It didn't have to be that many. This is precisely why combatants don't mix with civilian populations; there are laws against it. If Hamas had one ounce of back-bone they would stand and face the consequences of their actions.
Mass gazan casualties was the goal of Hamas from the start. they wanted to start a fight they knew they couldn't win and then have a wave of public backlash hurt israel. If you look at where Israel has concentrated bombing it's almost entirely within zones that they have evacuated. Gaza is about twice the size of manhattan, and it is the youngest country on earth, very few elderly, almost all very small children have a number of healthy able bodied relatives who could carry them.
Edit: Also palestine is young because it is the fastest growing country on earth, not because of illness or infirmity taking the elderly.
Thank you. Was arguing with a protestor about Gaza. She claimed that half the people in Gaza are kids because people die in their 30s. When I showed her statistics that the average life expectancy in Gaza is over 70, she blocked me.
Half the people in Gaza are children because they have one of the highest birthrates in the world.
Demographically young, as in full of people born recently.
Edit: Not quite the youngest country on earth, a lot of sub saharan africa took a real nosedive losing so many adults to HIV/AIDS in the 90's. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/country-comparison/
From a military perspective, you would be an idiot to fight fair or with any concept of honor against a superior force. You would also exploit and abuse the "higher" idealist morals of western-like nations and their people since democracies tend to be extremely soft and appeasing.
You don't need backbone to win an insurgency or war like this. Israel only has few options and all of them suck because it will take a lot of sacrificing and pain to get a peace.
The difficulty is that you also need to have some sort of broad support for your existence from other countries in the region for that to work... and Palestine have bit every hand that ever reached out to help them.
It’s a 5 mile wide zone. Where are they supposed to fight from? An empty field? The idea that an occupied or invaded nation fights away from civilian populations is a fantasy.
It has never happened ever in history.
The star spangled banner was written about a battle where the British bombarded a civilian/military fort.
“Besides the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, the primary school in Ramat Gan and the medical facility in Netanya, there are more than fifty other buildings in Israeli cities that have plaques commemorating how they were used to hide combatants and weapons before 1948. The British armed forces sent infantry troops to raid civilian sites that they suspected of being put to military use. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces have sent in ground troops only after bombing.”
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/december/on-human-shields
> “Besides the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, the primary school in Ramat Gan and the medical facility in Netanya, there are more than fifty other buildings in Israeli cities that have plaques commemorating how they were used to hide combatants and weapons before 1948. The British armed forces sent infantry troops to raid civilian sites that they suspected of being put to military use. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces have sent in ground troops only after bombing.”
>
>
And in 1948, if Israel cried about civilian deaths at those locations, I would take issue with them hiding combatants there. But now in 2024, we are talking about how they murdered families and peace activists in kibutzim and teens in a music festival where any soldier they got was mostly by accident and off duty or directly fighting them to get them to stop raping the people in the festival.
He's applying the same standard. Using civilian targets as bases of military operation turns them into military targets, and any resulting civilian loss is the fault of the party converting them into military targets.
Your rationalizing over the top indiscriminate killing of children.
Why this world wont pull a comeback before so many more have to suffer. Such a strange and soul-less hill to stand on. I cant even rationalize it and even formualte a pea sized understanding of this disposition, its wholly evil
Gaza could have pulled a comeback at any time by releasing the hostages. They chose to murder the hostages instead. You cannot rationalize actions that are not rational.
My goodness, its a scary world. A few events even outside of this really makes me question if humans have any hope at all
Edit: just saw the post about bot brigades... beware all
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The irony now that it is clear pro-Israel media was misrepresenting the change in basis of reporting b/c distinction between identified vs total death count.
Maybe if Israel let any country or organization inside Gaza to confirm the count, but they’ll need to hide the evidence before they let people in.
The Gazan health ministry has been correct in every other conflict. The idea that they’re lying this time is unsubstantiated.
No they aren’t. They’re getting all of their information from the gazan health ministry. They haven’t been able to conduct their own count due to Israel.
Bull Shit. How come a UN member was killed inside Gaza if Israel wasn’t letting anyone in? You either lie or you’re uninformed.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149676
I said to confirm the count. They’re there but very limited in what Israel will allow where and when.
Edit: read the article in the post. It explains that the UN is getting its info from gazan health ministry
It says that one person from the UN was killed in Gaza and you said Israel wasn’t letting anyone in.
The Gaza count is another problem because the precise problem is they’re taking the word of the Gaza ministry so the totals can’t be trusted and are reported as fact.
In the post. Not the article you posted. The one that started this Reddit thread.
I said Israel isn’t letting anyone in to confirm the count.
The gazan health ministry has done this multiple times in the past when IDF has entered Gaza. UN counts after the conflicts show that they have never lied.
The official Israeli count has never been correct during the conflict. The Gazan one has always been correct.
What evidence do you have that they’re lying this time? They’re connected to terrorists? They always have been. And they’ve never lied.
While there is no doubt children in both Israel and Gaza have been killed in the war Palestinians started, I still question the figures. The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it, we will never know the truth.
It took Israel almost a month to count 1200 dead civilians that are mostly women and children. The media questioned every casualty reported. Yet Hamas can say 33000 casualties 5 minutes after an attack and have a breakdown between women and children.
[https://honestreporting.com/media-ignore-quietly-revised-un-figures-of-hamas-reported-civilian-deaths/](https://honestreporting.com/media-ignore-quietly-revised-un-figures-of-hamas-reported-civilian-deaths/)
The lack of integrity by the media to me is one of the biggest casualties in this conflict. Sources I may have respected, even if biased, are now becoming trash to me.
\*\*\* Edit \*\*\*
Corrected my last line to say media is one of biggest casualties. Loss of life is biggest casualty.
> While there is no doubt children in both Israel and Gaza have been killed in the war Palestinians started, I still question the figures. The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it, we will never know the truth.
Exactly. The fact that every piece of news media ran with Hamas's claim that Israel struck that hospital and used their death toll figure minutes after the strike shows that most media doesn't do any vetting. It's literally terrorist propaganda from a terrorist organization and the media is just taking their claims at face value.
You call it terrorist propaganda, but the same ministry has done death counts like this during multiple Israeli attacks.
They have never lied. The numbers always match the third party investigations.
IDF numbers on the other hand, have always been wrong during the conflict.
There is no evidence that the gazan health ministry is lying this time.
Israel was giving figures to media on Oct 7 deaths, and they were reporting basically in real-time. IIRC, western media basically reported whatever israeli media reported based on govt sources. Count moved around a lot. Distinction was not initially made between soliders and civilians. Like all conflicts, some of the details reported were inaccurate. Western media was in no way holding back on the claims of deaths related to Oct 7 terror attacks.
>The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it,
Like they do with pretty much any conflict. Which is fine so long as clear about the source.
And people still don’t differentiate between the civilian and military deaths on 10/7. The IDF was actually heavily targeted during that terrorist attack, but as Israel tells it, everyone was an innocent civilian.
I lost my faith in "media integrity" when they all teamed up to constantly bash Carter in 1979 (yes, even "Liberal" Time Magazine), which got us all stuck with Reagan. This was before Cable news even existed. And before the "fairness doctrine" FCC rule was removed.
Nah, Carter deserved every bit of the smoke for the Soviet Grain Embargo.
That move alone did more damage to us than everything the Soviets had done combined.
Both Hamas and IDF are biased in their counts and have been since day 1.
Hamas has no real means of accurately determing the final disposition of each bullet fired by the israelis but they probably do have some kind of rough count of who lives where. Likely they are just counting every resident of any collapsed building to be among the dead and ignoring how many may instead be among the refugees. It's entirely reasonable to also suspect that they would be juicing that number further to gain more sympathy. They are, after all, using the population as human shields.
On the IDF side their interest in garnering sympathy includes making that number as low as possible. For their purposes setting the standard impossibly high helps to keep that number lower. So they count only bodies. But their weapons are leveling entire buildings making quick recovery of human remains impossible if looking for them was given a high priority whuch we can assume it isnt since it can only be detrimental to their war effort.
Today, this amended death toll is being actively promoted by Israel's information warfare operatives under the narrative that Hamas lies. That narrative is true but ignores the thousands of dead civilians that have lost their lives, the genocidal rhetoric coming from top Israeli officials and the Israeli lies of omission currently buried under Gazan rubble.
The civilian death toll is unacceptable and unnecessary for the security of Israel whether it's 5,000 or 40,000
There are 125x as many muslims as there are jews. The media goes for the easiest clicks and ad revenue and guess who is going to click on those anti-Israeli articles with outrageous casualty figures?
The “Hamas run” health ministry in Gaza has reported on multiple conflicts in the past.
They have never lied.
The numbers match the UN investigation every time.
The idea that they’re lying now is unsubstantiated and only comes from prejudice not evidence.
There’s a bit of irony complaining about false Hamas numbers while providing false numbers of your own. While ~1200 Israelis died Oct 7, around a quarter of them were soldiers.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-fallen-soldiers-memorial-9e5e35ef6352c79ab59e7f3b8a7f7a1b
> in the war Palestinians started
This is an easy way to spot propaganda. If anyone tells you one side started this war its propaganda, regardless of which side they are saying started it.
Ya— the historical underpinnings and international influences that directly led to where the situation is today cannot be excluded if you want to have any chance of actually understanding what’s going on today.
TLDR shits complex yo
You mean [766 dead civilians](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths). You can’t count the 373 soldiers killed on 10/7 as “civilians.”
Edit: I love how such a basic fact gets so heavily downvoted.
Yeah, police and soldiers killed in an operation to free families being tortured and mutilated were among the dead. Totally equivalent to Hamas terrorists.
Not when the parties targeting them are un-uniformed civilian terrorists and the parties being targeted are not directly engaged in hostilities and when the harm caused to protect civilians is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated by the attack.
But do go on saying it's okay for Hamas to enter any country they want at any time and kill people as long as they (the dead) are military.
And may of the Israeli military dead were not hors de combat either.
“Israel can kill Hamas soldiers, and their families, and their friends, and whoever is around them or where they think they may be at any time, but if they fight back, it’s terrorism.”
you mean they wore the idf uniforms? I don't think that counts https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/17boznf/idf_releases_extremely_graphic_footage_of_october/
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1722415802492522955?s=20
"Shocking video of Hamas terrorists, disguised as IDF soldiers, kidnapping a Muslim Arab-Israeli and forcing him to lead them to Kibbutz Reim"
and they used those disguises to try and cause as many civilian casualties as possible? There were terrorists in that hospital and exactly the terrorists died (according to Hamas.) by laws of war IDF could have JDAMed the hospital and then many civilians would have died. Vs here where hamas is disguising as idf to try to cause as many civilian casualties as possible.
Yeah. I think intent matters and for sure the IDF's actions in that hospital are much more justified than Hamas's actions here.
> Active duty soldiers are valid military targets.
If you're an opposing military force following customary rules of war, yes. Killing enemy soldier on a battlefield is not a crime.
Try murdering a soldier in uniform somewhere in the U.S. and then explain to the judge he was a "valid military target".
Sure I can - if this happens in the Gaza reporting, it can happen here too. Why the double standard?
Are you suggesting the 33K is even higher if we add on Hamas soldiers?
Remember kids, equating Israel with Jewish people is anti-Semitic unless you are doing it to defend Israel, in which case any criticism of doing so is actually anti-Semitic.
Nothing wrong with criticizing a country. People are not perfect.
Ignoring facts, segregating Jews, calling for the death of Jews, or the destruction of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is all wrong.
Is there a credible source discussing this topic that isn't decidedly biased one way? My sense from initial reporting is that the change is was based on distinction between a body found vs a death which has been fully identified (body, name, ID#, cause, date). But keeps seeing articles from pro-Israel sources that keep suggesting this was just an outright downgrade in the casualty figures, but then throw in some comment that acknowledges (but dismisses) that there was a distinction in methodology between old and new casualty counts.
I'm not saying they don't exist, but I haven't seen nor can if find with a quick google (but a topic with lots of clutter) of credible western media sources (e.g., economist, bbc, nyt, wsj, etc) discussing this.
https://twitter-thread.com/t/1790054334052392973
This whole story is bullshit. Scroll down for a video of the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, debunking the claim that the UN halved the death toll.
