Comment by DiogenesKynikos
2 years ago
Right now, there is nowhere else in the world where so many civilians are being killed. Nothing else even comes close. 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict. For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.
The other thing is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades, and many people have formed strong opinions on it. The United States is deeply involved in the conflict, as it is Israel's major international backer. There are both Palestinian and Jewish diasporas all around the world that care deeply about the issue. There are many reasons why this conflict captures so many people's attention.
That's just untrue. Sudan, Yemen and (earlier) Ethiopia had much much more, without even going into Ukraine (nobody should accept the Russian figures) or Syria (death toll exceeding all Israeli-Arab wars combined). Doing a death toll per month analysis is misleading because high intensity can't last very long due to geography alone.
No, it's true. Roughly 1% of Gaza's pre-war population has already been killed by Israel. 81% has been displaced and over 60% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The amount of destruction Russia was brought upon Ukraine doesn't even come close.
Buildings and temporary displacement inside the Strip aren't interesting - some Gulf states will cover reconstruction, and the royal houses will have a few less yachts.
Ukraine lost a double-digit % of its population when you include permanent displacement (these refugees will not return), and its civilian casualties are absurdly underestimated (yea, Mariupol had 1K, right - when the Russians bombed places with the writing 'children' on them). Syria had an official 500K - only because they stopped counting - and millions of refugees. These are literally on another scale by both time and damage, without even going into Sudan/Yemen which are on a scale of their own.
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So you're using percentages to make that dubious claim. Because Russia has certainly cause a lot more overall destruction and death. Where do you get the 60% of damaged or destroyed buildings? I've seen 25%.
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20k deaths includes Hamas militants. So far the militant to civilian casualty ratio is actually lower than most other modern urban conflicts. Some being as high as 10 civilians for every 1 militant death.
Where does your militant data come from? And does it differentiate between fighters active before the invasion and those after?
Because large numbers of formerly peaceful men will now be engaged in the fight, either from grief at losing their families, or the natural instinct to resist an invader.
It comes from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is Hamas. They assert that no one at all who has died in Gaza whatsoever was in the military. All civilians.
Israel is claiming that any male is a combatant. But, even if you accept such an insane definition of combatant, the majority of the casualties have been women and children.
The GP is just spreading falsehoods to justify genocide. There is a huge ops campaign by Israel and pro-Zionist organizations within the US. They are doxing, getting people fired, anything to scare people into self-censoring their critiques of Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians. There are no doubt some useful idiots parroting Zionist propaganda, and also Zionists themselves spreading it in this discussion forum. But, no serious person can believe that over 10,000 women and children (including literal babies in incubators) murdered by Israel in this latest of many massacres, are "combatants".
(the US also used such a definition in Afghanistan to fake its civilian casualty numbers-- any male that appears 14yrs old and over was the American's definition of "combatant")
> 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict.
This is the number provided by Hamas. Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.
> For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.
This is according to numbers sourced from Russians. According to Ukrainians, >20k civilians died in Mariupol’ alone (a city 1/5th the size of Gaza).
> Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.
Oh much better! If true, seems perfectly justified and A-ok!
Every civilian life’s loss is tragic, but this is a normal ratio in comparable wars, especially given the very densely populated urban setting.