Those are not the current best estimates. I think you are referring here to last week’s news about OCHA revising their figures and now only reporting half of previous figures. If so than you are talking about 24,686 confirmed dead and fully identified victims of the Israeli military as of April 30th 2024. Of which 14,600 are women, children, or the elderly. The 35,000+ figure is actually 35,562 confirmed dead as of May 20th 2024 (including 10,876 confirmed dead and not yet identified). Yet not included is the 10,000+ believed dead who are missing e.g. under the rubble or in undiscovered mass graves, or unreported burials, etc. This makes the believed total number of victims killed by Israeli aggression in Gaza around 45,000 of which we know 14,000 are woman, children and the elderly.
35,000 civilians is not an unreasonable estimate. I would personally put a lower bound at 60% of 35,000 = 21,000 civilians, which is the assuming every adult man is a combatant (which we know is not true; there are plenty of civilian adult men among the victims) and extrapolating the percentage of fully identified victims to the confirmed death count.
Seems reasonable and worth adding that we've long since blown past any point where the numbers would be tolerable. About the best you can say for Israel is that they're in an extraordinarily bad position (one in part of their own making!) where their only moves involve modern dense urban combat, the worst possible thing.
> we've long since blown past any point where the numbers would be tolerable.
You seem to be doing a good job of trying to understand both sides, so I think it would behoove you compare these casualty rates with other urban wars.
> extraordinarily bad position (one in part of their own making
I was curious about dense urban warfare and three modern battles came to mind. The Siege of Sarajevo 1992-1996, the Siege of Mariupol 2022, and the Battle of Aleppo 2012-2016. I got the numbers from Wikipedia:
Data for Mariupol is the fuzziest with a lower (reliable) estimate of 8000 civilian deaths, but a more realistic estimate of at least 25,000 civilian deaths. The highest estimate for soldiers dead is around 12,000 but 4,000 is more realistic. I’m not gonna compute the proportion here because the estimates are too fuzzy. Mariupol had a pre-war population of about 425,000. The siege of Mariupol is certainly one of the worst human rights disaster of our century, which justifiably put some of the Russian perpetrators on an ICC list of war criminals under investigation. It lasted for almost 3 months and left 90% of Mariupol’s high rise residential housing were damaged or destroyed. I’m sure Russian generals and political leaders have their excuses and reasons for causing this horror. They still belong in the Hague for causing this tragedy.
The Siege of Sarajevo (pre-war population of 525,980 [incl. surrounding area]) has been thoroughly investigated and has much more reliable numbers:
- 5,434 civilians killed
- 5,829 soldiers killed
The horrors of this siege are not to be understated. 40% of the children living in the city were directly shot at by snipers, 51% had seen someone killed, 39% had had at least one family member killed, 73% had their home attacked or shelled. Over 100,000 residential buildings were damaged or destroyed and almost every non-residential building was damaged or destroyed. The horrors lasted 4 years, with the wor The ICC was not shy about prosecuting Serbian (both from Serbia and Srpska) generals and politicians for their crimes against humanity. These generals and politicians all claimed they had their reasons. However, they did not, and were correctly found guilty.
The Battle of Aleppo (pre-war population of about 2.5 million) is probably the closest condition you’ll get to Gaza in terms of urban warfare in a dense civilian area. Like Gaza, Aleppo was the largest city in Syria. The Siege lasted for four years and left at least 31,273 people dead, of which 73% were adult men. 23,604 or 76% of all fatalities were civilians. Almost every neighborhood in Aleppo was targeted with indiscriminate shelling. More than 33,500 damaged residential buildings in the city. Everybody agrees (except maybe Syrian generals and leaders) that the human cost of this 4 year long siege was too great. The UN security council voted for the ICC to investigate the many war crimes committed in the siege but Russia and China vetoed it. History has already condemned them.
