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.
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.