Zionuts

[Loki]

No, I don't use Twitter. I've heard of him and know he's weird and occasionally racist. He was just the easiest to repost and embed.

Do you know what you call someone who tolerates fascists? A fascist.

[Loki]

Wig, I'll respond to your other points later, but I find it strange that you think a 2/1 civilian-combatant ratio is good for a first-rate military power with modern weaponry. The example American officials were using earlier in this conflict was the Battle of Fallujah. America killed over 1,000 combatants and well under 1,000 civilians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

Just because Russia or Syria kills far more civilians than combatants doesn't mean Israel should be compared to those countries.

[Aimless]

Wig, I'll respond to your other points later, but I find it strange that you think a 2/1 civilian-combatant ratio is good for a first-rate military power with modern weaponry. The example American officials were using earlier in this conflict was the Battle of Fallujah. America killed over 1,000 combatants and well under 1,000 civilians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

Just because Russia or Syria kills far more civilians than combatants doesn't mean Israel should be compared to those countries.

I suspect the vast majority of the casualties are not from "fighting" but from bombing/missile strikes conducted from afar.

[Steely Glint]

Wig, I'll respond to your other points later, but I find it strange that you think a 2/1 civilian-combatant ratio is good for a first-rate military power with modern weaponry. The example American officials were using earlier in this conflict was the Battle of Fallujah. America killed over 1,000 combatants and well under 1,000 civilians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

Just because Russia or Syria kills far more civilians than combatants doesn't mean Israel should be compared to those countries.

Civilian casualty numbers in Ukraine are very difficult to ascertain but it's almost certainly the case that Russia has killed a lower proportion of civilians to combatants than Israel has. Admittedly, this is likely due to Ukraine having a far superior capability to resist, especially in the air and not for want of trying on Russia's part, but still. I also can't find an example of a conflict where a first world power with a modern military has even gotten close to killing more civilians than combatants, let alone at the 2:1 level (which is likely a bare minimum), so the notion that this is expected in 'this type of urban combat' (whatever that means) doesn't really hold up to even causal scrutiny. The level of destruction that is being unleashed on Gaza is unprecedented, even by Israeli standards.

As Minx says, most of the deaths have likely come through air power, and the reason for the heavy toll seems to be combination of massively relaxed rules of engagement when targeting Hamas members ("Hamas's janitor's brother room-mate is maybe in this building? Level the entire block. Oh, he was out? Level where-ever he went too") and the concept of what are euphemistically called 'power targets', basically just civilian infrastructure:

Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).

The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.

So, it seems the plan is to deradicalize Gazan population with terror bombing: a clearly brilliant plan that only the most nuanced and sensible of geo-political geniuses would even contemplate. That or they just want to ethnically cleanse the place by trashing the infrastructure so badly it's basically impossible to live there. One of those.

An notably despicable episode in a long and cruel war.

[Aimless]

I reiterate my call for a full moratorium on weirdo shit.

[Aimless]

Oh no
https://www.boston.com/news/local-ne...#plane-harvard

[wiggin]

Wig, I'll respond to your other points later, but I find it strange that you think a 2/1 civilian-combatant ratio is good for a first-rate military power with modern weaponry. The example American officials were using earlier in this conflict was the Battle of Fallujah. America killed over 1,000 combatants and well under 1,000 civilians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

Just because Russia or Syria kills far more civilians than combatants doesn't mean Israel should be compared to those countries.

Mosul is a far better example than Fallujah, and even that is flawed. Civilians in both places had a non-urban environment to leave to - even with the attempts to move civilians around the war zone, Gaza is entirely a dense built-up urban environment and precious few Palestinians are being let into Egypt. So the population of civilians inside is much, much higher.

