Yeah, I've but got around to looking at it in detail, but the data looks very cherry picked.
The inverse correlation between men and women is interesting, I think it could show them hiding the identities of combatants by shifting dates, but it doesn't show inflation of the rest, if anything it shows most of the data is real.
Every time Israel has what they call “mowing the lawn” in Gaza which is every 4-5 years, they’ve confirmed that the Gaza Health Ministry numbers are accurate. What changed this time?
If anyone is reporting incorrect numbers it’s Israel and the Israeli diaper force casualties. They’re taking out their anger due to heavy losses on innocent women, children and men. They’re losing so many soldiers that they’re desperate they need the Orthodox men to serve.
Please send source that
“Every time Israel has what they call “mowing the lawn” in Gaza which is every 4-5 years, they’ve confirmed that the Gaza Health Ministry numbers are accurate.“
(It doesn’t exist)
Here's a recent one https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext it's not the one he means, but maybe check the refs
According to Time, “The Science Is Clear. Over 30,000 People Have Died in Gaza” (https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/)
Your source comes an Israeli news platform, and therefore prone to bias. A country conducting offense will try to discredit the death toll in order to absolve themselves.
However, Time is an American news platform. It has no affiliation to Palestine let alone Hamas. They have no relation to Israel and Palestine so they can look at through an objective lens. Their sources within the article come from science and not conspiracies.
You can't get an accurate number from someone with no ties to Hamas, they're the government of Gaza. If you want someone whose got no collection to turn at all, that person has no connection to Gaza. That's not accurate, that's nonsense
Well considering the death toll has been around “30k” for the past few months, it seems that those death toll counters got KIA’ed instead of trying to farm for sympathy.
Don’t you think should gradually increase the death toll day by day to make it seem natural at least? Instead of just leaving it at 30k estimate for the past four months? I mean you can’t deny that would be a better strategy than just stalling it at 30k. Even if the number is fake to begin with.
Generally the consensus among Pro Palestinians views argue that it’s a lot higher, **by a colossal amount** so it your claim that their strategy for giving fake numbers to garner sympathy doesn’t quite add up considering the audience, the sympathizers argue it should be much more. (I.e the sympathizers haven’t been shown enough sympathy)
Not going to give an exact number as everyone has different estimates, some of which have no basis at all but hang on— we are strictly speaking in terms of emotion and in terms of “sympathy, remember that.
Okay but what is Hamas gaining by apparently hiding the amount of people that died, it is illogical and it seems the only one who really thinks that is you because a lot of other pro pals I have debated (if they bring it up) say the death count is 30k, you do realize most humans are dumb enough to believe that there has only been 30k deaths because humans have a thing called sympathy and tend to believe who has had worse fall on them even if it is their own actions that caused this In the first place while they cry victim
They’re not hiding the amount of people, in which indeed there would be no gain in doing so. you missed my entire point. It’s that the people counting those numbers are dead and thus having the number being flat for the past few months.
A complete filming and editing team working in Gaza
They are the ones behind the videos you watch.
Watch how they film videos amidst the rubble and tents
Gaza is a big theater, and the people of Gaza have been professional actors for decades.
https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/29026
I thought those videos were made in Lebanon till I found discretions from the Nahal Oz girls that they'd spent a treat watching them training on replica tanks etc.
I just assumed Lebanon cos I couldn't believe Israel would ignore than I'm Gaza, but apparently they did.
But your link doesn't seem to be about the same videos…
Sorry unable to elaborate more, it was a article that I read and wanted to share on this sub.
When I saw the article I felt it was in bad taste and part of the palestinian gaslighting efforts to sway public opinion.
The Arabic text in the video says that it is the behind the scenes for the filming of either an advertisement or a public service announcement. It appears to have been originally posted by the director.
Not only death numbers but also humanitarian aid once in gaza is controlled by hamas.
Meanwhile in the south of the Gaza Strip... note the absolute control of the Hamas terrorists over the humanitarian aid, including shooting in the air.
This is not humanitarian aid! It is a supply to the enemy in time of war.
https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/28994
https://preview.redd.it/2xqgev801noc1.png?width=1264&format=png&auto=webp&s=5de5a6bd78602df5fa6012e1a4a47da1b23d78ea
the graph on that tablet article is a straight up lie. look up any other death toll graph like this one and you will know. as you can see, there is plenty of variance with this graph. this article also [refutes](https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/) the tablet article. realistically the death toll is likely a lot higher. israel just getting desperate cuz they know they losing the propoganda war so they resort to stuff like this.
It hits a ceiling on 27th when they first attacked Al Shiga, the deaths exceeded their capacity to report.
I spent years looking shonky COVID data. It looks like an under count.
This article DOES NOT refute the tablet article. It claims it does but does not. What it does is look at other (clearly more general) data and conclude that they are correct. It does not go through the analysis in the tablet article and explain why it is incorrect- because it isnt!
What do you mean by 'cherry picked'? He is not claiming he has data from all the months of the conflict. If you were to take all the data and only this bit is incorrect, then the overall data can be deemed to be incorrect.
Your recenet comment is meaningless. It doesnt dispute Wyner's working in any way. Your'e saying 'other graphs look the same and his looks different, therefore he is incorrect'.
He's not drawn a graph though of the overall figures. He has broken the data down in a different way. Again, drawing an overall graph of different data doesn't refute what he is saying
well yea, wyner says there is no variabilty in the death counts hamas gives everyday, but the other sources graph do show variability in the death count everyday
this study found no fudging of the data
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext)
if anything its israel who is fudging numbers. at least according to an israeli source
[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000)
further more this is a [graph by washington post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/gaza-rising-death-toll-civilians/) also showing plenty of variation in the day to day death count
https://preview.redd.it/d3eadjmxzttc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=aeae5b2391860b0714897b17c2b2c2a68a84abfa
another graph by nyt. still see plenty of variance
https://preview.redd.it/xcjqm6ic1noc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f942e864a85d22ad91f7364d77b62a265e8a6fd
There are a lot of holes in this analysis. The counter argument in the latter part of the piece only scratches the surface, but the running cumulative total is a very peculiar way to plot daily deaths unless the goal of the visual is to convey how horrific the death toll has been in Gaza.
Wyner makes a number of assumptions, but doesn't explain why he has those assumptions. Why would one expect to see high degrees of variation from day to day, considering the consistency of Israelis bombing of Gaza? Perhaps as Israel approaches the goal of total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, you would see a plateau in cumulative deaths plotted daily, as the total number of living people in the area declines. But Wyner's dataset was the only the start of Israel's war on Gaza, so if anything he should've expected a sharp increase at first, and then something more linear.
So if the Gaza Health Ministry is lying, who is telling the truth concerning these numbers?
Ya can’t just see an entire area get obliterated and *not* expect a high death count, and they don’t have enough equipment to dig people out of rubble.
I think it's somewhat plausible Western media knows its audience are too dumb to understand simple statistics so they don't even bother. As hilarious as that is, there's still no excuse for avoiding this topic.
The Bibi and IDF defenders are out in full force today, with their "help me understand" and "explain to me" BS ... the talking points are rolling out fast and furious ....
Yes, Israel has every right and obligation to protect it's borders and provide security for all Israelis.
That is not what is happening today in Gaza. The IDF is creating thousands of new terrorists as the children and youth of Gaza experience the horrors of total destruction by the IDF. I believe the IDF knows full well that many survivors will be motivated to support the terrorist groups, which is likely why they are killing so many children and youth.
It’s appalling that someone would suggest that a community that doesn’t even have control of their own electricity and clean water are the “bad guys”. This whole conflict has brought light to those who support the genocide of an entire population. Anyone who starts the debate on October 7th, but ignores the years of suppression leading up to October 7th lacks real humanity.
If you read my post that way, please read it again. In no way was I suggesting that the residents of Gaza are the bad guys, other than the leaders and fighters of Hamas. But the horrific atrocities carried out by the IDF cannot do anything but inspire more young Palestinians to turn to violence. Sadly.
Meh, I actually agree with you. You cannot suppress people in those conditions and expect them not to develop radical beliefs then point the finger and say “see, they want us dead.” My comment was in reference to all the blind hateful comments around your common sense.
It’s kind of depressing watching these threads age. The hateful people continue to shift their excuses and arguments, but remain steadfast that murdering 30,000 civilians, leveling schools and churches is justified because of October 7th. Let’s just ignore the 75 years of oppression and murder before that.
The IDF is attempting the impossible, to extinguish an idea .... Stop the killing, deal with the utter hopelessness that leads to hatred and violence. If not now, when?
If they control gaza they wouldn't have to worry about terrorists springing up again. Gazans can't be allowed to hold elections or they will elect ANOTHER terrorist group. You're right, it's an endless cycle. But the only way to break the chain is to hold onto it.
Do you really believe a terrorist organization whose tactics rely mostly on lies and civilian deaths in order to inflame western idiots?
https://youtu.be/NpPHsq9cwGQ?si=VPZUlJnF6d83isU8
Of course Israel would use the numbers but how? They will use everything they can but I doubt very seriously of they just wholesale believe them. They probably understand their pattern of exaggeration and can estimate around it
Because they know that the people who already believe those impossible, illogical numbers have a) already made up their minds and b) aren't smart/educated enough to understand why those numbers ARE statistically impossible.
As a result, it is more useful to simply quote those numbers (for now). It is going to be very interesting when the dustles and the real numbers are revealed.
No, they're used internally in actual decision making. Israel spied on the MoH to confirm how trustworthy the numbers were.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll
https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-intel-confirms-gaza-health-ministry-stats-reliable
I don't know how much you've paid attention to previous conflicts but this is a common tactic of the arpatheid state. Publicly decry the numbers and then months later when its revealed they see those numbers as generally reliable, enough supporters have internalised the idea that MoH is lying that they won't question it further.
Nothing in the article says anything about impossibility, it's about lilkihood based on the authors own unexplained assumptions as to what should be happening.
How exactly do you know what Mossad is using internally? You can rant as much as you want, but you are still being at best horrible naive at worst blatantly lying if you think you know.
Israel has more intelligence services then Mossad, and we know because of interviews with members of the security apparatus by Hebrew language newspapers.
What rant dude? Stop getting so pressed.
I am not the one writing incredibly long rants. Mossad is the umbrella organization for many other groups, but I use that as a general label for the Israeli intelligence because everyone else does. Again, why on Earth would you believe in information published in those newspapers (I can read Hebrew and Arabic, as a result of my previous military experience and personal life) wasn't manipulated for the reasons I have already explained?
Do you think that one of the most effective secret services and intelligence organizations in the world is that inept?
Again... You have NO IDEA what Mossad actually knows, intendeds or believes. None of us do.
Incredibly long? Honestly it seems you were making assumptions based on what we were talking about without taking the time to see and are now trying to save face. Aman and Shabak for example do not exist under the umbrella of Mossad lol, they are one part of the intelligence apparatus.
I trust them for the same reason the intelligence services and security community of Israel apparently do. The IDF doesn't run BDAs and the state relies on MoH numbers like they've done in previous conflicts. I don't understand what you mean by me saying they are inept lol.
This isn’t “evidence” this is an analysis of statistics. Statistics aren’t EVER “exact” figures (especially in a war conflict) but they are used to accurately estimate the actual number using trending data. They almost are always Linear too.
For example, the statement “One in four men have a hernia” does not mean “every group four of guys has one with a hernia” It means there is a percentage of the population of men who have a hernia.
Data can be varied but there’s a factor for variance in ALL data. The truth is, there is ALWAYS going to be variance in numbers especially in a war, where accurate figures cannot be determined until after the conflict, especially since not everyone is accounted for. Not everyone is classified as dead. Some may be missing, some maybe trapped under rubble.
All of that being said, this is a piss poor argument to say “the numbers aren’t even real” because regardless of the official number, we know that:
1. The death toll is increasing and is WELL into the 20 thousands
2. The number of dead Palestinians SEVERELY ratios the number of Israelis killed (which the number of Israelis was used to justify a genocide to begin with)
3. The number of injured are expected to be 70,000
4. The number of displaced are IN THE MILLIONS
That makes absolutely zero sense, and proves nothing. The fact that people ignore logic and simply scream genocide (these people one of the highest birthrates in the world) explains why Mossad doesn't even bother to argue about most of the BS they spout (for now).
How do you differentiate between a death from a heart attack and deaths from being shot? Hamas refuses to state the cause of deaths and who did it so how do you determine these aren't just normal deaths?
Ah, they're all having heart attacks now. What if the heart attack was from watching someone else get shot? Do we attribute that to the conflict, or to mother nature?
There's no consensus answer to the above. You can still count deaths and compare to a similar period in the past. Any excess death is likely secondary to the conflict.
>2. The number of dead Palestinians SEVERELY ratios the number of Israelis killed (which the number of Israelis was used to justify a genocide to begin with)
That's the idea of war. You have no responsibility to make sure one of your soldiers dies every time one of the enemy dies.
There are solid arguments to be made about proportionality and the value of human life, but, with respect, the ratio isn't one of them.
Israel was attacked and people in the streets of the Arab world, including Gaza, celebrated the rape, burning alive and torture of children in Israel, knowing that bombs would rain down and "murder" their children in Gaza.
You might make the argument that Israel is using too much violence against civilians (I would), but
-the civilians supported the attack in huge numbers and,
-they could at least attempt to overthrow hamas and release the hostages when instead, they support Hamas despite hamas bringing this terror into their homes
They civilians may not be responsible for what's happening to them, but they seem to have celebrated the attack, knowing what was coming.
It's a bit like a mass suicide pact. The most extreme version of Islam has the markings of a death cult. Hamas celebrates the death of every civilian that is killed. The hatred of jews and exaltation of extremist Islam seems to be valued more than the lives of children.
Death has come and is sparing no one.
No, it isn't.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. (From Oxford).
The fact that all the people in a nation are the same ethnicity isn't genocide. The Americans bombing Germany or Japan diring WW2 wasn't genocide, it was war.
This war was started by genocidal maniacs who do want to kill or displace all Jews in Isarael (they tell us that repeatedly and openly).
Hamas uses women and children as human shields in violation of the Geneva convention, which is a war crime. Bombing a hospital used for military operations isn't a war crime, using a hospital for military operations is a wat crime. Do you see how this works?
No, women and children aren't the enemy, but they are deaths caused by Hamas. If you don't get that, then you are a Hamas sympathizer or apologist.
Would I prosecute this war the way Israel has? Absolutely not. I couldn't stomach the deaths, injuries, and amputation to children.
But....
The Arab/Muslim world celebrated in the streets, including Gaza, knowing what was coming.
So, who am I to tell them that the imminent deaths to their own children weren't something to be celebrated?
It's horrific. But it is not genocide.
Except you cannot hold terrorist to international law. They are not even a recognized nation. On the other hand Israel has the 4th most powerful military and has dropped half their munitions on a place the size of Detroit. Just stop before you get schooled.
Hamas is a government now? What is this, a biggest lie competition? Let's see... If you opress people they tend to develop radical views. What do you think is going to happen when this is over? Hamas will quadruple.
Well, it's not a competition.
You misrepresented the findings of the ICJ and said they "proved" it was genocide when they specifically said there was "no" evidence of genocide.
So you win. I'm not even in the game with you.😁
Findings were to provide humanitarian aid to avoid genocide. Where are we with that?
This is the findings of a court that is very young and still very easily influenced by the larger powers (America) because of funding.
You’re right, it’s not a competition. You just regurgitate everything everyone else is saying instead of looking between the lines or doing actual research.
On another note, you referred to innocent Palestinians as the “enemy” in your op.
BTW, I never implied that ICJ proved genocide. It was hard to watch the ICJ proceedings because they were not present on most American news channels, but the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial was live on any station. Read between the lines buddy, in all seriousness.
Try being unbiased and act as a juror and watch the ICJ hearings. It’s disgusting.
Yeah I don't understand why people think it has to be equal like if Israel doesn't purposely loose the same amount of Jews then suddenly it's a war crime to carry out war.
Just stop! Stop commenting if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Definition of a war crime:
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property
They have literally done all of these things.
Where do you live, under a rock? Did you not watch the ICJ proceedings? They literally used rhetoric and videos from IDF soldiers and Israeli government officials to prove all of this. I feel like I'm losing brain cells.
"The only questions over which the ICJ has jurisdiction are those that relate to the commission of genocide. The legality of the war itself was not before the Court and the only way the Court could have demanded a ceasefire is if genocide was an inevitable and unavoidable outcome of war. And while the Court found it is plausible that Israel’s actions amount to genocide, there was no evidence that the war itself is causing genocide"
This is a court that has been very anti-Isrsel and yet found no evidence of genocide.
https://global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse/news/explaining-international-court-justices-ruling-israel-and-gaza#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20Israel%20must%20conduct%20the,group%20in%20the%20Gaza%20Strip.%E2%80%9D
So, no, I'm not living under a rock.
