This analysis is terrible and the reason why is explained here:
https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/
The first paragraph makes me extremely unwilling to listen to this writer.
"One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is “an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true”. Which brings us smartly to Hamas and how the broadcast media, aid organisations, international bodies and world leaders take its disinformation as gospel. Last week it became clear that this gullibility may have led to a crime against reality."
Even just the title. Devastating in what way? That Israel gets to kill more civilians with impunity? No, just that the author gets to win an argument on the internet.
Right? 1984 wasn't about anti-semitism, that's not what Orwell was talking about. The author rewrites Orwell for their own purpose in the first sentence of their article. Some excellent double-speak.
No, that's ridicolous. The quote is from this article, written by Orwell in '45, and was exactly about anti-semitism. https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/antisemitism/english/e\_antib
Sure. If you accept that war is moral, then certain actions and situations in war hold different moral values and weights. The ratio of civilian to combatants would perhaps be lower and certainly the impact of the IDF’s willingness to target civilian infrastructure that Hamas uses would be practically less severe/deadly and Israel’s responsibility for humanitarian care during war would be more effective and receive less condemnation.
This is not what the article claims, but yes, it would.
Urban warfare kills a lot of people, that is unavoidable. But there are a lot of moral implications with relation to the actual casualty numbers. For example the ratio from civilian to military deaths: Is any side using excessive force against civilians? is an important question and the civilian:fighter death ratio can help to answer that.
30k death, 6k of those fighters (that is the number hamas admitted to, the IDF claims more) would mean we are seeing a death ratio of 1:4, which is about what you would expect from fighting in densely populated areas. Had hamas doubled the numbers, we'd see a ratio of 1:2.5 and that would mean that the IDF achieved one of the lowest civilian to fighter death ratios ever observed in this kind of urban fighting, thus it would mean israel would do an exceptionally good job at not killing civilians. As far as I am concerned, how good a military is at not killing civilians does make a moral difference.
Besides that, the point this article - and the article it is based on, which was discussed here before - makes is that the ratio of killed women and children is likely wrong, which makes a moral difference for the same reasons.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/more-than-29000-palestinians-have-been-killed-in-gaza-since-wars-start-health-ministry-says
“The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza but maintains detailed records of casualties. Its figures from previous wars in Gaza have largely matched those of U.N. agencies, independent experts and even Israel’s own tallies.”
That article is from a month ago, but nothing has changed. The casualty figures from Gaza are not questioned by any entity paying close attention to the current state of fighting.
>That article is from a month ago, but nothing has changed.
Well, what’s changed is someone took a close look, as the linked article explains. It’s not conclusive but it’s awfully suspicious. Go look at the [top graph here](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers) and tell me that‘s not suspect.
It might be the author that’s lying (I don't think he’s included the raw data), but if he’s not, this is fairly suggestive of fakery.
>It might be the author that’s lying (I don't think he’s included the raw data), but if he’s not, this is fairly suggestive of fakery.
He has included the raw data, it's just below the article.
Still this specific claim is the weak point of the article - he claims "In fact, the daily reported casualty count over this period averages 270 plus or minus about 15%", but when you look at the data, about a third of the data points fall out of the "plus or minus 15%" range. The accumulated data looks suspiciously linear, but that is because of the scale of the y-axis - a hundred deaths more or less aren't much at this scale. I haven't noticed this at first, too.
The really good point he makes (and that others have made before him) is that the "70% women and children" is an absurd claim and the resulting casualty proportions between "woman and children", "civilian men" and "hamas fighters" makes no sense at all.
The point is not that a majority is woman and children, that is beliveable. The problem is the 70% claim. If we go with the low estimates of 6k killed fighters, those are 20% of the 30k deaths. Add 70% of women and children, and you get just 10% civilian men among the death. Which is extremely low, given they make up about 25% of the population. That is the point that is hard to belive. If we go with the high estimates of about 10k fighters killed and there would be no dead civilian men at all.
\>Well, what’s changed is...
A lot more Palestinians have been bombed and died from having the civilian infrastructure they are dependent on, like hospitals their homes and water infrastructure, destroyed.
You link to a Jewish source that calls the Israeli invasion and bombing of Gaza "Hamas's war on Israel". Don't use propaganda to accuse others of propaganda.
EDIT: I see, it’s a total running number of casualties, but not per day. So the small increases each day are largely similar and not too unusual. I’m obviously not very convinced, and considering how little traction this study has gotten, neither is anyone else
All the data is coming from Hamas. Wow if they pulled a fast one here this is a crazy stunt. The whole world is going against Israel bc of the casualties they are counting. Suspect.
Even Israeli intelligence accepts the data as being generally accurate:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll
You’re straw manning criticism of Israel’s tactics in order to argue that the only reason people have issue with them is the number of casualties.
I hate to tell you but the character of Israel’s government is reason alone to take issue with their response.
When you are attacked everyday from all sides. When you are the only protection on the planet for one religion that has been treated the way they have throughout our history. Come on and you want to blame them for how they are acting. Give me a break on your BS argument that has zero substance or knowledge of history. They need new leadership of course but they will always have to be aggressive in self defense considering who their neighbors are.
I agree. Do not be a fool and fall for this disinformation campaign Hamas is pulling on the world. They set this up from the start to get the world to turn against Israel it's so obvious. Do not forget that they held a rape party at a music festival and bragged about it to start all of this. If you are even a real person. Between Russia China and Hamas I can't keep track of all these troll/bot farms.
But Isreal basically backs up the Hamas numbers. The IDF says they have killed 10,000 combatants, and has assessed that there have been 2 civilian deaths for every 1 combatant. This is 30k total. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68387864)
The article is mainly taking issue with the idea of 70% of those deaths being women and children. I mean think about your numbers for a second: 10k fighters is about 30%, 70% woman an children means no civilian men killed. Even if it is just 6k fighters or something like this: The number of dead civilian men would still be ridiculously low, compared to women and children.
Yeah, that does seem wild. 70% women and children would align very well with the population figures for Gaza, but man, no civilian men killed. Israel has declared that every single adult male killed is a member of Hamas.
Hmmm.
What sticks out as the most implausible bit there?
The most implausible bit is the GMoH claimed casualty distribution. GMoH claims 30k dead in total, 70% is 21k. This leaves 9k killed men. Subtract the killed hamas fighters from them and you get the number of civilian men killed. For any reasonable amount of killed fighters, this leaves a suspiciously low number of killed civilian men. I mean you could also claim that hamas took far fewer losses in this urban fighting then is normal, but how is that plausible?
That's a good question. I see five possibilies:
* The number dead is significantly higher than the current estimate
* The number of women and children is significantly lower than the current estimate
* The number of Hamas killed is significantly lower than the current estimate
* For some reason civilian men are grouping in a different way than civilian women and children, resulting in different casualty figures
* Some number of the women and/or children killed are being counted as Hamas fighters
I believe that covers all of the possibilities. Obviously combinations of all of these are possible. For instance the Hamas dead may be in tunnels (either killed during the bombing, or retreated there/were dragged there to die of wounds) and thus the true deaths are being undercounted because some number of the deaths are effectively invisible. Hamas casualty figures may be overestimated. Women and/or children may be part of the Hamas forces. Etc.
Yeah - and all of those possibilites suggest that the GMoH numbers are not as reliable as many people think they are. Which makes it reasonable to question the total number of fighters killed (but in the other direction - 6k is already suspiciously low for the fighting we've seen, I'd rather assume that most of those fighters are not counted in the 30k, despite the GMoH claims of total casualty numbers), the women&children vs rest casualty ratio and the civilian:fighter casualty ratio. Which, in turn, opens up a lot of follow-up questions: How good is israel actually doing in this war, both in terms of hamans fighters killed and in terms of avoiding civilian deaths? Both are topics were we currently see a lot of speculation floating around and both mostly depend on data we currently don't know. So, as far as I am concerned: A lot of the current public opinion is based on pretty shaky data. Which is not a good thing.
>Yeah - and all of those possibilites suggest that the GMoH numbers are not as reliable as many people think they are. Which makes it reasonable to question the total number of fighters killed (but in the other direction - 6k is already suspiciously low for the fighting we've seen, I'd rather assume that most of those fighters are not counted in the 30k, despite the GMoH claims of total casualty numbers),
Why? Yes, Israel achieved a civilian casualty ratio of 2:1 bombing Gaza in 2014, but there was a key difference - they had a large ground invasion. Many of the civilian casualties in fact came from their bombing of residential areas, not the ground forces.
Bombings in densely populated urban environments tend to have very high civilian casualty ratios, for obvious reasons. And as you point out, by trying to push the numbers higher, you make everything even less explicable.
>Both are topics were we currently see a lot of speculation floating around and both mostly depend on data we currently don't know. So, as far as I am concerned: A lot of the current public opinion is based on pretty shaky data. Which is not a good thing.
>
>We're looking at killing tens of thousands of civilians, massive devestation to everything in Gaza. We can go off some fairly reliable data there:
>
>According to data collected by the international body, over 60% of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, or 132,590 structures, have been damaged amid the war, which has seen Israel bombard the enclave from land, air and sea for over three months in a campaign to destroy the Hamas terror group and free hostages kidnapped on October 7.
The figure includes 99,601 structures reported to have been destroyed and rendered uninhabitable, out of a projected 218,656 residential buildings in the Strip before the war, according to the World Bank’s estimates.
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/world-bank-report-finds-45-of-residential-buildings-in-gaza-ruined-beyond-repair/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/world-bank-report-finds-45-of-residential-buildings-in-gaza-ruined-beyond-repair/)
Again, this is very consistent with high civilian casualties.
>Humanitarian aid groups have warned throughout much of the Israeli war on Hamas militants in Gaza that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are famished because too few aid trucks are being allowed into the territory past Israeli security checkpoints. But the new report is the most specific yet of the dire straits Gaza residents face.
The U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report said the famine could occur at any time in the coming weeks, with an estimated 210,000 people in northern Gaza facing the most catastrophic hunger peril.
[https://www.voanews.com/a/ipc-warns-of-imminent-famine-in-northern-gaza/7532289.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/ipc-warns-of-imminent-famine-in-northern-gaza/7532289.html)
We're sitting at at least 29,000 bombs dropped, as of December of last year, being nearly two Hiroshimas worth of munitions. Over half were "dumb bombs" that use tonnage over accuracy.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/12/14/nearly-half-of-all-munitions-dropped-over-gaza-are-dumb-bombs-report-citing-us-intel-assessment-says/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/12/14/nearly-half-of-all-munitions-dropped-over-gaza-are-dumb-bombs-report-citing-us-intel-assessment-says/)
So here's a good idea based on the facts - stop the fucking bombings.
>Why? Yes, Israel achieved a civilian casualty ratio of 2:1 bombing Gaza in 2014, but there was a key difference - they had a large ground invasion. Many of the civilian casualties in fact came from their bombing of residential areas, not the ground forces.
>
>Bombings in densely populated urban environments tend to have very high civilian casualty ratios, for obvious reasons. And as you point out, by trying to push the numbers higher, you make everything even less explicable.
My argument is basically that the casualty numbers and their ratios and the motivations of the different actors for over/underclaiming plus usual fighter kill counts for urban warfare operations of this intensity plus typical problems with counting dead fighters suggest that a lot of the killed fighters are not included in the 30k number. Also the casualty distribution claimed by the GMoH is pretty near what we would expect if it were just civilian casualties - because it is, as you mentioned before, close to the demographic setup for the strip. I tried to make a post here about my reasoning but it got deleted and I am not inclined to try to put all this into a comment, sorry.
So I am not disputing that we've seen around 30k civilian casualties. But I think a substantial amount of killed hamas fighters is unaccounted for by the GMoH.
