To wonder how anyone thought what was happening in Gaza was ok?

The population is 50/50 male to female

I see your point,and it is an interesting question, but it is difficult to know more without knowing how many Hamas combatants have been killed as opposed to men in general among whom not all are Hamas combatants ( leaving many more live Hamas combatants safely underground).

Also, 50/50 is not how the population breaks down really, as there are a lot of children to every family. (4.5 children to every woman who has children.)
So because there are more children they are more likely to be killed if their place of shelter is bombed, say.

Would the population break down into 1/6 men 1/6 women and 4/6 children perhaps?

Of those some of the men would be old, but in reality fewer in number than the number of old women.

70% of deaths are said to be of women and children. If there are 32500 deaths then that would mean 22,400 deaths of women and children.
(Say of that 22,400, if 1/5 are women, and 4/5 are children then there would be 4,500 deaths of women and 18000 deaths of children)

that leaves 10,000 who could be men, old and young, some combatants, others not.

IDF say they have killed 13000 Hamas fighters. If correct that is more than 10,000 meaning a discrepancy of 3000 in what I have hypothesised. But also the IDF may have miscalculated the number of terrorist deaths and some of those Hamas terrorists in their figures must be non-combatant men.

What if there were as many non-combatant dead men as there possibly are dead women, 4500 non combatant men, 4500 women?

That would mean the IDF has over estimated the number of actual terrorists they have killed (8500 not 13000),
and or/ the Hamas authority may have slightly overestimated the number of killed children meaning more of the number of dead are male combatants - this would only account for a discrepancy of 5000 out of 32500 and (76000 wounded)

This needs to be looked into by statisticians using population figures too.

This is a BBC Verify report regarding the question of verifying the breakdown of the dead in Gaza. It shows how problematic it is.

Excerpt:
“The Gaza authorities' last demographic breakdown from 29 February indicated more than 70% of those killed had been women and children.

So, with the figures suggesting less than 30% of those killed were men - some of whom are likely to be over fighting age - experts have raised questions about how Israel arrived at its claim of killing 10,000 fighters.

BBC Verify has repeatedly asked the IDF for the detail of its methodology for counting Hamas fighter deaths but they have not responded.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68387864

Well, @CaterhamReconstituted , at 23:28 you made the claim that "Israel do not deliberately kill health workers".

When I pointed out that two of my friends and colleagues had just recently been executed at Al-Shifa, you responded at 00:10 with: "The same Al-Shifa where Hamas and Islamic Jihad are based?"

Putting aside the fact that multiple reports have been made of healthcare workers being deliberately killed by the IDF, I am interested to know what you intended by that response.

@statsfun thank you. I'm interested in what @CaterhamReconstituted meant by their post, so hopefully they can clarify.

I know what Hamas are. I have seen what they do. Like many others, I will shed no tears for them.

In relation to Al-Shifa, I have not seen evidence of it being used as a pre-conflict hub or base, nor have others such as Nick Maynard. Some of the 'evidence' from the previous raid was clearly not actually evidence, which means a loss of credibility for future claims. Edited footage, weapons being added, what multiple people recognised as a ventilation shaft being labelled as a tunnel for terrorists, curtains being used as evidence of videos being filmed in particular places, etc.

I don't know the full details of what happened in Al-Shifa. I do know that the bodies of brave people, healthcare professionals who went to Gaza to try to save lives, who never expressed any pro-terrorist views in all the time I knew them, were tied up and executed with gunshots. That is not a stray bullet in a fast-moving firefight. That's a fairly considered execution.

When we go to conflict and disaster zones, as healthcare workers, we know that there are risks. We know we might die. But we go to try to save lives. We rely on certain things happening to manage those risks. One is that forces don't use hospitals as places from which to launch attacks - there are, I think, grounds to ask if Hamas have been doing that, but the evidence provided has not been conclusive. Another is that forces don't tie us up and shoot us in the head. Sometimes there are valid reasons to stop and search, even question. But there is no justification for the considered killing of obvious non-combatants who pose no imminent threat. There are, I think, grave concerns that healthcare workers in Gaza are being targeted - multiple accounts from multiple sources of detentions in which people experienced inhumane treatment, multiple executions, etc.

There were and are ways in which a removal of Hamas could have been achieved, which did not need this level of death and destruction.

Sorry, been off MN for a bit and there’s been lots of posts. Can’t remember what it was in relation to. I wouldn’t “imply” anything that I wouldn’t straightforwardly say though. But happy to consider the question.

