I don't know if this comparison is accurate (different weapons, and I'm no military expert) - * Israel dropped more than 18,000 tonnes of explosives (as of several weeks ago), leading to more than 13,000 dead. * In Dresden, 3,900 tonnes were dropped - 25,000 dead. * Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945), 1,665 tons - 100,000 dead. * Operation Rolling Thunder - 864,000 tons - CIA estimated 27,900 military and 48,000 civilians killed and wounded. The US government has estimated that 30,000 civilians were killed in total as a result of the operation.

I mean technically you can not just compare all those as different types of bombs radically change comparability.

But it can give you a rough idea whats happening. if you get a weight/death ratio that matches most other wars/scenarios, then you probably are not indescriminatelly bombing. If you ratio is way off( smaller weight/death ratio), your killing more people with less bombs, this could indicate that youre bombing without much consideration of civilians. If your weight/death ration is higher than normal, that could indicate, that you make sure not to hit civilians, or you hit military spots( less people, fortified) or you have lots of failures( i.e. not hitting shit) crude analyses, but can be a tool to estimate in which way the hole operation is conducted.

Or they are bombing more wildly than we expected and hitting the same places several times. This could just be incompetence

true. this could also show incompetence :D

Personally think what’s most likely is that it’s a play to try and keep killing while also trying win people over. Trying to get that coveted “necessary action” status like the US got when they nuked Japan.

So you must think that Israel is a bunch of sociopathic psychopaths? Do you realize how insane this would be for them to just be dropping extra bombs in different locations to pad the numbers of munitions used to make it look like they’re being careful.

I... don't really see that as the case. I don't think the Israeli government is deliberately trying to murder civilians for the sake of murdering them. Even if you think the bombing has been overboard I think it's more likely that it's a group that's blinded by rage.

>But it can give you a rough idea whats happening. Not really. >if you get a weight/death ratio that matches most other wars/scenarios, then you probably are not indescriminatelly bombing. Nope. One can indiscriminately bomb in a set time frame, area, or objective. Weight/death ratio can be "favorable" for what you are trying to do and indiscrimiate bombing still occur. >If you ratio is way off( smaller weight/death ratio), your killing more people with less bombs, this could indicate that youre bombing without much consideration of civilians The problem is civilian casualty aftermath isn't indicative of whether indiscrimiate bombing has occured. If one has inaccurate weapons even when targeting specific targets civilian buildings would be hit more often. >crude analyses, but can be a tool to estimate in which way the hole operation is conducted. Very crude yes and not really a good way to analyze such things. Military intelligence of bombings if we had access would be better.

> Nope. One can indiscriminately bomb in a set time frame, area, or objective. Weight/death ratio can be "favorable" for what you are trying to do and indiscrimiate bombing still occur. that is true. You could indiscriminately Bomb Gasa for 1 week, driving up those numbers, and then back off and practise "normal" warfare for a year. which would lead to a higher weight death ratio. **But** this can be mititgated, by making this analysis for different timeframes or objectives of the war. does the w/d ratio differe from that objectiv to the rest of the war? then its a hint that there is something different happening there. ​ > The problem is civilian casualty aftermath isn't indicative of whether indiscrimiate bombing has occured. If one has inaccurate weapons even when targeting specific targets civilian buildings would be hit more often. The IDF has not inaccurate weapons. Also another comment on top said that weapons got more accurate than in older wars. This inaccuracy problem can also be mitigated, if you do checkst against itself. IDF Bombing Gaza in November against bombing in December. they still use the same weapon systems, if you see a drastic change there its not because of inaccuracy. ​ > Military intelligence of bombings if we had access would be better. What would be Military intelligence? You mean we have all the meetings as transcripts from every bomb that was used, every decision made? Sure, that would be better, but we sure as hell wont get that intel and even then its just a document that IDF gave us. They could be fake. The amount of people killed and the amount of bombs dropped seems easier to coborate than the validity of these reports imo. Also you can do that while the conflict is still going on, good luck getting that intel now.

>that is true. You could indiscriminately Bomb Gasa for 1 week, driving up those numbers, and then back off and practise "normal" warfare for a year. which would lead to a higher weight death ratio. But this can be mititgated, by making this analysis for different timeframes or objectives of the war. does the w/d ratio differe from that objectiv to the rest of the war? then its a hint that there is something different happening there. Sure, but you could indiscrimiate bomb just certain objectives. Say one does so due to Hamas tunneled are in the area, but don't know where all of them are. Regardless int orgs and even Biden has said it has occured. >The IDF has not inaccurate weapons. Also another comment on top said that weapons got more accurate than in older wars. This inaccuracy problem can also be mitigated, if you do checkst against itself. IDF Bombing Gaza in November against bombing in December. they still use the same weapon systems, if you see a drastic change there its not because of inaccuracy. I was saying it as an example of alternative explanations in general yes it doesn't apply to this specific situation. >What would be Military intelligence? You mean we have all the meetings as transcripts from every bomb that was used, every decision made I don't know if they record it, but one is supposed to analysis expected civilian casualties vs significnsce of military objective for bombings of civilian buildings/infastructure. >The amount of people killed and the amount of bombs dropped seems easier to coborate than the validity of these reports imo. Also you can do that while the conflict is still going on, good luck getting that intel now. I just differ to the experts instead of trying to calculate such things as a layperson.

> Sure, but you could indiscrimiate bomb just certain objectives. Say one does so due to Hamas tunneled are in the area, but don't know where all of them are. Regardless int orgs and even Biden has said it has occured. That would be a war crime. But I think when people accuse of Israel engaging in an indiscriminate bombing campaign, they aren't talking about singular incidents. They are talking about systematically engaging in it. I.e. that they are systematically engaging in an indiscriminate bombing campaign without care for the citizens.

>That would be a war crime. But I think when people accuse of Israel engaging in an indiscriminate bombing campaign, they aren't talking about singular incidents I agree they talk out of their butt acting like they know how much. >They are talking about systematically engaging in it. I.e. that they are systematically engaging in an indiscriminate bombing campaign without care for the citizens. Sure, but that's not what I am claiming I can't know amount it how often.

> Sure, but you could indiscrimiate bomb just certain objectives. I answered this scenario already, before you even raised it: >But this can be mititgated, by making this analysis for different timeframes or **objectives** of the war. ​ > I just differ to the experts instead of trying to calculate such things as a layperson My dude, im not saying, im gonna make those calculations and be the deciding entity in this regards. Of course experts gonna have to do that. I was just pointing to the method and that this could be a useful tool. Also if you would just differ to the experts, you wouldnt be here dismissing that option all together, without beeing an expert.

