Comment by nradov
1 year ago
The civilian death toll in Gaza has been tragically high but there hasn't been any independent verification. Regardless of what's on Wikipedia, we can't trust specific numbers.
1 year ago
The civilian death toll in Gaza has been tragically high but there hasn't been any independent verification. Regardless of what's on Wikipedia, we can't trust specific numbers.
- Israel's own numbers say "2 civilians killed for every one militant"[1], that's 66%
- 766 / 1200 = 63.8%
Of course, the numbers claimed by other NGOs / UN make it worse. But Israel's numbers are sufficient to make that claim.
[1] - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...
Hamas can't go toe-to-toe with the IDF. They are hiding in tunnels and among civilians, so these ratios aren't surprising.
To some extent, you can't blame Hamas for these tactics. They would quickly lose a conventional war. At the same time, if you have zero chance of winning a military victory, perhaps you shouldn't use violence to pursue your political goals...
Yes right, if israel is unable to fight conventional war, without massive disproportional amount of civil casualties, they should not probably engage in one.
6 replies →
[flagged]
Then they shouldn’t. That’s the simple answer of it. If they want to get rid of Hamas they will need to find another way. This level of civilian casualty is unacceptable. And as proven by the ICJ decision, it is not accepted.
The state of israel agrees with and trust sthe numbers coming from Gaza: https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-intel-confirms-gaza-hea...
While their statistics are regarded as an accurate account of the total death toll, they make no distinction between civilian and combatant deaths. This is obviously a crucial shortcoming if we are trying to ascertain whether the number of civilian deaths are disproportionate to the military objectives.
If we go all 19th century and assert that all men over the age of 18 are combatants. Then we get 70% of the deaths are civilian, and 30% are combatants. However we know a large number of adult men killed in Gaza or not combatants, e.g. they are journalists, UN workers, poets, university professors, etc. So 66% civilians seems very likely to be a huge underestimate.
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Do you believe 695 Israeli civilians, 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139? They're all numbers from the Israeli government.
Weird how only disputing the Hamas numbers as biased is a talking point.
It is way easier to verify those numbers though, there is an actual list of names and journalists can (and have) talk to the families etc.
And from talking to families and people on the ground there there are some reports that IDF killed many Isreali civilians on that day [1]. The extent is not obvious without independent investigation of course.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-mistakenly-hit-festival-...
Lists of names for Palestinian victims are published as well: https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2024/israel-war-on-gaz...
True, verifying 695 deaths is easier than 30 times that number. Also convenient then that journalists are allowed to safely operate there.
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> Weird how only disputing the Hamas numbers as biased is a talking point.
Why are you surprised that people trust Israel more than Hamas? Israel is a country that's ranked 29 of 167 on the Democracy Index[1], right _above_ the US. Hamas is literally a terrorist organization recognized in many countries, probably yours too.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
So what? Democracies can't lie? Israel hasn't?
Hamas is a known bad actor - with a variety of incidences discrediting their “reporting”.