The Gaza strip is an urbanized area that fits between Seattle and Tacoma with a pre-war population of 2.4 million. The Gaza Genocide has so far lasted 7 months and no end in sight. 35,000 people are confirmed dead, most of them civilians. Over 90% of all residential housing has been damaged or destroyed in Gaza city. Almost everybody in Gaza knows someone that has died. Nearly everyone in the Gaza strip has been displaced, most people multiple times.
The horrors of Gaza seem no less then those in other examples of dense urban warfare. I know Israeli officials claim they have a reason to cause this horror, however, they do not. And they deserve the Hague as much as the war criminals mentioned above.
This attitude reminds me of the Start Trek: Voyager episode Equinox where Captain Janeway insists that Captain Ransom “leaves her no choice” than to go after the Equinox no matter the cost.
Janeway was wrong, there were other options, and the cost she was willing to pay was too high.
Linking to a TV show does not actually describe other options for Israel.
And I assume you know that TV shows are fictional? First they write the dilemma for Janeway, then they figure out how to get there. In the real world it's the other way around.
Does that make it any better!? That's still comparable to a small town or a large arena completely wiped away from the face of the earth. Not because they were Hamas, but because they were near Hamas.
Reasonable people will point out that this "near Hamas" thing is the result of a deliberate strategy by Hamas to ensure that reprisal strikes preferentially spill the blood of the civilians Hamas ostensibly represents, while shielding and supplying the Hamas combatants who provoked the strikes in the first place.
To me, the more powerful argument is just that any meaningful military purpose to massed attacks in Gaza have now been used up; much of Hamas' infrastructure, along with the majority of their leadership cadre, have been destroyed. Hamas still "exists", and it could re-form, but so could any other militant organization at this point. The losses Hamas have taken probably exceed those of other state military actors who have decisively lost wars in the past.
Further large-scale strikes look increasingly performative. It was hard to justify a lot of what Israel did even when Hamas had 15 combat-ready brigades and was vowing to repeat October 7th. It seems impossible to justify it now.
(People definitely disagree with me on this point! It's what I believe but fuck if I know with any certainty how true it is.)
> Further large-scale strikes look increasingly performative.
Israel is not doing large scale strikes in most of Gaza, except Raffa. It was in the news a few weeks ago that Israel withdrew most of their troops from Gaza.
They have in fact switched to limited strikes. But they're going to finish the job in Raffa first, in particular they want to destroy tunnels - especially tunnels going into Egypt.
After that the PA is going to try to take over. And Israel will "protest" the whole time like the Br'er Rabbit. The PA can't look like Israel helped them take the area. Both the PA and Israel want the PA in Gaza, but neither can say it out loud.
The whole "Israel has no day after plan" thing is just a show. There's a reason Biden stopped complaining about it.
> Israeli bombardment from the air, land, and sea continues to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure. Ground incursions and heavy fighting also continue to be reported, especially in Jabalya and eastern Rafah.
> The following are among the deadliest incidents reported between 16 and 19 May:
> - On 16 May, at about 14:50, four Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, were reportedly killed when a house was hit in Jabalya Refugee Camp.
> - On 17 May, at about 0:55, six Palestinians were reportedly killed when a house was hit on Al Falouja Street in Jabalya.
> - On 18 May, at about 10:00, 15 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured while trying to return to their homes in areas of Jabaliya Refugee Camp from which Israeli forces withdrew.
> - On 18 May, at about 12:30, 28 Palestinians, including ten women and ten children, were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential square was hit in Mashrou’ Beit Lahiya near Kamal Adwan Hospital, in North Gaza.
> - On 18 May, at about 11:00, 12 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when Iqra’ Library was hit in central Jabalya Refugee Camp.
> - On 18 May, at about 14:00, four Palestinian men were reportedly killed and others injured when a house was hit in Khuza'a area, in Khan Younis.
> - On 19 May, at about 1:00, 31 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when a house was hit in the New Camp of An Nuseirat, in Deir al Balah.
