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.
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.
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.
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.
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?