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Israel-Hamas war thread


Brisketexan

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24 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

We have discussed, in this thread, examples of how civilians die in war. This an ordinary and normal part of war. It is expected. In ODS, half our casualties were friendly fire. I gave many examples of how the US targeted civilians, how schools were bombed, and there was no war crime, it was just war.

During war, bombs go astray. Soldiers might take a captive and decide to kill the unarmed captive because that guy killed his or her best friend. Controllers might receive incorrect coordinates. Intelligence can be wrong. There are a million reasons.

However, Israel is engaged in a moral and legal war of self defense. Our killing of civilians in WW2 didn't change the moral or legal argument. There is no conceivable way to frame this as terrorism. Terrorism is the opposite of a war of self defense.

We will call the PROBLEM NUMBER TWO.

My question is, do you even understand what I am saying?

10 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

 

So no comment or disagreement on the substance of what I said. You posted a piece of Hamas propaganda and then described it in a completely inaccurate manner.

I understand what you're saying. You're wrong. I don't give a fuck about engaging you further. Suck my dick.

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https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/poll-over-70-palestinians-still-maintain-hamas-correct-to-commit-oct-7-atrocities/

 

of course this is a Times of Israel article, so take it as you will. 
 

there will never be peace. 2 state, one state, no state.

 

how do you defeat an idea?  Imperial Japan is the only people I can think that got their identity smoked out to be a different people completely. 
 

if the situation was reversed, or if it was me in the Palestinians situation, I would vote the same way I imagine. 
 

I don’t know. 

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On the actual news front, this is very interesting to say the least:

Israel's Netanyahu says he told Blinken we will go into Rafah alone if needed | Reuters

Quote

JERUSALEM, March 22 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel remained determined to send troops into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, and would do so without U.S. backing if necessary.


Netanyahu said in a statement he had told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that there was no way to defeat the Islamist movement Hamas without going into Rafah. "And I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S., but if we have to - we will do it alone," he said.

In my opinion, this would likely be a huge mistake on Israel's part. 

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58 minutes ago, HendersonHorns said:

how do you defeat an idea?

Excuse me sir, have you had the opportunity to review the latest General Atomics pitch deck? We've got a next gen solution for the elimination of ideas that we can mount and deliver on target (no strays, sir) right from the MQ-9 platform. 

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12 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Got 'em. Particularly graceful with the take of the last one.

 

Okay, this is a good example of the bullshit information war, and how it's not reasonable to trust such statements from either camp.

Israel could just as easily published that video with a summary of "The IDF takes out four Hamas fighters who had just launched mortars at IDF forces" or some summary like that.

Four dudes dressed in black.  Walking from point A to point B.  Are they civilians?  Are they Hamas fighters?  Other than "the guy who tweeted this says they are one (or the other)," what's the evidence that I, the information consumer, am to rely upon to determine what actually happened there?

I'm not calling the tweet poster a liar.  I'm also not calling him a truth-teller.  I'm saying that in this information ecosystem, I have no basis to conclude one way or the other.  So, what is the OBJECTIVE evidence to tell us the nature of who these four people were?

If there's footage of them stashing their mortar setup and some RPGs before they walk away, then I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are combatants.  If there's footage of them stacking up some food and general supplies that they had just dug out of the rubble, and now they're going back to look for more, I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are non-combatants.

Truth is the first casualty of war, etc. etc. ad nauseum.   This particular video just caught my attention, because other than what the tweet characterizes it as, I have no idea what it shows other than 4 dudes getting blown up.  Which may be a good kill, or may be a war crime.  Beats the hell outta me.

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Okay, this is a good example of the bullshit information war, and how it's not reasonable to trust such statements from either camp.

Israel could just as easily published that video with a summary of "The IDF takes out four Hamas fighters who had just launched mortars at IDF forces" or some summary like that.

Four dudes dressed in black.  Walking from point A to point B.  Are they civilians?  Are they Hamas fighters?  Other than "the guy who tweeted this says they are one (or the other)," what's the evidence that I, the information consumer, am to rely upon to determine what actually happened there?

