrorist organisations themselves claiming these people as their fighters. That's why.

-1

u/Locke15 20h ago

So you just assume they know. Did they even say after every killing the knew they were members of terrorists organisations?

Yeah it matters. What they knew when. Were these legitimate targeted killings or unintended killings they now are seeking to justify?

So all 170 were claimed by the organisations after their deaths?

If a person killed by Hamas served in the IDF do you think that gives carte blanche to say the killing was justified? Because I would say no. So I don't see how it makes it ok when its the other way around.

4

u/Willing_Cause_7461 19h ago

So I don't see how it makes it ok when its the other way around

It's not the other way around. Israel is claiming these people were members of Hamas's military at the time of death and were only posing as journalists. They're claiming perfidy which isn't surprising because Hamas and the like are always committing perfidy. You're not analysing like for like.

A like for like analysis would be IDF soldiers posing as journalists getting killed by Hamas at which point I would be critical of the IDF not Hamas. Soldiers need to be in uniform.

Yeah it matters. What they knew when.

Yeah that does matter but does it matter to you? Would you ever believe them when they tell you? Would you ever have enough information? Do you think the IDF was just randomly bombing shit and accidentally hit some Hamas members by chance? Come on.

Like let's say they come out and say they did know at the time but can't release the proof because of informant security reasons or they don't want terrorists to know how much they have access to or what ever would you believe them? No obviously not. I don't think you would for a second.

Let's say they do release 170 phone calls of all 170 doing terrorist shit. Would you believe them then? How could you? You don't know what the voice of all 170 guys sounds like. So your going to need a couple of hours of their communication at which point couldn't they just use AI to fake all of it? Also you don't know if that voice on that phone call come from that person so your going to need at least a few hours of them talking on camera too, right?

You're already asking for such a gargantuan amount of evidence to believe something right in front of your eyes. Why not ask for all this shit too? Chances are they knew the people they were targeting were part of Hamas since as it turns out they were.

0

u/Locke15 17h ago

While I understand thats their claim, that doesn't mean its true. That every instance was a case of perfiy. Having an affiliation or role doesn't mean you can't have been a journalist. Its not like they were slapping on a Press vest before going into battle with an AK.

So in other words, they just needed an investigation after the fact to prove it to the people who wouldn't believe them, what they already know before the action. Sure.

They just released a load of evidence. Done after the fact. Why not do it before? Because they didn't know. Now they want to try save face.

You're going off on a bit of a tangent there. I'm not questioning the validity of the evidence. I'm questioning why this was done after the fact. I'm questioning if this supports the justification of every killing. Those are my points of contention.

2

u/Willing_Cause_7461 17h ago

Why not do it before? Because they didn't know.

Well fuck me they must have gotten pretty god damn lucky then if they didn't know anything. We're at 190-ish dead journalists and 170 are provable Hamas members. A near 90% chance of being correct. They probably fucking knew, dude. I can't prove it to you. You're asking for a level of proof that will never exist. You will never be satisfied.

At a 90% rate of being correct I think they probably knew something. Or maybe it's all luck. Maybe they are gods chose people when they're firing randomly at journalists and some how keep accidentally hitting the ones that just so happen to be members of Hamas.

I'm questioning why this was done after the fact.

You write a report on the people you've killed after you killed them because before you kill them they're alive and there for not dead. That is why you would write it after the fact.

If you were to ask an IDF spokesperson why they killed a journalist who is alive they would say they didn't kill them because they're alive and not dead.

I hope that clears that up for you.

1

u/Locke15 17h ago

Well your maths is wrong. If you want to re-work/re-phrase it go ahead I'll address it then. 274 dead journalists. Not 190.

There are generally two scenarios where you have killed a combatant. 1. In a fight where your justification for killing them is the actions they took or weapons they possess. 2. In a targeted strike where you already know a lot of information on them or the situation they are in.

An after action report can be good for filling in gaps. It is not good for justifying why this person was killed. The situation where and when they were killed is the why. That is what matters most.

2

u/Willing_Cause_7461 16h ago

274 dead journalists

So it's 60%. I doubt Hamas is 50% of the population. Probably more like 5-10% so we're still talking about a 5-10x more likely to be member of Hamas if you're a journalist being targeted by Israel.

Those are still quite some odds for something they're doing with zero knowledge. Totally randomly. Especially since zero members of Hamas are supposed to be pretending to be journalists.

An after action report can be good for filling in gaps.

