Thank you! Just because you are at war doesn’t mean there are no rules. Israel has a right to defend itself…but so do the Palestinians that are being slaughtered 🤷♂️
There is the where’s daddy program that waited until a suspect got home so they were sure to get the entire family. They have IDF documents stating that they accepted 25 civilian casualties to kill 1 average Hamas militant. 25000 women and children have been killed and there is full blown famine because they won’t allow aid trucks in and when they do, they are shooting people at the aid trucks. Even if it’s just individuals, it’s a lot of freaking individuals.
There are pictures of hundreds of trucks in Gaza waiting to be collected by unwra, also there are videos from NORTH Gaza of people feeding donkeys withe pitas.
The 25 civilian casualties were put on battalion commander's and above, there we're about 60 of them.
The number of casualties doesn't mean that they were targeted and that the goal was to kill as many as possible.
The aid trucks are being stole by hamas soliders so yeah we shot at those soliders.
I do not support the where is daddy program, I'm a bit skeptical it's wide spread as the claims says, I know some people in intelligence and they claims different things.
But I condemn it.
By the way, I'm fully critical of the management of the war, Israel should have created a humanitarian zone up in north Gaza secure it ourself and move in as many of the population as possible, there give them food water and medicine.
One more thing because I checked it with someone I know, those 25 casualties went up to be approved and prioritized, not every average hamas solider was bombed with airbombs, if we really want to determine this we need the numbers of the approved attacks that were actually carried out.
A death toll in the tens of thousands. The last numbers I heard was 42000 and most are women and children. There are mass graves that show, according to UN investigators, evidence of summary executions and people buried alive! That is a slaughter.
"Last I heard" was probably from Hamas/UN/unrwa, which consider everyone who died for any reason to be a civilian rather than a combatant. And the supposed mass grave by the hospital had been shown by Hamas itself in January to be people they had previously buried from the hospital morgue because the bodies had piled up there. So it was logical for IDF to search for hostage bodies then re-bury. When the fog of war clears, the statistics will become more clear.
The mass grave had people with their hands and feet bound and were shot in the back of the head. Your narrative doesn’t make sense. And the numbers are the ones that the UN and almost every country including our own use.
Ryan I'm really starting to get sick of this pathetic nit picking about things like running over inanimate objects or busting up cheap items in burnt out hole in the wall store. Hamas tied CHILDREN together and burnt them alive. Executed women AS they were raping them. Murdered children and the elderly point blank, laughed and bragged about it. And you somehow feel the need to point every one of this minuscule micro-aggressions. No army in the history of mankind has ever conducted war with an entire army of totally robotically perfect soldiers and never will. Are you going to back and point out every single time an American soldier did something that wasnt exactly by the book? No because it would take a year just to go over all the things like this US soldiers did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Okay fine it's okay to point out that all armies have men that don't act perfectly. But if you are going to show something the Israelis do wrong find something that even approaches the savage barbarity of Hamas and not this silly "they ran over a sign" bullshit
HAMAS was barbaric. Full stop. The IDF are the good guys in this conflict. Full stop. But you must be careful to follow IHL so that you remain the good guys. "It's just a sign" eventually becomes "let's just waste the village." Rules and restraint are the difference between an Army and a band of Vikings.
Ultimately, I care about every single IDF soldier, and this sets a bad precedent that could get men killed because HAMAS will put IEDs in items of interest for Israelis to run over.
And I don't want any more soldiers to die, especially for something stupid.
The IDF stopped being the good guys a while ago. There are no good guys here. Only civilians in the crossfire. Operation get daddy was ment to get the family too. They targeted reporters, hospitals, and aid. They are not the good guys and I can’t wait for the ICC to issue a warrant for Bibi and his cabinet. Just because someone is an ally doesn’t make them the good guys. 25000 women and children is way too high a cost.
You haven’t studied war line the millions of Civilians we intentionally targeted and murdered throughout Europe and Asia in WW2. The tens of thousands we illegally relocated in Vietnam. Or, maybe the Taliban’s claims(out of Doha 2004-2021) regarding the disgusting amount of women & children maimed & killed in Afghanistan by NATO. (Not counting the maimed & dead from the DrugLord Afghan allies we propped up; for peace at any cost)
You are seeing a practiced performance from Hamas; because their last one in 2014 only made the IDF look better. Remember 2014, when Hamas separated out their “soldiers” from civilians, and they claimed a 1:1 ratio of Combatants to Civilians casualties. While Israel showed videos of Hamas & IJ firing from hospitals & UN schools; while using protected religious structures as weapon caches & command posts. Or, the videos of the IDF using roof knockers to warn local civilians, and Hamas instead rushed civilians onto the roof knowing the IDF wouldn’t fire. *That 1:1 Hamas ratio also kept all of Hamas’s “mobilized reserves” entirely in the civilian casualty count, even though they were legal targets.
This is why Hamas has been bumping up their numbers and keeping all “fighting age” male [excluding their official child soldier brigades as brainwashed children] casualties as “civilians.” Even the Men recovered from fighting positions, and most tellingly initially most of the people saved by the hands of IDF doctors.
There has even been Canadian borne children counted as officially dead in Gaza, and later being interviewed on Canadian TV at a protest.
Evil done by the US and others does not justify what the IDF is doing now. Israel has used Hamas' attacks, kidnapping, torture and killing of civilians as an excuse to do in Gaza what they have always wanted - to wipe it out, crush its people, wreck its infrastructure, and render them unable to ever send rockets or commandos against Israel, ever again. It is horrifying, lethal to both journalists and civilians, and it will stain the collective soul of Israel for generations. It's also unlikely to work, at least in the long run.
That wasn’t all “evil” done by the US, Canada, and NATO overall. That was partially the exigencies of war against multiple terror organizations and a (later successful) national liberation movement.
As an aside. This war didn’t have to take place at all. Oct 8th the UN general assembly votes to condemn Hamas’s terror attack; while the UNSC simply votes to hold all those involved in the planning or directly the atrocities to the ICC. While demanding the immediate release of ALL hostages. That simple condemnation of Oct7th, which would have been done for any other EU or aligned nation, would have given Bibi’s political opposition the time & power to rid themselves of him, and the small extremist parties giving him a slim majority. Instead the world’s collective silence gave him a lifeline, because it showed again its “Me too, unless your a Jew” throughout what is supposed to be the civilized world.