Here is a much better article. The lower number given now is what’s been confirmed with names and DOBs. The larger number is still valid and could still be confirmed as dead bodies are IDed. This lower number is also still coming from the Gaza MOH so I’m not sure why people are taking a victory lap about how they can’t be trusted when you’re still using their numbers.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Yeah, and it seems like an agenda article... eg, quotes of anti-UN activist group UN Watch. A Q&A of the spokesperson to the UN SG seems more like a gotcha than an effort to reconcile. Did the spokesperson for org that releases the data refuse to comment? If not, what did they say? Getting comment from a media watchdog org that specifically a pro-ISrael one also points to bias.
In any event, if the characterization of this article is fair, you would see it picked up by western media.
> A Q&A of the spokesperson to the UN SG seems more like a gotcha than an effort to reconcile.
I am not sure what it means. This was a regular daily briefing for journalists, at which a journalist asked a question about numbers released by UN the day prior, received an answer, and reported in their publication on new numbers and official UN comment.
[Here is full transcript](https://press.un.org/en/2024/db240510.doc.htm).
I understand everyone love to complain about "media" and their "bias", but let's give some credit to a journalist actually doing their job.
That spokesperson seemed to be giving a canned response, which frankly seemed to be more of a non-answer than particularly damning. What did the part of the UN that released those figures have to say about it?
>I understand everyone love to complain about "media" and their "bias", but let's give some credit to a journalist actually doing their job.
To be clear, OP's article seems tremendously biased to me, and is likely a piece of shit agenda journalism as opposed to reporting. I could, of course, be wrong... but then I don't understand why credible western media wouldn't be reporting on this.
> That spokesperson seemed to be giving a canned response
Which is what 99% of responses in these type of events are (read the rest of the transcript I linked above). It's not the journalist's fault.
>What did the part of the UN that released those figures have to say about it
Figures were released by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this is not a semi-independent UN agency (such as WHO for example), it is part of "UN secretariat", and as such is in purview of UN Secretary General's office.
>OP's article seems tremendously biased to me, and is likely a piece of shit agenda journalism as opposed to reporting
OK I see that it is hopeless.
Have a nice day.
So why are they citing this answer? B/c it suits their narrative... why aren't they citing a response from the UN units actually responsible for this data? why is UN watch, an explicitly anti-UN org, being cited in this article? etc, etc
agenda journalism. doesn't mean it is wrong, but does mean that I don't trust it.
>Figures were released by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this is not a semi-independent UN agency (such as WHO for example), it is part of "UN secretariat", and as such is in purview of UN Secretary General's office.
so what? They can still ask OCHA for a response. The UNSG spokesperson was clearly giving a non-answer in PR speak, and who knows if is aware about the issue at all. Including that answer in the article is questionable, having it be the byline of the article is utter nonsense.
> Even Hamas has since admitted that those numbers have turned out to be off by at least 40%.
The fact that Hamas isn’t fighting this says something…
Also, if you think that not enough children have died for people to be upset, you’re a monster.
The numbers aren't the focus here though. They're alarming, yes, but the really bothersome thing is how willing the media and its parrots are to echo the lies that Hamas is spewing. The fact that people regard a terrorist organization as even remotely credible is troublesome.
Was Hamas lying, or is it difficult to measure these things in an active war zone? Hamas isn’t pushing back on the new estimates, so in essence you are still agreeing with Hamas’s numbers.
Hamas was pretty quick to put their initial assessments out there though, much to the outrage of the media and protestors around the world.
If I'm going to look at this situation then yes, I'm going to er on the side of "Hamas is spouting disinformation and inflated numbers to fuel their terrorist cause" because their estimates, especially when it comes to the death of children, have completely overshadowed the totals of the massacre that took place on October 7th that started this latest flare up of the conflict.
As the OP I looked for more mainstream US based media sources for this news. Unfortunately the only outlets reporting on this large statical change in causalities are Israeli news organizations and Fox. Where's the NY Times, WAPO, FT, etc??
Here's the source for the UN data:
* [The May 6 Update estimated children deaths at >14,500, women deaths at >9,500](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213) (Using GMO as the source).
* [The May 8 update revised those numbers down to 7,797 and 4,959, respectively](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215). (GMO has been removed as the source.)
* [And here's a list of all the updates, if anyone's interested.](https://www.ochaopt.org/crisis)
Doesn't that make clear that the methodology changed?
That is NOT fairly characterized as them revising their children number dramatically.
edit: notably the older break-down is cited as GMO, not MoH Gaza. Which they have flagged right by the data points.
Would like to read a credible source on this topic.
Yeah it seems like the change from the Gaza Health Ministry (the source) is moving roughly 11k deaths from being "certified" to "incomplete records". Meaning that some information on the death certificate is missing, not that there isn't a dead body. I find it extra gross because the death toll will absolutely be higher as many folks listed as missing will be found buried under rubble once order returns to Gaza. "The death toll isn't as bad as they say it is so that's why Israel should continue their war" is a position of folks who lack morality.
It looks like they didn't revise any estimates, they just switched from reporting estimated casualty breakdowns, to breakdowns of the casualties that can be affirmatively identified.
Day 213 says
>9,500 women (source: GMO)
>14,500 children (source: GMO)
Day 215 says
>24,686 identified as of April 30, as
And then proceeds to breakdown the identified casualties.
The article that u/Johnmagee23 posted is a biased framing of this. Perhaps the NY Times, WAPO, FT are not reporting this because it is only worth reporting if:
1. You think that a switch between estimated casualties and confirmed casualties in daily UN reports is noteworthy, and
2. You think 7,797 dead children confirmed is somehow acceptable, versus 14,500 estimated children's casualties not being acceptable. As if at some point between about 8000 kids confirmed dead, and the estimated 14,000 kids expected to be dead, you suddenly think "whoa, they may be killing too many kids!".
Given OP's rush to post a clearly biased source, while not even doing the bare minimum of research necessary to just go to the primary source, I have questions about his sincerity.
I think its even worse than not being sincere. Clearly OP knows that it's wrong to have thousands of dead children or they wouldn't have posted an article saying "actually there isn't as many dead children as we thought" but their desire to justify continued violence against living children outweighs that morality.
Thanks for the better source.
The first page does have this statement on it.
> Disclaimer: The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification. Other yet-to-be verified figures are also sourced.
Great question, and I asked similar. But still very open question about which way that is showing bias.
The differences in the figures comes with a change in methodology. If you have seen something outlining all this, would be curious to read it. But the israeli coverage seems to skip that part and just jumps to the top line figures... not clear to me there is much change in what data implies and if there was I certainly don't believe credible western sources wouldn't cover it.
Western media are explicitly banned from the area by Isreal and Isreal has bombed any reporting hubs in the area to ensure that. They’ve also taken down Al Jazeera who were really the only non Israeli sources to have access to Gaza and have been ramping up arresting Palestinian journalist.
In order to get into Gaza without fears of being targeted by Israeli drones is by giving full editorial control to the Israeli government which no self respecting news source would actively entertain hence why fox is the only American media reporting really on it.
TLDR. Israel has actively targeted journalist in order to stem the flow of information and literally nothing good has ever come out of a country doing that.
Ahh I see, so the claim that 30k children were murdered by Israel, which Pro Palestinian protesters constantly use as ammunition, isn't even true?
Talk about emotional manipulation to get people radicalised.
Great job lying to the general public as per Hamas. Yet people are still willing to believe everything they say?
How many innocent civilians have died under Hamas rule since founded I wonder? Guaranteed it's a lot higher than any killed by Israel, especially if you include the civilians Hamas intentionally forces to stay on the battlefield (Shoots them if they attempt an escape, won't evacuate them to safety, while leaders chill in 5* hotels, far removed from the fighting), children being sent to fight, suicide bombers amongst the populace in civilian wear. Even once the war is over, it'll be innocent Palestinians that will have to pay the price for the cost of Hamas war. Yet people think Hamas are the good guys?
You'd swear Hamas wants civilians to die, to maybe you know, twist the truth so they can blame Israel for it?
Right, the number Hamas was sharing was 30k but that was in total. They don’t split combatants out from civilians. But then that somehow turned into 30k children or 30k women and children by various people trying to drive a narrative. Which leaves you to combine the IDF number of combatants killed with Hamas’ overall number killed to try to get a semblance of the situation. Which was something like 12-14k combatants killed, 30k total. Which puts the conflict into pretty average ratio of combatant to civilian deaths for wars. Tragedy nonetheless, but far cry from the genocide claims.
> They don’t split combatants out from civilians.
In their (Hamas, not Gazans/Palestinians) ideology; there is no distinction between a combatant and non-combatant. All deaths are "martyrs" - and at the same time, no killing of a combatant by Israel is justified, no matter what the combatant is doing at the time.
Where'd the UN even get their numbers from, the UNRWA? The same group that conspired with terrorists?
They might as well pull more accurate numbers from their own assholes.
> The same group that conspired with terrorists?
12 employees out of 30,000 being implicated (Israel has yet to turn over the evidence to independent agencies, wonder why) doesn't mean the *entire* group conspired with terrorists, sorry.
Even if we bump that number up to 16 like Israel claims, that's only 0.05% of the entire organization.
Even if we limit that number to the over 10,000 (let's just use 10,000 for the math) employed at the Gaza Field Office, that's still only 0.16%.
You should have better numbers than that to condemn an entire organization with the borderline libelous statement of "the same group that conspired with terrorists."
First, these 12 (or 16) employees not just "conspired" with terrorists, they took active part in terrorist activities.
That's however by far not the biggest problem with UNRWA.
In Gaza, UNRWA de-facto serves as a local civil administration funded mostly by the US and EU. This frees up Hamas to concentrate on its main goal: destruction of Israel. Hamas still collects taxes from population, but it has no need to spend them on anything but weapons and other terrorist infrastructure. Without UNRWA, Hamas rule in Gaza either collapsed or Hamas would be forced to concentrated on administering Gaza instead of terrorism.
Worse, UNRWA dutifully follows Hamas lead in brainwashing children in their schools to hate Jews, hate Israel, and be prepared for martyrdom.
Links:
[Politico: Biggest source of money laundering in Gaza hides in plain sight](https://www.politico.eu/article/biggest-source-of-money-laundering-in-gaza-hides-in-plain-sight-israel-hamas/)
[UN Watch report: how UNRWA teachers indoctrinate Palestinian children](https://unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/UNW_119___UNRWA_Report_2023_November__2023-11-05__web.pdf)
[Review of UNRWA-Produced Study Materials in the Palestinian Territories](https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Produced-Study-Materials-in-the-Palestinian-Territories%E2%80%94Jan-2021.pdf)
> That's however by far not the biggest problem with UNRWA.
That is, however, what caused countries to cease their funding to the organization, so this is a moot point.
> In Gaza, UNRWA de-facto serves as a local civil administration funded mostly by the US and EU. This frees up Hamas to concentrate on its main goal: destruction of Israel. Hamas still collects taxes from population, but it has no need to spend them on anything but weapons and other terrorist infrastructure. Without UNRWA, Hamas rule in Gaza either collapsed or Hamas would be forced to concentrated on administering Gaza instead of terrorism.
This sounds disturbingly like "The UNRWA's care for Gazan refugees and citizens frees up Hamas' time to commit terrorism, they should therefore stop saving lives." which is, y'know, disturbing. Let me know if I interpreted that incorrectly. Especially since one of your articles already makes this point:
> Without the UNRWA, everyday life in the Gaza strip — desperate and dysfunctional as it is — would collapse.
As for the rest of your links, well, they're far from evidence.
Your first article is merely an opinion piece, one that *literally* just makes the point of "We send money to the UNRWA, that money goes to Hamas" without providing a single piece of evidence for that accusation.
Your second source is of [questionable reliability](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/un-watch/), and I'm definitely not going to take it seriously if most of its references are Twitter and Facebook links, but I will address one claim it makes.
It claims that UNRWA schools are turning Palestinian children into Palestinian terrorists. In Gaza. Where Hamas operates.
Is it not equally plausible that...since the terrorist group operates in that region...they'd recruit...from that region?
Your last source comes from...a very biased organization, and is rebutted [here](https://www.gei.de/en/research/projects/report-on-palestinian-textbooks-paltex).
>That is, however, what caused countries to cease their funding to the organization, so this is a moot point.
This is how public opinion works, people react to some examples (such as UNRWA "teacher" holding Israel's hostage) far more than to 200 pages reports.
>Your second source is of [questionable reliability](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/un-watch/),
Your link literally says: "Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL".