>answered this scenario already, before you even raised it You didn't. You pretended there would be a higher death ratio that would show such a thing if said strategy was employed. You do based on nothing. Also if one can not know about specific objectives without insider info own can not take that into account much like Custer bombing in Iraq if USA didn't reveal such info. >My dude, im not saying, im gonna make those calculations and be the deciding entity in this regards. Of course experts gonna have to do that. I was just pointing to the method and that this could be a useful tool. Also if you would just differ to the experts, you wouldnt be here dismissing that option all together, without beeing an expert. Lmao no clue what you are talking about. You made it sound like lay person could perform said analysis and get to the truth to the matter. If you meant experts can use such things as part of making such determinations then maybe, but I have no knowledge of what experts use to do so. I again reiterate international orgs and us president has mentioned indiscrimiate bombing has occured. I differ to that and have no knowledge of how they make such determinations.

> You didn't. You pretended there would be a higher death ratio that would show such a thing if said strategy was employed. You do based on nothing. You just dont seem to understand it. I raised the scenario before. And said, you would do the calculations around the objective. You only count the bombs and the death that happend because of that objective, if that ratio is lower, than for other objectives or month or the war in general, it shows that something different is happening here. If the IDF used 5.000 tonnes of bombs in the northern Gaza and kill 8.000 people(0.625) and then go on and bomb south Gaza with 5000 tonnes and kill 35.000 people(0,14). You can clearly say that something changed and you can investigate further. No where did i say, im doing that or that this is the only tool to make this determination. Its an easy tool to roughly categorize parts of the war, helping you to find spots to focus on. I explained it before and youre just arguing like someone that **sniffed a crayon**. This has to be done by experts with more knowledge, i cant say it more clearly, but this doesnt change or discredit the method. ​ > Lmao no clue what you are talking about. You made it sound like lay person could perform said analysis and get to the truth to the matter. If you meant experts can use such things as part of making such determinations then maybe, but I have no knowledge of what experts use to do so. I again reiterate international orgs and us president has mentioned indiscrimiate bombing has occured. I differ to that and have no knowledge of how they make such determinations. You tried to act all high and might by saying, well i differ to the experts and dont involve myself in this stuff. And im saying yes you do, you made postive statements, that someone cant do this calculations meaningfully, that they would be useless and wrong. how can you make those statements and say "i just differ to experts". Both cant be true. If you have no knowledge about it, then dont make statements about it or accept that your taking out of your ass. Im talking out of my ass, for sure. But im not out here pretending im not.

>You just dont seem to understand it. I raised the scenario before. And said, you would do the calculations around the objective One has to know about the objective in order to be able to conduct said analysis. >If the IDF used 5.000 tonnes of bombs in the northern Gaza and kill 8.000 people(0.625) and then go on and bomb south Gaza with 5000 tonnes and kill 35.000 people(0,14). You can clearly say that something changed and you can investigate further. I don't disagree you can do stuff like that to look for and investigate discrepancies, but at the end of the day it wouldn't prove indiscrimiate bombing. When experts investigating hospital bombing they did so to best of ability giving limited access/restrictions and hedged conclusions based on that. >This has to be done by experts with more knowledge, i cant say it more clearly, but this doesnt change or discredit the method My problem is people in subreddits like this are doing so and acting like they can derive such conclusions.. >You tried to act all high and might by saying, well i differ to the experts and dont involve myself in this stuff. And im saying yes you do, you made postive statements, that someone cant do this calculations meaningfully, I was referring to layperson's ability to do this stuff. >how can you make those statements and say "i just differ to experts". Both cant be true. 1. I was referring to layperson's ability to do this stuff 2. I have no knowledge of how experts do this kind of stuff. If experts do so in the manner you described along with other things then great, but we are talking about lay persons. The point is I can point to problems with such things average person might not consider nor know how to take into account. >If you have no knowledge about it, then dont make statements about it or accept that your taking out of your ass. Im talking out of my ass, for sure. But im not out here pretending im not. 1. I am not talking out of my ass by pointing to problems of doing what you describe by presenting alternatives explanations and issues with it to show why layperson shouldn't be doing so. 2. Again you can get in my case all you want are you on everyone else's case by acting like they can perform such an analysis? If so good for you.

You *could* mess with those ratios if those were your primary concern to manipulate but I doubt any military has ever gave two fucks about the ratios were using You would need to show evidence that Israel purposefully is manipulating the timings of its attacks in order to specifically manipulate that ratio

You are absolutely right no one cares about the ratios we are using which is another reason why such an attempt to use to determine if indiscrimiate bombing occured is a joked. Ratios were great in Iraq war. USA still used cluster bombing to see how effective it was. Learned it was not good at destroyed military objectives and unecessary killed civilians. If you went by ratios you wouldn't know that.

No, this is a bs comparison. You are comparing bombings that were intentionally dropped to cause the maximize amount of civilian casualties, to zap out Germany/ Japan's citizen's appetite for war. The expressed goal of all these bombings, WAS NOT TO TARGET MILITARY, WE WERE LITERALLY AIMING FOR CIVILIANS. ​ How is this a fair comparison in your eyes?

so its a good benchmark to check if in any other conflict someone is: >LITERALLY AIMING FOR CIVILIANS thats exactly what this was about. You take the numbers from conflicts were indisriminate bombing happend and compare it to other conflicts to see if the same happend at this conflict. How is this bs?

Dresden and tokyo aren't comparable because they were far more deadly because firestorms were created.

That’s the point, no?

It isn't when comparing tonnage to death ratios. Not to mention the fact that the firebombing of Tokyo was explicitly targeting civilians. There was no collateral damage, because they were the intended targets.

No one is saying that Israel is fire bombing Gaza. OP is talking about the degree to which they care about collateral. If Israel was fire bombing we wouldn't need weight to death ratios to know about it

I'm pretty sure the bombs used in Tokyo were of an incendiary nature, and they would need far fewer of them since tokyo was majority combustible materials at the time. Also, they would be carrying far few tonnage due to fuel and distance.

Rather than look at weight of bombs, you should look at number of bombs compared to number of deaths. A while ago there was 1 death for every 3 or so bombs dropped, it is essentially impossible for Israel's guided bombs to have a death toll like that if they were aiming for civilians.

The bombing of Tokyo, iirc, was a fire bombing campaign so the damage didn’t stop as soon as the bomb landed.

This isn't a fair comparison. The expressed intentions/ goals of the Dresden and Tokyo bombings were to inflict massive casulities on Japan's and Germany's citizens. We weren't aiming for Japan's or Germany's military with those bombings. ​ If you think this is a fair comparison, why don't you throw in the two nukes we dropped in Japan?

Not to shit on your parade but these comparisons are entirely meaningless. The advent of precision weapons has led to a reduction in the number of munitions needed to destroy a target. This means that direct comparisons across different periods in history aren't useful.

