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Comment by tguvot | Hacker News Reader

>What is the significance of this?

There is none. Just more noise in press than usual because AP was sitting in the building.

>Why would Israel bomb this building and tell people to evacuate?

Because Israel interested in taking out whatever Hamas physical assets there are in the building and not in killing civilians

> Is it normal for them to announce evacuation?

Yeap. Usually whoever occupies building get phone calls and SMSes hour or two upfront. This is usually followed by a "roof knocking" with specially developed munition that makes a lot of noise. Only after this bombing commences

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I've yet to see any evidence of the importance of the building other than the fact it housed the press. What does Israel gain from bombing the building other than suppressing and disrupting the media? What physical asset could have possibly been in that building that could not have been relocated in the preceding hour?!

It housed some hamas offices. Even if they took out some computers, disrupting operations (communication, etc) still achieves targets.

Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see. If there is somebody who does suppression of media in gaza it will be hamas: wrong reporting and you are in best case expelled an in worst case dead.

What you said about disrupting operations in the building applies to the media organizations in the building, too. There is a gaping logical chasm between these two statements:

> Even if they took out some computers, disrupting operations (communication, etc) still achieves targets.

> Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see.

There is difference between media (uploading random articles and video segments) and military operations (secured communication facilities, etc.)

Disrupting media operations by blowing up their facilities and equipment is clearly deleterious to their ability to report news. You claim that media organizations are largely unaffected but speculate that Hamas operations in the same building are affected. I find it difficult to wrap my head around the mental gymnastics required to believe those two things simultaneously.

It's like saying without evidence, "Verizon's operations in the World Trade Center were basically unaffected on 9/11, but Morgan Stanley's operations there were crippled."

There is a difference between media uploading media files and posting articles and for example intelligence/command center that have physical termination of multiple, physical secure lines of communications.

Media can take their laptops, get out and keep on uploading stuff 5 minutes later.

In case of intelligence/command center it will takes weeks to bring all the physical lines to new "secure" location in the city and to get/hookup whatever equipment is used to terminate them.

All accounts of phone calls I've seen indicate that they come just a few minutes before the attack. E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/world/middleeast/by-phone... Roof knocking sometimes kills people directly, and it's not like they wait to make sure people have left before the main attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking

>All accounts of phone calls I've seen indicate that they come just a few minutes before the attack

Probably warning time proportional to building size. Over last few days few 13 floors buildings went down with zero casualties and there were multiple recordings of it filmed from cameras positioned on tripods. It's not something that you can do with "few minutes warning before attack"

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