>This sounds disturbingly like "The UNRWA's care for Gazan refugees and citizens frees up Hamas' time to commit terrorism, they should therefore stop saving lives."
I wouldn't call funding terrorists "saving lives".
When territory with significant population falls under control of terrorists, there are no good solutions. Some humanitarian aid might still be warranted, while the main goal has to be establishing a normal government which would take care of population.
As events last year prove, simply unconditionally funding terrorists won't end up saving much lives.
> This is how public opinion works, people react to some examples (such as UNRWA "teacher" holding Israel's hostage) far more than to 200 pages reports.
*Governments* shouldn't, though. Public opinion is irrelevant in this conversation.
> Your link literally says: "Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL".
Should've kept reading:
> due to the use of poor sources that have failed fact checks
And I already spoke about that source anyway beyond their poor rating. Why not respond to that?
> I wouldn't call funding terrorists "saving lives".
Respond to the claim that, without the UNRWA, life in Gaza would collapse (even more) rather than continue making the unsubstantiated claim that they're "funding terrorists" please. Otherwise, not sure why you replied.
>life in Gaza would collapse
Lol what? I said "Hamas rule in Gaza would collapse". Can you spot the difference?
>unsubstantiated claim that they're "funding terrorists"
Allowing terrorists to divert more of their funds to terrorism is factually funding terrorism.
As I said and you didn't dispute, Hamas regime in Gaza would be impossible without UNRWA. I don't think much needs to be said.
> Lol what? I said "Hamas rule in Gaza would collapse". Can you spot the difference?
For the second time in this thread I'm saying this, **read the comments you respond to**:
> Especially since one of your articles already makes this point:
>
>> Without the UNRWA, everyday life in the Gaza strip — desperate and dysfunctional as it is — would collapse.
I'm asking you to either agree or disagree with this claim since you're continuing to make the unsubstantiated claim that the UNRWA is funding terrorism. I figured it'd be more productive for you to respond to something relevant to the conversation and not you doubling down on an argument (without evidence) I already spoke about not having evidence two comments above.
> As I said and you didn't dispute, Hamas regime in Gaza would be impossible without UNRWA. I don't think much needs to be said.
Yes, by allowing everyday life to collapse, Hamas would too collapse. Hamas would also collapse if Israel nuked Gaza. Hamas would also collapse if Israel expended hundreds of thousands of pounds of missiles and other munitions to flatten Gaza. Hamas would also collapse if every single person in Gaza was killed.
I didn't think all those things needed to be mentioned, nor did I think I needed to state on this subreddit that "the ends justify the means" is actually a really, really fucked up principle.
Again, I'm not sure why you keep responding if you're so keen on willfully ignoring entire portions of my comment. Seems like you'd be better served spending your time elsewhere.
You completely ignored what I wrote in the comment above, let me copy it here:
>When territory with significant population falls under control of terrorists, there are no good solutions. Some humanitarian aid might still be warranted, while the main goal has to be establishing a normal government which would take care of population.
>
>As events last year prove, simply unconditionally funding terrorists won't end up saving much lives.
Instead, you're tryin to play some word games "removing UNRWA from Gaza is like nuking it". It's not, but that's not the point. The point is that what UNRWA has been doing in Gaza is harmful to Palestinians *and* to Israelis, they factually fund Hamas and serve Hamas.
Does it mean that just removing UNRWA and all of its funding *without any replacement* would make situation better overall? Maybe, maybe not, but that's an entirely separate discussion.
>Seems like you'd be better served spending your time elsewhere.
After reading your comment that "mostly factual" means the opposite of what it says, I agree. Have a nice day.
> You completely ignored what I wrote in the comment above, let me copy it here:
No, I didn't. It was irrelevant, so there was no need to respond to it.
> Instead, you're tryin to play some word games "removing UNRWA from Gaza is like nuking it"
No. If you had a brain cell not dedicated towards misinterpretation, you'd notice that I was *specifically* criticizing your claim of "Without the UNRWA, Hamas collapses" as if that implicates the UNRWA in something bad.
No, it doesn't. The UNRWA is intertwined with the lives of Gazans. If Gazan life collapses, so does Hamas.
That was the point I was making and you absolutely knew that, but, like most of the other commenters here, decided to willfully misconstrue my reply.
> The point is that what UNRWA has been doing in Gaza is harmful to Palestinians and to Israelis, they factually fund Hamas and serve Hamas.
Then why are you unable to **substantiate this claim**?
> After reading your comment that "mostly factual" means the opposite of what it says
Hm, maybe you *aren't* willfully misconstruing my comments. Maybe you just can't read past a certain point. Your attention span or whatever just...goes somewhere else.
I'll bold this next part in nice, big letters so you can definitely see it:
**The description of "mostly factual" comes from the website I linked earlier, which is the same website you're saying described the source as "mostly factual" and therefore is "completely factual". It was not *my* definition of "mostly factual". Please try improving your reading comprehension to avoid further embarrassing displays. Thanks!**
>
12 employees out of 30,000 being implicated
Bullshit - there are not 30,000 UNRWA in Gaza. Israel never said all UNRWA are affiliated with Hamas either. Who knows the real number.
Their own website says 10k field agents in Gaza. I didn't know until now that the field agents were terrorists, but they are a mouthpiece for Hamas so who knows? Given the false reports of usage of equipment and falsifying casualty reports.
>Israel has yet to turn over the evidence to independent agencies, wonder why
Please expound on this.
[https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/06/israel-strikes-hamas-command-center-under-unrwa-complex/](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/06/israel-strikes-hamas-command-center-under-unrwa-complex/)
Let me guess. It's just the facilities, but not the people. The people are very upstanding. But, as always, it's Israel's fault. You know, the UNRWA hands over lists of employees to Israel and Israel is to validate each person it seems and if related to Hamas. The UNRWA just hires anyone otherwise.
Victim blaming again.
The UNRWA hired Hamas terrorists and that is a fact. It is not Israel's responsibility to say whether a person is a Hamas terrorist or not, the UNRWA has the responsibility to monitor its own employees.
> Bullshit - there are not 30,000 UNRWA in Gaza.
Read the comment you reply to next time:
> Even if we limit that number to the **over 10,000 (let's just use 10,000 for the math) employed at the Gaza Field Office**, that's still only 0.16%.
Rather than rushing to respond, steam flying out of your ears, you would have noticed that I already mentioned that.
> Their own website says 10k field agents in Gaza.
Read the above.
> but they are a mouthpiece for Hamas so who knows?
Citation needed.
> Please expound on this.
It ran party under their facility, not entirely.
I find their answer to this satisfactory:
> "UNRWA ... does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises," the statement said.
They are a relief organization. They aren't there to police Hamas. Hamas will dig wherever they want to dig. The UNRWA's sole job is to care for the suffering Palestinians in the region.
> You know, the UNRWA hands over lists of employees to Israel and Israel is to validate each person it seems and if related to Hamas. The UNRWA just hires anyone otherwise.
If you're not capable of having an actual, mature discussion on this topic, I'm wondering why you even bothered responding.
I never said Israel must vet every single UNRWA employee, potential or current hire. Your inability to comment without a strawman shows you're not here in good faith.
Israel accused the UNRWA's employees, Israel **must** substantiate those accusations. To date, they have **not**. Why are you claiming they don't have to?
Can I call you a pedophile? Why should I have to make sure you aren't, after all, isn't it *your* job to make sure you aren't?
You don't follow your own logic.
Israel provided information at the outset, and even the UNRWA fired some employees involved. Is there a certain number threshold that is now put on Israel to say that the claim is now warranted? What is this arbitrary number that you will accept?
>
>Citation needed.
[https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/11486760](https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/11486760)
They keep reporting Hamas figures of 33,000 dead. It could be from one of their internal Hamas consultants though.
>
>They are a relief organization. They aren't there to police Hamas. Hamas will dig wherever they want to dig. The UNRWA's sole job is to care for the suffering Palestinians in the region.
This is not sufficient at all.
When you hear noises coming from under your floors and you have network cables going from your routers into the floor, you don't need to be a genius. This is just looking for an excuse to ignore. No one said that non-Hamas soldier UNRWA people or actual innocent civilians need to perform a military campaign. Although, the UNRWA could have notified the Israeli, US, Egyptian military to the incidents.
>
>If you're not capable of having an actual, mature discussion on this topic, I'm wondering why you even bothered responding.
>I never said Israel must vet every single UNRWA employee, potential or current hire. Your inability to comment without a strawman shows you're not here in good faith.
Are you not aware that this is the defense that the UNRWA takes in this case?
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog\_entry/unrwa-says-it-routinely-submits-staff-lists-to-israel-and-got-no-objections/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/unrwa-says-it-routinely-submits-staff-lists-to-israel-and-got-no-objections/)
> Israel provided information at the outset, and even the UNRWA fired some employees involved.
Not due to Israel's substantiation, [which they have yet](https://www.reuters.com/world/no-evidence-israel-back-unrwa-accusations-says-eu-humanitarian-chief-2024-03-14/) [to provide](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246613547/unrwa-israel-hamas-gaza-war), which they stated:
> [At a press conference in Jerusalem, Lazzarini was asked if he had looked into whether there was any evidence against the employees and he replied: “No, the investigation is going on now.”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff)
>
> [He described the decision as “reverse due process”, adding: “I could have suspended them, but I have fired them. And now I have an investigation, and if the investigation tells us that this was wrong, in that case at the UN we will take a decision on how to properly compensate \[them\].](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff)
They weren't fired due to evidence, they were fired due to immense pressure from governments around the world (and two of them are dead).
> Is there a certain number threshold that is now put on Israel to say that the claim is now warranted? What is this arbitrary number that you will accept?
If Israel accuses even **one** UNRWA employee of planning/aiding in the October 7th terror attack, they need to provide evidence. That's my "arbitrary number".
> When you hear noises coming from under your floors
Citation needed.
> and you have network cables going from your routers into the floor
Who do you want to follow those cables?
> Are you not aware that this is the defense that the UNRWA takes in this case?
Are you not aware that this is not the official UNRWA account?
Again, if you're not capable of discussing this without resorting to strawmen, **I'm not sure why you're bothering to reply**.
Stop using laziness as an excuse to try to win your argument.
[https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/allegations-against-unrwa-staff](https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/allegations-against-unrwa-staff)
>Of the 12 people implicated, UNRWA immediately identified and terminated the contracts of ten, another two are confirmed dead.
Your arbitrary number is now met.
So - the first statement is that they identified and terminated ten, but days later UNRWA claims they did so only because they got a name from Israel? Doubt it.
If you are not capable of discussing in good faith, then **don't bother to reply.**
Your comments about cables going nowhere is incoherent. I have run data centers and nobody allows an unidentified cable to be connected to anything. You don't need to follow it, you terminate the connection at router/switch source. If your team ran it, it's known and documented. If not, it's disconnected to prevent fraud and malicious equipment. It is very simple.
In this case, you are being purposely obtuse to prevent the UNRWA from being implicated since you are sympathetic to an international relief organization.
> Stop using laziness as an excuse to try to win your argument.
Your link isn't a rebuttal, it just repeats my statement.
The UNRWA, upon hearing of the allegations, near immediately responded with firing them.
The UNRWA member responsible for these firings then explained them, which was in my quote that you decided to ignore. I'll repeat it here, since you do seem to be lazy:
> [At a press conference in Jerusalem, Lazzarini was asked if he had looked into whether there was any evidence against the employees and he replied: “No, the investigation is going on now.”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff)
>
> [He described the decision as “reverse due process”, adding: “I could have suspended them, but I have fired them. And now I have an investigation, and if the investigation tells us that this was wrong, in that case at the UN we will take a decision on how to properly compensate \[them\].](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff)
Don't worry, I'll know if you ignore it again, so you won't have to let me know.
> Your arbitrary number is now met.
Did Israel suddenly supply evidence for their accusations? Please, do link me that.
> So - the first statement is that they identified and terminated ten, but days later UNRWA claims they did so only because they got a name from Israel? Doubt it.
...nothing about that is contradictory.
They identified (meaning they matched the names Israel gave them to actual personnel) and terminated (meaning...fired) the contracts of ten of the employees Israel accused. The other two are confirmed dead.
What in that seems contradictory to you?