I'm not calling the tweet poster a liar.  I'm also not calling him a truth-teller.  I'm saying that in this information ecosystem, I have no basis to conclude one way or the other.  So, what is the OBJECTIVE evidence to tell us the nature of who these four people were?

If there's footage of them stashing their mortar setup and some RPGs before they walk away, then I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are combatants.  If there's footage of them stacking up some food and general supplies that they had just dug out of the rubble, and now they're going back to look for more, I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are non-combatants.

Truth is the first casualty of war, etc. etc. ad nauseum.   This particular video just caught my attention, because other than what the tweet characterizes it as, I have no idea what it shows other than 4 dudes getting blown up.  Which may be a good kill, or may be a war crime.  Beats the hell outta me.

Basically what I posted.

Ani going to tell you to sleep well.

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30 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Okay, this is a good example of the bullshit information war, and how it's not reasonable to trust such statements from either camp.

Israel could just as easily published that video with a summary of "The IDF takes out four Hamas fighters who had just launched mortars at IDF forces" or some summary like that.

Four dudes dressed in black.  Walking from point A to point B.  Are they civilians?  Are they Hamas fighters?  Other than "the guy who tweeted this says they are one (or the other)," what's the evidence that I, the information consumer, am to rely upon to determine what actually happened there?

I'm not calling the tweet poster a liar.  I'm also not calling him a truth-teller.  I'm saying that in this information ecosystem, I have no basis to conclude one way or the other.  So, what is the OBJECTIVE evidence to tell us the nature of who these four people were?

If there's footage of them stashing their mortar setup and some RPGs before they walk away, then I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are combatants.  If there's footage of them stacking up some food and general supplies that they had just dug out of the rubble, and now they're going back to look for more, I'd be more comfortable with a conclusion that they are non-combatants.

Truth is the first casualty of war, etc. etc. ad nauseum.   This particular video just caught my attention, because other than what the tweet characterizes it as, I have no idea what it shows other than 4 dudes getting blown up.  Which may be a good kill, or may be a war crime.  Beats the hell outta me.

I'd like to know how Al Jazeera obtained the video. If it was leaked, that's pretty interesting to me.

Drone footage raises questions about Israeli justification for deadly strike on Gaza journalists - The Washington Post

Perhaps this is a better example until more is known about the previously discussed footage. Journalism being a direct enemy of fascism and all.

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3 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

We have discussed, in this thread, examples of how civilians die in war. This an ordinary and normal part of war. It is expected. In ODS, half our casualties were friendly fire. I gave many examples of how the US targeted civilians, how schools were bombed, and there was no war crime, it was just war.

During war, bombs go astray. Soldiers might take a captive and decide to kill the unarmed captive because that guy killed his or her best friend. Controllers might receive incorrect coordinates. Intelligence can be wrong. There are a million reasons.

However, Israel is engaged in a moral and legal war of self defense. Our killing of civilians in WW2 didn't change the moral or legal argument. There is no conceivable way to frame this as terrorism. Terrorism is the opposite of a war of self defense.

We will call the PROBLEM NUMBER TWO.

My question is, do you even understand what I am saying?

Israel is fighting a moral and legal war. Are you fucking kidding. 30,000 civilian deaths and starving kids is moral in your eyes. Israel is a pariah state in the eyes of most of the world and would be alone except for the corrupt politicians in the pocket of the Israel lobby. 

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29 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Okay, this is a good example of the bullshit information war, and how it's not reasonable to trust such statements from either camp.

Applied consistently, this is a reasonable posture.

Remember this one?

image.thumb.png.0e9ecba113f6cad4ba1d5c4525420fd6.png

 

 

 

Turns out it was a guy with a bike and a bag of flour. 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/12/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news?smid=url-share#the-israeli-military-acknowledges-mistaking-a-bike-for-a-weapon-in-a-strike-but-stands-by-the-attack

 

 

 

Quote

 

The Israeli military acknowledges mistaking a bike for a weapon in a strike, but stands by the attack.

