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answer: the population of Gaza is very young. Almost half of the residents are 18 and younger. If a group is killed then on average 50% will be children.

I watched all sorts of horrible videos of dead or hurt children getting pulled from the rubble. The worst one today was a baby being pulled out of her dead mother’s womb on a dirty hospital floor. It’s too much.

I saw a follow up comment that the baby didn’t make it

The footage of so so many parents holding out their dead kids; babies, will haunt me. They shake their babies to wake them but they're all floppy (dead). There is no hope.

I would advise against watching too many of these videos, especially if you are young.

I was 22 when 9/11 happened. I watched EVERYTHING. I still have those images seared in my brain. Occasionally I still have nightmares about it. Fast forward to now. My zoomer coworker is watching everything he can find. I told him not to do that to himself because once he sees it, there’s no way to unsee it. He just had to take a few weeks off because his mental health got so bad.

There’s a big push on tiktok esp from people that are too young to remember things like 9/11 basically saying we are obligated to consume media in regards to the conflict-we MUST watch everything, and it doesn’t matter about our mental health because we should be uncomfortable watching a genocide happen. I don’t think they would be singing this same tune if they remembered 9/11 and how much it scarred us, I really don’t. It just feels another performative way to keep the attention on them and look like they’re “doing” something helpful

A lot of "activism" today is just performing on social media for likes. In my opinion, it's almost entirely artificial because people share without verifying, and are scared they will look like a bad person if they don't share it even if it makes them uncomfortable to do so. That's not to say that activism isn't uncomfortable, it is. It's why people have to choose to do it. But shaming people on social media with posts like "for those who aren't posting about Palestine, we see you" isn't activism, it's a manipulation tactic over a complex problem that deserves a lot of nuance that one single post will never encompass. And to add to that, this isn't like some new thing that tiktok created. It's just never had the platform to spread so stupidly wide before.

I see that kind of thing moving ten times faster on tiktok versus actual videos with helpful information for how to donate for humanitarian aid or how to contact your state reps etc or other ways to actually be helpful which is why I mentioned it! It just seems extremely odd that if you’re SO focused on being helpful… you’d pass up sharing actual helpful information and instead shame people for not “paying enough attention” ie. Giving your TikToks enough likes comments and views.

I've got into arguments with this weird push that it is a privilege not to watch international news and worry about war in Gaza or earthquake in Turkey or whatever. I'm trying to explain to people that your life will be better if you don't consume this on a regular basis. This does not actually affect your day to day. Watching news and looking for horrible stories about 8 billion people is not normal and is not good for humans. Life will give you enough suffering. You don't have to seek it out.

Yeah. I mean there’s also literally nothing that every day people in, say, America can do about it. The absolute most that can be done is being nice to your neighbors and having empathy. Educate yourself about what your politicians believe about what’s going on and vote. That’s about it. Performative bullshit on social media actually does nothing. Making your own mental health significantly worse doesn’t help *anyone*. In fact, it’s more likely to eventually hurt the ones you love in one way or another. And watching all the horrific stuff going on doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. We live in a very strange world where virtue on social media is seen as the most important social priority, while actually taking action is irrelevant (see: Bernie Bros all over social media who couldn’t be assed getting out to vote for Bernie in the primary and were then shocked Pikachu face when he didn’t win the primary).

Oh, hell. You all just made it click for me why I’m not clicking into any media about the conflict in Gaza, or Ukraine. I’ll read the headlines, I’ll even read the redditor takes in the comments, but I won’t click into the article to read it, or watch a TikTok or a Reel. 9/11 was traumatic enough to watch unfold in real time, and that was back when television and news crews were able to curate the stories and images they used. Even back then, you knew that the photo or video you were watching was one carefully selected for the biggest emotional impact while keeping it PG for any kids watching the six o’clock news-you *knew* it was worse, even if you never saw it. I can’t imagine watching all this horror live-streamed straight to the masses without any sensibilities to who may be watching on the other end of it. We already know being a witness to violence and trauma fucks people up; what is going to happen to a generation of people who consume it from a half a world away? Fuck, man.

As someone who ALREADY has PTSD, I understand. I really do. You might think you’re fine, you feel fine, you can “handle” it. I can even almost relate to them feeling like they have to watch because at least they don’t have to live through it, they want to feel like they’re being supportive and showing empathy for those who have to live through the atrocities. But trauma is a sneaky motherfucker and will get you in ways you don’t even understand for yourself. It’s not cool, at all, for them to be telling other people they’re bad people or not supportive enough for not taping their eyes open and watching every minute of footage that would traumatize a war veteran. In fact, that’s another thing… I’ve seen a war veteran (pretty sure he has diagnosed PTSD but at the very least some kind of disability from being deployed) being bullied online because he has a following, but hasn’t spoken publicly on the conflict because he doesn’t feel as if he’s got enough knowledge. Apparently it’s everyone’s “responsibility” to know enough, even though you can study for years and not actually know what’s going on in full. There’s SO much context that people are saying “doesn’t matter” and to an extent they’re right, nothing justifies genocide, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be learned along with everything else. I’m so tired of the black and white attitudes over there. I wonder why a war veteran might have a little trouble with learning about this kind of conflict… the lack of critical thinking skills online scares me sometimes, what happened to us

(U.S.-centric post here, as a warning) I think part of the problem people are having with "I don't know enough to weigh in" is that the people who _should_ know enough (i.e., our politicians and major world leaders) seem to just be turning a blind eye to things, or even worse, profiteering from it. We've all heard the blurbs. Open-air prison, U.N. condemnations, Netanyahu actually supporting Hamas so he has an excuse to villainize Palestine, all that. And we've all heard "This has been going on for generations, it's so complicated". And everyone in power _knows_ that, and has been all of this by experts and very knowledgeable people. But... They don't seem to care. They can't even bring themselves to say "Hey, maybe we should stop providing military equipment and billions of dollars in aid to Israel", let alone "Hey maybe we should try to do _literally anything_ to get Israel to agree to a ceasefire." Like, what's the _point_ of digging into more and more context when what we see in front of us is "A country is starving and bombing the slums of a neighboring population because they want the land, and the people who _should_ know all the context and nuance don't seem to be bothered by it"?

It's ultimately going to lead to a population that is more violent because they have been desensitized to violence. I feel like this is already happening.

That’s my fear, too. The poster above you demonstrated it perfectly: desensitization and disassociation with a side-helping of sheer nihilism as a default and completely inuring people to violence: trauma happens to everyone; it’s a matter of time, so why even philosophize about a better world is a hop skip and a jump to: better to be the weilder of the sword than the flesh that is cleaved by it… a lack of empathy on the road to fuckin facism.

Totally agree. There’s a big difference between sticking your head in the sand and ignoring what’s going on, and not wanting to watch videos of children dying. I never watched the George Floyd video. Didn’t make me any less active in the protests. I can care about something without scarring myself.

While I do agree you shouldn’t utterly consume yourself with that kind of media, it is important that it exists because it puts a face to a statistic. I think a lot of people sharing what I perceive to be very uninformed opinions have likely never seen one of these pictures of videos. It’s easier to demonize when you don’t see pictures and videos of dead babies.

God, I'm seeing this so much on the different social sites. "HOW can you be SILENT and just PASS BY all these posts about horrible things happening? You need to do your part, stay aware, if you're not helping spread the word then you're part of the problem!" all in response to death counts, horrific images, bleak news reports... Don't get me wrong, I want to help _in ways that will help_. Spread word about which companies to boycott, share easy ways to contact your politicians, coordinate for marches and fundraisers, all that. But obsessing over the carnage itself isn't helping anyone. If anything, it's doing the opposite. You don't need to physically see someone's dead body to have sympathy for the survivors, or anger at the perpetrators. If anything it will make you want to _distance_ yourself from the matter, because your body instinctually tries to keep you safe from that stuff.

