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by NomDePlum 809 days ago
This is at least as true in Gaza too is it not? And over a much shorter time frame, with a significantly smaller population.

The expectation is that there are at a minimum 15/20% dead under the bombed and decimated buildings. It could well be much, much higher, even double, or triple is not infeasible, given the large scale untargeted bombing, population dispersement and recognised IDF tactics that don't allow for groups to even consider searching and rescue operations in most cases but leave possible survivors buried under the rubble to die slowly and horribly.

The current numbers are just not even close to verifiable given the circumstances, but are statistically clearly far worse in terms of civilians on all measures.

2 comments

One significant difference is that Ukrainian authorities goes really far to evacuate civilians while Hamas goes really far to prevent civilians from evacuating.

Earlier it has been said that based on previous reporting from previous incidents we can roughly trust the total numbers Hamas release evem if they are obviously wrong in that they claim every death to be an innocent civilian.

How would Hamas go about evacuating civilians?

And if they could, why would they help Israel displace the palestinian population from palestinian territory?

The only resistance groups in the Gaza strip that might have militia units for women that I know about are PFLP and DFLP, and I forgot which one I've seen a video of militia women from. They are probably very small and not deployed at the moment. This means that kids and women aren't in the 'brigades', and that a majority of killed palestinians are "civilian" for sure.

Israel claims that every male they kill is a combatant, and israeli pundits and politicians routinely equate terrorist and palestinian and say things like 'there are no innocent civilians in the Gaza strip'. Neither is true, many they kill are elderly or obviously unaffiliated with the 'brigades'.

Of course, this is irrelevant, since Israel is starving the entire population of the Gaza strip and kills or maims pretty much anyone they see in the areas where they operate, sometimes even other IDF soldiers or hostages.

Addressing your first paragraph:

All reporting I've seen has made it clear that any movement of population in Gaza has been subject to IDF and more broadly Israeli control.

Every reported case I have seen appears to have been demanded by Israel, and the Palestinians have had no choice in it.

I'm not sure we're you think Hamas are involved in this at all?

It's all been forced displacements by Israel. And none of it has been willing. Where people have stayed and not moved often they have died, even with not the slightest involvement with Hamas.

Addressing your second paragraph: Not quite sure if your point, but the numbers of deaths/casualties are broadly (my interpretation) seen as being as accurate as are available, and likely to be a significant undercount of the real number.

I have to say the continual questioning of, what by a number of significant indicators, looks to be an undercount of the total number of people deliberately killed by Israel, in such a short period is appalling.

It's highly likely that when we say 30,000 it's a wrong figure because it's 40,000 Israel deliberately killed.

If it's wrong and it's only 20,000 Israel killed it doesn't matter. They should still stop the killing.

Not saying it isn't, and I wasn't trying to make a comparison between the two conflicts. Only pointing out the inaccuracy of the quoted Ukrainian numbers.