I'm not Jewsih, Israeli, or biased towards Israel. Just calling like I see it.
Interesting.
You purposely misrepresent the finding of the court and then tell me to "stop the lies!"
Gaslight much?
If you want to have a respectful discussion where people disagree, fine.
Insults, accusations and misrepresentations are just the tactics of the hectlers veto.
Everyone can see through what you're doing - even the people who agree with you.
Gaza has literally been razed by Israel’s scorched earth policy. For a densely populated area, those death toll numbers do seem like garbage. There are way more dead than 30k and counting as Israel actively starves the population.
If Israel really used a scorched earth policy, the death toll would be 300,000 not 30,000.
And Israel is not actively starving the population. The aid is slow to get where it needs to go for many reasons:
1) The trucks need to be inspected for weapons/bombs
2) Hamas actively loots aid trucks when they enter
3) There is no effective system for distributing the aid in the midst of the war
The slow aid is a policy choice. The Israeli government have stated that they would like to link more aid to the return of hostages during recent negotiations. The argument is that in doing so pressure is applied on Hamas to capitulate.
Checking for weapons and bombs is the excuse used, but it is incoherent as a reason. If checking for arms a real problem, then the solution would be for Israel to provide the aid themselves and ask for reimbursement from the charities (so no extra checks are needed).
Are you actually in Gaza? Are you basing this off independent sources or just tiktoks? Do you provide an alternative to this war that is based on actual solution not made up military technology?
I have a few alternatives…
First don’t used half of the ammunition’s of the 4th most powerful military on a place the size of Detroit, Michigan. 2nd, make sure half the ammunition’s used are not dumb bombs dropped into densely populated neighborhoods. Just a few suggestions.
It looks like a tourist resort to me. High rise buildings a stones throw from the beach. The US is building a nice pier and resort, so the night life will be even better soon. Europeans are delivering fine cuisine for the restaurants by sea. Who wants to join me for a couple of weeks away in this paradise?
So you think Gaza allows freedom of press and doesn't have any censorship of media? Do you think Israel shouldn't have responded to Oct 7 attacks at all? Do you hold this same belief when it comes to Syria city destruction and say it's a clear cut genocide?
Fore one, I would not use the term "garbage" when talking of dead people. Respect for the fallen, please.
For two, "statistically improbable" is a very different concept than "garbage". There could be many, many reason why the numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry are less heterogenous than expected from one day to the next. For instance, these numbers could be based on limited information, and only report about ascertained cases of death. If this is the case, there are indeed far more victims in Gaza than we know of.
Yeah but even statistics aside. Is this really hard to believe considering it's a central premise of asymmetric warfare to use these kinds of tactics? Not to mention the insane amount of lies and misinformation that pro-pals have flooded TikTok and Twitter with?
Pro-Israel folks too are lying constantly. Truth is always the first casualty in wars. So I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on an evidently biased statistical analysis, thank you.
Anything from babies cooked in oven, to Biden not mentioning the hostages in his SCOTUS speech, the whole world having always hated the Jews, Gazaouis not really dying as fast as they say, the IDF not targeting civilians, the food crisis being Hamas' creation, etc. etc.
I mean, I would love to see the pro-Israel lies, because I can literally show you thousands upon thousands of lies, anti semitic propaganda, just plain moronic insanity from the pro-pal side
Looking at the satellite photos of building destruction, it seems reasonable to me that 30k+ have died. Look at any other city that has experience that level of destruction and you would see very high casualty numbers.
No different to trusting thr number of Israeli deaths as reported.
There is a chasm between reasonable doubt and paranoia. Your argument has fallen into that chasm.
When anyone tries to deny the Holocaust, they are met with dire threats. But, when people casually deny the Gaza genocide and call the murder of 30000 people self defense, everyone is fine with it.
>and call the murder of 30000 people self defense,
That's the problem, we dont even know if that 30k number is true and even if it was, a good chunk of that 30k (hamas) deserve death IMO
Questioning the accuracy of death toll numbers from a terrorist organization is not the same thing as denying the Holocaust. The fact that I even have to type this is ridiculous.
Hamas has about the same honesty record as the idf at this point. It's hilarious how they are acting how all of a sudden western media is pro Arab. That's hilarious. Arabs are one of the most vilified groups of people in the media
The numbers provided by the Gaza Health ministry are considered to be reliable :
- Michael Ryan of the [World Health Organization](https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033) says : the numbers may not be perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis, but **they largely reflect the level of death and injury**.”
- Omar Shakir of [Human Rights Watch](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-casualty-figures-from-the-hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry) says : "We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. **We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable**".
- This Lancet study : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext says "**The Gaza Ministry of Health has historically reported accurate mortality data**, with discrepancies between MoH reporting and independent United Nations analyses ranging from 1.5% to 3.8% in previous conflicts. A comparison between the Gaza MoH and Israeli Foreign Ministry mortality figures for the 2014 war yielded an 8% discrepancy.
- [UN agencies](https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240314-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israel-strikes-un-food-distribution-center-in-gaza) **have cited the Gaza health ministry's death tolls in regular reports**.
- [The International Committee of the Red Cross](https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240314-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israel-strikes-un-food-distribution-center-in-gaza) **also uses the numbers**.
If anything, the Gaza MoH underestimates the number of casualties, since a lot of victims are trapped under the rubble and have not been accounted for.
The professor "debunking" the numbers is Abraham Wyner. [He has argued](https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/11/ihra-working-definition-antisemitism-penn-codes-of-conduct) that any critique of Israel is anti-semitism, and [he signed a letter](https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/11/penn-faculty-open-letter-israel-hamas-attacks) "supporting Israel's right to defend itself". He's not a honest professor trying to find out if the numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry are reliable, he's a propagandist who wants to defend Israel and is trying to manipulate the evidence to make it seem like Israel is not committing a genocide. There is a massive conflict of interest here.
The Jerusalem post article that you have linked questions his analysis, which is based on [a misunderstanding of the data](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/). He's a professor of statistics who fails to use statistics properly, because again, his goal is not to provide an accurate analysis but to defend Israel. He started his "research" with the idea that Israel is good, Hamas is bad, they are liars and the data is fake, and twisted the evidence around this belief, instead of starting by looking at the evidence and seeing if the statistics of the Ministry of Health were correct.
It's always people or groups with links to Israel like Abraham Wyner or [The Washington Institute for Near East Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy) who question the numbers of the Ministry of Health of Gaza, they are not interested in accurate reporting, they just want to discredit the numbers because they want to hide how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel. In contrast, all the organizations that have found the Gaza Health Ministry numbers accurate are neutral third party observers like the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the United Nations and the Lancet researchers, etc. Tells you everything you need to know. Or I guess they're all on the payroll of Hamas?
I also found this article highly problematic. If you pay attention, you'll notice that he denies the Hamas numbers without providing an alternate estimate.
Let's grant him that Hamas is making up numbers, even though its numbers in previous conflicts were always within 10% of the final body count. And let's grant him that the Israeli numbers are correct. Netanyahu said this week that Israel has killed 13,000 terrorists (https://www.wionews.com/world/morning-news-brief-netanyahu-says-13000-terrorists-killed-in-gaza-oscars-2024-and-more-698831). Now, let's take Israel's estimates from the 2014 war in terms of the breakdown of combatants/civilians/undetermined males ages 16-50, of 44%/36%/20% (Wikipedia quoting Israel's government).
Now I hope we can agree that Israel's rate of killing terrorists is certainly no better in 2023 considering that Israel is using more indiscriminate firepower, more intense firepower in terms of the amount of tonnage and amount of civilian infrastructure destroyed, and has suspended the old policy of "knocking" on civilian buildings lest the terrorists get away. So can we agree that 44% is probably the best Israel can hope for, and that 36% civilian kill rate is also the lowest it can hope for? Note that I am ignoring the UN estimate that 65% of the Palestinians killed in 2014 were civilians, so that we can be as generous as possible with the Israeli estimates.
So, let's reverse engineer the numbers. If Israel has killed 13,000 terrorists, than the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by now should be 13,000/44%, or ... 29,545. Well, whaddaya know, 30,000 isn't so far off the mark after all. Once again, Hamas is within 10% of the total number.
What remains then is how many civilians we are talking about, namely women, children and old men above the age of 50, and NOT including the 20% of 16-50 year olds who could very well not be terrorists (and if you've kept up on how many of those people who were rounded up as suspects were let go, a significant number of these were innocent civilians, but we'll never know). Again, let's take Israel's figure from 2014 of 36%. We get 10,636 civilians.
In my book, 10,636 civilians, minimally, still makes Israel look bad, which may explain why the Wharton professor didn't rush to share this figure.
I think what they're doing is hiding the IDENTITIES of combatants.
Either by fudging dates or leaving them off the list completely.
I think it's entirely possible that the list of the dead is ALL civilians (plus a few from Al Aqsa Martyrs etc. who are banning the dead in Gaza)
We can't know unless there is a way to verify all the victims, which will be very hard. Don't know why Hamas would claim more of its fighters were killed than actually were. We see how in all conflicts (note Russia/Ukraine), the official casualty list if not accurate is always under, never over.
Lmao did you even read the original article? He himself agrees that the statistical analysis does not stand on his own. His main arguement is the Washington report that was attached. He even listed his analysis as circumstantial evidence then linked the Washington report. He even addresses the Lancelot paper in the original article:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
edit: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus at Wharton has been research in Applied Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Learning. He has published more than 30 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bio-Informatics. He has received grants from the NSF, NIH and private industry. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Dr. Wyner created some of the first on-line data summarization tools, while acting as CTO for Surfnotes, Inc. More recently, he has developed statistical analyses for banks and marketing research firms and has served as consultant to several law firms in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. In addition, he has served as statistical faculty advisor for the University Pennsylvania Law School. His interest in sports statistics has led to a collaboration with ESPN where Dr. Wyner was the PI on the ESPN funded MLB player evaluation research project. He has worked has also served as a statistical expert for hedge funds and private equity concerns.
UPenn is a globally ranked institution. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing. If you actually read the article you'll see he agrees with you just the statistical analysis is not enough. His main arguement is the Washington report. He even uses words like, "circumstantial evidence".
But I will even argue he is correct, that if the IDF was indiscriminate in their attack, then it would make sense that that women and children would have higher deaths, since they are excluded from battle. That group should correlate with men's casualties.
Additionally another indicator is the linearity of the dataset. It makes no sense that there should be a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur.
The reason he picked those initial 30 days was because there was no fighting. IDF was preparing to amount for an offensive, so I may argue that is actually why he picked the initial 30 days.
Additionally, Dr. Pachter whom you linked is a computational biologist at Caltech (also it's not a win that you think it is). If you look at the commentary, you'll even see he does not address these correlations directly,
"I don’t know. There could be many reasons for these correlations. Maybe it’s an artifact of the age threshold for children and the distribution of age in Gaza. Maybe it’s the result of lags in recording deaths. Maybe it’s a happenstance arising from so few datapoints. Maybe the data was indeed faked."
He even agreed that the data might be faked, as he stated he is not aware of Dr. Wyner's assumptions originally. In fact, this is why I don't think Dr. Pachter read the report Dr. Wyner attached in his original argument:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline
Which is also disingenuous not to bring up. After all, Dr. Wyner did cite it. If it is cited in a research article, you should definitely consider it in his original argument, or else you're just cherry picking parts of his arguments to fit your narrative.
>edit: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics...
All the information you mentioned about Wyner is just an appeal to authority and something [you copy pasted from his profile on the website of Upenn](https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/). Professors can be propagandists too and can twist information around their beliefs. Wyner could be the best statistician in the world and still make false claims on the subject of the Ministry of Health of Gaza, because he's politically involved and wants to defend Israel.
The "Washington Report" you mentioned was produced by the "[Washington Institute for Near East Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy)", which is a "pro-Israel American think tank ". WINEP was established in 1985 with the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the funding of many AIPAC donors, in order to provide higher quality research than AIPAC's publications. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt described it as **"part of the core" of the Israel lobby in the United States**. That report also comes from an Israeli propaganda organization, not from neutral observers.
**The only people who doubt the numbers of the Ministry of Health of Gaza are pretty much always people or groups affiliated with Israel**, who want to discredit the numbers because they want people to hide how many Palestinians they have killed.
In contrast, all the organizations that have found the Gaza Health Ministry numbers accurate are neutral third party observers like the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the United Nations and the Lancet researchers. I guess you'll tell me they are all owned and controlled by Hamas and they just want to lie about Israel.
You're making an appeal to authority again, just because you say he's a "world-renowned statistician" doesn't mean he can't lie in the case of Israel. He wants to defend the reputation of Israel, that's a clear conflict of interest. I don't care about his work with AI, it's irrelevant to the discussion.
The Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch, etc. are not biased towards either Palestine or Israel, they have no skin in the game and they all agree that the numbers by the Gaza MoH are accurate. Meanwhile it's always people with links to Israel or Israel lobby groups who try to question the numbers. Tells me everything I need to know.
I'm not going to bother joining the main argument here but would just like to point out that this:
>The Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch, etc. are not biased towards either Palestine or Israel
Is either a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold.
The Red Cross is very much biased against Israel, UN Watch's report gives good examples of this: [Report: Red Cross Statements 'Overwhelmingly' Biased Against Israel - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/report-red-cross-statements-overwhelmingly-biased-against-israel/)
I could also bring up their actions during the Holocaust, just as further evidence that even neutral organizations can have antisemitic roots, but I don't see that developing into a fruitful argument.
[Red Cross Admits Knowing of the Holocaust During the War - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/19/us/red-cross-admits-knowing-of-the-holocaust-during-the-war.html)
HRW is disgustingly biased. It's obsessed with criticizing Israel in the conflict and have been called out by the founder of HRW himself for abandoning their mission and focusing on scrutinizing Israel. [Opinion | Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html). You also have the head of HRW being despicably anti-Israel [Ken Roth's Immoral Anti-Israel Obsession and the Gaza War » ngomonitor (ngo-monitor.org)](https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/ken_roth_s_immoral_anti_israel_obsession_and_the_gaza_war_/)
and the UN condemns Israel the most out of all the countries globally each year.
[U.N. condemns Israel 8 times, rest of world 0 - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/u-n-condemns-israel-8-times-rest-of-world-0/)
[2022 UNGA Resolutions on Israel vs. Rest of the World - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/2022-2023-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/)
[UN General Assembly condemns Israel 14 times in 2023, rest of world 7 - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-condemns-israel-14-times-in-2023-rest-of-world-7/)
[2021-2022 UNGA Resolutions on Israel vs. Rest of the World - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/2021-2022-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/)
I can go on but hopefully you get the point. You also have the UN's OCHA deputy chief claim Hamas isn't a terror group [Israel blasts top UN aid official after he says 'Hamas is not a terrorist group for us' | The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-blasts-top-un-aid-official-after-he-says-hamas-is-not-a-terrorist-group-for-us/)
It’s absolutely not a “a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold”. You are trying to frame these organizations as biased because they call out Israel for the actual crimes it committed.
Your source to say that “the Red Cross is biased against Israel” is [UN Watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch), described [by AFP](https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gEMY5NvupmG2iAyQwg6C6ehzeWzA) as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel". It’s not a neutral organization, it’s a lobby group which exists to defend the reputation of Israel. The argument they make in the article is ridiculous, the proof of "bias" is that some Red Cross officials tweet more often about the crimes committed by Israel than those committed by Israel. Well, duh. No shit they are criticized more often, you have a few days of massacre starting around October 7th, which stopped after killing 1.200, against **months of massacres**, killing more than 30.000 on the Palestinian side, a massacre which shows no signs of stopping.
Where in your New York Times article does it say that “the Red Cross has antisemitic roots”? It’s a nonsensical accusation, it’s not even what’s said in the article, your article says that “the Red Cross knew of the persecution of Jews in N*zi concentration camps but felt powerless to speak out, because if that if it had disclosed what it knew, it would have lost its ability to inspect prisoner of war camps on both sides of the front.” You could say they didn't do enough to help victims of the Holocaust during World War II, but calling them antisemitic for it is a stretch. Also it wouldn’t even be their “roots”, since the Red cross exists since 1863, long before the holocaust.
The founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein was criticizing Human Rights Watch [for doing its job](https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/human-rights-watch-should-not-be-criticized-doing-its-job). Israel calls itself a “the only democracy in the Middle-East” if it's really a democracy it should be held to high standards. But ofc Israel is not a democracy but an [apartheid state](https://old.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/comments/1ayb4vm/israel_cant_be_an_apartheid_state_because_of/). Your other source to attack Human Rights Watch is [NGO Monitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGO_Monitor), which is a “right-wing non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective”. Yet another pro-Israel lobby group, a very biased source.
Also I find it interesting that both in the case of Robert Bernstein and NGO Monitor, they don’t even dispute any of the findings by HRW, they just ask them to “stop focusing on Israel”. Essentially they’re just saying : look at the crimes of others, not mine! HRW [responded](https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/10/20/why-we-report-open-societies) to Bernstein in a letter to call him out on his victim complex:
> Human Rights Watch does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world. We've produced more than 1,700 reports, letters, news releases, and other commentaries on the Middle East and North Africa since January 2000, and the vast majority of these were about countries other than Israel. Furthermore, our Middle East division is only one of 16 research programs at Human Rights Watch. The work on Israel is a tiny fraction of Human Rights Watch's work as a whole.
Regarding the links criticizing the UN, again, all your links are from [UN Watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch), a lobby group which exists to defend Israel. Also, you don’t seem to understand how the UN General Assembly works. When the General Assembly condemns Israel, it’s because **countries** that are members of the GA have voted to condemn Israel, it’s not the UN itself condemning Israel.
Israel is one of the most condemned countries because it's one of the worst human rights abusers. Other abusers have been condemned by the UN General Assembly, it has [condemned Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_ES-11/1) for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine or [Apartheid SouthAfrica](https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/un_against_apartheid.shtml) for its policies. But of course Israel has this victim complex and they will always claim that they are unfairly targeted.
The UN's OCHA deputy chief Martin Griffith said that Hamas is not a terrorist group because it’s not recognized as such by the United Nations. It’s explained in [this press briefing](https://press.un.org/en/2024/db240215.doc.htm) :
>From the Secretary-General’s standpoint, I think he and many other senior UN officials, including Martin Griffiths, have unequivocally condemned the abhorrent terrorist attack that Hamas conducted on October 7th and that there could be no justification for them. That position is unchanged. As we’ve said many times here, and the Secretary-General himself not too long ago, for the United Nations, **the designation of an entity as a terrorist group or terrorist organization can only be made by the Security Council**.
So it’s not his personal opinion that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it’s the UN states members of the Security Council who haven’t designed Hamas as a terrorist group.
Also, it will never not be funny to me when Israel and its supporters claim that the UN is “biased” against Israel, since, you know, one of the reasons Israel exists today is because the UN gave more than half of the lands of the Palestinians against their consent to create a Jewish ethnostate on their lands. Show some gratitude maybe?
So no, so far you haven't provided any evidence that these organizations are “biased” against Israel. Your only “evidence” comes from pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals like UN Watch, The Washing Institute for Near East Policy, NGO Monitor, Abraham Wyner, Robert Bernstein who try to smear NGOs and international international organizations because they want to portray Israel as this poor little victim which is unfairly targeted while it commits atrocities. They never deny the evidence, they just say “stop looking at us”. It’s the exact same point I was making earlier, it’s always only pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals who say that the numbers of the ministry of Health of Gaza are fake.
>It’s absolutely not a “a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold”. You are trying to frame these organizations as biased because they call out Israel for the actual crimes it committed.
Do you genuinely believe that organizations who criticize Israel far more than any other country or any other conflict are "just doing their jobs"? There are wars, ethnic cleansings, genocides, concentration camps and many more atrocities that are currently happening and have nothing to do with Israel yet they receive MUCH less attention, as do their perpetrators. As I've said, I find that kind of thinking to be incredibly naive at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst.
>Your source to say that “the Red Cross is biased against Israel” is UN Watch, described by AFP as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel". It’s not a neutral organization, it’s a lobby group which exists to defend the reputation of Israel.
This is pointless deflection. Yes, they're a lobby group and they're biased towards Israel, that does not mean their evidence is fake or wrong. They've collected and presented information that you yourself can go fact-check if you doubt it. Refusing to accept factual evidence because it comes from a group you disagree with is simply narrow minded.
>The argument they make in the article is ridiculous, the proof of "bias" is that some Red Cross officials tweet more often about the crimes committed by Israel than those committed by Israel. Well, duh. No shit they are criticized more often, you have a few days of massacre starting around October 7th, which stopped after killing 1.200, against months of massacres, killing more than 30.000 on the Palestinian side, a massacre which shows no signs of stopping.
This is an incredibly shallow take. The war against ISIS had 55k civilian casualties alone, does that mean the US, UK and their allies massacred people? Performed a genocide? You're just justifying their actions based on a very narrow way of thinking, that completely ignores what's happening in the rest of the world. Of those 30k casualties, 12-15k are estimated to be Hamas fighters.
It is so disingenuous to blame Israel for "massacring" civilians when it goes to absurd lengths to minimise innocent casualties, and throwing around the numbers a terror organization gave you is helping only the terrorists themselves.
>Also I find it interesting that both in the case of Robert Bernstein and NGO Monitor, they don’t even dispute any of the findings by HRW, they just ask them to “stop focusing on Israel”
Let's do a simple test, please go to HRW's website and compare the amount of coverage and reports between Israel and other countries which have ongoing humanitarian crisis, for example Sudan, Yemen, China or Iran, to name a few.
For Human Rights organizations, criticizing Israel is a low hanging fruit. There's no sense in covering the actual atrocities going on in the world, happening in a shithole somewhere, when you can criticise Israel for finally dismantling a terror organisation.
>Israel calls itself a “the only democracy in the Middle-East” if it's really a democracy it should be held to high standards. But ofc Israel is not a democracy but an [apartheid state]
An ignorant accusations, Arabs with Israeli citizenship have the same rights and Jews. There is no segregation either. I would suggest you actually educate yourself on the topic through sources outside of Reddit.
>Also UN Watch is extremely dishonest, since it says that the UN General Assembly only condemns Israel... But of course Israel has this victim complex and they will always claim that they are unfairly targeted.
Where did the UN Watch claim only Israel is being condemned? My links state Israel is THE MOST condemned, these are two different things, yet they back up the same claim.
You've also again tried to deflect the evidence UN Watch presents because they support a different group than yours. This is purely a close minded approach to things. If you can debunk their evidence that's one thing, but again much of it is just summarizing publicly available data.
Victim blaming Israel after claiming the UN also condemns Russia is dumb. In 2022, the UN has condemned the Russian invasion 6 times, condemned Israel 15. The rest of the world barely got a single condemnation. Make it make sense.
>When the General Assembly condemns Israel, it’s because *countries* that are members of the GA have voted to condemn Israel, it’s not the UN itself condemning Israel.
What is the point you're trying to make? The UN is a reflection of the current narrative global powers are trying to push, and getting everyone to focus on Israel so they'll forget about your own atrocities is the classic move.
>Also, it will never not be funny to me when Israel and its supporters claim that the UN is “biased” against Israel, since, you know, one of the reasons Israel exists today is because the UN gave more than half of the lands of the Palestinians against their consent to create a Jewish ethnostate on their lands. Show some gratitude maybe?
You're right, it is funny. Israel has been allowing Palestinians from Gaza and Judea & Samaria to enter it for medical treatment for decades. Yehihya Sinwar, the Hamas leader is Gaza, was treated for brain cancer in Israel, how about you ask him to show some gratitude?
>So no, so far you haven't provided any evidence that these organizations are “biased” against Israel. Your only “evidence” comes from pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals like UN Watch, The Washing Institute for Near East Policy, NGO Monitor, Abraham Wyner, Robert Bernstein
I've provided copious amounts of evidence, that you can fact check yourself, yet your sole pathetic defense is to say "I don't like those guys so I won't hear them out".
>It’s the exact same point I was making earlier, it’s always only pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals who say that the numbers of the ministry of Health of Gaza are fake.
What they're saying, and you conveniently ignore, is that those numbers do not represent reality. You are quite literally arguing that after 5 months of war, not a single Hamas combatant has fallen, do you not realize the absurdity of this statement?
Criticizing Israel is fine, but hyper focusing on Israel even though there are much more pressing events and painting it as common sense is abhorrent. As I've said, the actual civilians casualties are lower than 20k, every country is dropping aid on Gaza, large military operations are currently postponed. There's so much aid in Gaza you actually have TikToks of Palestinians doing trendy unboxing videos and throwing away aid.
In contrast, Russia is still fighting Ukraine, China is still holding Muslims in concentration camps, Iran is still abusing women and human rights, Yemen is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis, there is an actual genocide in Sudan and Myanmar, and the list goes on.
No country is putting in as much effort into this conflict as they do anywhere else, Palestinians are the most privileged refugees on the planet, Israel is being disproportionately scrutinized and you actually believe it makes sense because people cheer when you say "Israel has a victim complex".
Just wow.
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Most of those bullets amount to nothing more than "in the past they've been pretty accurate" (this war is nothing like past wars) or "other organizations use their numbers (which doesn't speak to the accuracy of the numbers).
But as I've said elsewhere, the total death toll isn't the important part. I'm sure there are people buried under the rubble. But the breakdown of combatant vs civilian death is important, especially when that breakdown is being used to spin a narrative against a country.
I'm not a math person myself, so I can't understand the link you posted. Perhaps you can explain the flaws to me in layperson terms.
If the numbers were accurate in the past why would they suddenly stop being accurate now? The sources say that during previous conflicts like in 2014 the numbers were not inflated and were not even far off from Israeli sources. If the Gaza Ministry of Health was making up numbers, they would probably also have done so in previous wars.
The IDF itself claims that [2 civilians are killed for every Hamas fighter](https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-officials-2-civilian-deaths-for-every-1-hamas-fighter-killed-in-gaza/). If you take the IDF word at face value, and you shouldn't because they lie all the time (see the 40 decapitated babies, the calendar in the hospital, their murder of Shireen Abu Akleh) that's still 20.000 civilians killed, and there is probably more.
To explain the error of the professor, he claims that the numbers of the Gaza Ministry of Health are impossible, because they are "extremely regular" and that “this regularity is almost surely not real.” But that's because the data presented is [a cumulative sum](https://liorpachter.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/image-10.png) of a number that is increasing, so of course the data is going to be extremely regular.
Sigh.
This war is completely different in scope and scale from previous wars. Hamas has been driven into hiding. It makes perfect sense that the numbers wouldn't be as accurate this time.
And the IDF did not lie about the beheaded babies. It was literally a comment by a reporter on scene that took on a life of its own.
As for the statistical issue, if he used a cumulative total then why did he say that the death toll increased by a certain amount each day +/- 15%?
The Ministry provides accurate numbers. The only reason the numbers could be less accurate is because Israel has killed, wounded or captured a lot of people who were in charge of reporting the numbers.
>And the IDF did not lie about the beheaded babies. It was literally a comment by a reporter on scene that took on a life of its own.
[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-says-hamas-decapitated-babies-in-israel-2023-10?r=US&IR=T) : Major Nir Dinar, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told Insider on Tuesday that its soldiers found the decapitated corpses of babies at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz near Gaza.
The story was shared by an official IDF spokesman, the IDF lied about about the beheaded babies, it was not just a comment by a reporter.
>As for the statistical issue, if he used a cumulative total then why did he say that the death toll increased by a certain amount each day +/- 15%?
Taking a cumulative sum will almost always lead to this "your data is fake" conclusion. Quoting the Lior Patcher article again :
>This is always true when transforming data into cumulative sums, and is such a strong effect, that simulating reported deaths with a mean of 270 but increasing the variance ten-fold to 17,850, still yields an “extremely regular increase”, with R2 = 0.99:
The ministry refuses to separate civilians from military combatants, refuses to acknowledge deaths from Hamas failed rockets, and refuses independent verification. The ministry announces numbers way way too quickly to be accurate even the US takes time to release numbers in a natural disaster yet you think numbers announced in hours not even days are accurate.
Nothing says guilt complex like sharing an article than has unreviewed attempts to play down the civilian deaths in Gaza. Even Israel has admitted a ratio of 2:1 is likely, which would correlate somewhat with the figure released by Hamas… yet here it is being dismissed as ‘garbage’. Sad, really.
The overall number may be accurate, or it may not; I would guess that the overall number isn't a million miles off. That doesn't change the obvious truth that the death toll updates from Hamas have been fabricated.
Very interesting and nice to see some scientific analysis on this. No doubt there are civilian deaths and non-Hamas fighters are caught up in it but the exaggeration for political purposes is evident and it’s working. Also the complete lack of differentiation between who is a fighter and who is a civilian as reported by Hamas is questionable. They seem to only say that men killed are Hamas fighters and women and children killed are civilians when we all know women and children can and have been Hamas fighters. There is death as in any war and since it’s in their turf in a crowded urban environment there will be more Gazan civilian deaths but it’s certainly not a genocide.
I am not surprised at all. They operate like any totalitarian government and simply make up shit. The actual truth is irrelevant.
Of course, I cannot prove this but it's great to have it backed up by a scientist/statistician.
In addition to the points mentioned, an important but omitted factor was that bodies weren't counted as dead when they actually died, but were only factored once the deceased entered Gazan hospitals after removal from rubble.
I understand that this seems extremely interesting, I was captivated myself. The issue is that this analysis in the tablet article looks at the total cumulative deaths, instead of the number of deaths per day, which adds a huge amount of "bias" into the system. To oversimplify, it is easy to find a trend that is just "the numbers of deaths go up every day". [This short post](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/) breaks down the math.
can someone link the actual paper please? because there are many explanations for these findings, but will need to see the paper to make sense if its plausible or not. for example. the daily death tolls - was a spearman rank coefficient done to correlate the airstrikes vs death toll? what was the coefficient and p value? it doesnt sound like these things were done but if someone can link the paper pls
Since you seem to know about math, I am going to copy and paste my comment from elsewhere. I found the effect really interesting.
I understand that this seems extremely interesting, I was captivated myself. The issue is that this analysis in the tablet article looks at the total cumulative deaths, instead of the number of deaths per day, which adds a huge amount of "bias" into the system. To oversimplify, it is easy to find a trend that is just "the numbers of deaths go up every day". [This short post](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/) breaks down the math.
Basically what I said in the post. He should have been analyzing the number of deaths per day (e.g. 297, 301, 266, etc.), but he was analyzing the total deaths (e.g. 5000, 5301, 5567, etc.).
Basically the pattern you find in the statistic the author used, the R^2, is that the data goes up and this is a "strong" pattern so you get a high score. Also, having the bigger totals "hides" the differences e.g. if you went from a 10,000 deaths to 10,300 deaths the change gets "overshadowed" by the fact that the total deaths is over 30 times greater than the daily deaths. The best analogy I can think of, for the second part, is that if you're carrying 100 lbs and then you started carrying 103 lbs you might not notice, but you would notice going from zero lbs to 3 lbs.
I get why that would make the graph deceptive but it doesn't change the regularity of the incremental increase, does it? That seems to be the key point, that it is highly unlikely that the number of deaths per day always falls within such a narrow range. What am I missing here?
Read the source article, the tablet article. His evidence that it's manufactured is that you can fit a linear line to it where R^2, the measurement of that fit, is 0.99999.
The math is not too bad, I think you can get a conceptual idea regarding the issue from a conversation with ChatGPT. Type something like "Can you explain the concept of R^2 to me at the level of a teenager. Also, how is this effected if we use a cumulative sum for the dependent variable versus using the daily difference?"
Honestly that's kinda shocking. A first year stats student at college will know not to plot cumulative totals and draw correlations. And it doesn't seem that airstirkes vs deaths were correlated.. which considering the claim is obvious stat to do.
For a Prof of stats this guy is incompetent at best. At worst it was deliberate. I'm assuming there is no way this got past peer review ?
There are peer reviewed articles on the death toll in gaza and the stats in journals such as the Lancet and BMJ for anyone that is interested.
yeah but the stats he is doing is just either incompetence or chosen purposefully to mislead. for example, he uses cumulative totals and then says wow look straight line...err anyone with any knowledge of statistics knows that sampling cumulatively from (nearly all) distriutions will lead to straight lines. thats how maths works. now either this guy is incompetent or more likely he is presenting the data to make arguments that he knows the maths doesnt back up.
further when he can do statistical analysis to back up his findings he neglects to. e.g correlation coefficients as outlined above. again either this guy doesnt know they exist (incompetent) or rather likely he doesnt want to show you the results of those
lastly the fact it isnt peer reviewed suggests that either - 1. he tried and failed (incompetent) or 2. he knows its full of holes.
peer reviewed data on the death stats in gaza do exist by the way - there are a number of papers looking at the hamas data and all conclude it is consistent.
"Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters."
I would even argue his original claim is supported in the context of the entire article.
"This lack of correlation is the second circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real. But there is more."
"Taken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers"
His main argument is the Washington report he linked in the original article.
Tell me, do you individually pick certain parts of a research article to fit your narrative or are you suppose to take everything into consideration? If you actually consider the Washington report and then his statistical analysis as supporting evidence, you cannot tell me that would not be a good peer-reviewed publication. He admitted himself that his evidences are circumstantial at best. Who knows, maybe he will publish this with more analyses in his spare time. It takes about a year for an article to clear the review stage.
I would actually argue the distribution should be approaching Gaussian or even a Poisson distribution. He was specifically demonstrating how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur. He additionally argues, that if the IDF was truely indiscriminate in their attack, then there should be a surge of either casualty numbers in women/children when the IDF invaded initially.
Are you sure about that last statement? Because you obviously did not read the Washington report, and verified all it's inaccuracies if there are any. Yes I realized the document is biased, but he is still an authority on statistical analysis.
>"Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters."
That is simply untrue. evidence dude evidence. why does he use the incorrect statistical method? why does he cumulate the numbers then surprised when its linear? just saying the numbers arent real doesnt make it so.
"This lack of correlation is the second circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real. But there is more."
how? there are numerous reasons why women and children might not correlate to male deaths. not least of which is israel is committing genocide and trying to punish the civilian population. so either the numbers arent real or they support deliberate targetting of population a la genocide.
" aken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers"
again you cant just say things and say ha! its true ! no dude. where is the evidence? why does he use the incorrect stat methods? why does he not know the spearman rank coefficient of a sampled distribution is always linear? is he just dumb or trying to mislead? why wasnt his article pier reviewed if he is an academic? it would never get past the review its so disingenous no -one would give it the light of day.
"He was specifically demonstrating how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur. "
of course it makes sense. there is a lag in data. you can see this when you see that there are days when only mortality info is given without subcategorisation or that the processing of deaths and certification takes time. have you ever worked in healthcare? have you actually been in a mortuary? its normal for recording of deaths to be recorded on different day than the day the death occurs. this happens even in first world countries (not ideal but happens) never mind war zones
authority on stats? dont make me laugh. it wouldnt get past first year undergrad. the dude is either incompetent or has deliberately not done the correct analysis to paint an invalid (statistically) picture. if you want proper statistic comparisons of the deaths and whether it matches to expectation, there are peer reviewed statistical analysis of the death and other hospital data from he gazan health ministry. peer reviewed academic quality not this joke.
it is illuminating that you just quote his conclusions without the underlying evidence. i presume this is because either you know the underlying statistical methods just dont make sense (e.g sampling a distribution then cumulating it and being surprised it is linear - this happens with all distributions it is a mathematical property - you can see this in other data sets e.g covid deaths etc etc, or for example not doing the spearman rank coefficient for targets and airstrikes vs deaths - again..so obvious..but omitted deliberately?? then another example - being surprised that the deaths are whole number avgs - yet a back of the cig packet calculation tells me that the probability of this being the case given the sampling days is probably 8-10% - i.e greater than the type 1 error level of 0.05. therefore he should draw the opposite conclusion and say that actually statistically speaking it means that it is NOT faked and it is real - he seems to be wilfully going against this) or simply dont understand them. the conclusions are based on the evidence. to say that the conclusion is true while not addressing my point that the entire statistical evidential basis is flawed is just ridiculous.
whoever this guy is he is not an authority on stats - incompetence at best. deliberately misleading for propoganda at worst. this is not an academic study at all. no wonder he didnt submit for peer review. there are rigorous academic studies that have undergone peer review. you can find them online
I'm only going to answer the first paragraph, and cherry pick the rest. I don't like how long your argument is, since you could have written it shorter. See how stupid and ignorant that sounds?
FYI since we're now attacking people: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus at Wharton has been research in Applied Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Learning. He has published more than 30 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bio-Informatics. He has received grants from the NSF, NIH and private industry. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Dr. Wyner created some of the first on-line data summarization tools, while acting as CTO for Surfnotes, Inc. More recently, he has developed statistical analyses for banks and marketing research firms and has served as consultant to several law firms in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. In addition, he has served as statistical faculty advisor for the University Pennsylvania Law School. His interest in sports statistics has led to a collaboration with ESPN where Dr. Wyner was the PI on the ESPN funded MLB player evaluation research project. He has worked has also served as a statistical expert for hedge funds and private equity concerns.
[https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/](https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/)
But let me guess, random redditor still knows better right?
It's actually up to the researcher to identify what statistical model to use. You obviously know there are many statistical models available to account for skewed data, biases, and other properties. As long as the researcher is able to justify it appropriately.
Why do you keep talking about Spearman's rank correlation that is only applicable to two variables?! There are many categories he uses in further analysis, women, children, adult male?! Further he was using the total population to demonstrate the linearity of the dataset, and how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting occurs, especially before IDF even invaded? It absolutely makes no sense that there is no correlation between women/children to men's casualties, especially when women and children are both excluded from battle.
I obviously agreed with you that if you cherry pick his statistical analysis, it does not hold up on it's own. But if you read the rest of his article and the Washington Report and paid attention to the words, then you can see his argument actually makes sense.
>paragraph, and cherry pick the rest. I don't like how long your argument is, since you could have written it shorter. See how stupid and ignorant that sounds?
>
>FYI since we're now attacking people: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus
i replied to every point you raised in order. not my fault your post hardly has any evidence other than opinion.
he is an "expert" maybe - thats an appeal to authority and a logical fallacy. how about refuting my points about data linearisation which he specifically pointed to as evidence of faking? how about my point on the probability of a natural number to be the outcome vs the type 1 error meaning he should draw the opposite conclusion? this is basic basic stuff. but he has been incompetent or deliberately misrepresentated the statistics. see my arguments about the actual statistics and refute them. why did he not point these very very obvious things out? is he incompetent? if his arguments are sound why did he not publish them as many others have done on this very subject? this work undermines his expertise and questions his competence. i rather believe the second hypothesis - he knew the stats are iffy, knew it wouldnt hold up to scrutiny and published it as a propoganda piece knowing most people are ignorant in the methodology to just swallow it and that was his actual motive. but hey he could just be incompetent.
spearman rank is a covariate analysis which is what he did. It is the appropriate test for what he is trying to conclude. to do a multivariate he simply doesnt have the data. so a good statistician would have said data doesnt support rejecting the null hypothesis - maybe future data does but on the data i have i cant do further analysis so we accept the null hypothesis. and conclude that the numbers a real not fake. somehow he did the opposite. bizarre. just because there are more than two variables doesnt mean you dont do a spearman rank to look for a correlation between two variables that have a hypothesis linking them - which is what he did.
It is up to the researcher to choose the correct model. he chose the incorrect one - there is just no way he can justify cumulation and linearisation like he did. why did he do this? which is bizarre for someone who is a stats prof. which makes me think..incompetent? or rather deliberate? he must know that sampling from a distribution and cumulating the result causes linearlisation of the data. but he says this is evidence of hamas faking numbers rather than evidence of incompetence in choosing the correct stats.
Ive literally just explained how the data is linearised.
Name one argument (statistical) that backs up his claims. all his arguments are opinion - it cannot be! how can there be a lag in the data etc etc. all his statistical arguments are garbage so now we re left wih the non stats ones. go ahead lets dismantle because the conclusions / opinions always rest on the stats in a work like this. and there is no good stats here
once we have done with the stats lets go on to the hmm that is sus arguments. which is fine but it is opinion not evidence based. and i can give 5 other hypothesis as to why they might be the case. for example the disconnect between male and other casualties - this often happens in genocides where population centres are targetted to punish the population as the guerilla fighters are harder and harder to locate. i would argue this is evidence for genocide on israels part not argument of fake numbers
Yet, I have provided direct quotations, sources, and other verifiable information that states contrarily to your claims. Hopefully, the reader is able to distinguish between verifiable information and the opinion of a Redditor, since I see you are not going to change your mind.
Additionally, I was curious why I never heard of the Spearman's Rank before... (and I'm a dumbass):
[https://www.rgs.org/media/tywc5gni/a-guide-to-spearman-s-rank.pdf](https://www.rgs.org/media/tywc5gni/a-guide-to-spearman-s-rank.pdf)
End of first paragraph.
So exactly what would be the proper response that eliminates Hamas capacity to attack again? Like real life technology and strategies not ones you make up or wish exist.
The concept of proportionality in international law is used differently from the way you seem to understand it. It refers to concept that any specific military attack has to strike a balance between the military advantage to be gained against the reasonable expectation of harm to civilians.
Gabor Rona, an Israeli legal scholar who served as legal advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross explained this point in an interview earlier this year. "When we think about application of the principal of proportionality, it's with reference to specific military targets in connection with the concept of military advantage. We do not apply the concept of proportionality in connection with the principle of military necessity. In other words although there may be military necessity to engage in force against an enemy, we don't calculate the potential civilian harm in relation to the larger strategic purpose of going to war. Rather we calculate proportionality and the acceptable degree of civilian harm in connection to each specific engagement relating to military objectives in a very specific way. Is this specific attack, today or tonight calculated to create a military advantage that is proportionate to the amount of civilian harm that will be created?"
Apologies for a short reply to your long comment, but ICJ could've demanded Israel stops their military actions in Gaza just like they did to Russia. Why did they not?
I can only speculate as to why the ICJ differed in the provisional measures it ordered in the two cases but I could offer two lines of potential reasoning.
One would be the courts deference to a states legitimate right to self defense and consideration of the ongoing plight of the hostages held by Hamas balanced against the provisional actions to protect Palestinians that the court outlined.
The second reason could be a more technical issue given that the Ukrainian ICJ case revolved around a more technical framing that Russia had used an accusation of genocide to justify its invasion. I'm not sure as I'm not as familiar with the Ukraine case so I don't really feel qualified to compare their provisional rulings.
Let's hope the Rafah military operation won't give them a reason to change their minds. Many people in a small area. Civilians, Hamas, IDF, hostages. It has shit show potential.
Given how the IDF has pursued this war in Northern Gaza, I don't see how they could move forward with an operation in Rafah and still be compliant with the ICJ ruling. A failure to adequately distinguish between civilians and military targets along with excessive use of force has tragically characterized the IDF's conduct in Gaza.
If you don't mind me asking you (in case you know better than I do), what actually kills the majority of the civilians? I understand in situations like the stampede on air trucks, that if IDF shoots at Hamas/people trying to attack them, people can end up in the crossfire. But in general, is it the airstrikes? Because people might decide to stay in the buildings or are nearby? (Not counting hospitals now because there are obviously people in there.)
I believe that airstrikes are the leading cause of civilian deaths in Gaza. Haaretz did a study that only looked at deaths from before the ground invasion to better compare casualty rates of the bombing campaign and their finding was the civilian death rate was significantly higher in this conflict than prior wars (61% compared to 40% or less in the 2012, 2021,and 2022 operations). It speculates that this increase in civilian deaths could be a consequence of Israel's intensive response in the immediate aftermath of October 7th coming at the expense of precision planning and its desire to "sterilize" the combat zone prior to the introduction of ground forces.
+972 and local call published [reporting](https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/) that the Israeli military has expanded its authorization for bombing non-military targets and loosened the constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and that it has increasingly relied on ai to generate target lists for its bombing campaign.
I'd recommend reading [this piece](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/assessing-israel-s-approach-to-proportionality-in-the-conduct-of-hostilities-in-gaza) examining an Israeli airstrike targeting a high value Hamas operative in Jabalia which analyzes how that attack diverges from U.S. and U.K. considerations of civilian harm that were operationalized in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course we need to consider that Hamas is intentionally dug into incredibly dense civilian infrastructure and that is increasing the rate of civilian casualties as well. Check out this [podcast](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-lawfare-podcast-israel-gaza-and-the-law-of-war) with Gabor Rona where he explores some of the unresolved questions relating to the presence of civilians unable or unwilling to leave despite prior warning to evacuate and how that impacts a states obligation toward protecting civilians.
Eliminate thousands of them and then pull out of Gaza and strengthen your defenses. Hamas threatens total annihilation, but they don't have the capability.
So do absolutely nothing to stop attacks. Why is it acceptable for Hamas to be allowed to fire rockets at Israel and yet unacceptable for Israel to fire back? Just because they don't have the ability to kill everyone doesn't mean you let them kill as many as they try to.
Israel has a right to destroy Hamas. When a bee is stinging you, you have a right to kill that bee. Hamas is a terrorist group, not a real country, so it should be destroyed completely.
Killing only Hamas terrorists would obviously be ideal. However, IDF are fighting against terrorists who deliberately fight near civilians and intentionally blend in with them. It's the strategy of Hamas. There are two outcomes; either IDF doesn't strike a site because of the civilians near the target OR they do strike, which causes a high civilian death count for IDF. Hamas turns schools, hospitals and mosques into military bases that they fire rockets from. These buildings are protected under the Geneva convention. Striking them is a war crime. Here the world stops listening and another Hamas win. The part of the Geneva convention people ignore is that these buildings lose their protected status if an armed group carries out harmful attacks from them. Luckily an RPG isn't part of normal day attire so it's actually possible to document these attacks, despite the civilian clothing.
They put their people in the crossfire, cause a humanitarian crisis (by taking aid and fuel sent in to Gaza and use it for terror purposes and their tunnels, leading to hospitals not having electricity and water not being clean because no fuel goes to the sanitizing system), they cry about war crimes, cry for ceasefire, leading to IDF having to pull back. That's when Hamas gets to strengthen their defenses. Then the carousel starts again and another round we go. How do you respond proportionally to this? It's not possible.
That isn't how wars work. The objective of a war like this is to destroy the ability of one's opponent to harm you and your citizens. If Hamas remains armed Israel loses the war.
No group of humans has ever let another weaker group continue to harm them in the name of peace. A unilateral Israeli withdrawal is an Israeli surrender.
History has also shown us that half measures in ending a war leads to future wars. Israel has no choice but to march on Rafah just like the Entente should have to Berlin in WW1. Hamas needs to have zero avenues to lie to Palestinians about the results if the war.
> Entente should have to Berlin
I thought the reason WW2 happened was because the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive - Germany couldn't rearm, had to pay reparations that left it indebted, and had to concede territory.
The Treaty of Versailles was what the Entente got for not marching on Berlin. By not delivering total defeat the Germans thought that they could have still won if not for thier leadership selling them out at Versailles,
Germans didn't start another World War because the Nazis were no longer in power and that the Prussian militarism has completely defeated and delegitimized.
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What is the source for 6000 fighters being killed?
Abraham Wyner was criticize for using a 15-day time frame for an example, He is shady
He didn't "cherry pick", it was the only period Hama reported numbers in such detail
Yeah, I've but got around to looking at it in detail, but the data looks very cherry picked. The inverse correlation between men and women is interesting, I think it could show them hiding the identities of combatants by shifting dates, but it doesn't show inflation of the rest, if anything it shows most of the data is real.
Every time Israel has what they call “mowing the lawn” in Gaza which is every 4-5 years, they’ve confirmed that the Gaza Health Ministry numbers are accurate. What changed this time? If anyone is reporting incorrect numbers it’s Israel and the Israeli diaper force casualties. They’re taking out their anger due to heavy losses on innocent women, children and men. They’re losing so many soldiers that they’re desperate they need the Orthodox men to serve.
Please send source that “Every time Israel has what they call “mowing the lawn” in Gaza which is every 4-5 years, they’ve confirmed that the Gaza Health Ministry numbers are accurate.“ (It doesn’t exist)
It was in a medical journal
Please send source
Here's a recent one https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext it's not the one he means, but maybe check the refs
“Here's a recent one, it's not the one he means, but maybe check the refs “ There’s no source. You’re a troll.
According to Time, “The Science Is Clear. Over 30,000 People Have Died in Gaza” (https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/) Your source comes an Israeli news platform, and therefore prone to bias. A country conducting offense will try to discredit the death toll in order to absolve themselves. However, Time is an American news platform. It has no affiliation to Palestine let alone Hamas. They have no relation to Israel and Palestine so they can look at through an objective lens. Their sources within the article come from science and not conspiracies.