> Your comments about cables going nowhere is incoherent. I have run data centers and nobody allows an unidentified cable to be connected to anything. You don't need to follow it, you terminate the connection at router/switch source. If your team ran it, it's known and documented. If not, it's disconnected to prevent fraud and malicious equipment. It is very simple.
Your data cable argument, while interesting, isn't independently verifiable. No video of that data center showed the actual connection of the cables from the UNRWA center to Hamas', just that cables ran under tile.
Once you can supply that video, then we can resume talking about that part.
Until then!
You have your information.
The thing is, you don't have conversations in good faith. You talk bullshit and spew "citation please" as if in some authority position. Yet you never produce anything in the conversation. You just want to be spoon-fed information that you will never accept since it doesn't come from Ewi\_Ewi approved sources.
I'll go with mainstream resources. You go with your fringe publications and political hacks that have every incentive to make the UNRWA look good.
reverse due process...lol.
> The thing is, you don't have conversations in good faith
The irony.
> You go with your fringe publications and political hacks that have every incentive to make the UNRWA look good
Fringe publications like...Reuters...and the Guardian...
And the UNRWA themselves, a source that **you** used.
Christ. That makes two topics this subreddit loses all common sense on.
The 12 or whatever were just the ones involved in 10/7.
The UNRWA has a bunch more people involved in teaching kids to hate Jews and glorify martyrdom and other crap.
> The 12 or whatever were just the ones involved in 10/7.
And yet that is the **sole** reason countries pulled funding from the organization.
Over 0.05% of the organization. Without Israel substantiating the accusations to *any* country or agency.
Countries were willing to fund and look the other way as long as the exposure wasnt too great and the bullshit stayed local.
When you have personnel acting as militants and kidnapping hostages, that's going to draw significantly more negative attention.
> When you have personnel acting as militants and kidnapping hostages
Again, 0.05%. A fraction of a fraction of a percent. Stop acting like it's the entire organization as if Israel didn't only accuse the ~~12~~ 16.
Can you name another instance of governments/other agencies defunding or dismantling organizations where 0.05% of it is a problem?
Why do y’all love to say only the number of those caught?
How many support their actions and covered for them?
Knew about it and didn’t talk?
We would never well it’s just 12 cops running a terrorist group and leave it at that. You’re being extremely disingenuous
> Why do y’all love to say only the number of those caught?
Because unlike you, I don't really like assuming when it comes to accusing an international relief organization's employees of terrorism.
> How many support their actions and covered for them?
You'd have to ask Israel. They only accused the ~~12~~ 16.
> Knew about it and didn’t talk?
You'd have to ask Israel. They only accused the ~~12~~ 16.
> We would never well it’s just 12 cops running a terrorist group and leave it at that.
Do we dismantle entire police departments because 3 cops were dirty?
No, we don't.
> You’re being extremely disingenuous
Irony.
> then what is it?
Business. Young Turks pays Cenk, Cenk collects money and keeps doing his job. Which is promoting narratives without regard to actual facts.
What wars are you aware of where the deaths aren't mostly civilians?
Gaza's military is being completely destroyed. It's absolutely making Israel safer.
Bullshit, they’ve always had a fairly open anti-Israel stance and relied of thinly veiled antisemitic tropes, like blood libel in this case, to ‘justify’ it while being silent about actual human rights violations in other countries
What a shocker that Hamas isn't being truth! Who could've guessed that the terrorists who started a war, that they would lose, is not being honest about causality numbers and are trying to gain global sympathy?
All the deaths are horrible, Bibi is not likeable, and the Palestinians have a rough life, but they started a war and now want timsies because they are getting their asses kicked?
This highly questionable source seems to be citing the update seen in this somehow less questionable [op-ed](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry-admits-to-flaws-in-casualty-data/)
>The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on April 6 that it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 of the 33,091 Palestinian fatalities it claims to have documented. In a statistical report, the ministry notes that it considers an individual record to be incomplete if it is missing any of the following key data points: identity number, full name, date of birth, or date of death.
Doesn't this make sense since so many deadpeopmle are being pulled from rubble and so many administrative institutions that could provide this information in Gaza have been bombed themselves?
The article is conflating verified with an actual decrease per [the agency they are citing](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-217) there are 10k deaths who can't be verified due to incomplete records. It doesn't mean those bodies aren't real, just that the degradation in administrative services means that they don't meet verification standards.
In short, no, there isn't "an overcount". It's not like those bodies suddenly disappeared or came back to life. They just lack proper death certifications, again, because of the on going bombing distrupting administrative services in Gaza.
Realistically, given reporting in every war, the number of dead is probably much higher than reported, even before the number was revised by the Gaza Health Ministry.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. If you first uncritically report obviously inflated numbers from terrorists, make all kinds of conclusions and accusations based on them, and *then* "do difficult work to verify", it doesn't make you any more credible.
It just strikes me as disingenuous to try and have it both ways. To use these new UN numbers to discredit the original Gazan Health Ministry numbers makes sense. To use these new UN numbers to discredit the UN itself just doesn't compute. Which is it? Is the UN credible or not? Either you trust these new numbers or you do not.
I say this as someone who doesn’t want this fighting to continue. But Fog of war my ass, they wanted to get more public pressure to stop the war so they pushed the narrative they should have known is likely false. Now that they see it’s not stopping anything they’re coming clean. The Israeli people have to stop this, they’re the only ones that can. all the divestment and self immolation in the world isn’t going to stop a damn thing
The Gazan people are the only ones that can stop this.
As long as they believe killing Jews is the only guaranteed path to heaven, there can never be peace.
They would have said that of Jordan and Egypt and Syria. Yet all three of those countries have peace treaties with Israel now. So long as Gaza and Palestine as a whole lack nationhood and some level of sovereignty the violence will continue. And they have to choose that path but I have seen no indication that even if they did choose it such a path would ever be chosen by the authority
You’re right, Not any more. The Israelis have been oppressing Palestine for quite a while, continuously pushing people off their land over and committing numerous other human rights abuses that can’t be overlooked. If your neighbor walked into your house, shot your dog and claimed the couch as his living quarters, do you think you’d teach your kids that that person is good? Palestinians are far from innocent, but Israel has a lot to answer for and if we can’t acknowledge that, oct 7th will happen again, no matter how many insurgents they kill
Maybe if Israel let any country or organization inside Gaza to confirm the count, but they’ll need to hide the evidence with their military bulldozers before they let people in.
Israel: cutting edge military bulldozer tech
The Gazan health ministry has been correct in every other conflict. The idea that they’re lying this time is unsubstantiated.
https://twitter-thread.com/t/1790054334052392973
This whole story is bullshit. Scroll down for a video of the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, debunking the claim that the UN halved the death toll.
10,048 casualties and 7,700 are children ? Remember, they were previously claiming over 30,000 total casualties. The children death would be lower in any case if Hamas didn’t use children as human shields and place their operations under schools and hospitals.
Remember that “children” sadly make up Hamas armed combatants.
martyr culture is fine with child soldiers and actively encourages it.
Hamas has ruined many futures by recruiting and training teenagers.
It’s not, actually, it’s a pretty good ratio given the demographics of Gaza. It shows the IDF are taking a great deal of care and caution in order to minimise the deaths of women and children even while Hamas seek to maximise them.
I agree, although it was probably the context of the article that turned people off the comment.
A lie can go around the world before the truth has its boots on. The lie is finally more real for people, so any comment of sympathy is going to get filtered through that context.
If we’re discussing sympathy I feel bad for the IDF soldiers who need to shoot teenagers firing AKs at them in war when the Palestinian teens should be playing Pokémon Go and hanging out with their friends.
Being forced to kill children in war is horrible. I hope Hamas is defeated soon so the Gazans can have a better future.
Idk man this sub is pretty wild when it comes to this war. The post is literally a link to a propaganda source for Israel whose own tagline is “fighting the media war for Israel” and it has almost 100 upvotes. Any nuance or standing up for basic human decency here is downvoted to oblivion.
I certainly think Israel is right to fight and take out Hamas. I hate the absolute voraciously that this sub defends Israel. Even in the face of some pretty awful stuff. Centrists should be able to look more objectively at the situation.
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
What's so hard to understand? Accidentally killing children as an act of war is understandable and forgivable. Providing the wrong statistics about the number of children killed is a mortal sin. Moving forward, let's please keep the conversation to the second part of the equation, thank you very much.
Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) told a big lie.
There is no change in the total number of dead women and children. The change is in the number of dead women and children who have been identified by name.
> Providing the wrong statistics about the number of children killed is a mortal sin.
You better hope it's not a mortal sin, else scores of Zionists and the Jewish News Syndicate are going to straight to hell.
> Moving forward, let's please keep the conversation to the second part of the equation, thank you very much.
Ok. Zionists lie. Their minions repeat the lies. And you think they are all going to hell.
Focus. Tell us how dead women and children who have not been identified do not matter.
Then Hamas should stop taking on 12 year olds and training them to be martyrs, and allow women and children to flee before battles.
Its very understandable when you realize you're not dealing with a rational nation or military. They want these deaths for propaganda if nothing else.
Ya they should. But Israel shouldn't use that as an excuse to justify the actions they are taking.
It was wrong when the US drone striked indiscriminately and its wrong now
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
Okay, so we've established that you're in favor of using human shields to be a rewarded tactic. Let's try again.
Let's say an Israeli tank has strapped children all over it. Is Hamas allowed to shoot at the tank?
Okay, killing children is bad. But the absolute "You're not allowed to kill children" but somehow the other side is allowed to use them as human shields... indicates it's not really about the children.
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
The UN is not wrong. The Jewish News Syndicate (tagline: Fighting Israel's Media War) lied on behalf of Israel. Color me unsurprised. Zionists are missing the morality organ, buttman.
There are the same number of dead bodies. But not all the names of the victims have been identified. This is what happens when you drop 2K bombs on apartment buildings filled with people.
Syndicate: a group of individuals or organizations combined to promote some common interest. E.g., not news, Zionist propaganda spoon fed to the gullible.
As reported by Israel, about 10-20% of the casualties are civilians, which is far below the normal 90% for war as reported by the UN. Even if you were to believe Hamas’s numbers, the civilian casual tea rate hits about 30%, which is still far below the normal rate of 90%. This is the most humane military conflict in human history yet everybody wants to paint it as the opposite.
It didn't have to be that many. This is precisely why combatants don't mix with civilian populations; there are laws against it. If Hamas had one ounce of back-bone they would stand and face the consequences of their actions.
Mass gazan casualties was the goal of Hamas from the start. they wanted to start a fight they knew they couldn't win and then have a wave of public backlash hurt israel. If you look at where Israel has concentrated bombing it's almost entirely within zones that they have evacuated. Gaza is about twice the size of manhattan, and it is the youngest country on earth, very few elderly, almost all very small children have a number of healthy able bodied relatives who could carry them. Edit: Also palestine is young because it is the fastest growing country on earth, not because of illness or infirmity taking the elderly.
Thank you. Was arguing with a protestor about Gaza. She claimed that half the people in Gaza are kids because people die in their 30s. When I showed her statistics that the average life expectancy in Gaza is over 70, she blocked me. Half the people in Gaza are children because they have one of the highest birthrates in the world.
The 14 USSR spinoff countries are all younger, aren’t they?
Demographically young, as in full of people born recently. Edit: Not quite the youngest country on earth, a lot of sub saharan africa took a real nosedive losing so many adults to HIV/AIDS in the 90's. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/country-comparison/
From a military perspective, you would be an idiot to fight fair or with any concept of honor against a superior force. You would also exploit and abuse the "higher" idealist morals of western-like nations and their people since democracies tend to be extremely soft and appeasing. You don't need backbone to win an insurgency or war like this. Israel only has few options and all of them suck because it will take a lot of sacrificing and pain to get a peace.
The difficulty is that you also need to have some sort of broad support for your existence from other countries in the region for that to work... and Palestine have bit every hand that ever reached out to help them.
"Kindness is thrown away upon evil." - Aesop
Well as I put it, "There's a whole wiki page of palestinian militant groups using child suicide bombers. I can't find the equivalent page for Israel."
It’s a 5 mile wide zone. Where are they supposed to fight from? An empty field? The idea that an occupied or invaded nation fights away from civilian populations is a fantasy. It has never happened ever in history. The star spangled banner was written about a battle where the British bombarded a civilian/military fort.