You really have to be off your rocker if you think the IDF somehow went from the most ethical military organization in the world, to just a bunch of savages willing to rape babies, young girls, and women. Then burn them alive or stab them to death through their genitals. All because Hamas announced to the world that they committed those exact atrocities.. You can’t be that oblivious to propaganda, or have just a cursory understanding of the daily terror Israel faced for decades. Until they traded their strategic depth to Egypt *AND THE HOLIEST SITE IN THEIR RELIGION TO JORDAN* all so the 3 sect of the followers of Yehovah/Yaweah could finally(after 3 centuries) pray in peace in the holy cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. While also NOT punishing the Arabs illegally given the homes and businesses of the exiled Christians & Jews by Jordan, in what used to be mostly the “Jewish Quarter” of *Eastern Jerusalem*
Those War Crimes committed by the Arab Alliance were ignored for peace, including illegally making stateless the ~2million Jews who lived across the Middle East & Africa in small communities before Palestine was re-invented after the end of the 1948 *UN peace Plan* war was won by the underdog Israeli’s combined Jewish, Christian, Arab, and African forces.
*OBVIOUSLY?* you also watched Hamas’s self-published & uncensored videos of the atrocities they committed in Israel, later to their captives, and now THE HUNDREDS OF GAZAN residents, Hamas has wantonly accused, tortured & then executed for “collaboration with the Occupiers.”
You must have watched all those videos and what? Thought the Jews deserved it? Thought Israel should have just taken the Loss, like they were forced to during the 1400 rockets, aimed at civilians, between the 2014 ceasefire and the Oct7th attack?
*What is it you were expecting anfter the Hamas attacks & atrocities exactly?*
That Israel would fight Hamas for a month and just let their kidnapped citizens rot while Hamas & the PA demanded the release *THOUSANDS* of legally tried & convicted terrorists in Israeli Prisons?
You couldn’t haven been that naive about the Israeli public’s reaction to seeing their grandmother, daughters, sons, and babies executed, burnt alive, and/or gang raped before their deaths. No nation would ever put up with that continuing threat on their doorstep; while the attacking enemy also declared the attacked nation was 100% responsible for their civilians, because they officially were not sharing their bomb shelters, food & medical supply caches, and even fuel with their own families topside.
You really need to take an honest look at the sources telling you that Israel, even with the most advanced sensors watching her fight (the US/NATO and French spy satellites & ISR aircraft) with factions in their governments demanding “proof” of a non-existent genocide.
Make no mistake, the IDF will follow all legal orders to destroy Hamas(& Islamic Jihad) as a capable terror organization for the next decade at least. Hamas’s theft of UN supplies, meant to help Civilians live a better life, that are a part of their terror tunnel network will be destroyed. And, Israel will shut it border post-war to the 160,000 civilians who worked in Israel under previous ceasefire agreements.
The UAE, Iran, Syria, and Russia want to arm them. The Palestinians can also get them to rebuild *through Egypt* what their Elected Government’s genocidal policies wrought upon them.
No matter what the dream is, Israel is not going anywhere, so the only option is to make a lasting peace. Or, have their Military-Industrial Complex destroyed after every attack against Israeli civilians.
Israel will not make lasting peace by conducting artillery and air strikes against civilian populations. They will make dedicated militants and terrorists out of the survivors. There is an almost unbreakable rule in warfare: you can't kill them all. There is a corollary: those that survive will make it their life's work to kill you and yours.
I have seen nothing about any faked casualties. Not all adult males are Hamas. And just because we did bad things in the past does mean that everyone should do it. Most of the current laws on armed combat were written AFTER WWII so you can’t really count those times. Vietnam should be no one’s example because that was a totally shit show all around. We admitted that was wrong and paid the people of Vietnam a lot of money. The IDF isn’t special. They are held to the same standards as the rest of the world.
I disagree. If you see nothing about gross discrepancies in numbers and types of casualties, you have not been looking. And if you want to update yourself on current standards of urban warfare, you may wish to consult the writings of the expert, Professor John Spencer of Westpoint.
I am well acquainted with current standards of conflict as well as international law. There are no discrepancies. There are the numbers from the Gaza health ministry which are confirmed by the United Nations or the number from the oppressor Israel that keeps changing wildly every time they give a press conference or interview.
Ryan you are silly to cover sign issue while you completely ignore UN reports that IDF buried civilians including healthcare workers around the hospitals in Gaza with their hands tied behind their backs. Some with signs of torture and others with signs of be buried alive. Good guys and bad guys both Hamas and IDF are the bad guys. why does
Your world revolve around binary good and bad all the time? There are only bad guys and the victims.
Hey Ryan this isn’t really related I just reeeeeaaallly wanted to tell you about halftracks, specifically their unmatched potential value to Ukrainians, they could use them as a semi heavy armored off road mud traversing logistic spear, Ukraine has tanks, planes, soldiers and even a lot of trucks but they really don’t have anything like a half track, that is a armored high capacity off road vehicle that throughout ww1-2 was literally the backbone of US and German heavy and mobile logistics, the blitzkrieg was made possible purely by halftracks and their speed, they would be perfect for a breakthrough for Ukrainians please look into it, pleeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzz
Wow, I didn't know tacky street art was protected cultural heritage. I guess it was a shameful crime against humanity to blow up that giant swastika on the reichstag that is shown in every World War Two documentary.
You're treating some minor vandalism like it's a video of IDF troops shooting a bunch of children, and that's just silly. There are lines that matter, save your indignation for those.
Fair comment but the reality is there is a line and it is there for good reason. As a former Military Policeman I had a lot of authority and power at various times of my service. The one thing that had been hammered into all of us during our training (in those days you had to be a volunteer and have already served for at least 12 months in any other branch of the army)was our motto; "For The Troops, with The Troops". Just because we could didnt mean we did. Even minor things, if they could be fixed with a verbal reprimand then do it. Don't abuse your power and remember we are there to uphold the law, not bend it or break it. As Ryan said, if it was militarily necessary to drive over the sign, fair play. But to wipe it out just because you can is wrong and for all the reasons he gave. Every time you cross the line you create another problem ofr someone else, another resistor, another suicide bomber. Sadly I've seen a lot of this holier than thou arrogance in IDF troops. I've seen it first hand when I provided personal protection at synagogues during Gulf War 1. The IDF think they are the bee's knees but they're not up against the Waffen SS or the Foreign Legion, as an ex-Legionnaire mate of mine once pointed out.
This is part of why Israel is losing the information war; even their allies can't voice the smallest form of criticism without being frontally attacked as traitors / Hamas supporters / antisemitic scum / you name it
My friend, the Israeli army has killed over 14000 children, it has leveled entire neigbourhoods, you can go on any platform and find videos of 3 year olds drawing their last breath, I'm sure you can understand that people will make a few comments
(And yes, I know that your next comment will be "what about the hostages" because feeling any form of empathy towards a dying child who is not Israeli is an affront to God himself)
Attacking Ryan who is simply commenting on the Geneva convention is just wild
Why 14000? why not 35000? How about 72637? The numbers are all fantasy, everyone knows it.
In any case, according to International Law, every single one of the dead children (1 or 1,000,000) are on Hamas.
