So, were the Hamas paraglider terrorists in uniform or wearing anything that identified them as terrorists?
This is one of the problems with terrorists. They can be dressed as civilians and blend into the crowd. Unless a good guy sees exactly who is shooting, it's not wise to break cover and try to engage. You need to know who they are and how many, otherwise you open yourself up to being taken out by the one or two you didn't spot. Then what good would you be?
Nothing personal intended, but i can't stand Monday morning quarterbacking like this. Unless you were there, it's impossible to know what people were thinking in the initial minutes of the chaos. Uniformed or not, IDF or civilian, armed or not -- everyone will react the way they react. You can't scream 'Israeli conspiracy!" just because the active duty soldiers who might have been present and who might have been armed and who might have had an opportunity to engage didn't somehow make it onto YouTube.
I doubt seriously if the IDF or anyone in government was prepared to respond to this kind of attack. How do you train for this? Remember the bus bombings? Another thing that's almost impossible to stop without extreme retaliation against the terrorists' leadership.
The thing i'm curious about is where they launched from. An aircraft would have drawn attention and required a much longer glide time to close the distance which would have decreased landing zone accuracy. I would not be surprised if they used vehicles to get up to glide altitude far enough away that nobody saw the vehicles.
Have you seen anything about that?
IDK about the paragliders, but others were shooting at civilians. So if not terrorist, at minimal active shooter. It isn't difficult to make a judgement call on the spot. The gliders might be harder to judge unless they're shooting from the glider.
Some terrorist were in same identifiable clothing (uniform), others had chest rigs with mags visible, but were in plain clothes. I have yet to see a vid of a single terrorist by himself shooting randomly or at something, which would resemble an active shooter, but refer to the above statement about active shooter.
I wouldn't go as far to say I'm a normal QB, as the IDF has prepared more than any other country for things like this. Why else would they require armed plain clothes IDF when off duty? This is the key that makes the attack totally different from any other nation. Like if the same happened in the USA, not everyone was in the military and trained to shoot a rifle, nor is required to carry a rifle when off duty, or even on duty really. Only military uniform I've seen carry anything was the MP's and this was on post or at the NEX (miliary property). All other uniformed personelle are unarmed.
So we go back to Hamas shooting at civilians, you used the example of the IDF person opening themselves up to being taken out by the ones they didn't see. This is a valid thought, but for it to happen in the entire AO is unheard of, unless they were told to stand down (prior SOP given) or not around. Which is why I'm questioning this.
So either their armed IDF is for show and they have no bullets, or they were purposely not around or given orders not to defend. And not having bullets isn't that far fetched. At HNL airport here after 9/11, none of the armed soldiers had any bullets. They were all empty mags in their M16's.
What's also more concerning than your questioning of where they launched from is how did a dozer get close enough to the IDF base to take down the fence without being shot at. It's not like there are no guard towers set up along the fence line. Refer back to my commment about being told to stand down.