Depends on what yo consider credible. Numerous sources are saying $11 billion. Here are a few more:
appearing in many of your links all go back to the same source ie the Embassy of Israel in the US.The leaders of Hamas are all billionaires, and live in Qatar in palaces, with private jets, crazy expensive cars and other toys.
I don't disagree. I can tell you that they were living in the top suites at the St. Regis in Doha a couple of years ago when I was at the hotel for a few days. I recognized a couple of them. And those suites are not cheap.jackspratt wrote: ↑November 22, 2023, 8:41 pmIn the current situation, where proven misinformation and propaganda are rife on both sides, I don't consider that source to be credible.
What if the Hamas leaders are not living it large in Doha? Does that make the squandering and misappropriation of billions any more palatable?jackspratt wrote: ↑November 22, 2023, 8:41 pmThanks.
While not doubting for a minute that Hamas has scammed and misused multiple millions of dollars from foreign aid and middle east donors, the only "evidence" of
appearing in many of your links all go back to the same source ie the Embassy of Israel in the US.The leaders of Hamas are all billionaires, and live in Qatar in palaces, with private jets, crazy expensive cars and other toys.
In the current situation, where proven misinformation and propaganda are rife on both sides, I don't consider that source to be credible.
Others may think differently.
It's primarily a deterrent to Russian expansionism and influence in the mid-east. The fact that Hamas hierarchy also calls it home is irrelevant.Doodoo wrote: ↑November 22, 2023, 8:37 pmQuestion to my learned patrons of Udon Map
What is the purpose of the US military presence in Qatar while Hamas Leaders (Billionaires) live and thrive in the same country? For those who havent been there it aint that big 1 hr 45 min north to south
The US Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, provides command and control of air power throughout Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and 17 other nations. The base, which boasts one of the longest runways in the Persian Gulf at 12,500 feet, is a strategically important facility that can accommodate up to 120 aircraft.
Odd for sure
Note that you think it's fake news.
You expected anything else from MUSLIM Fundamentalists they keep their own people under strict Sharia Law, that allows defilement of any woman NOT a Muslim.Udon Map wrote: ↑November 26, 2023, 3:38 amMore reporting of sexual violence against women by Hamas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -violence/
The vast majority believe what you are saying UM. For me I don't see any difference in Hamas, Hezbollah or ISIS. All steeped in the medieval traditions of Islam. Murder, beheading, enslavement, all in the name of their version of God.Udon Map wrote: ↑November 26, 2023, 3:38 amMore reporting of sexual violence against women by Hamas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -violence/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afte ... -d90f7tfx3The temporary ceasefire and release of hostages and prisoners will come as a welcome relief to people on all sides of the Gaza conflict after 50 vicious days. But despite this positive news, Israel’s handling of the hostage crisis indicates that it is in danger of losing its war.
On day two of the conflict, Israel invoked article 40 of its Basic Law, and declared itself officially at war with Hamas. It could thereby call up reserves. By its own calculations, Israel’s mobilised force of 550,000 is more than 20 times stronger than the 25,000 it credits to Hamas. That is quite a superiority to go to war with.
Despite this Israel has lost control of events. The hostages give Hamas the whip-hand and they are skilled at using it. The Israeli war cabinet puts the recovery of the hostages ahead of its immediate military objectives, and Hamas can be expected to manipulate everyone’s emotions, cavil and nitpick over the details, delay and obfuscate to squeeze the maximum political advantage.
Hamas leaders can see as clearly as the rest of the world that the Israeli war cabinet is bending to pressure from the United States. When President Biden met Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on October 18, he was evidently sceptical that the best way to free the hostages was to exert maximum military pressure on Hamas.
But when two US citizens were released by Hamas on October 20, the US bought in to the Qataris’ proposal that they could negotiate with Hamas to get a significant number of hostages out — and get some aid convoys in — if there was a temporary ceasefire. The US envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, ran a special cell in Washington that liaised intensively with the office of the Qatari prime minister in Doha to frame and then push the complex package deal that began on Friday morning. The Israeli government was not the most important player in getting this deal done.
Under increasing domestic pressure from Israeli families of the hostages, Netanyahu tried to win back some leverage by offering to extend the ceasefire for a further five days, on condition that 50 more hostages would be released during that time. And Israel published the names of many further Palestinian detainees who could be released if the deal was extended, hoping to bring a bit of corresponding family pressure on to Hamas leaders.