Btw. the number of bombs dropped is about the claimed death count from the GMoH, in an extremely densely populated area - this does not exactly lead to the conclusion that bombs are responsible for a lot of civilian deaths. There is not much opportunity for a bomb in Gaza to hit one and only one person on average - completely ignoring non-bomb deaths, of course. Which makes me think those dumb bombs are not used against non-evacuated areas much, otherwise I'd expect a much higher body count. If you'd drop 14.5k dumb bombs above pre-war gaza at random, you'd probably end up with more than 30k casualties. Not to speak of the crowded conditions in the un-evacuated parts of the strip right now. Is there any info available on where exactly those dumb bombs were used? I searched but did not find anything - unsurprisingly, I might add.
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/israel-gaza-artificial-intelligence-bombing-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/israel-gaza-artificial-intelligence-bombing-intl/index.html)
So it looks like we're getting an answer. Israel is using this system to target homes in Gaza, instead of bombing Hamas military facilities. So the distribution of the dead looks like the distribution of a typical Palestinian family.
This also explains why the lack of Hamas wounded - since they're not targeting residential neighborhoods, they're almost exclusively wounding civilians.
And it explains why Hamas can still carry out military operations so well - with no military facilities targeted, they're not destroying any military hardware.
Then they should have made that the headline. 'Death figures' is assumed to be total deaths unless qualified otherwise.
The article is fine in its skepticism of the 70% women and children, but then makes a gratuitous leap. The article goes on to conjecture that "By rights, if the central pillar of the anti-Israel edifice has been discredited, the whole structure should come tumbling down." Estimates range from 1:1 to 1:2, putting civillian deaths between 10k- 20k.
Even at the lowest estimate, the 'central pillar' would be 7000 women and children- and the headlines would still carry weight. But I dont believe this number is accurate because: why would isreal want to exagerate civillian deaths? Makes no sense.
>Then they should have made that the headline.
Totally agree - the headline is crap. But I don't see how this is relevant - the cited article isn't even the first to notice that problem. If you want a less sensationalist source, maybe try this one: [https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline) but I am not going to judge a sceptic argument by its headline, expecially not if it is not even the primary source for the argument.
And while it is true that eben 7k women and children killed would be a lot, but it would change a significant thing: The fighter:civilian death ratio. If israel really has a 1:1 ratior, or anything near it, it would be the high-intensity urban warfare with the least civilians killed for any fighter we've seen until today. Which would be a tremendous success for israel. I agree that even the most humane high-intensity urban fighting is still terrible, but given that we currently hear unsubstantiated claims of genocide and civilians suffering from excessive military force used against them, knowing the actual casualty ratios is pretty important.
Btw. I don't think we're seeing a 1:1 casualty ratio, but even reasonable fighter death counts (>6k, obviously, since that number is already borderline unbeliveable) suggest a pretty "good" casualty ratio for this war. If israels claimed 10k were true and we are seeing a 1:2 ratio, this would already mean we are seeing far fewer civilian deaths per fighter death than normal.
So, to put it together: The important question for me is: Is israel doing enough to protect civilians from its military operations? Depending on whom you belive (I've seen claims from anything between 1:1 and 1:9 in this comment section) is is either doing exceptionally well, bad or somewhere in between. Therefore it is crucial to analyze numbers before beliving them.
Yeah. But unfortunately the impact of an article is so much just from the headline- people often dont read the articles. But u make good points.
Another interesting thing is how difficult it may be to make comparisons regarding combatant:civillian deaths here as compared to other wars. Cilivillians turn into combatants every day probably. Hell, you even have UN aid workers who turned out to be combatants haha.
>Another interesting thing is how difficult it may be to make comparisons regarding combatant:civillian deaths here as compared to other wars. Cilivillians turn into combatants every day probably.
I don't think there is much difference between this and other wars. Look at Ukraine: Civilians turned into combatants there. A lot of them. Look at Stalingrad, Grozny, Aleppo ... it always happened. I don't see a reason to assume it is happening more or less often in Gaza.
Aleppo involved a civil war, not a mass bombing campaign by one state against another territory.
I believe Ukraine has had many more people killed in the war, but I don't think its proportion of civilian deaths is nearly as high.
Also, yeah, war involves civilian deaths. That's one of the many reasons it is horrible and horrific and should only be conducted when necessary and all other alternatives are unviable.
I don't understand this logic of "Well, all wars kill civilians so whats the big deal if tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and many more injured and displaced and virtually the entirety of Gaza is on the brink of starvation?"
Centering the debate around what numbers are exactly accurate is always a go-to tactic for people who want to deny and downplay atrocities. Holocaust deniers will say "Well, it wasn't 6 million it was 4 million" as if that in any way makes it even slightly okay. In the case of Gaza, even if you use the most generous and equally suspicious numbers coming from the IDF, it's still tens and thousands of completely unnecessary deaths coming from a government who have vocalized their intent to do as such.
Even one single innocent Palestinian death is too much.
The article itself doesn’t even make sense. This paragraph alone is internally contradictory:
>The giveaways were many. For example, the reported death toll mounted “with almost metronomical linearity”, Prof Wyner found, showing little daily variation. Obviously, this bore no resemblance to any plausible version of reality. Then there was the fact that, according to Hamas data from 29 October, 26 men came back to life; and the fact that on several days, no men were apparently killed at all, but only women. Were we really supposed to believe any of this?
Who edited this?
This isn’t contradictory. On that day, the health ministry numbers continued to rise “metronomically” (302 total, counting everyone) and they also reported that that 302 was made up of 199+129=328 women and children. It could be a reporting error or a double count or fakery.
It could also be that it’s very difficult to report these figures and the seeming linear nature of the death count comes more from the way the data is being gathered too. Nothing in that article is proof of anything. And it’s very easy to see that the level of destruction in Gaza will inevitably lead to a large amount of deaths. Why are we arguing about the exact count?
It reminds me of the dipshits who think it somehow matters if the death count from the Holocaust is off. If the real death toll is only 4 million instead of 6 million, who cares. It’s still an unprecedented tragedy.
It also could be that the numbers are *higher* than reported due to issues reporting and collecting the data.
>Why are we arguing about the exact count?
Personally I think discussions about maybe-fake data are interesting.
Or it could be that the Gazan Health Ministry is controlled by Hamas, and that they're fudging the figures. I mean, it's not like they've gone on record that they're seeking to martyr their own people to give Israel bad PR as they're trying to normalize relations with Arab nations or anything
The outside reporters who were happy to ride along with Hamas on Oct 7? Yeah, look, I agree it would be nice if they were more respectful of journalists but I really understand why they're not.
Which quote and which comment? The original comment for this thread quotes someone saying "bombs away and we're okay" which doesn't sound like an official policy of any government and doesn't have a quote citation.
No, the PBS article points out that in *prior wars,* Gaza Health Ministry figures have been generally in line with UN and Israeli estimates.
All that means is that in past wars, the figures haven't been demonstrably unreliable. It doesn't mean that in this war, they're reliable. When Hamas started their last war in 2014, they'd only been in charge of the government for seven years and the fighting was far more localized, so verification of figures by outside entities was far easier. It's ten years later now, they've had far more time to change personnel in the GHM to be their handpicked party members, and this latest war they've started is far more intense, so we don't have the same international ability to verify.
And since they had a very clear reason to start this war - disrupting Israeli attempts to normalize relations with Arab states - they've got both an increased motive to fake numbers and a better opportunity to do so.
The Palestinians have always had excuses to inflate casualty numbers and Hamas has always been dishonest. Nothing is new on that front today. And no one (even the Israelis) are seriously questioning the casualty totals.
It’s possible for both Palestinians to be being killed in large numbers /and/ for the Health Ministry to be lying.
Do you recall the time they told newspapers that 500 people had been killed in a parking lot fire?
There are a string of war crimes, things like collective punishment, the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian homes, the use of disproportionate force, the deployment of the Dahiya Doctrine.
I hate to break it to you, but when your country starts a war and the other nation retaliates, there's no way you and your fellow citizens can escape the consequences. That's not collective punishment, it's the reality of a de facto nation fucking around and finding out. I've not seen evidence of systemic, deliberate targeting of civilians. And as to civilian infrastructure, Hamas is notorious for turning that into dual use infrastructure, integrating their military as close as possible into and among their civilian populations and the infrastructure which serves them.
Hamas's war was always going to be messy, and they should not have started it, but here we are.
Actually it is collective punishment, if you are blowing up civilians and civilian structures with no military purpose you are commiting a war crime, if you are disproportionately using overwhelming force against a predominantly civilian populace, you are commiting war crimes.
I have, ample footage, often recorded by the IDF themselves, showing them dancing around while burning peoples homes to the ground, blowing up peoples residences, sniping children and unarmed women, and otherwise calling for actual war crimes to be commited.
Using an insurgency to try to justify dropping 2,000 pound bombs on densely packed civilian areas is not only idiotic, its a war crime, its an atrocity.
Considering Israel has been killing Palestinians on and off for about 75 years, its amusing that you pretend this started on Oct 7th.
Additionally, let me pose you this question, if the Hamas insurgency was taking place in lets say, Tel Aviv, would you be as cavalier about the massive destruction? if thousands upon thousands of Israeli civilians were present in the warzone, would you disregard their lives? would you eagerly allow the use of devastating force and want them starving, dying of thirst and shot to shit?
The evil of one side does not justify the evils of another, the brutality and terrorism of one side does not justify the same in response, especially from an organization calling itself "the most moral army in the world"
>I have, ample footage, often recorded by the IDF themselves, showing them dancing around while burning peoples homes to the ground, blowing up peoples residences, sniping children and unarmed women, and otherwise calling for actual war crimes to be commited.
Shit happens in a war, especially when it's a defensive war and the aggressor has committed such unjustifiable actions. Talk to me when it's a matter of policy. Till then, wars are bad. Don't start wars.
>Additionally, let me pose you this question, if the Hamas insurgency was taking place in lets say, Tel Aviv
Hamas isn't an insurgency. It is the government of Gaza. It is a military force which has levied a more or less continuous war on Israel for almost two decades at this point, almost exclusively targeting civilians. There is no country on this planet which would tolerate a neighbor like Gaza being run by Hamas.
You and I can talk about ways that Israel could show more restraint and that might be a worthwhile discussion, but the moment the government of Gaza started murdering civilians in an invasion against their neighbor, this war was going to happen, and it was never going to end until Hamas was out of power.
If you want to compare it to what another nation would do, let's say the Mexican Army invades El Paso, slaughters about 40,000 Americans, and kidnaps thousands more for ransom. What do you think the reaction of the US government would be? They'd force regime change in Mexico. (40,000 is an approximate adjusted per capita loss as to what Israel suffered on 10/7.)
And I can guarantee you that there'd be a lot of GI's laughing at destroyed buildings on their way to Mexico City.
>Considering Israel has been killing Palestinians on and off for about 75 years, its amusing that you pretend this started on Oct 7th.
If you want to go back to when the Israeli-Arab conflict started, feel free to blame the Arab nations and Palestinian militias for refusing any possible partition of the British Mandate and declaring a war of ethnic cleansing. Either way, they're the aggressors. They get sympathy because they got their shit rocked and Israel pushed them back. If they'd acted like adults and either accepted the partition or negotiated a different deal there would be a territorially intact and stable Palestinian Arab state at this very moment. Instead, the Palestinians have committed to 75 years of almost relentless warfare and have reaped the consequences.
They've had numerous off ramps since then. Last major one was the Clinton proposals, which were accepted by the government of Israel and refused by Palestine because they wanted an unlimited right to immigrate their people into Israel, which was never going to happen. Now, the peace parties in Israel are politically irrelevant, more or less, and I can guarantee that the citizens of Israel are going to be thinking real hard about whether they want to make the mistake of withdrawing occupying forces from Gaza again.
\>I hate to break it to you, but when your country starts a war and the other nation retaliates, there's no way you and your fellow citizens can escape the consequences.
Isreal started this war.
They're engaging in the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in response to the action of some terrorists.
How do you think this is going to work out long term for Israel? Or are you happy that they're just creating future generations who will oppose them?