Credible estimates have suggested that on the order of 10,000 civilians were killed in the retaking of Mosul (no one's really sure), and somewhere on the order of 3,000-12,000 IS fighters (estimates vary widely here, but certainly far fewer IS fighters than Hamas fighters). Although obviously the ground war was largely driven by Iraqi forces and allied militias (who are nowhere near as well trained or well equipped as a modern Western military), a large proportion of the casualties were due to American airstrikes and shelling (I saw estimates of 29k+ American munitions cited by Airwars from US CentCom). West Mosul, where most of the killing happened, houses a far smaller population than Gaza City or Khan Younis, and there was plenty of time for much of the population to flee both during the initial IS takeover and in the subsequent counteroffensive. And - crucially - the Americans and Iraqis had all the time in the world, there was no meaningful clock that meant the Americans had to hurry up and complete the capture in a month or two, a burden the IDF always faces. Lastly, IS used brutal tactics as does Hamas, but they didn't have 17 years to fortify Mosul into a nightmare for urban assault.

So even with many advantages - a smaller civilian population, lots of tactical and strategic flexibility, etc. - the US had somewhere on the order of 50-75% civilian casualties.

Or you could look at the War in Afghanistan. It's hard to get accurate estimates of the number of casualties, but it's believed that on the order of 50,000 Afghan civilians were directly killed in the fighting (I've seen credible estimates as high as 70k+), with a similar number (~50k) Taliban/AQ/etc. fighters. Afghanistan, while a challenging war to fight and win, is much easier to avoid civilian casualties because most of the fighting was happening in relatively remote, low density areas. But they had ~50% civilian casualties.

I'll also remind you that even with much smaller urban battles you regularly get ridiculously high casualties. In 1993 in a single day the US killed on the order of 500-1000 Somalis in Mogadishu - no one really knows how many, and estimates of how many were civilians vary widely, but it's believed to be a lot. They were using essentially machine guns, rifles, and lightly armed helicopters, and only a few thousand total troops were in play by the end of the battle (most of the day it was just a few hundred). Warfare in dense urban environments when the civilians are unable or unwilling to leave is incredibly bloody. When the defenders don't care about the civilian population at all, it gets much worse.

Civilian casualty numbers in Ukraine are very difficult to ascertain but it's almost certainly the case that Russia has killed a lower proportion of civilians to combatants than Israel has. Admittedly, this is likely due to Ukraine having a far superior capability to resist, especially in the air and not for want of trying on Russia's part, but still. I also can't find an example of a conflict where a first world power with a modern military has even gotten close to killing more civilians than combatants, let alone at the 2:1 level (which is likely a bare minimum), so the notion that this is expected in 'this type of urban combat' (whatever that means) doesn't really hold up to even causal scrutiny. The level of destruction that is being unleashed on Gaza is unprecedented, even by Israeli standards.

Large numbers of Ukrainian civilians had been evacuated from the areas of fighting, and most of the current fighting is happening in rural areas. Shockingly, the Ukrainian government and military prioritizes the lives of their civilians. Sure, Russia carries out bombing of infrastructure and terror bombing and the like, but that's always been a sideshow compared to the main engagement.

I am flabbergasted that you can't find an example of a modern military killing more civilians than combatants, just look at the examples I listed above. And that wasn't even looking very hard. You can add the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, or even dinky little wars like the invasion of Panama.

As Minx says, most of the deaths have likely come through air power, and the reason for the heavy toll seems to be combination of massively relaxed rules of engagement when targeting Hamas members ("Hamas's janitor's brother room-mate is maybe in this building? Level the entire block. Oh, he was out? Level where-ever he went too") and the concept of what are euphemistically called 'power targets', basically just civilian infrastructure:

So, it seems the plan is to deradicalize Gazan population with terror bombing: a clearly brilliant plan that only the most nuanced and sensible of geo-political geniuses would even contemplate. That or they just want to ethnically cleanse the place by trashing the infrastructure so badly it's basically impossible to live there. One of those.

An notably despicable episode in a long and cruel war.

The 972 piece was certainly interesting, but I do not think it is definitive - we probably won't have a good idea for years. It's clear that Israel has relaxed their rules of engagement for two reasons: first, in providing air support for troops under fire (happening a lot more in this war), they tend to be far more willing to severely shorten the decision making process. Second, given that the perceived military benefit of destroying Hamas' ability to control Gaza is much higher than in previous wars, they are more permissive. (I should also note that the whole thing about using machine learning to help identify targets is a new spin on an old idea - US intelligence was using similar methods to target insurgents in Iraq over a decade ago, albeit without a fancy trendy algorithm to speed up the process.)