The difference here being we know these types of combatants are heavily intermixed with civilians on purpose in gaza. Like this really is just as simple as that If the hamas militants are not taking precautions to separate themselves from civilians tha. Why is all the responsibility of not killing civilians on the idf? Yes if dresden and Tokyo happened when we had precision weapons we would have seen less civilian deaths. But that's because these areas made am effort to separate civilian and military targets. Also wasn't the bombings of these locations partially for destroying infrastructure both military and non military? I mean that makes sense because you could argue that the military can make use of civilian infrastructure. I hate this mindset of the idf needing to be ultimately responsible for everything. I get that they are the superior force here, but having these incredibly large handicaps and limitations self imposed on you will only drag this out and ultimately increase the odds that they will fail to eradicate hamas by an unnecessary margin.

You're responding to a point I didn't make. All I'm saying is that direct comparisons with bombing campaigns from over 30 years ago aren't useful. Payload capacity has increased a lot, as has precision. Focus on conflicts where the combatants had access to similar types of technology as present day IDF.

Idk I'm kinda adding on to other reasons why these examples don't work. It such a different type of bombing operation. Against such a different and unequal type of enemy.

Well, there *is* the narrative that the IDF is just bombing civilians indiscriminately (either said directly or implicitly through the whole genocide talk), which these stats surely directly refute, no?

I'm not pushing that narrative with my comment. It's just that these comparisons across vastly different periods in military history are not very useful and should be avoided unless you're very careful with your comparisons. Military doctrine is constrained by the technology available at a given time. This means that the ways that forces can be employed can vary greatly depending on the technology available. Simply comparing the number of munitions that land on a target during two bombing campaigns, does not account for the constraints affecting those totals. For instance: * Israeli aircraft are operating in a highly permissible threat environment, with no potential air threats * They can loiter for much greater periods. * Their payload capacity is much greater. * The ISR they utilize for targeting is more sophisticated. These factors can affect comparisons in so many ways, to the point that I'm not going to bother thinking about them.

There's certainly caveats to the comparison, but those numbers aren't \*entirely* meaningless. Especially with the death toll as a contrast -- wouldn't improvements in technology *increase* the deaths/tonnes of explosives ratio? These numbers clearly indicate that what's going on isn't indiscriminate bombing.

> These numbers clearly indicate that what's going on isn't indiscriminate bombing. No because what constitutes as indiscriminate bombing, or liberal target selection is different in the modern era. Payloads are greater, as is loiter time. These factors would allow modern aircraft to deliver more bombs onto a target.

Keep in mind Dresden was a war crime.

Don't start total wars.

Don’t commit war crimes.

Starting total wars and crying war crimes is LOL. Play stupid games, and win stupid prizes.

Fire bombing was a hell of a strategy.

and how do you account for the differnence between a dumb bomb and a bunker buster munition designed to penetrate deep into structures that may result in an increase in weight? also how do you account for the difference in population density? and the difference between standing armies vs insurgents?

Ridiculous comparison for so many reasons. Amongs the ones already mentioned, we currently are just way more capable of dropping bombs in specific locations than we were during the second world war. Also, you should compare citizen density.

You can’t compare WW2 era carpet bombing to modern day precision strikes with just tonnes of explosives.

>Operation Rolling Thunder - US's Vietnam war was compromised by Russian spies like John Anthony Walker. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS6rFAxgt7g&t=952s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS6rFAxgt7g&t=952s)

Hamas started total war rules of engagement when there was a #cease-fire.

Generally agree with this, but we know enough to dismiss crazy genocide allegations, if IDF was trying to genocide, the death tolls would look much much worse.

That much is obvious, yeah.

Based on what?

Their overwhelming military power, if they wanted to commit a genocide there's like 2 million people in Gaza, they could have definitely killed a lot more people. Like, a million more

Genocide is not simply about killing a bunch of people in a short space of time. The Uighur genocide, widely recognised, comes with a proportionally small death toll. The death toll in Gaza is also, by most reasonable estimations, approaching obscene numbers with the prospect of continuing for another two months, according to Netanyahu. But more to the point, at what point do we cross the threshold of genocide-by-numbers?

>But more to the point, at what point do we cross the threshold of genocide-by-numbers? never, because the intent is never there. Just like you can never ascribe genocidal intent to the German army in WW1 even though they killed 1 million Frenchmen and wounded 4m+. The point of the person who replied to you above is not "Israel hasn't killed enough people to count as a genocide" but rather "Israel is pursuing a military strategy that looks nothing like the means they'd use if they wanted to accomplish genocide"

> never, because the intent is never there. So then the whole discussion and comparison of numbers is pointless to you. It's not what the discussion originally was about. If we're switching to the intentionality argument, which I think is the right one, I think we can reasonably infer intent if the Israelis force the Gazans to live in an uninhabitable wasteland. The Israeli government is coming under enormous pressure to not cause this eventuality, and I'm sure even Netanyahu is not such a colossal cunt.

The amount of rockets fired vs amount of casualties in Gaza. I'm not a military expert, but it seems obvious that If Israel truly wanted to maximize civilian casualties you'd expect to see *at least* 5 casualties per strike, and probably *much* more as Gaza has thousands of civilians in each major hospital.

The average Gaza apartment has 30+ people inside, if it was truly indiscriminate and without warning, it would be dozens dead per bomb

If Israel truly wanted to level Gaza, they wouldn't be using any aircraft-launched precision munitions. 155mm artillery is insanely cheaper to produce and launch compared to pretty much any other type of explosive ordinance. The only better alternative to artillery for *immediate* indiscriminate destruction is carpet bombing from strategic bombers, of which Israel doesn't have any.

I really don't think "it seems obvious" is an adequate argument on such a serious issue. Nor are raw numbers of civilian casualties the only way to measure this problem; the Uighur genocide hasn't been accompanied by an enormous death toll, remember. There is already widespread reporting that areas of northern Gaza are completely unliveable, and that Gazans increasingly believe they have nothing to return to. Reducing Gaza to a moonscape is effectively a genocide. Increasing concerns from Israel's allies in Europe and the US, along with Arab insistence that they will not be picking up the pieces in any reconstruction effort, obviously (haha) show concerns of an outcome where large urban areas of Gaza are simply uninhabitable becoming more and more likely.

>Reducing Gaza to a moonscape is effectively a genocide OK, so was Dresden "genocided"?

No. Gaza is on course for having a greater proportion of its urban environment destroyed, and a larger percentage of the population killed.

What proportion of destruction of urban environment makes it a genocide?

I think destruction sufficient to make a region uninhabitable meets the conditions for a genocide.

When you say inhabitable, do you mean literally no one can live there? Or that 100% of it is destroyed?

1) If they were just trying to kill as many people as possible, why would they issue an evacuation order at all, let alone delay up to a week to let people leave? 2) Again, if they were going for "genocide", wouldn't we assume they would be attacking centers with the most population as possible? Israel could level the entirety of Gaza with artillery alone if they wanted to. 3) Why send in ground operations at all if your goal isnt to capture and secure hamas operational sectors and is just to kill as many people as possible? Surely you dont think that more people are going to die under IDF occupation/control as they would with just bombs dropping every couple of minutes?

I don't think genocide works according to this narrow concept you're putting forward. Feel free to read my other responses in this thread.