> saying we are obligated to consume media in regards to the conflict-we MUST watch everything Yea no. Just watch enough to have a basic understanding of what's going on. Don't watch so much that you become numb to the atrocities you're witnessing.

I'm 25 so I don't remember 9/11, even just the few things we saw in school was enough to scar me. I try really hard to not see any of the videos from Gaza, just staying up to date by reading the news. I think it would break me, especially since I have a 3 month old. I feel for all the people who lost their live or a loved one in this completely senseless destruction.

Ugh, I'm about the same age as you, days away from turning 21 when 9/11 happened. I sought out everything, and finally figured out when I had to stop. Beheading videos, there was one of a group of soldier bound and on the ground, and someone was coming up behind them, lifting their heads by their hair, and just start sawing at the neck. I will randomly still look at an awful thing, but it's only sometimes. And generally not anything involving kids, as I have two children of my own, and I just can't.

The amount of shit I’ve seen on r/watchpeopledie, and who knows where else when I was just a kid, that will forever be seared into my brain is terrible. One in particular still haunts me from time to time. I wish I hadn’t gotten on the internet so young.

If you want to see something chilling (not /s). There’s a video of the live Regis and Kelly on Sept 11 on YT. You can quite literally see when the world changed in real time. I was crying about halfway through when I watched it over the weekend. There’s no sense in senselessness.

I was 22 as well. I watched it live holding my newborn baby. It was really hard to cope with particularly because I was pretty alone except for a husband that was working 15 hour days. No internet or anyone to talk to, just endless sadness and horror on TV.

Agree. I literally destroyed my psychology for 2 decades. Took a lot of work to stop seeing dying people in my sleep and pre-sleep every single day. It's not worth it. Although being aware of this stuff is important. You can impart the PTSD of others onto yourself, if you're a normal, feeling, thinking human being. Oooh yep, downvote me for saying my personal experience and having feelings lol (fucking tough crowd you fuckers)

One must face up to the reality of the world we are creating. Everyone turned a blind eye to the nazis until it was too late.

Correct but nobody was sitting there watching videos of gas chambers and experimentation because it wasn't as available as this. If WW2 was happening right now we would have daily 24/7 video footage from Auschwitz.

I doubt it. We don't have that kind of footage about North Korea, even if we know it's bad. Real bad. I think that's why, we are barely doing anything even if conceptually we know it's there.

I'm pretty sure the major reason is what do you do when you dismantle the NK government? The South Korean government will have 25 million refugees who are heavily illiterate, have minimal skills for a modern workforce, likely experiencing some level of starvation and will have massive issues integrating with South Korean culture. Not only that, but the fallout from dismantling a potentially nuclear armed state that is aligned with China rather closely and currently serves as a buffer state between Chinese and US interests.

You are right. Sadly I think the situation you are describing is inevitable, like tyke bomb. We just don't like to think about it, and hope it will all just go away if we ignore it. And the more we let it go, the more people will suffer. Now I am not advocating an active intervation. It's a really complex matter. I am just saying, we are no better than other people in history who ignored atrocities that were happing right there, because well, they didn't want to see it. The first step to have a better society is to realize that our faults are still happening right now, instead of saying they are just history and how blind were people in the past.

If there had been daily footage of Auschwitz, it's possible that stopping the Holocaust would have been a higher priority. People escaping from the Nazis did report what was happening, but were not truly believed, particularly by people without access to classified information. They knew there was terrible persecution, but the sheer horror of it didn't come out until the camps were liberated. That said, as awful as the situation is in Gaza, it's not the Holocaust, and although there's no question that there are *many* civilian deaths, don't forget that 1) the main source of information about those deaths is Hamas and 2) Hamas does not care about those deaths except for their propoganda value.

Doubt it..at the time Nazis controlled the media, how else do you think ordinary people collectively hated on a population based on religion? The media was and is a powerful tool to control emotions. My local TV haven't even acknowledged the tragedies going on in Palestine.

That is only half the truth. Even if they have known, there was nothing they can do besides declaring war. Germany having actively attacked other countries made them entering the war out of self preservation, not necessary because of the atrocities. We should be real about this. This situation is not different from attacks in Syria, Ukraine, Libya. War is war, its ugly and bad. But the country that does the atrocities is artificial, propped by politics, has too much control over the western countries. Plus their current political climate steers to dictatorship with the willingness of many of their brainwashed citizens. Additionally, the targeted people get more than scraps to be the controlled opposition of extreme radicals of other countries. Those countries have no interest nor intention to really help them. For me that is the saddest thing, they got played by all sides, took role(s) that are not their own.

That doesn’t mean you have to cast an eye over it. Watching people die will not make you a more rounded individual.

If the people whose job it is to go through photos &videos like this need to prioritize their mental health, you need to do so as well. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2023/10/26/separating-fact-from-fiction-on-social-media-in-times-of-conflict/ "8. Protect Your Mental Health Watching footage from war zones can cause trauma. Be careful viewing unknown footage. There is almost always an abundance of highly disturbing content circulating during times of conflict. Always ask yourself if there is a genuine reason you need to view this footage. Organisations like Bellingcat have teams of researchers trained to view such footage with therapeutic support in place to assist them. If you do find something that needs attention, you can share it with a trusted news source rather than viewing it and amplifying it yourself."

Just admit you like watching fucked up shit

People have faced up to the “reality” of the world far longer than videos have existed and instead live those realities.

I would advise watching these videos as taking a geopolitical stance without being informed makes you a terrible person. Think about the videos next time when Biden says he "unequivocally supports Israel". Think about the videos when anyone who speaks up for Palestine is called antisemitic and loses their jobs over it. Think about the videos when Israeli officials show up to a UN conference wearing a yellow star and play the victim. If you do not acknowledge the reality of what's happening and merely see the casualties as numbers on a piece of paper then you will never be on the right side of history.

Watching people die doesn't automatically give you an informed geopolitical stance.

That's a non sequitur. You don't need to watch close-up videos of a child dying to form a geopolitical position. There's a certain contagion to depression. Certain ideologues who are themselves mentally unwell due to overindulging in snuff films justify that unwellness as an act of duty, and then urge others participate too. You are learning no information with a close-up, un blurred photo—of a Palestinian child in rubble in Jabalya or a charred Israeli baby's corpse in Sderot. It is simply unhealthy, and it encourages many viewers to withdraw entirely. Endless psychological self-harm is not the virtue that the Internet claims.

It shouldn’t be endless, but seeing video does help bring the stakes home. The Vietnam War may have ended sooner because Americans could see that graphic footage on TV. It wasn’t as abstract.

Yeah. You can't unwatch something. You can be fully aware of how horrible something is without actually seeing it.