I am sure there will be a lot of learnings from this war on target selection and how to provide appropriate controls in the kill chain while keeping it as short as possible. I have no doubt that Israel is making many errors, some of which may be serious or systematic enough to constitute crimes. But anyone who honestly believes that you could invade Gaza and uproot Hamas without causing many thousands of civilian casualties is living in a fantasy land. There is a very good reason why Israel has refrained from doing so until now - and it isn't the threat to their troops. So far they've lost less than 100 soldiers fighting Hamas inside Gaza. A lot for Israel, certainly, but on par with other major engagements in recent memory (e.g. the 2006 Lebanon War). The difference is that even if you kill thousands of Hamas/PIJ fighters and destroy much of their infrastructure, you're also going to kill many other Palestinians. It's a really bad option, and Israel has avoided it studiously for 17 years. After October 7, the Israeli government (and, it appears, a large majority of their population) has decided that horrific as this option is, the alternatives have now been shown to be worse.

[Dreadnaught]

Do you know what you call someone who tolerates fascists? A fascist.

What are you even saying.

[Steely Glint]

I am flabbergasted that you can't find an example of a modern military killing more civilians than combatants, just look at the examples I listed above.

Most of the examples you give (particularly Afghanistan and Iraq) don't distinguish between civilian casualties caused by US and allies and insurgents. An important distinction, given that deliberately targeting civilians was a hallmark tactic of the insurgencies.

If we constraint ourselves to the more conventional military operations where we can almost certainly attribute any and all civilian deaths to US/allies, per Wikipedia:

Vietnam War: 30,000–182,000 civilian dead, 849,018 military dead (per Vietnam; 1/3 non-combat deaths)
Gulf War I : 20,000–50,000 combatants, 3,664 civilian
Gulf War II (invasion only): 11,000–45,000 combatants, 7,269 per Iraqi body count
Invasion of Afghanistan: 8,000–12,000 combatants, 3,664 civilians

first, in providing air support for troops under fire (happening a lot more in this war), they tend to be far more willing to severely shorten the decision making process

The bombings began 10 days before the ground invasion and in that time 7000+ people were killed, about a third of current total. So the intensity and indiscriminate nature of Israel's airstrikes obviously has nothing to do with supporting ground troops. May even suggest the air-strikes became less intense after the troops went in.

[wiggin]

Most of the examples you give (particularly Afghanistan and Iraq) don't distinguish between civilian casualties caused by US and allies and insurgents. An important distinction, given that deliberately targeting civilians was a hallmark tactic of the insurgencies.

The numbers in Gaza don't distinguish between civilians killed by Israel and civilians killed by Hamas and PIJ either. We know at least hundreds (possibly thousands) of the dead are because of rocket misfires. There's also anecdotal evidence of Hamas snipers/etc. shooting Gazans who are evacuating and I have no doubt they've had plenty of ill-documented murders of potential 'collaborators' and the like.

If we constraint ourselves to the more conventional military operations where we can almost certainly attribute any and all civilian deaths to US/allies, per Wikipedia:

Vietnam War: 30,000–182,000 civilian dead, 849,018 military dead (per Vietnam; 1/3 non-combat deaths)
Gulf War I : 20,000–50,000 combatants, 3,664 civilian
Gulf War II (invasion only): 11,000–45,000 combatants, 7,269 per Iraqi body count
Invasion of Afghanistan: 8,000–12,000 combatants, 3,664 civilians

Sure, if you cherry pick for the times when you had lots of direct force-on-force fighting it'll flatter the US. 'Invasion only' for Iraq War, smdh.

The bombings began 10 days before the ground invasion and in that time 7000+ people were killed, about a third of current total. So the intensity and indiscriminate nature of Israel's airstrikes obviously has nothing to do with supporting ground troops. May even suggest the air-strikes became less intense after the troops went in.