If 100 of the 230 or so hostages held by Hamas are freed after a nine-day ceasefire, that would at least be something to assuage the anger so many Israelis evidently feel with Netanyahu, whose security policy of the past 14 years now lies in ruins.
However many days the ceasefire may last, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will use the pause to reposition its forces for the next phase, trying to improve its intelligence picture and re-stocking weapons for another offensive. Hamas will be doing something very similar, while it also works to divert or steal some of the aid — particularly fuel — intended for Palestinian civilians, as it always does.
The longer the ceasefire lasts, the greater will be the pressure on the war cabinet in Tel Aviv to extend it and keep hostage exchanges going. Israel will undoubtedly hold on to its more dangerous Hamas prisoners, to trade against Israeli military personnel held among the hostages, who would probably be the last to be exchanged.
But Hamas are believed to be holding up to 20 hostages with US citizenship as well, and they are likely to hold on to some of them too, keeping Biden on the same hook and helping forestall the IDF’s second phase offensive.
It may, in fact, be very difficult for Israel to move on to the next phase of its military operation. The IDF has achieved most of its military objectives in the northern half of Gaza — at a lower than expected cost of about 70 troops lost.
It claims to have killed about 4,000 Hamas personnel which, in addition to the 1,000 or so that Hamas lost in its initial October 7 attack, may have diminished by about 5,000 its dedicated armed force of some 25,000. But the rest, it must be assumed, having not fought for very long in the north, are hiding in the south of Gaza, even if a certain number might be wounded.
With some two million civilians crowded into the south, the IDF will not be able to sweep in with three or four armoured divisions as it did in the north. It was bad enough then. Despite the Israeli government saying it had dropped 1.5 million leaflets and issued 4.4 million text messages to Palestinians living in the north, telling them to move south before the offensive began, the IDF was still having to invent, day by day, an approach to civilian management as battles raged on.
Its improvised responses when it reached the key al-Shifa hospital were indicative of poor IDF planning for any civilian-centred operations. In the absence of a clear political plan from Tel Aviv, the IDF is still flying blind after 30 days of ground operations.
The IDF’s problems in the south will be far greater. Last week, Palestinians there were advised by the military to move into Mawasi on the extreme corner of the strip — a tiny ex-Bedouin settlement of 14 square kilometres — so the IDF could advance into the urban areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah. UN agencies chiefs pointed out that this was not just deeply undesirable but physically impossible. Faced with a new population density south of Wadi Gaza of about 9,000 people per square kilometre — 40 per cent higher than Greater London — it is barely conceivable that Israel could repeat the relatively open, mechanised infantry push it conducted in the north.
Instead, if combat operations do resume, it is likely the IDF will have to conduct a more indirect campaign from now on, with bombing, special force operations, quick incursions to attack Hamas facilities, and more attempts to get at Hamas leaders such as Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif, who still evade them.
But any renewal of the bombing campaign is likely to cause more international outrage, especially after the brief ceasefire that will have alleviated some of the suffering of Gazan civilians and Israeli hostage families.
The harsh truth for Tel Aviv is that its officially declared war is going wrong in several of the ways the
war cabinet might have feared at the outset if they had thought harder before declaring it. The IDF has undoubtedly undermined Hamas’s operational ability but is a long way from destroying it.
The majority of Hamas terrorists they aim to kill are mixed in with the civilian population in the south. Most of them will probably survive, and Hamas will survive. The IDF always knew that its operations might become protracted, but the war cabinet also knew that the pendulum of global opinion would swing steadily against Israel as civilian suffering mounted and the horrors of the October 7 attacks became more distant.
And now Netanyahu’s operational priorities have been reversed by outside forces.
Instead of pursuing the offensive as quickly as possible — arguing that more hostages were more likely to be saved by cornering Hamas with military might — the offensive is stalled because the rest of the world believes in a negotiated release and a window of opportunity for relief supplies to get through to severely distressed civilians.
Moreover, pushing the population into the south while it devastates the north may turn out to have been a fundamental strategic error on Israel’s part. Netanyahu appears to be rapidly approaching the end of a blind alley where even his single-minded military objective cannot be achieved.