Now riddle me this:
Netanyahu wanted to move all civilians to safety in Egypt where they could be cared for while the IDF battled Hamas. If the civilians had fled, Israel could have used a GBU-43/B (like the US did in Kandahar for weaker fortifications) and the war would have been over in a week with no Gazan civilian deaths.
Instead, the US administration prevented any civilian from fleeing, forcing them to be human shields for Hamas.
That being the case, wouldn't you say that the dead children are on the US administration?
14000 because all international agencies, including the UNICEF, say so, but maybe the UNICEF is just being antisemitic and very very Hamas
Interestingly, the IDF says that figure is wrong and that they are carefully tracking Hamas casualties yet at the same time they can't give a figure of their own, they just know that the UNICEF and the UN are wrong - or maybe the IDF simply doesn't want to recognize that their command went nuts after October 7 and that the institution was morally bankrupt by the beginning of the offensive (I'm pretty sure that was the exact goal of Hamas)
And now well your riddle is pretty easy to solve: displacing millions of people from Gaza into the Egyptian desert and annexing it into Israeli territory would be a genocidal move plain and simple. No one trusts Bibi and the Likud to give back the territory after the war. If the Likud wants trust, maybe they should consider dealing with the illegal settlers slowly nibbling Palestinian lands (which they never will because that's precisely their goal, it's literaly written in their charter)
a. UNICEF may or may not be antisemitic, but that is not relevant. The moment Hamas was elected in 2006 and International Aid poured into Gaza through the Gazan government (Hamas), you guaranteed this would happen. Why? In such governing systems (anywhere in the world) jobs are given to loyalists to keep them loyal and outsiders are left unemployed and poor as a warning to the loyalists why they should remain loyal. There is zero chance that a cushy job paid in foreign currency like a UNICEF position is not Hamas. By the way, the reason Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 elections is because Fatah was so corrupt in divvying out things like cushy jobs and Hamas was viewed as more honest.
b. Israel has no way of knowing the real number and, if it did, would anyone believe it? and if the number is proven to be 1000 instead of 14000 would any Hamas supporter turn around and say it is a proportional number? The fact is that that even 100,000 dead kids is legal under International Law of the dead were byproducts of legitimate military aims.
c. The straw man failed in solving the riddle.
The Administration had a chance of saving all the Gazan civilians and defeating Hamas in 1 month: letting civilians flee to Egypt like they encouraged civilians to flee the far less intense fighting in Ukraine or Syria.
You are now saying that the Administration chose to let the civilians including the kids die as human shields for Hamas because they feared that some refugees would rather settle in other places (say, Turkey or Chechnya) than return to Gaza or that Israel would not let them come back even though the US could have conditioned effective aid on letting people return.
d. What do you mean "Palestinian Land"? Hamas attacked on October 7 because they say the entirety of the Holy Land is Palestinian.
1. Israel taking Rafah is not the end of the fight. Hamas planned for this scenario. Hamas fighters have embedded themselves with civilians or are using the extensive tunnel system to move from place to place. They are getting resupply from the US-efforts and have pre-placed weapons almost everywhere. Israel control of Rafah will simply start the next phase of the war.
2. International Law / LOAC isn't applicable. Since the tank's coaxial machine gun was firing, the Israelis were in an active combat situation where no one is expected to worry about a replaceable sign. LOAC applies to things like the unnecessary destruction of irreplaceable world heritage archaeological sites in Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion.
3. Was there a military necessity to run over the art installation? Probably.
- Looking at Google Earth, the tank was positioned to overwatch / defend the terminal building from threats from the north and the east.
- The tank was probably required to park on the roundabout to avoid obstructing the road.
- The hull is directed north-east, allowing quick repositioning north on the Terminal road or east behind the crescent shaped building.
- These requirements mean the tank had to park south-east of the fountain to make sure it could reposition without driving over the fountain which is dangerous and more expensive than the sign.
- To the left (south-east) of the sign, there is a grey circle that in the video looks like a pile of rocks that a tank would rather not drive over. I searched images "Rafah crossing mosque" and found a photo from France 24 confirming that it is a pile of rocks. The tank had no choice but park north-west of the pile or rocks.
- The only place that you can park a tank a. on the roundabout b. between the fountain and the pile rocks and c. off of the road is exactly where the sign was located.
4. We do not know whether or not the tank platoon thought about IEDs when they planned the takeover of the Terminal. However, since this was an active terminal with almost exclusively Western, Gazan or Egyptian people wandering around, it was an unlikely place to put an IED.
The tank was setting up a perimeter. You can see to the north, another IFV/TANK in the same proximity of that perimeter. Rewatch, notice the 270 degree viewpoint from 1st tank surveillance. They did have some levity at running over that sign. Yet, IMHO was to complete the command from their senior. IDF drones recon the area first for ambush and IEDs.
If you listen to what the commander is saying they had some levity, I don't think running over the sign was the goal, I think they did it just cause they could on there way to set up a perimeter.
This just looks like us taking down Iraqi art installations of their past leaders & their accomplishments.
The only difference is this Merkeva is taking out a possible existing IED location, and clearing their field of fire forward.
I’m hoping the IDF is negotiating a permanent relocation of the Hamas “enemy combatants”(since they are also not wearing uniforms) in their long term care. A nice sunny natural bay in Cuba, one that’s perfect for surf & turf weekends on the beach, would be the true Hollywood ending.
It’s the kind of ending certain networks still defend as totally legal, and in no way tarnishing of the US Military as a whole.
Protestors are fucking up college commencements across the country. In a lot of cases the same students had their high school commencements fucked up by Covid. Fuck the art. They are burning US Flags and defacing US Military memorials to fallen US personnel. Fuck the art.
The Geneva Conventions were appropriate for 1949, but they're now outdated. Warfare today isn't only between two armies, nor is it limited to Gaza as a single 'war zone.' It's also fought on financial, political, and influential fronts. Filming and sharing acts like running over the 'I LOVE GAZA' sign is akin to planting a flag in the Reichstag. This is post-internet warfare. The importance of this form of conflict is evident in U.S. universities.
While for the US government it's clear that Hamas is an enemy of the U.S. and Western culture. Iran and Hezbollah are also actively pursuing the destruction of the U.S. Despite this, countless Americans, not even of Middle Eastern descent, are protesting in their favor, shouting 'globalize the intifada'. Can you imagine this behavior during past American wars? Could you picture students praising Bin Laden on September 12, 2001? Because they do now!
The war against Islamic extremism and terrorism cannot be judged by European wartime rules, and 21st-century conflicts can't be judged by 20th-century standards.
Lastly, we strive to distinguish between Hamas and the people of Gaza, but in reality, they're not entirely separate. The citizens in the Gaza Strip aren't helpless subordinates of the Hamas government. They fund, support, praise, and protect Hamas. This explains why 71% of Gaza's population support the October 7th attack (recent poll) and why Hamas has stayed in power for 18 years. Accountability is a bitch.