A Times analysis of drone footage published by the Israeli military on March 3 shows that the target of a strike was wheeling a bicycle. This video contains graphic imagery.CreditCredit...The New York Times, Source: Israel Defense Forces

The drone footage shows two people walking down a road in Gaza, when they are suddenly blasted by an Israeli strike, their forms disappearing in the flash of an explosion.

Text appearing over the video, which was released by the Israeli military, described the scene as showing the “elimination of terrorists.” One person is labeled as holding a rocket-propelled grenade.

The person actually held a bicycle, the military acknowledged on Monday in response to questions from The New York Times, saying in a statement that it regretted the mistake in the video. The Israel Defense Forces still defended the strike, asserting that the two people were combatants, without providing its evidence.

“When the video was published, the bicycle carried by one of them was mistakenly marked as a rocket launcher,” the military said in a statement to The New York Times. “The I.D.F. regrets the marking error.”

The acknowledgment came after The Times asked the Israel Defense Forces about a Times analysis of the footage suggesting that one of the people was holding a bicycle instead of a weapon. The mistake had been first identified by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, an advocacy group that focuses on documenting and calling attention to potential human rights violations in Gaza.

The brief video clip, which the military released on March 3, shows two people walking in southern Gaza City, one with the bicycle and the other with what appears to be a white sack of flour. An annotation on the video incorrectly identifies the bicycle as an “RPG” or rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The date of the strike is unknown.

The Times analysis found that the dimensions of the object in the video were consistent with a bicycle and, at one point, the front wheel of the bike can be seen slightly turning. The handlebars of the bike are also visible. Additionally, underneath the bicycle the ground is disturbed as its tires roll forward, an effect that would not have happened had the object been a shoulder-mounted weapon.

Despite the error in identifying the bicycle as a weapon, the I.D.F. stood by its claim that the people targeted were combatants.

“During the several days leading up to the documented strike, armed terrorists used the route shown in the video in order to transfer ammunition and attack I.D.F. forces,” the statement said. “The strike took place after real-time identification of the people as armed terrorists, based on information gathered ahead of the strike.”

The statement said that the decision-making process behind the strike would be referred to military investigators who examine possible cases of misconduct by Israeli forces. Some human rights groups say that the Israeli military lacks the capacity for independent accountability and rarely penalizes soldiers for harming Palestinians. Israeli officials have defended the military’s efforts to limit harm to civilians and have opened investigations into some cases.

Mohammed Qreiqea, a researcher for Euro-Med, told The Times that, according to witnesses he spoke with, the people were returning from collecting aid. One of the people in the strike died, while the other suffered a lung puncture but survived, he said. Their families did not immediately respond to phone calls, and the Israeli military did not describe the condition of the two people targeted.

The strike was conducted on a road just a block away from Salah al-Din street, the main north-south highway in the Gaza Strip.

As of Tuesday evening in Israel, the video with the incorrect annotation remained on the Israeli military’s website and social media accounts.

Aaron Byrd contributed video production.

— Aric Toler, Haley Willis and Neil Collier

 

NYT contributor that did the visual analysis.

 

 

 

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59 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Israel is fighting a moral and legal war. Are you fucking kidding. 30,000 civilian deaths and starving kids is moral in your eyes. Israel is a pariah state in the eyes of most of the world and would be alone except for the corrupt politicians in the pocket of the Israel lobby. 

So in your mind, Israel has the option to engage in a war of self defense, killing all the Hamas members, without killing the human shield Hamas interposed between their fighters and Israel's. 

Please share these tactics that nobody else has been able to identify. You will win a Nobel Peace Prize and I will be your biggest supporter.

Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand.

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1 minute ago, Thetexashammer said:

So in your mind, Israel has the option to engage in a war of self defense, killing all the Hamas members, without killing the human shield Hamas interposed between their fighters and Israel's. 

Please share these tactics that nobody else has been able to identify. You will win a Nobel Peace Prize and I will be your biggest supporter.