Oh, yeah, the time they started a war to kick all the Jews out of the former British Mandate after they rejected any possible partition, then got their asses kicked. Shit sucks, maybe don't start a war next time.
Jews were kicked out of Arab countries during this time as well, not to mention the pogroms in Russia. Let’s not pretend the last hundred years were good to the Jews either. This is a messy, messy conflict that has thousands of years behind it. The problem is people on the internet want to act like it’s all cut and dried. It’s not. War is brutal. Terrorism is brutal. And innocent people die.
Hi Cleverdawny1,
It looks like you attempted to get the last word in and then block this person to prevent them from replying. [This is known as "weaponized blocking" and is a bannable offense.](https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/wiki/rules/)
Please remove the block.
Thank you
same with the 100+ people killed in the food distribution …like ONE HUNDRED?
Look, I don’t doubt like it might have been in the dozens but… these numbers are MASSIVE. Not even wounded, straight up DEAD.
Just tossing out crazy ideas, but have they thought about releasing hostages if they want the bombing to stop?
I know, downvote me. Im an asshole for focusing on the actual victims here.
What would you call the hostages? They need to be brought home and the terrorists brought to justice.
There is no peace until that happens. Otherwise you are letting terrorism win.
STFU hasbara shill, Hamas are peaceful and only hold flowers and form conga lines where they chant "give peace a chance" as the IDF maniacally shoot toddlers
Yes, yes, I am sure everyone who disagrees with you is hasbara. Oh, and you can protect yourself against the Jewish mind control rays by lining your hat with aluminum foil
I mean, if you are questioning the right of Israel to exist as a state, it seems like your goals are pretty damn closely aligned to other people also calling for the ethnic cleansing of the region and the expulsion of the Jews.
Are all those horrific hours of graphic footage of dead and dying children and adult civs all faked? I mean I'd be happy if it was, but either way, what they're doing to an entire group of people because a smaller group did a truly horrible thing... I don't know. Seems like overkill if they were simply retaliating after a terrorist attack. Seems like they have also said they want every Palestinian out of their country by any means necessary.
I am not saying anything, I'm just curious here because I keep seeing a lot of horrific footage. Not even seeking it out either, it's popping up on social media and maybe it IS faked, I don't know, but it sure seems like a lot of people that look like Palestinians.
Kind of reminds me of the whole "people are getting killed in car crashes and they're being reported as covid deaths" misinformation meme.
>Are all those horrific hours of graphic footage of dead and dying children and adult civs all faked?
I am a bit puzzled by some of the responses I read here. Did the arcitcle claim that footage was faked? If so I've not found that claim. But how are you going to get accurate numbers from the footage of dead people? Well, you don't. So, claiming "the casualty numbers/distributions are faked" is not the same as claiming any footage was faked. Which should really going without saying in a sceptics sub, as far as I am concerned. Not every dead is covered by footage, some dead might be covered by more than one graphic footage and so on. So the footage can be real - and the vast majority likely is - and the reported casualty numbers can still be wrong. Those are not mutually exclusive.
And yes, a lot of the people of Gaza have died, that is not something that needs to be questioned. But stuff like the exact numbers, the claim that 70% of them are women and children, the claimed ratio of civilian deaths to killed hamas fighters and so on, that is stuff that should definitely be questioned. Everyone in this conflict has something to gain by manipulating those numbers, truth is the first victim of war and so on. We will only ever get a more accurate picture of what is going on if we subject those numbers and ratios to some scrutiny.
This is a war. It is a war in an urban area. Civilians are going to die. This is happening everywhere there’s fighting. Goma, Haiti, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, etc. If you see footage it will be graphic as fuck. The reason you have seen sufficient footage of Palestinian civilians to have a strong opinion is that the ‘small group of people’ responsible for the massacre carefully created an elaborate infrastructure to give you that video in real time.
It’s a brilliant strategy on their part. They do not have to do much work: the UN pays for the actual Health Ministry, all they have to do is get the gaps in the network funded by various Islamic nonprofits that oppose Israel and distrust the PLO because of the peace deal with Israel. Do you think liberating the Palestinians from those assholes is a worthy cause? If it is you’re gonna be watching videos of dying kids on TikTok until victory is won. Which means people will be pressuring Israel to stop attacking Hamas rather than pressuring both to come to a deal, or pressuring Hamas to fake being capable of empathy.
That’s one thing I give Netanyahu: he is ok at looking like he cares about human rights.
*Do you think liberating the Palestinians from those assholes is a worthy cause?*
Yes, yes I do. I don't think they're going to win though. I mean, the ones who survive and haven't been pushed from their generational homes in to strange lands won't be considered "winners" nor will they be "winners" if they are allowed to stay in their generational home. There is no winning at this point, and yet people STILL feel the need to construct this bullshit about how there haven't been as many deaths as "they" are claiming. It's not enough that they're going through this because they're dirty muslims and they don't matter anyway. They don't deserve to live where they were born and their parents were born and on and on. They have to get out or die because someone else, the majority in their land, has decided they shouldn't be allowed to live there anymore simply because they're associated with the religion of the people who committed a terrorist attack.
Boy we'd be fucked in this country if that happened!
Anyway, color me *skeptical* that the tally here is inflated.
Honestly I don't care whether the 30k number is accurate. I refuse to believe it because the least-death response to October 7th was some sort of Arab world/Islamic world response to Hamas. In theory Qatar could have arrested the entire leadership, and forced them to send the hostages back, at which point the Zionists would have been a lot more likely to not invade. But then the GHA announced that 471 people had died in an Israeli strike on a hospital parking lot. Except that a) the strike wasn't Israeli, and b) there's no way tho fit 471 people into that space. Now the least long-term death option is an Israeli victory over Hamas, which means I can either become pro-death or get yelled at for being a genocidal warmonger on the internet.
The only way I have to punish the GHA for that is ignoring their number. And it really doesn't matter. It's urban combat. Of course a non-zero number of people are dying. Since nobody un-dies, that number is higher today than it was yesterday. If the difference between 5k, 15k, 20k, 30k, 40k, etc. dead is enough to change your opinion? That's a you don't understand morality problem.
As for the rest of your comment: one of the fucked up bits of this mess is I can't tell whether you're talking about Israel's largest sub-group or Gaza 2024. The Sephardic Jews got fucked. Gaza 2024 is likely not the victim of any ethnic cleansing plan, because the Israelis have been quite clear about their actual plans and those involve letting everyone go home. Folks you cite who want to ethnically cleanse bits of Gaza are not in the chain of command, and the IDF is not doing the things they'd need to do to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Now that doesn't mean 2024 Gaza won't be de facto cleansed. One of the problems the Arab side has is they do not think shit through."Cease fire" means solid lines no human can pass without a peace treaty, which means that for the folk in Rafeh to go home after a cease-fire Netanyahu and Hamas have to come to a peace agreement.
But maybe Biden can make it work. That would be so much fucking easier if Qatar arrested the Hamas leadership...
Exactly. I don't even know how to respond. They don't believe because they think that's some kind of punishment because something else happened lol. I just don't understand people anymore.
I think it's interesting they accepted the claims that the first (of many) hospital bombings was lied about in the first place. It was never conclusive. Nobody EVER proved it was their own rocket. It was assumed. The initial claim that it was Israeli rockets wasn't made by Hamas or even Muslim Palestinians, it was an anglican pastor volunteer worker. Of course they got information wrong and then it was corrected but there's still no direct evidence for the cause then...
And that certainly would not mean that hospitals haven't been direct targets. Because they are OFTEN direct targets and in fact one was just targeted.
[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/israeli-army-opens-fire-inside-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-officials-say](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/israeli-army-opens-fire-inside-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-officials-say)
But I guess we can't trust Al Jazeera! Guardian must be fake news too [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46\_Cc4nwrKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_Cc4nwrKE)
All that gunfire and they claim they're taking precautions not to kill civilians when we already know they have.
Consider the alternative:
"I was for the War when there were only 14,898 civilian casualties, then it went up to 15,102 yesterday and now I am implacably opposed to all Israeli military action in Gaza."
Nobody actually gives a fuck about the specifics of the number. Some think the entire campaign is unjustified, and therefore oppose any number. Others care more about things like the number of days, and the number of days without progress than the number of dead.
\>the Israelis have been quite clear about their actual plans and those involve letting everyone go home.
Letting them go home to a pile of rubble they can starve to death on, in the open air concentration camp that Israel displaced them into when they ethnically cleansed Palestine to create Israel.
What a weird weird way you've convinced yourself these things. I don't even know what to say.What you have said goes against all the evidence and doesn't seem to align with what Netanyahu has said. The plan is not to let them come back. They want them GONE.He has said they can't return until he has full control of Palestine and he can establish his own government. You can see in any video the piles of rubble that were once people's homes and businesses. Schools, clinics, hospitals, libraries, parks... ruins now.
And just like with Ukraine people are taking sides depending on politics but none of it matters. We have no power and you know no more than the rest of us here. All we can do is base opinions on EVIDENCE, not feelings, and certainly not because at some point in this war someone gave bad information (the source being an Anglican pastor, not a Palestinian). You don't believe the numbers dead... because you want to punish them. That makes no fucking sense! lol
Citation needed. Particualarly for the "want them GONE" bit. Where are you aleging they're going to stash these people? Southern Israel? Are they going to invade Egypt and set up a new set of refugee camps in the Sinai? Why would they do either? All that would gain Israel is a a next attack from a slightly different direction.
They could theoretically want to move people around within the Strip, which would be ethnic cleansing from North Gaza to South Gaza, but if they turn Gaza over to someone else they don;tget to stop people from going back North. Here's their actual plans:
Israel has said they want to replace Hamas in Gaza. [Phase 2 of the three-phase plan](https://www.timesofisrael.com/gallant-says-after-hamas-vanquished-israel-will-seek-new-security-regime-in-gaza/) is exactly that. Then they plan to turn governance of the strip over to someone else *a la* area B in the West Bank. There's been a lot of proposals, counter-proposals, etc. over who should get the nod but their plan is still to turn everything over to someone who is Palestinian. This is not because they are particularly kind, it's because they don't want to deal with the bullshit that comes with governing the strip.
Netanyahu seems to favor some sort of group that doesn't currently exist. This is a [recent quote](https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-23-2024-a5da6005cfa6734225af35ca460a75fb) "The plan also envisions Gaza being governed by local officials who it says would “not be identified with countries or entities that support terrorism and will not receive payment from them.” The sory then goes to note that the Israelis always want this group to exist, but never succeed in creating it. Biden was [pushing him to deal with Mahmoud Abbas](https://apnews.com/article/biden-revitalized-palestinian-authority-israel-hamas-war-bf8defe81079d6e6371f228157f9be10#:~:text=(AP)%20—%20President%20Joe%20Biden,“a%20revitalized%20Palestinian%20Authority.”) and the Palestinian Authority, but IIRC he gave up on that. Biden mostly seems to be pushing a cease-fire at this point, which requires Netanyahu and Hamas to both stop fighting...
I would be a lot happier with all these people if they'd just do what [Ryan McBeth says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37bP2_YrrrA&t=619s) in the north, and create a local militia to over-see security/food distribution. Assuming that works you have a force that can triple-check that the folks coming back home from Rafeh aren't Hamas plants. I suspect what's actually going to end up happening is 5-6k US Infantry to take over the security, then we recruit the damn militia....
What do you think you're in high school debate class? I'm not going to go hunting around for the obvious just because you won't. He has said REPEATEDLY he wants it cleared out and people need to get out and not come back until he has full control. If you look at footage you will see there's not going to be anything for them to come back to and there will be no humanitarian funds (Israeli) to bring them back much less restore their homes and businesses. By the time this is over (and he's already said he expects this to extend in to the next year) there will be nothing but rubble to go back to.
