In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.
It feels more like an Israeli attempt at using fog of war and the masses ignorance on the matter to soften the reaction and spread doubt about the real numbers. As this talking point was continously used by Israeli spokespersons even after US officials believed these numbers to be fairly accurate. I would be happy to be corrected, I wish the numbers are actually less, and would want this to be the reality.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
None of this has any bearing on whether or not Israel's word is actually worth anything (...or Hamas's word, for that matter).
With Netanyahu and other far right parties in power I'm not sure this is argument you think it is.
Also not great numbers with the free press either:
Better than some in the region, but not great.
And the refrain gets old when used as a cover for Israels terrible actions, but it actively makes me ill nowadays, maybe not as ill as "IDF is the most moral army in the world" when I think about the tens of thousands of kids they have blown up (killed and injured) I suppose.
Israeli law allows news censorship by the IDF. Currently, if you are a news outlet working in Israel, you have to pass your war coverage by them [1,2] even the CNN is forced to do this [3]. I don't know, but you seem to have a strange definition of free press. Should I list some of the series of scandals of IDF caught laying in the past to complete the picture? Just remember that they tried to convince people that the words [Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday] in Arabic are Hamas members names [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor
[2] https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi...
[3] https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo...
[4] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-...
How are the numbers generated?
Not sure if you're a Hebrew reader, but you don't know what you're talking about with regard to journalism in Israel. Have you ever read Gideon Levy? There is tons of criticism of the government and its conduct in this war in Israeli media.
Sorry these facts make you ill. Get better soon!
Regardless, our (USA) parties are in fact the biggest blockers to our functioning correctly as a liberal democracy. One is desperate for votes from anyone, the other party is terrified to pass anything or imagine any kind of future that isn't a slightly less grim version of what the republicans offer. Just by our ability to come to a consensus and do things as a country, we seem to have ground to a complete halt. So yea, people should be a lot more critical of whether or not we're actually espousing the democratic ideals we claim.
So people are asking you to be scientific and critical rather than to uncritically repeat the claims of a belligerent in combat.
Finally, I'm not sure if you're saying this facetiously or if you genuinely don't know what Israel is capable of, or the lengths its gone to to reduce civilian harm but Israel is not doing indiscriminate mass slaughter. That's what Hamas did on October 7.
I mean completely seriously that Israeli occupation forces are engaging in deliberate mass slaughter, including widely reported upon declarations of certain zones as safe for civilians followed by the bombing of those zones (https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-03-2024-...).
While you rely on authorities, I'll do what enlightenment thinkers do. Ask questions like "how" and "what is their method."
None of this is to defend any of the Netanyahu administrations actions in Gaza. I think these discussions on HN are largely cursed, and nobody is going to persuade anybody to "switch sides". You don't have to agree that the UN is, as Israel's supporters would say, so clearly biased against Israel as to be fatal to their credibility. But I don't think you can dismiss the charge easily. If you dig in, you're going to read some uncomfortable stuff.
Also, with regard to the beheadings, I know this is uncomfortable, but it's worth looking into a bit more than you have. There is lots of evidence that would pass muster in any court.
"not none" would be acceptable for me.
https://speakupeg.com/2023/12/30/nyts-disgraceful-investigat...
> “She said she then watched another woman “shredded into pieces.” While one terrorist raped her, she said, another pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast. “One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road.”
If people accept that at face value from a party that calls people "human animals" and turns off water for civilians and all that, while prepping to take over occupied territory it doesn't even consider occupied but theirs, well.
> Also, with regard to the beheadings, I know this is uncomfortable, but it's worth looking into a bit more than you have. There is lots of evidence that would pass muster in any court.
If it would pass in court, you can link to it here. Because, again, so far it's been claims accepted at face value, then attacking those who ask for evidence (it's in the OP article even, someone asking for evidence being flagged as "terrorist/fake"), then still no evidence.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-...
This issue includes the second paragraph of the comment your replied to.
That's a little glib though, since it's fundamentally not how the UN works.
Since the org is huge, multipurpose and multifaceted (and often less than the sum of its parts), I'd say it's best to stay as specific as possible both when using some UN thing to buttress an argument or to critique the thing - so, what is the thing, by what org, person, representative, etc.
In this case, the specific thing is
an interview with a UN relief director who explained the retrospective examination of past casualty reporting that had happened
Which doesn't seem to be linked? From there the whole thing swerves into a discussion of 'The UN' which turns to vague generalities that are mostly (I think often unintentionally) recycled talking points. 'Israel seeks to discredit the UN' is a recycled talking point itself, of course. But I think 'HRC has bad members' is too - the UN is full of bad members. The Security Council has an aggressor state on it with veto power and everything! UN has a lot of orgs and items dedicated to the conflict? Sure, but Israel and the UN were almost born together and the conflict is one of the closest things the UN has to a foundational, OG issue - state formation, genocide, wars of aggression, right to defense, refugees, it's all there. Special Rapporteurs are kind of unserious (and why is there no Special Raconteur)? A real thing but doesn't seem clearly related to whatever interview the poster read.