The only evidence we have that something happened is the video. Commenting on the video and the implications of what may have happened and what may happen in the future because of these actions is fair and educational. All these comments about comparative war crimes and slippery slopes really misses the point. "What about isms" or "we did it in the past" is a very weak argument. It is not Ryan's job to carry water for any side in this conflict.
When General Curtis LeMay was moved from the European theater to the Pacific to take over command of the fire bombing of Japan, he was famously quoted as saying that we better win this damn war or we are going to be tried as war criminals. We knew that the only way to conclude WWII was to kill off the civilian population so that we could end their war production. Ugly but true.
My only criticism of Ryan is that he has to stop slandering the Vikings. That Viking fighting spirit is now an important element of our NATO alliance with the Nordic countries facing our true enemy, Russia.
No question Hamas started the conflict. No question that some of their actions constitute war crimes by almost any definition of the term. Now comes the question of proportionate response. Israel appears to have defined proportionate response to Hamas atrocities as killing each and every Hamas solider they can get their hands on, regardless of collateral damage or civilian casualties. A very long time ago, I knew a member of the Jewish Defense League in New York. He said that Jews will always be hated. His stated intention was that, now, they would also be feared. What Israel is doing now appears to be that intention writ very large. I don't know whether that's good or bad. Maybe it's both. When thousands die, I find it hard to hold anyone up as heroes.
It’s merely a metal sign, right? Folks are aware all of this energy and emoting is due to a metal sign being crushed, right? This story is the living embodiment of “mountains from mole hills.” The world is aflame, but let’s wax poetic about a crushed metal sign in a theater of combat. Sigh.
In order to film these sorts of activities one had to have a movie camera, rolls of film and be a person whose actual job it was to document battles and make record of the process by which meaningful goals were achieved.
These films were no doubt reviewed both prior to editing and once again afterward to make sure the content was appropriate for a desired audience, be they for military purposes or for public consumption via the ubiquitous newsreels that preceded each and every movie theater feature presentation.
An allied tank driver driving down a street in Berlin during WWII may have gone out of his way to crush every parked Volkswagen he came across and sure, the other fellas in his tank may have gotten a few jollies out of the activity.
But, rest assured, no one in that tank had a motion picture camera to record the events and if they actually had one, at most only a few hundred people would ever get to see the film.
Nowadays….
I can guess that many soldiers carry smart phones that can easily record everything it is pointed at.
These high resolution videos can then be uploaded by an anonymous frontline fighter in short order to TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and a host of other social media networks where, within hours, many hundreds of copies, with no real control of the context in which they are presented (mis/dis), are then viewed by millions worldwide.
So…
Intentionally running over an ‘I love Gaza’ sign for the sake of filming the activity and subsequently uploading it to the internet will do nothing but further the animosity felt by the Palestinian citizens of Gaza as well as many millions worldwide that abhor what is happening to those unfortunate people.
Context is crucial. I feel safe in this speculation: not a soul in Gaza or Rafah gives one iota about that metal sign. Context? They are struggling to survive. Only folks who aren’t facing the business end of starvation and JDAMs would waste the time and energy over a crushed metal sign.
That metal sign does nothing to increase the hatred that’s spilling over. It’s folks secure in their homes that have these sorts of discussions.
I am one myself as I sit in my nice house not in a war zone. Context.
I feel that what Ryan is trying to say with his ‘Art Installation’ piece is that soldiers in a professional army must be trained and made aware that their actions (especially the stupid ones) once recorded and indiscriminately disseminated via social media, can lead to serious socio-political issues both during a conflict, and adversely affect the much more difficult process of ‘mending fences’ (hopefully not so much in a literal sense) between the Palestinian people and their immediate neighbors, the citizens of Israel.
Yes, I am sitting here taking part in this discussion from my kitchen table.
But I firmly believe that an intentional effort to create a barrage of mis/dis in social media has, for well over a decade, been slowly warping the social and political ‘zeitgeist’ of America to one that increasingly favors the goals of our fiercest adversaries.
Soldiers involved in a conflict must be made aware that what they might be posting on Twitter might well be adding ‘fodder’ that can be used to benefit these organized ‘mis/dis’ warfare efforts.
And America would continue to devolve towards an authoritarian form of ‘democracy’.
Well…
I am concerned that what eventually happens to the Palestinian people (and Ukrainians, for that matter) after hostilities cease may lead to circumstances where my neighbor’s son might one day find himself being sent overseas…
… to end up being incinerated by a tactical nuke.
So these ‘armchair’ discussions must be made, if for no other reason that there might be a personal feeling of hope that something good may come of them.
Ryan, I appreciate your “no holds barred” approach to telling the truth. You do not show favoritism to either side of the debate. I also appreciate your desire to help young NCOs to properly learn their trade.
Might the marks on the road in front of the vehicle indicate that it may have stopped just as it passed the ‘I Love Gaza’ sign, then backed up to position itself facing directly at the sign?
The video clip begins with the vehicle stopped.
The vehicle is shown to move forward, directly over the sign, then comes to a stop once again.
The video ends soon afterward.
Ryan hopes to use this video to educate people how the rules of war work, perhaps irregardless of how one might view the actual intent of the soldiers guiding this vehicle.
He says that the sound that accompanies the video provides important context to this lesson.
The apparent levity of the recorded comment made by one of the soldiers as well as the seeming lack of concern of being shot at as the person holding the camera panned slowly to the left…
… might indicate that the act of running over the sign was intentional.
However…
The sound of live gunfire could also lend credence to an opinion that the damage to the sign was legitimate, having taken place during the heat of battle.
Well…
It would be interesting if there might be aerial imagery available that shows the actual track this particular vehicle made during this evolution.
Ryan can you talk about what part of the Geneva Conventions or LOAC this action violated? I'm not saying it's not in those books, I just don't know where and was hoping for some explanation.
We have a problem in Israel that people think that because the WAR is justified than they are justified in anything they do.
It's driving me insane, if you think like that your half way to becoming like the enemy.
Thank you! Just because you are at war doesn’t mean there are no rules. Israel has a right to defend itself…but so do the Palestinians that are being slaughtered 🤷♂️
To be clear, I do not believe nor agree that plaestinians are being "slaughtered".
I fought in Gaza, we mostly fought in evacuated areas, when we fought in areas with civilians we were told where not to shot.
I would say that I saw people burn down buildings just for the lols, but those were individuals, not a policy.
There is the where’s daddy program that waited until a suspect got home so they were sure to get the entire family. They have IDF documents stating that they accepted 25 civilian casualties to kill 1 average Hamas militant. 25000 women and children have been killed and there is full blown famine because they won’t allow aid trucks in and when they do, they are shooting people at the aid trucks. Even if it’s just individuals, it’s a lot of freaking individuals.