It could have been different. If the bombing policy had been more restrained at the beginning; if Israel had taken a less draconian view of keeping Gaza’s essential infrastructure alive; if the IDF had been tasked to devise a comprehensive humanitarian plan to roll out as it moved into Gazan territory, the military picture might have looked better for Tel Aviv by this stage.
But all that would have depended on Netanyahu and his war cabinet coming up with a credible political plan for “the day after” the fighting — something they have so far been unable to do in the seven weeks since they declared war.
Michael Clarke is visiting professor in defence studies at individual’s College London and distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
Why do you believe a newspaper columnist rather than the truth. Do you really believe that all of Israels called up reserves are in Gaza? Or perhaps sitting on other borders that attack when Israel shows the slightest bit of indifference to the threat from Muslim aggression. Iran backed terror groups are hated by the Sunni sect of Islam. Thus the attack on 10/7. Wake up. Iran is the snake in the wood pile.Laan Yaa Mo wrote: ↑November 26, 2023, 4:06 pmThis ceasefire cannot work to the advantage of Israel in their plan to elminate Hamas.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afte ... -d90f7tfx3The temporary ceasefire and release of hostages and prisoners will come as a welcome relief to people on all sides of the Gaza conflict after 50 vicious days. But despite this positive news, Israel’s handling of the hostage crisis indicates that it is in danger of losing its war.
On day two of the conflict, Israel invoked article 40 of its Basic Law, and declared itself officially at war with Hamas. It could thereby call up reserves. By its own calculations, Israel’s mobilised force of 550,000 is more than 20 times stronger than the 25,000 it credits to Hamas. That is quite a superiority to go to war with.
Despite this Israel has lost control of events. The hostages give Hamas the whip-hand and they are skilled at using it. The Israeli war cabinet puts the recovery of the hostages ahead of its immediate military objectives, and Hamas can be expected to manipulate everyone’s emotions, cavil and nitpick over the details, delay and obfuscate to squeeze the maximum political advantage.
Hamas leaders can see as clearly as the rest of the world that the Israeli war cabinet is bending to pressure from the United States. When President Biden met Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on October 18, he was evidently sceptical that the best way to free the hostages was to exert maximum military pressure on Hamas.
But when two US citizens were released by Hamas on October 20, the US bought in to the Qataris’ proposal that they could negotiate with Hamas to get a significant number of hostages out — and get some aid convoys in — if there was a temporary ceasefire. The US envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, ran a special cell in Washington that liaised intensively with the office of the Qatari prime minister in Doha to frame and then push the complex package deal that began on Friday morning. The Israeli government was not the most important player in getting this deal done.
Under increasing domestic pressure from Israeli families of the hostages, Netanyahu tried to win back some leverage by offering to extend the ceasefire for a further five days, on condition that 50 more hostages would be released during that time. And Israel published the names of many further Palestinian detainees who could be released if the deal was extended, hoping to bring a bit of corresponding family pressure on to Hamas leaders.
If 100 of the 230 or so hostages held by Hamas are freed after a nine-day ceasefire, that would at least be something to assuage the anger so many Israelis evidently feel with Netanyahu, whose security policy of the past 14 years now lies in ruins.
However many days the ceasefire may last, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will use the pause to reposition its forces for the next phase, trying to improve its intelligence picture and re-stocking weapons for another offensive. Hamas will be doing something very similar, while it also works to divert or steal some of the aid — particularly fuel — intended for Palestinian civilians, as it always does.
The longer the ceasefire lasts, the greater will be the pressure on the war cabinet in Tel Aviv to extend it and keep hostage exchanges going. Israel will undoubtedly hold on to its more dangerous Hamas prisoners, to trade against Israeli military personnel held among the hostages, who would probably be the last to be exchanged.
But Hamas are believed to be holding up to 20 hostages with US citizenship as well, and they are likely to hold on to some of them too, keeping Biden on the same hook and helping forestall the IDF’s second phase offensive.
It may, in fact, be very difficult for Israel to move on to the next phase of its military operation. The IDF has achieved most of its military objectives in the northern half of Gaza — at a lower than expected cost of about 70 troops lost.
It claims to have killed about 4,000 Hamas personnel which, in addition to the 1,000 or so that Hamas lost in its initial October 7 attack, may have diminished by about 5,000 its dedicated armed force of some 25,000. But the rest, it must be assumed, having not fought for very long in the north, are hiding in the south of Gaza, even if a certain number might be wounded.