Their genocidal campaign is completely disproportionate to the losses they suffered on October 7. Intentionally starving civilians is in no way legitimate and it’s sick that you think Israel is in the right. Israel has horribly overplayed their hand. The young generation revile Israel and that’s why you see all this bullshit recently trying to stifle dissent with this new censorship bill in South Dakota and the moves against TikTok.

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37 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I don’t recall seeing that particular video/story, but yeah, it’s a good example.

How about this one, from 2022? It was talked about quite a bit on the CR thread at the time. 

 

 

But an investigation by CNN offers new evidence — including two videos of the scene of the shooting — that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death. Videos obtained by CNN, corroborated by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analyst and an explosive weapons expert, suggest that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Hell, it’s actually a good example of the other issue: the right intention, but mistaken target

 

 

I am not sure that we should make any assumption regarding the intention and its virtue, given both the stated and alluded to objectives of Israeli leadership. 

 

Edited by Anastasis
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57 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Did I make my over to the Cloak Room?  No?  Just checking.

What's cloaky in this exchange, exactly? We are talking about a Wharton statistics prof writing up bullshit stats in "news" articles, and snuff clips. That is solid DT material, esp the latter.

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17 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

What's cloaky in this exchange, exactly? We are talking about a Wharton statistics prof writing up bullshit stats in "news" articles, and snuff clips. That is solid DT material, esp the latter.

Was really referring to Mack's posting trying to draw everyone into a debate completely unrelated to news.

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The reports of Israeli rapes at Al-Shifa were made-up. This isn't actually surprising considering the IDF has been criticized for not sexually assaulting Palestinian prisoners, I guess it's a little surprising that the refutation has come from Hamas.

 

 

What's more interesting is why the IDF is back at Al Shifa hospital in the first place. For some reason it looks like hundreds of Hamas and PIJ fighters returned to the hospital along with several high ranking members that are being captured. I've seen speculation that there was anticipation of a ceasefire and Hamas sent these fighters back up north to prepare to retake control of the area during the ceasefire, but I think that's just all just conjecture.

 

Quote

The IDF said that Islamic Jihad operatives holed up at the medical center surrendered to troops, including Hussam Salameh, the commander of PIJ’s observation and intelligence unit in Gaza City, and his brother, Wissam Salameh, head of the terror group’s propaganda unit in Gaza City. In an evening press conference, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari detailed additional senior PIJ operatives who were captured by troops at Shifa, including the commander of the terror group’s Shejaiya Battalion, the deputy commander of PIJ’s Northern Gaza Brigade, and a PIJ commander charged with the terror group’s tunnels in northern Gaza. Also captured at Shifa were three senior officers in Hamas’s so-called West Bank headquarters, which is tasked with advancing attacks against Israel from the West Bank, the army said. The Shin Bet named them as Amr Asida, the head of the Nablus unit; Mahmoud Qawasmeh, one of the planners of the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens; and Hamdallah Hassan Ali, who was also involved in directing recent attacks in the West Bank. Hagari said there were additional “very significant” senior Hamas commanders who were captured by troops at Shifa, but that their identities could not immediately be disclosed due to their ongoing interrogations.

 

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On 3/22/2024 at 10:20 AM, HendersonHorns said:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/poll-over-70-palestinians-still-maintain-hamas-correct-to-commit-oct-7-atrocities/

 

of course this is a Times of Israel article, so take it as you will. 
 

there will never be peace. 2 state, one state, no state.

 

how do you defeat an idea?  Imperial Japan is the only people I can think that got their identity smoked out to be a different people completely. 
 

if the situation was reversed, or if it was me in the Palestinians situation, I would vote the same way I imagine. 
 

I don’t know. 

I would not say never, but it will take a lot of time.  The comparison (not perfect) I would draw would be the Irish/IRA situation in the past.  We would have said similar things about that, but in the end I think what fixed it was prosperity.  When people have jobs, opportunities, a future they think they can get for themselves and their children they will not focus on killing others, but on the kitchen remodel they want, or the new car, or school opportunities for their kids.