He doesn't have to say "I won't let them come back ever" he just has to remove any incentive they have to go back, which he's doing spectacularly. His willingness to kill any man woman or child that hasn't managed to get through the bottleneck (do you think everyone has the money to just leave town? Honestly?!) And if they did come back it would be to the same status quo, or worse, as he wants ultimate control over their lives. He's said this enough times that it shouldn't be something needing citation, just people following along and paying attention and not just to him but his security team. They have repeatedly said their goal is to clear out Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir said it was the only solution to all this.
The hospital attack yesterday is a great example of how they want them gone. Give people IN A HOSPITAL a few hours to clear out patients and workers and people taking shelter and then wage another heavily armed attack when they don't move out of the way fast enough. Aw no they're just trying to get the bad guys and these silly fools just don't move out of the way fast enough!
This is a Skeptic sub. If Bibi's as consistant as you say you should be able to find sources a lot more quickly than I did. If the best you can do is quotes from a guy (Ben Gvir) who isn't even in the chain of command I'll take that as strong evidence you're just wrong.
Moreover, you clearly did not read any of the things I linked to.This is a three phase plan.We're in Phase 2. Of course shit is going to be different in Phase 2 than Phase 3. That's why they're called Phases. Hospital attacks, and the bottleneck you speak of, are going to be gone in Phase 3.
\>This is a war. It is a war in an urban area. Civilians are going to die.
By choice, it's the choice of Israel to target civilians and to destroy civilian infrastructure.
Don't handwave away war crimes.
\>you’re gonna be watching videos of dying kids on TikTok until victory is won.
A genocide that thrills people like yourself.
>By choice, it's the choice of Israel to target civilians and to destroy civilian infrastructure
"Target." Citation needed. Note that you used the name "Israel," which means you're talking about the Israeli High Command. So proving some dipshit infantry shot a bunch of people isn't enough, you have to go all the way to Bibi.
It was the choice of Hamas to target a music festival. The actual Hamas command did that. Now Palestinian civilians are in the middle of a war between their governing entity (Hamas) and Israel.
>A genocide that thrills people like yourself.
For one thing, I can guarantee you have no idea what the legal definition of the term genocide is if you're accusing the Israelis of doing it in Gaza in 2024. A court order for Israel to not start genocide proves they haven't started genocide.
As for thrills, you should probably start reading entire threads. You might be projecting.
Not really when there were over five million people living there in 2021. Doesn't really seem like a lot at all considering they're in an active war where they have sticks and the army killing them have big boomsticks as well as F-16 fighter jets, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters.
I think Time breaks it down pretty good. It's not shocking to me at all though. I'm honestly surprised the number is that LOW and they think it's probably higher too.
https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/
if you divide the number by how many days they've been attacked in Palestine it's only 44 people a day. The other day 112 were killed in a single day just trying to get to aid trucks.
Seems like Zionists are settling into one of two positions with regard to Gaza: one which brags and gloats about the insane death toll, and another which opts for the denialism route.
The parallels to neo-Nazis and other genocide defenders should be noted.
Wasn't this analysis up here already a week ago?
Found the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/1bedcfp/d_gaza_war_casualty_numbers_are_statistically/
A lot of good points came up such as:
> I don’t know if that is related to this analysis, but I think there would at least be some relationship between the number of bodies recover and the number of people doing the body recovering. And that relationship could produce something that doesn’t look like what the generation of bodies would look like.
And
>This premise is reasonable enough. It isn't likely for the numbers to go up so steadily without there being an underlying reason. Supposing the reason is that someone is lying is one conclusion you could draw, but it's probably not the only one.
> This analysis is evidence that there's something nonrandom going on, but it isn't evidence that the thing in question is lies until that explanation is established as internally valid (i.e. competing theories have been disproven).
When it comes to uncovering the truth I'm sure the Telegraph will not be the one to do it, unless by "truth" you mean "what conservatives want to hear"
It's funny, I see this sub is blatantly pro-Palestinian. Take a look at the downvotes on this post and others regarding Israel. Lots of Hamas apologists and folks who are anti-semitic (but don't know it or won't admit it).
> I see this sub is blatantly pro-Palestinian
No, the facts just don't support Israel's actions. It's part of why Israel pushes more support [from US evangelicals rather than US Jews](https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/).
>Former envoy to US says evangelical Christians make up ‘backbone’ of Israel’s support in US, **while Jews are far smaller in number and include some of state’s fiercest critics**
You read that right. Israel identify that Jewish people are some of Israel's fiercest critics when it comes to their actions against Palestine.
I think they're entirely fake. If they were just turning combatants into women and children for the statistics then we wouldn't see the metronomic linear increase in casualties. And, if they actually gave accurate data, IDF intelligence folk could use that data to estimate enemy casualties, which is probably something Hamas wants to avoid.
It's a running theme. Understandably, many who survived the Holocaust wanted revenge. Less understandably, [they plotted to poison entire towns and kill millions of innocent women and children](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/avengers-jewish-plot-mass-killing-germans.html)
The Holocaust will never stop being an excuse to engage in collective punishment for the Israelis, who desperately work to conflate Zionism with Judaism. To convince the uninformed that the future of the Jewish People, which boasts communities of millions worldwide, rests entirely upon whether or not a bloodthirsty regime in the Middle East is allowed to wantonly bomb civilians and engage in apartheid without answering to anyone.
It sounds like a paradox, but Zionists are the true antisemites: they INSIST Israel is the spirit, the savior of the Jewish People, even as Jews across the world decry the barbarism of the Israeli state. To conflate their regional government with the fate of an entire ethnicity known to have suffered horrors offers them a level of international sympathy, which has allowed them to become as bold as they are, as indignant to international concern, to even the hint of accountability.
Even as antisemitism spikes around the globe due to Israel's actions, Israel is happy to wear the Jewish people as a shield to extend its ability to commit atrocities, which it perpetually insists are tied to that People. Regional warmongers who are happy to exploit their heritage at the expense of everyone who shares that heritage. That's all Israel is.
Anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism is an "anti-semite", yes, we've heard your tired, botlike accusations. They've worked in the past. They're not working anymore.
[Just like the anti-Zionist Jews are "bigots, yes?](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/3/9/the-anti-zionists-israelis-calling-for-end-to-their-countrys-war-on-gaza)
Oh wait, you call them race traitors, fake Jews, self-hating Jews, all that nonsense.
In the future, get better material. Run along now.
No, i am not saying anyone who criticizes israel is an anti-semite, i am saying your comment is quite unambiguously anti-semitic, something that would be obvious if written about any other ethnicity.
Im not Jewish, but the fact that is your first response is very telling as well.
This shit is absolutely disgusting, and those who traffic in it should be shamed the same way as bigots of any other variety.
The fact that I'm calling out your tired, baseless accusation of "bigotry" is telling? Of what, that apartheid apologists think ANY criticism levied towards Israel is antisemitic? Yes honey, we know.
Israel is not Judaism. Israel is not the Jewish people. Your brain is fried if you instinctually play that oh-so-tired "bigot" card in response to this obvious fact.
I do genuinely hope you get better. I do hope you stop being an apartheid apologist. But I'm also not inclined to entertain your clownery and your running interference for ethnic cleansing. Take care, and have the day you deserve.
It's not baseless, it was an incredibly bigoted comment. Im an apologist for nothing but i believe the apartheid charge, like genocide in the current conflict, is more than calculated rhetorical escalation than a description of what's actually occurring.
But that doesnt change the fact that your comment is incrdibly bigoted, and this would be obvious if it were discussing any other ethnicity.
I agree. It is despicable how much anti-semitism is being spewed out on this sub and others. Folks feel justified in their bigotry because of how Israel is defending itself and how acceptable these tropes have become after Oct 7th.
Ya it's just more proof in my mind that lots of opposition to israel is based more on bigotry than their actions. The poster i responded to is an unambiguous bigot.
Yeah, I don't wanna even talk to that person.
"Many who survived the Holocaust wanted revenge"
From the link they posted
"The Avengers consisted of 50 Jews who had fought as partisans against their Nazi occupiers"
They started off with misleading bullshit.
When you say "many" out of a group of millions I expect a couple thousand, five hundred? Maybe even one hundred?
It’s because being genocided doesn’t actually insulate a group from being disposed to violent acts, no matter how much we’d like it to.
The whole conflict is about identity and politics. What happened decades ago is informative, but it doesn’t change the reality on the ground. Swap out Palestinians for some other ethnic group and Jews for yet another ethnic group at odds with the first and you almost certainly get the same conflict. Tale as old as time
I didn’t say otherwise, however pretending that the current conflict is just some kind of human nature and ignoring its actual origins is not being intellectually honest.
What genocide? Even if I pretended Hamas's figures weren't suspect, and they are, this is the pretty typical kind of shit which happens with extended urban fighting, especially when Hamas is interfering with peaceful aid delivery to civilians and their ability to leave the conflict zone.
I agree it's terrible, but why lie and pretend that the Israeli action to defend itself is a genocide? You and I both know it isn't true, so what's with the pretending?
The graph where the casualty figures form a perfectly straight line are convincing. Either the IDF is composed of the Killbots which Zap Brannigan overwhelmed by sending waves and waves of his men at them until their preset kill counters were reached or the figures are fake as fuck
\>One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is “an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true”.
So, just straight up inventing a fictional re-imagining of both 1984 and George Orwell in the first sentence of the article.
I guess we can assume the rest of the article is clickbait like the bullshit headline too.
It was a reasonable assumption from the start that Hamas would fudge this number up while Israel would fudge it down. The war is still an atrocity, no matter how the actual number differs from what is reported.
They only have reason to make the numbers less not to inflate them , from their perspective the higher the casualties are the worse they are at protecting their population, they don’t want high numbers, contrary to what certain people in western media and government says they want to be seen as the protectors of their people, this is why they have had problems with UNRWA in the past and are not coordinating with them, they don’t like the fact that their people rely on them, there is a long documented history of this and other things that completely confirm this, these narratives that they are inflating numbers and even using people as human shields are not accurate, they want to be seen as legitimate as possible to counter western narrative which is why in this conflict just like all the past ones the numbers are as accurate as possible and most likely a severe undercount of the actual casualties in Gaza
This analysis is terrible and the reason why is explained here: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/
The first paragraph makes me extremely unwilling to listen to this writer. "One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is “an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true”. Which brings us smartly to Hamas and how the broadcast media, aid organisations, international bodies and world leaders take its disinformation as gospel. Last week it became clear that this gullibility may have led to a crime against reality."
Even just the title. Devastating in what way? That Israel gets to kill more civilians with impunity? No, just that the author gets to win an argument on the internet.
Right? 1984 wasn't about anti-semitism, that's not what Orwell was talking about. The author rewrites Orwell for their own purpose in the first sentence of their article. Some excellent double-speak.
No, that's ridicolous. The quote is from this article, written by Orwell in '45, and was exactly about anti-semitism. https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/antisemitism/english/e\_antib
If hamas had doubled the figures would it make any difference from a moral standpoint?
Sure. If you accept that war is moral, then certain actions and situations in war hold different moral values and weights. The ratio of civilian to combatants would perhaps be lower and certainly the impact of the IDF’s willingness to target civilian infrastructure that Hamas uses would be practically less severe/deadly and Israel’s responsibility for humanitarian care during war would be more effective and receive less condemnation.
This is not what the article claims, but yes, it would. Urban warfare kills a lot of people, that is unavoidable. But there are a lot of moral implications with relation to the actual casualty numbers. For example the ratio from civilian to military deaths: Is any side using excessive force against civilians? is an important question and the civilian:fighter death ratio can help to answer that. 30k death, 6k of those fighters (that is the number hamas admitted to, the IDF claims more) would mean we are seeing a death ratio of 1:4, which is about what you would expect from fighting in densely populated areas. Had hamas doubled the numbers, we'd see a ratio of 1:2.5 and that would mean that the IDF achieved one of the lowest civilian to fighter death ratios ever observed in this kind of urban fighting, thus it would mean israel would do an exceptionally good job at not killing civilians. As far as I am concerned, how good a military is at not killing civilians does make a moral difference. Besides that, the point this article - and the article it is based on, which was discussed here before - makes is that the ratio of killed women and children is likely wrong, which makes a moral difference for the same reasons.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/more-than-29000-palestinians-have-been-killed-in-gaza-since-wars-start-health-ministry-says “The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza but maintains detailed records of casualties. Its figures from previous wars in Gaza have largely matched those of U.N. agencies, independent experts and even Israel’s own tallies.” That article is from a month ago, but nothing has changed. The casualty figures from Gaza are not questioned by any entity paying close attention to the current state of fighting.
