I wonder if folks are aware that the UN has revised the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. The number of women and children who have died are half of what has been reported for months now.
Update to Gazan death tolls:
The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperso…
I wonder if folks are aware that the UN has revised the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. The number of women and children who have died are half of what has been reported for months now.
Update to Gazan death tolls:
The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.
Its clear from these figures that many Hamas combatants have been killed. I’m writing this to try to stop the relentless parroting of the phrase “34,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children have died.” Obviously, Hamas has not been truthful, which I expected all along. It was obvious that the majority of deaths could not possibly be only women and children.
Please remember too that this is a war, not just “an overreaction to a terrorist attack”or a genocide. According to Al Jazeera the Hamas brigades number between 35-40,000. Its these brigades and their weapons, all hiding underground, that Israel is battling. Hamas terrorists and their ambitions must be stopped. There is no other solution at this point.
And these ‘reduced numbers’ are OK? The numbers of Palestinians killed in ANY conflict with Israel is always exponentially higher, and destructive to women and children. The Zionist expansion of settlements, apartheid system with regard to Palestinians, and rejection of a two state solution, has only served to foster grief, resentment and hostility for generations. Where does it end? ‘We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them’ the saying goes.
Absolutely, and that is why this war is the solution to nothing. It will only foster more armed resistance. Some new terrorist networks will pop up to replace Hamas.
The only sustainable solution to this problem is to give the Palestinians something to live for, a land of their own.
Betty, the Palestinians/Gazans/Arabs have been given that option repeatedly over the past 75 years always with the same outcome, the relentless effort by their political leaders to destroy Israel (e.g.- by digging extensive tunnels, creating military "bases" in schools & hospitals rather than use the resources to build the physical, administrative and political infrastructure necessary for any viable "country."
Let's see, Heather, that would be 24,686 Palestinians (Gazans?) dead rather than 34,000? A poignant question indeed about "reduced numbers" dead being OK!
Everyone with a beating heart looks at what is happening in Gaza with horror. And then the blame game begins its endless cycle. As usual, armchair critics blame Biden. Because everything is always the fault of whoever the sitting president is. I rear ended a car, it's Biden's fault. A ship sank in the Atlantic. It's Biden's fault. I stubbed my toe. It's Biden's fault.
Hamas is dedicated to the elimination of all Jews in the region.
Hamas hides in tunnels underneath their women, children and parents.
Hamas committed an atrocity that seems to be drifting away in the public consciousness.
Hamas promises more violence.
Hamas could have ended this conflict by negotiating peace.
Hamas could end the conflict today and save thousands of lives.
Hamas watches their own people starve as they spend billions of donations from Qatar and Iran to build tunnels and launch missiles into Israel.
Hamas uses their babies as shields. They are not warriors. They are devious monsters.
With all the financial support Hamas has received from their "religious" leaders they could have been building infrastructure, feeding their people, negotiating nationhood. Instead, they refused the two state solution, allowed their children to starve and invited the destruction of their neighborhoods. Invited it.
I ask what Americans would do if a paramilitary organization were to have slaughtered over a thousand people at a music festival. Raped and tortured peaceful people. Beheaded children.
Would we allow that organization to hide in tunnels? Would we not seek their surrender or death? What if there were Neo-Nazis in tunnels right now, right here - who were pledged to the destruction of our nation? Would we walk away? Could we?
I don't have the answer to how Israel could approach this situation differently. I welcome suggested solutions. But they won't be solutions unless they include the complete and total elimination of a Hamas - proxy assassins operating under the direct influence of Iran and by extension - with the approval of Putin.
The horrors of Gaza are the perfect distraction from Ukraine. There is a real genocide happening in Ukraine. Where is the rage at those who oppose assisting the Ukrainians who are being slaughtered by Russians? Ukrainians who simply wanted to exist peacefully as a democracy. A people whose only mistake was having a border with Russia. Where were the campus protests while Republicans held up support for our allies?
Putin is playing three dimensional chess and we are playing checkers.
Hamas have the same values as the Nazis of WWII Germany. The same values as the military leaders of Japan when they bombed Pearl Harbor. The people of Germany and Japan in the early 20th century supported them. They paid a horrible price.
The children of Gaza are the victims. The adults who caused this should look in the mirror.
October 7th is just a preview if Hamas is allowed to survive and rebuild.
Thanks for saying all of this, Bill. I agree with it all. The Palestinians have been treated badly by Israel. Everything they have done, especially allowing settlers to go into the West Bank and take good land, has been done without any respect to the people or their rights. Hamas was an outgrowth of this treatment. One thing I want to add is that "Palestinian" should not be equated with Hamas. It was Hamas who committed the horrible actions of October 6, not Palestinians.
