Oh they definitely exaggerate - all parties to a conflict do. I accounted for that by using their estimates from more than a month ago against Hamas’s current casualty counts. I think that’s a fairly even-handed take but I’m sure people will disagree.
Yeah I mean I would definitely disagree because that estimate was mysteriously in line with assuming every single man killed (at that point) was in Hamas. Even saying half of all men killed seems pretty generous
Unfortunately I think we need to be drawing from the “children” numbers here. Hamas uses teenage soldiers extensively, and they have every incentive to put them on the front lines and report them under the “dead children” numbers.
My personal belief, and feel free to disagree, is that the numbers look something like this:
Hamas militants killed: 3000 adults, 5000 children (aged 16 - 18), all male. Totaling 8000.
Even those numbers seem to be highly exaggerated to me, not to mention the moral question about whether teenagers deserve to be killed, or maimed. Don’t forget that Gaza’s population is around 2.4M, and the Hamas militants are estimated around 30K, so even if we think that the male population of Gaza is like 600K, 30K is like 5%. Assuming that they were not using high precision munitions and deliberately were using a lot stronger bombs in this conflict I highly doubt that your number is even close to the actual casualties.
Unfortunately I believe we will never learn the actual figures because both sides would try to exaggerate/downplay those numbers.
Plus I highly doubt that all the targets were legitimate military targets. Right now it looks like a vendetta to me, where Israel is trying to make the whole region inhabitable and make the life of regular Palestinians with no affiliation to any terrorist organization a hell. And guess what? That’s not a good recipe for peace or anything
Assuming that they were not using high precision munitions and deliberately were using a lot stronger bombs in this conflict I highly doubt that your number is even close to the actual casualties.
Yeah I think there was a report that about half of the bombs dropped have been “dumb” bombs that aren’t used for precise targeting. So based on your math from those you would expect it to be about 5% Hamas to 95% “ah well sorry you were just born in the wrong place” innocent people. The other half may have been targeted better, but we don’t even really know that.
You’re right that we will probably never learn. But my guess would be maybe 10% Hamas to 90% whoopsy daisy oh my god so sorry about that.
It doesn’t fit your narrative, but the civilian/military casualty numbers are on the high side of normal for urban combat.
Super weird to defend distributing Hamas propaganda. Helping them hurts Palestinians too, who generally don’t like Hamas.
Super weird to be defending genocide, too, but here we are.
Did I take a position on the genocide question? No.
I stated 2 facts, which you seem to find inconvenient for your narrative. We don’t have a disagreement, unless you’re disputing them?
If you use the numbers kindly provided by the IDF, you mean? Don’t they have a pretty substantial motivation to lie?
Oh they definitely exaggerate - all parties to a conflict do. I accounted for that by using their estimates from more than a month ago against Hamas’s current casualty counts. I think that’s a fairly even-handed take but I’m sure people will disagree.
Yeah I mean I would definitely disagree because that estimate was mysteriously in line with assuming every single man killed (at that point) was in Hamas. Even saying half of all men killed seems pretty generous
Unfortunately I think we need to be drawing from the “children” numbers here. Hamas uses teenage soldiers extensively, and they have every incentive to put them on the front lines and report them under the “dead children” numbers.
My personal belief, and feel free to disagree, is that the numbers look something like this:
Hamas militants killed: 3000 adults, 5000 children (aged 16 - 18), all male. Totaling 8000.
Civilians killed: 5000 children, 5000 women, 8000 men. Totalling 18000.
Even those numbers seem to be highly exaggerated to me, not to mention the moral question about whether teenagers deserve to be killed, or maimed. Don’t forget that Gaza’s population is around 2.4M, and the Hamas militants are estimated around 30K, so even if we think that the male population of Gaza is like 600K, 30K is like 5%. Assuming that they were not using high precision munitions and deliberately were using a lot stronger bombs in this conflict I highly doubt that your number is even close to the actual casualties.
Unfortunately I believe we will never learn the actual figures because both sides would try to exaggerate/downplay those numbers.
Plus I highly doubt that all the targets were legitimate military targets. Right now it looks like a vendetta to me, where Israel is trying to make the whole region inhabitable and make the life of regular Palestinians with no affiliation to any terrorist organization a hell. And guess what? That’s not a good recipe for peace or anything
Yeah I think there was a report that about half of the bombs dropped have been “dumb” bombs that aren’t used for precise targeting. So based on your math from those you would expect it to be about 5% Hamas to 95% “ah well sorry you were just born in the wrong place” innocent people. The other half may have been targeted better, but we don’t even really know that.
You’re right that we will probably never learn. But my guess would be maybe 10% Hamas to 90% whoopsy daisy oh my god so sorry about that.
It must be nice to just make up numbers and ages and sexes and occupations like that. Makes it real easy to justify genocide.