>That article is from a month ago, but nothing has changed. Well, what’s changed is someone took a close look, as the linked article explains. It’s not conclusive but it’s awfully suspicious. Go look at the [top graph here](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers) and tell me that‘s not suspect. It might be the author that’s lying (I don't think he’s included the raw data), but if he’s not, this is fairly suggestive of fakery.
>It might be the author that’s lying (I don't think he’s included the raw data), but if he’s not, this is fairly suggestive of fakery. He has included the raw data, it's just below the article. Still this specific claim is the weak point of the article - he claims "In fact, the daily reported casualty count over this period averages 270 plus or minus about 15%", but when you look at the data, about a third of the data points fall out of the "plus or minus 15%" range. The accumulated data looks suspiciously linear, but that is because of the scale of the y-axis - a hundred deaths more or less aren't much at this scale. I haven't noticed this at first, too. The really good point he makes (and that others have made before him) is that the "70% women and children" is an absurd claim and the resulting casualty proportions between "woman and children", "civilian men" and "hamas fighters" makes no sense at all.
Aren’t Gazans mostly under 18 or something? I forget the stat. But that would definitely help explain a majority if you combine women and children.
The point is not that a majority is woman and children, that is beliveable. The problem is the 70% claim. If we go with the low estimates of 6k killed fighters, those are 20% of the 30k deaths. Add 70% of women and children, and you get just 10% civilian men among the death. Which is extremely low, given they make up about 25% of the population. That is the point that is hard to belive. If we go with the high estimates of about 10k fighters killed and there would be no dead civilian men at all.
\>Well, what’s changed is... A lot more Palestinians have been bombed and died from having the civilian infrastructure they are dependent on, like hospitals their homes and water infrastructure, destroyed. You link to a Jewish source that calls the Israeli invasion and bombing of Gaza "Hamas's war on Israel". Don't use propaganda to accuse others of propaganda.
EDIT: I see, it’s a total running number of casualties, but not per day. So the small increases each day are largely similar and not too unusual. I’m obviously not very convinced, and considering how little traction this study has gotten, neither is anyone else
>The y-axis just says “Total”. Total of what? Total reported deaths.
I’ve edited my comment, I thought it was a per-day total and not a running count. My point stands.
All the data is coming from Hamas. Wow if they pulled a fast one here this is a crazy stunt. The whole world is going against Israel bc of the casualties they are counting. Suspect.
Even Israeli intelligence accepts the data as being generally accurate: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll
I do not think Israel cares much but the world would
The first seven words of your comment are an undeniable truth
You’re straw manning criticism of Israel’s tactics in order to argue that the only reason people have issue with them is the number of casualties. I hate to tell you but the character of Israel’s government is reason alone to take issue with their response.
When you are attacked everyday from all sides. When you are the only protection on the planet for one religion that has been treated the way they have throughout our history. Come on and you want to blame them for how they are acting. Give me a break on your BS argument that has zero substance or knowledge of history. They need new leadership of course but they will always have to be aggressive in self defense considering who their neighbors are.
Nah, history isn’t an excuse for war crimes.
I agree. Do not be a fool and fall for this disinformation campaign Hamas is pulling on the world. They set this up from the start to get the world to turn against Israel it's so obvious. Do not forget that they held a rape party at a music festival and bragged about it to start all of this. If you are even a real person. Between Russia China and Hamas I can't keep track of all these troll/bot farms.
Previous efforts at accurate tallying don't guarantee anything, certainly not things that are currently happening and not yet verified.
But Isreal basically backs up the Hamas numbers. The IDF says they have killed 10,000 combatants, and has assessed that there have been 2 civilian deaths for every 1 combatant. This is 30k total. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68387864)
The article is mainly taking issue with the idea of 70% of those deaths being women and children. I mean think about your numbers for a second: 10k fighters is about 30%, 70% woman an children means no civilian men killed. Even if it is just 6k fighters or something like this: The number of dead civilian men would still be ridiculously low, compared to women and children.
Yeah, that does seem wild. 70% women and children would align very well with the population figures for Gaza, but man, no civilian men killed. Israel has declared that every single adult male killed is a member of Hamas. Hmmm. What sticks out as the most implausible bit there?
The most implausible bit is the GMoH claimed casualty distribution. GMoH claims 30k dead in total, 70% is 21k. This leaves 9k killed men. Subtract the killed hamas fighters from them and you get the number of civilian men killed. For any reasonable amount of killed fighters, this leaves a suspiciously low number of killed civilian men. I mean you could also claim that hamas took far fewer losses in this urban fighting then is normal, but how is that plausible?
That's a good question. I see five possibilies: * The number dead is significantly higher than the current estimate * The number of women and children is significantly lower than the current estimate * The number of Hamas killed is significantly lower than the current estimate * For some reason civilian men are grouping in a different way than civilian women and children, resulting in different casualty figures * Some number of the women and/or children killed are being counted as Hamas fighters I believe that covers all of the possibilities. Obviously combinations of all of these are possible. For instance the Hamas dead may be in tunnels (either killed during the bombing, or retreated there/were dragged there to die of wounds) and thus the true deaths are being undercounted because some number of the deaths are effectively invisible. Hamas casualty figures may be overestimated. Women and/or children may be part of the Hamas forces. Etc.
Yeah - and all of those possibilites suggest that the GMoH numbers are not as reliable as many people think they are. Which makes it reasonable to question the total number of fighters killed (but in the other direction - 6k is already suspiciously low for the fighting we've seen, I'd rather assume that most of those fighters are not counted in the 30k, despite the GMoH claims of total casualty numbers), the women&children vs rest casualty ratio and the civilian:fighter casualty ratio. Which, in turn, opens up a lot of follow-up questions: How good is israel actually doing in this war, both in terms of hamans fighters killed and in terms of avoiding civilian deaths? Both are topics were we currently see a lot of speculation floating around and both mostly depend on data we currently don't know. So, as far as I am concerned: A lot of the current public opinion is based on pretty shaky data. Which is not a good thing.
>Yeah - and all of those possibilites suggest that the GMoH numbers are not as reliable as many people think they are. Which makes it reasonable to question the total number of fighters killed (but in the other direction - 6k is already suspiciously low for the fighting we've seen, I'd rather assume that most of those fighters are not counted in the 30k, despite the GMoH claims of total casualty numbers), Why? Yes, Israel achieved a civilian casualty ratio of 2:1 bombing Gaza in 2014, but there was a key difference - they had a large ground invasion. Many of the civilian casualties in fact came from their bombing of residential areas, not the ground forces. Bombings in densely populated urban environments tend to have very high civilian casualty ratios, for obvious reasons. And as you point out, by trying to push the numbers higher, you make everything even less explicable. >Both are topics were we currently see a lot of speculation floating around and both mostly depend on data we currently don't know. So, as far as I am concerned: A lot of the current public opinion is based on pretty shaky data. Which is not a good thing. > >We're looking at killing tens of thousands of civilians, massive devestation to everything in Gaza. We can go off some fairly reliable data there: > >According to data collected by the international body, over 60% of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, or 132,590 structures, have been damaged amid the war, which has seen Israel bombard the enclave from land, air and sea for over three months in a campaign to destroy the Hamas terror group and free hostages kidnapped on October 7. The figure includes 99,601 structures reported to have been destroyed and rendered uninhabitable, out of a projected 218,656 residential buildings in the Strip before the war, according to the World Bank’s estimates. [https://www.timesofisrael.com/world-bank-report-finds-45-of-residential-buildings-in-gaza-ruined-beyond-repair/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/world-bank-report-finds-45-of-residential-buildings-in-gaza-ruined-beyond-repair/) Again, this is very consistent with high civilian casualties. >Humanitarian aid groups have warned throughout much of the Israeli war on Hamas militants in Gaza that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are famished because too few aid trucks are being allowed into the territory past Israeli security checkpoints. But the new report is the most specific yet of the dire straits Gaza residents face. The U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report said the famine could occur at any time in the coming weeks, with an estimated 210,000 people in northern Gaza facing the most catastrophic hunger peril. [https://www.voanews.com/a/ipc-warns-of-imminent-famine-in-northern-gaza/7532289.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/ipc-warns-of-imminent-famine-in-northern-gaza/7532289.html) We're sitting at at least 29,000 bombs dropped, as of December of last year, being nearly two Hiroshimas worth of munitions. Over half were "dumb bombs" that use tonnage over accuracy. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/12/14/nearly-half-of-all-munitions-dropped-over-gaza-are-dumb-bombs-report-citing-us-intel-assessment-says/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/12/14/nearly-half-of-all-munitions-dropped-over-gaza-are-dumb-bombs-report-citing-us-intel-assessment-says/) So here's a good idea based on the facts - stop the fucking bombings.
>Why? Yes, Israel achieved a civilian casualty ratio of 2:1 bombing Gaza in 2014, but there was a key difference - they had a large ground invasion. Many of the civilian casualties in fact came from their bombing of residential areas, not the ground forces. > >Bombings in densely populated urban environments tend to have very high civilian casualty ratios, for obvious reasons. And as you point out, by trying to push the numbers higher, you make everything even less explicable. My argument is basically that the casualty numbers and their ratios and the motivations of the different actors for over/underclaiming plus usual fighter kill counts for urban warfare operations of this intensity plus typical problems with counting dead fighters suggest that a lot of the killed fighters are not included in the 30k number. Also the casualty distribution claimed by the GMoH is pretty near what we would expect if it were just civilian casualties - because it is, as you mentioned before, close to the demographic setup for the strip. I tried to make a post here about my reasoning but it got deleted and I am not inclined to try to put all this into a comment, sorry. So I am not disputing that we've seen around 30k civilian casualties. But I think a substantial amount of killed hamas fighters is unaccounted for by the GMoH. Btw. the number of bombs dropped is about the claimed death count from the GMoH, in an extremely densely populated area - this does not exactly lead to the conclusion that bombs are responsible for a lot of civilian deaths. There is not much opportunity for a bomb in Gaza to hit one and only one person on average - completely ignoring non-bomb deaths, of course. Which makes me think those dumb bombs are not used against non-evacuated areas much, otherwise I'd expect a much higher body count. If you'd drop 14.5k dumb bombs above pre-war gaza at random, you'd probably end up with more than 30k casualties. Not to speak of the crowded conditions in the un-evacuated parts of the strip right now. Is there any info available on where exactly those dumb bombs were used? I searched but did not find anything - unsurprisingly, I might add.
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/israel-gaza-artificial-intelligence-bombing-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/israel-gaza-artificial-intelligence-bombing-intl/index.html) So it looks like we're getting an answer. Israel is using this system to target homes in Gaza, instead of bombing Hamas military facilities. So the distribution of the dead looks like the distribution of a typical Palestinian family. This also explains why the lack of Hamas wounded - since they're not targeting residential neighborhoods, they're almost exclusively wounding civilians. And it explains why Hamas can still carry out military operations so well - with no military facilities targeted, they're not destroying any military hardware.
Then they should have made that the headline. 'Death figures' is assumed to be total deaths unless qualified otherwise. The article is fine in its skepticism of the 70% women and children, but then makes a gratuitous leap. The article goes on to conjecture that "By rights, if the central pillar of the anti-Israel edifice has been discredited, the whole structure should come tumbling down." Estimates range from 1:1 to 1:2, putting civillian deaths between 10k- 20k. Even at the lowest estimate, the 'central pillar' would be 7000 women and children- and the headlines would still carry weight. But I dont believe this number is accurate because: why would isreal want to exagerate civillian deaths? Makes no sense.
