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More than 50,000 killed in Gaza, ~~Hamas-run~~ health ministry says (www.bbc.com)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by GreyAlien@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world
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In November, the UN Human Rights Office said its analysis showed close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period were women and children .

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[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 15 points 5 days ago

You can look it up, but short of it is that the Gaza Health Ministry's casualty numbers are very accurate and have been used by pretty much everyone since 2007, including Israel. Whenever the UN tries to count independently their numbers match up with Ministry numbers. If anything the Ministry's numbers are an undercount because they're only people who have been confirmed as directly killed by the IDF by a doctor in a hospital. People who simply weren't counted for whatever reason (usually because Israel destroyed all hospitals in the area), as well as people who starve or die to disease, are not included. This is, by the way, why estimations of the true casualty number by are always more than the official number and never less.

There are no institutions in Gaza run against the will of Hamas.

It seems the will of Hamas is to have rock-solid casualty numbers that even the most rabidly Zionist can't criticize, because if there was even a small overestimation (let alone fabrication) anywhere Israel would use that to discredit the casualty numbers and Zionists in the West will lap it up. I mean they tried anyway, but because the methodology leaves no room for criticism they got shut down pretty quickly.

[-] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yes, their numbers are the best available. The health ministry has adjusted and corrected their numbers at times though. They increase the total number reported quickly just from media reports. Over time they document individual deaths, identify bodies, and so on. So there’s a constant mismatch of reported deaths snd documented the deaths. Over time this gap closes though.

Deaths from starvation are included. They amounted to two dozen or so, last time I checked.

Bad health care conditions of course increase the likelihood of deaths from preexisting chronic diseases, treatable diseases or injury, and so on. So the elderly and the very young are more susceptible to dying than during peacetime. AFAIK this excess mortality isn’t typically counted towards civilian casualties in wars.

So far there have been no epidemics documented, that resulted in high numbers of deaths. The Polio epidemic has one documented case and resulted in a ceasefire with a big vaccination drive.

So these estimates of 180,000 are not backed up by hard data as of now.

The health ministry does not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths. Additionally people shot by Hamas for espionage/treason or other crimes are not listed separately.

[-] Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Israel has bombed every hospital in Gaza, it's no surprise that it's becoming increasingly impossible to count the dead. Direct deaths refer to those killed by ammunition and bombs, indirect deaths are still entirely due to the genocide. Israel's targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is deliberate and systemic.

Human Shields

Hamas:

Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.

Israel:

Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:

Deliberate Attacks on Civilians

Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:

Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.

this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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