I didn't say that was the only reason why they have loosened their rules of engagement. Though I should note that within 24 hours it was obvious to everyone that a ground invasion was going to happen. The necessary airstrikes to prepare the battlefield for a ground invasion are likely to be far more substantial (e.g. targeted much more underground infrastructure, which has been shown to cause many building collapses) than you might get higher casualties than a traditional anti-rocket campaign. There was also no time for civilians to evacuate Gaza City in the first week of the war, when Israel's airstrikes were indeed very intense (especially on Oct 7/8 as they were grappling with a porous border and thousands of combatants). This is mostly speculation on my part, though, since so little information is known about the makeup of Hamas vs. civilian casualties in different phases of this war.

[Loki]

This wae is really bringing out the worst in everyone: https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-777223

[LittleFuzzy]

Wig, I'll respond to your other points later, but I find it strange that you think a 2/1 civilian-combatant ratio is good for a first-rate military power with modern weaponry.

It's good for the way they're choosing to fight. That just begs the question of why they've chosen to apply force that particular way. . .

[Steely Glint]

The numbers in Gaza don't distinguish between civilians killed by Israel and civilians killed by Hamas and PIJ either. We know at least hundreds (possibly thousands) of the dead are because of rocket misfires. There's also anecdotal evidence of Hamas snipers/etc. shooting Gazans who are evacuating and I have no doubt they've had plenty of ill-documented murders of potential 'collaborators' and the like.

Frankly, ridiculous. In order for rocket misfires by Hamas/IJ to swing the needle even a small amount, they would need to be killing Gazan civilians at a rate far higher than they ever have in the past and saying Hamas executing collaborators could influence the total in any significant way is such a reach I'm concerned about your back.

Sure, if you cherry pick for the times when you had lots of direct force-on-force fighting it'll flatter the US. 'Invasion only' for Iraq War, smdh.

Three points here:

a) This is "force on force" fighting that Israel is doing. They're invading the Gaza strip with the ostensible objective of destroying Hamas. They're not occupying the Gaza strip, and trying to police it and control the territory and facing an insurgency as a consequence, as the US was doing with the long wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, and those phases of the war are the most appropriate comparisons.
b) One of the examples I gave was The Vietnam war, infamously brutal and hard-fought, in which the US conducted both conventional warfare and an anti-insurgency campaign, as well as perhaps one of the last conflicts where the US made use of World War II style mass bombing and the U.S still doesn't come close to inflicting the civilian/combatant death ratio Israel has 'achieved' in few months.
c) There is no real reason to simply assume counter-insurgency warfare intrinsically involves more civilian casualties than conventional warfare, since in a conventional war against an opponent with a conventional military, U.S doctrine is to begin by targeting the air-defence network and then command and control facilities etc, which are usually in civilian areas and can only be reached by intrinsically less discriminatory air power, before ground combat even commences, where in a counter-insurgency campaign the enemy has no such infrastructure and the occupying force is usually trying to protect the civilian population, which they are now responsible for, and air-power only used in tactical role. Most people that died in Iraq after the invasion were not killed by the coalition, and the coalition inflicted far higher civilian casualties during the invasion than it did at any point in the occupation afterwards (see: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/)

This is mostly speculation on my part, though, since so little information is known about the makeup of Hamas vs. civilian casualties in different phases of this war.

We've known the ratio of woman and children in the death total for quite some time which can be used to approximate the number of civilians the total makes up and it's always been two thirds of the total.

[Aimless]

We've known the ratio of woman and children in the death total for quite some time which can be used to approximate the number of civilians the total makes up and it's always been two thirds of the total.

It's not Wiggins's fault Hamas's toddler brigades have been taught to use women as human shields.

[Steely Glint]

It's not Wiggins's fault Hamas's toddler brigades have been taught to use women as human shields.

I disagree.

[wiggin]

This wae is really bringing out the worst in everyone: https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-777223

I have not seen this reported outside of JPost (though I'll admit I didn't look too hard, it might be buried somewhere in the Hebrew language media). I would not trust JPost reporting, they're really poor quality and have been for some time. It might be true (and certainly the ICRC hasn't looked all that useful in this mess), but I wouldn't place a lot of credence on this account unless it is sourced elsewhere as well.

It's good for the way they're choosing to fight. That just begs the question of why they've chosen to apply force that particular way. . .

