zlacker

Right now, there is nowhere else in the world where so many civilians are being killed. Nothing else even comes close. 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict. For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.

The other thing is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades, and many people have formed strong opinions on it. The United States is deeply involved in the conflict, as it is Israel's major international backer. There are both Palestinian and Jewish diasporas all around the world that care deeply about the issue. There are many reasons why this conflict captures so many people's attention.

>>Diogen+(OP)
20k deaths includes Hamas militants. So far the militant to civilian casualty ratio is actually lower than most other modern urban conflicts. Some being as high as 10 civilians for every 1 militant death.

>>Diogen+(OP)
That's just untrue. Sudan, Yemen and (earlier) Ethiopia had much much more, without even going into Ukraine (nobody should accept the Russian figures) or Syria (death toll exceeding all Israeli-Arab wars combined). Doing a death toll per month analysis is misleading because high intensity can't last very long due to geography alone.

>>yyyk+l7
No, it's true. Roughly 1% of Gaza's pre-war population has already been killed by Israel. 81% has been displaced and over 60% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The amount of destruction Russia was brought upon Ukraine doesn't even come close.

>>bushba+37
Where does your militant data come from? And does it differentiate between fighters active before the invasion and those after?

Because large numbers of formerly peaceful men will now be engaged in the fight, either from grief at losing their families, or the natural instinct to resist an invader.

>>bjourn+Xc
Buildings and temporary displacement inside the Strip aren't interesting - some Gulf states will cover reconstruction, and the royal houses will have a few less yachts.

Ukraine lost a double-digit % of its population when you include permanent displacement (these refugees will not return), and its civilian casualties are absurdly underestimated (yea, Mariupol had 1K, right - when the Russians bombed places with the writing 'children' on them). Syria had an official 500K - only because they stopped counting - and millions of refugees. These are literally on another scale by both time and damage, without even going into Sudan/Yemen which are on a scale of their own.

>>bjourn+Xc
So you're using percentages to make that dubious claim. Because Russia has certainly cause a lot more overall destruction and death. Where do you get the 60% of damaged or destroyed buildings? I've seen 25%.

>>goatlo+Rz
There are a lot of people who just credulously cite any statistic when it makes Israel look bad and dismiss anything that mitigates Israeli action as Zionist lies. It's hard to reach these people.

>>squidb+ph
It comes from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is Hamas. They assert that no one at all who has died in Gaza whatsoever was in the military. All civilians.

>>squidb+ph
Israel is claiming that any male is a combatant. But, even if you accept such an insane definition of combatant, the majority of the casualties have been women and children.

The GP is just spreading falsehoods to justify genocide. There is a huge ops campaign by Israel and pro-Zionist organizations within the US. They are doxing, getting people fired, anything to scare people into self-censoring their critiques of Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians. There are no doubt some useful idiots parroting Zionist propaganda, and also Zionists themselves spreading it in this discussion forum. But, no serious person can believe that over 10,000 women and children (including literal babies in incubators) murdered by Israel in this latest of many massacres, are "combatants".

(the US also used such a definition in Afghanistan to fake its civilian casualty numbers-- any male that appears 14yrs old and over was the American's definition of "combatant")

>>rendal+UB

  > It's hard to reach these people.

These people have are narrative-driven, not fact-driven. This is rare to see on HN, but unfortunately very common elsewhere.

>>dotanc+bF
I could not finish the OP article. Just pages and pages of special pleading.

>>Diogen+(OP)
> 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict.

This is the number provided by Hamas. Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.

> For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.

This is according to numbers sourced from Russians. According to Ukrainians, >20k civilians died in Mariupol’ alone (a city 1/5th the size of Gaza).

>>yyyk+sq
> Buildings and temporary displacement inside the Strip aren't interesting - some Gulf states will cover reconstruction, and the royal houses will have a few less yachts.

Well, the only way to claim something absolutely idiotic like that is to have absolutely no clue:

During the fifty days of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Israel bombed and shelled the Gaza Strip, causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure and homes. About 18,000 residential units were either completely destroyed or heavily damaged, leaving more than 100,000 Palestinians – some 17,000 families – homeless. [...] Today, more than four years later, about 20% of the homes are still unusable and some 2,300 families – about 13,000 people – remain homeless. Some 1,600 of these families had been receiving rent subsidies from UNRWA at rates ranging from 200 to 250 USD per month, depending on the size of the family. In July 2018, however, following US funding cuts, UNRWA was forced to halt financial assistance, leaving families out in the cold. Families that are still renting are having trouble making payments.

https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20190303_13000_gazans_hom...

The Gulf states you think are generous have changed their allegiances and are now Israel's friends. The current Israeli government has radicalized even further since 2014 and revel in the suffering of Palestinians and will likely prevent any future reconstruction efforts.

The number of refugees from Ukraine is 6.3 million or 14% with up to 30% of its infrastructure damaged. This is less destruction in TWO YEARS than Israel has inflicted in 60 DAYS.

https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-russian-invas...

>>goatlo+Rz
No, Russia haven't. Russia has also MAINLY abided by the laws of war and has not targeted civilian infrastructure.

"A United Nations-led aid consortium estimates that more than 234,000 homes have been damaged across Gaza and 46,000 destroyed, amounting to about 60 percent of the housing stock in the territory, which is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians."

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/11/29/as-truce-holds-...

>>bjourn+TI1
I don't think there's much comparison between 2014 and 2023 given high international profile. Turkey already promised to pitch in[0] and I'd surprised if others won't follow. I'd rather put the focus on people and not buildings anyway.

[0] https://bnn.network/politics/erdogan-pledges-to-rebuild-gaza...

P.S. What you wrote about Ukraine just confirms what I wrote above.

>>yyyk+PW1
I'm sorry but you don't know what you are talking about. Pledges are cheap, actually paying up the billions required to rebuild Gaza is a different matter. Yeah, we can focus on the death toll alone, but you are still wrong. 17k mostly civilians in 60 days of warfare is unprecedented in recent years.

>>bitcur+6O
> Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.

Oh much better! If true, seems perfectly justified and A-ok!

>>bjourn+mJ1
You can target civilian infrastructure in a war if the military advantage you gain from it is higher than the expected civilian costs. It’s so specifically so that militaries can’t just use hospitals as free safe space, and truly humanitarian facilities can work even during war.

>>catlov+Ou2
Every civilian life’s loss is tragic, but this is a normal ratio in comparable wars, especially given the very densely populated urban setting.

>>kaba0+go3
“We are asked to look for high-rise buildings with half a floor that can be attributed to Hamas,” said one source who took part in previous Israeli offensives in Gaza. “Sometimes it is a militant group’s spokesperson’s office, or a point where operatives meet. I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is what they told us.

“If they would tell the whole world that the [Islamic Jihad] offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations, this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it,” the source added.

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...