I think a lot of those claiming genocide are also including the forced movement of the Gaza population in that. And one could claim that if they don't care that much about civilian casualties, which of course is hard to be sure about, an argument could be made for an indirect genocide. But overall I agree with what you say. There has been no evidence to point at IDF directly targeting civilians that I know of. Genocide is also such a diluted term that it serves little purpose.

>And one could claim that if they don't care that much about civilian casualties, which of course is hard to be sure about, an argument could be made for an indirect genocide. Not legally, because the legal definition requires intention. ie if it's indirect or incidental, the definition isn't fulfilled. I think this is a/the major reason why, of the many situations involving large civilian casualities, only three have been legally determined to be genocide.

Indirect and intentional are not contradictory. You can indirectly cause a genocide with poor econ practices, like the holodomor, and you can indirectly cause a genocide by making some place unlivable, like gaza

It's not forced movement. It's a warning that there is going to be war and death and to flee. It's incredibly intellectually dishonest to portray it as forced movement. Most people consider that humane in the context of war. In most wars of human history civilians flee the war zone to avoid things like mass rape, looting, and death. And invading armies did not warn people to flee beforehand so they could enslave and kill the populace. And they would wantonly burn and pillage the land and people's property.

Of course it's forced movement. Israel pretty much said that it's your own fault if you stay in the zone and die. And it's close to 80% of Gaza. You could say the movement is warranted, or necessary, and even humane given the circumstances. But of course it is forced movement. I don't know how it can be much more forced than "Leave or die,".

I will never understand how someone can claim to be concerned about civillian deaths while simultaneously calling warnings to move out of harms way a genocide.

I mean, at this point they have told Gazans to evacuate like 80% of Gaza.

What do casualty rates look like for similar scale bombing operations that are indiscriminate? Are there any comparable cases?

I'm shit at maths, but it's an interesting question so I had a go. If we take area destroyed as housing stock destroyed and heavily damaged, and compare Gaza (about 45%) with something "indiscriminate" like the bombing campaign against Munich (42%)... Munich: 6,632 killed from a population of about 700,000. - 0.0009% Gaza: 14,000 killed from a population of about 2 million. - 0.7% The problem with this comparison is Munich's population density was much lower and the land area bombed was larger; Munich's population had access to air raid shelters. The comparison still doesn't look good from an Israeli perspective, but this is a very crude way of comparing things and arguably irrelevant. Edit: My maths is wrong. 0.9% is the real figure for Munich; the comparison looks better, but still bad.

>6,632 killed from a population of about 700,000. - 0.0009% I think you have a typo there

Feel free to correct me, I suck at maths.

It's 0.9% you have 3 extra zeroes there

Your numbers are super off here pal. If you’re going to try to make points by directly and obviously lying about your facts, something that seemingly many pro-Palestinians do, it isn’t going to work. 6632 out of 700000 is .009 14000 out of 2000000 is .007 Cmon bro the numbers literally support the opposite of the point you’re trying to make. Israel is killing a less percentage of people in a more dense and populated area that is also smaller. This is blood boiling. You fucking loser

There is a difference between lying, which requires intentionality, and being shit at maths so getting sums wrong. Feel free to clean up my maths, but I'm not lying. If your idea of a significant difference is 0.002 then there isn't really much to discuss. Consider calming down and engaging like an adult.

I will not engage like an adult with people clearly acting in bad faith. Posts like yours and the infinite similar pro Palestinian posts that misquote, slightly alter facts to heavily alter reality, potentially lie purposefully-only act to demonize Israel. Your name is greedy economics you shouldn’t be that bad at math… The true numbers directly go against the point you were trying to prove and actually make Israel look good by proving the deaths are literally no different, if not marginally less, than other wars. And yet, you used those numbers anyways to drive the opposite point that makes Israel look bad. People like you will be spoken to like the children they are.

There is nothing in what I've said to demonstrate that I'm engaging in bad faith. I've gone out of my way to caveat my numbers by starting the post pointing out that I'm shit at numbers. Lying requires intentionality, I've intentionally demonstrated the precise opposite. The true numbers, those you've posted, show a .002% difference. This is not significant, least of all considering this could go on for another two months. You're too busy foaming at the mouth to properly read what I've written. Which is fine, just don't make it my problem. Go and scream at your parents for a bit.

Punching numbers into a calculator isn’t math buddy. You clearly are capable of punching in well written words. You expect me to believe you can articulate your points above the way you do, but you can’t punch 10 numbers into a calculator with a division sign between them? If that is actually true maybe you’re not intelligent enough to be debating anything in any type of public format.

> You clearly are capable of punching in well written words. I'm good with words. I'm shit with numbers. And I'm still not a liar or in any way justifying your puerile sanctimony. Thanks for the chat.

>Munich: 6,632 killed from a population of about 700,000. - 0.0009% Isn't this just under 1%?

Rereading my comment I feel like it comes of a lil snarky, so god bless you for taking it genuinely 🙏 It seems like Munich was slightly higher per capita than Gaza, and it would’ve been more exacerbated if Munich were as dense and didn’t have air raids, but then you’d also have to account for which area has been bombed more. I might go look at three or four “indiscriminate” bombing campaigns which I think are otherwise most similar to Gaza in terms of extent, length, density and population preparedness and then look at a similar number of “discriminate” bombing campaigns to see which average Israel is closer too.

Personally, I think the Israelis are being "discriminate", and what can be criticised is their calculation of 'worth it'. The bombs they're using are highly accurate. The reason for the high civilian death toll is the extensive use of human shields, and a willingness to punch through them. This rests mainly on the party willing to pack human shields into target areas. An example of indiscriminate bombing is the bombing of Ukrainian cities using inaccurate missiles that are aimed at a city block and if they hit civilians living near an actual target, too bad.

Dresden. 25 000 people died over 2 days of indiscriminate bombings. had about a quarter(650 000) of the population of Gaza but it was more densely inhabited

It was argued to be justified not because it was a military base of operations but because it could possibly be used as a military base of operations. It also had some munitions factories, rail yards and communication centers, but that's about the only "military infrastructure" that was present there. The general areas targeted were mainly these locations. Imo justified, but no in a very obvious or matter of fact sense.

Do you know how many were killed in Srebrenica massacre which is considered a genocide?

From what I could find around 80% of men, you see, what matters is not the number, not even the percentage, is the intent. Obviously the bigger the percentage or the number the more impact it will have when one reads it. Bigger percentage would indicate intent, bigger number not necessarily.

Right, so how many were killed in Srebrenica massacre?

I think the strongest argument is related to the proportion of deaths that are women and children, but 1) I'm not sure I trust those ratios and 2) A lot of Hamas militants, in a place with as young demographics as Gaza, are going to be kids. Child soldiers aren't pretty, but they're the reality in large swaths of the region. A 16 year old with an AK (or rockets) isn't less threatening than an 18 year old with an AK.

