The current death toll in Gaza is close to 42,000, but experts believe that figure is likely a gross undercount.
About half the inhabitants of Gaza are under 18 years old, so 1/3 of the dead being children corresponds to a ratio of two civilians killed for every combatant. This is not out of the ordinary for urban warfare conducted in a manner intended to reduce civilian casualties.
It is out of the ordinary. Either the Israeli military is extremely incompetent or they are deliberately targeting children and it is the second.
Many people seem to think so but the evidence doesn’t support their argument. A 2:1 ratio of civilians to combatants killed isn’t particularly low but it is far closer to the best that Western armies have been able to accomplish than it is to the ratio seen from armies that are not trying to reduce civilian casualties. For example, Russia’s ratio in Mariupol is approximately 8:1 and that was against Ukrainian soldiers in uniform who weren’t deliberately hiding among civilians. Urban warfare always involves heavy civilian casualties.
This is assuming that the 2:1 ratio has come from anywhere other than original commenter’s asshole
Like @filister@lemmy.world said above, it’s 2:1 adults to children, not combatants to non-combattants.
If we assume that (1) the civilian population is 50% children and (2) none of the combatants are children then:
(fraction of the dead that is children) = (fraction of the dead that is civilians) * (fraction of the civilians that is children)
(1/3) = (fraction of the dead that is civilians) * (1/2)
(fraction of the dead that is civilians) = (1/3) ÷ (1/2) = (2/3)
This is where my 2:1 civilians to combatants number comes from.
The fact that among the dead, the ratio of civilians to combatants equals the ratio of adults to children is a coincidence.
The amount “civilians” in your calculations is tricky. The first time it appears it refers to dead civilians, the second time it appears to the overall civilian population (hence the 1/2 using the rule of thumb that half of Gazans are under 18).
I.e you can’t say
#deadKids/#allDead = #deadCivilians/#allDead * #deadKids/#allCivilians
Because #deadCivilians << #allCivilians
That’s not what I’m saying - I don’t have a term that represents “#deadKids/#allCivilians”.
If I were to use your notation, I would write:
#deadKids/#allDead = #deadCivilians/#allDead * #allKids/#allCivilians
I recognize that it’s macabre to treat this as a word problem, but the math works out if you do. If out of 100 dead people, 33 are combatants and 67 are civilians (the 2:1 civilian to combatant ratio I have calculated) and half of the dead civilians are children, then there are 33 dead children, which is the “one third” in the headline.
I thought originally that you were suggesting a simple syntactic manipulation of the fraction but you’re not. I don’t understand why the equation you propose is reasonable.
Doing a bunch of math to justify thousands of dead kids is pretty fucked up.
Children are killed even in a just war, so morality on the scale of nations is necessarily different than morality on the scale of individuals.
And this is an immoral, unjust war. You’re so insanely disconnected from this that these kids just become numbers, pretty fucked up.
Your username is strangely apt.
Torture, rape and civilians kill was always part of war of aggresion, so i don’t care about those stats. Not to mention all the genocidal statement of people in power in israel
Sometimes I wonder if people are really so unable for any critical thinking?
We must face the hard truth in Gaza: Israel has lost its moral authority - The Hill - 07/18/24
I reviewed thousands of incident reports and tens of thousands of individual data points from several dozen credible organizations, as well as the Israeli military itself, as a part of a nonpartisan task force analyzing Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Our report, submitted to the Biden administration and briefed to Congress, establishes compelling and credible evidence of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and U.S. military best practices, utilizing U.S.-provided munitions. It shows how the Israeli military has demonstrated a “systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law, including recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians.”
Phew. So, like, this is OK, right? Nothing to to see here, move along? Nothing to worry about 15000 (fifteen fucking thousand, like fifteen times a thousand, something like a thousand times my kid’s classroom size) dead kids, because it’s not out of the ordinary for urban warfare conducted in a manner intended to reduce civilian casualties? Thanks man, that really will help me sleep at peace with my conscience tonight.
(If we were talking about 15000 dead Israeli kids, we’d be -rightfully- freaking the fuck out. But 15k of those other kids, that’s fair game. Super ethical too.)
Isn’t it kind of naïve to think that all non kids victims are even terrorists? Where is the proof for that. Because according to your logic even the hostages that Israel killed, and the WFK personnel should also be labelled terrorists, which apparently is wrong.
Something something they voted 20 years ago. /s
It’s actually genocidal language…
That’s not what I am assuming. My assumptions are only that none of the dead combatants are children and that the age distribution of dead civilians matches the age distribution of the civilian population.
TruthOut - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for TruthOut:
MBFC: Left - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
This is just outrageous and unacceptable. While I don’t think any reasonable person would deny that Israel has the right to defend itself, I find it next to impossible to see how “national defense” can be used to justify killing children. wtf?
Removed by mod
Look man, I get what you’re doing, but it’s just getting old at this point.
It’s the Zionists who are killing children, and what you say is totally antisemitic.
Don’t do this. Not only is your response actually antisemitic, but relating Israeli and Zionist policy to Judaism is exactly what Netanyahu is doing in order to be able to play the anti semitism card. If you are against Israel’s actions, fight to make it clear that it is not the same as Judaism and support the Jewish people that speak out against Zionism and the Israeli government.