Thank you Bill. I’m so tired of Israel being blamed shunned and vilified around the globe. I’m so tired of Jews who are living elsewhere being blamed. I cannot understand why young people are casting their lot in with a terrorist organization. Imagine if your country was invaded by 4000 militants and other hangers on to commit murder, rape and take hostages. What would you do? Clearly the Arab countries who support Hamas and Iran have a superior PR system. I don’t know if you read the article in the NYT about Sinwar. He states that he is prepared to sacrifice the whole population of Gaza in order to fulfill his aims.
The figures you give are probably more accurate than the larger numbers that have been reported, yet just as ghastly. Looking at the photos of Gaza and the incredible destruction brought upon that narrow strip of land, how will we ever know, how many were killed? We have such advanced weaponry, that kills with precision yet also indiscriminately, by its sheer power alone. If it is a war, I don’t want to wait for Israel to win it, I want to stop it. Enough already.
Gutsy comment, Annie; many thanks. Those numbers total 24,686 people.
¿Is that the total death toll or that of civilians who are not Hamas fighters?
Other articles state that ten-to-eleven thousand Gazans are missing or dead but with identities pending verification.
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): though the civilian death toll is high in Gaza it is in the vicinity of other recent urban conflicts. Israël is making an effort to contain direct casualties but creating conditions likely to expand the death toll greatly.
Annie, I have also read that the number of hamas fighters is around forty thousand.
Israël claims to have killed fourteen-to-fifteen thousand. The numbers are hard to nail down; I doubt anyone really knows. Best case is that more than half of the hamas combatants (19,000) are not accounted for (i.e., not included in the number killed to date or the four thousand said to be in Rafah). So, ¿where are they? And, ¿is Netanyahu proving to be hamas's most effective recruiter?
Though the numbers are fuzzy and these guesstimates are, more likely than not, significantly off the mark, the civilian death toll relative to combatants in Gaza of 50-60% is higher than those of Viêt Nam (46%) and Afghanistan (30%) but similar to that in Iraq (66%). Like Gaza, Iraq entailed more urban combat than Viêt Nam or Afghanistan.
The problem with these comparisons remains WHO is responsible for WHAT civilian deaths. The numbers cited above, I believe, count those killed directly by military personnel. They exclude the deaths attendant to a break-down of the civil society. That is the primary threat facing Gaza now as food and medical supplies as well as water remain limited.
In Viêt Nam, 600,000 civilians died from military fire with estimates of two million 'excess deaths'. In Iraq, some 100,000 civilians died by direct military violence while 'excess' deaths were roughly 450,000. In Afghanistan, some 50,000 died by direct military contact versus roughly 200,000 'excess deaths'. In theory, most or all of these 'excess deaths' would NOT have occurred BUT for war.
They keep talking about a plan to protect civilians, but it seems to consist of telling people to evacuate an area they plan to invade or bomb. These people have little option with borders closed and much of the country in ruins. I wonder how careful the IMF is being since they shot an unarmed hostage before confirming identity and killed World Central kitchen relief workers returning from bringing food to starving people.
It is a real dilemma. This war is really an urban counter-insurgency. Israël is using the same search-&-destroy tactics that the United States used in Viêt Nam. Those tactics did not work fifty-to-sixty years ago and they are failing here. It is hard to square the city-scapes of Bakhmut and Gaza being indistinguishable.
The U.S. did succeed in turning the situation around in Iraq with the surge and, more importantly, gaining the trust and support of the Sunni sheiks in the Western provinces in 2007-08. Yet hamas really has to be defeated. What Israël needed to do was to be patient and to apply the concepts of community policing.
By partnering with the peace-minded Gazans, Israël could hunt down the hamas fighters and seal, at least, the key tunnels. That tactic may not have worked either, but then Israël could resort to her current, kinetic approach. Now, I fear (as a philo-Semite and fan of Israël) that Netanyahu is doing more harm than good not only for the welfare of Palestineans, but also for the security of his own people.
Is the only way to achieve that end is for Israel to murder every Palestinian with US materiel? This is an 80 year struggle that has only used violence and propaganda to oppress and occupy a neighbor after usurping lands. It doesn’t work. You can’t kill your enemies faster than you make new ones.
Strong regionally enforced cease fire and peace talks. For eighty years these two and their gangs have been fighting in the sand box. We need some adults in the room and Biden is trying to end something that it appears neither of the combatants want to stop.