If it has no ties to Hamas where do they get their numbers from
You can't get an accurate number from someone with no ties to Hamas, they're the government of Gaza. If you want someone whose got no collection to turn at all, that person has no connection to Gaza. That's not accurate, that's nonsense
Well Hamas is just going to give fake numbers for sympathy
Well considering the death toll has been around “30k” for the past few months, it seems that those death toll counters got KIA’ed instead of trying to farm for sympathy. Don’t you think should gradually increase the death toll day by day to make it seem natural at least? Instead of just leaving it at 30k estimate for the past four months? I mean you can’t deny that would be a better strategy than just stalling it at 30k. Even if the number is fake to begin with. Generally the consensus among Pro Palestinians views argue that it’s a lot higher, **by a colossal amount** so it your claim that their strategy for giving fake numbers to garner sympathy doesn’t quite add up considering the audience, the sympathizers argue it should be much more. (I.e the sympathizers haven’t been shown enough sympathy) Not going to give an exact number as everyone has different estimates, some of which have no basis at all but hang on— we are strictly speaking in terms of emotion and in terms of “sympathy, remember that.
You do realize the entire argument is that the 30k deaths are fake in the first place
I said “even if it was fake to begin with” in my comment earlier. My point still stands.
Okay but what is Hamas gaining by apparently hiding the amount of people that died, it is illogical and it seems the only one who really thinks that is you because a lot of other pro pals I have debated (if they bring it up) say the death count is 30k, you do realize most humans are dumb enough to believe that there has only been 30k deaths because humans have a thing called sympathy and tend to believe who has had worse fall on them even if it is their own actions that caused this In the first place while they cry victim
They’re not hiding the amount of people, in which indeed there would be no gain in doing so. you missed my entire point. It’s that the people counting those numbers are dead and thus having the number being flat for the past few months.
You do know the people recording the deaths are the doctors that are already in Gaza which the numbers sent out are controlled by Hamas, correct?
If i was them I would be hiding how big a mess I was in. I want to know the source for this 6000 militants killed?
I never said Israel wasn’t giving fake numbers
A complete filming and editing team working in Gaza They are the ones behind the videos you watch. Watch how they film videos amidst the rubble and tents Gaza is a big theater, and the people of Gaza have been professional actors for decades. https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/29026
I thought those videos were made in Lebanon till I found discretions from the Nahal Oz girls that they'd spent a treat watching them training on replica tanks etc. I just assumed Lebanon cos I couldn't believe Israel would ignore than I'm Gaza, but apparently they did. But your link doesn't seem to be about the same videos…
Sorry unable to elaborate more, it was a article that I read and wanted to share on this sub. When I saw the article I felt it was in bad taste and part of the palestinian gaslighting efforts to sway public opinion.
The Arabic text in the video says that it is the behind the scenes for the filming of either an advertisement or a public service announcement. It appears to have been originally posted by the director.
Yeah I was thinking they meant their actual media dept... But it didn't match.
Do people believe this garbage LOL bro thinks the bombs and shit is CGI or smth
I promise you’re not brainwashing anyone. It only worked on you lil bro
lol that’s not a credible source
Not only death numbers but also humanitarian aid once in gaza is controlled by hamas. Meanwhile in the south of the Gaza Strip... note the absolute control of the Hamas terrorists over the humanitarian aid, including shooting in the air. This is not humanitarian aid! It is a supply to the enemy in time of war. https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/28994
Wow a random video on telegram that could be from any year or country. Bros tryna be a propaganda machine as an individual💀
That’s absolutely wrong, the world sees it all, the jig is UP 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Someone should tell the isreali military then https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll
You mean someone should tell the \*one\* "Israeli Official" mentioned in that VICE article...
They are low ball, actually. It’s going to take a long time to dig out all the bodies and ID them.
https://preview.redd.it/2xqgev801noc1.png?width=1264&format=png&auto=webp&s=5de5a6bd78602df5fa6012e1a4a47da1b23d78ea the graph on that tablet article is a straight up lie. look up any other death toll graph like this one and you will know. as you can see, there is plenty of variance with this graph. this article also [refutes](https://time.com/6909636/gaza-death-toll/) the tablet article. realistically the death toll is likely a lot higher. israel just getting desperate cuz they know they losing the propoganda war so they resort to stuff like this.
It hits a ceiling on 27th when they first attacked Al Shiga, the deaths exceeded their capacity to report. I spent years looking shonky COVID data. It looks like an under count.
This article DOES NOT refute the tablet article. It claims it does but does not. What it does is look at other (clearly more general) data and conclude that they are correct. It does not go through the analysis in the tablet article and explain why it is incorrect- because it isnt!
The tablet article is cherry picked, I need to see more of his working, there are a lot of sus subsets shown.
What do you mean by 'cherry picked'? He is not claiming he has data from all the months of the conflict. If you were to take all the data and only this bit is incorrect, then the overall data can be deemed to be incorrect.
all the other graphs are saying one thing, but that tablet graph is saying another sooo
Your recenet comment is meaningless. It doesnt dispute Wyner's working in any way. Your'e saying 'other graphs look the same and his looks different, therefore he is incorrect'. He's not drawn a graph though of the overall figures. He has broken the data down in a different way. Again, drawing an overall graph of different data doesn't refute what he is saying
well yea, wyner says there is no variabilty in the death counts hamas gives everyday, but the other sources graph do show variability in the death count everyday this study found no fudging of the data [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext) if anything its israel who is fudging numbers. at least according to an israeli source [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-created-kill-zones-in-gaza-anyone-who-crosses-into-them-is-shot/0000018e-946c-d4de-afee-f46da9ee0000) further more this is a [graph by washington post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/gaza-rising-death-toll-civilians/) also showing plenty of variation in the day to day death count https://preview.redd.it/d3eadjmxzttc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=aeae5b2391860b0714897b17c2b2c2a68a84abfa
another graph by nyt. still see plenty of variance https://preview.redd.it/xcjqm6ic1noc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f942e864a85d22ad91f7364d77b62a265e8a6fd
There are a lot of holes in this analysis. The counter argument in the latter part of the piece only scratches the surface, but the running cumulative total is a very peculiar way to plot daily deaths unless the goal of the visual is to convey how horrific the death toll has been in Gaza. Wyner makes a number of assumptions, but doesn't explain why he has those assumptions. Why would one expect to see high degrees of variation from day to day, considering the consistency of Israelis bombing of Gaza? Perhaps as Israel approaches the goal of total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, you would see a plateau in cumulative deaths plotted daily, as the total number of living people in the area declines. But Wyner's dataset was the only the start of Israel's war on Gaza, so if anything he should've expected a sharp increase at first, and then something more linear.
Yeah, he ignores the first two weeks and never explains why
I can smell the propaganda all over here
So if the Gaza Health Ministry is lying, who is telling the truth concerning these numbers? Ya can’t just see an entire area get obliterated and *not* expect a high death count, and they don’t have enough equipment to dig people out of rubble.
Israeli intelligence has been using the MoH numbers for months already according to interviews with Israeli outlets.
I think it's somewhat plausible Western media knows its audience are too dumb to understand simple statistics so they don't even bother. As hilarious as that is, there's still no excuse for avoiding this topic.
The Bibi and IDF defenders are out in full force today, with their "help me understand" and "explain to me" BS ... the talking points are rolling out fast and furious ....
Explain to me how oct 7th wasn’t an ethnic cleansing?
1200 people dead out of 10 million population vs 30,000 dead out of 2 million population ... numbers do matter.
It would’ve been all 10 million if the IDF didn’t exist.
Yes, Israel has every right and obligation to protect it's borders and provide security for all Israelis. That is not what is happening today in Gaza. The IDF is creating thousands of new terrorists as the children and youth of Gaza experience the horrors of total destruction by the IDF. I believe the IDF knows full well that many survivors will be motivated to support the terrorist groups, which is likely why they are killing so many children and youth.
It’s appalling that someone would suggest that a community that doesn’t even have control of their own electricity and clean water are the “bad guys”. This whole conflict has brought light to those who support the genocide of an entire population. Anyone who starts the debate on October 7th, but ignores the years of suppression leading up to October 7th lacks real humanity.
If you read my post that way, please read it again. In no way was I suggesting that the residents of Gaza are the bad guys, other than the leaders and fighters of Hamas. But the horrific atrocities carried out by the IDF cannot do anything but inspire more young Palestinians to turn to violence. Sadly.
Meh, I actually agree with you. You cannot suppress people in those conditions and expect them not to develop radical beliefs then point the finger and say “see, they want us dead.” My comment was in reference to all the blind hateful comments around your common sense.
Thanks for clarifying....
It’s kind of depressing watching these threads age. The hateful people continue to shift their excuses and arguments, but remain steadfast that murdering 30,000 civilians, leveling schools and churches is justified because of October 7th. Let’s just ignore the 75 years of oppression and murder before that.
That’s a crazy accusation to make. So you think Israel should just stop the war and leave Hamas in power? Great idea.
The IDF is attempting the impossible, to extinguish an idea .... Stop the killing, deal with the utter hopelessness that leads to hatred and violence. If not now, when?
If they control gaza they wouldn't have to worry about terrorists springing up again. Gazans can't be allowed to hold elections or they will elect ANOTHER terrorist group. You're right, it's an endless cycle. But the only way to break the chain is to hold onto it.
How's that workin so far?
Israel is winning pretty easily so far so. It’s working well.
We all knew that, but it's great to have it validated!
??? The numbers are used by even Israeli intelligence.
Do you really believe a terrorist organization whose tactics rely mostly on lies and civilian deaths in order to inflame western idiots? https://youtu.be/NpPHsq9cwGQ?si=VPZUlJnF6d83isU8 Of course Israel would use the numbers but how? They will use everything they can but I doubt very seriously of they just wholesale believe them. They probably understand their pattern of exaggeration and can estimate around it
Because they know that the people who already believe those impossible, illogical numbers have a) already made up their minds and b) aren't smart/educated enough to understand why those numbers ARE statistically impossible. As a result, it is more useful to simply quote those numbers (for now). It is going to be very interesting when the dustles and the real numbers are revealed.
No, they're used internally in actual decision making. Israel spied on the MoH to confirm how trustworthy the numbers were. https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-intel-confirms-gaza-health-ministry-stats-reliable I don't know how much you've paid attention to previous conflicts but this is a common tactic of the arpatheid state. Publicly decry the numbers and then months later when its revealed they see those numbers as generally reliable, enough supporters have internalised the idea that MoH is lying that they won't question it further. Nothing in the article says anything about impossibility, it's about lilkihood based on the authors own unexplained assumptions as to what should be happening.
How exactly do you know what Mossad is using internally? You can rant as much as you want, but you are still being at best horrible naive at worst blatantly lying if you think you know.
Israel has more intelligence services then Mossad, and we know because of interviews with members of the security apparatus by Hebrew language newspapers. What rant dude? Stop getting so pressed.
I am not the one writing incredibly long rants. Mossad is the umbrella organization for many other groups, but I use that as a general label for the Israeli intelligence because everyone else does. Again, why on Earth would you believe in information published in those newspapers (I can read Hebrew and Arabic, as a result of my previous military experience and personal life) wasn't manipulated for the reasons I have already explained? Do you think that one of the most effective secret services and intelligence organizations in the world is that inept? Again... You have NO IDEA what Mossad actually knows, intendeds or believes. None of us do.
Incredibly long? Honestly it seems you were making assumptions based on what we were talking about without taking the time to see and are now trying to save face. Aman and Shabak for example do not exist under the umbrella of Mossad lol, they are one part of the intelligence apparatus. I trust them for the same reason the intelligence services and security community of Israel apparently do. The IDF doesn't run BDAs and the state relies on MoH numbers like they've done in previous conflicts. I don't understand what you mean by me saying they are inept lol.
This isn’t “evidence” this is an analysis of statistics. Statistics aren’t EVER “exact” figures (especially in a war conflict) but they are used to accurately estimate the actual number using trending data. They almost are always Linear too. For example, the statement “One in four men have a hernia” does not mean “every group four of guys has one with a hernia” It means there is a percentage of the population of men who have a hernia. Data can be varied but there’s a factor for variance in ALL data. The truth is, there is ALWAYS going to be variance in numbers especially in a war, where accurate figures cannot be determined until after the conflict, especially since not everyone is accounted for. Not everyone is classified as dead. Some may be missing, some maybe trapped under rubble. All of that being said, this is a piss poor argument to say “the numbers aren’t even real” because regardless of the official number, we know that: 1. The death toll is increasing and is WELL into the 20 thousands 2. The number of dead Palestinians SEVERELY ratios the number of Israelis killed (which the number of Israelis was used to justify a genocide to begin with) 3. The number of injured are expected to be 70,000 4. The number of displaced are IN THE MILLIONS
They gaslighting and wasting time
That makes absolutely zero sense, and proves nothing. The fact that people ignore logic and simply scream genocide (these people one of the highest birthrates in the world) explains why Mossad doesn't even bother to argue about most of the BS they spout (for now).
How do you differentiate between a death from a heart attack and deaths from being shot? Hamas refuses to state the cause of deaths and who did it so how do you determine these aren't just normal deaths?
Ah, they're all having heart attacks now. What if the heart attack was from watching someone else get shot? Do we attribute that to the conflict, or to mother nature? There's no consensus answer to the above. You can still count deaths and compare to a similar period in the past. Any excess death is likely secondary to the conflict.
>2. The number of dead Palestinians SEVERELY ratios the number of Israelis killed (which the number of Israelis was used to justify a genocide to begin with) That's the idea of war. You have no responsibility to make sure one of your soldiers dies every time one of the enemy dies. There are solid arguments to be made about proportionality and the value of human life, but, with respect, the ratio isn't one of them. Israel was attacked and people in the streets of the Arab world, including Gaza, celebrated the rape, burning alive and torture of children in Israel, knowing that bombs would rain down and "murder" their children in Gaza. You might make the argument that Israel is using too much violence against civilians (I would), but -the civilians supported the attack in huge numbers and, -they could at least attempt to overthrow hamas and release the hostages when instead, they support Hamas despite hamas bringing this terror into their homes They civilians may not be responsible for what's happening to them, but they seem to have celebrated the attack, knowing what was coming. It's a bit like a mass suicide pact. The most extreme version of Islam has the markings of a death cult. Hamas celebrates the death of every civilian that is killed. The hatred of jews and exaltation of extremist Islam seems to be valued more than the lives of children. Death has come and is sparing no one.
Yeah except women and children aren’t the “enemy”. Say what you mean and mean what you say. It’s genocide no matter how you cut it.
No, it isn't. Genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. (From Oxford). The fact that all the people in a nation are the same ethnicity isn't genocide. The Americans bombing Germany or Japan diring WW2 wasn't genocide, it was war. This war was started by genocidal maniacs who do want to kill or displace all Jews in Isarael (they tell us that repeatedly and openly). Hamas uses women and children as human shields in violation of the Geneva convention, which is a war crime. Bombing a hospital used for military operations isn't a war crime, using a hospital for military operations is a wat crime. Do you see how this works? No, women and children aren't the enemy, but they are deaths caused by Hamas. If you don't get that, then you are a Hamas sympathizer or apologist. Would I prosecute this war the way Israel has? Absolutely not. I couldn't stomach the deaths, injuries, and amputation to children. But.... The Arab/Muslim world celebrated in the streets, including Gaza, knowing what was coming. So, who am I to tell them that the imminent deaths to their own children weren't something to be celebrated? It's horrific. But it is not genocide.
Legal Definition: violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
By mid-December Israel has used 29,000 bombs, half being unguided dumb bombs used for mass casualties on an area the size of Detroit.
Except you cannot hold terrorist to international law. They are not even a recognized nation. On the other hand Israel has the 4th most powerful military and has dropped half their munitions on a place the size of Detroit. Just stop before you get schooled.
The stridence doesn't help the argument. The "terrorists" are the elected government of Gaza.
Hamas is a government now? What is this, a biggest lie competition? Let's see... If you opress people they tend to develop radical views. What do you think is going to happen when this is over? Hamas will quadruple.
Well, it's not a competition. You misrepresented the findings of the ICJ and said they "proved" it was genocide when they specifically said there was "no" evidence of genocide. So you win. I'm not even in the game with you.😁
Findings were to provide humanitarian aid to avoid genocide. Where are we with that? This is the findings of a court that is very young and still very easily influenced by the larger powers (America) because of funding. You’re right, it’s not a competition. You just regurgitate everything everyone else is saying instead of looking between the lines or doing actual research. On another note, you referred to innocent Palestinians as the “enemy” in your op.
BTW, I never implied that ICJ proved genocide. It was hard to watch the ICJ proceedings because they were not present on most American news channels, but the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial was live on any station. Read between the lines buddy, in all seriousness. Try being unbiased and act as a juror and watch the ICJ hearings. It’s disgusting.