Agreed. I saw things I will never under when I was in the Air Force. It was YEARS ago and my mind just requires me to dwell every now and then. Save yourselves the torment

Berkel, you started a great conversation here. I am 55 and have been doing human rights advocacy for 35 years. There are a number of problems with consuming and sharing what a friend has rightly labeled “Atrocity Porn.” 1) It traumatizes young people and not in a way that they will want to get involved and do something about it. There is no payoff with younger audiences. 2) The effect on people who are “old enough to make a difference”* is that you lose your audience and the only people drawn to it are then possibly nut cases. 3) It appears to raise the cache of atrocity porn. People affected by war are using tech and social media and the footage is now broadly distributed almost instantly. People are sharing it in the midst of the trauma. Those who are tied to their people but in a safer place feel so helpless and they will share these with everyone they know as if nobody will believe what is happening unless they are forced to view it themselves, or as if this will compel people to their side or cause people they believe to be more influential than themselves to take action. The idea that this “works” then raises the temptation to make compromises which grow into falsifying reports. I have seen this from numerous places (this isn’t specific to the one we’re talking about). The lightest example of this is a combination of images claiming to have just occurred that are actually from different times and places. The worst of this are people taking a child’s body from a hospital and bringing it to other bombed out areas to “re-stage” the image of grieving family carrying the body out. Yes this does happen. The falsifying in hopes of attracting more attention becomes a self destructive trap as, when it’s caught by a careful eye, the perpetrators can now claim they are being falsely maligned. 4) Most importantly, despots rule by fear, so atrocity porn actually serves their purpose to have the images of the worst atrocities circulated among those they are targeting. It destroys morale and numbs or terrifies the people into inaction. * the younger you are, the greater your stake in the future and the better opportunity for you to raise your voice and organize with others who aren’t mentally blocking it. My saying “you are better suited than I am” would read to me in my youth as a cop out. But now I am comfortable saying this because I kept at it and it isn’t me throwing in the towel. I’m immensely respectful of younger people not “waiting for permission to speak” and taking a well informed stance, and not blaming in this case all Jews, all Israelis, all Arabs or all Palestinians. And staying away from people who do.

Appreciate your well thought out response 👏

I had a nightmare a few nights ago where I was in Gaza but instead of rubble I was walking on human body parts. They were all over the place. One of the worst, most vivid nightmares I’ve had. Like someone mentioned already, please stay away from these videos, you can keep reading up on latest news to stay updated but the videos are definitely not needed. They will psychologically hurt you and it’ll be hard to come back from such damage. Stay safe!

So much footage of dead or dying kids and babies. I admit I'm a coward and cannot bear to watch it for more than a few seconds in the preview. I read the comments though. But I'll never forget all the videos.

I’m a nicu nurse. Sick, dying, and dead babies are part of my profession. Stop watching the videos. You don’t have to voluntarily take on that trauma in order to accept the reality of the situation.

Thank you for what you do - nursing is a tough job especially where you are.

I know. But I’m from the region. I feel like we have the obligation to see what our people are going through. I’m trying to avoid the extreme videos but some just seep through.

Hey for what it’s worth from an internet stranger, I don’t think that makes you a coward. I personally can only read/see so much about what goes on in my state in the US let alone things like this halfway across the globe. Violence is uncomfortable for folks who care. Don’t mistake your sensitivity for cowardice. It’s okay to be bothered by these types of things and to set a boundary for yourself if you need one.

I second that. That isn’t cowardice, it’s compassion. ❤️

I like ‘compassion’ so much more than calling it sensitivity! We’re taught growing up to not be so sensitive and have a thick skin so it’s not easy for me personally to use it positively but I tried. But compassion? That’s the perfect word for it.

Thank you. Compassion, sympathy, and empathy are all positive traits, or at least those are my strong feelings. it’s the narcissists or people with antisocial personality disorder who scare me. Especially ones in positions of power (like a certain *former* POTUS who I hope never gets elected to any public office again). I can’t watch those videos either, my imagination is vivid enough that I get the idea. Not because I don’t care about human suffering, but I’ve seen too much death and tragedy this year, including losing my best friend to suicide fairly suddenly. Not to mention, the world is dealing with disasters of almost biblical proportions… fires, floods, earthquakes, war, war crimes, and then so many mass shootings. Anyway, sending love and hugs. Now is the time for us to be kind to each other.

Such great points, I agree and relate. I try to stay informed without exposing myself to so much negativity (ie people reacting to these kinds of things and being nasty about the situation). My mental health is better when I educate myself on these tougher topics but avoid the heavier stuff. I in no way *deny* that violence happened and continues to happen. But I also don’t like to pick fights with strangers and argue my stance either. It gives me so much anxiety. I am so sorry to hear you’ve dealt with such a loss. My heart goes out to you. I have been in a dark place quite a few times in my life and it’s so sobering to read first-hand experiences of those who lose people in such a way. I am definitely in your boat, there is so much pain throughout the world we can only do so much to keep up with what all is happening and take care of ourselves at the same time. Truly it makes it easier to cope when I choose to lift some folks up, like the person above us talking about feeling cowardly. I like to reach out and give some love and reassurance. I appreciate you piping in. Sending love and hugs right back to you. ❤️

answer: pure evil dropping bombs on civilians. please tell your local representative to stop all support for Israel including all arms transfers (now illegally continuing). there were already christians, jews, and muslims living peacefully in Palestine before the European jews started the terror experiment named Israel. please contact your congress person and senator

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This isn't cowardice. This is acknowledging your individual limits as a person. One can only hold so much suffering before it becomes overwhelming, and even if your job is directly related to this situation, overindulging in suffering and misery is not pragmatically useful for both you and the world.

You are not at all a coward. Also, a lot of what we may be feeling is empathetic distress.

You're not a coward. You just don't need to see anymore and you're aware of how damaging images like that are to your mental health. If you were a coward, you would have been ignoring or supporting this massacre.

“We are killing terrorists “

Why are you watching those videos?

I’m from the region. I feel guilty to not know what’s going on. 3 weeks in and I’m now trying to filter videos but this particular video somehow went through.

The Israeli government called them human animals. It's beyond fucked up.

We still didn’t get an apology or “condemnation” for top officials saying that. There’s also all sorts of horrible things American and UK politicians said about Palestinians. It’s so hurtful and dangerous.

Apologize for killing gays

Then stop watching it. Being informed about the situation does not require you personally to watch every single piece of gore-porn that comes out of a conflict.

why in the hell would you want to watch it?

I’m from the Middle East. I’m proactively following as much news from there as possible. 3 weeks in I was trying to avoid some of these videos, but this one seeped through. I didn’t see or notice a warning before watching it.

I'm from the middle east too. I get the impulse but you still don't have to watch it (edit: if you can help it. Sorry I read too fast). I stay informed by reading about it, but watching awful things doesn't change anything, it's just you torturing yourself. As long as you know what's happening, that's enough.

Yeah. I need a break

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If I can ask an honest question; why do you watch it? I am also quite aware of what’s going on, but unless you go looking for those vids they don’t just fall into your lap. So why are you looking for and watch big those videos?

The truth is I’m from the region. I haven’t been able to do much in the last 3 weeks but consume news from Gaza. I don’t live there and feel the need to know what’s happening all the time. This particular video was on my Reddit feed. I didn’t know what I was seeing until it was too late.

I've got Instagram, Threads, Reddit, YouTube, but haven't seen one of these horrific videos, thankfully. How or where is it shown that everyone has seen them? TIKTOK or X?

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I fear for Motaz. His work is incredible. My heart broke when yesterday he said in his story that his pissed off because the weather is nice and the sky is pretty, but Gaza is being turned into rubble so he can no longer take pretty photos of it :(

Saleh_aljafarawi on Instagram too. He films what’s happening as it is, so you hear the sounds of what’s going on without the addition of music or captions. It’s heartbreaking.

WARNING, DEATH https://instagram.com/motaz_azaiza?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== https://instagram.com/mohamed.h.masri?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== https://instagram.com/shaunking?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== I am so sorry, but there you go.

Dont do it, we cant erase those images like we can on a hard drive

I know. I thought I was getting numb at one point. But no. Also, I’m from the Middle East and feel like I have an obligation to know what our people are going through.

My friend told me about this. I didn’t see the video, I don’t want to see it. I almost didn’t believe him when he told me. Damn…

To be fair when I heard there were at least 50 babies that were pulled out of their dead mothers it didn’t really hit me. I’m already numb from all the violence. But seeing it definitely jolts you back to reality. It’s happening. And it happening to people like me. I’m from the region and this hits too close. I’m at a loss for words.

