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Israel Thwarts Attempt To Smuggle Commercial Drones Into Gaza
An anonymous reader writes: The Jerusalem Post reports that the Shin Bet intelligence agency recently foiled an attempt to smuggle commercial multicopter drones into Gaza, Israel authorities announced on Sunday. The inspectors stopped an Israeli truck carrying toys at the Kerem Shalom Crossing, where drones of various types and sizes carrying high quality cameras were found. Additional attempts to smuggle commercial drones were intercepted by the Shin Bet in recent weeks. The drones were earmarked for use by Hamas group in Gaza. Close inspection of released images reveal what seems to be a Syma X5 FPV quadcopter. Those toy-grade multirrotors have a onboard wifi camera. Once you've downloaded the streaming app to your phone you are able to connect the on board camera to your phone and use it to give you FPV footage.
The world is such a sad place.
What exactly do they have to hide?
And why do they only ban them for Palestinians?
They should just let them have the drones, and put up WiFi jammers around the perimeter of the Strip so that the drones are useless outside of Gaza. These things can't have that much range anyway.
under house arrest in their own home.
They are not regular free human beings like you and me.
And the world allows this F'd up situation to continue.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Hell no.. omg what if the enemy could record the way we treat them? That can't get out to the world. Just look at the numbers: http://www.newsweek.com/gaza-a...
Silence is a state of mime.
... to strapping on explosive to the drone and piloting into something ...
Have you looked at the "drone" in question?
It's a $70, 12 inch wide, 6 minute runtime, 160 foot control distance, toy.
A slingshot could move more weight further and probably more accurately.
If my neighbor bulldozed my house and there were no cops to call, I might lob explosives at him.
Israeli: 66 Soldiers, 5 Civilians, 1 Thai civilian
Palestinians (per the UN count): Militants 789, Civilians 1,462 (65% civilians)
So yes, some angry people with a god I don't believe in and very limited weapons have struck at a much better armed and equipped -invading- force who believe in another magical sky being.
Sorry, but faith asid, there is no question to me who is ethically in the wrong here.
Silence is a state of mime.
Since Hamas provides the casualty numbers and affiliations and the numbers are dramatically skewed, they very clearly reflect that the numbers you laid out include a LOT of combatants labeled as civilians.
Including women; if you had bothered to read my ice cream link.
But here's the thing; Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets. You are basically giving them CREDIT just because many thousands of Israelis are not dead who would have been, if it were not for a very good missile defense system...
If you really cared at all you would consider the count of attempted fatalities, not the final result.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a shame you and your family were not in Gaza at the time. You might have noticed the months of rocket attacks that preceded Israel's incursion. And even better, you might have taken a counter-attack in the head.
Israel has not entered Gaza in any official capacity since pulling out nearly 11 years ago, except to smack Hamas down every time the bombing got too annoying to ignore. The blockades were not in place until Arabs voted Hamas into power in a democratic election. Perhaps those Arabs could take a little responsibility for their (in)action and remove Hamas.
Those same Arabs also destroyed a functioning greenhouse complex that was bought for and given as a gift to them. Their hatred over all things Israeli has destroyed their ability and desire to make an honest life for themselves.
The US felt the need to hit Japan twice with the bomb, since the Japanese simply refused to surrender and continued to attack American soldiers. Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005. They uprooted all of their settlers and soldiers - no Jews whatsoever in Gaza (even though Jews had been living in Gaza for centuries). What did the Palestinians do? They destroyed all the greenhouses and synagogues and elected into office a terrorist organization that had conducted over 100 pre-planned, organized suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians. The checkpoints and border walls (also enforced by Egypt BTW) are in place to prevent these animals from committing more terrorist acts against soldiers and civilians. This all goes away when the people of Gaza rid themselves of the Islamists who hold their future hostage.
The genocide will not be televised.
Have gnu, will travel.
Should the Israelis apologize for not dying enough? there are about 12000 people in Gaza who are armed and ready to kill Israelis. I hope they die before they kill anyone.
They kill 100-300 Palestinians for every Israeli that's killed on account of the fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad's missiles are launched from within densely-populated urban neighborhoods. Retaliatory strikes (which every single country in the world would be justified to make when fired upon) are generally precision-guided toward the location of the rockets. The IDF have dropped leaflets, sent text messages, knock-knock bombs, etc. to warn Palestinian civilians of pending retaliatory strikes. Hamas forces them back into their homes, since greater civilian casualties result in more sympathy from idiot leftists in the West.
More Germans than Americans or Brits died in WW2. Does that make the Americans or Brits the aggressors in WW2?
Body count does not correlate to who is the aggressor. Just who is losing.
Muslims launch rockets at Jews, killing civilians. This is bad, because killing civilians is bad.
Jews launch rockets at Muslims, killing civilians. This is seen as different than the aforementioned case bacause:
a) Israeli rockets are "retaliatory", whereas Hamas is the instigator here, so it's okay. Of course, Hamas has been explicitly retaliating for Israel's annexation of Palestinian territory (and for the British/UN interference circa ~48 that enabled subsequent annexation), but $excuses. b) These are guided rockets, so it's okay. Of course, Israel denies Gazans the right to guided munitions, but $excuses.
c) Israel warns Gazans about pending attacks. Of course, Hamas has been warning Jews in Israel for a long time too, but $excuses.