The bombardment is in fact escalating all over the Gaza strip. There may have been more limited strikes in March and April, but the Rafah offensive started, we can no longer claim so. Israel is doing large scale strikes in most of Gaza, including Rafah.
> > The following are among the deadliest incidents reported between 16 and 19 May (emphasis added).
On May 20th Israeli jets struck around 70 targets, according to the Israeli military on Twitter. Their post admitted hitting targets across Gaza, including Jabalia, Central Gaza, and Rafah. At least 85 people were killed and 200 injured in total on May 20th.
If May 20th was a uniquely bad day with noticeably more strikes than before, and wouldn’t be repeated for months, if ever, than you could argue the strikes are limited. However, May 20th was not unique, it followed the same patterns as May 16th, May 17th, May 18th, and May 19th. May 21st looks like it is also gonna have as many strikes, and destruction:
Between midnight on May 21st and 7 AM, reported a residential building in Rafa being destroyed, killing at least 8, and 3 Palestinians being killed in an explosion Jabalia. Jabalia is still under intense shelling, in particular al-Awda Hospital where these 3 were stuck and unable to evacuate. Bait Lahia in Northern Gaza is also under heavy artillery shelling, including the gates of Kamil Adwan Hospital, which was also raided last December. Around 2 PM footage was released of the aftermath of another airstrike in Gaza City, where a residential home belonging to the Shobaki family was targeted and completely destroyed. A child no older than 2 year old was martyred in that airstrike.
No, the strikes are not “limited” by any definition of limited. Yesterday I went on a Wikipedia stroll to see examples of other urban warfare, and nowhere do we see this pattern of dozens of strikes, day after day, with 2-3 mass casualty events every day. Where several houses are leveled every single day. This very much describes e.g. the siege of Aleppo during the worst days of the fighting, in the neighborhoods which were worst affected.
> After that the PA is going to try to take over. And Israel will "protest" the whole time like the Br'er Rabbit. The PA can't look like Israel helped them take the area. Both the PA and Israel want the PA in Gaza, but neither can say it out loud.
If that’s the plan, I can tell you with certainty it won’t work.
Yes, it makes it better. This is a war, I assume you are too young to have experienced any others, but this what war is like. It sucks for everyone, and innocents die.
There isn't any other way to exterminate Hamas which is a goal that helps everyone, including Palestinians.
Indigenous resistance has been used as an excuse for their extermination since 1492. When Israeli leadership says they want Palestinians out of Gaza, we should believe them. The behavior of stripping Palestinians from their land has been consistent since 1947, and has only been escalating in the past decade. For all we know, the Israeli leadership has been waiting for the excuse to conduct these atrocities for a long time.
Israel does not have the right to exterminate Hamas by any means necessary. If Israel is unable to do so without mass atrocities, they simply shouldn’t. There are alternatives to war. The IRA was not eliminated by mass starvation in Northern Ireland. Rather they were given a Political avenue for their fight, and so their tactics changed from terrorism to political advocacy.
And it not just some individual, but a member of the Israeli government. Mind you, this government is under orders from the ICJ to do everything in its power to prevent genocide. A government which allows one of its members to speak like this, and doesn’t kick them out of the government (let alone after repeated offense) is at least sympathetic to this speech. But given that he is by no means the only member of the government which repeatedly incites genocide or ethnic cleansing, I think it is more likely that the whole government supports this speech, and is aiming for these prospects.
Yes, I'm far too young. It's not like I carry the name of my uncle who died in one, or that some of my earliest memories are about sleeping in a bomb shelter, or that I now live in a city that was completely under siege not that long ago.
You're correct, they only killed maybe 10000 children instead of 20000. I guess the bar is at like 15000 children? If Israel goes above that then they are bad, until the goalpost is moved again.
The current best estimates are for 15 to 20 thousand civilians. When you write 35 thousand you are showing you believe Hamas propaganda.