Whilst I can't speak for anyone else, I certainly don't think the medical staff were Hamas, which I think is what you're asking.

The article does raise the same thing I have wondered about though. There were 2 weeks of intense fighting there. No one side - however evil you think they are - can have intense firefights for 2 weeks against only unarmed civilians. Large numbers of armed Hamas fighters must have also been there, engaging in these intense fire fights.

Israel's stated aim is to remove Hamas and their infrastructure. If Hamas weren't based in the hospital, then why did Hamas even go there and make that the site of the fighting? Why didn't they just let the IDF go through the hospital and leave?

Don't you blame Hamas for this at all?

They either
a) did have significant weapons and infrastructure hidden in the hospital to take advantage of it's protected status. Despicable.

b) were hiding there themselves, using medical teams and patients as a human shield. Despicable.

or c) didn't have any reason to fight at the hospital but chose to make a stand there anyway. Why? My suspicion - and Hamas have implied it in TV addresses- is that it's because the more suffering they cause to Palestinians, the more they drive a wedge between Israel and its supporters. And that's their only possible strategy to achieve any of their aims, since they can't possibly win a military victory. So they actually try to increase civilian suffering: their own people who they pretend to protect. Utterly despicable.

You don't have to answer @Scirocco - I just don't understand the thinking. I'm very sorry for the loss of your friends.

OK

So many years of persecution of the Palestinians?

No. I do not see it that way at all. Two parties had reasonable rights to self determination on this land. Pretty much the whole world agreed with that. One side would not accept it, and has spent 76 years trying to murder the others so they could have it all.

They have started wars with the express intent of genocide and then cried when they didn't achieve that goal. They have committed deliberate and repeated acts of terror against innocent civilians, including children, thousands of times and gloated over the joy of it. They have fired missiles tens of thousands of times indiscriminately at their neighbouring state. They have been openly clear their intent and desire is genocide of Jewish people and they are proud of it. they make no bones about it - this is about killing Jews. And now they started a war yet again, by committing one of the worst acts I have ever seen happen by human beings and they have celebrated it, relished in the murders they committed and have told the world they want to do it again and again and again.

The Palestinians are persecuted by Hamas.

Hamas take their aid money and use it to build terror tunnels or live as billionaires in Qatar. Hamas murder anyone who seeks to stand up to their violent dictatorship. Hamas deprives them of pretty much the entire universal bill of human rights. Hamas denies them even the freedom to vote in elections when they don't like it. Hamas hijacks their aid workers, social workers and schools to fill their minds with racist violence. Hamas allows their members and killers to live in fancy houses with swimming pools and freedom to travel while everyone else lives locked up and poor. Hamas starts wars on their behalf and then runs off to hide somewhere unknown while civilians bear the brunt. Hamas goes on TV and encourages them to die and requests their martyrdom. Hamas have chosen violence and war every single time, and have taken away the futures of hundreds of thousands of children for whom they were elected to care.

I shall be very glad to see the back of them, and I feel very, very sad for anyone who claims to care about Palestinian people who provides cover for these absolute monsters who are responsible for the whole sorry mess. They knew exactly what they were doing when they planned and executed 7/10 and they absolutely did not care about who died or suffered as a result.

By the way, @CaterhamReconstituted were you trying to imply something the other day?

A poorly written right-libertarian (having initially arisen from the ashes of a rather far to the left publication) online 'magazine' with a history of publishing articles by non-existent journalists, misrepresenting photos with false and inflammatory claims, and of promoting vile conspiracy theories... Yeah, that's almost certainly a 'good story' about 'moral confusion'.

Or a one sided picture.
It won’t be all over until all the Palestinians are dead.

Let's agree to disagree.

When it's all over there will be a full picture.

What a shame after so many many years and years of persecution of the Palestinians you don’t see it for what it is.
Propaganda is still thriving I see for so many to support the Israeli campaign of hate and destruction

Luckily more and more people around the world and indeed
in Israel
as well are actually seeing through the hate, the lies and the propaganda and standing in support of the Palestinians.

Some of us can even rise above the demeaning ‘do me a favour’ type comments as well!!

Moving over to reality and truth here.

The IDF say themselves that they believed a Hamas fighter was in one of the vehicles, this, for them, justifies killing other innocent people including foreign nationals, who they would have known were in the vehicles, they also killed 4 hostages trying to surrender, whether official policy or not, it appears that sections of the IDF operate a shoot to kill policy.