Anyway, sorry for the grumptone, I just think substantive UN critique is such a fecund orchard of low hanging fruit there's not much point in settling for the frozen trope concentrate stuff.
Thanks for checking me on this!
Reporters Without Borders are a widely recognised and reputable organisation. Here's the direct link to the entry on Israel:
Also, reporters without borders is not at all reputable. Here is one of countless rebuttals to their position: https://www.camera.org/article/using-journalists-lives-as-cu...
I do not agree with Israel's policies on the West Bank, but the issue is more complicated than I suspect you think and I encourage you to read Israeli perspectives on it.
B) Apartheid South Africa used the same excuse. That black people lived in independent bantustans who were self governing and therefor not apart of South Africa.
C) You are ignoring the fact that Israel very much controls Gaza, including every border crossing, the airspace and sea access, imposes a blockade, controls the registry, etc. Unlike apartheid South Africa, Israel does not recognize independent Palestine, let alone independent Gaza.
B) The apartheid in South Africa was based on race. By contrast the different policies in the West Bank reflect the historical and cultural context there: that it used to be part of Jordan, that the people there want to be separate from Israel, etc.
C) Israel does not control Gaza's border crossing any more than the US controls Canada's border crossing. Israel is an independent, sovereign country, so of course they get to control who goes in from Gaza. The other border gaza has is with Egypt, and Egypt has the same policies.
Pro-Palestinian rhetoric on this site goes off the rails in so many directions, and because it seems to be the majority opinion on the site, there are many more examples of off-the-rails comments from that side. But this assertion of Gaza's independence from Israel is one of the reliable off-the-rails pro-Israel sentiments I see here.
Gaza was blockaded. Israel tried to control who and what goes in and out of Gaza (to try to limit the weapons Hamas has). But Israel had no control over what the Hamas Gaza government did in Gaza, how they spent their budget, what they built, what they taught in schools, what their military was planning.
Palestinians in the occupied territories may not be Israeli citizens, but neither were the South African residents of the bantustans, so which passports the subjects of Israel holds doesn’t matter. What matters is that Israel controls most aspect of their lives and imposes different rules and condition depending on whether you are Israeli or Palestinian. However you separate the population doesn’t matter either, the fact that Israel does is all that counts.
There is a different legal system on the West Bank, true, however the Israeli settlers living there get charged in Israeli courts, and so do Palestinians, except that Palestinians get charged in a different court system, namely military court. This is a double justice system, and there is no other way of describing it. Modern liberal democracies don’t have those, only apartheid states do.
Gaza was reliant on Israel for water because Hamas not only didn't invest in infrastructure, but literally dug up water pipes to make rockets. Why the heck should Israel be responsible for providing Gaza with water, food, fuel, or electricity? Do you also believe Ukraine should provide this stuff to Russia?
It would be a "breakaway province" situation, except that:
a. Israel intentionally got all its citizens out of that place and
b. Israel had no intention of taking control and forcing Gaza to join back into Israel.
Israel mistakenly thought Hamas was transforming into a national government that is busy governing its territory.
Gaza was mostly an independent country at war with Israel and not even a little bit an autonomous province of Israel. The war could not be resolved and so it was stuck in a state where Israel thought it prevented Hamas from bringing in heavy weapons but did not want to commit to conquering a city.
I think some people thought that after Israel pulled out in 2005, and Gaza became autonomous, it would become a normal independent country, and people still treat Gaza of 2023 as if it's the Gaza of 2005.
Having control over a territory is what makes it occupied. And Israel very much has control over Gaza. The government and the legislator is one of few things which Gazans them self control, almost everything else is controlled by Israel, including the population registry, what goes in and out, etc.
> Israel mistakenly thought Hamas was transforming into a national government that is busy governing its territory.
They never thought such thing. There were regular bombing campaigns which Israelis described as “mowing the lawn” (talk about dehumanization) where the Israeli military went into Gaza—sometimes with groundtroups—including in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021. In 2018 the Israeli military indiscriminately shot at unarmed protestors inside Gaza. Israel always assumed Hamas to be a terrorist organization first, and an illegitimate government of Gaza second.
I think if someone is going to raise the "Gaza isn't Israel it's an independent country" argument, the facts lining up against an natural reading of that kind of statement make it incumbent on the speaker to lay out the qualifications and contingencies, rather than counting on other speakers on the thread to do it for them. It's not a thing you can just say and pretend is clear; it's more or less an extraordinary claim.
I'd entertain the argument if someone wanted to explore it in a curious fashion. But, like, it's not true. Gaza is occupied territory in the intuitive meaning of the term.
Free to criticize but get jailed by the 100s: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-jo... (that's not free press)