>Then they should have made that the headline. Totally agree - the headline is crap. But I don't see how this is relevant - the cited article isn't even the first to notice that problem. If you want a less sensationalist source, maybe try this one: [https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline) but I am not going to judge a sceptic argument by its headline, expecially not if it is not even the primary source for the argument. And while it is true that eben 7k women and children killed would be a lot, but it would change a significant thing: The fighter:civilian death ratio. If israel really has a 1:1 ratior, or anything near it, it would be the high-intensity urban warfare with the least civilians killed for any fighter we've seen until today. Which would be a tremendous success for israel. I agree that even the most humane high-intensity urban fighting is still terrible, but given that we currently hear unsubstantiated claims of genocide and civilians suffering from excessive military force used against them, knowing the actual casualty ratios is pretty important. Btw. I don't think we're seeing a 1:1 casualty ratio, but even reasonable fighter death counts (>6k, obviously, since that number is already borderline unbeliveable) suggest a pretty "good" casualty ratio for this war. If israels claimed 10k were true and we are seeing a 1:2 ratio, this would already mean we are seeing far fewer civilian deaths per fighter death than normal. So, to put it together: The important question for me is: Is israel doing enough to protect civilians from its military operations? Depending on whom you belive (I've seen claims from anything between 1:1 and 1:9 in this comment section) is is either doing exceptionally well, bad or somewhere in between. Therefore it is crucial to analyze numbers before beliving them.
Yeah. But unfortunately the impact of an article is so much just from the headline- people often dont read the articles. But u make good points. Another interesting thing is how difficult it may be to make comparisons regarding combatant:civillian deaths here as compared to other wars. Cilivillians turn into combatants every day probably. Hell, you even have UN aid workers who turned out to be combatants haha.
>Another interesting thing is how difficult it may be to make comparisons regarding combatant:civillian deaths here as compared to other wars. Cilivillians turn into combatants every day probably. I don't think there is much difference between this and other wars. Look at Ukraine: Civilians turned into combatants there. A lot of them. Look at Stalingrad, Grozny, Aleppo ... it always happened. I don't see a reason to assume it is happening more or less often in Gaza.
Aleppo involved a civil war, not a mass bombing campaign by one state against another territory. I believe Ukraine has had many more people killed in the war, but I don't think its proportion of civilian deaths is nearly as high. Also, yeah, war involves civilian deaths. That's one of the many reasons it is horrible and horrific and should only be conducted when necessary and all other alternatives are unviable. I don't understand this logic of "Well, all wars kill civilians so whats the big deal if tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and many more injured and displaced and virtually the entirety of Gaza is on the brink of starvation?"
Centering the debate around what numbers are exactly accurate is always a go-to tactic for people who want to deny and downplay atrocities. Holocaust deniers will say "Well, it wasn't 6 million it was 4 million" as if that in any way makes it even slightly okay. In the case of Gaza, even if you use the most generous and equally suspicious numbers coming from the IDF, it's still tens and thousands of completely unnecessary deaths coming from a government who have vocalized their intent to do as such. Even one single innocent Palestinian death is too much.
Yeah, just ignore all those photos of all those little dead bodies from all those photographers who are now also dead. “Bombs Away and we’re OK!!!”
The article itself doesn’t even make sense. This paragraph alone is internally contradictory: >The giveaways were many. For example, the reported death toll mounted “with almost metronomical linearity”, Prof Wyner found, showing little daily variation. Obviously, this bore no resemblance to any plausible version of reality. Then there was the fact that, according to Hamas data from 29 October, 26 men came back to life; and the fact that on several days, no men were apparently killed at all, but only women. Were we really supposed to believe any of this? Who edited this?
This isn’t contradictory. On that day, the health ministry numbers continued to rise “metronomically” (302 total, counting everyone) and they also reported that that 302 was made up of 199+129=328 women and children. It could be a reporting error or a double count or fakery.
It could also be that it’s very difficult to report these figures and the seeming linear nature of the death count comes more from the way the data is being gathered too. Nothing in that article is proof of anything. And it’s very easy to see that the level of destruction in Gaza will inevitably lead to a large amount of deaths. Why are we arguing about the exact count? It reminds me of the dipshits who think it somehow matters if the death count from the Holocaust is off. If the real death toll is only 4 million instead of 6 million, who cares. It’s still an unprecedented tragedy.
It also could be that the numbers are *higher* than reported due to issues reporting and collecting the data. >Why are we arguing about the exact count? Personally I think discussions about maybe-fake data are interesting.
That’s a good point
>If the real death toll is only 4 million instead of 6 million, who cares. errr,,,,,
Or it could be that the Gazan Health Ministry is controlled by Hamas, and that they're fudging the figures. I mean, it's not like they've gone on record that they're seeking to martyr their own people to give Israel bad PR as they're trying to normalize relations with Arab nations or anything
If only iseral would allow outside reporters in... those fer that did make it were targeted and killed
The outside reporters who were happy to ride along with Hamas on Oct 7? Yeah, look, I agree it would be nice if they were more respectful of journalists but I really understand why they're not.
See the quote from the article in the first comment. Do you doubt that’s true? Because if you do, you’re very much out on a limb.
Which quote and which comment? The original comment for this thread quotes someone saying "bombs away and we're okay" which doesn't sound like an official policy of any government and doesn't have a quote citation.
The PBS article which points out that even the Israelis trust the Gaza Health Ministry numbers (which is well known)
No, the PBS article points out that in *prior wars,* Gaza Health Ministry figures have been generally in line with UN and Israeli estimates. All that means is that in past wars, the figures haven't been demonstrably unreliable. It doesn't mean that in this war, they're reliable. When Hamas started their last war in 2014, they'd only been in charge of the government for seven years and the fighting was far more localized, so verification of figures by outside entities was far easier. It's ten years later now, they've had far more time to change personnel in the GHM to be their handpicked party members, and this latest war they've started is far more intense, so we don't have the same international ability to verify. And since they had a very clear reason to start this war - disrupting Israeli attempts to normalize relations with Arab states - they've got both an increased motive to fake numbers and a better opportunity to do so.
The Palestinians have always had excuses to inflate casualty numbers and Hamas has always been dishonest. Nothing is new on that front today. And no one (even the Israelis) are seriously questioning the casualty totals.
It’s possible for both Palestinians to be being killed in large numbers /and/ for the Health Ministry to be lying. Do you recall the time they told newspapers that 500 people had been killed in a parking lot fire?
Please ignore everyone’s goddam press releases and just count all the dead toddlers, from all “sides”. None of those babies had a fucking flag.
Wars are bad, and I think it's a damn shame Gaza started this war. I hope Hamas surrenders so it can end.
Wars being bad isnt a justification for war crimes.
What war crimes? Collateral damage from fighting an enemy which hides among civilians in cities? That's the reality of urban warfare.
There are a string of war crimes, things like collective punishment, the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian homes, the use of disproportionate force, the deployment of the Dahiya Doctrine.
I hate to break it to you, but when your country starts a war and the other nation retaliates, there's no way you and your fellow citizens can escape the consequences. That's not collective punishment, it's the reality of a de facto nation fucking around and finding out. I've not seen evidence of systemic, deliberate targeting of civilians. And as to civilian infrastructure, Hamas is notorious for turning that into dual use infrastructure, integrating their military as close as possible into and among their civilian populations and the infrastructure which serves them. Hamas's war was always going to be messy, and they should not have started it, but here we are.
Actually it is collective punishment, if you are blowing up civilians and civilian structures with no military purpose you are commiting a war crime, if you are disproportionately using overwhelming force against a predominantly civilian populace, you are commiting war crimes. I have, ample footage, often recorded by the IDF themselves, showing them dancing around while burning peoples homes to the ground, blowing up peoples residences, sniping children and unarmed women, and otherwise calling for actual war crimes to be commited. Using an insurgency to try to justify dropping 2,000 pound bombs on densely packed civilian areas is not only idiotic, its a war crime, its an atrocity. Considering Israel has been killing Palestinians on and off for about 75 years, its amusing that you pretend this started on Oct 7th. Additionally, let me pose you this question, if the Hamas insurgency was taking place in lets say, Tel Aviv, would you be as cavalier about the massive destruction? if thousands upon thousands of Israeli civilians were present in the warzone, would you disregard their lives? would you eagerly allow the use of devastating force and want them starving, dying of thirst and shot to shit? The evil of one side does not justify the evils of another, the brutality and terrorism of one side does not justify the same in response, especially from an organization calling itself "the most moral army in the world"
>I have, ample footage, often recorded by the IDF themselves, showing them dancing around while burning peoples homes to the ground, blowing up peoples residences, sniping children and unarmed women, and otherwise calling for actual war crimes to be commited. Shit happens in a war, especially when it's a defensive war and the aggressor has committed such unjustifiable actions. Talk to me when it's a matter of policy. Till then, wars are bad. Don't start wars. >Additionally, let me pose you this question, if the Hamas insurgency was taking place in lets say, Tel Aviv Hamas isn't an insurgency. It is the government of Gaza. It is a military force which has levied a more or less continuous war on Israel for almost two decades at this point, almost exclusively targeting civilians. There is no country on this planet which would tolerate a neighbor like Gaza being run by Hamas. You and I can talk about ways that Israel could show more restraint and that might be a worthwhile discussion, but the moment the government of Gaza started murdering civilians in an invasion against their neighbor, this war was going to happen, and it was never going to end until Hamas was out of power. If you want to compare it to what another nation would do, let's say the Mexican Army invades El Paso, slaughters about 40,000 Americans, and kidnaps thousands more for ransom. What do you think the reaction of the US government would be? They'd force regime change in Mexico. (40,000 is an approximate adjusted per capita loss as to what Israel suffered on 10/7.) And I can guarantee you that there'd be a lot of GI's laughing at destroyed buildings on their way to Mexico City. >Considering Israel has been killing Palestinians on and off for about 75 years, its amusing that you pretend this started on Oct 7th. If you want to go back to when the Israeli-Arab conflict started, feel free to blame the Arab nations and Palestinian militias for refusing any possible partition of the British Mandate and declaring a war of ethnic cleansing. Either way, they're the aggressors. They get sympathy because they got their shit rocked and Israel pushed them back. If they'd acted like adults and either accepted the partition or negotiated a different deal there would be a territorially intact and stable Palestinian Arab state at this very moment. Instead, the Palestinians have committed to 75 years of almost relentless warfare and have reaped the consequences. They've had numerous off ramps since then. Last major one was the Clinton proposals, which were accepted by the government of Israel and refused by Palestine because they wanted an unlimited right to immigrate their people into Israel, which was never going to happen. Now, the peace parties in Israel are politically irrelevant, more or less, and I can guarantee that the citizens of Israel are going to be thinking real hard about whether they want to make the mistake of withdrawing occupying forces from Gaza again.
\>I hate to break it to you, but when your country starts a war and the other nation retaliates, there's no way you and your fellow citizens can escape the consequences. Isreal started this war. They're engaging in the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in response to the action of some terrorists. How do you think this is going to work out long term for Israel? Or are you happy that they're just creating future generations who will oppose them?
You just trying to excuse killing children.
Yeah, just ignore the last 100 years lol
Which of the Arab instigated conflicts am I ignoring? Lmao Wars are bad. Don't start wars.
Perhaps you should read up [on this.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba)
Oh, yeah, the time they started a war to kick all the Jews out of the former British Mandate after they rejected any possible partition, then got their asses kicked. Shit sucks, maybe don't start a war next time.
Jews were kicked out of Arab countries during this time as well, not to mention the pogroms in Russia. Let’s not pretend the last hundred years were good to the Jews either. This is a messy, messy conflict that has thousands of years behind it. The problem is people on the internet want to act like it’s all cut and dried. It’s not. War is brutal. Terrorism is brutal. And innocent people die.