There are pictures of hundreds of trucks in Gaza waiting to be collected by unwra, also there are videos from NORTH Gaza of people feeding donkeys withe pitas.
The 25 civilian casualties were put on battalion commander's and above, there we're about 60 of them.
The number of casualties doesn't mean that they were targeted and that the goal was to kill as many as possible.
The aid trucks are being stole by hamas soliders so yeah we shot at those soliders.
I do not support the where is daddy program, I'm a bit skeptical it's wide spread as the claims says, I know some people in intelligence and they claims different things.
But I condemn it.
By the way, I'm fully critical of the management of the war, Israel should have created a humanitarian zone up in north Gaza secure it ourself and move in as many of the population as possible, there give them food water and medicine.
All of this could have been avoided.
One more thing because I checked it with someone I know, those 25 casualties went up to be approved and prioritized, not every average hamas solider was bombed with airbombs, if we really want to determine this we need the numbers of the approved attacks that were actually carried out.
Actually your claim that the Palestinians are being slaughtered does not represent reality according to West Point Professor John Spencer as he explained in this Newsweek article: https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286 However, I do agree, as Ryan pointed out, this idiotic tank maneuver was stupid unless justified, and as he also pointed out, dangerous.
I just looked at your profile and you are all sorts of conspiracy crazy, arnt you
A death toll in the tens of thousands. The last numbers I heard was 42000 and most are women and children. There are mass graves that show, according to UN investigators, evidence of summary executions and people buried alive! That is a slaughter.
"Last I heard" was probably from Hamas/UN/unrwa, which consider everyone who died for any reason to be a civilian rather than a combatant. And the supposed mass grave by the hospital had been shown by Hamas itself in January to be people they had previously buried from the hospital morgue because the bodies had piled up there. So it was logical for IDF to search for hostage bodies then re-bury. When the fog of war clears, the statistics will become more clear.
The mass grave had people with their hands and feet bound and were shot in the back of the head. Your narrative doesn’t make sense. And the numbers are the ones that the UN and almost every country including our own use.
Ryan I'm really starting to get sick of this pathetic nit picking about things like running over inanimate objects or busting up cheap items in burnt out hole in the wall store. Hamas tied CHILDREN together and burnt them alive. Executed women AS they were raping them. Murdered children and the elderly point blank, laughed and bragged about it. And you somehow feel the need to point every one of this minuscule micro-aggressions. No army in the history of mankind has ever conducted war with an entire army of totally robotically perfect soldiers and never will. Are you going to back and point out every single time an American soldier did something that wasnt exactly by the book? No because it would take a year just to go over all the things like this US soldiers did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Okay fine it's okay to point out that all armies have men that don't act perfectly. But if you are going to show something the Israelis do wrong find something that even approaches the savage barbarity of Hamas and not this silly "they ran over a sign" bullshit
HAMAS was barbaric. Full stop. The IDF are the good guys in this conflict. Full stop. But you must be careful to follow IHL so that you remain the good guys. "It's just a sign" eventually becomes "let's just waste the village." Rules and restraint are the difference between an Army and a band of Vikings.
Ultimately, I care about every single IDF soldier, and this sets a bad precedent that could get men killed because HAMAS will put IEDs in items of interest for Israelis to run over.
And I don't want any more soldiers to die, especially for something stupid.
The IDF stopped being the good guys a while ago. There are no good guys here. Only civilians in the crossfire. Operation get daddy was ment to get the family too. They targeted reporters, hospitals, and aid. They are not the good guys and I can’t wait for the ICC to issue a warrant for Bibi and his cabinet. Just because someone is an ally doesn’t make them the good guys. 25000 women and children is way too high a cost.
You haven’t studied war line the millions of Civilians we intentionally targeted and murdered throughout Europe and Asia in WW2. The tens of thousands we illegally relocated in Vietnam. Or, maybe the Taliban’s claims(out of Doha 2004-2021) regarding the disgusting amount of women & children maimed & killed in Afghanistan by NATO. (Not counting the maimed & dead from the DrugLord Afghan allies we propped up; for peace at any cost)
You are seeing a practiced performance from Hamas; because their last one in 2014 only made the IDF look better. Remember 2014, when Hamas separated out their “soldiers” from civilians, and they claimed a 1:1 ratio of Combatants to Civilians casualties. While Israel showed videos of Hamas & IJ firing from hospitals & UN schools; while using protected religious structures as weapon caches & command posts. Or, the videos of the IDF using roof knockers to warn local civilians, and Hamas instead rushed civilians onto the roof knowing the IDF wouldn’t fire. *That 1:1 Hamas ratio also kept all of Hamas’s “mobilized reserves” entirely in the civilian casualty count, even though they were legal targets.
This is why Hamas has been bumping up their numbers and keeping all “fighting age” male [excluding their official child soldier brigades as brainwashed children] casualties as “civilians.” Even the Men recovered from fighting positions, and most tellingly initially most of the people saved by the hands of IDF doctors.
There has even been Canadian borne children counted as officially dead in Gaza, and later being interviewed on Canadian TV at a protest.
Evil done by the US and others does not justify what the IDF is doing now. Israel has used Hamas' attacks, kidnapping, torture and killing of civilians as an excuse to do in Gaza what they have always wanted - to wipe it out, crush its people, wreck its infrastructure, and render them unable to ever send rockets or commandos against Israel, ever again. It is horrifying, lethal to both journalists and civilians, and it will stain the collective soul of Israel for generations. It's also unlikely to work, at least in the long run.
That wasn’t all “evil” done by the US, Canada, and NATO overall. That was partially the exigencies of war against multiple terror organizations and a (later successful) national liberation movement.
As an aside. This war didn’t have to take place at all. Oct 8th the UN general assembly votes to condemn Hamas’s terror attack; while the UNSC simply votes to hold all those involved in the planning or directly the atrocities to the ICC. While demanding the immediate release of ALL hostages. That simple condemnation of Oct7th, which would have been done for any other EU or aligned nation, would have given Bibi’s political opposition the time & power to rid themselves of him, and the small extremist parties giving him a slim majority. Instead the world’s collective silence gave him a lifeline, because it showed again its “Me too, unless your a Jew” throughout what is supposed to be the civilized world.