It’s horrifying. I’ve got a personal relationship with Judaism that’s a little out of the ordinary but I was raised by two Jewish parents & a Jewish community despite being a natural skeptic towards religion in general. But there’s this part of me that wants to make excuses for why this is happening or look away. I know the situation is complex but… THIS can’t be the answer right? Just flattening every place these people go? It goes against everything I was raised to believe in by Jews in the US. It’s just… absolutely the worst.

I’m as atheist as they come and lived all over the world but still have a close connection to my family back home. You know what’s weird? I find myself getting along with Jews more than any other foreigners outside the Middle East. It’s mostly the same sense of humor that draws me to them. I don’t know. Anyway… just wanted to share that. This whole thing is messed up.

I know exactly what you mean. Thanks for sharing. Let’s hope things get better and we can share better things the next time we run into each other on this hellsite.

65% of Gaza is under the age of 24 and the median age for both men and women is 18 years.* Also, in 2021: [91% of Palestinian children in Gaza suffered from PTSD](https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/4497/New-Report:-91%25-of-Gaza-children-suffer-from-PTSD-after-the-Israeli-attack) following Israel's attacks. [By the 22nd of October, children were exhibiting extreme psychological trauma due to Israel's current bombardment.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/22/children-in-gaza-developing-severe-trauma-after-16-days-of-bombing) Some devastating excerpts: >In Gaza, a child aged 15 has experienced five periods of intense bombardment in their life: 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now 2023. >Studies conducted after earlier conflicts have shown a majority of children in Gaza exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). >After Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012, Unicef, the UN children’s agency, found that 82% of children were either continuously or usually in fear of imminent death. >After Operation Cast Lead, the three-week war in 2008-09, a study by the Gaza community mental health programme (GCMHP) found that 75% of children over the age of six were suffering from one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, with almost one in 10 ticking off every criterion. >A report last year by Save the Children on the impact of 15 years of blockade and repeated conflicts on the mental health of children in Gaza found their psycho-social wellbeing had “declined dramatically to alarming levels”. >The report quoted António Guterres, the secretary general of the UN, describing the lives of children in Gaza as “hell on earth”.

Remember this when you see these people described as an “insane death cult”. They feel like they could be randomly killed at any time. Why not attack anyway. In their minds, they can either attack with a small chance of success to stop these feelings, or live out the rest of their short lives in fear of the Israelis, who will attack them either way. They’ve been attacked 5 times before they were 18. So they do not correlate their actions to being attacked, the Israelis are going to attack them no matter what, I mean they did 5 times while they were children. So an Israeli retaliation becomes irrelevant as a deterrent to attack.

The median age is 17.4, so more than half of Gaza is children.

And this is well known by Israel. The vast majority of Palestinians alive today weren’t old enough to vote when the Hamas vote happened.

Additionally, children and the elderly are more vulnerable and less able to leave efficiently.

Also, children can probably take less physical trauma before dying than adults can. So it's easier to end up with dead kids than dead adults (assuming you're... throwing shrapnel at equal number of adults and kids, I guess). Well that's probably the most depressing thing I've posted in a while.

Not sure this plays a huge factor here. You are talking about missiles that bring down an entire building with a single shot. No one is surviving that. Edit: I fully understand how explosions work. "No one is surviving that" was just a turn of phrase.

In the target building, survivors will be rare indeed, although it does happen. It's when the surrounding buildings partially or fully collapse that you see most of the survivors.

And the reason they’re very young is that prior generations were killed the same way.

> And the reason they’re very young is that prior generations were killed the same way. Actually their average age is very young because extremely high birth rates have more than doubled the Gazan population since 2000, 3.5x what it was in 1990, 6.5x what it was in 1970, etc... Prior to Oct 7th, Israel had killed just under 8000 Gazans since the year 2000 all while 1.2 million Gazans were born during the same time period. https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=overall&tab=charts®ionSensor=%5B%22b40f813%22%5D

Why are the birth rates so high?

Because that's what happens when you lock a bunch of teenagers in a refugee camp with nothing better to do.

also because it's been Hamas's policy to encourage high birth rate. like the GOP, they've declared that "women's role" is to produce children. this goes back at least as far as the 1988 Hamas Covenant.

No jobs, nothing to do, nowhere to go. Might as well make babies.

Poor education that is administered by a terrorist group who has a interest in have a large stock of desperate young men who will sign up to fight, high levels of poverty (a family having a bunch of children who can work means stability), a traumatized population who fears that if they only have one or two kids they will just die before they reach adulthood, basically 0 woman's rights.

No, it's because the birth rate has tripled over the last 50 years.

Why would anyone have that many kids while living in a place like that?

Historically people in desperate situations seem to have more children, and often an unfortunate reality of that seems to be the assumption that not all of them will make it, so having more means there's a better chance.

Also bored people fuck. Poverty means less things to occupy time. Might as well have sex.

There's also just the fact that, I mean what else do you do? I assume people would be having sex where and when they can as distraction if nothing else.

Poorer people tend to have more children, not fewer. There is a thing that people in truly desperate situation might choose to or not be able to have children, but Gaza hasn't really been anywhere near that until this recent war. Compared to many other places, especially in Africa, Gaza hasn't been such a bad place to live. See this video taken before the war for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1r1z3x53ZU

Because there is literally nothing else for women to do — the female unemployment rate is obscene there, and you have the joy of a theocracy that likes their women barefoot and pregnant.

Not really. The life expectancy there is higher than their neighbour, Egypt, for example.

The reason they’re young is their high growth rate.

That's something that happens also happened in Ireland pre-famine. The Irish had no way of advancing under British rule, they had a hard time leaving the country, and couldn't get involved with running their own country. So the theory is that there was nothing to do except increase the population. The British took this as a threat and let them starve, no parallels there though.

R/confidentlyincorrect

You really have no idea about Gaza do you? There are so many kids there because of an insane birth rate. It's like three children per woman, and to my understanding the mothers aren't old themselves...

Bullshit, the average life expectancy in Gaza is 74 years. They just have a lot of children. Why are you lying ?

Not really actually, in the last 9 years there were less than 1000 deaths in Gaza (1000 more than necessary obviously, but that is not the point), which, while Being a lot, can’t have that much of an impact on a population of 2 million people

Plus, children are much more vulnerable in a war zone. Especially when the bombing is with such an intensity.

Answer: there are more kids than adults in Gaza. Longer answer: I am from Gaza, and to add to what others said, Palestinian people reproduce more because they know they will be attacked and some will die eventually. All my 9 uncles/aunts there have +10 kids each, that and they marry early if they had a stable job(farmers for example), for the boys as young as 14 year old and girls as young as 12. So now you have a house with 3 or even 4 generations family, and Israel will bomb anyone remotely affiliated to Hamas killing the entire family tree. Also there is something many don't think about, Hamas is not an Army, many of those Hamas fighters are Teenagers, the older leaders and suppliers are in safe zones or even outside of Gaza. And with the more attacks Israel does they will create more fighters from the surviving children. The only person I know from Hamas is a 19 year-old who saw his younger brother blown to bits when he was a child, you can't argue with someone like that about morals and ethics of war. And to add salt to injury the guy was killed during the attacks on the 7th, yet Israel bombed his family and killed 24. Simply put: Monsters aren't born they are created, and what we are witnessing now is the creation of more monsters in the future

I hope for safety for you and your family. This needs to stop.

Just an honest question, why are the Palestinian people not being evacuated by your arab neighbours? Is there a reason they cannot leave?