LF, I am not an expert on military tactics. I suspect none of us are. And I think it's highly likely that the specific methods Israel is using are not the local optimum for reducing civilian casualties. But if given a set of premises upon which Israel is working - the geography of Gaza, the nature of Hamas, the goals of the war, and the timeline - I do not think that there is any method of fighting that would not result in massive civilian casualties in Gaza. Could Israel do better? Absolutely, and they should. But it would tweak the numbers, not dramatically change them.

Perhaps there is some magical set of tactics that would eliminate Hamas' ability to control Gaza and attack Israel with impunity (and result in the return of the remaining hostages) on a short timeline, but I don't know what they are.

Frankly, ridiculous. In order for rocket misfires by Hamas/IJ to swing the needle even a small amount, they would need to be killing Gazan civilians at a rate far higher than they ever have in the past and saying Hamas executing collaborators could influence the total in any significant way is such a reach I'm concerned about your back.

Estimates of rocket misfires are on the order of 10%. In the first month of the war, about 9,500 rockets were fired (I haven't seen updated summary stats though I'm sure they exist); the rate of rocket fire has slowed down some (and there was the week long pause), but let's guesstimate we're talking about 12,000 rockets. That would suggest well over 1,000 rockets have fallen in Gaza. We know that one of them caused many casualties at a hospital, though it's unclear precisely how many were killed there (the initial Hamas claim of 500+? Later estimates of < 100 by some intel agencies? Somewhere in between?) but I assume that many of those thousand rockets have also killed other Gazans given how densely populated the region is and how the rockets are much deadlier right after launch (due to large amounts of unexpended propellant). I have no way of knowing how many Gazan civilians have been killed by Hamas/PIJ rockets in the last two month, but if you told me it was on the order of 1,000 I would not be surprised. It's happened in previous rounds with much lower rate of fire, I don't doubt it's happening now. I certainly think that 1,000 Gazan civilians killed by Hamas would be notable and would 'move the needle'.

I agree that the collaborators executed probably only number in the dozens. The anecdotes I was referencing were some ill-sourced videos (albeit from reasonably reputable social media accounts with ties to Gaza) showing civilians gunned by Hamas for attempting to evacuate various regions. In the videos I saw there were dozens of bodies, but (a) I have no idea of the circumstances of their deaths, other than the claim made by those filming and (b) I don't know how widespread these events were. We may never know if this is a significant factor.

Three points here:

a) This is "force on force" fighting that Israel is doing. They're invading the Gaza strip with the ostensible objective of destroying Hamas. They're not occupying the Gaza strip, and trying to police it and control the territory and facing an insurgency as a consequence, as the US was doing with the long wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, and those phases of the war are the most appropriate comparisons.

I mean force on force like you saw mostly outside of urban areas in the early parts of the Iraq war. Early stages of the Iraq War were an incredibly permissive environment for the US military, there was no systematic attempt by the Iraqi military to slug it out with the US inside their cities. The Battle of Baghdad is a good example - very little of the fighting happened in dense neighborhoods, most was focused in dug-in positions outside of the city, at the airport, and a few critical transportation nodes in the city. Using that as a comparator is farcical given how much Hamas is dug in in Gaza. I'll agree that later stages are also not particularly good comparators because the tempo of operations was indeed lower in most cases, which again favored US precision. West Mosul is the best example I have from Iraq, and even that is flawed as I noted above.

b) One of the examples I gave was The Vietnam war, infamously brutal and hard-fought, in which the US conducted both conventional warfare and an anti-insurgency campaign, as well as perhaps one of the last conflicts where the US made use of World War II style mass bombing and the U.S still doesn't come close to inflicting the civilian/combatant death ratio Israel has 'achieved' in few months.