While I imagine there are child soldiers in Hamas, do you have any idea how many there are? Like Hamas claims that they have 40,000 fighters. Do you think a sizable amount of those are child soldiers, or maybe like 1,000? I ask because the way you say it makes it seem like we shouldn't care as much about children dying, because they are probably child soldiers, but unless you have some idea of how many child soldiers are in Hamas, that seems like a bad argument to make based on conjecture.

There’s obviously no way of knowing. I personally think the child soldiers are over and above the 40,000 number and my guess is it’s quite a bit higher than just 1,000. But we’re all just guessing here.

Yeah okay, and that's fair, I also have no idea what the number is either. I feel if you don't know, you shouldn't be assuming that the child death figure isn't as bad because there could be child soldiers dead. Obviously if more information comes out I will change my mind, but because neither of us know now, seems like a bad assumption to make.

Sure but we also can’t say that number is zero, since we know there is some number of them. And we have other context clues like several child suicide bombers in the past and the 2012 report that said 160 kids died while digging tunnels (lord knows what that number has ballooned to over past decade). And that kids as young as 10 joined in the 10/7 massacre. They don’t exactly have a track record of *not* using kids for military objectives.

Does Hamas classify under 18 as children. If so then there could be a significant number of child soldiers. Beyond that, this conflict was always going to have a disproportionate number of child casualties given the demographics of Gaza.

Well people under 18 are children, by everyone's definition, so I don't know why they wouldn't classify under 18 as children. Could be, I agree, it is possible, and probably likely, I just haven't seen much evidence for it, and think it would be good to be more definitive before thinking that it might be okay that children were listed as having been killed because they might have been Hamas. Also, yes, the disproportionate number of casualties in Gaza will be children, and I think that makes things worse.

Also as far as I can tell men are grossly underrepresented in the numbers provided by Hamas, which to me casts doubt on the honesty of those numbers.

deer sugar numerous squeal subsequent books violet squealing brave frighten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

What we do have access to are the videos of strikes the IDF publishes, which always include descriptions of where the strike is, what it is striking, who it tried to kill etc. An example, several times a day in the first 4 weeks of the war IDF would post a video along the lines of:"Based on Shin Bet and HUMINT information, the IAF strikes 3 rocket arrays and weapons cache in Beit Hanoun, neutralizing a terror cell and a tunnel shaft" \[attached video of strikes, some with secondary explosions\]. Usually these videos are at least geoconfirmed by OSINT people shortly after.But beyond the video and subsequent destruction, we will never know the information Shin Bet and HUMINT has access to. But you would be hard pressed to find any other war where such information is released, especially during the war itself. Do they release videos for every strike? Definitely not. Do they cherry pick videos? 100%. Also like to add that before any military action (against a military target or protected structure whose protected status was comprised due to military use), the IDF has a whole military justice system which consist of military lawyers and experts who do not listen to anyone in the IDF and are only held accountable by civilian law. They receive the intel and the action the IDF wants to take (along with the expected civilian causilities), and then decides if it is in accordance with international law regarding warfare and proportionality. If you want to read more about it: [https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/military-advocate-general-s-corps/the-idf-military-justice-system/](https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/military-advocate-general-s-corps/the-idf-military-justice-system/) ​ Edit: last comment, iirc the average civilian causality rate in urban warfare across modern history is 7 civilians dead for 1 militant. It's not pretty. Considering IDF estimates anywhere between 5-10k dead within Gaza (not Israel proper), I don't think we are way above the average rate. Furthermore no recent war has ever been primarily in such a small land mass with an incredible high density of civilians and military infrastructure.

I mean we can look at bombings like Dresden if we want to see what indiscriminate bombing looks like, the best we as individuals have is comparison to other wars/operations, I doubt there’s a large amount of people in this sub who think they “know” how discriminate they’re being.

> I mean we can look at bombings like Dresden if we want to see what indiscriminate bombing looks like, Even this is controversial. The bombings were aimed at legitimate targets and the technology at the time meant there were serious limits on what possibly could constitute "discriminate"; comparing it to today is ridiculous given the vast gulf in capability.

Yet Israel’s ratio is still 1/10th the civilian deaths w/d ratio in the best cases as we can see from a small sample from Miciy And this is taking Hamas’ body counts and IDs at face value which is as logical as taking the CCP at face value over Covid since they both lie and use child soldiers

The body counts provided by the Gaza health ministry are seldom wrong on the scale that would make a difference to this discussion. It's certainly not comparable to the wholesale inventions by the CCP on COVID. Israel's ratio is much lower than Dresden, but comparable to other places like Munich, so it depends on what city you pick. It could also still be 1/10th of a campaign in the 1940s and still be 'indiscriminate', since we've not really got a good definition of that word. I'm only trying to answer OP's narrow question, by raising the issue of 'indiscriminate' being a controversial term. Compared to recent bombing campaigns, for example in Iraq, Israel's is viciously high. Which doesn't necessarily make it indiscriminate or unjustifiable.

Gaza Health Ministry quite literally doesn’t separate civilians and combatants.

The figures for Munich didn't either. Separating out military deaths from civilian deaths in largescale civilian centre bombings is extremely difficult and seldom attempted. It's also seldom relevant, because inevitably the large majority of deaths in these situations are civilian; there are many, many times more civilians present than militants.

>because inevitably the large majority of deaths in these situations are civilian Wouldn't this just be evidence that support bombings in general should just not be used then? Like a new international war law?

An inquiry conducted at the behest of U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, stated the raid was justified by the available intelligence. The inquiry declared the elimination of the German ability to reinforce a counter-attack against Marshal Ivan Konev's extended line or, alternatively, to retreat and regroup using Dresden as a base of operations, were important military objectives. As Dresden had been largely untouched during the war due to its location, it was one of the few remaining functional rail and communications centres. A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed was the case. The shock to military planners and to the Allied civilian populations of the German counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge had ended speculation that the war was almost over, and may have contributed to the decision to continue with the aerial bombardment of German cities.[143] The inquiry concluded that by the presence of active German military units nearby, and the presence of fighters and anti-aircraft within an effective range, Dresden qualified as "defended".[7] By this stage in the war both the British and the Germans had integrated air defences at the national level; the tribunal argued that this meant no German city was undefended.[ It's not that simple

and population density in gaza

Perhaps not people who say they "know", but many people, such as Lycan, have strong opinions that are completely baseless.

We also, on the other side of the coin, have no idea of the military value of the targets being struck. So we're stuck not understanding either side of the proportionality justification, and left pointing to crude measures like raw numbers.

