• TheLameSauce@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    How much of that is because there just aren’t as many left for them to kill? If they started out at non-combatant numbers above SIXTY PERCENT that means they were killing more women and children than anyone else…

    Eventually that pesky problem of killing non-combatants just fixes itself when there’s none left to kill, doesn’t it?

    • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Israel has killed less than 1% of all Palestinians, so your bullshit logic is just that.

      To add insult to your stupidity, the median age in gaza is 19 years, which makes the 60% number actually a good thing since 75% of the population is either a woman or a child.

      • TheLameSauce@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Imagine unironically using the words “good thing” to describe a number of civilian casualties above 0, let alone above half of total casualties.

        That’s wild man.

        Civilian casualties of war aren’t just a statistic. Those are real people that just wanted to live happy lives. Less than 1% of any number over 100 is a number I’m not happy about, and anyone with a heart should be furious about the number of civilians dying in Gaza. Especially when those numbers are such a high percentage. If you can’t fight a war without that kind of casualty count, then you either don’t fight the war or you accept that what you are doing is a genocide, not a war. IDF has very clearly made their choice on this.

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          If you kill 60% civilians and children, and the population is 75% civilians and children and the enemy is literally using them as human shields, you’re showing that you’re doing at least something to minimize the harm. Anyone with a heart should be furious that this is the way that Hamas has decided to fight. Anyone with a heart should be furious that they attacked over a thousand civilians to pop off this latest round of violence. It sure made the Israelis furious, that’s why they’re retaliating.

          There’s no such thing as a war with 0 civilian casualties anymore. This isn’t the 1600s where people lined up for battles in nice lines. So every war is a genocide by your definition. Unfortunately they’re still going to happen because the world isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.

          Civilian casualties are both real people and statistics. Again, the world isn’t all rainbows.

          • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            If someone invades my home, 75% of people in my home are my family including the invader. So if in response, I only kill 50% of my family, by your logic I would have done very well.

            The fact that they are killing a percentage of civilians that’s less than the overall percentage of civilians in a region is irrelevant to determining how effectively civilian harm is being minimised, it just means they are doing slightly better than killing people completely at random. I think you’d agree that’s quite a low bar you’re setting there.

            • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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              5 months ago

              Except that’s not a good analogy.

              How many people would you be willing to have the military kill to get your child back if they had been taken hostage?

              If the kidnappers were hiding behind their own family, with their family knowing they’ve done an evil thing, would that change your answer?

              I know I wouldn’t care how many they had to take out, my child is worth worth more to me than terrorists (and their supporters) lives.

              Would I prefer they don’t take out women and children while getting my child back? Of course, but the whole point of using human shields is to make it difficult to do just that.

              The Israelis got 4 hostages back today, and it looks like there were around 200 Palestinian casualties to do so. Too bad for them.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Israel has killed less than 1% of all Palestinians

        We’re not talking about all of Palestine, we’re talking about Gaza where the genocide is focused for now.

        Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly civilians, and driven most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people from their homes.

        https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-how-many-palestinians-has-israels-campaign-killed-2024-05-14/

    • TaTTe@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I also feel the need to remind people that while most combatants are male, not even close to all males are combatants. If only women and children (probably almost all civilian) made up 60% of all deaths, then the remaining 40% includes all male civilian deaths, which very well could be higher than combatant deaths.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Yes. Much like the US has done for a long time in their occupations in the Middle East, their little brother Israel calls any male deaths of fighting age “combatant” deaths.

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    In October, when the war began, it was above 60%. For the month of April, it was below 40%. Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.

    I mean… it’s definitely a good thing that it’s down but it still really doesn’t seem like a number to be celebrating to me.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    That’s probably because they’re running out of women and children to shoot.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The AP analysis highlights facts that have been overlooked and could help inform the public debate, said Gabriel Epstein, a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East policy who has also studied the Health Ministry data.

    Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, said his group has always found the Health Ministry’s numbers to be “generally reliable” because it has direct access to hospitals and morgues.

    “Historically, airstrikes (kill) a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington.

    The ministry says 9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data because they remain “unidentified.” These include bodies not claimed by families, decomposed beyond recognition or whose records were lost in Israeli raids on hospitals.

    Israel last month angrily criticized the U.N.’s use of data from Hamas’ media office – a propaganda arm of the militant group – that reported a larger number of women and children killed.

    Michael Spagat, a London-based economics professor who chairs the board of Every Casualty Counts, a nonprofit that tracks armed conflicts, said he continues to trust the Health Ministry and believes it is doing its best in difficult circumstances.


    The original article contains 1,902 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!