I don't know where you got your numbers for civilian dead in Vietnam (and associated countries e.g. Cambodia, Laos) but those numbers seem absurdly low given a total civilian loss in Vietnam alone on the order of 2 million. Also, relatively little of the mass bombing happened in dense urban areas, which again favored lower casualties. I should note, however, that Vietnam data is notoriously bad on all sides, and it's hard to get a grasp of how many civilians were killed and by whom other than 'a lot'.

c) There is no real reason to simply assume counter-insurgency warfare intrinsically involves more civilian casualties than conventional warfare, since in a conventional war against an opponent with a conventional military, U.S doctrine is to begin by targeting the air-defence network and then command and control facilities etc, which are usually in civilian areas and can only be reached by intrinsically less discriminatory air power, before ground combat even commences, where in a counter-insurgency campaign the enemy has no such infrastructure and the occupying force is usually trying to protect the civilian population, which they are now responsible for, and air-power only used in tactical role. Most people that died in Iraq after the invasion were not killed by the coalition, and the coalition inflicted far higher civilian casualties during the invasion than it did at any point in the occupation afterwards (see: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/)

I'm not sure that's true. SEAD doesn't need to be all that bloody and plenty of counter-insurgency results in lots of civilian casualties (though I'm sure some would be blamed on Iraqi forces). Given that we're apparently taking 'any perpetrators' for the violence (for comparability to the Gaza data), you see a huge peak in civilian deaths in 2006-2007 (with much great AUC than the first two months of the invasion). And the vast majority of those deaths in the 2006-2007 peak are 'unknown perpetrators', which is good honesty from IBC but makes it hard to know the true toll of US operations.

We've known the ratio of woman and children in the death total for quite some time which can be used to approximate the number of civilians the total makes up and it's always been two thirds of the total.

I don't place much credence on specific data provided by Hamas. And a 17 year old gunman for Hamas is still counted as a 'child' in those statistics. Even if we take the demographic data at face value, we don't know the circumstances of those deaths given the widespread disinformation and the unwillingness of anyone in Gaza to provide some sort of accounting of who is a combatant, and how various people died. I will freely admit that lots of civilians have been killed by Israel, but I don't actually know how many.

[LittleFuzzy]

LF, I am not an expert on military tactics. I suspect none of us are. And I think it's highly likely that the specific methods Israel is using are not the local optimum for reducing civilian casualties. But if given a set of premises upon which Israel is working - the geography of Gaza, the nature of Hamas, the goals of the war, and the timeline - I do not think that there is any method of fighting that would not result in massive civilian casualties in Gaza. Could Israel do better? Absolutely, and they should. But it would tweak the numbers, not dramatically change them.

Perhaps there is some magical set of tactics that would eliminate Hamas' ability to control Gaza and attack Israel with impunity (and result in the return of the remaining hostages) on a short timeline, but I don't know what they are.

With the factors you outlined? Beats me. But of the four major factors you listed, I think one (Israeli war goals) is very open to question and another (the timeline) is almost entirely Israel's to control as it chooses. Which provides room for changing the tactics and outlined operation to one which, at a minimum, reduces the civilian casualties down from massive to merely significant.

[wiggin]

With the factors you outlined? Beats me. But of the four major factors you listed, I think one (Israeli war goals) is very open to question and another (the timeline) is almost entirely Israel's to control as it chooses. Which provides room for changing the tactics and outlined operation to one which, at a minimum, reduces the civilian casualties down from massive to merely significant.

Goals of the war are fairly self-evident given the strategic situation; if Hamas maintains control over Gaza, the strategic situation will be unchanged. Deterrence and bribery are clearly unworkable. And the timeline is entirely up to the United States, not up to Israel. Israel has gotten far more leeway since Oct 7 but there's clear signaling from the administration that major combat needs to be over by early January. Given the strains to Israel's economy from 300k reservist mobilization and on-and-off again cancelled school, they honestly don't have much time beyond the US timeline anyway.

[LittleFuzzy]

Goals of the war are fairly self-evident given the strategic situation;

They seem to be either managing another Nakba (Nabka?) or ensuring the hatred and incessant attacks continue for another 40 years, I can't tell which. It depends on how delusional and/or blinded by outrage at Hamas' temerity they are.

if Hamas maintains control over Gaza, the strategic situation will be unchanged.

If Hamas remains in control and Israel doesn't change anything else than yes, the strategic situation will remain unchanged.

[Aimless]

I disagree.

Looks like you were right, I concede the point.