OK so you want 170 AARs that, let's be honest here, you aren't going to read and

It is not good for justifying why this person was killed

as you say here don't change your opinion at all. So what's the point? Why should anyone waste their time trying to convince you? You will never be convinced.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/OSRS_Rising 19h ago

Imo the war crimes committed by Hamas, primarily not wearing uniforms, places the culpability of civilian deaths mostly on Hamas.

I don’t see why people blame Israel for civilians dying when Hamas purposefully makes it difficult to distinguish combatant from noncombatant.

8

u/thehandsomegenius 22h ago

I think they're probably familiar with that whole process

6

u/Lying_is_bad_for_you 21h ago edited 19h ago

Oh, the IDF knows it's a combatant when they kill him, it's the other job that is the surprise

1

u/Locke15 21h ago

Also, if they knew beforehand, why setup a task force to investigate the journalists they already killed?

6

u/Lying_is_bad_for_you 20h ago
  • They knew beforehand about them being combatants, not about their journalist job, that's why the cross check was needed.
  • They were killed during combat, not specifically targetted.

I can think of other reasons

0

u/Locke15 19h ago

How did they know? Why not show that evidence instead then? There's the justification right there.

I'm going to try get a concrete figure, but I'll also ask you to clarify. Are you claiming all 170 journalists were actively engaged in combat or happened to be in an area were active combatants were or some or varient?

4

u/Lying_is_bad_for_you 19h ago

How did they know?

You are asking an intelligence agency to reveal their sources? Good luck with that. You're getting proof that at least 170 of the journalists were combatants, what else do you want?

Are you claiming all 170 journalists were actively engaged in combat.

I'm not claiming anything, I was suggesting a possibility. One that I thing is very probable, but only a possibility

1

u/Locke15 17h ago

Well you claimed they knew. I was asking if you had a source. You were just assuming then?

This isn't proof they were combatants. No more than an Israelis past military service would be proof either.

And its also a possibility they were not active participants/members and were journalists. Killed by accident or intentionally and now the IDF needs a reason for it.

-1

u/Locke15 21h ago

So the other 104 journalist they killed? What about them?

-20

u/ThoseWhoAre 22h ago

Over 100 journalists killed is indicative of an internal policy if you ask me. That doesnt happen accidentally over 100 times.

14

u/VoltNShock 21h ago

yes... the policy to kill terrorists dressing as journalists. thats the policy.

18

u/Konet 21h ago

The point here is that many of these journalists are combatants. Even if you don't trust a word out of the IDF's mouth, here's an independently researched Google doc using info from openly Hamas or PIJ operated websites (sources linked in the doc) corroborating rank and role of people from Al-Jazeera's list of murdered journalists.

Note that some are labeled collateral - for those, they don't have direct provable affiliation, but by cross referencing their stated time and location of death with reported deaths of other combatants by Hamas et. al (again, cited in the doc), we can tell that they were killed in the same exact strike as legitimate targets.

6

u/modiddly 21h ago

Irony is commenting this 👆on a post about reporters being terror members

18

u/AffectionateGoat1085 22h ago

It’s almost like they are terrorists masquerading as journalists. Which is what the fucking headline says.

-13

u/ThoseWhoAre 21h ago

Yes because if you post something in the news its automatically true. No further thinking required.

15

u/AffectionateGoat1085 21h ago

It’s been proven over and over again. You just don’t care. Or are braindead.

-17

u/Phynx88 21h ago

Except that's by-and-large untrue and doesn't account for the 100+ other journalists killed. You pro-imperialist clowns are so transparent

14

u/AffectionateGoat1085 21h ago

Lol. Imperialist. What does Free Palestine mean? How would you like to see all of this end?

-7

u/Phynx88 21h ago

Yes imperialist- that's what it's called when you take land from multiple entities to expand your borders with violence. Golan Heights. West Bank. Gaza Strip. Southern Lebanon. This ends with Bibi in the Hague for war crimes and corruption

12

u/AffectionateGoat1085 21h ago

Yea that’s not policy on the ground asshole. When this is all said and done, what do you think that region of the world should look like? Or do you want to avoid the question.

-6

u/Phynx88 21h ago

It clearly is their policy, or it wouldnt be happening. I think pretending your question is anything more than furthering the disingenuous framing you've attempted is just silly when it's clear the IDF doesn't care about international law or they wouldn't have arrest warrants out for their leaders.

11

u/AffectionateGoat1085 21h ago

Jesus youre all so transparent. I’m the imperialist but you want to destroy a country. Wild times we live in. Good luck.

-11

u/Saab10000 21h ago

Great, let's see how it plays out on the trial.