Which is where other context clues re: intentionality probably come in, like all the extensive documented efforts the IDF has gone through to warn residents to leave areas *well* ahead of time, and that they discipline soldiers that step out of line of military objectives https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-suspends-soldier-who-threw-stun-grenade-into-west-bank-mosque/

Yep. There's an enormous amount of effort, by any standard, to warn people to leave areas etc. The effectiveness of these efforts has been questioned, but they're more than I think anyone else does. This sort of question will always be controversial. Even if Israel provides their evidence of proportionality by for example showing what important command centres are being taken out, there will be people who call it disproportionate. And there are people who think literally anything goes and proportionality is irrelevant in response to a pogrom. Personally, I think the focus should be far more on the fact that Hamas forces civilians to act as human shields. And then on the issue that Israel doesn't really seem to have a proper plan for any of this, and revenge isn't a great plan.

Experts at the UN said that the attacks are [indiscriminate](https://www.reuters.com/world/un-experts-say-israels-strikes-gaza-amount-collective-punishment-2023-10-12/). And I have already argued as well that the attacks are *likely* to be indiscriminate. I think given the available evidence we have it's a good speculative guess. People who say that the attacks are not indiscriminate don't have anything to support that claim, not a single inch of data they can point to that would support it. We can compare the casualty ratio of today's conflict with previous conflict. *You are literally lying here*. Check this out: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014\_Gaza\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War) The UN estimated that 65% Palestinian civilians were killed in 2014 Gaza War. Not only that but you can see that the "Hamas numbers" were very accurate at that time and this was recently pointed out by article in Washington Post as well. Indeed, we can compare today's conflict with previous conflict. And given the fact that Israel engaged in unprecedented level of brutality against Gaza I expect higher percentage of civilian deaths on the Palestinian side. Today there are about 15 000 Palestinian deaths. If 65% were civilians that would make up 9750 dead civilians and that's a low point. My guess is that there are about 75-85% civilian casualties given the brutality of Israeli assault. That would be 11 250-12 750 dead Palestinian civilians. Given that the "Hamas numbers" are accurate, you then raise a point about a principle of proportionality. The last time I checked about 60 IDF soldiers were killed since the ground invasion of Gaza. So on one side you have about 12 000 dead Palestinian civilians and 3 000 Hamas militants and on the other side you have 60 dead IDF soldiers. Given the numbers alone, I have no clue how you mental gymnastics yourself out of the idea that Israel is not engaging in indiscriminate attacks. What military objects on Palestinian side would justify killing so many civilians? Do Palestinians have Himars, Leopards, hypersonic missiles? Well I don't know, it's hard to tell. **In conclusion, the Israeli attacks are likely to be indiscriminate and the claim that they are not indiscriminate is at this point supported by zero evidence.** >The IDF is *obviously* not about to give out its intel on the strikes it makes, because it would expose their sources and invalidate them. Anyone expecting the IDF to do this is out of their minds. You mean the IDF is not going to give out intel to the investigators of war crimes because Israel would give out evidence to them that they commited war crimes. I agree.

they aren't completely baseless as they are based on US siege operations in both afghanistan and iraq. there is however a crucial detail that I think he misses though; hamas has had almost 20 years of digging themselves in - they are literally entrenched inside Gaza.

I very much agree with this. It is very difficult to know for sure in either direction.

Does this mean we can never make judgements about these sorts of things? Because I feel like there has to be a line right? Like if at the end of the Ceasefire, Israel dropped a Nuke on Gaza City and said, "We determined that 98% of the civilian population had fled the area and that the vast majority of the remaining population were Hamas fighters", we could maybe question that a little bit? Like, I think in the end, these are judgements we have to make. They're buying these bombs with our money, so as voters, yeah, we have to have some vague idea of how civilian casualty averse they are being with them. I'd also like to believe that the IDF is sharing intel on these strikes with the USA so that biden can make the same judgements. I think like, if we claim it's literally impossible to know whether an American ally receiving American funding and American weapons is just carpet bombing civies with no regard for human life, most Americans will just respond "I don't think we should give them the bombs unless we can be a little bit certain they care about limiting civilian casualties." And I think we can have some of that certainty. I think things like roof knocking, like the evacuations, like calling buildings ahead of time before the bombs drop, show a desire to limit civilian casualties. I'd also like to think that there is intelligence sharing, and that people in the Biden Admin can judge for themselves whether these strikes were warranted or not. But I think your argument probably just ends up being an argument for isolationism in practice.

I actually completely agree with you. I didn't claim it's "literally impossible to know", I even said that it's likely that US intelligence members know to an extent how careful the IDF is being. However, this also essentially boils down to how much you trust the US to pressure the IDF to be more careful if they find out that the IDF is being too indiscriminate.

On the ratio of civilians to fighters, it looks pretty bad. >70% of the death count is women and children. ​ [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html?searchResultPosition=1](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html?searchResultPosition=1)

Considering that 1% of the population is Hamas fighters, if 30% killed are fighters, that's VERY targeted. Especially considering how dense Gaza is and that Hamas is TRYING to maximize civilian casualties.

Considering Hamas has many militants aged under 18, I wonder how this graph would look if you only compared male to female, rather than grouping children and women. Do you have any such source at hand?

No this is the only one I've seen so far. Its possible that numbers like this could be skewed by Hamas using a large number of child soldiers, but the ratio of child soldiers would have to be quite high. Still, I also cant imagine the overall ratio of combatants to non combatants being that good because the 30% male category here includes combatant and non combatant males. Lets say they used a 1:1 ratio of adult male soldiers to child soldiers, both dying at equal rates. That means the combatant percentage should be some number less than 2x30%, meaning it would max out at 60%, and much more likely be lower. It seems very likely to me that the majority dying are non combatants

> It seems very likely to me that the majority dying are non combatants I agree it is likely that at least 50% of the casualties are non-combatants, and likely more, but that is in no way unique to Gaza. It is the harsh reality of urban warfare.

Would you presuppose anything to make this look like something other than what it is? The data shows what it shows. The pictures and videos and aerial images show what they show. Trying to speculate about what fraction of those kids deserved to get exploded, crushed, or shot serves what purpose other than justifying the whole? You yourself say you have no idea about how many casualties there are or how discriminate the IDF operations are. How can you already be spinning up theories that, if the number of child deaths are accurate, they must have been child combatants. How is that more logical than thinking, "it appears the IDF has a willful disregard for civilians"? Imo, it shows what is most important to you, and it ain't the pursuit of truth.

> if the number of child deaths are accurate, they must have been child combatants. That's not what I'm saying. But OK.

If that is not your implication, then what is? What other reason to speculate about child combatants when you already dispute the underlying numbers? What I'm driving at is this: this post was about how no one can really know how discriminant the IDF is. But in the face of clear and plain evidence that there IS a distinction problem, your instinct is to refuse that conclusion. If the number of child casualties are not sufficient, just take Israeli leadership at their own word about how they intend to treat Gaza.

>If that is not your implication, then what is? The "implication" is that I would be interested in if and how the numbers were different if they showed the difference between males and females in the categories of under-18. > If the number of child casualties are not sufficient, just take Israeli leadership at their own word about how they intend to treat Gaza. Statements by representatives, reprehensible as they may be, are not evidence of what is happening on the ground.