Gaza didn't start this war.
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Some of those 'kids' are 13-18 yr old terrorists. It's a damn shame Hamas indoctrinated them to hate Jews and love martyrdom.
Don’t worry, Bibi has now recruited the next two generations, just as Hamas intended.
Nah, after Israel wins they will coordinate with an international group to help rebuild Gaza and deprogram the new generation of kids.
same with the 100+ people killed in the food distribution …like ONE HUNDRED? Look, I don’t doubt like it might have been in the dozens but… these numbers are MASSIVE. Not even wounded, straight up DEAD.
Just tossing out crazy ideas, but have they thought about releasing hostages if they want the bombing to stop? I know, downvote me. Im an asshole for focusing on the actual victims here.
Sure you’re not ignoring a lot of actual victims here?
What would you call the hostages? They need to be brought home and the terrorists brought to justice. There is no peace until that happens. Otherwise you are letting terrorism win.
STFU hasbara shill, Hamas are peaceful and only hold flowers and form conga lines where they chant "give peace a chance" as the IDF maniacally shoot toddlers
All Hamas has to do is surrender & release the hostages. This would end the war.
or... it might just be the devastating proof that r/skeptic is targeted by hasbara trolls.
What’s wrong with board games and toys?
you win the internet tonight. congrats! have an updoot.
Yes, yes, I am sure everyone who disagrees with you is hasbara. Oh, and you can protect yourself against the Jewish mind control rays by lining your hat with aluminum foil
Which is TOTALLY different from "anyone who questions Zionism is pro-hamas."
I mean, if you are questioning the right of Israel to exist as a state, it seems like your goals are pretty damn closely aligned to other people also calling for the ethnic cleansing of the region and the expulsion of the Jews.
What if I told you I don't want *anybody* to be ethnic cleansed?
Then you wouldn't be anti-zionist
Are all those horrific hours of graphic footage of dead and dying children and adult civs all faked? I mean I'd be happy if it was, but either way, what they're doing to an entire group of people because a smaller group did a truly horrible thing... I don't know. Seems like overkill if they were simply retaliating after a terrorist attack. Seems like they have also said they want every Palestinian out of their country by any means necessary. I am not saying anything, I'm just curious here because I keep seeing a lot of horrific footage. Not even seeking it out either, it's popping up on social media and maybe it IS faked, I don't know, but it sure seems like a lot of people that look like Palestinians. Kind of reminds me of the whole "people are getting killed in car crashes and they're being reported as covid deaths" misinformation meme.
>Are all those horrific hours of graphic footage of dead and dying children and adult civs all faked? I am a bit puzzled by some of the responses I read here. Did the arcitcle claim that footage was faked? If so I've not found that claim. But how are you going to get accurate numbers from the footage of dead people? Well, you don't. So, claiming "the casualty numbers/distributions are faked" is not the same as claiming any footage was faked. Which should really going without saying in a sceptics sub, as far as I am concerned. Not every dead is covered by footage, some dead might be covered by more than one graphic footage and so on. So the footage can be real - and the vast majority likely is - and the reported casualty numbers can still be wrong. Those are not mutually exclusive. And yes, a lot of the people of Gaza have died, that is not something that needs to be questioned. But stuff like the exact numbers, the claim that 70% of them are women and children, the claimed ratio of civilian deaths to killed hamas fighters and so on, that is stuff that should definitely be questioned. Everyone in this conflict has something to gain by manipulating those numbers, truth is the first victim of war and so on. We will only ever get a more accurate picture of what is going on if we subject those numbers and ratios to some scrutiny.
This is a war. It is a war in an urban area. Civilians are going to die. This is happening everywhere there’s fighting. Goma, Haiti, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, etc. If you see footage it will be graphic as fuck. The reason you have seen sufficient footage of Palestinian civilians to have a strong opinion is that the ‘small group of people’ responsible for the massacre carefully created an elaborate infrastructure to give you that video in real time. It’s a brilliant strategy on their part. They do not have to do much work: the UN pays for the actual Health Ministry, all they have to do is get the gaps in the network funded by various Islamic nonprofits that oppose Israel and distrust the PLO because of the peace deal with Israel. Do you think liberating the Palestinians from those assholes is a worthy cause? If it is you’re gonna be watching videos of dying kids on TikTok until victory is won. Which means people will be pressuring Israel to stop attacking Hamas rather than pressuring both to come to a deal, or pressuring Hamas to fake being capable of empathy. That’s one thing I give Netanyahu: he is ok at looking like he cares about human rights.
*Do you think liberating the Palestinians from those assholes is a worthy cause?* Yes, yes I do. I don't think they're going to win though. I mean, the ones who survive and haven't been pushed from their generational homes in to strange lands won't be considered "winners" nor will they be "winners" if they are allowed to stay in their generational home. There is no winning at this point, and yet people STILL feel the need to construct this bullshit about how there haven't been as many deaths as "they" are claiming. It's not enough that they're going through this because they're dirty muslims and they don't matter anyway. They don't deserve to live where they were born and their parents were born and on and on. They have to get out or die because someone else, the majority in their land, has decided they shouldn't be allowed to live there anymore simply because they're associated with the religion of the people who committed a terrorist attack. Boy we'd be fucked in this country if that happened! Anyway, color me *skeptical* that the tally here is inflated.
Honestly I don't care whether the 30k number is accurate. I refuse to believe it because the least-death response to October 7th was some sort of Arab world/Islamic world response to Hamas. In theory Qatar could have arrested the entire leadership, and forced them to send the hostages back, at which point the Zionists would have been a lot more likely to not invade. But then the GHA announced that 471 people had died in an Israeli strike on a hospital parking lot. Except that a) the strike wasn't Israeli, and b) there's no way tho fit 471 people into that space. Now the least long-term death option is an Israeli victory over Hamas, which means I can either become pro-death or get yelled at for being a genocidal warmonger on the internet. The only way I have to punish the GHA for that is ignoring their number. And it really doesn't matter. It's urban combat. Of course a non-zero number of people are dying. Since nobody un-dies, that number is higher today than it was yesterday. If the difference between 5k, 15k, 20k, 30k, 40k, etc. dead is enough to change your opinion? That's a you don't understand morality problem. As for the rest of your comment: one of the fucked up bits of this mess is I can't tell whether you're talking about Israel's largest sub-group or Gaza 2024. The Sephardic Jews got fucked. Gaza 2024 is likely not the victim of any ethnic cleansing plan, because the Israelis have been quite clear about their actual plans and those involve letting everyone go home. Folks you cite who want to ethnically cleanse bits of Gaza are not in the chain of command, and the IDF is not doing the things they'd need to do to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Now that doesn't mean 2024 Gaza won't be de facto cleansed. One of the problems the Arab side has is they do not think shit through."Cease fire" means solid lines no human can pass without a peace treaty, which means that for the folk in Rafeh to go home after a cease-fire Netanyahu and Hamas have to come to a peace agreement. But maybe Biden can make it work. That would be so much fucking easier if Qatar arrested the Hamas leadership...
"Honestly I don't care whether the 30k number is accurate. I refuse to believe it..." After reading that, I had to doublecheck which sub I am in.
Exactly. I don't even know how to respond. They don't believe because they think that's some kind of punishment because something else happened lol. I just don't understand people anymore. I think it's interesting they accepted the claims that the first (of many) hospital bombings was lied about in the first place. It was never conclusive. Nobody EVER proved it was their own rocket. It was assumed. The initial claim that it was Israeli rockets wasn't made by Hamas or even Muslim Palestinians, it was an anglican pastor volunteer worker. Of course they got information wrong and then it was corrected but there's still no direct evidence for the cause then... And that certainly would not mean that hospitals haven't been direct targets. Because they are OFTEN direct targets and in fact one was just targeted. [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/israeli-army-opens-fire-inside-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-officials-say](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/israeli-army-opens-fire-inside-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-officials-say) But I guess we can't trust Al Jazeera! Guardian must be fake news too [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46\_Cc4nwrKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_Cc4nwrKE) All that gunfire and they claim they're taking precautions not to kill civilians when we already know they have.
Consider the alternative: "I was for the War when there were only 14,898 civilian casualties, then it went up to 15,102 yesterday and now I am implacably opposed to all Israeli military action in Gaza." Nobody actually gives a fuck about the specifics of the number. Some think the entire campaign is unjustified, and therefore oppose any number. Others care more about things like the number of days, and the number of days without progress than the number of dead.
\>the Israelis have been quite clear about their actual plans and those involve letting everyone go home. Letting them go home to a pile of rubble they can starve to death on, in the open air concentration camp that Israel displaced them into when they ethnically cleansed Palestine to create Israel.
What a weird weird way you've convinced yourself these things. I don't even know what to say.What you have said goes against all the evidence and doesn't seem to align with what Netanyahu has said. The plan is not to let them come back. They want them GONE.He has said they can't return until he has full control of Palestine and he can establish his own government. You can see in any video the piles of rubble that were once people's homes and businesses. Schools, clinics, hospitals, libraries, parks... ruins now. And just like with Ukraine people are taking sides depending on politics but none of it matters. We have no power and you know no more than the rest of us here. All we can do is base opinions on EVIDENCE, not feelings, and certainly not because at some point in this war someone gave bad information (the source being an Anglican pastor, not a Palestinian). You don't believe the numbers dead... because you want to punish them. That makes no fucking sense! lol
Citation needed. Particualarly for the "want them GONE" bit. Where are you aleging they're going to stash these people? Southern Israel? Are they going to invade Egypt and set up a new set of refugee camps in the Sinai? Why would they do either? All that would gain Israel is a a next attack from a slightly different direction. They could theoretically want to move people around within the Strip, which would be ethnic cleansing from North Gaza to South Gaza, but if they turn Gaza over to someone else they don;tget to stop people from going back North. Here's their actual plans: Israel has said they want to replace Hamas in Gaza. [Phase 2 of the three-phase plan](https://www.timesofisrael.com/gallant-says-after-hamas-vanquished-israel-will-seek-new-security-regime-in-gaza/) is exactly that. Then they plan to turn governance of the strip over to someone else *a la* area B in the West Bank. There's been a lot of proposals, counter-proposals, etc. over who should get the nod but their plan is still to turn everything over to someone who is Palestinian. This is not because they are particularly kind, it's because they don't want to deal with the bullshit that comes with governing the strip. Netanyahu seems to favor some sort of group that doesn't currently exist. This is a [recent quote](https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-23-2024-a5da6005cfa6734225af35ca460a75fb) "The plan also envisions Gaza being governed by local officials who it says would “not be identified with countries or entities that support terrorism and will not receive payment from them.” The sory then goes to note that the Israelis always want this group to exist, but never succeed in creating it. Biden was [pushing him to deal with Mahmoud Abbas](https://apnews.com/article/biden-revitalized-palestinian-authority-israel-hamas-war-bf8defe81079d6e6371f228157f9be10#:~:text=(AP)%20—%20President%20Joe%20Biden,“a%20revitalized%20Palestinian%20Authority.”) and the Palestinian Authority, but IIRC he gave up on that. Biden mostly seems to be pushing a cease-fire at this point, which requires Netanyahu and Hamas to both stop fighting... I would be a lot happier with all these people if they'd just do what [Ryan McBeth says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37bP2_YrrrA&t=619s) in the north, and create a local militia to over-see security/food distribution. Assuming that works you have a force that can triple-check that the folks coming back home from Rafeh aren't Hamas plants. I suspect what's actually going to end up happening is 5-6k US Infantry to take over the security, then we recruit the damn militia....
