Hamas has released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages and claimed that they were killed by Israeli airstrikes.
The video showed a female hostage named in Israeli media as Noa Argamani, 26, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed in captivity. It was not clear when or where the video was filmed and there was no independent confirmation of Hamas’s claims.
The three hostages were shown in a 37-second Hamas video released on Sunday in which the group urged the Israeli government to halt its aerial and ground offensive and bring about their release. The undated clip ended with the caption: “Tomorrow [Monday] we will inform you of their fate.”
In a statement released with the new video, Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades, said the two men, believed to be Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itay Svirsky, 38, had been killed in “the Zionist army’s bombing”.
Amazed to see some people actually believe what Hamas says.
So far, on average, they have been closer to the truth than the IDF’s figures have been.
That’s how trust works, when it isn’t ideological.
Someone says something and later on when the truth is independently verified, or subsequent things prove the original claim to be true, you are more inclined to believe that person or group.
If someone says something, and later on it is proven untrue, you are less likely to believe that person or group.
When both sides of a conflict do both, you take the aggregate.
Israel has had a literal media policy of lying with exaggerated claims, with the view that people won’t view corrections, for decades.
Does Hamas lie? Yeah, but not as systematically.
And you’re surprised that people believe Hamas death toll numbers?
I’ve seen a lot of instances when the reverse is true. People take sides for whatever reasons, then refuse to even review the the side they oppose. They immediately call it propaganda or question source. They don’t apply logic because it doesn’t line up up with their internal narrative. The world is not black and white and denial of that fact gets you no closer to a conclusion.
Dudes over here trying to be like ‘there is no objective truth’ while totally ignoring the non-throwaway bit about lying being systemized by Israel.
It’s literal state media policy. They’ve been open about it.
When one side objectively, countably, lies more than the other, that side is believed less. It’s that simple.
Also, when a country restricts access to food, potable water, and medicine to a population they consider undesirable and than says it isn’t committing genocide, then you also don’t believe them. Those two things are mutually incompatible.
The point is the determination that only one side is at fault should not prevent you from listening to both sides. But, for some it does.
One side is a nuclear armed entity that had 2.2 million trapped in an open air prison and intentionally blockaded them and publicly boasted about only allowing in a starvation diet amount of calories.
The other side can dig tunnels.
So no to the listen part, I guess. And so it goes.
You’re trying to discredit the ungodly number of dead from a nuclear powered military that is intentionally targeting a population of mostly woman and children because they don’t want to engage in tunnel fighting.
You’re doing it by questioning the source of the number that has been shown to be accurate multiple times by multiple uninvolved unbiased groups.
The very question you started with ‘why do people believe Hamas’s numbers’ is obvious bad faith propaganda.
No, this response has to do with information denials. There is another response about numbers. Read that one.
I trust the released hostages that confirm the IDF cares not whom they kill.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-troops-killed-hostages-mistaking-their-cries-help-ambush-military-2023-12-28/
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hostages-gaza-hamas-war-52fa9628e6284cdad6d7f7db6cc30742
The Guardian - Can we trust casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry?
That’s interesting, as there is no way to verify that data. We know that Hamas adds its own losses to the numbers by their own admission. In addition, in that part of the world the dead are buried quickly so there is no way to verify. Still, the numbers are there and they should be taken with a grain of salt. But, it seems strange to swear by them.
It seems strange for someone who refuses to answer the question:
To people who aren’t trying to make a bad faith propaganda argument that unrestrained bombing in a area the size of Manhattan with a population of 2.2 million wouldn’t cause at a minimum 23,000 deaths it seems pretty obvious.
I would believe Hamas if they said the sky was blue on a sunny day, too.
Hamas is the government.
This whole ‘Hamas is evil incarnate’ thing is propaganda itself. Everyone hears Hamas and thinks militant.
Hamas is the government.
The pencil pusher ministry of health dude? Hamas.
The hospital administrator? Hamas
The non doctors without borders doctors? Hamas.
This is like calling every person that was a reservist in the IDF at the festival a combatant. It’s as much of a lie.
You forgot quite a few roles!
Those guys touting a dead body on a car? Hamas.
Those guys starting a war they’re too weak to finish? Hamas.
I think your point is well made, and I want to expand on it a bit, because it’s a tricky thing for people to make sense of.
Hamas’ militant arm is highly independent. Their civil administration answers to and collaborates with the same leadership, but the civilian leadership has very little control over the fighters, which operate along the lines of a militia, but in concert with a civil administration. So when we say “Hamas”, we could be talking about the administrative workers or the military, and they’re pretty different groups.
This makes describing them difficult. It’s somewhat inaccurate to characterize Hamas as merely a terrorist group, but also as a conventional government. They’re more of an unofficial ruling party that dominates a collapsed state, I think.
Just because they’re the government doesn’t mean everything they say is true. They’re going to lie and push propaganda just like any other government or organisation would.
And yet, multiple different unbiased organizations have found the Hamas Ministry of Health numbers to be accurate.
At this point, accusing them of being wrong ‘because Hamas’ is obviously bad faith propaganda.
It also goes with what our lying eyes see. Unrestrained bombing in a location the size of Manhattan with 2.2 million inhabitants is going to kill a lot of people.
Trying to argue otherwise is trying to argue against what is obviously true.
When was the last election?
Was less than half of the population alive than?
The population of Gaza has increased 100% in the last decade.
Also, just to go back to this point:
This is an argument that holocaust deniers use to try and deny the holocaust. It’s even stupider for them, because the numbers didn’t actually go up, but no one ever said that holocaust deniers were smart.
Do you want to be using the same argument holocaust deniers try and use?
You keep responding with sentences that are literally not related to the questions asked.
Almost like you don’t have answers that don’t sound horrifically racist.
You have yet to tell me when the last election was that made Hamas the government.
17 Years ago.
Do you believe a government starving an undesirable population is genocide?
Hey @Rapidcreek you are answering others.
Why are you ignoring this question so hard?
I don’t reflexively distrust things attributed to Hamas but if Israel says anything nowadays I assume it’s a lie, and I don’t really trust defenses of the IDF’s behavior either. If there is no genocide in Gaza then they should send all the money back and there better be a thank-you card in the envelope.
Don’t downvote me, give me my money back.
It seems pretty reliable that the hostages are dead.
The best case scenario is that Hamas is lying about the cause, and the IDF didn’t kill them. That still means that the military campaign is obviously coming at the cost of these people’s lives.
Netanyahu can save the hostages or water war, but not both. That’s what a hostages situation is. He chose war, and the hostages are going to die if an outside force doesn’t intervene.
btw