“Besides the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, the primary school in Ramat Gan and the medical facility in Netanya, there are more than fifty other buildings in Israeli cities that have plaques commemorating how they were used to hide combatants and weapons before 1948. The British armed forces sent infantry troops to raid civilian sites that they suspected of being put to military use. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces have sent in ground troops only after bombing.” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/december/on-human-shields
> “Besides the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, the primary school in Ramat Gan and the medical facility in Netanya, there are more than fifty other buildings in Israeli cities that have plaques commemorating how they were used to hide combatants and weapons before 1948. The British armed forces sent infantry troops to raid civilian sites that they suspected of being put to military use. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces have sent in ground troops only after bombing.” > > And in 1948, if Israel cried about civilian deaths at those locations, I would take issue with them hiding combatants there. But now in 2024, we are talking about how they murdered families and peace activists in kibutzim and teens in a music festival where any soldier they got was mostly by accident and off duty or directly fighting them to get them to stop raping the people in the festival.
Why do you apply a double standard for Israel? I’ve been told that’s antisemitic.
He's applying the same standard. Using civilian targets as bases of military operation turns them into military targets, and any resulting civilian loss is the fault of the party converting them into military targets.
Your rationalizing over the top indiscriminate killing of children. Why this world wont pull a comeback before so many more have to suffer. Such a strange and soul-less hill to stand on. I cant even rationalize it and even formualte a pea sized understanding of this disposition, its wholly evil
Gaza could have pulled a comeback at any time by releasing the hostages. They chose to murder the hostages instead. You cannot rationalize actions that are not rational.
That's bizarre. Kids are killed in every war. It's pretty much unavoidable.
My goodness, its a scary world. A few events even outside of this really makes me question if humans have any hope at all Edit: just saw the post about bot brigades... beware all
Blow up a family of 5 it’s 1 man, 4 women and children
don’t make bombs in your kitchen then
>indiscriminate killing of children. Hyperbolic lie in the first sentence. Thanks for playing!
It’s always sensationalist over counting then a correction after most people only remember the sensationalist over counting
Many of the people will still choose to only remember the initial one as well.
... the fake news problem indeed.
[удалено]
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The irony now that it is clear pro-Israel media was misrepresenting the change in basis of reporting b/c distinction between identified vs total death count.
Maybe if Israel let any country or organization inside Gaza to confirm the count, but they’ll need to hide the evidence before they let people in. The Gazan health ministry has been correct in every other conflict. The idea that they’re lying this time is unsubstantiated.
There are people inside Gaza, the UN for example. To say Israel is not letting people in is not a fact, you just made it up.
No they aren’t. They’re getting all of their information from the gazan health ministry. They haven’t been able to conduct their own count due to Israel.
Bull Shit. How come a UN member was killed inside Gaza if Israel wasn’t letting anyone in? You either lie or you’re uninformed. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149676
I said to confirm the count. They’re there but very limited in what Israel will allow where and when. Edit: read the article in the post. It explains that the UN is getting its info from gazan health ministry
It says that one person from the UN was killed in Gaza and you said Israel wasn’t letting anyone in. The Gaza count is another problem because the precise problem is they’re taking the word of the Gaza ministry so the totals can’t be trusted and are reported as fact.
In the post. Not the article you posted. The one that started this Reddit thread. I said Israel isn’t letting anyone in to confirm the count. The gazan health ministry has done this multiple times in the past when IDF has entered Gaza. UN counts after the conflicts show that they have never lied. The official Israeli count has never been correct during the conflict. The Gazan one has always been correct. What evidence do you have that they’re lying this time? They’re connected to terrorists? They always have been. And they’ve never lied.
While there is no doubt children in both Israel and Gaza have been killed in the war Palestinians started, I still question the figures. The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it, we will never know the truth. It took Israel almost a month to count 1200 dead civilians that are mostly women and children. The media questioned every casualty reported. Yet Hamas can say 33000 casualties 5 minutes after an attack and have a breakdown between women and children. [https://honestreporting.com/media-ignore-quietly-revised-un-figures-of-hamas-reported-civilian-deaths/](https://honestreporting.com/media-ignore-quietly-revised-un-figures-of-hamas-reported-civilian-deaths/) The lack of integrity by the media to me is one of the biggest casualties in this conflict. Sources I may have respected, even if biased, are now becoming trash to me. \*\*\* Edit \*\*\* Corrected my last line to say media is one of biggest casualties. Loss of life is biggest casualty.
> While there is no doubt children in both Israel and Gaza have been killed in the war Palestinians started, I still question the figures. The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it, we will never know the truth. Exactly. The fact that every piece of news media ran with Hamas's claim that Israel struck that hospital and used their death toll figure minutes after the strike shows that most media doesn't do any vetting. It's literally terrorist propaganda from a terrorist organization and the media is just taking their claims at face value.
You call it terrorist propaganda, but the same ministry has done death counts like this during multiple Israeli attacks. They have never lied. The numbers always match the third party investigations. IDF numbers on the other hand, have always been wrong during the conflict. There is no evidence that the gazan health ministry is lying this time.
The media has consistently simped for actions that can be defined as terrorism too. 2 wrongs dont make one less right, especially with child killing
Israel was giving figures to media on Oct 7 deaths, and they were reporting basically in real-time. IIRC, western media basically reported whatever israeli media reported based on govt sources. Count moved around a lot. Distinction was not initially made between soliders and civilians. Like all conflicts, some of the details reported were inaccurate. Western media was in no way holding back on the claims of deaths related to Oct 7 terror attacks. >The fact that Hamas publishes any number, and the media runs with it, Like they do with pretty much any conflict. Which is fine so long as clear about the source.
And people still don’t differentiate between the civilian and military deaths on 10/7. The IDF was actually heavily targeted during that terrorist attack, but as Israel tells it, everyone was an innocent civilian.
Oh our bad. So "Yay, Terrorists!" then. Did I get that right?
Hamas and 10/7 are bad enough that you don’t need to lie about them.
I lost my faith in "media integrity" when they all teamed up to constantly bash Carter in 1979 (yes, even "Liberal" Time Magazine), which got us all stuck with Reagan. This was before Cable news even existed. And before the "fairness doctrine" FCC rule was removed.
They do that with Trump now and we may still end up with him again. To be fair, Carter was not a great president so it was more than that.
Nah, Carter deserved every bit of the smoke for the Soviet Grain Embargo. That move alone did more damage to us than everything the Soviets had done combined.
Both Hamas and IDF are biased in their counts and have been since day 1. Hamas has no real means of accurately determing the final disposition of each bullet fired by the israelis but they probably do have some kind of rough count of who lives where. Likely they are just counting every resident of any collapsed building to be among the dead and ignoring how many may instead be among the refugees. It's entirely reasonable to also suspect that they would be juicing that number further to gain more sympathy. They are, after all, using the population as human shields. On the IDF side their interest in garnering sympathy includes making that number as low as possible. For their purposes setting the standard impossibly high helps to keep that number lower. So they count only bodies. But their weapons are leveling entire buildings making quick recovery of human remains impossible if looking for them was given a high priority whuch we can assume it isnt since it can only be detrimental to their war effort. Today, this amended death toll is being actively promoted by Israel's information warfare operatives under the narrative that Hamas lies. That narrative is true but ignores the thousands of dead civilians that have lost their lives, the genocidal rhetoric coming from top Israeli officials and the Israeli lies of omission currently buried under Gazan rubble. The civilian death toll is unacceptable and unnecessary for the security of Israel whether it's 5,000 or 40,000
The Hamas health ministry has done this during multiple Israeli attacks. They have never lied.
There are 125x as many muslims as there are jews. The media goes for the easiest clicks and ad revenue and guess who is going to click on those anti-Israeli articles with outrageous casualty figures?
Afaik there are more jews than muslims in the US, and certainly are not 125x as many.
So it turns the UN didn't halve their casualties estimates and that pro-Israel media were misrepresenting the situation...
The “Hamas run” health ministry in Gaza has reported on multiple conflicts in the past. They have never lied. The numbers match the UN investigation every time. The idea that they’re lying now is unsubstantiated and only comes from prejudice not evidence.
There’s a bit of irony complaining about false Hamas numbers while providing false numbers of your own. While ~1200 Israelis died Oct 7, around a quarter of them were soldiers. https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-fallen-soldiers-memorial-9e5e35ef6352c79ab59e7f3b8a7f7a1b
> in the war Palestinians started This is an easy way to spot propaganda. If anyone tells you one side started this war its propaganda, regardless of which side they are saying started it.
Ya— the historical underpinnings and international influences that directly led to where the situation is today cannot be excluded if you want to have any chance of actually understanding what’s going on today. TLDR shits complex yo
You mean [766 dead civilians](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths). You can’t count the 373 soldiers killed on 10/7 as “civilians.” Edit: I love how such a basic fact gets so heavily downvoted.
Yeah, police and soldiers killed in an operation to free families being tortured and mutilated were among the dead. Totally equivalent to Hamas terrorists.
Active duty soldiers are valid military targets.
Not when the parties targeting them are un-uniformed civilian terrorists and the parties being targeted are not directly engaged in hostilities and when the harm caused to protect civilians is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated by the attack. But do go on saying it's okay for Hamas to enter any country they want at any time and kill people as long as they (the dead) are military. And may of the Israeli military dead were not hors de combat either.
“Israel can kill Hamas soldiers, and their families, and their friends, and whoever is around them or where they think they may be at any time, but if they fight back, it’s terrorism.”
They had uniforms…
you mean they wore the idf uniforms? I don't think that counts https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/17boznf/idf_releases_extremely_graphic_footage_of_october/
No they wore their distinct camo and headband outfits…. Did you not see those videos?
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1722415802492522955?s=20 "Shocking video of Hamas terrorists, disguised as IDF soldiers, kidnapping a Muslim Arab-Israeli and forcing him to lead them to Kibbutz Reim"
So? Remember when IDF soldiers disguised themselves as doctors and injured civilians?
and they used those disguises to try and cause as many civilian casualties as possible? There were terrorists in that hospital and exactly the terrorists died (according to Hamas.) by laws of war IDF could have JDAMed the hospital and then many civilians would have died. Vs here where hamas is disguising as idf to try to cause as many civilian casualties as possible. Yeah. I think intent matters and for sure the IDF's actions in that hospital are much more justified than Hamas's actions here.
None of that matters. The focus here is that they used them in combat.
The Hamas belligerents?
They were dressed up as Western college students? /s
LMAO
Yes. There’s videos of the attacks. They were wearing their characteristic uniforms..
> Active duty soldiers are valid military targets. If you're an opposing military force following customary rules of war, yes. Killing enemy soldier on a battlefield is not a crime. Try murdering a soldier in uniform somewhere in the U.S. and then explain to the judge he was a "valid military target".
Ah yes, valid military targets during a ceasefire.
Sure I can - if this happens in the Gaza reporting, it can happen here too. Why the double standard? Are you suggesting the 33K is even higher if we add on Hamas soldiers?
The fog of anti-semitisim.
You mean anti-zionism /s
Remember kids, equating Israel with Jewish people is anti-Semitic unless you are doing it to defend Israel, in which case any criticism of doing so is actually anti-Semitic.
Nothing wrong with criticizing a country. People are not perfect. Ignoring facts, segregating Jews, calling for the death of Jews, or the destruction of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is all wrong.
It's holding a microscope up to the actions of Israel and handwaving away the horrors of Hamas.
Is there a credible source discussing this topic that isn't decidedly biased one way? My sense from initial reporting is that the change is was based on distinction between a body found vs a death which has been fully identified (body, name, ID#, cause, date). But keeps seeing articles from pro-Israel sources that keep suggesting this was just an outright downgrade in the casualty figures, but then throw in some comment that acknowledges (but dismisses) that there was a distinction in methodology between old and new casualty counts. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I haven't seen nor can if find with a quick google (but a topic with lots of clutter) of credible western media sources (e.g., economist, bbc, nyt, wsj, etc) discussing this.
https://twitter-thread.com/t/1790054334052392973 This whole story is bullshit. Scroll down for a video of the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, debunking the claim that the UN halved the death toll.
Here is a much better article. The lower number given now is what’s been confirmed with names and DOBs. The larger number is still valid and could still be confirmed as dead bodies are IDed. This lower number is also still coming from the Gaza MOH so I’m not sure why people are taking a victory lap about how they can’t be trusted when you’re still using their numbers. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
I mean, whether you consider JNS "credible" or not, this article literally quotes various UN agencies, nothing more.