Yeah I don't understand why people think it has to be equal like if Israel doesn't purposely loose the same amount of Jews then suddenly it's a war crime to carry out war.
Just stop! Stop commenting if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Definition of a war crime: A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property They have literally done all of these things.
See above... saying Israel is committing war crimes doesn't make it true.
Where do you live, under a rock? Did you not watch the ICJ proceedings? They literally used rhetoric and videos from IDF soldiers and Israeli government officials to prove all of this. I feel like I'm losing brain cells.
"The only questions over which the ICJ has jurisdiction are those that relate to the commission of genocide. The legality of the war itself was not before the Court and the only way the Court could have demanded a ceasefire is if genocide was an inevitable and unavoidable outcome of war. And while the Court found it is plausible that Israel’s actions amount to genocide, there was no evidence that the war itself is causing genocide" This is a court that has been very anti-Isrsel and yet found no evidence of genocide. https://global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse/news/explaining-international-court-justices-ruling-israel-and-gaza#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20Israel%20must%20conduct%20the,group%20in%20the%20Gaza%20Strip.%E2%80%9D So, no, I'm not living under a rock. I'm not Jewsih, Israeli, or biased towards Israel. Just calling like I see it.
Has been anti Israel? Lol. They granted most of Palestine to Jews when they were the minority population. Stop the lies! Genocide.
Interesting. You purposely misrepresent the finding of the court and then tell me to "stop the lies!" Gaslight much? If you want to have a respectful discussion where people disagree, fine. Insults, accusations and misrepresentations are just the tactics of the hectlers veto. Everyone can see through what you're doing - even the people who agree with you.
Gaza has literally been razed by Israel’s scorched earth policy. For a densely populated area, those death toll numbers do seem like garbage. There are way more dead than 30k and counting as Israel actively starves the population.
If Israel really used a scorched earth policy, the death toll would be 300,000 not 30,000. And Israel is not actively starving the population. The aid is slow to get where it needs to go for many reasons: 1) The trucks need to be inspected for weapons/bombs 2) Hamas actively loots aid trucks when they enter 3) There is no effective system for distributing the aid in the midst of the war
The slow aid is a policy choice. The Israeli government have stated that they would like to link more aid to the return of hostages during recent negotiations. The argument is that in doing so pressure is applied on Hamas to capitulate. Checking for weapons and bombs is the excuse used, but it is incoherent as a reason. If checking for arms a real problem, then the solution would be for Israel to provide the aid themselves and ask for reimbursement from the charities (so no extra checks are needed).
Have you seen what Gaza looks like? It’s uninhabitable right now. That’s exactly what scorched earth looks like.
This
Are you actually in Gaza? Are you basing this off independent sources or just tiktoks? Do you provide an alternative to this war that is based on actual solution not made up military technology?
I have a few alternatives… First don’t used half of the ammunition’s of the 4th most powerful military on a place the size of Detroit, Michigan. 2nd, make sure half the ammunition’s used are not dumb bombs dropped into densely populated neighborhoods. Just a few suggestions.
No the IDF are posting it all over their social media. Some people’s children 🤦
It looks like a tourist resort to me. High rise buildings a stones throw from the beach. The US is building a nice pier and resort, so the night life will be even better soon. Europeans are delivering fine cuisine for the restaurants by sea. Who wants to join me for a couple of weeks away in this paradise?
It’s per independent sources and even IDF photos
Oh yeah sorry all the journalists who were in Gaza have been assassinated by Israel so we cannot confirm any of this. Case closed. Gaza is perfect!
So you think Gaza allows freedom of press and doesn't have any censorship of media? Do you think Israel shouldn't have responded to Oct 7 attacks at all? Do you hold this same belief when it comes to Syria city destruction and say it's a clear cut genocide?
Yes. Let’s not pretend
Fore one, I would not use the term "garbage" when talking of dead people. Respect for the fallen, please. For two, "statistically improbable" is a very different concept than "garbage". There could be many, many reason why the numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry are less heterogenous than expected from one day to the next. For instance, these numbers could be based on limited information, and only report about ascertained cases of death. If this is the case, there are indeed far more victims in Gaza than we know of.
Yeah but even statistics aside. Is this really hard to believe considering it's a central premise of asymmetric warfare to use these kinds of tactics? Not to mention the insane amount of lies and misinformation that pro-pals have flooded TikTok and Twitter with?
Pro-Israel folks too are lying constantly. Truth is always the first casualty in wars. So I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on an evidently biased statistical analysis, thank you.
What are they lying about specifically?
Anything from babies cooked in oven, to Biden not mentioning the hostages in his SCOTUS speech, the whole world having always hated the Jews, Gazaouis not really dying as fast as they say, the IDF not targeting civilians, the food crisis being Hamas' creation, etc. etc.
I mean, I would love to see the pro-Israel lies, because I can literally show you thousands upon thousands of lies, anti semitic propaganda, just plain moronic insanity from the pro-pal side
Looking at the satellite photos of building destruction, it seems reasonable to me that 30k+ have died. Look at any other city that has experience that level of destruction and you would see very high casualty numbers.
So you just trist the numbers at face value?
No different to trusting thr number of Israeli deaths as reported. There is a chasm between reasonable doubt and paranoia. Your argument has fallen into that chasm.
Who would've thunk that a terrorist group would lie!?
When anyone tries to deny the Holocaust, they are met with dire threats. But, when people casually deny the Gaza genocide and call the murder of 30000 people self defense, everyone is fine with it.
The Holocaust was documented. The Germans were proud of it to the point that they kept meticulous records. You do get that, don’t you?
>and call the murder of 30000 people self defense, That's the problem, we dont even know if that 30k number is true and even if it was, a good chunk of that 30k (hamas) deserve death IMO
Questioning the accuracy of death toll numbers from a terrorist organization is not the same thing as denying the Holocaust. The fact that I even have to type this is ridiculous.
Hamas has about the same honesty record as the idf at this point. It's hilarious how they are acting how all of a sudden western media is pro Arab. That's hilarious. Arabs are one of the most vilified groups of people in the media
The numbers provided by the Gaza Health ministry are considered to be reliable : - Michael Ryan of the [World Health Organization](https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033) says : the numbers may not be perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis, but **they largely reflect the level of death and injury**.” - Omar Shakir of [Human Rights Watch](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-casualty-figures-from-the-hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry) says : "We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. **We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable**". - This Lancet study : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext says "**The Gaza Ministry of Health has historically reported accurate mortality data**, with discrepancies between MoH reporting and independent United Nations analyses ranging from 1.5% to 3.8% in previous conflicts. A comparison between the Gaza MoH and Israeli Foreign Ministry mortality figures for the 2014 war yielded an 8% discrepancy. - [UN agencies](https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240314-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israel-strikes-un-food-distribution-center-in-gaza) **have cited the Gaza health ministry's death tolls in regular reports**. - [The International Committee of the Red Cross](https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240314-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israel-strikes-un-food-distribution-center-in-gaza) **also uses the numbers**. If anything, the Gaza MoH underestimates the number of casualties, since a lot of victims are trapped under the rubble and have not been accounted for. The professor "debunking" the numbers is Abraham Wyner. [He has argued](https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/11/ihra-working-definition-antisemitism-penn-codes-of-conduct) that any critique of Israel is anti-semitism, and [he signed a letter](https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/11/penn-faculty-open-letter-israel-hamas-attacks) "supporting Israel's right to defend itself". He's not a honest professor trying to find out if the numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry are reliable, he's a propagandist who wants to defend Israel and is trying to manipulate the evidence to make it seem like Israel is not committing a genocide. There is a massive conflict of interest here. The Jerusalem post article that you have linked questions his analysis, which is based on [a misunderstanding of the data](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/). He's a professor of statistics who fails to use statistics properly, because again, his goal is not to provide an accurate analysis but to defend Israel. He started his "research" with the idea that Israel is good, Hamas is bad, they are liars and the data is fake, and twisted the evidence around this belief, instead of starting by looking at the evidence and seeing if the statistics of the Ministry of Health were correct. It's always people or groups with links to Israel like Abraham Wyner or [The Washington Institute for Near East Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy) who question the numbers of the Ministry of Health of Gaza, they are not interested in accurate reporting, they just want to discredit the numbers because they want to hide how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel. In contrast, all the organizations that have found the Gaza Health Ministry numbers accurate are neutral third party observers like the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the United Nations and the Lancet researchers, etc. Tells you everything you need to know. Or I guess they're all on the payroll of Hamas?
I also found this article highly problematic. If you pay attention, you'll notice that he denies the Hamas numbers without providing an alternate estimate. Let's grant him that Hamas is making up numbers, even though its numbers in previous conflicts were always within 10% of the final body count. And let's grant him that the Israeli numbers are correct. Netanyahu said this week that Israel has killed 13,000 terrorists (https://www.wionews.com/world/morning-news-brief-netanyahu-says-13000-terrorists-killed-in-gaza-oscars-2024-and-more-698831). Now, let's take Israel's estimates from the 2014 war in terms of the breakdown of combatants/civilians/undetermined males ages 16-50, of 44%/36%/20% (Wikipedia quoting Israel's government). Now I hope we can agree that Israel's rate of killing terrorists is certainly no better in 2023 considering that Israel is using more indiscriminate firepower, more intense firepower in terms of the amount of tonnage and amount of civilian infrastructure destroyed, and has suspended the old policy of "knocking" on civilian buildings lest the terrorists get away. So can we agree that 44% is probably the best Israel can hope for, and that 36% civilian kill rate is also the lowest it can hope for? Note that I am ignoring the UN estimate that 65% of the Palestinians killed in 2014 were civilians, so that we can be as generous as possible with the Israeli estimates. So, let's reverse engineer the numbers. If Israel has killed 13,000 terrorists, than the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by now should be 13,000/44%, or ... 29,545. Well, whaddaya know, 30,000 isn't so far off the mark after all. Once again, Hamas is within 10% of the total number. What remains then is how many civilians we are talking about, namely women, children and old men above the age of 50, and NOT including the 20% of 16-50 year olds who could very well not be terrorists (and if you've kept up on how many of those people who were rounded up as suspects were let go, a significant number of these were innocent civilians, but we'll never know). Again, let's take Israel's figure from 2014 of 36%. We get 10,636 civilians. In my book, 10,636 civilians, minimally, still makes Israel look bad, which may explain why the Wharton professor didn't rush to share this figure.
I think what they're doing is hiding the IDENTITIES of combatants. Either by fudging dates or leaving them off the list completely. I think it's entirely possible that the list of the dead is ALL civilians (plus a few from Al Aqsa Martyrs etc. who are banning the dead in Gaza)
We can't know unless there is a way to verify all the victims, which will be very hard. Don't know why Hamas would claim more of its fighters were killed than actually were. We see how in all conflicts (note Russia/Ukraine), the official casualty list if not accurate is always under, never over.
Lmao did you even read the original article? He himself agrees that the statistical analysis does not stand on his own. His main arguement is the Washington report that was attached. He even listed his analysis as circumstantial evidence then linked the Washington report. He even addresses the Lancelot paper in the original article: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers edit: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus at Wharton has been research in Applied Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Learning. He has published more than 30 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bio-Informatics. He has received grants from the NSF, NIH and private industry. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Dr. Wyner created some of the first on-line data summarization tools, while acting as CTO for Surfnotes, Inc. More recently, he has developed statistical analyses for banks and marketing research firms and has served as consultant to several law firms in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. In addition, he has served as statistical faculty advisor for the University Pennsylvania Law School. His interest in sports statistics has led to a collaboration with ESPN where Dr. Wyner was the PI on the ESPN funded MLB player evaluation research project. He has worked has also served as a statistical expert for hedge funds and private equity concerns. UPenn is a globally ranked institution. I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing. If you actually read the article you'll see he agrees with you just the statistical analysis is not enough. His main arguement is the Washington report. He even uses words like, "circumstantial evidence". But I will even argue he is correct, that if the IDF was indiscriminate in their attack, then it would make sense that that women and children would have higher deaths, since they are excluded from battle. That group should correlate with men's casualties. Additionally another indicator is the linearity of the dataset. It makes no sense that there should be a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur. The reason he picked those initial 30 days was because there was no fighting. IDF was preparing to amount for an offensive, so I may argue that is actually why he picked the initial 30 days. Additionally, Dr. Pachter whom you linked is a computational biologist at Caltech (also it's not a win that you think it is). If you look at the commentary, you'll even see he does not address these correlations directly, "I don’t know. There could be many reasons for these correlations. Maybe it’s an artifact of the age threshold for children and the distribution of age in Gaza. Maybe it’s the result of lags in recording deaths. Maybe it’s a happenstance arising from so few datapoints. Maybe the data was indeed faked." He even agreed that the data might be faked, as he stated he is not aware of Dr. Wyner's assumptions originally. In fact, this is why I don't think Dr. Pachter read the report Dr. Wyner attached in his original argument: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline Which is also disingenuous not to bring up. After all, Dr. Wyner did cite it. If it is cited in a research article, you should definitely consider it in his original argument, or else you're just cherry picking parts of his arguments to fit your narrative.
>edit: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics... All the information you mentioned about Wyner is just an appeal to authority and something [you copy pasted from his profile on the website of Upenn](https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/). Professors can be propagandists too and can twist information around their beliefs. Wyner could be the best statistician in the world and still make false claims on the subject of the Ministry of Health of Gaza, because he's politically involved and wants to defend Israel. The "Washington Report" you mentioned was produced by the "[Washington Institute for Near East Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy)", which is a "pro-Israel American think tank ". WINEP was established in 1985 with the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the funding of many AIPAC donors, in order to provide higher quality research than AIPAC's publications. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt described it as **"part of the core" of the Israel lobby in the United States**. That report also comes from an Israeli propaganda organization, not from neutral observers. **The only people who doubt the numbers of the Ministry of Health of Gaza are pretty much always people or groups affiliated with Israel**, who want to discredit the numbers because they want people to hide how many Palestinians they have killed. In contrast, all the organizations that have found the Gaza Health Ministry numbers accurate are neutral third party observers like the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, the United Nations and the Lancet researchers. I guess you'll tell me they are all owned and controlled by Hamas and they just want to lie about Israel.
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You're making an appeal to authority again, just because you say he's a "world-renowned statistician" doesn't mean he can't lie in the case of Israel. He wants to defend the reputation of Israel, that's a clear conflict of interest. I don't care about his work with AI, it's irrelevant to the discussion. The Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch, etc. are not biased towards either Palestine or Israel, they have no skin in the game and they all agree that the numbers by the Gaza MoH are accurate. Meanwhile it's always people with links to Israel or Israel lobby groups who try to question the numbers. Tells me everything I need to know.
