Shani Louk, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas' October 7 terrorist attacks, has been confirmed dead, according to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The "500 people killed" thing isn't actually due to Hamas but Al Jazeera: Directly after the explosion, before the dust had settled, a Health Ministry spokesperson spoke about "500 casualties". In the context of "there are killed and wounded". And as it was so early, and it's a round number, obviously an estimate, and not an official number. Al Jazeera turned that into 500 killed in its English edition, and the whole fucking western media ran with it.
Now I dislike Hamas like I dislike any fascists but the Health Ministry is not just Hamas, plenty of Fatah and generally people from the PA in there, and their numbers have generally been pretty accurate (even if they don't distinguish between civilians and combatants, they simply count the dead). Possibly not as accurate in this case though as once Al Jazeera put that number out there it's probably hard to correct them down while Hamas' propaganda finger of the military arm is holding an AK to your head.
Actually we aren't sure about the rocket origin yet. Investigations are still ongoing, and some recent evidence, including more geolocated video that allowed to do a trajectory analysis through triangulation, and which tend to suggest it was launched from the Israel side. Hypothesis being it may have been a defective iron dome missile that went rogue and unfortunately dislocated and which explosive payload fell on the hospital parking.
Still, before accusing either side it would be best to wait for more proofs. Either way it is going to be considered as a major war crime, and no matter if it was intentional or not, someone has to pay for it.
Even if it was an iron dome rocket, which is not impossible; it was not targeting the hospital. It was targeting a hostile missile launch.
I also trust international orgs fatality reports more than local sources on this one.
Y’all keep talking about war crimes, but Hamas is not even distinguishing themselves from civilians which is the basis from where almost every other IHL rule stems.
What Hamas does is indeed considered as a war crime (taking the population as human shields). But Israel's riposte is way too disproportionate.
The fight isn't about good vs evil, it is just about two brands of the same evil, trying to stay in power by feeding the stalemate while disregarding the lives of the civilians caught in the crossfire.
They are each other's best asset.
While i do not wholly agree with your last sentence, i do respect your balanced view. Making any war one of “good vs. evil” is dangerous a step toward dehumanizing the enemy and it only gets worse from there.
Also i agree Israel’s response has been very strong and cold, but i believe they were not left with many choices.
Things could not return to status quo with Gaza after the attack on the 7th and there was no clean option left for them. Diplomacy failed over and over for decades. Both sides share blame for the diplomatic breakdown, but Israel has no allies and many enemies in the region and must project strength to keep opportunists away.