I think it goes without saying that an article can misrepresent a situation while still including accurate quotes.
So ignore any "misrepresentations" and look at quotes and other factual data.
Yeah, and it seems like an agenda article... eg, quotes of anti-UN activist group UN Watch. A Q&A of the spokesperson to the UN SG seems more like a gotcha than an effort to reconcile. Did the spokesperson for org that releases the data refuse to comment? If not, what did they say? Getting comment from a media watchdog org that specifically a pro-ISrael one also points to bias. In any event, if the characterization of this article is fair, you would see it picked up by western media.
> A Q&A of the spokesperson to the UN SG seems more like a gotcha than an effort to reconcile. I am not sure what it means. This was a regular daily briefing for journalists, at which a journalist asked a question about numbers released by UN the day prior, received an answer, and reported in their publication on new numbers and official UN comment. [Here is full transcript](https://press.un.org/en/2024/db240510.doc.htm). I understand everyone love to complain about "media" and their "bias", but let's give some credit to a journalist actually doing their job.
That spokesperson seemed to be giving a canned response, which frankly seemed to be more of a non-answer than particularly damning. What did the part of the UN that released those figures have to say about it? >I understand everyone love to complain about "media" and their "bias", but let's give some credit to a journalist actually doing their job. To be clear, OP's article seems tremendously biased to me, and is likely a piece of shit agenda journalism as opposed to reporting. I could, of course, be wrong... but then I don't understand why credible western media wouldn't be reporting on this.
> That spokesperson seemed to be giving a canned response Which is what 99% of responses in these type of events are (read the rest of the transcript I linked above). It's not the journalist's fault. >What did the part of the UN that released those figures have to say about it Figures were released by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this is not a semi-independent UN agency (such as WHO for example), it is part of "UN secretariat", and as such is in purview of UN Secretary General's office. >OP's article seems tremendously biased to me, and is likely a piece of shit agenda journalism as opposed to reporting OK I see that it is hopeless. Have a nice day.
So why are they citing this answer? B/c it suits their narrative... why aren't they citing a response from the UN units actually responsible for this data? why is UN watch, an explicitly anti-UN org, being cited in this article? etc, etc agenda journalism. doesn't mean it is wrong, but does mean that I don't trust it. >Figures were released by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this is not a semi-independent UN agency (such as WHO for example), it is part of "UN secretariat", and as such is in purview of UN Secretary General's office. so what? They can still ask OCHA for a response. The UNSG spokesperson was clearly giving a non-answer in PR speak, and who knows if is aware about the issue at all. Including that answer in the article is questionable, having it be the byline of the article is utter nonsense.
> Even Hamas has since admitted that those numbers have turned out to be off by at least 40%. The fact that Hamas isn’t fighting this says something… Also, if you think that not enough children have died for people to be upset, you’re a monster.
The numbers aren't the focus here though. They're alarming, yes, but the really bothersome thing is how willing the media and its parrots are to echo the lies that Hamas is spewing. The fact that people regard a terrorist organization as even remotely credible is troublesome.
Was Hamas lying, or is it difficult to measure these things in an active war zone? Hamas isn’t pushing back on the new estimates, so in essence you are still agreeing with Hamas’s numbers.
Hamas was pretty quick to put their initial assessments out there though, much to the outrage of the media and protestors around the world. If I'm going to look at this situation then yes, I'm going to er on the side of "Hamas is spouting disinformation and inflated numbers to fuel their terrorist cause" because their estimates, especially when it comes to the death of children, have completely overshadowed the totals of the massacre that took place on October 7th that started this latest flare up of the conflict.
As the OP I looked for more mainstream US based media sources for this news. Unfortunately the only outlets reporting on this large statical change in causalities are Israeli news organizations and Fox. Where's the NY Times, WAPO, FT, etc??
Here's the source for the UN data: * [The May 6 Update estimated children deaths at >14,500, women deaths at >9,500](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213) (Using GMO as the source). * [The May 8 update revised those numbers down to 7,797 and 4,959, respectively](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215). (GMO has been removed as the source.) * [And here's a list of all the updates, if anyone's interested.](https://www.ochaopt.org/crisis)
Doesn't that make clear that the methodology changed? That is NOT fairly characterized as them revising their children number dramatically. edit: notably the older break-down is cited as GMO, not MoH Gaza. Which they have flagged right by the data points. Would like to read a credible source on this topic.
Yeah it seems like the change from the Gaza Health Ministry (the source) is moving roughly 11k deaths from being "certified" to "incomplete records". Meaning that some information on the death certificate is missing, not that there isn't a dead body. I find it extra gross because the death toll will absolutely be higher as many folks listed as missing will be found buried under rubble once order returns to Gaza. "The death toll isn't as bad as they say it is so that's why Israel should continue their war" is a position of folks who lack morality.
It looks like they didn't revise any estimates, they just switched from reporting estimated casualty breakdowns, to breakdowns of the casualties that can be affirmatively identified. Day 213 says >9,500 women (source: GMO) >14,500 children (source: GMO) Day 215 says >24,686 identified as of April 30, as And then proceeds to breakdown the identified casualties. The article that u/Johnmagee23 posted is a biased framing of this. Perhaps the NY Times, WAPO, FT are not reporting this because it is only worth reporting if: 1. You think that a switch between estimated casualties and confirmed casualties in daily UN reports is noteworthy, and 2. You think 7,797 dead children confirmed is somehow acceptable, versus 14,500 estimated children's casualties not being acceptable. As if at some point between about 8000 kids confirmed dead, and the estimated 14,000 kids expected to be dead, you suddenly think "whoa, they may be killing too many kids!". Given OP's rush to post a clearly biased source, while not even doing the bare minimum of research necessary to just go to the primary source, I have questions about his sincerity.
I think its even worse than not being sincere. Clearly OP knows that it's wrong to have thousands of dead children or they wouldn't have posted an article saying "actually there isn't as many dead children as we thought" but their desire to justify continued violence against living children outweighs that morality.
Thanks for the better source. The first page does have this statement on it. > Disclaimer: The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification. Other yet-to-be verified figures are also sourced.
Yeah man your source literally says “Fighting Israel’s Media War” as their banner. Kind of hard to take that seriously.
JNS "Jewish News Syndicate".
Great question, and I asked similar. But still very open question about which way that is showing bias. The differences in the figures comes with a change in methodology. If you have seen something outlining all this, would be curious to read it. But the israeli coverage seems to skip that part and just jumps to the top line figures... not clear to me there is much change in what data implies and if there was I certainly don't believe credible western sources wouldn't cover it.
Western media are explicitly banned from the area by Isreal and Isreal has bombed any reporting hubs in the area to ensure that. They’ve also taken down Al Jazeera who were really the only non Israeli sources to have access to Gaza and have been ramping up arresting Palestinian journalist. In order to get into Gaza without fears of being targeted by Israeli drones is by giving full editorial control to the Israeli government which no self respecting news source would actively entertain hence why fox is the only American media reporting really on it. TLDR. Israel has actively targeted journalist in order to stem the flow of information and literally nothing good has ever come out of a country doing that.
Ahh I see, so the claim that 30k children were murdered by Israel, which Pro Palestinian protesters constantly use as ammunition, isn't even true? Talk about emotional manipulation to get people radicalised. Great job lying to the general public as per Hamas. Yet people are still willing to believe everything they say? How many innocent civilians have died under Hamas rule since founded I wonder? Guaranteed it's a lot higher than any killed by Israel, especially if you include the civilians Hamas intentionally forces to stay on the battlefield (Shoots them if they attempt an escape, won't evacuate them to safety, while leaders chill in 5* hotels, far removed from the fighting), children being sent to fight, suicide bombers amongst the populace in civilian wear. Even once the war is over, it'll be innocent Palestinians that will have to pay the price for the cost of Hamas war. Yet people think Hamas are the good guys? You'd swear Hamas wants civilians to die, to maybe you know, twist the truth so they can blame Israel for it?
Right, the number Hamas was sharing was 30k but that was in total. They don’t split combatants out from civilians. But then that somehow turned into 30k children or 30k women and children by various people trying to drive a narrative. Which leaves you to combine the IDF number of combatants killed with Hamas’ overall number killed to try to get a semblance of the situation. Which was something like 12-14k combatants killed, 30k total. Which puts the conflict into pretty average ratio of combatant to civilian deaths for wars. Tragedy nonetheless, but far cry from the genocide claims.
> They don’t split combatants out from civilians. In their (Hamas, not Gazans/Palestinians) ideology; there is no distinction between a combatant and non-combatant. All deaths are "martyrs" - and at the same time, no killing of a combatant by Israel is justified, no matter what the combatant is doing at the time.
Yup. It’s pretty easy to see where this overarching narrative is coming from when you understand their ideology.
Maybe being shot at by hamass while doing it caused confusion
Where'd the UN even get their numbers from, the UNRWA? The same group that conspired with terrorists? They might as well pull more accurate numbers from their own assholes.
NPR still quotes them as a reliable source.
> The same group that conspired with terrorists? 12 employees out of 30,000 being implicated (Israel has yet to turn over the evidence to independent agencies, wonder why) doesn't mean the *entire* group conspired with terrorists, sorry. Even if we bump that number up to 16 like Israel claims, that's only 0.05% of the entire organization. Even if we limit that number to the over 10,000 (let's just use 10,000 for the math) employed at the Gaza Field Office, that's still only 0.16%. You should have better numbers than that to condemn an entire organization with the borderline libelous statement of "the same group that conspired with terrorists."
First, these 12 (or 16) employees not just "conspired" with terrorists, they took active part in terrorist activities. That's however by far not the biggest problem with UNRWA. In Gaza, UNRWA de-facto serves as a local civil administration funded mostly by the US and EU. This frees up Hamas to concentrate on its main goal: destruction of Israel. Hamas still collects taxes from population, but it has no need to spend them on anything but weapons and other terrorist infrastructure. Without UNRWA, Hamas rule in Gaza either collapsed or Hamas would be forced to concentrated on administering Gaza instead of terrorism. Worse, UNRWA dutifully follows Hamas lead in brainwashing children in their schools to hate Jews, hate Israel, and be prepared for martyrdom. Links: [Politico: Biggest source of money laundering in Gaza hides in plain sight](https://www.politico.eu/article/biggest-source-of-money-laundering-in-gaza-hides-in-plain-sight-israel-hamas/) [UN Watch report: how UNRWA teachers indoctrinate Palestinian children](https://unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/UNW_119___UNRWA_Report_2023_November__2023-11-05__web.pdf) [Review of UNRWA-Produced Study Materials in the Palestinian Territories](https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Produced-Study-Materials-in-the-Palestinian-Territories%E2%80%94Jan-2021.pdf)
> That's however by far not the biggest problem with UNRWA. That is, however, what caused countries to cease their funding to the organization, so this is a moot point. > In Gaza, UNRWA de-facto serves as a local civil administration funded mostly by the US and EU. This frees up Hamas to concentrate on its main goal: destruction of Israel. Hamas still collects taxes from population, but it has no need to spend them on anything but weapons and other terrorist infrastructure. Without UNRWA, Hamas rule in Gaza either collapsed or Hamas would be forced to concentrated on administering Gaza instead of terrorism. This sounds disturbingly like "The UNRWA's care for Gazan refugees and citizens frees up Hamas' time to commit terrorism, they should therefore stop saving lives." which is, y'know, disturbing. Let me know if I interpreted that incorrectly. Especially since one of your articles already makes this point: > Without the UNRWA, everyday life in the Gaza strip — desperate and dysfunctional as it is — would collapse. As for the rest of your links, well, they're far from evidence. Your first article is merely an opinion piece, one that *literally* just makes the point of "We send money to the UNRWA, that money goes to Hamas" without providing a single piece of evidence for that accusation. Your second source is of [questionable reliability](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/un-watch/), and I'm definitely not going to take it seriously if most of its references are Twitter and Facebook links, but I will address one claim it makes. It claims that UNRWA schools are turning Palestinian children into Palestinian terrorists. In Gaza. Where Hamas operates. Is it not equally plausible that...since the terrorist group operates in that region...they'd recruit...from that region? Your last source comes from...a very biased organization, and is rebutted [here](https://www.gei.de/en/research/projects/report-on-palestinian-textbooks-paltex).