I wonder if folks are aware that the UN has revised the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. The number of women and children who have died are half of what has been reported for months now.
Update to Gazan death tolls:
The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.
Its clear from these figures that many Hamas combatants have been killed. I’m writing this to try to stop the relentless parroting of the phrase “34,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children have died.” Obviously, Hamas has not been truthful, which I expected all along. It was obvious that the majority of deaths could not possibly be only women and children.
Please remember too that this is a war, not just “an overreaction to a terrorist attack”or a genocide. According to Al Jazeera the Hamas brigades number between 35-40,000. Its these brigades and their weapons, all hiding underground, that Israel is battling. Hamas terrorists and their ambitions must be stopped. There is no other solution at this point.
And these ‘reduced numbers’ are OK? The numbers of Palestinians killed in ANY conflict with Israel is always exponentially higher, and destructive to women and children. The Zionist expansion of settlements, apartheid system with regard to Palestinians, and rejection of a two state solution, has only served to foster grief, resentment and hostility for generations. Where does it end? ‘We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them’ the saying goes.
Absolutely, and that is why this war is the solution to nothing. It will only foster more armed resistance. Some new terrorist networks will pop up to replace Hamas.
The only sustainable solution to this problem is to give the Palestinians something to live for, a land of their own.
Betty, the Palestinians/Gazans/Arabs have been given that option repeatedly over the past 75 years always with the same outcome, the relentless effort by their political leaders to destroy Israel (e.g.- by digging extensive tunnels, creating military "bases" in schools & hospitals rather than use the resources to build the physical, administrative and political infrastructure necessary for any viable "country."
Let's see, Heather, that would be 24,686 Palestinians (Gazans?) dead rather than 34,000? A poignant question indeed about "reduced numbers" dead being OK!
Thank you Annie.
Everyone with a beating heart looks at what is happening in Gaza with horror. And then the blame game begins its endless cycle. As usual, armchair critics blame Biden. Because everything is always the fault of whoever the sitting president is. I rear ended a car, it's Biden's fault. A ship sank in the Atlantic. It's Biden's fault. I stubbed my toe. It's Biden's fault.
Hamas is dedicated to the elimination of all Jews in the region.
Hamas hides in tunnels underneath their women, children and parents.
Hamas committed an atrocity that seems to be drifting away in the public consciousness.
Hamas promises more violence.
Hamas could have ended this conflict by negotiating peace.
Hamas could end the conflict today and save thousands of lives.
Hamas watches their own people starve as they spend billions of donations from Qatar and Iran to build tunnels and launch missiles into Israel.
Hamas uses their babies as shields. They are not warriors. They are devious monsters.
With all the financial support Hamas has received from their "religious" leaders they could have been building infrastructure, feeding their people, negotiating nationhood. Instead, they refused the two state solution, allowed their children to starve and invited the destruction of their neighborhoods. Invited it.
I ask what Americans would do if a paramilitary organization were to have slaughtered over a thousand people at a music festival. Raped and tortured peaceful people. Beheaded children.
Would we allow that organization to hide in tunnels? Would we not seek their surrender or death? What if there were Neo-Nazis in tunnels right now, right here - who were pledged to the destruction of our nation? Would we walk away? Could we?
I don't have the answer to how Israel could approach this situation differently. I welcome suggested solutions. But they won't be solutions unless they include the complete and total elimination of a Hamas - proxy assassins operating under the direct influence of Iran and by extension - with the approval of Putin.
The horrors of Gaza are the perfect distraction from Ukraine. There is a real genocide happening in Ukraine. Where is the rage at those who oppose assisting the Ukrainians who are being slaughtered by Russians? Ukrainians who simply wanted to exist peacefully as a democracy. A people whose only mistake was having a border with Russia. Where were the campus protests while Republicans held up support for our allies?
Putin is playing three dimensional chess and we are playing checkers.
Hamas have the same values as the Nazis of WWII Germany. The same values as the military leaders of Japan when they bombed Pearl Harbor. The people of Germany and Japan in the early 20th century supported them. They paid a horrible price.
The children of Gaza are the victims. The adults who caused this should look in the mirror.
October 7th is just a preview if Hamas is allowed to survive and rebuild.
Thanks for saying all of this, Bill. I agree with it all. The Palestinians have been treated badly by Israel. Everything they have done, especially allowing settlers to go into the West Bank and take good land, has been done without any respect to the people or their rights. Hamas was an outgrowth of this treatment. One thing I want to add is that "Palestinian" should not be equated with Hamas. It was Hamas who committed the horrible actions of October 6, not Palestinians.
