[tety]

kinda different comparing a state with an organization that was caught lying about death statistics numerous times in the past [1] and including in this war (such as the ali ahli hospital incident).

it should raise some questions how the casualty count went to 500 in a few hours, where everywhere else in the world it takes days to get a body count after any disaster

It is beyond me how someone can believe that an organization capable of kidnapping babies to advance its political goals is beyond lying to do the same

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-6...

[Sporktacular]

There are lies and errors. From both sides. But the 26000 figure is generally accepted by the UN and aid agencies. Figures from Hamas in previous conflicts have been confirmed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas... https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-death-toll-records-1.7010...

Simply dismissing a figure as skewed because of its source without a better one is a weak argument.

[tety]

it is accepted by the UN because there is no other figure. they have no other way of estimating, also the UN is far from a neutral element in this conflict

The UN is a political body composed of the political interests of its members, which are mostly authoritarian states, and it hasn’t shown much support for Israel due to the vast membership of Islamic countries. Parody case in point, Iran being Human Rights commission seat

UNRWA, the UN agency on the ground was shown again and again to be in the very least in the mercy of Hamas therefore cooperative, at most its infrastructure and staff was used by the organizations for attacks against Israel and to hold hostages.

The ICJ in this case heavily quoted UNRWA as a source while it is an extremely problematic one.

The hospital bombing I quoted above is an example case where many experts tried to estimate casualties based on evidence, they arrived to figures that range from tenth to fifth of what Hamas published.

This together with the fact they control the casualty figure and have a clear interest at inflating it in order to stop Israel from attacking, is pretty obvious to me what’s going on.

Leaving the fact that this figure also includes Hamas members, and therefore is useless at estimating if there is excessive collateral damage

[Sporktacular]

That's just motivated reasoning. The UN is multidisciplinary. If you have a better source, present it.

Even if the true numbers are a quarter of the given figure that's still way too high.

[tety]

the fact there isn’t a better source does not make the only source reliable.

This is going to be a major issue when the actual court case will have to rely upon it.

the numbers will always be ‘too high’ as they are the number of civilian deaths in a war.

However, if they are much lower relative to similar conflicts than that changes a lot. Currently we have no way of knowing that, yet still people attribute these numbers some magical properties

[Sporktacular]

The precise number doesn't matter if it would be unacceptable at an order of magnitude lower.