You really have to be off your rocker if you think the IDF somehow went from the most ethical military organization in the world, to just a bunch of savages willing to rape babies, young girls, and women. Then burn them alive or stab them to death through their genitals. All because Hamas announced to the world that they committed those exact atrocities.. You can’t be that oblivious to propaganda, or have just a cursory understanding of the daily terror Israel faced for decades. Until they traded their strategic depth to Egypt *AND THE HOLIEST SITE IN THEIR RELIGION TO JORDAN* all so the 3 sect of the followers of Yehovah/Yaweah could finally(after 3 centuries) pray in peace in the holy cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. While also NOT punishing the Arabs illegally given the homes and businesses of the exiled Christians & Jews by Jordan, in what used to be mostly the “Jewish Quarter” of *Eastern Jerusalem*
Those War Crimes committed by the Arab Alliance were ignored for peace, including illegally making stateless the ~2million Jews who lived across the Middle East & Africa in small communities before Palestine was re-invented after the end of the 1948 *UN peace Plan* war was won by the underdog Israeli’s combined Jewish, Christian, Arab, and African forces.
*OBVIOUSLY?* you also watched Hamas’s self-published & uncensored videos of the atrocities they committed in Israel, later to their captives, and now THE HUNDREDS OF GAZAN residents, Hamas has wantonly accused, tortured & then executed for “collaboration with the Occupiers.”
You must have watched all those videos and what? Thought the Jews deserved it? Thought Israel should have just taken the Loss, like they were forced to during the 1400 rockets, aimed at civilians, between the 2014 ceasefire and the Oct7th attack?
*What is it you were expecting anfter the Hamas attacks & atrocities exactly?*
That Israel would fight Hamas for a month and just let their kidnapped citizens rot while Hamas & the PA demanded the release *THOUSANDS* of legally tried & convicted terrorists in Israeli Prisons?
You couldn’t haven been that naive about the Israeli public’s reaction to seeing their grandmother, daughters, sons, and babies executed, burnt alive, and/or gang raped before their deaths. No nation would ever put up with that continuing threat on their doorstep; while the attacking enemy also declared the attacked nation was 100% responsible for their civilians, because they officially were not sharing their bomb shelters, food & medical supply caches, and even fuel with their own families topside.
You really need to take an honest look at the sources telling you that Israel, even with the most advanced sensors watching her fight (the US/NATO and French spy satellites & ISR aircraft) with factions in their governments demanding “proof” of a non-existent genocide.
Make no mistake, the IDF will follow all legal orders to destroy Hamas(& Islamic Jihad) as a capable terror organization for the next decade at least. Hamas’s theft of UN supplies, meant to help Civilians live a better life, that are a part of their terror tunnel network will be destroyed. And, Israel will shut it border post-war to the 160,000 civilians who worked in Israel under previous ceasefire agreements.
The UAE, Iran, Syria, and Russia want to arm them. The Palestinians can also get them to rebuild *through Egypt* what their Elected Government’s genocidal policies wrought upon them.
No matter what the dream is, Israel is not going anywhere, so the only option is to make a lasting peace. Or, have their Military-Industrial Complex destroyed after every attack against Israeli civilians.
Israel will not make lasting peace by conducting artillery and air strikes against civilian populations. They will make dedicated militants and terrorists out of the survivors. There is an almost unbreakable rule in warfare: you can't kill them all. There is a corollary: those that survive will make it their life's work to kill you and yours.
I have seen nothing about any faked casualties. Not all adult males are Hamas. And just because we did bad things in the past does mean that everyone should do it. Most of the current laws on armed combat were written AFTER WWII so you can’t really count those times. Vietnam should be no one’s example because that was a totally shit show all around. We admitted that was wrong and paid the people of Vietnam a lot of money. The IDF isn’t special. They are held to the same standards as the rest of the world.
I disagree. If you see nothing about gross discrepancies in numbers and types of casualties, you have not been looking. And if you want to update yourself on current standards of urban warfare, you may wish to consult the writings of the expert, Professor John Spencer of Westpoint.
I am well acquainted with current standards of conflict as well as international law. There are no discrepancies. There are the numbers from the Gaza health ministry which are confirmed by the United Nations or the number from the oppressor Israel that keeps changing wildly every time they give a press conference or interview.
Thank you, this needed to be said
Ryan you are silly to cover sign issue while you completely ignore UN reports that IDF buried civilians including healthcare workers around the hospitals in Gaza with their hands tied behind their backs. Some with signs of torture and others with signs of be buried alive. Good guys and bad guys both Hamas and IDF are the bad guys. why does
Your world revolve around binary good and bad all the time? There are only bad guys and the victims.
Hey Ryan this isn’t really related I just reeeeeaaallly wanted to tell you about halftracks, specifically their unmatched potential value to Ukrainians, they could use them as a semi heavy armored off road mud traversing logistic spear, Ukraine has tanks, planes, soldiers and even a lot of trucks but they really don’t have anything like a half track, that is a armored high capacity off road vehicle that throughout ww1-2 was literally the backbone of US and German heavy and mobile logistics, the blitzkrieg was made possible purely by halftracks and their speed, they would be perfect for a breakthrough for Ukrainians please look into it, pleeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzz
Wow, I didn't know tacky street art was protected cultural heritage. I guess it was a shameful crime against humanity to blow up that giant swastika on the reichstag that is shown in every World War Two documentary.
You're treating some minor vandalism like it's a video of IDF troops shooting a bunch of children, and that's just silly. There are lines that matter, save your indignation for those.
might also be a morality milestone for the citizens of Israel. lets face it the media has broadcasting to the world screaming genocide against Israel.
Fair comment but the reality is there is a line and it is there for good reason. As a former Military Policeman I had a lot of authority and power at various times of my service. The one thing that had been hammered into all of us during our training (in those days you had to be a volunteer and have already served for at least 12 months in any other branch of the army)was our motto; "For The Troops, with The Troops". Just because we could didnt mean we did. Even minor things, if they could be fixed with a verbal reprimand then do it. Don't abuse your power and remember we are there to uphold the law, not bend it or break it. As Ryan said, if it was militarily necessary to drive over the sign, fair play. But to wipe it out just because you can is wrong and for all the reasons he gave. Every time you cross the line you create another problem ofr someone else, another resistor, another suicide bomber. Sadly I've seen a lot of this holier than thou arrogance in IDF troops. I've seen it first hand when I provided personal protection at synagogues during Gulf War 1. The IDF think they are the bee's knees but they're not up against the Waffen SS or the Foreign Legion, as an ex-Legionnaire mate of mine once pointed out.
This is part of why Israel is losing the information war; even their allies can't voice the smallest form of criticism without being frontally attacked as traitors / Hamas supporters / antisemitic scum / you name it
My friend, the Israeli army has killed over 14000 children, it has leveled entire neigbourhoods, you can go on any platform and find videos of 3 year olds drawing their last breath, I'm sure you can understand that people will make a few comments
(And yes, I know that your next comment will be "what about the hostages" because feeling any form of empathy towards a dying child who is not Israeli is an affront to God himself)
Attacking Ryan who is simply commenting on the Geneva convention is just wild
Why 14000? why not 35000? How about 72637? The numbers are all fantasy, everyone knows it.
