A day of bad news. As expected, they have found the body of Dr Michael Mosley on the island of Symi. They’ll probably never know exactly what happened but it was unlikely anyone could survive alone there for long without water in 40+° heat. What a sad loss!
Then there is this:
"At least 274 Palestinians killed in Israeli hostage rescue raid, Gaza’s health ministry says:
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli air and ground raid that rescued four hostages held by Hamas, AP reports.
The ministry also said about 700 people were wounded in the operation."
(Guardian update 11:24)
P.S. "The operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion”, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said." (Guardian update 09.06.24, 08:39)
Four in exchange for 274 dead and 700 wounded - hmm, there’s something wrong with the proportions there!
Of course, everything depends on your point of view. Israel Hayom (Israel Today) an Israeli national Hebrew-language free newspaper (incidentally owned by a the family of a personal friend of Benjamin Netanyahu) reported it like this:
“The four Israelis held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza for 246 days have provided chilling accounts of their ordeal after being freed in a daring IDF operation Saturday. Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Sh,omo Ziv, and Andrey Kozlov were all abducted by terrorists from the Nova music festival and endured harrowing conditions during their nearly 8-month-long captivity, according to testimonies by the former hostages and their families.”
A friend of mine had this to say about the report:
“Let's summarise the "chilling accounts of their ordeal", "the harrowing conditions (they) endured", "the traumatic experiences she faced during captivity":
1) "on four separate occasions, she came face-to-face with the prospect of imminent death. She vividly described one particular incident when a missile struck the building she was being held in, causing an explosion that led her to be convinced her life was about to end.
"I saw the missile entering the house; I was sure I was about to die. I thought that was it – but I survived," she recounted."
They "only" forgot to mention that these were *Israeli* missiles and that this is the everyday reality all people in Gaza have to live with and endure, day after day, night after night!
2) "The young woman said her Hamas captors frequently moved her between safe houses, at times disguising her in traditional Arab dress and allowing her outside briefly to get fresh air."
Having to wear traditional Arab dress and being allowed to go outside to get gresh air does indeed sound "chilling", "harrowing" and "traumatic"! I wonder what the Palestinian captives, isolated and tortured in Israeli prisons, would think about that...?”
It’s a matter of perspective. It’s like the people I know who publish pictures of happy smiling families and express their sorrow and horror that they were lost in the 7th of October attack, all the while ignoring the families killed in retaliation strikes and the many who are still lost under the rubble of destroyed building. If you have accepted the view that it’s okay to push people off the land their families have lived on for generations, then you can easily regard them as subhuman and forget they have feelings just like you do.
That’s all.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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