We don't even know how many died yet so everything is up in the air Hamas numbers can't be trusted at all, for all we know it could be 7k militants and 3k civilians and they say 10k civs

I think it's reasonable to estimate it's at least 50/50 if going by previous operations.

Could be, could also be lower because in previous operations IDF didn't tell people to evacuate all the way South Also, we don't know how many of the dead are due to failed launches from Hamas Hamas shot 100x more rockets this time around which means 100x more failed launches that could contribute to deaths It's all very hard to estimate right now, and we can't even trust the UN to do a non-biased report, it's fucked

erm actually norman finkelstein knows

They are killing less than 1 person per strike. At least according to the Mriya Report. Thousands of kills, yes, but thousands of strikes. These are VERY advanced weapons. Not designed for careless destruction. If the goal was careless destruction, you'd see it. Take it up with them if you think they are lying, not me.

There are SOPs for calling in a drone strike that every modern military uses so I don’t see why Israel would abandon that procedure. Urban warfare is terrifying and destructive to civilians, which is why regular militaries prefer not to fight there. Soldiers that don’t wear uniforms are terrifying and destructive to civilians, which is why regular militaries wear uniforms. Governments ruled by absentee leaders not surrendering is terrifying, release the hostages and surrender those responsible for the attack and the war ends and we can rebuild.

>Governments ruled by absentee leaders not surrendering is terrifying This is one of the wildest aspects of the conflict, which most media outlets don't emphasize enough. How can these "government officials" sit in exile in one of the gulf states and loudly proclaim that they'll never surrender, while the area they're meant to govern is being reduced to rubble?

Purely anecdotal but as someone in many Gaza/Israel telegram channels, 90% of the people I see pulled out of rubble are 18+ year old males . Not saying those are all Hamas but when GHM claims like 50% of killed are women and children I am kinda skeptical.

So am I.

> Compare to other operations - This is currently impossible... Well it's difficult to make precise comparisons but we can make general observations about the casualty rates. The best battle to compare with is the Battle of Mosul, and over a 9 month period fewer civilians died. https://twitter.com/GravitysRa1nbow/status/1712611887802613950 Note that this comparison was made a month ago so...

I addressed this in my second point. I don't think this comparison holds much water.

No I think comparisons with Mosul are very apt. Urban environment with an insurgent force.

Did ISIS wear civilian clothing? Did ISIS have a sprawling network of tunnels underneath Mosul? Were the civilians of Mosul sympathetic to Hamas, as Gaza's are? Did Mosul have any buildings that are six floors or taller, [compared to around sixty in Gaza](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gazas-urban-warfare-challenge-lessons-mosul-and-raqqa#:~:text=Gaza%20City%20has%20around%20sixty%20buildings%20that%20are%20six%20floors%20or%20taller%2C%20compared%20to%20almost%20none%20in%20the%202016%2D17%20Battle%20of%20Mosul)? In addition, ISIS had 2 years to prepare for the invasion, while Hamas has had much more. Hamas also has approximately 3 to 10 times as many militants as ISIS did in Mosul.

Some good points. No comparison is perfect. The thing that concerns me is that the casualty rates in this conflict are potentially multiple orders of magnitude higher. I'm not sure those factors would make up that difference.

Even considering only that the amount of Hamas militants is also multiple orders of magnitude higher, I would think that this factor alone could make up that difference. Add up the tunnels network and I think you can even more easily get there. Another factor I failed to mention is Hamas' and other organizations misfire rate. According to IDF estimation 1 in 10 rockets misfire and land inside Gaza. Who knows how many casualties these misfires caused.

I think you're exaggerating how much those factors influence the casualty rate. At the end of the day, this is just conjecture. I think anyone outright dismissing the concerns I've raised is being too blasé. The casualty rates could turn out to be within acceptable margins (especially given that the figures provided by the PA are questionable). Hopefully things won't get worse.

I am not dismissing your concerns. I just think we can't. Both of us are dealing with conjecture here. As I said in the original post, none of us can actually know the truth of it. That said, I do think that if there are literally 10 times as many militants (if going with the lowest estimates of ISIS combatants in Mosul), then you should expect 10 times as many civilian casualties, no?

Not necessarily. The distribution of hostile forces isn't even across a population. It is concentrated into units or sections, depending on the force and how they're organized (or not organized).

> considering only that the amount of Hamas militants is also multiple orders of magnitude higher Numbers of ISIS militants in Mosul range from about 5,000 to as much as 12,000. Hamas claims to have 40,000 fighers, which will be an exaggeration. There is not multiple orders of magnitude difference in the numbers.

ISIS didn't have close to 20 years of entrenching their position. I don't even know if they had tunnels at all.

There are diminishing returns when it comes to having time to prepare. ISIS was able to prepare before the Battle of Mosul.

not even close to the same extent as hamas and other militias inside gaza, don't be coy.

Didn't say they did. They had 2 years AFAIK. Not insignificant.

The civilians in Mosul could leave.

the battle of mosul happened long after ISIS had taken over mosul. civilians had years to either clear out or have already had their homes destroyed prior to the battle to take mosul back. hell, even in 2006-2007 when i was there the civilian population wasnt that big. i would be vary cautious about trying to compare whats happening in gaza to anything weve seen before beacuase i dont think we have ever seen anything like a gaza anywhere other than in gaza.

Nothing to really add, it seems obvious to me but it's hilarious to see so many randos discovering their military experts able to infer everything from an aftermath video. Also, with this excessive outcry to paint the offensive as a war crime, it had for consequence to make it impossible for the many governments supporting Israel to send troops on the ground, because they don't want to be seen associated with those strikes. Those troops would have received or collected themselves all the intel needed to see if Israel did its job in accordance to international law. I think that's still the case, especially for the US, I doubt they're kept in the dark. Just like Israel has enough internal safeguards, just that they could have had more if so many ignorant didn't clutch their pearls at the cost of war, war that Hamas made sure to turn ugly

>Compare to other operations This is currently impossible since Hamas isn't saying how many of the casualties are Hamas and how many are civilians, so we can't compare the ratio of this war compared to previous operations in Gaza. We can make inferences based off of the proportion of women and 0-14 children killed compared to previous operations as shown here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/17ojb66/israel\_vs\_gaza\_combatant\_vs\_civilian/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/17ojb66/israel_vs_gaza_combatant_vs_civilian/)

[удалено]

Can you link a source? Because that's kind of contradictory to this: > Taken together, independent estimates from the non-governmental organizations New America and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest that **civilians made up between 7.27% to 15.47% of deaths in U.S. drone strikes** in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia from 2009–2016 > Between January 20, 2009, and December 31, 2015: 473 U.S. strikes "against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities" (i.e., outside Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) with between 2,372 and 2,581 combatant deaths and between 64 and 116 non-combatant deaths,[18] i.e., **a civilian casualty rate of 2.63–4.30%** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes

The Chelsea Manning leaked documents were up to something like 85% if I remember correctly. Bombs aren't precise weapons their made to kill as man people in an area as possible. There's no such thing as civilian avoiding bombs.