[Lewkowski]

https://www.cnn.com/business/live-ne...ill/index.html

Byyyye

[Aimless]

In Zionuttery news, weirdo loser couple steals children's books from public library:

https://nypost.com/2023/12/09/metro/...eli-apartheid/

[Steely Glint]

Estimates of rocket misfires are on the order of 10%. In the first month of the war, about 9,500 rockets were fired (I haven't seen updated summary stats though I'm sure they exist); the rate of rocket fire has slowed down some (and there was the week long pause), but let's guesstimate we're talking about 12,000 rockets. That would suggest well over 1,000 rockets have fallen in Gaza. We know that one of them caused many casualties at a hospital, though it's unclear precisely how many were killed there (the initial Hamas claim of 500+? Later estimates of < 100 by some intel agencies? Somewhere in between?) but I assume that many of those thousand rockets have also killed other Gazans given how densely populated the region is and how the rockets are much deadlier right after launch (due to large amounts of unexpended propellant). I have no way of knowing how many Gazan civilians have been killed by Hamas/PIJ rockets in the last two month, but if you told me it was on the order of 1,000 I would not be surprised. It's happened in previous rounds with much lower rate of fire, I don't doubt it's happening now. I certainly think that 1,000 Gazan civilians killed by Hamas would be notable and would 'move the needle'.

Well, I would be surprised because those rockets barely kill anyone even when they hit their targets in Israel. Like, usually they would launch 1000s of rockets into Israel and maybe get into double digit fatalities - and this is before iron dome. The warheads are just too small. A thousand dead in Gaza would almost certainly be far more people than they have ever killed, on both sides, since Palestinians began using rockets.

EDIT: Interesting enough, Iron Dome has a success rate about the same as the Gazan rockets, 90%, so if 10% of rockets failing and landing in Gaza was enough to kill 1000 Palestinians then we should also see a similar death toll from 10% of that 90% landing in Israel. Needless to say, we don't.

I agree that the collaborators executed probably only number in the dozens. The anecdotes I was referencing were some ill-sourced videos (albeit from reasonably reputable social media accounts with ties to Gaza) showing civilians gunned by Hamas for attempting to evacuate various regions. In the videos I saw there were dozens of bodies, but (a) I have no idea of the circumstances of their deaths, other than the claim made by those filming and (b) I don't know how widespread these events were. We may never know if this is a significant factor.

Yeah, you'll forgive me if I find this less than convincing. Sounds like not even you believe it.

I mean force on force like you saw mostly outside of urban areas in the early parts of the Iraq war. Early stages of the Iraq War were an incredibly permissive environment for the US military, there was no systematic attempt by the Iraqi military to slug it out with the US inside their cities. The Battle of Baghdad is a good example - very little of the fighting happened in dense neighborhoods, most was focused in dug-in positions outside of the city, at the airport, and a few critical transportation nodes in the city. Using that as a comparator is farcical given how much Hamas is dug in in Gaza. I'll agree that later stages are also not particularly good comparators because the tempo of operations was indeed lower in most cases, which again favored US precision. West Mosul is the best example I have from Iraq, and even that is flawed as I noted above.

The early stage of the war were mass bombing campaigns against urban areas, do you not remember 'shock and awe'? But at this staging I'm starting to wonder where I need to go to find a battle that actually proves your contention that urban fighting inherently involves more civilian deaths than military, like where do I need to go and look, fucking Stalingrad?

Wait a second... *googling*

On the Soviet side, official Russian military historians estimate that there were 1,100,000 Red Army dead, wounded, missing, or captured in the campaign to defend the city. An estimated 40,000 civilians died as well.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad

Nope, not even there.

So, um, like instead of nit-picking my examples with a series of increasingly desperate what-ifs and maybes, why don't you go and find something that shows me that what you're saying is true, because right now the only examples I can think of where combat operations produce more civilian dead than military are indiscriminate bombing campaigns directed at urban areas.

I don't know where you got your numbers for civilian dead in Vietnam (and associated countries e.g. Cambodia, Laos) but those numbers seem absurdly low given a total civilian loss in Vietnam alone on the order of 2 million.