How to do that and actually get money to be provided and then to have it not be stolen and to be used for the intended purpose.....well

Edited by ABSR
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I would not say never, but it will take a lot of time.  The comparison (not perfect) I would draw would be the Irish/IRA situation in the past.  We would have said similar things about that, but in the end I think what fixed it was prosperity.  When people have jobs, opportunities, a future they think they can get for themselves and their children they will not focus on killing others, but on the kitchen remodel they want, or the new car, or school opportunities for their kids.
How to do that and actually get money to be provided and then to have it not be stolen and to be used for the intended purpose.....well

It’s a variation of the old rule (which has since been broken more than once) that no two countries that each had a McDonalds had gone to war with each other. No interest in doing so, and no need to risk the prosperity that McDonalds is a companion of.

I don’t see a way to get there. These two sides never will.
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The future of Unwra, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is in the air as Arab countries fail to fill the funding gap left by the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/arab-nations-balk-at-funding-u-n-aid-agency-vital-to-palestinians-5f79a5e9?st=l91wr88i2nbgp23&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
 
Shitty situation. Gazan civilians need humanitarian aid. UNRWA is hobbled by lack of funding, due to ties to Hamas. Israel is prioritizing security over getting the aid there (fear of weapons smuggling, fear of aid getting to Hamas). Hamas is the enemy of the aid getting to the civilian populace (humanitarian suffering increases international pressure on Israel to cease fire). 
 
In short-Israel is ambivalent about Gazan suffering (at best, alleviating it is very much a lesser priority) and Hamas wants the suffering to worsen in the near term, in support of getting a cease fire. Shitty situation. 

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Israeli society is divided over how to prioritize the country’s two main war aims—destroying Hamas and freeing 130 hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 last year—and many say the goals are irreconcilable
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-set-out-to-destroy-hamas-and-free-hostagesbut-worries-it-cant-do-both-f6b6fc9d?st=7x4l01krsdbf6xz&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

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also a study looking at the methods the official Gaza causualties are counted

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable

Quote

eated debates over the Palestinian death toll in the Hamas-Israel war tend to focus on the fact that widely cited fatality numbers make no distinction between combatants and noncombatants. While this is true, it misses a more fundamental problem—the numbers themselves have lost any claim to validity.

In the first month of the war, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza relied on its existing collection system, made up primarily of hospitals and morgues, to certify each death. Starting in early November, however, hospitals in northern Gaza began to shut down or evacuate during the Israeli ground invasion, spurring the MOH to introduce a new, undefined methodology for counting fatalities: media reports. This methodology, which the MOH has rarely acknowledged publicly, accounts for the majority of fatalities reported over the past four months, surpassing the traditional collection system.

A comparison of the two methodologies, using MOH reports and claims published by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office (GMO), yields wildly different and irreconcilable results, indicating that the media reports methodology is dramatically understating fatalities among adult males, the demographic most likely to be combatants. This undercuts the persistent claim that 72 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children—a problem that has worsened since it was first noted by a Washington Institute report in January.

The result is that MOH statistics do not appear to offer a reliable guide to the actual Palestinian death toll even by the “foggy” standards of normal wartime reporting. Journalists, analysts, and government officials need to be aware that the actual overall death toll may be significantly higher (or, less likely, lower) than what the MOH has reported; the demographic composition of these fatalities is certainly far different than what the MOH claims.

Building a Database

To assess this problem, the author has assembled a comprehensive collection of publicly available Gaza fatality data that includes:

  • Daily updates covering the period October 7 through March 21, obtained from four sources: the Hamas-run MOH in Gaza, the Hamas-run GMO, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in Ramallah, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (which simply relays Gaza MOH/GMO claims, sometimes inaccurately).
  • Compiled data from thirteen Health Sector Emergency Reports published by the Gaza MOH between December 11 and March 18 (these documents can be accessed via the MOH Telegram channel or the Internet Archive).
  • Two comprehensive MOH data releases on October 26 and January 7 (the latter covering up to November 2 for all of Gaza and up to January 5 for the south).