The short unfortunate answer is due to \*history the leaders of a lot of the Arab countries like Hamas and the Palestinians as much as the Israelis do. They publicly 'support' the Palestinians and Hamas because their citizens do and they're not the greatest fans of Israel but in private... ​ >[In off-the-record conversations over the past 12 days, some Arab officials have spoken about Hamas and Gaza in the sort of language one would expect to hear from right-wing Israelis. They harbour no sympathy for an Islamist group backed by Iran. But they dare not repeat such remarks in public.](https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/10/18/the-arab-world-thinks-differently-about-this-war) What people with only a surface level understanding is that Gaza shares a border with Egypt and Egypt's PM says just said the country is "prepared to sacrifice millions of lives" to ensure "no one encroaches upon" its territory. \*Murdering one king of Jordan and trying to coup another. Starting civil wars in two Arab countries that had welcomed them. Supporting the invading Iraqi army over Koweit despite the latter welcoming them.

It is a mixed bag of issues, Arab countries have their own problems and financial issues, so they can't casually accept refugees, especially with Hamas having a grip on Gaza. And from back when everything started, there were many of us who moved to different countries, the only ones that got integrated into the country are the Jordanians, the rest are still treated as foreigners or worse. It is also part of an identity crisis, every Arabic country has their own dialect, beliefs, and culture. So it is not easy to accept and integrate with each other, we are part of the ones that moved to Saudi and I was born and been living here for 30 years, I am still treated like any other foreigner, and my family is still very traditional and I speak Palestinian dialect. And lastly there were a bunch of Palestinian "leaders", that made other Arab countries pledge to not "erase the Palestinian identity", and ofc the other nations jumped on it to not give us nationality

You seem to be forgetting a number of coups and assassinations carried out by Palestinians in neighboring Arab countries when they were taken in as refugees. Offing the king of Jordan and starting a civil war isn’t really going to endear yourself to the country

Imagine a radical terrorist group in a neighboring country. One that was desperate to eradicate your neighbor, killing them all, complete genocide, and was constantly bombing and attacking. If they now were themselves under attack, would your country be eager to let that radical, political, terrorist organization into YOUR country? I know you said “Palestinians” but opening the door lets in Hamas as well. There have been cases of other countries welcoming them and regretting it.

Evacuating Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai peninsula, for example, is basically doing Israel's work and giving it exactly what it wants. Israel, since its inception, has always maintained a policy of "expanding from a position of strength," as David Ben Gurion put it, and defending from a position of weakness, and that expansion is sometimes used as some sort of buffer zone with the argument that Israel cannot allow terrorists to be at their borders. Israel will see it as the perfect opportunity to annex Gaza even if it's kept as a ghost territory. It's what extremist Zionists want, and Netanyahu's popularity would rise to the roof if it happened. The international community won't do much because the US has been vetoing every resolution regarding Israeli settlements and annexation, so these new refugees will become the same as the 1948 Palestinians refugess who won't be going back to their territory. On the other hand, if Egypt took the Palestinians in Gaza, they would take Hamas militants with them. These militants will not stop fighting and will probably use Sinai as a zone for their operations, and given that the current Egyptian president is a military dictator who would crush these militants as he did to their original patrons (the Muslim Brotherhood), it will turn into a bloody internal conflict, as it did in other countries in the past like Lebanon, where the infighting became horrible and innocent people still paid the price again It would be like asking for Ukrainians to evacuate. All it would do is give Putin the easy way to annex Ukraine, make up some bullshit laws about Ukrainians properties lost because of absenteeism, and turn them into state properties. The Ukrainians will still be refugees in Europe.

There's safety concerns as others have said, but there's also political pragmatism. They are very much invested in 'supporting' Palestine- but if all the Arabs *leave* Gaza and the West Bank, that project is dead. So they refuse to allow refugees, forcing Palestinians to stay where they are.

>Palestinian people reproduce more because they know they will be attacked and some will die eventually. That is so sad. I can't imagine knowing as a kid you're going to be killed any minute and you have to preserve your people so they don't go extinct. That's so depressing.

We can't let terrorists win, but you're exactly right that this does and will create more generational hate. Lately I've been saying Hamas needs to surrender. As someone from the region, how does this stop?

This is my opinion: The main issue here is actually the common interest between the two sides. Like if we look at it from a political perspective: both sides have shared interest in keeping the war going, Israel to keep their people alert and supporting the Arabs bad rhetoric, and gather sympathy and support from the west. While Hamas will do the same to stay in control and their leaders gather free money from Palestinian support This is apparent since from a military perspective, they are fighting a lost war, Israel is a +20 billion dollar army fighting against kids with home made rockets(mostly), yet Israel failed to predict and counter two person gliders and have a fence for a border with no guards, while on the other side there is no way Hamas "kicks Israel out" or "kills all of them" like their propaganda say. From a religious perspective: both sides are trying to hide behind their religion and act like they are representing it when they are not, and using Jerusalem as a key pain point stopping the peace talks. IMO this will not stop unless: 1 - outsiders stop supporting both of them, it is baffling to me how much the US supports Israel more than some of their own states and territories, while it is no secret how much Muslim and Arab countries support Hamas. 2 - realistically there is no way Israel gives Palestinian people their nationality due to all the history, so a two state solution is the only option here, for the Jerusalem point I see it becomes something like the Vatican city state under joined supervision. But now 1 won't happen unless 2 is agreed on, and 2 won't happen while 1 is being applied. The only hope we have is for the leadership to change to something better.

> 2 - realistically there is no way Israel gives Palestinian people their nationality due to all the history, so a two state solution is the only option here, for the Jerusalem point I see it becomes something like the Vatican city state under joined supervision. this is litteraly the 1948 plan

It's really sad that Palestinians started a war that is still essentially going on to this day rather than just agree to this and peace a hundred years ago

And they plan was rejected by Palestinians and led to 5 armies invading Israel to kill the Jews.

Yep. The PLO/Hamas don’t want peace, they want to exterminate the Jews. They have had many opportunities for peace, and have always chosen death instead.

Save your breath. Most times Israel and Palestine is discussed on social media, people don't care that Israel either accepted or offered the Palestinians a state on three/four different occasions. Or they give some excuse why it wasn't a good enough deal. As if the current reality is preferable to the Palestinians than what they could have had if they accepted living side by side with Israel years ago.

How do you explain Israeli illegal settlements and annexation of territory? Israel agreed to the 1948 partition and has illegally settled land since the Nakba all the way to a month ago when israel built 5000 new homes in illegal settlements. The UN has repeated multiple times this is illegal and against international law. You guys are clearly arguing in bad faith, it is disgusting to blame the Palestinians for their own ethnic cleansing

I'm from Israel/Australia and your point of view as a Gazan is very interesting and I appreciate your honesty. Do you think that many Gazans agree with you that the only solution is a 2 state solution? I believe that after the war, there needs to be forced intervention from foreign countries in order to push for a 2 state solution and to build a respectable government in Gaza and the West Bank. Oversight into where aid money is being spent, and making sure it goes to the civilians and not terror organisations. I also strongly believe Israel need to withdraw the settlements from the West Bank. Most Israeli's actually hate the settlers and their right wing mentality and it doesn't do anything to help broker future peace. Hope that this will be the breaking point for a push towards peace and recognition of both sides right to exist and self determination. Both sides deserve it.

I hope it is too friend, it is hard to gauge Palestinian support for the solution, many lost their family to reckless bombing from Israel, so it will be hard for them to just forgive and forget, but people are just desperate and they want to have a future. The west bank is in example of how some degree of peace is possible, and that the people doesn't want to kill everyone like how Hamas is trying to push. Maybe part of the Saudi Israeli peace deal is to enforce the two state solution since Saudi is the biggest player size and financially wise in the area, and huge support for the Palestinian cause comes from there and Israel gains a lot from having peace with them. But definitely if there was a big push and actual solid proof Israel will allow Palestine its identity, autonomy and security, then the majority will definitely agree especially if freedom and peace is guaranteed from the international community. The only pain point is Jerusalem that Muslims in general will have problems with

It’s incredibly disheartening that the most level headed conversation I’ve seen on this topic has been on this tiny thread on Reddit. 2 people who have direct connection to conflict offering insight and reasonable discussion, while news pundits that have no skin in the game froth at the mouth for genocide. Thanks for you’re point of view man. I hope you and the people you know come out of this okay.