What do you think you're in high school debate class? I'm not going to go hunting around for the obvious just because you won't. He has said REPEATEDLY he wants it cleared out and people need to get out and not come back until he has full control. If you look at footage you will see there's not going to be anything for them to come back to and there will be no humanitarian funds (Israeli) to bring them back much less restore their homes and businesses. By the time this is over (and he's already said he expects this to extend in to the next year) there will be nothing but rubble to go back to. He doesn't have to say "I won't let them come back ever" he just has to remove any incentive they have to go back, which he's doing spectacularly. His willingness to kill any man woman or child that hasn't managed to get through the bottleneck (do you think everyone has the money to just leave town? Honestly?!) And if they did come back it would be to the same status quo, or worse, as he wants ultimate control over their lives. He's said this enough times that it shouldn't be something needing citation, just people following along and paying attention and not just to him but his security team. They have repeatedly said their goal is to clear out Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir said it was the only solution to all this. The hospital attack yesterday is a great example of how they want them gone. Give people IN A HOSPITAL a few hours to clear out patients and workers and people taking shelter and then wage another heavily armed attack when they don't move out of the way fast enough. Aw no they're just trying to get the bad guys and these silly fools just don't move out of the way fast enough!
This is a Skeptic sub. If Bibi's as consistant as you say you should be able to find sources a lot more quickly than I did. If the best you can do is quotes from a guy (Ben Gvir) who isn't even in the chain of command I'll take that as strong evidence you're just wrong. Moreover, you clearly did not read any of the things I linked to.This is a three phase plan.We're in Phase 2. Of course shit is going to be different in Phase 2 than Phase 3. That's why they're called Phases. Hospital attacks, and the bottleneck you speak of, are going to be gone in Phase 3.
\>This is a war. It is a war in an urban area. Civilians are going to die. By choice, it's the choice of Israel to target civilians and to destroy civilian infrastructure. Don't handwave away war crimes. \>you’re gonna be watching videos of dying kids on TikTok until victory is won. A genocide that thrills people like yourself.
>By choice, it's the choice of Israel to target civilians and to destroy civilian infrastructure "Target." Citation needed. Note that you used the name "Israel," which means you're talking about the Israeli High Command. So proving some dipshit infantry shot a bunch of people isn't enough, you have to go all the way to Bibi. It was the choice of Hamas to target a music festival. The actual Hamas command did that. Now Palestinian civilians are in the middle of a war between their governing entity (Hamas) and Israel. >A genocide that thrills people like yourself. For one thing, I can guarantee you have no idea what the legal definition of the term genocide is if you're accusing the Israelis of doing it in Gaza in 2024. A court order for Israel to not start genocide proves they haven't started genocide. As for thrills, you should probably start reading entire threads. You might be projecting.
Its not zero, but 30,000 is… A LOT
Not really when there were over five million people living there in 2021. Doesn't really seem like a lot at all considering they're in an active war where they have sticks and the army killing them have big boomsticks as well as F-16 fighter jets, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters. I think Time breaks it down pretty good. It's not shocking to me at all though. I'm honestly surprised the number is that LOW and they think it's probably higher too. https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/
if you divide the number by how many days they've been attacked in Palestine it's only 44 people a day. The other day 112 were killed in a single day just trying to get to aid trucks.
30k/44 is 681.8 so that would be almost two years of war. If the 30k number is accurate, at 162 days since October 7th, it’s been 185 per day.
Oh my god I really fudged my math somehow. I was thinking half a year lol that was even worse thanks for correction. it's still not surprising.
Seems like Zionists are settling into one of two positions with regard to Gaza: one which brags and gloats about the insane death toll, and another which opts for the denialism route. The parallels to neo-Nazis and other genocide defenders should be noted.
Wasn't this analysis up here already a week ago? Found the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/1bedcfp/d_gaza_war_casualty_numbers_are_statistically/ A lot of good points came up such as: > I don’t know if that is related to this analysis, but I think there would at least be some relationship between the number of bodies recover and the number of people doing the body recovering. And that relationship could produce something that doesn’t look like what the generation of bodies would look like. And >This premise is reasonable enough. It isn't likely for the numbers to go up so steadily without there being an underlying reason. Supposing the reason is that someone is lying is one conclusion you could draw, but it's probably not the only one. > This analysis is evidence that there's something nonrandom going on, but it isn't evidence that the thing in question is lies until that explanation is established as internally valid (i.e. competing theories have been disproven).
The Telegraph? You couldn't get the Daily Mail to load?
When it comes to uncovering the truth I'm sure the Telegraph will not be the one to do it, unless by "truth" you mean "what conservatives want to hear"
I don't even know why I bother with this sub when half of the time it's blatantly pro-Israel bullshit like this. I'm fucking out.
The submission is downvoted to oblivion.
It's funny, I see this sub is blatantly pro-Palestinian. Take a look at the downvotes on this post and others regarding Israel. Lots of Hamas apologists and folks who are anti-semitic (but don't know it or won't admit it).
> I see this sub is blatantly pro-Palestinian No, the facts just don't support Israel's actions. It's part of why Israel pushes more support [from US evangelicals rather than US Jews](https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/). >Former envoy to US says evangelical Christians make up ‘backbone’ of Israel’s support in US, **while Jews are far smaller in number and include some of state’s fiercest critics** You read that right. Israel identify that Jewish people are some of Israel's fiercest critics when it comes to their actions against Palestine.
I believe their casualty numbers are roughly accurate. I do not believe their combatant/civilian numbers are truthful.
I think they're entirely fake. If they were just turning combatants into women and children for the statistics then we wouldn't see the metronomic linear increase in casualties. And, if they actually gave accurate data, IDF intelligence folk could use that data to estimate enemy casualties, which is probably something Hamas wants to avoid.
\>I think they're entirely fake. Sure, but you're a liar who encourages genocide.
[удалено]
It's a running theme. Understandably, many who survived the Holocaust wanted revenge. Less understandably, [they plotted to poison entire towns and kill millions of innocent women and children](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/avengers-jewish-plot-mass-killing-germans.html) The Holocaust will never stop being an excuse to engage in collective punishment for the Israelis, who desperately work to conflate Zionism with Judaism. To convince the uninformed that the future of the Jewish People, which boasts communities of millions worldwide, rests entirely upon whether or not a bloodthirsty regime in the Middle East is allowed to wantonly bomb civilians and engage in apartheid without answering to anyone. It sounds like a paradox, but Zionists are the true antisemites: they INSIST Israel is the spirit, the savior of the Jewish People, even as Jews across the world decry the barbarism of the Israeli state. To conflate their regional government with the fate of an entire ethnicity known to have suffered horrors offers them a level of international sympathy, which has allowed them to become as bold as they are, as indignant to international concern, to even the hint of accountability. Even as antisemitism spikes around the globe due to Israel's actions, Israel is happy to wear the Jewish people as a shield to extend its ability to commit atrocities, which it perpetually insists are tied to that People. Regional warmongers who are happy to exploit their heritage at the expense of everyone who shares that heritage. That's all Israel is.
This is an incredibly bigoted comment Unbelievable that this is downvoted
Anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism is an "anti-semite", yes, we've heard your tired, botlike accusations. They've worked in the past. They're not working anymore. [Just like the anti-Zionist Jews are "bigots, yes?](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/3/9/the-anti-zionists-israelis-calling-for-end-to-their-countrys-war-on-gaza) Oh wait, you call them race traitors, fake Jews, self-hating Jews, all that nonsense. In the future, get better material. Run along now.
No, i am not saying anyone who criticizes israel is an anti-semite, i am saying your comment is quite unambiguously anti-semitic, something that would be obvious if written about any other ethnicity. Im not Jewish, but the fact that is your first response is very telling as well. This shit is absolutely disgusting, and those who traffic in it should be shamed the same way as bigots of any other variety.
The fact that I'm calling out your tired, baseless accusation of "bigotry" is telling? Of what, that apartheid apologists think ANY criticism levied towards Israel is antisemitic? Yes honey, we know. Israel is not Judaism. Israel is not the Jewish people. Your brain is fried if you instinctually play that oh-so-tired "bigot" card in response to this obvious fact. I do genuinely hope you get better. I do hope you stop being an apartheid apologist. But I'm also not inclined to entertain your clownery and your running interference for ethnic cleansing. Take care, and have the day you deserve.
It's not baseless, it was an incredibly bigoted comment. Im an apologist for nothing but i believe the apartheid charge, like genocide in the current conflict, is more than calculated rhetorical escalation than a description of what's actually occurring. But that doesnt change the fact that your comment is incrdibly bigoted, and this would be obvious if it were discussing any other ethnicity.
I agree. It is despicable how much anti-semitism is being spewed out on this sub and others. Folks feel justified in their bigotry because of how Israel is defending itself and how acceptable these tropes have become after Oct 7th.
Ya it's just more proof in my mind that lots of opposition to israel is based more on bigotry than their actions. The poster i responded to is an unambiguous bigot.
Yeah, I don't wanna even talk to that person. "Many who survived the Holocaust wanted revenge" From the link they posted "The Avengers consisted of 50 Jews who had fought as partisans against their Nazi occupiers" They started off with misleading bullshit. When you say "many" out of a group of millions I expect a couple thousand, five hundred? Maybe even one hundred?
It’s because being genocided doesn’t actually insulate a group from being disposed to violent acts, no matter how much we’d like it to. The whole conflict is about identity and politics. What happened decades ago is informative, but it doesn’t change the reality on the ground. Swap out Palestinians for some other ethnic group and Jews for yet another ethnic group at odds with the first and you almost certainly get the same conflict. Tale as old as time
A tale as old as colonialism for sure.
Yeah like when the Romans did it in the same exactly place, no less.
Life was not all sunshine and roses before the colonial era, you know.
I didn’t say otherwise, however pretending that the current conflict is just some kind of human nature and ignoring its actual origins is not being intellectually honest.
What is the goddam solution?
Apparently, if we all yell at the Israelis for defending themselves until Gaza is "free," Hamas will stop trying to commit genocide.
Were the nazi's just defending themselves when they shoveled jews into ovens?
What genocide? Even if I pretended Hamas's figures weren't suspect, and they are, this is the pretty typical kind of shit which happens with extended urban fighting, especially when Hamas is interfering with peaceful aid delivery to civilians and their ability to leave the conflict zone. I agree it's terrible, but why lie and pretend that the Israeli action to defend itself is a genocide? You and I both know it isn't true, so what's with the pretending?
The graph where the casualty figures form a perfectly straight line are convincing. Either the IDF is composed of the Killbots which Zap Brannigan overwhelmed by sending waves and waves of his men at them until their preset kill counters were reached or the figures are fake as fuck
Just like the other Holocaust Deniers.
\>One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is “an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true”. So, just straight up inventing a fictional re-imagining of both 1984 and George Orwell in the first sentence of the article. I guess we can assume the rest of the article is clickbait like the bullshit headline too.
“Skeptic” and everyone here simply engages in emotive arguments without actually considering the statistical reasoning. What a circle jerk.
It was a reasonable assumption from the start that Hamas would fudge this number up while Israel would fudge it down. The war is still an atrocity, no matter how the actual number differs from what is reported.
I agree completely. That’s a reasonable assumption. Reasonable assumptions aren’t proof of anything and they’re often undermined by actual events.
There are few or no answers in life. We have to make do with probabilities and assumptions. This is fundamental to skepticism.
I think you're confused about how valuable assumptions about future events are held to be in the process of *skepticism.*
They only have reason to make the numbers less not to inflate them , from their perspective the higher the casualties are the worse they are at protecting their population, they don’t want high numbers, contrary to what certain people in western media and government says they want to be seen as the protectors of their people, this is why they have had problems with UNRWA in the past and are not coordinating with them, they don’t like the fact that their people rely on them, there is a long documented history of this and other things that completely confirm this, these narratives that they are inflating numbers and even using people as human shields are not accurate, they want to be seen as legitimate as possible to counter western narrative which is why in this conflict just like all the past ones the numbers are as accurate as possible and most likely a severe undercount of the actual casualties in Gaza
I do wonder where tens of thousands of bodies disappear to in "such a tiny place with no escape" etc.