2 million is a high end estimate. If you use high end civilian estimates you also need to use comparably high end combatant estimates, since the ratio is important.

And the vast majority of those deaths in the 2006-2007 peak are 'unknown perpetrators', which is good honesty from IBC but makes it hard to know the true toll of US operations.

You should be aware that the Iraqi Body Count also includes non-combat related criminal murders and general sectarian violence, which is likely what accounts for most of those 'unknown perpetrator' deaths.

I don't place much credence on specific data provided by Hamas. And a 17 year old gunman for Hamas is still counted as a 'child' in those statistics. Even if we take the demographic data at face value, we don't know the circumstances of those deaths given the widespread disinformation and the unwillingness of anyone in Gaza to provide some sort of accounting of who is a combatant, and how various people died. I will freely admit that lots of civilians have been killed by Israel, but I don't actually know how many.

Hamas does indeed use child soldiers which would be be counted as 'children', but there are also a lot of dead men of fighting age who weren't actually fighting are also in the total. Women + children represents a bare minimum.

[LittleFuzzy]

EDIT: Interesting enough, Iron Dome has a success rate about the same as the Gazan rockets, 90%, so if 10% of rockets failing and landing in Gaza was enough to kill 1000 Palestinians then we should also see a similar death toll from 10% of that 90% landing in Israel. Needless to say, we don't.

That. . . doesn't begin to be true. The qassams and their cousins are low-accuracy even for unguided weapons effectively fired in the general direction of the target which the launchers rarely even have line-of-sight on, at a ranges of 5-10km. They are fired from an area of significantly greater population density and Hamas tactics being what they are, actually tend to have even higher nearby concentrations of civilian population in critical infrastructure because Hamas relies on their civilians as human shields to delay or stop Israeli responses. I don't know about Wiggin's idea of 1000 dead in the current conflict being reasonable (if they're using qassams to attack the IDF inside Gaza I don't have any good way to gauge the reliability under the altered conditions. And frankly, I think Hamas is perfectly capable and willing to stir the pot more by deliberately shooting at their own civilian targets with rockets and blaming the strikes on Israel in the chaos) but I think qassam failures were already doing more damage in Gaza than to Israel when they were actually being fired AT Israel. Reliable numbers are hard to get out of Gaza and in the early years of the bombardments, before significant Israeli countermeasures were in place just the hard confirms out of Gaza were already at a 1:2 ratio. Firing them at Israeli targets already in Gaza. . .

[Aimless]

Misfires or not, Hamas's & PIJ's rockets have probably been more likely to hit rubble than structures or areas containing civilians, for several weeks at least. Not even Israeli forces believe misfires are likely to move the needle.

[Steely Glint]

That. . . doesn't begin to be true. The qassams and their cousins are low-accuracy even for unguided weapons effectively fired in the general direction of the target which the launchers rarely even have line-of-sight on, at a ranges of 5-10km. They are fired from an area of significantly greater population density and Hamas tactics being what they are, actually tend to have even higher nearby concentrations of civilian population in critical infrastructure because Hamas relies on their civilians as human shields to delay or stop Israeli responses. I don't know about Wiggin's idea of 1000 dead in the current conflict being reasonable (if they're using qassams to attack the IDF inside Gaza I don't have any good way to gauge the reliability under the altered conditions. And frankly, I think Hamas is perfectly capable and willing to stir the pot more by deliberately shooting at their own civilian targets with rockets and blaming the strikes on Israel in the chaos) but I think qassam failures were already doing more damage in Gaza than to Israel when they were actually being fired AT Israel. Reliable numbers are hard to get out of Gaza and in the early years of the bombardments, before significant Israeli countermeasures were in place just the hard confirms out of Gaza were already at a 1:2 ratio. Firing them at Israeli targets already in Gaza. . .

[Aimless]

Twitter Link

[Aimless]

Sorry Steely looks like Wig wins this one

Twitter Link

[Steely Glint]

I swear that Israeli's increasing bizarre propaganda attempts represent some kind of attempt at mockery.

[Aimless]

you're making jokes
Paddington Bear has joined Hamas and you're making jokes