No offence of any kind intended, but I have not heard this because I was busy on Mumsnet all day yesterday. If that is the actual case, I hope whoever is responsible is tried for murder to the fullest extent of the law. However, I heard them state a full investigation was being carried out, and I will await to hear complete clarity before judging my opinion fully because I have never in my lifetime comes across a situation more mired with disinformation and distorted truth than this one.

No Hamas terrorist was in any vehicle.
Whether there was or was not, I do not believe you can or should ever fire on an aid vehicle. Whilst I am aware Hamas use such moral absolutes to their advantage and manipulate things, I believe nevertheless that you simply cannot shoot at an aid vehicle in a combat zone.

Well, the history and reality of the area is that violence begets violence, that cannot be ignored, countries like Iran/Syria are not going away.
We ve seen this in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq plus of course in Israel itself.
I don't think this is accurate because this area was dominated for millennia in a way where people were persecuted to the extreme and did not become violent as a result. I think this area has a specific problem with violence and terrorism because of an uptake in political nationalism mixing with religious nationalism which created resulting violent jihadi ideology. Governments of countries like the UAE or Saudi agree with this assessment and as such operate a complete zero tolerance policy on this sort of religious nationalism.

So all Israel is doing is baking in terrorism for many more years
This infantilises terrorists. It's their choice to become terrorists. No one bakes them aside from those organisations who indoctrinate them to terrorism and violence. Blame shifting this onto their victims is appalling. Israel is a victim over 2306 Palestinian terrorism attacks. They are not required to just endure that indefinitely for the rest of time. They are not required to just capitulate to the terrorists and hand over their country. They are not required to open up their borders and welcome their murderers in for coffee. They are entitled to defend their country, and if people choose to keep trying to kill them then that is entirely their choice.

We could well be looking at 100,000 direct civilian deaths and many more via disease and subsequent injury.
Or, they could give back the hostages and surrender and it would be over tomorrow. Which is what the world should be calling for every single day. Sadly not though!

I can understand why it's hard. Part of me wouldn't want to believe it either.

Generalised rather than precise attacks are, however, entirely consistent with what has been reported as IDF tactics in the past, though. Snipers being instructed to target children is not new, either. Many of the reported actions of the IDF (reported from multiple sources) are entirely consistent with an approach which does not precisely target identified confirmed combatants.

Sadly, the Israeli government's claims in relation to casualties and strategic approaches have lost and are continuing to lose a lot of legitimacy due to the repeated inconsistencies in those claims, as well as reports of acts which are so seriously outside the bounds of standard conduct that there are investigations into war crimes and genocide.

Why did you then? 🤔

Just came across a good piece that explains the moral confusion about Al-Shifa hospital, for anyone who is interested
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/03/al-shifa-hospital-and-the-crisis-of-the-west/

The targeting of the 3 aid vehicles was clearly deliberate, multiple drone strikes, carefully done to ensure no one survived, they even waited for the following (and clearly marked vehicles) vehicles to come in close before striking again and again

I have not seen the results of the investigation, but it seems obvious to me this cannot have been an accident and something must have gone very wrong. I will, however, wait to find out what that is before I leap to any conclusions

The IDF say themselves that they believed a Hamas fighter was in one of the vehicles, this, for them, justifies killing other innocent people including foreign nationals, who they would have known were in the vehicles, they also killed 4 hostages trying to surrender, whether official policy or not, it appears that sections of the IDF operate a shoot to kill policy.

No Hamas terrorist was in any vehicle.

Israel is creating terrorist organisations for decades to come

Wars happen, hardships happen, and terrorist organisations do not spring up in the vast majority of cases. Israel does not cause this. The cause is people being conditioned to believe violent "resistance" is the correct way forward for their life. Martyr's are glorified, and even paid a large wage if they kill Jews, Children are indoctrinated from a very young age, violence is normalised, antisemitism is normalised. The area is corrupt and people are deprived of the aid and support designed for their wellbeing. Aid agencies are infiltrated so they become part of the terror network. Dissenters are arrested or killed. This is what must be dismantled. My own family went through similar experiences and we were not raised, schooled or led to believe violence was the answer. We were taught to move forwards and live lives of peace

Well, the history and reality of the area is that violence begets violence, that cannot be ignored, countries like Iran/Syria are not going away.
We ve seen this in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq plus of course in Israel itself.

So all Israel is doing is baking in terrorism for many more years, regardless of the numbers they kill & if your figures on the numbers of Hamas fighters and the number killed is correct, they have a very long way to go, so we could well be looking at 100,000 direct civilian deaths and many more via disease and subsequent injury.

