Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is still Palestine, though we will switch next week to a new country.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly (biweekly?) update is here.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week’s discussion post.
Ok so hear me out.
You take something like this. Cover it in concreate, tarmac, grass, a grave, manhole, whatever necessary to disguise it as ground. You a mortar pit underneath it. Open the hatch, fire your mortar, close the hatch.
Also perfectly hidden tunnel entrances. None of that hinged shit that takes a bunch of time to swing open while also being highly visible in the process, a sliding opening is significantly more hidden.
Inspired by this: https://streamable.com/jz5e93
I have definitely seen videos from the Palestinian resistance with mortars in trenches with plywood covers flipped open
Yeah I just think hinges are a shit way to go about it, they create a visible vertical profile that anyone would see opening/closing nearby, whereas you genuinely wouldn’t see a sliding hole open up. This would in particular be better for tunnel entrances intended for ambushes where you can’t be sure nearby enemy infantry won’t see the trap hinge open.
From the videos I’ve seen they may just be laid over the trench and flopped or slid out of the way. It’s also not even clear where they are (of course)… They could even feasibly be tunnels coming up outside of Gaza I suppose
I suppose you don’t need a mechanism at all, simply ridges for the thing to rest on set flush with the ground. Only issue is that this is dependent on the weight of the hatch. You can’t exactly put loads of soil and stone on top of this and expect someone to be able to reasonably lift it while stood on a ladder.
There are almost certainly tunnels leading outside Gaza, the IDF was still fighting pitched battles in border cities while they had Gaza fence secured meaning the militants were getting out another way
Hinges seem more reliable and maintainable. A sliding door on the ground just needs to get dirt in the track to prevent being opened. Also, there must be a clear patch of ground next to the sliding portion so that the hatch has somewhere to slide TO.
Hinges are dead simple to install and maintain.
A manhole stylw that can be lifted off and set aside would be a better way to go if low profile is the need, though a hatch may potentially provide cover im the hinge side to the tunnel occupant
Boom in pit = you just exploded yourself.
Boom in pit but there’s a tunnel you retreat to first = you just collapsed the tunnel on yourself.
It could work but only if you solidly prevent these 2 things.
Tunnel sideways 10m before going down. Any counterfire that hits the pit just destroys the pit.
I would like to subscribe to guerilla facts
Colonel Klink will never see it coming!
This video provides a funny imperialist perspective on the tactics of asymmetric mortar warfare that the Iraqis used against the US
It includes moments such as frozen mortars for a delayed firing and a US helicopter toy messing with the mortar detection system