Regarding the first point, it's disingenuous to paint either side as taking any "retaliatory" actions but not the other side. Both sides have been spinning this conflict as "retaliation" for decades, and neither side has a stronger claim to "retaliation" than the other. Both sides see their actions as retaliatory, and both sides see the other as the instigator. In other words, both sides are biased, and neither side is being objectively reasonable here.
Regarding the second point, I'm not saying that Hamas is "right" for shooting rockets into Israel. I'm merely pointing out that there's some degree of disingenuousness to blame Hamas for Palestinian civilian casualties because of where they launch their rockets from while at the same time refusing to blame Israel for Jewish civilian casualties because of where their rockets are launched from. If it is acceptable for Israel to kill Palestinians as collateral damage due to the inherent limitations of their weapons platforms, then that should equally apply to Hamas. There is no evidence that Hamas actually has the capability for guided missile strikes against valid military targets in Israel but is intentionally avoiding its use.
Regarding the third point, I'm not even sure how to approach this issue. What if Hamas "dropped leaflets" all over Israel saying "we're going to attack now -- leave or be killed"? Would Hamas then be absolved of any subsequent Jewish civilian casualties when Israel discourages its citizens from capitulating to the demands of the enemy? Now, I understand that this isn't an entirely fair analogy, as Israel's attacks are much more targeted than Hamas', and furthermore, Hamas has actually forced Palestinians to stay, not merely discouraged them from leaving. However, it's not clear to me how Hamas' despicable actions can serve as justification for Israel's despicable actions. Are we to hold the two up against the same standard? Is the bar for Israel really set that low?
They kill 100-300 Palestinians for every Israeli that's killed on account of ...
Let's not even get into the fact that Hamas' rockets kill more Muslims than they do Jews. That sure as shit isn't going to help the ratio. Let's just be honest with ourselves: this conflict has gone on for so long that it's no longer to expect any sense of humanity on either side. I propose a novel solution in the form of a massive terraforming project. Let's turn the land that made up the British Mandate of Palestine into the Israeli-Palestinian Sea. The engineering doesn't matter. Dredge it, nuke it, whatever. But once it's underwater, we'll finally have peace. Or suicide-bombing scuba-divers. Either way, win-win.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
People make bullshit up all the time if it helps them to insult/dissing/incite hate against Israel. Anti-semitism is alarmingly wide spread. Ignorance is bliss for a lot of people.
Don't confuse anti-semitism with anti-Israeli-foreign-policy. There are overlaps, but they are not the same thing.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Various lobby groups pretend the two are the same. Critical of someone in Israeli politics who is caught embezzling? You'll be called an anti-semite. Remember the shitstorm that descended on Robert Fisk for reporting on military actions in Lebanon and including a quote from an Israeli journalist? Apparently he was an antisemite for quoting a Jewish journalist that was a witness to an event that portrayed an Israeli military unit in a poor light.
So sadly to some people the two things are exactly the same and it means tiptoeing around issues of Israeli politics to avoid being dragged off into full Godwin territory.
Because a dozen drones with 4 ounces each of PETN explosive wouldn't be enough to conduct a nasty terror campaign. Oh wait, that's exactly what they would do.
Yeah... if the Israelis were indiscriminately killing civilians the casualty lists would look a lot different. Instead they are overwhelmingly concentrated on the category of males between 14 and 32.
There's a double standard that's applied here, and nobody seems to mind.
Muslims launch rockets at Jews, killing civilians. This is bad, because killing civilians is bad.
Jews launch rockets at Muslims, killing civilians. This is seen as different than the aforementioned case bacause
Because intent matters. It matters morally, and it matters as far as international law is concerned.
International law prohibits targeting civilians. Hammas is doing just that, in violation of international law.
International law prohibits using civilian facilities for military purposes. Hammas is doing just that.
International law does not prohibit targeting military and weapons. Despite what many in liberals believe, it does not prohibit this even when said militia and weapons are stashed in distinctly civilian locations (homes, schools, hospitals). It makes sense if you stop to think about it. If that were not the case, there would be an even stronger incentive to disregard the previous law.
International law does not prohibit hitting civilians, so long as they were not targeted. This strikes many as counter-intuitive, and I guess it would be, except for one small detail: It is impossible to conduct warfare without hitting civilians. There is not a single war in history that managed that. If you outlaw killing civilians, then every single army that has ever participated in any war is a war criminal, rendering the term meaningless. International law, therefore, settles for merely requiring a reasonable amount of care in the matter, a standard that any objective observer will tell you that Israel is exceeding by several orders of magnitude.
One more thing that international law does not speak about is casualties ratio. I think the 300:1 ratio quoted above is completely bogus and made up (actual ratio is closer to 20:1), but even if it were true, it is simply not a meaningful way to measure war. It reflects more on the relative resources and care each side gives to protecting themselves than anything meaningful. The only reason it is ever brought up is because Israel opponents figured it sounds alarming to laymen and can be used to bash Israel with. You do not hear it being brought up in the context of any other conflict.
So, no, there is no double standard at play here.
Shachar
Israel is busy flattening Palestinian houses to build illegal Israel settlements. But that's OK, right?
During the last Gaza war there were a lot of Western News journalist on the ground in Gaza. They knew they were safe from Israeli attacks because Israel was being careful. By contrast there are no journalists in Syria, because they wouldn't be safe there. Always assess the objective facts before adopting an analysis.
The fear is that they would cross the border (for use in planning, coordinating or perpetrating terrorist acts), like previous Hamas drones had in the past, not that they would be used in the Gaza strip. When a terrorist organization is purchasing those things, they are generally used to commit war crimes, not to document them.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html