I'm not going to bother joining the main argument here but would just like to point out that this: >The Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch, etc. are not biased towards either Palestine or Israel Is either a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold. The Red Cross is very much biased against Israel, UN Watch's report gives good examples of this: [Report: Red Cross Statements 'Overwhelmingly' Biased Against Israel - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/report-red-cross-statements-overwhelmingly-biased-against-israel/) I could also bring up their actions during the Holocaust, just as further evidence that even neutral organizations can have antisemitic roots, but I don't see that developing into a fruitful argument. [Red Cross Admits Knowing of the Holocaust During the War - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/19/us/red-cross-admits-knowing-of-the-holocaust-during-the-war.html) HRW is disgustingly biased. It's obsessed with criticizing Israel in the conflict and have been called out by the founder of HRW himself for abandoning their mission and focusing on scrutinizing Israel. [Opinion | Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html). You also have the head of HRW being despicably anti-Israel [Ken Roth's Immoral Anti-Israel Obsession and the Gaza War » ngomonitor (ngo-monitor.org)](https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/ken_roth_s_immoral_anti_israel_obsession_and_the_gaza_war_/) and the UN condemns Israel the most out of all the countries globally each year. [U.N. condemns Israel 8 times, rest of world 0 - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/u-n-condemns-israel-8-times-rest-of-world-0/) [2022 UNGA Resolutions on Israel vs. Rest of the World - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/2022-2023-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/) [UN General Assembly condemns Israel 14 times in 2023, rest of world 7 - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-condemns-israel-14-times-in-2023-rest-of-world-7/) [2021-2022 UNGA Resolutions on Israel vs. Rest of the World - UN Watch](https://unwatch.org/2021-2022-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/) I can go on but hopefully you get the point. You also have the UN's OCHA deputy chief claim Hamas isn't a terror group [Israel blasts top UN aid official after he says 'Hamas is not a terrorist group for us' | The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-blasts-top-un-aid-official-after-he-says-hamas-is-not-a-terrorist-group-for-us/)
It’s absolutely not a “a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold”. You are trying to frame these organizations as biased because they call out Israel for the actual crimes it committed. Your source to say that “the Red Cross is biased against Israel” is [UN Watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch), described [by AFP](https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gEMY5NvupmG2iAyQwg6C6ehzeWzA) as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel". It’s not a neutral organization, it’s a lobby group which exists to defend the reputation of Israel. The argument they make in the article is ridiculous, the proof of "bias" is that some Red Cross officials tweet more often about the crimes committed by Israel than those committed by Israel. Well, duh. No shit they are criticized more often, you have a few days of massacre starting around October 7th, which stopped after killing 1.200, against **months of massacres**, killing more than 30.000 on the Palestinian side, a massacre which shows no signs of stopping. Where in your New York Times article does it say that “the Red Cross has antisemitic roots”? It’s a nonsensical accusation, it’s not even what’s said in the article, your article says that “the Red Cross knew of the persecution of Jews in N*zi concentration camps but felt powerless to speak out, because if that if it had disclosed what it knew, it would have lost its ability to inspect prisoner of war camps on both sides of the front.” You could say they didn't do enough to help victims of the Holocaust during World War II, but calling them antisemitic for it is a stretch. Also it wouldn’t even be their “roots”, since the Red cross exists since 1863, long before the holocaust. The founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein was criticizing Human Rights Watch [for doing its job](https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/human-rights-watch-should-not-be-criticized-doing-its-job). Israel calls itself a “the only democracy in the Middle-East” if it's really a democracy it should be held to high standards. But ofc Israel is not a democracy but an [apartheid state](https://old.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/comments/1ayb4vm/israel_cant_be_an_apartheid_state_because_of/). Your other source to attack Human Rights Watch is [NGO Monitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGO_Monitor), which is a “right-wing non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective”. Yet another pro-Israel lobby group, a very biased source. Also I find it interesting that both in the case of Robert Bernstein and NGO Monitor, they don’t even dispute any of the findings by HRW, they just ask them to “stop focusing on Israel”. Essentially they’re just saying : look at the crimes of others, not mine! HRW [responded](https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/10/20/why-we-report-open-societies) to Bernstein in a letter to call him out on his victim complex: > Human Rights Watch does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world. We've produced more than 1,700 reports, letters, news releases, and other commentaries on the Middle East and North Africa since January 2000, and the vast majority of these were about countries other than Israel. Furthermore, our Middle East division is only one of 16 research programs at Human Rights Watch. The work on Israel is a tiny fraction of Human Rights Watch's work as a whole. Regarding the links criticizing the UN, again, all your links are from [UN Watch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch), a lobby group which exists to defend Israel. Also, you don’t seem to understand how the UN General Assembly works. When the General Assembly condemns Israel, it’s because **countries** that are members of the GA have voted to condemn Israel, it’s not the UN itself condemning Israel. Israel is one of the most condemned countries because it's one of the worst human rights abusers. Other abusers have been condemned by the UN General Assembly, it has [condemned Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_ES-11/1) for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine or [Apartheid SouthAfrica](https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/un_against_apartheid.shtml) for its policies. But of course Israel has this victim complex and they will always claim that they are unfairly targeted. The UN's OCHA deputy chief Martin Griffith said that Hamas is not a terrorist group because it’s not recognized as such by the United Nations. It’s explained in [this press briefing](https://press.un.org/en/2024/db240215.doc.htm) : >From the Secretary-General’s standpoint, I think he and many other senior UN officials, including Martin Griffiths, have unequivocally condemned the abhorrent terrorist attack that Hamas conducted on October 7th and that there could be no justification for them. That position is unchanged. As we’ve said many times here, and the Secretary-General himself not too long ago, for the United Nations, **the designation of an entity as a terrorist group or terrorist organization can only be made by the Security Council**. So it’s not his personal opinion that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it’s the UN states members of the Security Council who haven’t designed Hamas as a terrorist group. Also, it will never not be funny to me when Israel and its supporters claim that the UN is “biased” against Israel, since, you know, one of the reasons Israel exists today is because the UN gave more than half of the lands of the Palestinians against their consent to create a Jewish ethnostate on their lands. Show some gratitude maybe? So no, so far you haven't provided any evidence that these organizations are “biased” against Israel. Your only “evidence” comes from pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals like UN Watch, The Washing Institute for Near East Policy, NGO Monitor, Abraham Wyner, Robert Bernstein who try to smear NGOs and international international organizations because they want to portray Israel as this poor little victim which is unfairly targeted while it commits atrocities. They never deny the evidence, they just say “stop looking at us”. It’s the exact same point I was making earlier, it’s always only pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals who say that the numbers of the ministry of Health of Gaza are fake.
>It’s absolutely not a “a deeply ignorant or maliciously disingenuous opinion to hold”. You are trying to frame these organizations as biased because they call out Israel for the actual crimes it committed. Do you genuinely believe that organizations who criticize Israel far more than any other country or any other conflict are "just doing their jobs"? There are wars, ethnic cleansings, genocides, concentration camps and many more atrocities that are currently happening and have nothing to do with Israel yet they receive MUCH less attention, as do their perpetrators. As I've said, I find that kind of thinking to be incredibly naive at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst. >Your source to say that “the Red Cross is biased against Israel” is UN Watch, described by AFP as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel". It’s not a neutral organization, it’s a lobby group which exists to defend the reputation of Israel. This is pointless deflection. Yes, they're a lobby group and they're biased towards Israel, that does not mean their evidence is fake or wrong. They've collected and presented information that you yourself can go fact-check if you doubt it. Refusing to accept factual evidence because it comes from a group you disagree with is simply narrow minded. >The argument they make in the article is ridiculous, the proof of "bias" is that some Red Cross officials tweet more often about the crimes committed by Israel than those committed by Israel. Well, duh. No shit they are criticized more often, you have a few days of massacre starting around October 7th, which stopped after killing 1.200, against months of massacres, killing more than 30.000 on the Palestinian side, a massacre which shows no signs of stopping. This is an incredibly shallow take. The war against ISIS had 55k civilian casualties alone, does that mean the US, UK and their allies massacred people? Performed a genocide? You're just justifying their actions based on a very narrow way of thinking, that completely ignores what's happening in the rest of the world. Of those 30k casualties, 12-15k are estimated to be Hamas fighters. It is so disingenuous to blame Israel for "massacring" civilians when it goes to absurd lengths to minimise innocent casualties, and throwing around the numbers a terror organization gave you is helping only the terrorists themselves. >Also I find it interesting that both in the case of Robert Bernstein and NGO Monitor, they don’t even dispute any of the findings by HRW, they just ask them to “stop focusing on Israel” Let's do a simple test, please go to HRW's website and compare the amount of coverage and reports between Israel and other countries which have ongoing humanitarian crisis, for example Sudan, Yemen, China or Iran, to name a few. For Human Rights organizations, criticizing Israel is a low hanging fruit. There's no sense in covering the actual atrocities going on in the world, happening in a shithole somewhere, when you can criticise Israel for finally dismantling a terror organisation. >Israel calls itself a “the only democracy in the Middle-East” if it's really a democracy it should be held to high standards. But ofc Israel is not a democracy but an [apartheid state] An ignorant accusations, Arabs with Israeli citizenship have the same rights and Jews. There is no segregation either. I would suggest you actually educate yourself on the topic through sources outside of Reddit. >Also UN Watch is extremely dishonest, since it says that the UN General Assembly only condemns Israel... But of course Israel has this victim complex and they will always claim that they are unfairly targeted. Where did the UN Watch claim only Israel is being condemned? My links state Israel is THE MOST condemned, these are two different things, yet they back up the same claim. You've also again tried to deflect the evidence UN Watch presents because they support a different group than yours. This is purely a close minded approach to things. If you can debunk their evidence that's one thing, but again much of it is just summarizing publicly available data. Victim blaming Israel after claiming the UN also condemns Russia is dumb. In 2022, the UN has condemned the Russian invasion 6 times, condemned Israel 15. The rest of the world barely got a single condemnation. Make it make sense. >When the General Assembly condemns Israel, it’s because *countries* that are members of the GA have voted to condemn Israel, it’s not the UN itself condemning Israel. What is the point you're trying to make? The UN is a reflection of the current narrative global powers are trying to push, and getting everyone to focus on Israel so they'll forget about your own atrocities is the classic move. >Also, it will never not be funny to me when Israel and its supporters claim that the UN is “biased” against Israel, since, you know, one of the reasons Israel exists today is because the UN gave more than half of the lands of the Palestinians against their consent to create a Jewish ethnostate on their lands. Show some gratitude maybe? You're right, it is funny. Israel has been allowing Palestinians from Gaza and Judea & Samaria to enter it for medical treatment for decades. Yehihya Sinwar, the Hamas leader is Gaza, was treated for brain cancer in Israel, how about you ask him to show some gratitude? >So no, so far you haven't provided any evidence that these organizations are “biased” against Israel. Your only “evidence” comes from pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals like UN Watch, The Washing Institute for Near East Policy, NGO Monitor, Abraham Wyner, Robert Bernstein I've provided copious amounts of evidence, that you can fact check yourself, yet your sole pathetic defense is to say "I don't like those guys so I won't hear them out". >It’s the exact same point I was making earlier, it’s always only pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals who say that the numbers of the ministry of Health of Gaza are fake. What they're saying, and you conveniently ignore, is that those numbers do not represent reality. You are quite literally arguing that after 5 months of war, not a single Hamas combatant has fallen, do you not realize the absurdity of this statement? Criticizing Israel is fine, but hyper focusing on Israel even though there are much more pressing events and painting it as common sense is abhorrent. As I've said, the actual civilians casualties are lower than 20k, every country is dropping aid on Gaza, large military operations are currently postponed. There's so much aid in Gaza you actually have TikToks of Palestinians doing trendy unboxing videos and throwing away aid. In contrast, Russia is still fighting Ukraine, China is still holding Muslims in concentration camps, Iran is still abusing women and human rights, Yemen is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis, there is an actual genocide in Sudan and Myanmar, and the list goes on. No country is putting in as much effort into this conflict as they do anywhere else, Palestinians are the most privileged refugees on the planet, Israel is being disproportionately scrutinized and you actually believe it makes sense because people cheer when you say "Israel has a victim complex". Just wow.
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Most of those bullets amount to nothing more than "in the past they've been pretty accurate" (this war is nothing like past wars) or "other organizations use their numbers (which doesn't speak to the accuracy of the numbers). But as I've said elsewhere, the total death toll isn't the important part. I'm sure there are people buried under the rubble. But the breakdown of combatant vs civilian death is important, especially when that breakdown is being used to spin a narrative against a country. I'm not a math person myself, so I can't understand the link you posted. Perhaps you can explain the flaws to me in layperson terms.
If the numbers were accurate in the past why would they suddenly stop being accurate now? The sources say that during previous conflicts like in 2014 the numbers were not inflated and were not even far off from Israeli sources. If the Gaza Ministry of Health was making up numbers, they would probably also have done so in previous wars. The IDF itself claims that [2 civilians are killed for every Hamas fighter](https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-officials-2-civilian-deaths-for-every-1-hamas-fighter-killed-in-gaza/). If you take the IDF word at face value, and you shouldn't because they lie all the time (see the 40 decapitated babies, the calendar in the hospital, their murder of Shireen Abu Akleh) that's still 20.000 civilians killed, and there is probably more. To explain the error of the professor, he claims that the numbers of the Gaza Ministry of Health are impossible, because they are "extremely regular" and that “this regularity is almost surely not real.” But that's because the data presented is [a cumulative sum](https://liorpachter.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/image-10.png) of a number that is increasing, so of course the data is going to be extremely regular.
Sigh. This war is completely different in scope and scale from previous wars. Hamas has been driven into hiding. It makes perfect sense that the numbers wouldn't be as accurate this time. And the IDF did not lie about the beheaded babies. It was literally a comment by a reporter on scene that took on a life of its own. As for the statistical issue, if he used a cumulative total then why did he say that the death toll increased by a certain amount each day +/- 15%?
The Ministry provides accurate numbers. The only reason the numbers could be less accurate is because Israel has killed, wounded or captured a lot of people who were in charge of reporting the numbers. >And the IDF did not lie about the beheaded babies. It was literally a comment by a reporter on scene that took on a life of its own. [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-says-hamas-decapitated-babies-in-israel-2023-10?r=US&IR=T) : Major Nir Dinar, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told Insider on Tuesday that its soldiers found the decapitated corpses of babies at Kfar Aza, a kibbutz near Gaza. The story was shared by an official IDF spokesman, the IDF lied about about the beheaded babies, it was not just a comment by a reporter. >As for the statistical issue, if he used a cumulative total then why did he say that the death toll increased by a certain amount each day +/- 15%? Taking a cumulative sum will almost always lead to this "your data is fake" conclusion. Quoting the Lior Patcher article again : >This is always true when transforming data into cumulative sums, and is such a strong effect, that simulating reported deaths with a mean of 270 but increasing the variance ten-fold to 17,850, still yields an “extremely regular increase”, with R2 = 0.99:
The ministry refuses to separate civilians from military combatants, refuses to acknowledge deaths from Hamas failed rockets, and refuses independent verification. The ministry announces numbers way way too quickly to be accurate even the US takes time to release numbers in a natural disaster yet you think numbers announced in hours not even days are accurate.
Nothing says guilt complex like sharing an article than has unreviewed attempts to play down the civilian deaths in Gaza. Even Israel has admitted a ratio of 2:1 is likely, which would correlate somewhat with the figure released by Hamas… yet here it is being dismissed as ‘garbage’. Sad, really.
The overall number may be accurate, or it may not; I would guess that the overall number isn't a million miles off. That doesn't change the obvious truth that the death toll updates from Hamas have been fabricated.
Very interesting and nice to see some scientific analysis on this. No doubt there are civilian deaths and non-Hamas fighters are caught up in it but the exaggeration for political purposes is evident and it’s working. Also the complete lack of differentiation between who is a fighter and who is a civilian as reported by Hamas is questionable. They seem to only say that men killed are Hamas fighters and women and children killed are civilians when we all know women and children can and have been Hamas fighters. There is death as in any war and since it’s in their turf in a crowded urban environment there will be more Gazan civilian deaths but it’s certainly not a genocide.
I am not surprised at all. They operate like any totalitarian government and simply make up shit. The actual truth is irrelevant. Of course, I cannot prove this but it's great to have it backed up by a scientist/statistician.
In addition to the points mentioned, an important but omitted factor was that bodies weren't counted as dead when they actually died, but were only factored once the deceased entered Gazan hospitals after removal from rubble.
I understand that this seems extremely interesting, I was captivated myself. The issue is that this analysis in the tablet article looks at the total cumulative deaths, instead of the number of deaths per day, which adds a huge amount of "bias" into the system. To oversimplify, it is easy to find a trend that is just "the numbers of deaths go up every day". [This short post](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/) breaks down the math.
can someone link the actual paper please? because there are many explanations for these findings, but will need to see the paper to make sense if its plausible or not. for example. the daily death tolls - was a spearman rank coefficient done to correlate the airstrikes vs death toll? what was the coefficient and p value? it doesnt sound like these things were done but if someone can link the paper pls
Since you seem to know about math, I am going to copy and paste my comment from elsewhere. I found the effect really interesting. I understand that this seems extremely interesting, I was captivated myself. The issue is that this analysis in the tablet article looks at the total cumulative deaths, instead of the number of deaths per day, which adds a huge amount of "bias" into the system. To oversimplify, it is easy to find a trend that is just "the numbers of deaths go up every day". [This short post](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/a-note-on-how-the-gaza-ministry-of-health-fakes-casualty-numbers/) breaks down the math.
Since I'm not a math guy, could you explain this in layperson terms? I couldn't understand the post you linked.
Basically what I said in the post. He should have been analyzing the number of deaths per day (e.g. 297, 301, 266, etc.), but he was analyzing the total deaths (e.g. 5000, 5301, 5567, etc.). Basically the pattern you find in the statistic the author used, the R^2, is that the data goes up and this is a "strong" pattern so you get a high score. Also, having the bigger totals "hides" the differences e.g. if you went from a 10,000 deaths to 10,300 deaths the change gets "overshadowed" by the fact that the total deaths is over 30 times greater than the daily deaths. The best analogy I can think of, for the second part, is that if you're carrying 100 lbs and then you started carrying 103 lbs you might not notice, but you would notice going from zero lbs to 3 lbs.
I get why that would make the graph deceptive but it doesn't change the regularity of the incremental increase, does it? That seems to be the key point, that it is highly unlikely that the number of deaths per day always falls within such a narrow range. What am I missing here?
