The median age in Gaza in 2014 was 18. According to researchers in the US, 50%-61% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed. If Israel didn't kill tens of thousands of children it would be a statistical miracle.
Not sure how we got to "tens of thousands of children" when even the Hamas reports don't claim that. I think 12,300 is the last claim I saw a little bit back which is not "tens of thousands" but I agree is a large number.
You're assuming the children are evenly distributed and buildings are attacked randomly and evenly. None of which is true.
Many buildings have been demolished with explosives or bulldozers while empty. Many buildings were damaged during combat with walls being breached to provide access.
In many cases buildings were attacked in areas that have been ordered to evacuate. (yes not all cases).
There's no doubt many children have been killed. We've all seen terrible photos of individual children dead. I don't think it's "tens of thousands" and I'm not sure we'll have accurate numbers. Other than that as you note there's a large number of children and so they've definitely and unfortunately impacted.
The US and even Israeli governments consider these numbers as accurate. The Health Ministry provides the social ID numbers of every death so the deaths would be impossible to fake.
I don't think the US or Israel made any statements regarding the accuracy of the composition of the numbers. Only that the total ballpark numbers are more or less accurate. If you have a link to the US government statement about the breakdown accuracy of the numbers I'd be interested to look at that. Also this is extrapolating from previous rounds of violence and this one is very different.
Do you have a link to the officially published name, sex, age, ID, of all the victims so far, by date, in the conflict?
When large buildings are demolished by bombs and can't be excavated because of active violence what's the process for figuring out who potentially was or wasn't in that building? with all the refugees moving around the chaos how do you know if someone who used to live there is dead or sheltering somewhere else out of contact?
Hamas reports everyone as civilians (or doesn't make a distinction).
They have released those at points in the past; I'm not sure if they're doing it on an ongoing basis, and their numbers include a large number of unidentified casualties. I think those usually make up about a third or so if I remember correctly.
Not included are a large number of missing people, and all the people who die of secondary causes like maltutrition, disease outbreaks, and poor access to proper medical care.
Nobody really knows what the real casualty figures are, but I'm inclined to take the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers seriously -- as do Israel and the US, as you already mentioned.
This link again. People keep posting it and it keeps—rightly—getting flagged. This source is a schoolbook example of lying with statistics, and so far HN seems prerry aware of that.
Wouldn't it be better to discuss it and for you to take it down point by point and show everyone why it is "lying with statistics"? I only have a B.Sc. and my only observation was the sample size seemed to small and there might have been some cherry picking of the date ranges. You might be correct but we're not getting to discuss that and what are the proper statistical methods one can apply here if we had the data (and I don't think we have data).
This link being wrong however doesn't negate the fact that the only numbers we have come from Hamas that is 1) in most western countries is considered a terrorist organization 2) is one of the sides in this war 3) clearly benefits from distorting the numbers 4) shouldn't be considered a reliable source for anything.
The numbers discussion seems to always come back to in previous rounds of violence those same numbers seemed more or less in the ballpark though there have been major revisions in the past re: the ratio of combatants. (I don't have the link handy but I can find it if you dispute this last bit).
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The median age in Gaza in 2014 was 18. According to researchers in the US, 50%-61% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed. If Israel didn't kill tens of thousands of children it would be a statistical miracle.
Not sure how we got to "tens of thousands of children" when even the Hamas reports don't claim that. I think 12,300 is the last claim I saw a little bit back which is not "tens of thousands" but I agree is a large number.
You're assuming the children are evenly distributed and buildings are attacked randomly and evenly. None of which is true.
Many buildings have been demolished with explosives or bulldozers while empty. Many buildings were damaged during combat with walls being breached to provide access.
In many cases buildings were attacked in areas that have been ordered to evacuate. (yes not all cases).
There's no doubt many children have been killed. We've all seen terrible photos of individual children dead. I don't think it's "tens of thousands" and I'm not sure we'll have accurate numbers. Other than that as you note there's a large number of children and so they've definitely and unfortunately impacted.
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The US and even Israeli governments consider these numbers as accurate. The Health Ministry provides the social ID numbers of every death so the deaths would be impossible to fake.
I don't think the US or Israel made any statements regarding the accuracy of the composition of the numbers. Only that the total ballpark numbers are more or less accurate. If you have a link to the US government statement about the breakdown accuracy of the numbers I'd be interested to look at that. Also this is extrapolating from previous rounds of violence and this one is very different.
Do you have a link to the officially published name, sex, age, ID, of all the victims so far, by date, in the conflict?
When large buildings are demolished by bombs and can't be excavated because of active violence what's the process for figuring out who potentially was or wasn't in that building? with all the refugees moving around the chaos how do you know if someone who used to live there is dead or sheltering somewhere else out of contact?
Hamas reports everyone as civilians (or doesn't make a distinction).
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They have released those at points in the past; I'm not sure if they're doing it on an ongoing basis, and their numbers include a large number of unidentified casualties. I think those usually make up about a third or so if I remember correctly.
Not included are a large number of missing people, and all the people who die of secondary causes like maltutrition, disease outbreaks, and poor access to proper medical care.
Nobody really knows what the real casualty figures are, but I'm inclined to take the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers seriously -- as do Israel and the US, as you already mentioned.
How it would be impossible to fake just because they provide the social ID number?
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This link again. People keep posting it and it keeps—rightly—getting flagged. This source is a schoolbook example of lying with statistics, and so far HN seems prerry aware of that.
Wouldn't it be better to discuss it and for you to take it down point by point and show everyone why it is "lying with statistics"? I only have a B.Sc. and my only observation was the sample size seemed to small and there might have been some cherry picking of the date ranges. You might be correct but we're not getting to discuss that and what are the proper statistical methods one can apply here if we had the data (and I don't think we have data).
This link being wrong however doesn't negate the fact that the only numbers we have come from Hamas that is 1) in most western countries is considered a terrorist organization 2) is one of the sides in this war 3) clearly benefits from distorting the numbers 4) shouldn't be considered a reliable source for anything.
The numbers discussion seems to always come back to in previous rounds of violence those same numbers seemed more or less in the ballpark though there have been major revisions in the past re: the ratio of combatants. (I don't have the link handy but I can find it if you dispute this last bit).
1 reply →