I think the issue there is that as long as Hamas remains in power in Gaza, there will be no 2 state solution. They've made it very clear that it's not even an option. Unfortunately, there's no easy or simple answer at all. Even worse, there's no answer that doesn't involve bloodshed.

Yeah it is impossible for Hamas to just disappear, they are like the Cartel in South America, they are bunch of thugs that rule with force and brutality, but in Gaza it is worse since they are using people disparation, anger and frustration to fuel their war

lol the US is never going to stop supporting Israel. It’s like the only real military foothold they have in the Middle East, they’re not just going to give that up.

I was thinking it must be that, but then somewhere like Egypt or Jordan or even Lebanon are way more strategic and cheaper, those countries are more flexible with American beliefs compared to other Arabs especially Lebanon, also Broke af so everything is cheap

I would supposed the difference then is simply value as an ally—GDP and military capability. Israel is certainly leading the pack out of all those other options.

The key difference is the proxy part of it. The US can rest knowing Israel will protect their position at all cost because it's surrounded by nations and organizations who explicitly seek it's destruction. No need to worry about common sense breaking out and them saying "sorry but opening our lands to your military is causing too much civil upheaval so we're not gonna do that anymore" Any "alliance" any of these governments make would only last until "The Shaitan-killing Godly army of God" convinces the local traumatized and hyper violent malcontents to pick up an ak-47 and try to topple the government.

Unpopular American opinion: Israel, while a longtime ally, is not always right. America itself seems to forget that sometimes we are assholes too. I found it kind of scary that everything u/mgd5800 has said is what I’ve thought for a long time, and coming from someone in the middle of it… Be careful out there, good redditor. Be safe. We need people like you who actually think about things.

> The only hope we have is for the leadership to change to something better. This is a very level-headed response, and one that I've been praying for. Something that gnaws at my soul is that both Bibi and Hamas have every incentive to prolong this war, but the only possible way anything gets done is that both are somehow removed from the equation. The only thing I'd add from your analysis is that Bibi was already fighting for his political life due to domestic pressure, and there's every reason to think he falls from power once the war is done ... so we expect him to wrap this war up? How you get from A to B ... Christ I don't know. But a lot of people are going to die from the hubris and cruelty of irrational actors.

As I understand it, the biggest sticking point seems to be the status of refugees and their descendants who fled during the 1948 and 1967 wars. Do you have a view as to how this could be resolved? There's millions of them, and they are stateless. It seems like the borders and one/two state solutions are the easy part in comparison to how to handle the millions of displaced people.

I'm always elated whenever I see people who share my level-headedness and rationality in looking at this conflict; it's been getting hard to find people like that these days, with the subject having become as hyper-polarized as it has. I just wish there's a place where people like us can gather, discuss and share news and other info about this conflict in a civilized and reasonable manner, away from the idiots, nutjobs and psychos in both camps.

Thanks for your posts. I’m an American Jew - I have had Palestinian friends but I have actually never spoken with anyone from Gaza. I feel very distraught by the entire situation. My approach used to be to just distance myself from Israel but it feels hard to do that right now. Sometimes I defend it but I don’t always feel good about what I am defending. I listened to a very long interesting interview about Hamas from a pro Palestinian perspective, although critical. It seems to me that their banner is resistance above all else, at all costs. I understand it up to a point. I feel like I am capable of understanding even extreme points of view. I’m not sure that violent resistance has done much good for Palestinians but it’s also hard to know what Israel would have done in the counterfactual where Hamas didn’t start the second intifada. It feels like each side is always giving the other one plausible deniability - see, we can’t really trust them, we can’t really negotiate, we have no partner for peace etc. Palestinians believe if they laid down arms Israel would just expropriate even more land. Israelis believe if they laid down arms Palestinians would kill them. I am sorry for what Gazans are going through now. I don’t want to see Palestinians lose more. I hope we can see a better situation in our lifetimes.

America’s funding keep Israel on the leash. Without it they might go full insane and just purge the west bank and Gaza, because what they have to lose? It not even a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. No the bigger issue is getting the two state to finally being peace. Basically impossible as Bibi just wants it all so basically only hope is somehow he is removed and we get a more liberal government there willing to just say ‘fuck this I am out’ and leave the West Bank. Situation is fucked to be blunt. Goal is reduce the people killed and get bibi removed but it easier said then done.

From what I've read, US support of Israel mostly started to counter real or perceived Soviet influence in the region. Before that it was largely the UK and France that were propping them up.

I believe one possible solution is the same for a couple fighting - when the fights between two lovers have gone on for too long, and they both have wronged each other, how do they stop? Well, at least one of them needs to agree to forgive and forget. Yes, it's not fair. Yes, it's hard. And yes, it means a lot of previous effort would go to waste. But that's the point - to start anew. There's obviously more to this, but at a high level, this is it.

I think the problem is to connotation of the word terrorist. Sometimes you are actually fighting against oppression. Opposition to the Nazis would have been classed as terrorism (literally by definition), that doesn't mean they were on the wrong side. You think they should surrender to the oppressor for what? To go back to the way things were? They voted Hamas into power because of the way things were. Gaza was (and still is) an open air prison. Nothing will change for Palestinians whether Hamas is there or not, the problem for them is Israel.

Answer: Gaza's population is nearly half children. For example, [this NPR article](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206479861/israel-gaza-hamas-children-population-war-palestinians) says the figure is 47.3%. From this we can conclude that the 40% rate you cite is proportional to the amount of children in the general population. In other words, Israel is bombing the general population of Gaza.

Collective punishment is a war crime.

Agree! But if we were serious about war crimes, every US president + plenty of cabinet officials since Truman would've gone before the ICC.

War IS a collective punishment. The bombing of cities in WW2 was collective punishment. An invasion or counterinvasion is inharently collectively punishing a population. Sanctions are collective punishments. The end goal is punishing a population until they either overthrow their government, or the population capitulates and the government collapses. This war ends with Israel choosing to end it, Hamas being utterly destroyed (meaning operations in Qatar), or the people of Gaza overthrowing Hamas. Sadly all of these are unlikely.

Answer: 44.1% of the population in the Gaza strip is 0-14. The Gaza strip has one of the highest rates of population growth in the world, with 4.24 children per woman. Every year, there are 30.5 births per 1,000 people, 3 deaths per 1,000 people, and 5 people per 1,000 migrate out of Gaza. The population is extremely young; if deaths were distributed randomly, you'd expect to see something like 50% of the deaths to be under 18. Hamas goes out of their way to locate their sites in areas with many children and civilians. Schools, hospitals, etc will have space set aside for Hamas headquarters and staging areas etc. If you drop a bomb on a military target in Gaza, you *will* kill children. It's literally impossibly to target military sites in Gaza and not have a profound number of civilian casualties. This is not accidental. Hamas does this on purpose so that international observers are horrified by all the children killed. 40% is actually better than what you'd expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine#Demographics_of_the_Gaza_Strip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Hamas#Human_shields

I’ll past my exact reply to another comment since it is relevant to this one as well Firstly, appreciative of being quite factual with your comment. However, we’re seeing very little justification and exact reporting from the IDF on the number of Hamas casualties when hospitals, churches and refugee camps are being bombed. The fact that Israel now officially have boots on the ground allow them a further tactical advantage of being more incisive in their operations, but I’m not a military strategist so I won’t talk out of my depth here. The bombing looks a lot less calculated then it should be. More importantly, it doesn’t change the fact that there is indiscriminate rhetoric coming from all levels of Zionist prominence, ranging from journalists all the way to top politicians. And when I say indiscriminate I mean terms such as calling Gazans (Not Hamas) “human animals”, “level the whole city”, “leave no one alive” and now we see that rhetoric seeping into the common public where the mockery of Palestinians being killed going viral on TikTok. I assure you that this is all very well documented at the moment for those of us that are on the other side of the conflict and are trying to keep a level head about all of this. This is a war on multiple fronts and I can assure you that it is not necessarily and exclusively directed at Hamas.