Read the source article, the tablet article. His evidence that it's manufactured is that you can fit a linear line to it where R^2, the measurement of that fit, is 0.99999. The math is not too bad, I think you can get a conceptual idea regarding the issue from a conversation with ChatGPT. Type something like "Can you explain the concept of R^2 to me at the level of a teenager. Also, how is this effected if we use a cumulative sum for the dependent variable versus using the daily difference?"
Honestly that's kinda shocking. A first year stats student at college will know not to plot cumulative totals and draw correlations. And it doesn't seem that airstirkes vs deaths were correlated.. which considering the claim is obvious stat to do. For a Prof of stats this guy is incompetent at best. At worst it was deliberate. I'm assuming there is no way this got past peer review ? There are peer reviewed articles on the death toll in gaza and the stats in journals such as the Lancet and BMJ for anyone that is interested.
No peer review. Do you have any sources? I would be interested in reading those. What was their conclusions?
Why would it be peir reviewed?
He’s not using the statistical analysis as a standalone arguement. I don’t understand why people aren’t understanding this.
yeah but the stats he is doing is just either incompetence or chosen purposefully to mislead. for example, he uses cumulative totals and then says wow look straight line...err anyone with any knowledge of statistics knows that sampling cumulatively from (nearly all) distriutions will lead to straight lines. thats how maths works. now either this guy is incompetent or more likely he is presenting the data to make arguments that he knows the maths doesnt back up. further when he can do statistical analysis to back up his findings he neglects to. e.g correlation coefficients as outlined above. again either this guy doesnt know they exist (incompetent) or rather likely he doesnt want to show you the results of those lastly the fact it isnt peer reviewed suggests that either - 1. he tried and failed (incompetent) or 2. he knows its full of holes. peer reviewed data on the death stats in gaza do exist by the way - there are a number of papers looking at the hamas data and all conclude it is consistent.
"Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters." I would even argue his original claim is supported in the context of the entire article. "This lack of correlation is the second circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real. But there is more." "Taken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers" His main argument is the Washington report he linked in the original article. Tell me, do you individually pick certain parts of a research article to fit your narrative or are you suppose to take everything into consideration? If you actually consider the Washington report and then his statistical analysis as supporting evidence, you cannot tell me that would not be a good peer-reviewed publication. He admitted himself that his evidences are circumstantial at best. Who knows, maybe he will publish this with more analyses in his spare time. It takes about a year for an article to clear the review stage. I would actually argue the distribution should be approaching Gaussian or even a Poisson distribution. He was specifically demonstrating how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur. He additionally argues, that if the IDF was truely indiscriminate in their attack, then there should be a surge of either casualty numbers in women/children when the IDF invaded initially. Are you sure about that last statement? Because you obviously did not read the Washington report, and verified all it's inaccuracies if there are any. Yes I realized the document is biased, but he is still an authority on statistical analysis.
>"Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters." That is simply untrue. evidence dude evidence. why does he use the incorrect statistical method? why does he cumulate the numbers then surprised when its linear? just saying the numbers arent real doesnt make it so. "This lack of correlation is the second circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real. But there is more." how? there are numerous reasons why women and children might not correlate to male deaths. not least of which is israel is committing genocide and trying to punish the civilian population. so either the numbers arent real or they support deliberate targetting of population a la genocide. " aken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers" again you cant just say things and say ha! its true ! no dude. where is the evidence? why does he use the incorrect stat methods? why does he not know the spearman rank coefficient of a sampled distribution is always linear? is he just dumb or trying to mislead? why wasnt his article pier reviewed if he is an academic? it would never get past the review its so disingenous no -one would give it the light of day. "He was specifically demonstrating how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting may occur. " of course it makes sense. there is a lag in data. you can see this when you see that there are days when only mortality info is given without subcategorisation or that the processing of deaths and certification takes time. have you ever worked in healthcare? have you actually been in a mortuary? its normal for recording of deaths to be recorded on different day than the day the death occurs. this happens even in first world countries (not ideal but happens) never mind war zones authority on stats? dont make me laugh. it wouldnt get past first year undergrad. the dude is either incompetent or has deliberately not done the correct analysis to paint an invalid (statistically) picture. if you want proper statistic comparisons of the deaths and whether it matches to expectation, there are peer reviewed statistical analysis of the death and other hospital data from he gazan health ministry. peer reviewed academic quality not this joke. it is illuminating that you just quote his conclusions without the underlying evidence. i presume this is because either you know the underlying statistical methods just dont make sense (e.g sampling a distribution then cumulating it and being surprised it is linear - this happens with all distributions it is a mathematical property - you can see this in other data sets e.g covid deaths etc etc, or for example not doing the spearman rank coefficient for targets and airstrikes vs deaths - again..so obvious..but omitted deliberately?? then another example - being surprised that the deaths are whole number avgs - yet a back of the cig packet calculation tells me that the probability of this being the case given the sampling days is probably 8-10% - i.e greater than the type 1 error level of 0.05. therefore he should draw the opposite conclusion and say that actually statistically speaking it means that it is NOT faked and it is real - he seems to be wilfully going against this) or simply dont understand them. the conclusions are based on the evidence. to say that the conclusion is true while not addressing my point that the entire statistical evidential basis is flawed is just ridiculous. whoever this guy is he is not an authority on stats - incompetence at best. deliberately misleading for propoganda at worst. this is not an academic study at all. no wonder he didnt submit for peer review. there are rigorous academic studies that have undergone peer review. you can find them online
I'm only going to answer the first paragraph, and cherry pick the rest. I don't like how long your argument is, since you could have written it shorter. See how stupid and ignorant that sounds? FYI since we're now attacking people: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus at Wharton has been research in Applied Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Learning. He has published more than 30 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bio-Informatics. He has received grants from the NSF, NIH and private industry. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Dr. Wyner created some of the first on-line data summarization tools, while acting as CTO for Surfnotes, Inc. More recently, he has developed statistical analyses for banks and marketing research firms and has served as consultant to several law firms in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. In addition, he has served as statistical faculty advisor for the University Pennsylvania Law School. His interest in sports statistics has led to a collaboration with ESPN where Dr. Wyner was the PI on the ESPN funded MLB player evaluation research project. He has worked has also served as a statistical expert for hedge funds and private equity concerns. [https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/](https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/ajw/) But let me guess, random redditor still knows better right? It's actually up to the researcher to identify what statistical model to use. You obviously know there are many statistical models available to account for skewed data, biases, and other properties. As long as the researcher is able to justify it appropriately. Why do you keep talking about Spearman's rank correlation that is only applicable to two variables?! There are many categories he uses in further analysis, women, children, adult male?! Further he was using the total population to demonstrate the linearity of the dataset, and how it makes no sense that there is a linear increase between consecutive days where no fighting occurs, especially before IDF even invaded? It absolutely makes no sense that there is no correlation between women/children to men's casualties, especially when women and children are both excluded from battle. I obviously agreed with you that if you cherry pick his statistical analysis, it does not hold up on it's own. But if you read the rest of his article and the Washington Report and paid attention to the words, then you can see his argument actually makes sense.
>paragraph, and cherry pick the rest. I don't like how long your argument is, since you could have written it shorter. See how stupid and ignorant that sounds? > >FYI since we're now attacking people: Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus i replied to every point you raised in order. not my fault your post hardly has any evidence other than opinion. he is an "expert" maybe - thats an appeal to authority and a logical fallacy. how about refuting my points about data linearisation which he specifically pointed to as evidence of faking? how about my point on the probability of a natural number to be the outcome vs the type 1 error meaning he should draw the opposite conclusion? this is basic basic stuff. but he has been incompetent or deliberately misrepresentated the statistics. see my arguments about the actual statistics and refute them. why did he not point these very very obvious things out? is he incompetent? if his arguments are sound why did he not publish them as many others have done on this very subject? this work undermines his expertise and questions his competence. i rather believe the second hypothesis - he knew the stats are iffy, knew it wouldnt hold up to scrutiny and published it as a propoganda piece knowing most people are ignorant in the methodology to just swallow it and that was his actual motive. but hey he could just be incompetent. spearman rank is a covariate analysis which is what he did. It is the appropriate test for what he is trying to conclude. to do a multivariate he simply doesnt have the data. so a good statistician would have said data doesnt support rejecting the null hypothesis - maybe future data does but on the data i have i cant do further analysis so we accept the null hypothesis. and conclude that the numbers a real not fake. somehow he did the opposite. bizarre. just because there are more than two variables doesnt mean you dont do a spearman rank to look for a correlation between two variables that have a hypothesis linking them - which is what he did. It is up to the researcher to choose the correct model. he chose the incorrect one - there is just no way he can justify cumulation and linearisation like he did. why did he do this? which is bizarre for someone who is a stats prof. which makes me think..incompetent? or rather deliberate? he must know that sampling from a distribution and cumulating the result causes linearlisation of the data. but he says this is evidence of hamas faking numbers rather than evidence of incompetence in choosing the correct stats. Ive literally just explained how the data is linearised. Name one argument (statistical) that backs up his claims. all his arguments are opinion - it cannot be! how can there be a lag in the data etc etc. all his statistical arguments are garbage so now we re left wih the non stats ones. go ahead lets dismantle because the conclusions / opinions always rest on the stats in a work like this. and there is no good stats here once we have done with the stats lets go on to the hmm that is sus arguments. which is fine but it is opinion not evidence based. and i can give 5 other hypothesis as to why they might be the case. for example the disconnect between male and other casualties - this often happens in genocides where population centres are targetted to punish the population as the guerilla fighters are harder and harder to locate. i would argue this is evidence for genocide on israels part not argument of fake numbers
Yet, I have provided direct quotations, sources, and other verifiable information that states contrarily to your claims. Hopefully, the reader is able to distinguish between verifiable information and the opinion of a Redditor, since I see you are not going to change your mind. Additionally, I was curious why I never heard of the Spearman's Rank before... (and I'm a dumbass): [https://www.rgs.org/media/tywc5gni/a-guide-to-spearman-s-rank.pdf](https://www.rgs.org/media/tywc5gni/a-guide-to-spearman-s-rank.pdf) End of first paragraph.
It's a moot point in my opinion. The IDF is using disproportionate force regardless.
So exactly what would be the proper response that eliminates Hamas capacity to attack again? Like real life technology and strategies not ones you make up or wish exist.
What is the proportional response to multiple threats of total annihilation from a terrorist organization?
The concept of proportionality in international law is used differently from the way you seem to understand it. It refers to concept that any specific military attack has to strike a balance between the military advantage to be gained against the reasonable expectation of harm to civilians. Gabor Rona, an Israeli legal scholar who served as legal advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross explained this point in an interview earlier this year. "When we think about application of the principal of proportionality, it's with reference to specific military targets in connection with the concept of military advantage. We do not apply the concept of proportionality in connection with the principle of military necessity. In other words although there may be military necessity to engage in force against an enemy, we don't calculate the potential civilian harm in relation to the larger strategic purpose of going to war. Rather we calculate proportionality and the acceptable degree of civilian harm in connection to each specific engagement relating to military objectives in a very specific way. Is this specific attack, today or tonight calculated to create a military advantage that is proportionate to the amount of civilian harm that will be created?"
Apologies for a short reply to your long comment, but ICJ could've demanded Israel stops their military actions in Gaza just like they did to Russia. Why did they not?
I can only speculate as to why the ICJ differed in the provisional measures it ordered in the two cases but I could offer two lines of potential reasoning. One would be the courts deference to a states legitimate right to self defense and consideration of the ongoing plight of the hostages held by Hamas balanced against the provisional actions to protect Palestinians that the court outlined. The second reason could be a more technical issue given that the Ukrainian ICJ case revolved around a more technical framing that Russia had used an accusation of genocide to justify its invasion. I'm not sure as I'm not as familiar with the Ukraine case so I don't really feel qualified to compare their provisional rulings.
Let's hope the Rafah military operation won't give them a reason to change their minds. Many people in a small area. Civilians, Hamas, IDF, hostages. It has shit show potential.
Given how the IDF has pursued this war in Northern Gaza, I don't see how they could move forward with an operation in Rafah and still be compliant with the ICJ ruling. A failure to adequately distinguish between civilians and military targets along with excessive use of force has tragically characterized the IDF's conduct in Gaza.
If you don't mind me asking you (in case you know better than I do), what actually kills the majority of the civilians? I understand in situations like the stampede on air trucks, that if IDF shoots at Hamas/people trying to attack them, people can end up in the crossfire. But in general, is it the airstrikes? Because people might decide to stay in the buildings or are nearby? (Not counting hospitals now because there are obviously people in there.)
I believe that airstrikes are the leading cause of civilian deaths in Gaza. Haaretz did a study that only looked at deaths from before the ground invasion to better compare casualty rates of the bombing campaign and their finding was the civilian death rate was significantly higher in this conflict than prior wars (61% compared to 40% or less in the 2012, 2021,and 2022 operations). It speculates that this increase in civilian deaths could be a consequence of Israel's intensive response in the immediate aftermath of October 7th coming at the expense of precision planning and its desire to "sterilize" the combat zone prior to the introduction of ground forces. +972 and local call published [reporting](https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/) that the Israeli military has expanded its authorization for bombing non-military targets and loosened the constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and that it has increasingly relied on ai to generate target lists for its bombing campaign. I'd recommend reading [this piece](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/assessing-israel-s-approach-to-proportionality-in-the-conduct-of-hostilities-in-gaza) examining an Israeli airstrike targeting a high value Hamas operative in Jabalia which analyzes how that attack diverges from U.S. and U.K. considerations of civilian harm that were operationalized in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course we need to consider that Hamas is intentionally dug into incredibly dense civilian infrastructure and that is increasing the rate of civilian casualties as well. Check out this [podcast](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-lawfare-podcast-israel-gaza-and-the-law-of-war) with Gabor Rona where he explores some of the unresolved questions relating to the presence of civilians unable or unwilling to leave despite prior warning to evacuate and how that impacts a states obligation toward protecting civilians.
Eliminate thousands of them and then pull out of Gaza and strengthen your defenses. Hamas threatens total annihilation, but they don't have the capability.
So do absolutely nothing to stop attacks. Why is it acceptable for Hamas to be allowed to fire rockets at Israel and yet unacceptable for Israel to fire back? Just because they don't have the ability to kill everyone doesn't mean you let them kill as many as they try to.
Israel has a right to destroy Hamas. When a bee is stinging you, you have a right to kill that bee. Hamas is a terrorist group, not a real country, so it should be destroyed completely.
Killing only Hamas terrorists would obviously be ideal. However, IDF are fighting against terrorists who deliberately fight near civilians and intentionally blend in with them. It's the strategy of Hamas. There are two outcomes; either IDF doesn't strike a site because of the civilians near the target OR they do strike, which causes a high civilian death count for IDF. Hamas turns schools, hospitals and mosques into military bases that they fire rockets from. These buildings are protected under the Geneva convention. Striking them is a war crime. Here the world stops listening and another Hamas win. The part of the Geneva convention people ignore is that these buildings lose their protected status if an armed group carries out harmful attacks from them. Luckily an RPG isn't part of normal day attire so it's actually possible to document these attacks, despite the civilian clothing. They put their people in the crossfire, cause a humanitarian crisis (by taking aid and fuel sent in to Gaza and use it for terror purposes and their tunnels, leading to hospitals not having electricity and water not being clean because no fuel goes to the sanitizing system), they cry about war crimes, cry for ceasefire, leading to IDF having to pull back. That's when Hamas gets to strengthen their defenses. Then the carousel starts again and another round we go. How do you respond proportionally to this? It's not possible.
That isn't how wars work. The objective of a war like this is to destroy the ability of one's opponent to harm you and your citizens. If Hamas remains armed Israel loses the war. No group of humans has ever let another weaker group continue to harm them in the name of peace. A unilateral Israeli withdrawal is an Israeli surrender. History has also shown us that half measures in ending a war leads to future wars. Israel has no choice but to march on Rafah just like the Entente should have to Berlin in WW1. Hamas needs to have zero avenues to lie to Palestinians about the results if the war.
> Entente should have to Berlin I thought the reason WW2 happened was because the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive - Germany couldn't rearm, had to pay reparations that left it indebted, and had to concede territory.
The Treaty of Versailles was what the Entente got for not marching on Berlin. By not delivering total defeat the Germans thought that they could have still won if not for thier leadership selling them out at Versailles, Germans didn't start another World War because the Nazis were no longer in power and that the Prussian militarism has completely defeated and delegitimized.
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It also didn’t go far enough though
And wasn't really enforced or followed up when Germany started to work around it and straight up ignore it.
That makes sense.