You probably should.
Whether you agree or not, it's always a good idea to hear both sides, otherwise there's a good chance you'll end up in an echo chamber.
If their story is fabricated it'll fall apart very quickly.
At this point he doesn't have a choice. Hamas offered to release about a dozen hostages for a ceasefire.
The Israelis repeatedly declared that there won't be any ceasefire without the release of all the hostages.
If he accepts anything else he's most likely to loose all control.
Unfortunately it seems that they will get what they want.
Israel has been bombarded with nearly 10,000 rockets, ballistic missiles and bomb carrying drones over the last month - from Gaza to the centre, Lebanon to the north and Yemen and Iran to the south. In addition there are almost daily terror attacks coming from the west bank.
There are civilian fatalities every day there. A school was recently hit and destroyed from a ballistic missile hit. Thankfully the city that was hit moved to online studies due to the threats so it was empty.
The only reason we don't see a death toll of thousands of Israelis is due to extreme defence measurements including the evacuation of more than 250,000 Israelis from the north and centre.
The whole situation is just escalating by the day and the massive attacks are fuelling Israelis rage.
Both the Houthis and Hezbollah hinted a massive attack tomorrow. Another serious hit to Israeli civilians will send this whole thing over a cliff.
Yeah, but unfortunately there are a lot of vile people on social media and some claiming to be Hamas contacted her mother saying that she survived and is being treated by them.
Israel found a piece of bone from her skull and they say that she couldn't have survived.
Netanyahu is a political animal.
He doesn't care about the hostages, the Palestinians and most of the Israelis. He just barely cares about some of them.
He has one and only one objective here - to win back the 50% votes that he lost because of the terror attack. He's already blaming the army and those who protested against him, saying that this attack was made possible because of them. According to Israeli media he has PR advisors with him when selecting military objectives and targets to help him choose the best option that will win him the more votes back.
If this goes on I think that there's a chance that we'll see a military coup in Israel.
To make it perfectly clear - the fact that children are dying is reprehensible and it should be stopped. Even if one innocent child died, from both sides, it's one too many.
That being said, this is a very good example of propaganda by partial information and numbers manipulations.
The UN report in question identifies anyone under the age of 18 as a child. The Al-Qassam brigades recruit teens from the age of 16 to active combative roles (some reports suggest an even younger age).
It's impossible to know how many of these 3,257 children are actually children and how many are armed teens, and the UN report references that. The propaganda completely ignores this part and reframes this information as if more than 3,000 young and innocent children were slain.
That's why I stopped trying.
People arguing whether babies were beheaded as if they're challenging a ref call. Their team is always right and 100% just, the other is always wrong and 100% evil and no one wants to hear that the truth is always gray and complex.
It's disheartening.
Deplorable.
There were some unconfirmed reports that the reason Hamas was able to do so much damage is because 3 battalions that were supposed to guard the border with Gaza were moved to the west bank to protect these illegal settlements.
The audacity to continue doing this shit while their country is still trying to recover from the biggest terrorist attack in their history is just unbelievable.
Unfortunately Hamas's success was far beyond their expectations. They were left unchecked for hours and during that time chose to commit the worst type of atrocities.
In doing so, they validated Israelis fears that if the "Palestinians" could, they would torture, rape and kill every single Israeli including the elderly and children.
Israel is now a country in trauma and is driven by vengeance and fear.
Sadly, at this point, no amount of world criticism will make any difference.
The only way to prevent massive casualties on both sides is if Hamas releases the civilian hostages.
In the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict:
Settlements - refers to illegal makeshift "towns" (usually no more than a few trailers) built on lands that belong to Palestinians by right wing Israeli extremists who believe that the entire land belongs to them. As of 2006, these are strictly in the west bank.
Everything else (city, town, kibutz etc) - traditional meaning but also indicates that they are within the official internationally recognised Israeli border.
Unfortunately no winners here, as is with most wars.