In any case, according to International Law, every single one of the dead children (1 or 1,000,000) are on Hamas.
Now riddle me this:
Netanyahu wanted to move all civilians to safety in Egypt where they could be cared for while the IDF battled Hamas. If the civilians had fled, Israel could have used a GBU-43/B (like the US did in Kandahar for weaker fortifications) and the war would have been over in a week with no Gazan civilian deaths.
Instead, the US administration prevented any civilian from fleeing, forcing them to be human shields for Hamas.
That being the case, wouldn't you say that the dead children are on the US administration?
14000 because all international agencies, including the UNICEF, say so, but maybe the UNICEF is just being antisemitic and very very Hamas
Interestingly, the IDF says that figure is wrong and that they are carefully tracking Hamas casualties yet at the same time they can't give a figure of their own, they just know that the UNICEF and the UN are wrong - or maybe the IDF simply doesn't want to recognize that their command went nuts after October 7 and that the institution was morally bankrupt by the beginning of the offensive (I'm pretty sure that was the exact goal of Hamas)
And now well your riddle is pretty easy to solve: displacing millions of people from Gaza into the Egyptian desert and annexing it into Israeli territory would be a genocidal move plain and simple. No one trusts Bibi and the Likud to give back the territory after the war. If the Likud wants trust, maybe they should consider dealing with the illegal settlers slowly nibbling Palestinian lands (which they never will because that's precisely their goal, it's literaly written in their charter)
a. UNICEF may or may not be antisemitic, but that is not relevant. The moment Hamas was elected in 2006 and International Aid poured into Gaza through the Gazan government (Hamas), you guaranteed this would happen. Why? In such governing systems (anywhere in the world) jobs are given to loyalists to keep them loyal and outsiders are left unemployed and poor as a warning to the loyalists why they should remain loyal. There is zero chance that a cushy job paid in foreign currency like a UNICEF position is not Hamas. By the way, the reason Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 elections is because Fatah was so corrupt in divvying out things like cushy jobs and Hamas was viewed as more honest.
b. Israel has no way of knowing the real number and, if it did, would anyone believe it? and if the number is proven to be 1000 instead of 14000 would any Hamas supporter turn around and say it is a proportional number? The fact is that that even 100,000 dead kids is legal under International Law of the dead were byproducts of legitimate military aims.
c. The straw man failed in solving the riddle.
The Administration had a chance of saving all the Gazan civilians and defeating Hamas in 1 month: letting civilians flee to Egypt like they encouraged civilians to flee the far less intense fighting in Ukraine or Syria.
You are now saying that the Administration chose to let the civilians including the kids die as human shields for Hamas because they feared that some refugees would rather settle in other places (say, Turkey or Chechnya) than return to Gaza or that Israel would not let them come back even though the US could have conditioned effective aid on letting people return.
d. What do you mean "Palestinian Land"? Hamas attacked on October 7 because they say the entirety of the Holy Land is Palestinian.
I agree
What a good post, Ryan. Smart, culturally responsible, militarily responsible, educational, and a statement of your own decency. Good on you.
Ryan this was one of your better articles. Spot on. Doug Retired USAF Family physician
1. Israel taking Rafah is not the end of the fight. Hamas planned for this scenario. Hamas fighters have embedded themselves with civilians or are using the extensive tunnel system to move from place to place. They are getting resupply from the US-efforts and have pre-placed weapons almost everywhere. Israel control of Rafah will simply start the next phase of the war.
2. International Law / LOAC isn't applicable. Since the tank's coaxial machine gun was firing, the Israelis were in an active combat situation where no one is expected to worry about a replaceable sign. LOAC applies to things like the unnecessary destruction of irreplaceable world heritage archaeological sites in Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion.
3. Was there a military necessity to run over the art installation? Probably.
- Looking at Google Earth, the tank was positioned to overwatch / defend the terminal building from threats from the north and the east.
- The tank was probably required to park on the roundabout to avoid obstructing the road.
- The hull is directed north-east, allowing quick repositioning north on the Terminal road or east behind the crescent shaped building.
- These requirements mean the tank had to park south-east of the fountain to make sure it could reposition without driving over the fountain which is dangerous and more expensive than the sign.
- To the left (south-east) of the sign, there is a grey circle that in the video looks like a pile of rocks that a tank would rather not drive over. I searched images "Rafah crossing mosque" and found a photo from France 24 confirming that it is a pile of rocks. The tank had no choice but park north-west of the pile or rocks.
- The only place that you can park a tank a. on the roundabout b. between the fountain and the pile rocks and c. off of the road is exactly where the sign was located.
4. We do not know whether or not the tank platoon thought about IEDs when they planned the takeover of the Terminal. However, since this was an active terminal with almost exclusively Western, Gazan or Egyptian people wandering around, it was an unlikely place to put an IED.
The tank was setting up a perimeter. You can see to the north, another IFV/TANK in the same proximity of that perimeter. Rewatch, notice the 270 degree viewpoint from 1st tank surveillance. They did have some levity at running over that sign. Yet, IMHO was to complete the command from their senior. IDF drones recon the area first for ambush and IEDs.
If you listen to what the commander is saying they had some levity, I don't think running over the sign was the goal, I think they did it just cause they could on there way to set up a perimeter.
I thought it was a little sarcasm. Basically, said Love Gaza in a sarcastic tone as they went over the sign.
This just looks like us taking down Iraqi art installations of their past leaders & their accomplishments.
The only difference is this Merkeva is taking out a possible existing IED location, and clearing their field of fire forward.
I’m hoping the IDF is negotiating a permanent relocation of the Hamas “enemy combatants”(since they are also not wearing uniforms) in their long term care. A nice sunny natural bay in Cuba, one that’s perfect for surf & turf weekends on the beach, would be the true Hollywood ending.
It’s the kind of ending certain networks still defend as totally legal, and in no way tarnishing of the US Military as a whole.
I'd love to hear a translation of the tank crew in this vid.
It's really a shit show on all sides.
"Good morning Rafah Crossing"
Crushes sign.
In English: "I love Gaza"
Protestors are fucking up college commencements across the country. In a lot of cases the same students had their high school commencements fucked up by Covid. Fuck the art. They are burning US Flags and defacing US Military memorials to fallen US personnel. Fuck the art.
Dear Ryan, Here's why you're mistaken about this.
The Geneva Conventions were appropriate for 1949, but they're now outdated. Warfare today isn't only between two armies, nor is it limited to Gaza as a single 'war zone.' It's also fought on financial, political, and influential fronts. Filming and sharing acts like running over the 'I LOVE GAZA' sign is akin to planting a flag in the Reichstag. This is post-internet warfare. The importance of this form of conflict is evident in U.S. universities.