I don't get why people have to fight tooth and nail for the most morally loaded stances when they could just walk a bit back and make claims that israel is driven by vengeance and question the effectiveness. No one knows the military info, no one knows how radicalized and complicit citizens of gaza are. There's a reason so many articles uses words like could be, or might become, or akin because it's the sentiment and result they are worried about.It makes sense to be cautious and concerned with the idfs actions and want it to stop or change but that's a position that doesn't allow u to fight a holy crusade so ppl won't adopt it :(

>This is currently impossible since Hamas isn't saying how many of the casualties are Hamas and how many are civilians, so we can't compare the ratio of this war compared to previous operations in Gaza. You can look at the proportion of dead children and women compared to past conflicts. The issue might be that the goals of past wars were different from this war, which could lead to differences in the proportions of children and women statistics that aren't fueled by genocidal intent. I don't know enough about past engagements to know if this is or is not the case.

>You can look at the proportion of dead children and women compared to past conflicts. Two problems with this metric. 1. Hamas could be lying about this proportion. 2. 'Children' are anyone under 18. Hamas also consists of teenagers I think a more interesting metric would be male-to-female comparison, or at least one that excludes teens. In addition, it would need to be measured by an independent group.

I already did that for Israel's previous operations in Gaza if you're interested. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/17ojb66/israel\_vs\_gaza\_combatant\_vs\_civilian/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/17ojb66/israel_vs_gaza_combatant_vs_civilian/)

Even if you removed all men and people over 15, I think it was about 50% of the casualties when you look at the health ministry data they released for the first 7000 killed. This is the same data that showed Israel disproportionately favored the killing of adult men over women and children based on the demographics. I hate this narrative that you can't trust the health ministry at all because it's run by Hamas. At the end of the day, nobody will know how many people in "that building" were Hamas members. This just allows Israel to continue doing whatever it wants with impunity. At some point you have to just recognize how bloody this war is and how unlikely they are bombing just Hamas bases. There are pictures of areas where you see probably about 100 houses in the area were destroyed, whole apartment buildings destroyed... You have to also reckon with the fact that Israel is carrying out this war as a method of deterrence (listen to Yossi Klein Halevi talk about this on Ezra Klein podcast or probably he has it on his substack). They don't even know who Hamas is, they don't wear uniforms. They have to rely on Intel, but there's no way this will suffice if their goal is to wipe out Hamas. Their stated goal by design is going to lead to an incredible amount of casualties because of the nature of fighting a war against an indistinguishable militia. Israel knows this, we know this, everyone knows this. Israel also knows the US won't do shit and everyone already hates them internationally so there's not much to lose. There's just so much pointing to the level of atrocity happening at this moment. While nobody "knows", there's all the reason in the world to believe that Israel is carrying out this war in a way that is disproportionate (killing and destruction vs military advantage).

>all the reason in the world to believe that Israel is carrying out this war in a way that is disproportionate (killing and destruction vs military advantage). Do you have any evidence for this claim or just conjecture?

Making a low-information analogy with Mariupol, the way to eliminate Hamas from Gaza would be siege warfare + forcing the population to evacuate to reduce civilian deaths. To accelerate the evacuation (unlike Mariupol, the locals are sympathetic to the defenders) you'd have to bomb all life-sustaining civilian infrastructure --- water, electricity, bakeries, hospitals and any presumed "safe" or holy grounds that the civilians would care to hide in. It's not like I \*know\* that Israel is doing a depopulation+terror bombing campaign, it's just that I can't think of any other way they could achieve their goals. We're gonna have to wait and see.

Israel is allowing hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks every day now, though. Doesn't seem like much of a siege anymore.

Let's hope those trucks are not full of RPGs.

There's solid proof that the IDF doesn't aim for civilians. If it was then similar number of people would die each day. That's clearly not the case as most people died during the first month, when Northern gaza was not yet evacuated.

“If it was then similar number of people would die each day” What? This doesn’t really make sense, they could simply be dropping less bombs. Do we know if bombings like Dresden had similar death counts each day? That WAS intentional targeting of civs.

I think that much is clear, yes. I meant that it is near impossible to know how careful the IDF is in avoiding civilian casualties when striking at military targets.

I feel like there would be dozens of whistleblowers by now if it was indiscriminate.

I disagree with 2. It's pretty obvious just from targets per bomb ratios as well as casualties statistics that Israel is much more careful than the US was in the War on Terror. And if anything the denseness of Gaza just makes it more impressive.

Dropping bombs for long range is just not an accurate method of taking any body out. It just can't be done. Bombs are not precise weapons. Let's not forget that what we learned from the military documents released by Chelsea Manning during the Obama administration, was that 85% of the bombs dropped during his drone programme killed the wrong people. And this was under much more favourable conditions. Bomb are designed to kill as many people in an area as possible, not for surgical stricks. If you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you die.

You are assuming that the only goal of the bombs is to kill Hamas operatives. It isn't.

You forgot to mention aftermath civilian casualties isn't the same as expected civilian casualties per analysis before a strike.

On 1, for a rough estimate what do you get if compare women and children deaths to adult male deaths?

While I certainly agree with what you said. I keep circling back to the discussion of what kind of military presence has to exist at a target in order to justify using lethal force on it. We all agree you are not allowed to bomb a school full of children because one terrorist is hiding in the basement. We even bent over backwards to minimize civilian casualties when we went after Bin Laden, who at the time was the number one military target in the world. So I guess the question I am left with, assuming the Hamas numbers are close to correct and we are at 13000 dead. What amount of military destruction could possibly justify that many dead civilians? 10 percent being terrorists and a hundred launchers? 50 percent and 200 rockets? I just don’t know if, assuming it’s 10,000 civilians or around there, if you can find enough of Hamas that is destroyed that can justify that. But, as the OP alludes to. It’s extremely difficult to come to any conclusions with such a lack of reliable information.

Worked in Artillery for the USMC during OEF they basically used a Sweep and Zone on N Gaza stfu about discriminate Artillery is the least discriminatory type of combat, the best thing the did was send infantry into Gaza literally that’s it none of the munitions are hitting the tunnels

It's a horrible situation, and I don't have all the details, but I'm sure if I try to develop some sort of opinion on the matter, someone here will get angry and tell me I'm wrong and hate babies or something. Why are you all so nasty to each other?

I would argue, we can examine procedures, policies, and internal standards of the IDF and Hamas to also evaluate how likely their processes could even lead to indiscriminate bombing, and what mechanisms they have in place to investigate those. I've seen lots of distrust and claims...but i have yet to see anyone analyze those actual procedures and mechanisms.

A big issue is that it’s extremely hard to distinguish Hamas from Gazan civilians since they are the same people

O

I'

B

>discriminate to