Israeli soldiers who relied on Waze blundered into a deadly firefight | Hacker News Reader

Israeli soldiers who relied on Waze blundered into a deadly firefight

washingtonpost.com

21 pointsBinaryIdiot22 comments

That's a somewhat misleading headline.

From the article:

Agence France-Presse quoted a Waze official as saying the device setting to warn about areas “dangerous or prohibited for Israelis to drive through” was off.

“In this case, the setting was disabled. In addition, the driver deviated from the suggested route and, as a result, entered the prohibited area,” the official told the news agency.

Or just maybe, militar personnel ough to rely on their government's reconn/intel reports instead of using customer grade apps that were never designed for wartime usage.

Wait, are there military "Waze" deployments? That'd probably be pretty useful, yes? In addition to the routing information, a military could have an "enterprise" Waze that contained a bunch of intel marked on a map based on reports from the field.

There are military GIS systems, probably not Waze :)

Military issue equipment is often low quality[1][2]. Intel and recon is oft contracted to a similar standard. I'm not surprised that they choose Waze over the alternative.

[1] Much of my military (USA) issued gear was replaced by commercial or handmade gear [1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/16/178813/-

Yes, the content of the article seems to contradict the headline. Isn't it the opposite of the headline? Soldier who ignored Waze ended up in a dangerous firefight?

Also:

"It remained unclear how the soldiers could have stumbled into the middle of the camp, sandwiched between Jerusalem and Ramallah. To reach Qalandiya, the soldiers would have had to pass by the so-called separation barrier and through an Israeli checkpoint."

Something seems fishy here. The lines following it do not convince me we got the whole objective story:

"In the camp, they were “stormed by a mob of people with rocks and molotov cocktails,” Lerner said. Their jeep was blocked from turning around and caught fire. The soldiers fled in separate directions.

One of the soldiers had a mobile phone and within 30 minutes was located by several backup units of soldiers and Israeli police. The second soldier was found an hour later in the vicinity of an Israeli settlement."

Two soldiers from a non-combat unit get stormed by a mob armed with stones and Molotov cocktails, their car catches fire, but they survive until relieved 'within 30 minutes' (presumably, that's at least 15 minutes later)? I find that hard to believe.

Also, a Palestinian was killed in the turmoil.

Is driving a single vehicle into a camp enough of an offense to warrant Molotov cocktails? It seems like drawing the attention of the Israeli military is not something the average refugee would want.

Certainly not, but dismissing a human death like "oh by the way they just ran over a cat" is not warranted either imo.

I don't think these are average refugees. These camps have probably existed for decades and, as the article states, the people inside are armed to the teeth. The whole situation is always just on the brink of devolving into chaos.

"Armed to the teeth" with rocks

Firearms too.

"While the search operation was underway, a firefight broke out with armed Palestinians in the camp."

I don't think the events are related to soldiers mistakenly driving in. Kalandia is a daily clash spot and people get killed all the time there.

> Is driving a single vehicle into a camp enough of an offense to warrant Molotov cocktails?

In isolation, of course not. But there are decades of context that affect this situation; it wasn't a single vehicle that provoked the attack.

(To be clear: I oppose violence by all sides.)

Note that the event ended rather "peacefully". They mention Hannibal protocol was initiated - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive. It can end up rather horribly bad to the local population as it happened in 2014 where large parts of a city got distroyed and scores were killed because IDF wanted to cut all the possible escape routes of kidnappers with the hostage.

In today's world, it is so easy to get caught up in the technology craze. We have all done it. The problem that people don't seem to realize is that while technology is great and it can do amazing things, it can also harm us. We use our phones for GPS, accessing information, etc. and we begin to forget how to "defend" for ourselves. Think about it, when was the last time you had a question and DIDN'T google for the answer after giving it a seconds thought? When was the last time we applied ourselves and critically thought about what we were trying to learn? Technology should be an aid, not a crutch.

I can't even get them to update the app to include high wind reports, much less "people are shooting at us!"

Remember kids, stay away from the refugee camps created inside your country.

Especially when their religion leaders tell them that you are the devil.

Especially when you're a soldier of the army they're seeking refuge from.

I hate GPS with a passion : it makes you dumb. Don't think and just follow the synthesized voice.

Knowing where you are is a skill that gets better when you use it and that rusts when you don't. This is why I still use a paper map in my car or in the woods, it forces me to think and it's very gratifying when you realize that you know exactly where you are and what path to take.

Admittedly I still use my smartphone when I don't have time to wander a bit.

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