Thank you Bill. I’m so tired of Israel being blamed shunned and vilified around the globe. I’m so tired of Jews who are living elsewhere being blamed. I cannot understand why young people are casting their lot in with a terrorist organization. Imagine if your country was invaded by 4000 militants and other hangers on to commit murder, rape and take hostages. What would you do? Clearly the Arab countries who support Hamas and Iran have a superior PR system. I don’t know if you read the article in the NYT about Sinwar. He states that he is prepared to sacrifice the whole population of Gaza in order to fulfill his aims.
The figures you give are probably more accurate than the larger numbers that have been reported, yet just as ghastly. Looking at the photos of Gaza and the incredible destruction brought upon that narrow strip of land, how will we ever know, how many were killed? We have such advanced weaponry, that kills with precision yet also indiscriminately, by its sheer power alone. If it is a war, I don’t want to wait for Israel to win it, I want to stop it. Enough already.
Gutsy comment, Annie; many thanks. Those numbers total 24,686 people.
¿Is that the total death toll or that of civilians who are not Hamas fighters?
Other articles state that ten-to-eleven thousand Gazans are missing or dead but with identities pending verification.
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): though the civilian death toll is high in Gaza it is in the vicinity of other recent urban conflicts. Israël is making an effort to contain direct casualties but creating conditions likely to expand the death toll greatly.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/13/un-cuts-estimates-women-children-deaths-gaza/73669560007/
Annie, I have also read that the number of hamas fighters is around forty thousand.
Israël claims to have killed fourteen-to-fifteen thousand. The numbers are hard to nail down; I doubt anyone really knows. Best case is that more than half of the hamas combatants (19,000) are not accounted for (i.e., not included in the number killed to date or the four thousand said to be in Rafah). So, ¿where are they? And, ¿is Netanyahu proving to be hamas's most effective recruiter?
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-hamas-war-counterterrorism/
Though the numbers are fuzzy and these guesstimates are, more likely than not, significantly off the mark, the civilian death toll relative to combatants in Gaza of 50-60% is higher than those of Viêt Nam (46%) and Afghanistan (30%) but similar to that in Iraq (66%). Like Gaza, Iraq entailed more urban combat than Viêt Nam or Afghanistan.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581199/
The problem with these comparisons remains WHO is responsible for WHAT civilian deaths. The numbers cited above, I believe, count those killed directly by military personnel. They exclude the deaths attendant to a break-down of the civil society. That is the primary threat facing Gaza now as food and medical supplies as well as water remain limited.
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/heres-why-so-little-humanitarian-is-reaching-gaza
In Viêt Nam, 600,000 civilians died from military fire with estimates of two million 'excess deaths'. In Iraq, some 100,000 civilians died by direct military violence while 'excess' deaths were roughly 450,000. In Afghanistan, some 50,000 died by direct military contact versus roughly 200,000 'excess deaths'. In theory, most or all of these 'excess deaths' would NOT have occurred BUT for war.
They keep talking about a plan to protect civilians, but it seems to consist of telling people to evacuate an area they plan to invade or bomb. These people have little option with borders closed and much of the country in ruins. I wonder how careful the IMF is being since they shot an unarmed hostage before confirming identity and killed World Central kitchen relief workers returning from bringing food to starving people.
It is a real dilemma. This war is really an urban counter-insurgency. Israël is using the same search-&-destroy tactics that the United States used in Viêt Nam. Those tactics did not work fifty-to-sixty years ago and they are failing here. It is hard to square the city-scapes of Bakhmut and Gaza being indistinguishable.
The U.S. did succeed in turning the situation around in Iraq with the surge and, more importantly, gaining the trust and support of the Sunni sheiks in the Western provinces in 2007-08. Yet hamas really has to be defeated. What Israël needed to do was to be patient and to apply the concepts of community policing.
By partnering with the peace-minded Gazans, Israël could hunt down the hamas fighters and seal, at least, the key tunnels. That tactic may not have worked either, but then Israël could resort to her current, kinetic approach. Now, I fear (as a philo-Semite and fan of Israël) that Netanyahu is doing more harm than good not only for the welfare of Palestineans, but also for the security of his own people.
Is the only way to achieve that end is for Israel to murder every Palestinian with US materiel? This is an 80 year struggle that has only used violence and propaganda to oppress and occupy a neighbor after usurping lands. It doesn’t work. You can’t kill your enemies faster than you make new ones.
Strong regionally enforced cease fire and peace talks. For eighty years these two and their gangs have been fighting in the sand box. We need some adults in the room and Biden is trying to end something that it appears neither of the combatants want to stop.