Israel Bombed Belgian Office in Gaza After Nation Refused to Cut Off UNRWA Funding

Linkerbaan@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 324 points – Israel Bombed Belgian Office in Gaza After Nation Refused to Cut Off UNRWA Funding
commondreams.org

Belgian officials expressed outrage Thursday after Israeli forces reportedly bombed the office building of the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in the Gaza Strip, an attack that came after Belgium declined to join the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries in cutting off funding to the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency.

The timing of the attack on the Belgian office building raised eyebrows, with observers pointing to the nation's status as one of the handful of Western countries not suspending aid to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in response to Israel's allegation that a dozen of the agency's employees took part in the October 7 attacks.

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Belgium decided to continue funding UNRWA on 31 January. It seems israel bombed Belguim's building in Gaza overnight/the morning after.

These types of spiteful bullying acts for petty reasons perfectly represent israel's policy over the years.

The US did the same thing during the whole "Freedom Fries" BS.

We were running a bombing run on Iraq, France denied us use of their airspace so we flew ALL THE WAY around France, ran the attack and "accidentally" bombed the French embassy in Iraq.

Oopsie.

Joke at the time was "Maybe our pilots would have had better aim if they had had a little more sleep!"

The U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Serbia during the Kosovo War. I’m not sure if there was a direct reason but I remember there being a spy thing. Like a Chinese spy accessed some sensitive documents or something like that.

Fvck your US of A$$, and fvck Israel. Just so we're clear.

But now US support of this mayhem makes more sense.

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This should show anybody that Belgium did the right thing. The ICJ ordered Israel to provide humanitarian aid, instead on the same day they use threats, bribes, corruption to get multiple countries to cut off humanitarian aid! This is further evidence of genocidal intent!

And then they carry out a clear act of terrorism against those who do not make themselves complicit in their genocide!

They bombed the power stations, water supply, hospitals, 70% of all housing. If Israel is allowed to continue hundreds of thousands are going to starve or die of thirst or diseases. Or infections because on top of the 30.000+ there are many times more wounded.

What an absolute horror... they have taken 30 eyes for each eye, 30 teeth for each tooth, plus an extra 1500 children's legs.

Israel is a terrorist state. The guys who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin are literally running their government. Their slow rolling subjugation of Palestinians is now a blatant genocide.

This post was erroneously removed by the AutoMod as a rule 1 violation. I don't see anything here that would constitute a rule 1.

Previous posts on this topic were removed to poor sourcing, but in this case CommonDreams is impeccable.

lemmy.world has had to beef up auto removal tools due to some jack-wagon posting child pornography. That's the kind of garbage YOU don't want to see and the mod team shouldn't HAVE to see.

I think this post was caught in the crossfire.

They’re doing a whole lot of fucking around for a surprisingly low amount of finding out. This ratio has to be unsustainable.

Bombing a building belonging to the government of a member of NATO and the EU? If literally any other Middle East country had done that, they would be invaded and bombed back to the stone age by every ally, led by the US.

Not the Israeli apartheid government, though. They get to do whatever the fuck they want to whomever the fuck they want with no repercussions because AIPAC and groups like them are bribing the majority of American politicians and the US government forces the rest of the world to do whatever the fuck THEY want! 🤬🤬🤬

Should this be considered an act of war?

Was there a possibility to hurt a Belgian official? No. Did they specifically try to hit the Belgian office? Probably also not. Unless we get some crazy leaks I don't think this should or will have any consequences whatsoever.

let me guess, Israel gets a pass, again?

They get three more whoopsies and then they'll have to start cashing in their oopsie-daisies.

fun thing about the whole "UNRWA sponsors Hamas" thing, Israel has failed to provide any evidence of the claim but pro-genocide governments all around the world sentenced a lot of innocent people to death based on the claim anyway.

Remember when Israel said Hamas was beheading babies? The president of the United States signal boosted that claim, then his office had to walk it back when it turned out to be false.

Do we not fuck them up yet?

For real, Israel is a nation surrounded by hornets nests and they're still making enemies hundreds of miles away.

Oh look, the bandwagon is here!

You know, the first news reported that Israel bombed an area and the Belgium empty office was a collateral casualty.
Yet here we are now at malicious intent.

Have you considered the idea that in their quest to level Gaza, which building belongs to whom never even crossed Israel's mind?
Or that their military is full of incompetent buffoons?

I give the IDF zero benefit of the doubt after they straight up murdered the Reuters journalist with a fucking tank.

If I bombed your house a d destroyed it, would you be totally okay with it if I told you there was no malicious intent and I was just trying to murder your neighbour instead?

Depends on what's destroyed and how much you're paying as compensation.

The compensation is telling you that we've worked out a deal to take you to Central Africa, and what was previously the ruins of your house has been bought by a home developer for the ensuing reconstruction, during which Israeli citizens will be offered to buy it. You get no money.

Ok, let's see how Israel evicts Belgium to Central Africa.

You think people in gaza have someone to go cry out to in order to get their dead children and destroyed home back?

Sound mentality.

The topic isn't about the people in Gaza, it's about Belgium's building.

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If this was a one off event sure.

These "concidences" just happen a little too frequently. Some might say you can notice a pattern...

Yeah maybe it's an accident related to a complete lack of concern for which building they bomb, or maybe it's not an accident and that's why it's timed so conveniently. Who cares, fuck Israel either way.

If they hadn't built up so much bad will and distrust recently people probably wouldn't rush to this conclusion. But they have. So they get to lie in the bed they made

Oh I agree. But if we start using unproven scenarios to further demonize them, then we do no better than what they did to Palestine. It's hypocritical and follows the path they're taking. So what's the point then?

You want to wait for an investigation?

So do you also agree that we shouldn't use unproven scenarios to demonize Palestinians or UNRWA just because a few of their workers ALLEGEDLY are members of hamas? And that we shouldn't cut of funding to the humanitarian organization the same day the ICJ ruling ordered Israel provide humanitarian aid? Because otherwise it would be hypocrisy right?

Oh no, please don't tell me that is totally different!

Nice loophole find after the post was deleted.

To answer your reply, I agree. It's exactly the same and it's a shame the bias exists so blatantly.

Yeah I see your point and agree to an extent. But if we don't assume the obvious explanation because of Israel and it's supporters generally casting doubt on basically any report of it's crimes until an unspecified "investigation" is (possibly) concluded at some point in the future, then we allow them to escape blame for their actions.

You must know that they will never admit this is what happened, and there is no plausible way to settle the issue in the fog of war (e.g. the hospital car park explosion from early in the war, still debated and unclear).

So your approach basically lets them off the hook. Going with the obvious explanation is kind of better imo

It might be. I won't say I know better.

Is arguing "they're not malicious in their enthusiastic use of bombs, merely incompetent" not worse? It implies they don't know how to do better, and thus are a very reckless uncontrolled threat, compared to just one that chooses to be evil.

It probably is worse. And consider this: they have nukes in their stockpile and are running out of regular bombs.

If the incident was a one off I could see that as true, like the US boat during the six day war when everything was hectic as hell and all communications had seemingly been cutoff. This is unfortunately not an isolated incident, and the benefit if the doubt should not be given.

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