The following analysis is based primarily on the Health Sector Emergency Reports and occasional GMO updates.

Download a condensed version of the author’s database (Excel).

(The full database with sources, methodology, and other information will be published on a future date.)

Limitations of Media Reports

The regular methodology used by the MOH (hereafter the “central collection system”) records deaths at hospitals and morgues, along with deaths reported by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance service and other unspecified sources (for a more detailed explanation of these practices, see the author’s January study). This methodology is well-understood and has been relatively accurate in the past.

Unlike in previous conflicts, however, neither OCHA nor local and international NGOs are currently conducting real-time fatality verification in Gaza or attempting to distinguish between civilians and combatants. Moreover, only a third of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functional, and many parts of the Strip have serious access problems, curtailing the use of this methodology to count deaths outside of Rafah and Khan Yunis governorates.

On November 10, the MOH announced that it could no longer report deaths from two northern governorates; a month later, officials acknowledged that they were relying on what they called “reliable media sources” to report deaths in those areas. In reality, they had begun using this methodology as early as November 3, according to the MOH dataset released on January 7.

To be sure, it is not uncommon to use news reports when attempting to count deaths in chaotic battlespaces with access issues and damaged institutions. Yet this practice is notoriously difficult and typically looks backward rather than attempting a real-time count. The reliability of any such effort is greatly dependent on its methodological details, but the MOH has refused to elaborate on how it collects this data—a major problem given that media reports have become the dominant input in the Gaza death toll, accounting for more than 14,000 reported fatalities.

Chart illustrating trends in Gaza fatality statistics.

Comparing the Methodologies

Despite known problems with the MOH central collection system (outlined in more detail in the author’s January study), it is the more reliable methodology because it involves identity verification and counting of actual bodies. Media reports, by contrast, are much more difficult to verify, regularly lack details necessary to determine the identities or disposition of those killed, and may double-count or miss many fatalities. The divergence between the two methodologies is perhaps best shown by how differently they have reported demographic details about Gaza deaths.

For instance, the MOH Health Sector Emergency Reports provide separate data on men, women, and children when their deaths are recorded through the central collection system, but only a single aggregated figure for deaths gleaned from media reports. When these reports coincide with the GMO’s periodic reports (which provide demographic breakdowns), one can compare how they treat fatalities among different demographic groups.

Chart illustrating trends in Gaza fatality statistics.

This comparison reveals sharp differences—most notably, a sixfold decrease in adult male fatalities recorded from media reports and a fourfold increase in child fatalities. (For reference, children make up roughly 50% of Gaza’s population, and men and women make up a quarter each.) Some of these differences may be explained by the fact that media reports are unlikely to capture combatant deaths accurately due to access issues and fear of retribution for exposing Hamas losses. In most cases, however, the numbers are too far apart to be reconcilable, or too divorced from the realities on the ground to be credible.

For example, according to the media reports methodology, only 1,192 men had been killed in northern and central Gaza as of March 18, despite four and a half months of heavy ground fighting (see the author’s condensed database). Five days later, that number inexplicably decreased to 1,170—a feat that would have required 22 men to somehow come back to life by March 23 in order to reconcile the central collection system data with the overall claim. In contrast, Israeli authorities estimate that 13,000 militants have been killed—a figure that may incorporate many combatant deaths not recorded by either MOH methodology.

Without clarification from the MOH, such findings suggest significant omission or manipulation aimed at understating the number of men killed and overstating the number of children killed. One possibility is that fatalities among militants—most of whom are men—are more likely to go unreported because they occur in tunnels or on battlefields, where most reporters are either unable to access bodies or unwilling to risk Hamas retribution or the dangers of combat zones. Another possibility is active manipulation—that is, using the media reports methodology as a smokescreen for altering the data in support of the claim that 72% of those killed are women and children.

Meanwhile, data from the central collection system indicates a sharp decrease in overall deaths since November and a sustained increase in the proportion of men killed.

Chart illustrating trends in Gaza fatality statistics.