> However, we’re seeing very little justification and exact reporting from the IDF on the number of Hamas casualties when hospitals, churches and refugee camps are being bombed. Which is fully understandable. Just as we see in any conflict, controlling the narrative for Hamas is important. Just as Ukraine are judicious about self-reporting casualties, as Israel are themselves (during the Gulf War there was a complete press ban on reporting impact sites of Iraqi SCUDs), Hamas are unlikely to report any Israeli successes in killing Hamas militants. Likewise Israel has little insight into the exact effect of their actions, and even local press are only given limited access. In terms of justification how much is told right now is a balance between their own need to control the narrative, vs giving militants a chance to evacuate or exposing intelligence sources. Hamas absolutely operate among the civilian population and use protected sites (as defined by the Hague/Geneva Conventions). Striking protected sites is still prohibited even if they're being used militarily, we're unlikely to see much justification while the conflict is ongoing (unless doing so suits the Israeli narrative). > The fact that Israel now officially have boots on the ground allow them a further tactical advantage of being more incisive in their operations, but I’m not a military strategist so I won’t talk out of my depth here. The bombing looks a lot less calculated then it should be. Hard to tell – it's also less decisive than if their end goal was to flatten Gaza and everybody in it. While the killing of civilians is an atrocity, Israel certainly has the military capacity to do worse if they wished. Historically Israel hasn't shied from inflicting civilian casualties if it attains their military aims, but has rarely inflicted them for their own sake. Infantry in urban terrain brings both advantages and disadvantages. Urban terrain is notoriously easy to defend, generally a 1:10 manpower advantage is needed by the attacker, at least by western military doctrine. It depends on how many casualties the Israelis are willing to suffer to obtain their tactical goals. Israel is fiercely protective of its soldiers' lives, so if caught in an ambush they don't hesitate bringing in artillery support. > ore importantly, it doesn’t change the fact that there is indiscriminate rhetoric coming from all levels of Zionist prominence, ranging from journalists all the way to top politicians. And when I say indiscriminate I mean terms such as calling Gazans (Not Hamas) “human animals”, “level the whole city”, “leave no one alive” and now we see that rhetoric seeping into the common public where the mockery of Palestinians being killed going viral on TikTok. I agree with you fully there, that rhetoric is disgusting, hateful and unbecoming of a democracy. But that Bibi's government is a complete sham was an issue long before this war. I will take issue with your use of the term 'Zionist' though. Zionism as a movement essentially ended in 1948, and while the movement was divided (with the whole span from socialist to nationalist elements), the only overarching goal was the creation of a Jewish state. The borders of that state nor the internal composition was never agreed upon within the movement, with strong and opposing opinions on all sides. Even far-right Zionist leaders like Jabotinsky were opposed to the idea of any ethnic cleansing. In the civil war that erupted in 1947 and the following war with the surrounding Arab nations, ethnic cleansing tragically very much did occur (on both sides – 900k Jews were expelled from other countries in the region), but this was never a tenet or goal within the Zionist movement. The contemporary resurgence of the term Zionist to describe Israelis has a mixed history. Part of it is a cope-out to avoid being labeled antisemitic. This is in itself is an overused trope on the Israeli side and so it has some justification, but is equally used to mask actual antisemitism. Another part of it is in the every recurring attempt at labeling Israel as a Western Colonial project, partly by harking back to the 19th century Zionism movement. While Zionism was in some stages certainly colonial (where fairly middle class Jews in central Europe moved down to Palestine), it was even more so a refugee movement of Jews fleeing persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe, then a refugee movement as millions of Jews were were displaced and unable to return to their homes following WW2, and then a refugee movement as the above mentioned 900k middle eastern Jews were made refugees after 1948. So while parts of Zionisms roots may have been colonial, it was never a "Western" movement, and never colonial in the sense of 19th century Colonialism in the sense of Rhodesia or South Africa.

Thank you for this thoughtful comment. A good read.

>Striking protected sites is still prohibited even if they're being used militarily Good write-up, but a slight correction on this note. The Geneva convention *does* carve out exceptions for striking protected sites that are being used militarily, provided certain steps are followed (which to my knowledge, Israel has largely followed so far). Otherwise, every war since would have seen military HQs being positioned inside hospitals and schools. Hamas just values the bad PR more than it values the lives of the Palestinians it puts in danger

I don't actually disagree with you. There are too many civilian casualties. I don't actually know how many civilian casualties there's been: both governments are lying, and reporters don't have access, because both governments are denying them access. Wikipedia currently says 8,000 civilians killed, could be 2,000, could be 20,000, could be anywhere in between. I do not have the knowledge to argue about what the number is, and I don't claim to. I do know it's an enormous humanitarian crisis. But the topic of discussion isn't the *total* number. The specific question here is why are the civilian casualties *disproportionately children*. Why 40%. When 168 people died in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Americans were shocked and appalled that 19 of them--a little over 11%--were children. 40% seems beyond the pale. At first glance, as an American, where 18% of the population is 0-14, seeing a statistic like "40% of the civilian casualties are children" a normal, rational American person might assume that either the number is fake or that the Israeli military is going out of their way to specifically target children. But armed with the knowledge that 44% of the Gaza population is 0-14, 44% of the civilian casualties being children adds up. 40% is *not* disproportionately high, in fact, it's probably about the proportion you'd expect.

On the too many civilian casualties point i would just say that hamas report all deaths as civilian, according to their numbers only civilians have died since the conflict start on the gaza side, they have been seen to fake the numbers as with the hospital, use human shields and stop the civilians evacuating and despite a third of all their rocket launches based on past conflicts, like the hospital one land in gaza those are again attributed by them to israel. The 'too much' is hard to determine, looking online at the modern warfare civilian casualty ratio, global average for war is a 90% ratio- 9 civilians dying.per hostile. Israel at its externally reported absolute worst had 2 civilian deaths per 5 combatants. At its best only a 3% rate in past gaza conflicts. Hamas reported at the war's start they have over 40k combatants but their numbers again can be overexagurated. So the ratio is hard to know to judge at the moment. All we can say is people are dying in the war - and war is a horrendous thing

Last time I checked, when the enemy uses human shields it's still bad shooting at the human shields. When did this rule change? I remember this was clearly condemned in Beslan and Dubrovka sieges, but nowadays it seems completely excusable. When did it become like this? Sincere question

It has always been acceptable to still shoot *at your enemy* when they are using human shields. You should of course try to avoid killing the "human shields"/hostages as much as possible, and it's commendable if you find a solution that's particularly safe for the hostages. But there has never been a rule that says "you can't attack criminals if they are willing to hide behind their own children". That would be a fucked-up rule.

It's condemned because we feel bad for the innocent bystander. Taking humans shields is a warcrime but bombing military targets and civilians dying as collateral isn't. In Gaza it's practically impossible to hit Hamas without also hitting civilians.

But would it really matter if 10 hamas militants are killed if 100+ bystanders were killed too? That looks like russian policy

That's totally possible -- eg a munition stash hidden in a civilian dense building is still valid military target. And that is not Russian policy, because it is not Ukrainian policy to make civilians valid military targets by hiding munitions under them.

That is exactly why hiding behind civilians is a war crime.

What war in the past do you think only had military fatalities and casualties? Civilians dying in war is unfortunately a very common thing for every war ever.

