For total count maybe, but they have never made a distinction between their own soldiers and civilians. They want the 25k number misinterpreted as a civilian death count, and have largely succeeded.
Most of the death toll is women and children (7k and 10k, respectively). Even if you assume all men killed are Hamas fighters, which is not true, that is very high when compared to the attack which triggered the war.
I agree the civilian death toll is outsized, but just to play Devil’s advocate here: Hamas is the group putting out the women and children numbers, and given they don’t make a civilian/soldier distinction they almost certainly are including all soldiers under 18 in the “children” numbers. They want you to picture 10k murdered 6-year-olds, but we don’t actually have a break down by age or child-soldier status. Hopefully we can get some visibility there soon.
They’re not just putting out numbers, they’re putting out identifications too. Unless they’re falsely claiming identified women and children are dead, they can’t really manipulate the numbers.
Also, as another counter point, the numbers are just the people they’ve identified. Thousands more are missing and presumed buried under the rubble, likely dead or dying. The death toll is necessarily an under-count, and might be closer to 30,000 rather than 25,000. Also? There’s around 10 children getting limbs amputated every day, as well as dozens more being severely lacerated and burned. Daily. The death toll isn’t the whole story, but there’s absolutely no way that you can spin this as Hamas just using the fog of war to create confusion.
Not disputing any of that except for your conclusion. Hamas lumping their military losses in with civilians is literally using the fog of war to create confusion.
The UN has been very clear about the rights of the child, and child soldiers are universally classified as victims regardless of whether they are armed or affiliated with a militant group. Israel isn’t actually allowed to carpet bomb child soldiers under international law.
Stop trying to frame this as the health administration trying to create confusion. Children are classified as civilians, period.
Also, wanna know something extremely fucked up? Half of Gaza’s population is under 18 and 70% of the population are under 30. The fact that Hamas uses child soldiers is shaped by the fact that Israel created conditions where boys can’t expect to live long enough to even become men.
Israel created conditions where boys can’t expect to live long enough?
That’s an insane take on Hamas preventing women from gainful employment or education and turning them into baby factories. The reason there’s so many children is because the population literally doubled in 24 years, and you only get population growth stats like those when you have uneducated women who can only have children and do no other function in society.
I mean pretty much everyone in Gaza is without employment. Wasn’t the unemployment rate around 75% before October 7th? That’s just what happens if you block pretty much any trade and force a region to depend on outside humanitarian aid
You do see how Hamas employing child soldiers and then lumping them in with dead civilian numbers to generate outrage is deceptive though, right? Because that was my point.
There is no need to “play devil’s advocate” - if you believe something, argue for it. If you don’t believe something but think I’m missing something, you can point it out and make a case for why it’s important without being confusing about what you actually believe.
All evidence I have seen is that Hamas does not systematically use child soldiers. We can see the indiscriminate tactics of the IDF; we can put that together with the high death toll to make a reasonable conclusion that vast numbers of civilians have been killed. You’re trying to cast doubt on this idea but the amount of doubt is akin to flicking water from your fingers onto a housefire.
The average age in Gaza is like 17. Do you truly believe Hamas is out checking birth certificates? Statistically, half their forces are minors. Combined with estimates of Hamas military losses, that might make fully half of the 10k dead children Hamas child soldiers. While still horrifying, that meaningfully changes how the reported casualty counts should be interpreted. My point is, and has always been, that interpreting casualty numbers that a militant group releases with clear propaganda intent in a light most favorable to them is at best stupid and at worst willfully ignorant.
interpreting casualty numbers that a militant group releases with clear propaganda intent in a light most favorable to them…
but just said this:
Statistically, half their forces are minors.
Pull the other one. If all you wanted was for people not to interpret casualty numbers “in a light most favourable to Hamas” you’d be acknowledging how high the death toll is while making your point instead of trying to distract from it.
they have never made a distinction between their own soldiers and civilians.
I don’t see why you think that’s a problem - Israel has certainly never made a distinction between Hamas soldiers and Palestinian civilians when they bomb them or slaughter them in the street or fire at them when aid is being given out.
Their numbers have usually aligned pretty well with NGOs estimations and are generally accepted as more or less trustworthy.