With some two million civilians crowded into the south, the IDF will not be able to sweep in with three or four armoured divisions as it did in the north. It was bad enough then. Despite the Israeli government saying it had dropped 1.5 million leaflets and issued 4.4 million text messages to Palestinians living in the north, telling them to move south before the offensive began, the IDF was still having to invent, day by day, an approach to civilian management as battles raged on.
Its improvised responses when it reached the key al-Shifa hospital were indicative of poor IDF planning for any civilian-centred operations. In the absence of a clear political plan from Tel Aviv, the IDF is still flying blind after 30 days of ground operations.
The IDF’s problems in the south will be far greater. Last week, Palestinians there were advised by the military to move into Mawasi on the extreme corner of the strip — a tiny ex-Bedouin settlement of 14 square kilometres — so the IDF could advance into the urban areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah. UN agencies chiefs pointed out that this was not just deeply undesirable but physically impossible. Faced with a new population density south of Wadi Gaza of about 9,000 people per square kilometre — 40 per cent higher than Greater London — it is barely conceivable that Israel could repeat the relatively open, mechanised infantry push it conducted in the north.
Instead, if combat operations do resume, it is likely the IDF will have to conduct a more indirect campaign from now on, with bombing, special force operations, quick incursions to attack Hamas facilities, and more attempts to get at Hamas leaders such as Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif, who still evade them.
But any renewal of the bombing campaign is likely to cause more international outrage, especially after the brief ceasefire that will have alleviated some of the suffering of Gazan civilians and Israeli hostage families.
The harsh truth for Tel Aviv is that its officially declared war is going wrong in several of the ways the
war cabinet might have feared at the outset if they had thought harder before declaring it. The IDF has undoubtedly undermined Hamas’s operational ability but is a long way from destroying it.
The majority of Hamas terrorists they aim to kill are mixed in with the civilian population in the south. Most of them will probably survive, and Hamas will survive. The IDF always knew that its operations might become protracted, but the war cabinet also knew that the pendulum of global opinion would swing steadily against Israel as civilian suffering mounted and the horrors of the October 7 attacks became more distant.
And now Netanyahu’s operational priorities have been reversed by outside forces.
Instead of pursuing the offensive as quickly as possible — arguing that more hostages were more likely to be saved by cornering Hamas with military might — the offensive is stalled because the rest of the world believes in a negotiated release and a window of opportunity for relief supplies to get through to severely distressed civilians.
Moreover, pushing the population into the south while it devastates the north may turn out to have been a fundamental strategic error on Israel’s part. Netanyahu appears to be rapidly approaching the end of a blind alley where even his single-minded military objective cannot be achieved.
It could have been different. If the bombing policy had been more restrained at the beginning; if Israel had taken a less draconian view of keeping Gaza’s essential infrastructure alive; if the IDF had been tasked to devise a comprehensive humanitarian plan to roll out as it moved into Gazan territory, the military picture might have looked better for Tel Aviv by this stage.
But all that would have depended on Netanyahu and his war cabinet coming up with a credible political plan for “the day after” the fighting — something they have so far been unable to do in the seven weeks since they declared war.
Michael Clarke is visiting professor in defence studies at individual’s College London and distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
Mr. Doodoo, who are the Israelis being released and why were they held? Do you have any insight on that?Doodoo wrote: ↑November 26, 2023, 8:47 pmReuters reported
WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF THE DEAL?
Under the Israel-Hamas deal, the two sides agreed to a four-day truce so that 50 women and children under the age of 19 taken hostage could be freed in return for 150 Palestinian women and teenagers in Israeli detention.
WHO ARE THE PALESTINIANS BEING FREED AND WHY WERE THEY HELD?
Thirty-nine Palestinian women and children, some convicted or detained on suspicion of weapon charges and violent offences, were released from Israeli jails. More than 100 more Palestinian prisoners are due to be released over the coming days and more may be freed if the truce is extended.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society said that as of Wednesday, 7,200 prisoners were being held by Israel, among them 88 women and 250 children 17 and under.
Most on a list to be freed are from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem and were held for incidents such as attempted stabbings, hurling stones at Israeli soldiers, making explosives, damaging property and having contacts with hostile organisations. None are accused of murder. Many were held under administrative detention, meaning they were held without trial.