@Minymile Do me a favour. Yes, I believe the Israeli (and any democratic nation's) government over a gang of terrorists. What a wild ride it must be to watch with your own eyes as a group of people ride into a music festival and murder, burn alive, rape, kidnap, torture and mutilate hundreds of innocent civilians and live stream themselves gleefully laughing and celebrating it and spitting in the corpses of innocent young people and to say "yes, these dudes seem trustworthy". Man alive.

However, if that is the case, then I think the responsibility for those deaths is on the terrorist who is using his wives and kids as human shields. Which is tragic. I assure you, were there an army hunting me for my actions, I would go out and fight and ensure my family and children was as far out of harms way as possible.

This beyond daft and not worth the time and effort of responding

As I've said before: if people say things which are blatantly, factually incorrect like @Kindatired saying "The scale of Israel’s terrorist problem is similar to the troubles in Northern Ireland" then I will correct it with facts.

If you don't want something to be brought into the discussion then don't make up emotionally-manipulative lies about it.

Sorry @Scirocco , I struggle with this.

I simply don't believe that the IDF have been fighting a war for 6 months and have been mostly killing children, women and Hamas' street cleaners.

I believe they have been using sophisticated intelligence and technology to hunt out Hamas and their operatives and that the figure of 6,000 is massively under-estimated.

Time will reveal the truth.

If that indeed turns out to be the cause: ie: Hamas fighters are being killed with their women and children in the house and they happen to have a lot of wives and children , then that would possibly make sense. Thank you for providing the first plausible reason for this data.

However, if that is the case, then I think the responsibility for those deaths is on the terrorist who is using his wives and kids as human shields. Which is tragic. I assure you, were there an army hunting me for my actions, I would go out and fight and ensure my family and children was as far out of harms way as possible.

How is it even possible to stop Hamas?
Exactly what's being done. Their fighters, commanders, terror infrastructure and support network which enabled this entire thing to become a web of terrorist tunnels, exploitation , corruption and devoted an entire population to war is being dismantled. That is the only way to stop them.

Israel is creating terrorist organisations for decades to come.
Wars happen, hardships happen, and terrorist organisations do not spring up in the vast majority of cases. Israel does not cause this. The cause is people being conditioned to believe violent "resistance" is the correct way forward for their life. Martyr's are glorified, and even paid a large wage if they kill Jews, Children are indoctrinated from a very young age, violence is normalised, antisemitism is normalised. The area is corrupt and people are deprived of the aid and support designed for their wellbeing. Aid agencies are infiltrated so they become part of the terror network. Dissenters are arrested or killed. This is what must be dismantled. My own family went through similar experiences and we were not raised, schooled or led to believe violence was the answer. We were taught to move forwards and live lives of peace.

Also, why is there no rebuke from you for the civilian deaths of Palestinians? of foreign aid workers?
I strongly rebuke all deaths, which is why I support the cause of it (Hamas) being dismantled. Had they been long ago, no one would be dead.

The targeting of the 3 aid vehicles was clearly deliberate, multiple drone strikes, carefully done to ensure no one survived, they even waited for the following (and clearly marked vehicles) vehicles to come in close before striking again and again.
I have not seen the results of the investigation, but it seems obvious to me this cannot have been an accident and something must have gone very wrong. I will, however, wait to find out what that is before I leap to any conclusions.

The IDF have a shot to kill policy in Gaza & aid organisations are seen as legitimate targets as they are "helping" the enemy.
I don't think any legitimate aid workers should be targets, obviously. However, I temper this with certain logical information. Firstly that many aid workers are killed in conflict every year in other conflicts. For example, 46 were killed last year in Sudan alone -and that is not a conflict with such complex parameters such as combatants disguising themselves or using aid vehicles and so on. So it does happen sadly. Secondly, I am aware that many "aid workers" are indeed linked to the terrorists or working with them - this is just a fact, I have seen the evidence. And thirdly, I believe Hamas deliberately exploit certain "untouchable" persons such as press, children, aid workers to put them in harms way and or even to disguise their operatives as being these things. They have no qualms about killing the innocent, they have no honour in warfare. So I do not see it as black and white and await the full information in due course.

This AI targeting also has the added advantage of killing the 'children of Hamas' who now won't be around to found Hamas 2.0 or seek to avenge their father's deaths. Plus maybe less sympathy for 'children of Hamas' vs innocent children

Obviously some of the children survive and other family members are available tho' sometimes whole families/clans have been wiped out

With an example of this given in @Efacsen 's post above.