While for the US government it's clear that Hamas is an enemy of the U.S. and Western culture. Iran and Hezbollah are also actively pursuing the destruction of the U.S. Despite this, countless Americans, not even of Middle Eastern descent, are protesting in their favor, shouting 'globalize the intifada'. Can you imagine this behavior during past American wars? Could you picture students praising Bin Laden on September 12, 2001? Because they do now!
The war against Islamic extremism and terrorism cannot be judged by European wartime rules, and 21st-century conflicts can't be judged by 20th-century standards.
Lastly, we strive to distinguish between Hamas and the people of Gaza, but in reality, they're not entirely separate. The citizens in the Gaza Strip aren't helpless subordinates of the Hamas government. They fund, support, praise, and protect Hamas. This explains why 71% of Gaza's population support the October 7th attack (recent poll) and why Hamas has stayed in power for 18 years. Accountability is a bitch.
The only evidence we have that something happened is the video. Commenting on the video and the implications of what may have happened and what may happen in the future because of these actions is fair and educational. All these comments about comparative war crimes and slippery slopes really misses the point. "What about isms" or "we did it in the past" is a very weak argument. It is not Ryan's job to carry water for any side in this conflict.
When General Curtis LeMay was moved from the European theater to the Pacific to take over command of the fire bombing of Japan, he was famously quoted as saying that we better win this damn war or we are going to be tried as war criminals. We knew that the only way to conclude WWII was to kill off the civilian population so that we could end their war production. Ugly but true.
My only criticism of Ryan is that he has to stop slandering the Vikings. That Viking fighting spirit is now an important element of our NATO alliance with the Nordic countries facing our true enemy, Russia.
No question Hamas started the conflict. No question that some of their actions constitute war crimes by almost any definition of the term. Now comes the question of proportionate response. Israel appears to have defined proportionate response to Hamas atrocities as killing each and every Hamas solider they can get their hands on, regardless of collateral damage or civilian casualties. A very long time ago, I knew a member of the Jewish Defense League in New York. He said that Jews will always be hated. His stated intention was that, now, they would also be feared. What Israel is doing now appears to be that intention writ very large. I don't know whether that's good or bad. Maybe it's both. When thousands die, I find it hard to hold anyone up as heroes.
It’s merely a metal sign, right? Folks are aware all of this energy and emoting is due to a metal sign being crushed, right? This story is the living embodiment of “mountains from mole hills.” The world is aflame, but let’s wax poetic about a crushed metal sign in a theater of combat. Sigh.
Greetings…
Back when these rules were made:
In order to film these sorts of activities one had to have a movie camera, rolls of film and be a person whose actual job it was to document battles and make record of the process by which meaningful goals were achieved.
These films were no doubt reviewed both prior to editing and once again afterward to make sure the content was appropriate for a desired audience, be they for military purposes or for public consumption via the ubiquitous newsreels that preceded each and every movie theater feature presentation.
An allied tank driver driving down a street in Berlin during WWII may have gone out of his way to crush every parked Volkswagen he came across and sure, the other fellas in his tank may have gotten a few jollies out of the activity.
But, rest assured, no one in that tank had a motion picture camera to record the events and if they actually had one, at most only a few hundred people would ever get to see the film.
Nowadays….
I can guess that many soldiers carry smart phones that can easily record everything it is pointed at.
These high resolution videos can then be uploaded by an anonymous frontline fighter in short order to TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and a host of other social media networks where, within hours, many hundreds of copies, with no real control of the context in which they are presented (mis/dis), are then viewed by millions worldwide.
So…
Intentionally running over an ‘I love Gaza’ sign for the sake of filming the activity and subsequently uploading it to the internet will do nothing but further the animosity felt by the Palestinian citizens of Gaza as well as many millions worldwide that abhor what is happening to those unfortunate people.
That…
… in my eyes …
is a ‘Bad Thing’!
Gary…
Context is crucial. I feel safe in this speculation: not a soul in Gaza or Rafah gives one iota about that metal sign. Context? They are struggling to survive. Only folks who aren’t facing the business end of starvation and JDAMs would waste the time and energy over a crushed metal sign.
That metal sign does nothing to increase the hatred that’s spilling over. It’s folks secure in their homes that have these sorts of discussions.
I am one myself as I sit in my nice house not in a war zone. Context.
Greetings…
I feel that what Ryan is trying to say with his ‘Art Installation’ piece is that soldiers in a professional army must be trained and made aware that their actions (especially the stupid ones) once recorded and indiscriminately disseminated via social media, can lead to serious socio-political issues both during a conflict, and adversely affect the much more difficult process of ‘mending fences’ (hopefully not so much in a literal sense) between the Palestinian people and their immediate neighbors, the citizens of Israel.
Yes, I am sitting here taking part in this discussion from my kitchen table.
But I firmly believe that an intentional effort to create a barrage of mis/dis in social media has, for well over a decade, been slowly warping the social and political ‘zeitgeist’ of America to one that increasingly favors the goals of our fiercest adversaries.
Soldiers involved in a conflict must be made aware that what they might be posting on Twitter might well be adding ‘fodder’ that can be used to benefit these organized ‘mis/dis’ warfare efforts.
And America would continue to devolve towards an authoritarian form of ‘democracy’.
Well…
I am concerned that what eventually happens to the Palestinian people (and Ukrainians, for that matter) after hostilities cease may lead to circumstances where my neighbor’s son might one day find himself being sent overseas…
… to end up being incinerated by a tactical nuke.
So these ‘armchair’ discussions must be made, if for no other reason that there might be a personal feeling of hope that something good may come of them.
Thanks for your reply.
Gary…
Ryan, I appreciate your “no holds barred” approach to telling the truth. You do not show favoritism to either side of the debate. I also appreciate your desire to help young NCOs to properly learn their trade.
Greetings…
Might the marks on the road in front of the vehicle indicate that it may have stopped just as it passed the ‘I Love Gaza’ sign, then backed up to position itself facing directly at the sign?
The video clip begins with the vehicle stopped.
The vehicle is shown to move forward, directly over the sign, then comes to a stop once again.
The video ends soon afterward.
Ryan hopes to use this video to educate people how the rules of war work, perhaps irregardless of how one might view the actual intent of the soldiers guiding this vehicle.
He says that the sound that accompanies the video provides important context to this lesson.
The apparent levity of the recorded comment made by one of the soldiers as well as the seeming lack of concern of being shot at as the person holding the camera panned slowly to the left…
… might indicate that the act of running over the sign was intentional.
However…
The sound of live gunfire could also lend credence to an opinion that the damage to the sign was legitimate, having taken place during the heat of battle.
Well…
It would be interesting if there might be aerial imagery available that shows the actual track this particular vehicle made during this evolution.
Gary…
Ryan can you talk about what part of the Geneva Conventions or LOAC this action violated? I'm not saying it's not in those books, I just don't know where and was hoping for some explanation.