Andrew Fox deaths in Gaza report

[ChangeyerNameyer]

I haven't seen much discussion of the report (here: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/publications/questionable-counting/) on mn or in real life. It includes some serious criticism on both the way news sources are reporting the number of dead in Gaza and also on the way Hamas is calculating the number of dead. In 19% of news reports, the Hamas numbers were presented as undisputed and quoted without even citing a source. This is especially worry because it seems that there has been widespread miscounting to make it look like more people died (i.e. counting people who died before October 7th and people who died of natural causes as war dead) and misidentifying people to make it seem like more women and children died (i.e. more than one person with the first name Mohammed was recorded as a woman and adults have been recorded as children). 84% of publications also failed distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths. Whilst any death is obviously a tragedy, it seems like we should be relieved to hear things may not be nearly as bad as we have been lead to believe.

What they don't have to agree to is a terrorist state on their doorstep
Nope never said that they did. I'm talking about the Isreali governments recent tweets on the potential ceasefire deal highlighted on a separate thread:
"My position on Gaza is clear. After we defeat Hamas's military and governmental power in Gaza, Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action,".
I have a huge concern about what they mean by full freedom of action and security control. Security control should not be the IDF. How can you expect Palestinians to feel safe with the same soldiers who have murdered so many of them patrolling the streets?

Hamas's use of child soldiers is well documented so of course some of the children are combatants. Pretending we can't know that is pretty myopic.
We don't know how many of the 16,000 children (3100 under 5s) killed are child soldiers, personally I view that as child abuse (yes by Hamas). I just find it minimising once again by you when the number of children killed is quoted your only words on it are that some might be child combatants. But you do you.

So this editorial gives some background about the challenges of counting deaths.
The other article deals with excess deaths- yes, deaths from natural causes count if an occupying force deprives the population of necessary health care.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q509

I am not minimising. I said Hamas's abuse of children is evil beyond belief - is there a steonger word than evil? I have said numerous times that the war is catastrophic. You need to stop taking it upon yourself to decide that I think something different to what I say. I find it a bit creepy actually.

I'm sorry but I find your immediate suggestion that some of the 16,000 children killed could be a child combatant immediately links every single one of those children to that accusation and taints each one and it is pretty horrible. Maybe reflect on how things come across I don't think my reading of what you said is "creepy".

The only way we are going to know the true numbers of dead is when this ends and independent verifiers are allowed in Gaza.
The Israeli government has banned journalist (many have been killed) as well as independent observers in Gaza. Why?
Some would say it's because they have something to hide. I would agree with them.
Time will tell. The truth always comes out though.

@IWFH

By your logic is a murderer who kills 10 people 'worse' than one who kills 9?

Yes, all else equal.

Your intuition seems to be that there's a certain level of badness beyond which it all really makes no difference.

But it clearly matters, both for the people harmed and for simple truth and accuracy, without which we can't make sensible moral or practical judgments. We're just MN commentators, but people who have the responsibly to take decisions need to see things clearly. If it turned out that Israel had fabricated three-quarters of their civilian death toll that would massively matter (you said 10k vs 40k deaths makes no odds, which is why I'm using a fourfold example). When there were horrible stories about how Israelis had been killed, it mattered whether those stories were true or not. When there are allegations about IDF behaviour, it matters what is true, what is false, and at what scale. I don't see how we can make any sensible conclusions about anything if you just round it all up to 'horrible' and then conclude your preferred conclusion.

Your accounting system could equally be used to 'prove' that Gaza doesn't matter at all: after all, it's a rounding error in the history of the world. After the Yemen death toll, why would 40k (using your number) matter? Aren't they just the tenth murder victim, morally irrelevant?

I say clearly not, this stuff matters. Whatever way you think the evidence points, evidence and accuracy matters. And the horror of an innocent death is as great whether they are the first or tenth or hundredth. There's no point beyond which it just doesn't matter.

Its completely ludicrous to suggest that because some children (under 18s) are soldiers, which made sense in the thread of the conversation, that it 'taints' the others. Not in my eyes it doesn't. I think that is an unbelieveable suggestion, a strange guilt by association because they are all children? I don't really understand why you would think that but I certainly can't be held responsible for your interpretations.

If there are child abusers amongst the priests, this should be exposed and known.

If there aren't, and it's a slander, this should be exposed and known too.

The wrong answer here is to shut down any mention of the topic.

Humanity makes this mistake again and again, and we shouldn't.

Absolutely op. All evidence shows that Hamas have greatly exaggerated the number of casualties they claim in this conflict (and previous) and lied about who they are (as you might expect from a terrorist organization) For example they claim none of the casualties are combatants (Israel does keep good records of combatants killed and it's about 18,000) and they don't account for any natural deaths.

Of course every death is a tragedy and innocent civilians will have been killed as in every war.

Can we see this evidence please @user243245346

I'm not sure what your agenda is here, but there is no happy ending in Palestinine. It's very clear that the picture is most likely much worse than is being reported.

Great news? Like there's any chance of great news coming out of Palestine. Please... how stupid do you think anyone is?