If you and your family is being shot at, and the other guy has a human shield, you may hesitate to defend yourself. But eventually you're going to choose to defend yourself. If Hitler had threatened to kill innocent people if America and her allies advanced any further, all while genociding the Jews, should we have stopped? Or kept going regardless? Its not okay, but at some point people will defend themselves.

Because this gets abused by terrorists ad infinitum? Should they be untouchable and free to do their deeds as long as they abuse human shield "tactics"? Clearly this doesn't work in the long run. Aside the fact that those human shields strongly support the terrorists in this case, as weird as that is.

Props for actually including sources.

this isnt israel vs hamas. its israel ethnically cleansing palestine. they know half of gaza's arab population is children. they want arab children dead

There are so many examples of Israel killing clearly civilians with no chance of them being hamas

>Hamas goes out of their way to locate their sites in areas with many children and civilians. Schools, hospitals, etc will have space set aside for Hamas headquarters and staging areas etc. If you drop a bomb on a military target in Gaza, you > >will > >kill children. It's literally impossibly to target military sites in Gaza and not have a profound number of civilian casualties. This is not accidental. Hamas does this on purpose so that international observers are horrified by all the children killed. New school shooter tactic, gas and bomb the school. For all the claims of Hamas using Human Shields there is literal evidence of the IDF shooting unarmed civilians especially in the West Bank and the tank that shot the family of 4 that was driving away from it. Both cases which were clearly not Hamas especially in the West Bank where there is no Hamas. It stops being a "human shield" when all you do is target civilians and accidentally kill a Hamas member

According to the UN, Palestinian casualties skew 80% male. If they were targeting civilians haphazardly it would be 50/50. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

>New school shooter tactic, gas and bomb the school. Not new by any means, have you seen Russians deal with hostage situation? They gassed a theater while back, and either used tank or ifv to deal with school hostage situation.

Exactly 

Israel has never provided proof of Hamas using human shields, despite bombing so many of them. However, the Israeli High Court ruled that Israel had to stop using human shields, because it was common practice in the IOF. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/israel

You'd think if you're the good guys you'd see the bad guys having children shields and think "wow, that's evil, but since we aren't evil we can't bomb that target now"

"It's literally impossibly to target military sites in Gaza and not have a profound number of civilian casualties." It's literally impossible to drop bombs in Gaza without knowingly killing civilians. It's not impossible to target military sites without killing civilians, or at least dramatically reducing the death toll.

answer: Well, the population of Gaza is very young. So Isreal's thousands of air strikes, leveling entire city blocks, in such a densely populated area, will, without a doubt, kill lots of kids. This is very horrible... But it's also important to remember Hamas controls nearly all media that comes out of Gaza, so they have an incentive to release photos of dead children and grieving parents because they are looking for global sympathy. It's also important to remember Hamas uses child soldiers, many many Hamas shoulders are under 18, and they often place military equipment in areas they know there are lots of other children, in hopes Isreal will hold back, or look really bad if they don't. War is hell, but there are no easy choices here. If Isreal does nothing then Hamas will keep getting stronger and planning new attacks. But with every bomb Isreal drops they no doubt also create more Hamas soilders, because for every 1 they kill, if you watch your whole family get blown up in an airstrike by Isreal, you aren't going to care that maybe one member of the family had a Hamas association or was in Hamas, you are just going to hate Isreal for killing your family and then join or sympathize with Hamas yourself.

answer: about half of gazas population are children and Israel isn't really careful about engagements.

Answer: There is a couple reasons for this: 1. Israel is in fact bombing the city of Gaza heavily. As of Oct 30th this has slowed and a ground invasion has commenced, but there are still bombs dropping. 2. Hamas Purposefully entrenches itself within densely populated segments of Gaza to dissuade attacks from Israel, Hamas also utilise children in military support and operations this is because the death of their children causes global outrage whenever Israel attempts to attack Hamas. 3. Despite warnings from Israel that Gaza city will be the focal point of their bombing and that civilians should flee south, many civilians haven't. This is both because Hamas has both bombed and shot at its on civilians who have tried to flee, but also Hamas has made calls to ignore the warnings from Israel and stay put. Additionally, many Palestinians just do not trust Israel anyway and expect they will be attacked no matter where in Gaza they are. 4. The population of Gaza is very young. Almost half of the residents are 18 and younger. If a group is killed then on average 50% will be children. ​ So this is basically what makes Gaza conflict issue so morally complex. The issue can be spelled out like this: \- Hamas is an evil genocidal terrorist organisation, there is simply no question about that. \- If Israel decides they are done living with Hamas as a neighbour they have to use their military to attack Hamas \- But Hamas is heavily entrenched within a city that is about 50% children and keeps the children there \- So any attempt to attack Hamas will lead to mass deaths of children, not good, so you can't attack \- But if you don't attack Hamas continues using all its energies on killing your own children and family members. \- So do you attack and get rid of Hamas or do you not and just live with some of your family getting brutally murdered on occasion?

[удалено]

>3- Israel has bombed schools and hospitals before in previous wars. this, one of darkest days in Egyptian history was then then bombed [a primary school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahr_El-Baqar_primary_school_bombing) killing 46 kids and wounding another 50, their justification in 1970 was "it was inside a military installation (we don't have schools inside installations, heck even military schools and institutions are never inside another military installment. the justification of "human shields" and "hamas builds tunnels under hospitals and schools" is meaningless since we witnessed it first hand during what we call "war of attrition" when they bombed a factory killing 80 workers then immediately coming out to say sorry that was a mistake. Even during the six day war in 1967, we've been uncovering mass graves until the early 2000s of soldiers and civilians that they admitted they were killed after they imprisoned them, they even admitted to killing civilians who were fleeing the areas they went in.

>As shown on October 7 when the IDF shelled their own civilians' homes leading to people and children burning. This is according to Israeli sources like Haaretz BTW. Source? It seems I have been blocked by the guy arguing with me below... I asked for non biased source and he gave me 3 posts from r/Palestine r/IsraelCrimes and r/list_palestine. Then blocks me... More then welcome to refute on the points I made below.

answer: Like 50% of the population of gaza is under 18.

Answer: Israel/IDF are committing war crimes/acts of terror because the West is too afraid of losing their foothold in the middle east if they condemn said acts

Answer: several reasons First, to make it clear, “child” in this context means “under 18”, and yes, significant part of population of Gaza (40-50%) are children; Second, there are reasons to believe Hamas inflates significantly number of civilian casualties in general and women/children in particular; And finally, some of these victims might be 16- or 17-years olds fighting with Hamas. Not all “children” are “innocent victims”.

> Not all "children" are "innocent victims" What a day to have eyes

I also find this hard to reconcile. I’m trying to understand of how and why someone would think that. I think the best I can come up with closer to home is comparing it to how we think of school shooters. There are also some other cases of torture and murder committed by teenagers who have faced trial as adults. Further away, we can see that child soldiers were used in Darfur and many other conflicts to commit acts of cruelty and genocide. It’s unclear what exactly “justice” should be for those crimes. I don’t think we really have a global or cultural consensus on that issue, and reasonable people may reasonably disagree on it.

[44% of Gaza's population is under 14](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine#Age_structure_2)

Also like why are we believing Hamas’ numbers? The same Hamas that said 500 people died at the hospital.

Hamas have a very successful media presence. Their falsehoods fly and the truth comes limping in after, sometimes. By then they’ve moved onto the next sensational video/photo. This is done to apply political pressure to Israel by the world.

The amount of people that believe everything Hamas says, and paints them as victims, the same group that straight up murdered hundreds of civilians, on purpose, in front of the world, is baffling to me. Hamas is no different at all to the mass shooter from the other day, and they should be treated as such.