Israel have two 1.5 to 2 million Palestinian hostages left alive in Gaza and are presenting the world with the horrific choice of "ethnic cleansing or genocide?" There is no good answer to that ultimatum.

Most of the world have no faith that Palestinians will be allowed to return, half the population are currently STILL locked out of the country after the first time they fled in the 1940s. The IDF has been in the process of expelling Palestinians from Gaza City since about the second week of the current war.

Israel's evacuation suggestion would be taken more seriously as humanitarian if they opened their own doors to Gaza's civilians. One big difference between the two conflicts is that most Ukrainians are NOT from Russia, whereas most people in the Gaza Strip ARE from areas adjacent to it that Israel ethnically cleaned in the 1940s. Most Ukrainians don't want to move to Russia, but people who have been stuck in Gaza's ghetto for three or four generations would love to go home to al-Majal and other places their families lived before being forced into the giant Gaza Strip ghetto in 1948.

As far as anyone can tell the Gaza Strip has been deliberately made uninhabitable, because the goal all along was annexation. Israel deliberately obliterated the largest city in Palestine in revenge for a comparatively trivial attack on a few small outposts that the IDF managed to fight off within a week. In isolation the initial attack was horrific, but nobody sane or well informed can look at 7 October 2023 without comparing it to the much worse events thar followed. The first few 12 hours time 12 days could possibly be called defensive, but shortly after midnight on 8 October the IDF started executing entire families in airstrikes, and within two weeks there were no more militants left on the Israeli side of the wall and from that point on EVERYTHING the IDF was doing was pure revenge.

If Israel wanted to free hostages and prisoners, then do it like Russia and Ukraine have been doing it! Exchange prisoners! That is the way every civilized country, including Palestine, does it!! By mid October 2023 it was time to cease fire, exchange prisoners and call it over. At that point Israel had won, the world didn't hate them yet, and most hostages were still alive and well (including the Bibas kids who died in November 2023).

In some ways Ukraine is a very good analogy.

Ukraine and Palestine both have powerful nuclear armed militaries trying to annex them. I agree they should be treated comparably. I would fully support the civilian population of Gaza being evacuated if Palestine were given comparable military support to defend their country from annexation.

Really a comprehensive international response should have stopped Israel over a year ago, BEFORE they completely destroyed Gaza. But only Hezbollah and the Houthis even bloody tried. No states showed up, possibly because nobody wants to stand up to a nation of nuclear armed madmen. But worse, some of the world's must powerful militaries kept sending weapons to the wrong side!

Ideally the civilian population of Gaza could go elsewhere during reconstruction, while a Palestinian led military would stay to defend against annexation during reconstruction, with international support to balance the vast disparity between Palestine and Israel's military capabilities.

Palestine should be given comparable international military support to defend their country from annexation. At this point, despite Russia's nuclear threats, Ukraine have been given authorization to use NATO provided weapons to strike within Russian territory.

So ideally, let the civilians stay in Egypt for a while, send Israel the bill for supporting them there to the same standard of living as the average Israeli, and send Palestine enough defensive weaponry to match the IDF and prevent any risk of annexation during reconstruction.

Map Image: There are maybe better examples? but these are the family origins it a few famous people from the Gaza Strip. (modified from Wikipedia page on the history of Hamas)

Mashal is a weird non-Gazan and rare survivor. Unfortunately he's not their best, I prefered Haniyeh. Mashal is a disconcertingly keen on Samson style attacks. Muslims use different theological excuses, but I'm sticking the original "die with the Philistines" story, because it came first. Thankfully Mashal's not getting many volunteers for that level of nonsense. Most of them are at least attempting to live to fight another day.

Hopefully they manage to free "Mandela" in the exchange.

cc other me @kmpiw

pasted what I wrote incase the downvote escalates to deleting

#Reddit #Palestine #GazaGenocide #GazaGhetto #GazaStrip #PalestinianHostages #UkraineWar

Remember when we were all happy that some of the Palestinian (they were kidnapped, not detained. They were hostages held in #ApartheidIsraeliPrisons) and Israeli hostages were released?

Many of the released #PalestinianHostages have been kidnapped again by #Apartheidisrael