Israel used thermal and thermobaric weapons in Gaza? | Hacker News Reader

Israel used thermal and thermobaric weapons in Gaza?

aljazeera.com

68 points0x54MUR4155 comments

One of the horrific elements of 9/11 was that force of compression as the building collapsed basically destroyed bodies beyond even being small parts.

As a result, for years following 9/11 remains ( sometimes very small ) were found and immediately catalogued and DNA tested in the hopes some of the victims would finally have something that could be buried.

It's truly horrific to be unable to tell a family for certain that their loved one is definitely gone. And there are folks from that event who are still entirely missing, no remains found. Their families had to bury empty caskets with a lack of closure.

It's a pretty horrid thing.

Look up "where did the towers go?" on Youtube, a lecture by materials scientist Judy Wood. She argues I think conclusively that the towers were turned into dust by directed energy weapons.

(I know this will get downvoted to hell, but I suggest you find out for yourself.)

It really depresses me that there is so much emphasis on arms and weapons startups now days.

Even some financed by Y Combinator.

The thing about weapons is that these startups will have no control in what circumstances they are used.

The hypocrisy is people coming here and claiming that such things happening in the world disturb them.

The world would definitely be a safer place if everyone was a pacifist.

The people horrified at news stories like this are not the same people working in defense tech.

At least, I’ve never met someone who works in war tech who really cares. They either don’t think about it or they believe the propaganda and think they’re making the world safer. Both are bad but neither seems hypocritical to me.

> The world would definitely be a safer place if everyone was a pacifist.

Misery, hunger and human exploitation would still exists, as recent history shows. War is a tool in resolving some issues, and you better have the best tools there is.

How much hate must you have to colonize and continually murder it's inhabitants, that you vaporise children then make TikToks mocking those deaths.

I bet al Jazeera won't mention that Hamas used thermite grenades to evaporate people hiding in shelters on their invasion on October 7th. Propaganda sure is a scary tool of war...

I always find it interesting that these conversations get flooded with new accounts making false equivalencies. Thermite grenades (~500g of explosive material) are not going to evaporate people like a 2000kg thermobaric weapon would. You might even say that Israel has more of an expectation of precision and reduction of civilian causalities given they have precise munitions.

It's equivalent in the results not the technical specs. In Israel they spent weeks sifting through the charred remains of the house to find at least a tooth of a child. People were gone on both sides. It's just for Palestinians most likely they are not going to get answers because it's impossible to sift trough millions of tons of earth and garbage. Germans have 2 million soldiers still MIA after 70 years of recovery efforts!

In what world is Oct 7th and the resulting war equivalent for both sides?

That would be a reasonable question if the resulting war had been started de novo by Israel instead of it being a defensive war intended to prevent another October 7.

I never compared a one day massacre and the following 2 year war. It was equivalence of missing bodies and the difficulty of finding remains.

Didn't the US use weapons in Japan that made Japanese evaporate too?

And then as a society we learned not to do that again?

If by “learned” you mean Ukraine and soon Taiwan, then yes.

This story is utterly chilling, but its source is incredibly dubious.

Al Jazeera operates entirely at the pleasure of the Al Thani royal family—from whom it receives 90% of its revenue.

Qatar, likewise, provides Hamas with essential financial lifelines—billions in aid over the years, including regular cash transfers for salaries, fuel, and reconstruction in Gaza. Hamas's political leadership lives comfortably in Doha, which gives the Al Thani family a direct channel to influence decisions there. Without Qatar's support, Hamas would struggle to function as effectively, making Doha the group's most critical backer.

So, again, Al Jazeera is effectively a mouthpiece for Hamas or, rather, both are limbs of Qatar's ruling Al Thani family.

Many Arab regimes face publics where the Palestinian cause remains a sacred, unifying obsession, transcending borders and sects. Leaders amplify Gaza outrage via state media to rally citizens around the flag, distracting from internal woes like economic stagnation, youth unemployment, or repression.

The status quo—intermittent flares—lets everyone virtue-signal, fund proxies cheaply, and avoid accountability for real peace (which demands painful compromises like PA reform or Israeli concessions).

Meanwhile, captured Hamas documents reveal systematic coordination with Al Jazeera, including editorial guidelines, secure phone lines for real-time instructions, and directives to shape coverage. It's less a news outlet than a geopolitical lever, stoking emotions to maintain regional clout.

So while the core reality of airstrikes holds, it's distorted by propaganda into disproportionate horror.

> Qatar, likewise, provides Hamas with essential financial lifelines—billions in aid over the years ...

So did (heck, likely does) Israel. Bags and bags of money, as reported by their own Times and by others.

I feel like there’s some propaganda serving both sides. A bomb which prevents Muslim funeral rites can be psychological warfare from Israel and also a story over-emphasized from those invested in Hamas to take the focus away from something else.

Is it perhaps also possible that a bunker buster bomb that can be used to destroy tunnels from above ground ... was used to bust bunkers and destroy tunnels?

Nah it's a conspiracy! Must be!

Secret message cooperation is unlikely, since one side is accusing the other of violating international humanitarian law.

But why do you say it is distorted propaganda? How do you know that those bombs were not used in Gaza?

A hint would be that none of the mentioned munitions, MK-84, BLU-109, and GBU-39, are thermobaric. They're conventional HE or penetrator munitions.

At least the MK-84 can use tritonal, which the article mentions specifically. When exploding it can raise the temperature to several thousand degrees.

If you can think of such tiny details. Then, surely, you can also answer the larger idea, no? What are these weapons, more in general? What are they used for normally, what are they designed to do?

And does the normal explanation perhaps make a lot more sense than pointing at the tiny details that fits a conspiracy theory?

What tiny detail? The whole point of the article is that they used bombs that can raise the temperature so high that it can “evaporate” people.

One good thing coming out of the Epstein files is the more open discussion happening regarding Israeli influence over the western world.

Oh yes. No one buys the gaslighting attempts anymore

Hey look - we couldn't find all the children that Hamas says Israel killed. They must have been vaporized! Al Jazeera or The Onion?

"US-supplied thermal and thermobaric munitions burning at 3,500C have left no trace of nearly 3,000 Palestinians"!!!

> Experts and witnesses attributed this phenomenon to Israel’s systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons

I guess "internationally prohibited" means nothing anymore.

It never meant anything.

If you're busy committing genocide you're probably not too fussed about which tools you're using to do it.

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