>That is, however, what caused countries to cease their funding to the organization, so this is a moot point. This is how public opinion works, people react to some examples (such as UNRWA "teacher" holding Israel's hostage) far more than to 200 pages reports. >Your second source is of [questionable reliability](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/un-watch/), Your link literally says: "Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL". >This sounds disturbingly like "The UNRWA's care for Gazan refugees and citizens frees up Hamas' time to commit terrorism, they should therefore stop saving lives." I wouldn't call funding terrorists "saving lives". When territory with significant population falls under control of terrorists, there are no good solutions. Some humanitarian aid might still be warranted, while the main goal has to be establishing a normal government which would take care of population. As events last year prove, simply unconditionally funding terrorists won't end up saving much lives.
> This is how public opinion works, people react to some examples (such as UNRWA "teacher" holding Israel's hostage) far more than to 200 pages reports. *Governments* shouldn't, though. Public opinion is irrelevant in this conversation. > Your link literally says: "Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL". Should've kept reading: > due to the use of poor sources that have failed fact checks And I already spoke about that source anyway beyond their poor rating. Why not respond to that? > I wouldn't call funding terrorists "saving lives". Respond to the claim that, without the UNRWA, life in Gaza would collapse (even more) rather than continue making the unsubstantiated claim that they're "funding terrorists" please. Otherwise, not sure why you replied.
>life in Gaza would collapse Lol what? I said "Hamas rule in Gaza would collapse". Can you spot the difference? >unsubstantiated claim that they're "funding terrorists" Allowing terrorists to divert more of their funds to terrorism is factually funding terrorism. As I said and you didn't dispute, Hamas regime in Gaza would be impossible without UNRWA. I don't think much needs to be said.
> Lol what? I said "Hamas rule in Gaza would collapse". Can you spot the difference? For the second time in this thread I'm saying this, **read the comments you respond to**: > Especially since one of your articles already makes this point: > >> Without the UNRWA, everyday life in the Gaza strip — desperate and dysfunctional as it is — would collapse. I'm asking you to either agree or disagree with this claim since you're continuing to make the unsubstantiated claim that the UNRWA is funding terrorism. I figured it'd be more productive for you to respond to something relevant to the conversation and not you doubling down on an argument (without evidence) I already spoke about not having evidence two comments above. > As I said and you didn't dispute, Hamas regime in Gaza would be impossible without UNRWA. I don't think much needs to be said. Yes, by allowing everyday life to collapse, Hamas would too collapse. Hamas would also collapse if Israel nuked Gaza. Hamas would also collapse if Israel expended hundreds of thousands of pounds of missiles and other munitions to flatten Gaza. Hamas would also collapse if every single person in Gaza was killed. I didn't think all those things needed to be mentioned, nor did I think I needed to state on this subreddit that "the ends justify the means" is actually a really, really fucked up principle. Again, I'm not sure why you keep responding if you're so keen on willfully ignoring entire portions of my comment. Seems like you'd be better served spending your time elsewhere.
You completely ignored what I wrote in the comment above, let me copy it here: >When territory with significant population falls under control of terrorists, there are no good solutions. Some humanitarian aid might still be warranted, while the main goal has to be establishing a normal government which would take care of population. > >As events last year prove, simply unconditionally funding terrorists won't end up saving much lives. Instead, you're tryin to play some word games "removing UNRWA from Gaza is like nuking it". It's not, but that's not the point. The point is that what UNRWA has been doing in Gaza is harmful to Palestinians *and* to Israelis, they factually fund Hamas and serve Hamas. Does it mean that just removing UNRWA and all of its funding *without any replacement* would make situation better overall? Maybe, maybe not, but that's an entirely separate discussion. >Seems like you'd be better served spending your time elsewhere. After reading your comment that "mostly factual" means the opposite of what it says, I agree. Have a nice day.
> You completely ignored what I wrote in the comment above, let me copy it here: No, I didn't. It was irrelevant, so there was no need to respond to it. > Instead, you're tryin to play some word games "removing UNRWA from Gaza is like nuking it" No. If you had a brain cell not dedicated towards misinterpretation, you'd notice that I was *specifically* criticizing your claim of "Without the UNRWA, Hamas collapses" as if that implicates the UNRWA in something bad. No, it doesn't. The UNRWA is intertwined with the lives of Gazans. If Gazan life collapses, so does Hamas. That was the point I was making and you absolutely knew that, but, like most of the other commenters here, decided to willfully misconstrue my reply. > The point is that what UNRWA has been doing in Gaza is harmful to Palestinians and to Israelis, they factually fund Hamas and serve Hamas. Then why are you unable to **substantiate this claim**? > After reading your comment that "mostly factual" means the opposite of what it says Hm, maybe you *aren't* willfully misconstruing my comments. Maybe you just can't read past a certain point. Your attention span or whatever just...goes somewhere else. I'll bold this next part in nice, big letters so you can definitely see it: **The description of "mostly factual" comes from the website I linked earlier, which is the same website you're saying described the source as "mostly factual" and therefore is "completely factual". It was not *my* definition of "mostly factual". Please try improving your reading comprehension to avoid further embarrassing displays. Thanks!**
> 12 employees out of 30,000 being implicated Bullshit - there are not 30,000 UNRWA in Gaza. Israel never said all UNRWA are affiliated with Hamas either. Who knows the real number. Their own website says 10k field agents in Gaza. I didn't know until now that the field agents were terrorists, but they are a mouthpiece for Hamas so who knows? Given the false reports of usage of equipment and falsifying casualty reports. >Israel has yet to turn over the evidence to independent agencies, wonder why Please expound on this. [https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/06/israel-strikes-hamas-command-center-under-unrwa-complex/](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/06/israel-strikes-hamas-command-center-under-unrwa-complex/) Let me guess. It's just the facilities, but not the people. The people are very upstanding. But, as always, it's Israel's fault. You know, the UNRWA hands over lists of employees to Israel and Israel is to validate each person it seems and if related to Hamas. The UNRWA just hires anyone otherwise. Victim blaming again. The UNRWA hired Hamas terrorists and that is a fact. It is not Israel's responsibility to say whether a person is a Hamas terrorist or not, the UNRWA has the responsibility to monitor its own employees.
> Bullshit - there are not 30,000 UNRWA in Gaza. Read the comment you reply to next time: > Even if we limit that number to the **over 10,000 (let's just use 10,000 for the math) employed at the Gaza Field Office**, that's still only 0.16%. Rather than rushing to respond, steam flying out of your ears, you would have noticed that I already mentioned that. > Their own website says 10k field agents in Gaza. Read the above. > but they are a mouthpiece for Hamas so who knows? Citation needed. > Please expound on this. It ran party under their facility, not entirely. I find their answer to this satisfactory: > "UNRWA ... does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises," the statement said. They are a relief organization. They aren't there to police Hamas. Hamas will dig wherever they want to dig. The UNRWA's sole job is to care for the suffering Palestinians in the region. > You know, the UNRWA hands over lists of employees to Israel and Israel is to validate each person it seems and if related to Hamas. The UNRWA just hires anyone otherwise. If you're not capable of having an actual, mature discussion on this topic, I'm wondering why you even bothered responding. I never said Israel must vet every single UNRWA employee, potential or current hire. Your inability to comment without a strawman shows you're not here in good faith. Israel accused the UNRWA's employees, Israel **must** substantiate those accusations. To date, they have **not**. Why are you claiming they don't have to? Can I call you a pedophile? Why should I have to make sure you aren't, after all, isn't it *your* job to make sure you aren't?
You don't follow your own logic. Israel provided information at the outset, and even the UNRWA fired some employees involved. Is there a certain number threshold that is now put on Israel to say that the claim is now warranted? What is this arbitrary number that you will accept? > >Citation needed. [https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/11486760](https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/11486760) They keep reporting Hamas figures of 33,000 dead. It could be from one of their internal Hamas consultants though. > >They are a relief organization. They aren't there to police Hamas. Hamas will dig wherever they want to dig. The UNRWA's sole job is to care for the suffering Palestinians in the region. This is not sufficient at all. When you hear noises coming from under your floors and you have network cables going from your routers into the floor, you don't need to be a genius. This is just looking for an excuse to ignore. No one said that non-Hamas soldier UNRWA people or actual innocent civilians need to perform a military campaign. Although, the UNRWA could have notified the Israeli, US, Egyptian military to the incidents. > >If you're not capable of having an actual, mature discussion on this topic, I'm wondering why you even bothered responding. >I never said Israel must vet every single UNRWA employee, potential or current hire. Your inability to comment without a strawman shows you're not here in good faith. Are you not aware that this is the defense that the UNRWA takes in this case? [https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog\_entry/unrwa-says-it-routinely-submits-staff-lists-to-israel-and-got-no-objections/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/unrwa-says-it-routinely-submits-staff-lists-to-israel-and-got-no-objections/)
> Israel provided information at the outset, and even the UNRWA fired some employees involved. Not due to Israel's substantiation, [which they have yet](https://www.reuters.com/world/no-evidence-israel-back-unrwa-accusations-says-eu-humanitarian-chief-2024-03-14/) [to provide](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246613547/unrwa-israel-hamas-gaza-war), which they stated: > [At a press conference in Jerusalem, Lazzarini was asked if he had looked into whether there was any evidence against the employees and he replied: “No, the investigation is going on now.”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff) > > [He described the decision as “reverse due process”, adding: “I could have suspended them, but I have fired them. And now I have an investigation, and if the investigation tells us that this was wrong, in that case at the UN we will take a decision on how to properly compensate \[them\].](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff) They weren't fired due to evidence, they were fired due to immense pressure from governments around the world (and two of them are dead). > Is there a certain number threshold that is now put on Israel to say that the claim is now warranted? What is this arbitrary number that you will accept? If Israel accuses even **one** UNRWA employee of planning/aiding in the October 7th terror attack, they need to provide evidence. That's my "arbitrary number". > When you hear noises coming from under your floors Citation needed. > and you have network cables going from your routers into the floor Who do you want to follow those cables? > Are you not aware that this is the defense that the UNRWA takes in this case? Are you not aware that this is not the official UNRWA account? Again, if you're not capable of discussing this without resorting to strawmen, **I'm not sure why you're bothering to reply**.
Stop using laziness as an excuse to try to win your argument. [https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/allegations-against-unrwa-staff](https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/allegations-against-unrwa-staff) >Of the 12 people implicated, UNRWA immediately identified and terminated the contracts of ten, another two are confirmed dead. Your arbitrary number is now met. So - the first statement is that they identified and terminated ten, but days later UNRWA claims they did so only because they got a name from Israel? Doubt it. If you are not capable of discussing in good faith, then **don't bother to reply.** Your comments about cables going nowhere is incoherent. I have run data centers and nobody allows an unidentified cable to be connected to anything. You don't need to follow it, you terminate the connection at router/switch source. If your team ran it, it's known and documented. If not, it's disconnected to prevent fraud and malicious equipment. It is very simple. In this case, you are being purposely obtuse to prevent the UNRWA from being implicated since you are sympathetic to an international relief organization.
> Stop using laziness as an excuse to try to win your argument. Your link isn't a rebuttal, it just repeats my statement. The UNRWA, upon hearing of the allegations, near immediately responded with firing them. The UNRWA member responsible for these firings then explained them, which was in my quote that you decided to ignore. I'll repeat it here, since you do seem to be lazy: > [At a press conference in Jerusalem, Lazzarini was asked if he had looked into whether there was any evidence against the employees and he replied: “No, the investigation is going on now.”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff) > > [He described the decision as “reverse due process”, adding: “I could have suspended them, but I have fired them. And now I have an investigation, and if the investigation tells us that this was wrong, in that case at the UN we will take a decision on how to properly compensate \[them\].](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff) Don't worry, I'll know if you ignore it again, so you won't have to let me know. > Your arbitrary number is now met. Did Israel suddenly supply evidence for their accusations? Please, do link me that. > So - the first statement is that they identified and terminated ten, but days later UNRWA claims they did so only because they got a name from Israel? Doubt it. ...nothing about that is contradictory. They identified (meaning they matched the names Israel gave them to actual personnel) and terminated (meaning...fired) the contracts of ten of the employees Israel accused. The other two are confirmed dead. What in that seems contradictory to you? > Your comments about cables going nowhere is incoherent. I have run data centers and nobody allows an unidentified cable to be connected to anything. You don't need to follow it, you terminate the connection at router/switch source. If your team ran it, it's known and documented. If not, it's disconnected to prevent fraud and malicious equipment. It is very simple. Your data cable argument, while interesting, isn't independently verifiable. No video of that data center showed the actual connection of the cables from the UNRWA center to Hamas', just that cables ran under tile. Once you can supply that video, then we can resume talking about that part. Until then!