For total count maybe, but they have never made a distinction between their own soldiers and civilians. They want the 25k number misinterpreted as a civilian death count, and have largely succeeded.
Most of the death toll is women and children (7k and 10k, respectively). Even if you assume all men killed are Hamas fighters, which is not true, that is very high when compared to the attack which triggered the war.
I agree the civilian death toll is outsized, but just to play Devil’s advocate here: Hamas is the group putting out the women and children numbers, and given they don’t make a civilian/soldier distinction they almost certainly are including all soldiers under 18 in the “children” numbers. They want you to picture 10k murdered 6-year-olds, but we don’t actually have a break down by age or child-soldier status. Hopefully we can get some visibility there soon.
They’re not just putting out numbers, they’re putting out identifications too. Unless they’re falsely claiming identified women and children are dead, they can’t really manipulate the numbers.
Also, as another counter point, the numbers are just the people they’ve identified. Thousands more are missing and presumed buried under the rubble, likely dead or dying. The death toll is necessarily an under-count, and might be closer to 30,000 rather than 25,000. Also? There’s around 10 children getting limbs amputated every day, as well as dozens more being severely lacerated and burned. Daily. The death toll isn’t the whole story, but there’s absolutely no way that you can spin this as Hamas just using the fog of war to create confusion.
Not disputing any of that except for your conclusion. Hamas lumping their military losses in with civilians is literally using the fog of war to create confusion.
The UN has been very clear about the rights of the child, and child soldiers are universally classified as victims regardless of whether they are armed or affiliated with a militant group. Israel isn’t actually allowed to carpet bomb child soldiers under international law.
Stop trying to frame this as the health administration trying to create confusion. Children are classified as civilians, period.
Also, wanna know something extremely fucked up? Half of Gaza’s population is under 18 and 70% of the population are under 30. The fact that Hamas uses child soldiers is shaped by the fact that Israel created conditions where boys can’t expect to live long enough to even become men.
And now they’re just killing the boys.
That’s an insane take on Hamas preventing women from gainful employment or education and turning them into baby factories. The reason there’s so many children is because the population literally doubled in 24 years, and you only get population growth stats like those when you have uneducated women who can only have children and do no other function in society.
I mean pretty much everyone in Gaza is without employment. Wasn’t the unemployment rate around 75% before October 7th? That’s just what happens if you block pretty much any trade and force a region to depend on outside humanitarian aid
You do see how Hamas employing child soldiers and then lumping them in with dead civilian numbers to generate outrage is deceptive though, right? Because that was my point.
It’s literally not deceptive because child soldiers are civilians under international law. Extra clarification isn’t necessary.
Hamas is doing nothing wrong by not identifying dead children as legitimate military targets, because they never are.
There is no need to “play devil’s advocate” - if you believe something, argue for it. If you don’t believe something but think I’m missing something, you can point it out and make a case for why it’s important without being confusing about what you actually believe.
All evidence I have seen is that Hamas does not systematically use child soldiers. We can see the indiscriminate tactics of the IDF; we can put that together with the high death toll to make a reasonable conclusion that vast numbers of civilians have been killed. You’re trying to cast doubt on this idea but the amount of doubt is akin to flicking water from your fingers onto a housefire.
The average age in Gaza is like 17. Do you truly believe Hamas is out checking birth certificates? Statistically, half their forces are minors. Combined with estimates of Hamas military losses, that might make fully half of the 10k dead children Hamas child soldiers. While still horrifying, that meaningfully changes how the reported casualty counts should be interpreted. My point is, and has always been, that interpreting casualty numbers that a militant group releases with clear propaganda intent in a light most favorable to them is at best stupid and at worst willfully ignorant.
You say this:
but just said this:
Pull the other one. If all you wanted was for people not to interpret casualty numbers “in a light most favourable to Hamas” you’d be acknowledging how high the death toll is while making your point instead of trying to distract from it.
Israel certainly doesn’t make that distinction when they indiscriminately bomb them.
Whataboutism aside, Israel estimates 8k dead Hamas soldiers, so they literally do make a distinction.
I don’t see why you think that’s a problem - Israel has certainly never made a distinction between Hamas soldiers and Palestinian civilians when they bomb them or slaughter them in the street or fire at them when aid is being given out.
Oh is Israel reporting 25k dead Hamas soldiers then?