Chart illustrating trends in Gaza fatality statistics.

In addition to the MOH’s growing reliance on the media reports methodology, these trends may reflect various factors on the ground, such as Israel’s shift from a primarily air-based campaign to ground fighting, the mass evacuation of civilians from the north to Rafah governorate, and the decreasing intensity of fighting in areas where the central collection system is still functioning. Such factors would be expected to reduce overall civilian casualties and therefore increase the proportion of adult men killed, since that is the demographic most likely to serve as combatants.

Caveats and Recommendations

This analysis is solely intended to compare various Hamas fatality claims against each other and raise questions about the resultant discrepancies. It makes no claims about the true death toll in Gaza or the civilian-combatant ratio, nor is it meant to distract from the very real and widespread loss of life in Gaza and the severe humanitarian crisis that its population continues to suffer.

Regarding the overrepresentation of men in the fatality statistics, this point is not intended to imply that all Gazan men are militants. Rather, adult men are the most likely to be militants across any group (though Hamas is known to use children in combat and support roles). Their overrepresentation has also been used to help estimate militant deaths in the past.

Caveats aside, the above findings should prompt analysts, media outlets, and government officials to bear the following points in mind when assessing Gaza fatality statistics:

  • The discrepancies between the methodologies for counting fatalities warrant much more intense scrutiny and should be paired with appropriate caveats if cited. Whether through passive omission, active manipulation, or both, the Gaza Health Ministry’s media reports methodology significantly understates the number of men killed and may overstate the number of children killed.
  • The repeated claim that 72% of the dead are women and children is very likely incorrect. Data from the central collection system indicates that 58% of those killed since the start of the war are women and children; this figure drops to 48% for those killed since November 3. For the 72% claim to be accurate, women and children would have to make up about 90% of deaths recorded from media reports. This proportion is implausible—men comprise a quarter of the population, and these fatalities have largely occurred in areas with fewer civilians and more combatants, most of whom are adult men.
  • Data from both methodologies suggests that the war has decreased in intensity. Fatalities have declined from an average of 348 per day in the first weeks of the war to around 85 per day in March.
  • The existing data is too limited to allow for definitive conclusions about the true death toll or the civilian-combatant ratio. A high proportion of reported deaths come from an unknown methodology that may be misrepresenting the data, while enormous uncertainty persists regarding how many combatant fatalities go uncounted in tunnels and other battlespaces. The exact proportions of men, women, and children killed are even more unclear. The available data does not allow for reliable estimates about the ratio of civilians to combatants killed either, whether independently or by comparison with Israeli estimates.

Gabriel Epstein is a research assistant in The Washington Institute’s Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations.

fatality-demographics-methodology-POL385

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Not a comment on the credibility of the methods or findings, but just traditional disclosures FYI for the readers: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is an academic think tank that was founded by AIPAC. 

Edited by Anastasis
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3 hours ago, Rex Kramer said:

Came for news.  Leaving because of same propagandists that dominate CR thread. 

This the kind of mfer that calls up a restaurant to tell them he's never coming back even though they have no idea who he is and don't give a shit.

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1 minute ago, Parliament said:

Kinda like we did in Beirut?  What geopolitical interest do we have in putting our fighting men/women directly in harm’s way, between two adversaries who hate each other to literally commit genocide and war crimes?

No, the article states no US troops go in.

I think any force would be Turks, North Africans, Indians, Brazil/Uruguay. The usual PKO providers. US/NATO would do heavy logistics and intel support. Drones, etc. Similar to what we are pushing for Haiti.

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I would not say never, but it will take a lot of time.  The comparison (not perfect) I would draw would be the Irish/IRA situation in the past.  We would have said similar things about that, but in the end I think what fixed it was prosperity.  When people have jobs, opportunities, a future they think they can get for themselves and their children they will not focus on killing others, but on the kitchen remodel they want, or the new car, or school opportunities for their kids.
How to do that and actually get money to be provided and then to have it not be stolen and to be used for the intended purpose.....well

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