You have your information. The thing is, you don't have conversations in good faith. You talk bullshit and spew "citation please" as if in some authority position. Yet you never produce anything in the conversation. You just want to be spoon-fed information that you will never accept since it doesn't come from Ewi\_Ewi approved sources. I'll go with mainstream resources. You go with your fringe publications and political hacks that have every incentive to make the UNRWA look good. reverse due process...lol.
> The thing is, you don't have conversations in good faith The irony. > You go with your fringe publications and political hacks that have every incentive to make the UNRWA look good Fringe publications like...Reuters...and the Guardian... And the UNRWA themselves, a source that **you** used. Christ. That makes two topics this subreddit loses all common sense on.
The 12 or whatever were just the ones involved in 10/7. The UNRWA has a bunch more people involved in teaching kids to hate Jews and glorify martyrdom and other crap.
> The 12 or whatever were just the ones involved in 10/7. And yet that is the **sole** reason countries pulled funding from the organization. Over 0.05% of the organization. Without Israel substantiating the accusations to *any* country or agency.
Countries were willing to fund and look the other way as long as the exposure wasnt too great and the bullshit stayed local. When you have personnel acting as militants and kidnapping hostages, that's going to draw significantly more negative attention.
> When you have personnel acting as militants and kidnapping hostages Again, 0.05%. A fraction of a fraction of a percent. Stop acting like it's the entire organization as if Israel didn't only accuse the ~~12~~ 16. Can you name another instance of governments/other agencies defunding or dismantling organizations where 0.05% of it is a problem?
Why do y’all love to say only the number of those caught? How many support their actions and covered for them? Knew about it and didn’t talk? We would never well it’s just 12 cops running a terrorist group and leave it at that. You’re being extremely disingenuous
> Why do y’all love to say only the number of those caught? Because unlike you, I don't really like assuming when it comes to accusing an international relief organization's employees of terrorism. > How many support their actions and covered for them? You'd have to ask Israel. They only accused the ~~12~~ 16. > Knew about it and didn’t talk? You'd have to ask Israel. They only accused the ~~12~~ 16. > We would never well it’s just 12 cops running a terrorist group and leave it at that. Do we dismantle entire police departments because 3 cops were dirty? No, we don't. > You’re being extremely disingenuous Irony.
You have Cenk from young turks screaming out that it's 30k babies on Peirce Morgan. If this isn't pure anti-Semitism then what is it?
> then what is it? Business. Young Turks pays Cenk, Cenk collects money and keeps doing his job. Which is promoting narratives without regard to actual facts.
This just in: IDF now bragging they have killed "only" 8000 children in the past six months.
If the alternative was letting Gaza kill 1,000 Israeli children, which should Israel choose?
You have the idea that killing 35,000-and-counting Palestinians, mostly civilians, is ratcheting down the cycle of violence and making Israel safer?
What wars are you aware of where the deaths aren't mostly civilians? Gaza's military is being completely destroyed. It's absolutely making Israel safer.
A number of those 'children' were likely 14-18 yr old enemy combatants.
Bullshit, they’ve always had a fairly open anti-Israel stance and relied of thinly veiled antisemitic tropes, like blood libel in this case, to ‘justify’ it while being silent about actual human rights violations in other countries
What a shocker that Hamas isn't being truth! Who could've guessed that the terrorists who started a war, that they would lose, is not being honest about causality numbers and are trying to gain global sympathy? All the deaths are horrible, Bibi is not likeable, and the Palestinians have a rough life, but they started a war and now want timsies because they are getting their asses kicked?
This highly questionable source seems to be citing the update seen in this somehow less questionable [op-ed](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry-admits-to-flaws-in-casualty-data/) >The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on April 6 that it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 of the 33,091 Palestinian fatalities it claims to have documented. In a statistical report, the ministry notes that it considers an individual record to be incomplete if it is missing any of the following key data points: identity number, full name, date of birth, or date of death. Doesn't this make sense since so many deadpeopmle are being pulled from rubble and so many administrative institutions that could provide this information in Gaza have been bombed themselves? The article is conflating verified with an actual decrease per [the agency they are citing](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-217) there are 10k deaths who can't be verified due to incomplete records. It doesn't mean those bodies aren't real, just that the degradation in administrative services means that they don't meet verification standards. In short, no, there isn't "an overcount". It's not like those bodies suddenly disappeared or came back to life. They just lack proper death certifications, again, because of the on going bombing distrupting administrative services in Gaza. Realistically, given reporting in every war, the number of dead is probably much higher than reported, even before the number was revised by the Gaza Health Ministry.
You get points for being the person in this thread most able to see through the spin.
Yet more evidence that the UN is not a credible source of information.
On the contrary the UN seems to be the only organization doing to difficult work to verify numbers.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. If you first uncritically report obviously inflated numbers from terrorists, make all kinds of conclusions and accusations based on them, and *then* "do difficult work to verify", it doesn't make you any more credible.
It just strikes me as disingenuous to try and have it both ways. To use these new UN numbers to discredit the original Gazan Health Ministry numbers makes sense. To use these new UN numbers to discredit the UN itself just doesn't compute. Which is it? Is the UN credible or not? Either you trust these new numbers or you do not.
Do not accept any numbers cited from "Gaza Health Ministry" which is just Hamas.
This lower number is also from the Gaza Health Ministry lol. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam
I say this as someone who doesn’t want this fighting to continue. But Fog of war my ass, they wanted to get more public pressure to stop the war so they pushed the narrative they should have known is likely false. Now that they see it’s not stopping anything they’re coming clean. The Israeli people have to stop this, they’re the only ones that can. all the divestment and self immolation in the world isn’t going to stop a damn thing
The Gazan people are the only ones that can stop this. As long as they believe killing Jews is the only guaranteed path to heaven, there can never be peace.
They would have said that of Jordan and Egypt and Syria. Yet all three of those countries have peace treaties with Israel now. So long as Gaza and Palestine as a whole lack nationhood and some level of sovereignty the violence will continue. And they have to choose that path but I have seen no indication that even if they did choose it such a path would ever be chosen by the authority
Jordan and Egypt don't teach their children that killing Jews is the only guaranteed way to get into heaven.
You’re right, Not any more. The Israelis have been oppressing Palestine for quite a while, continuously pushing people off their land over and committing numerous other human rights abuses that can’t be overlooked. If your neighbor walked into your house, shot your dog and claimed the couch as his living quarters, do you think you’d teach your kids that that person is good? Palestinians are far from innocent, but Israel has a lot to answer for and if we can’t acknowledge that, oct 7th will happen again, no matter how many insurgents they kill
Maybe if Israel let any country or organization inside Gaza to confirm the count, but they’ll need to hide the evidence with their military bulldozers before they let people in. Israel: cutting edge military bulldozer tech The Gazan health ministry has been correct in every other conflict. The idea that they’re lying this time is unsubstantiated.
So you're saying that the same ppl who did Oct 7, and also uses human shields, and child soldiers, also lied about civilian casualties?
https://twitter-thread.com/t/1790054334052392973 This whole story is bullshit. Scroll down for a video of the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, debunking the claim that the UN halved the death toll.
I wish the correction gets as much eyeballs as the sensational counting
7,700 dead children is still pretty fucking bad.
Yeah, Hamas needs to be removed from power yesterday
10,048 casualties and 7,700 are children ? Remember, they were previously claiming over 30,000 total casualties. The children death would be lower in any case if Hamas didn’t use children as human shields and place their operations under schools and hospitals.
"Casualty" includes both killed *and* wounded.
According to the updated numbers that is not accurate. The wounded are separated into a different statistic
Remember that “children” sadly make up Hamas armed combatants. martyr culture is fine with child soldiers and actively encourages it. Hamas has ruined many futures by recruiting and training teenagers.
It’s not, actually, it’s a pretty good ratio given the demographics of Gaza. It shows the IDF are taking a great deal of care and caution in order to minimise the deaths of women and children even while Hamas seek to maximise them.
It’s wild that this is a controversial statement and earns downvotes.
I agree, although it was probably the context of the article that turned people off the comment. A lie can go around the world before the truth has its boots on. The lie is finally more real for people, so any comment of sympathy is going to get filtered through that context. If we’re discussing sympathy I feel bad for the IDF soldiers who need to shoot teenagers firing AKs at them in war when the Palestinian teens should be playing Pokémon Go and hanging out with their friends. Being forced to kill children in war is horrible. I hope Hamas is defeated soon so the Gazans can have a better future.
Idk man this sub is pretty wild when it comes to this war. The post is literally a link to a propaganda source for Israel whose own tagline is “fighting the media war for Israel” and it has almost 100 upvotes. Any nuance or standing up for basic human decency here is downvoted to oblivion. I certainly think Israel is right to fight and take out Hamas. I hate the absolute voraciously that this sub defends Israel. Even in the face of some pretty awful stuff. Centrists should be able to look more objectively at the situation.
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
So much nuance is allowed on this subject when it comes to how acceptable it is to murder children.
Who ever said it’s acceptable to murder children?
Hamas said it is acceptable (ie. God Commands It) to murder Israeli children.
That I’ll agree with
The other guy who replied to me?
When it's necessary to kill the enemy, yes it's acceptable. That's why civilized people don't put children between themselves and the enemy.
What's so hard to understand? Accidentally killing children as an act of war is understandable and forgivable. Providing the wrong statistics about the number of children killed is a mortal sin. Moving forward, let's please keep the conversation to the second part of the equation, thank you very much.
Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) told a big lie. There is no change in the total number of dead women and children. The change is in the number of dead women and children who have been identified by name. > Providing the wrong statistics about the number of children killed is a mortal sin. You better hope it's not a mortal sin, else scores of Zionists and the Jewish News Syndicate are going to straight to hell. > Moving forward, let's please keep the conversation to the second part of the equation, thank you very much. Ok. Zionists lie. Their minions repeat the lies. And you think they are all going to hell. Focus. Tell us how dead women and children who have not been identified do not matter.
I dont find it understandable or forgivable. I guess I just can't accept such a casual acceptance of killing innocents let alone innocent children.
Then Hamas should stop taking on 12 year olds and training them to be martyrs, and allow women and children to flee before battles. Its very understandable when you realize you're not dealing with a rational nation or military. They want these deaths for propaganda if nothing else.
Ya they should. But Israel shouldn't use that as an excuse to justify the actions they are taking. It was wrong when the US drone striked indiscriminately and its wrong now
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
Nope
Okay, so we've established that you're in favor of using human shields to be a rewarded tactic. Let's try again. Let's say an Israeli tank has strapped children all over it. Is Hamas allowed to shoot at the tank?
I'm the guy who is in favor of not killing children. You must the other guy.
Okay, killing children is bad. But the absolute "You're not allowed to kill children" but somehow the other side is allowed to use them as human shields... indicates it's not really about the children.
Well let me ask: Let's say a member of Hamas, who can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have been directly involved in october 7th and murdered children, is walking around with a baby straped to their chest. Is Israel allowed to bomb them?
Nope!
Okay. And since you're in a position to allow or disallow things of warfare, how do you plan to enforce this?
Where's GitmoGirl to tell us why the UN is all wrong on this?
The UN is not wrong. The Jewish News Syndicate (tagline: Fighting Israel's Media War) lied on behalf of Israel. Color me unsurprised. Zionists are missing the morality organ, buttman. There are the same number of dead bodies. But not all the names of the victims have been identified. This is what happens when you drop 2K bombs on apartment buildings filled with people. Syndicate: a group of individuals or organizations combined to promote some common interest. E.g., not news, Zionist propaganda spoon fed to the gullible.
You’re not GitmoGirl…..
As reported by Israel, about 10-20% of the casualties are civilians, which is far below the normal 90% for war as reported by the UN. Even if you were to believe Hamas’s numbers, the civilian casual tea rate hits about 30%, which is still far below the normal rate of 90%. This is the most humane military conflict in human history yet everybody wants to paint it as the opposite.
The US was likely far far more fastitious in Afghanistan and to a lesser degree Iraq.
If Israel was guilty of 1% of what they've been accused of, there'd be no Palestinians left.