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Comment by sequoia | Hacker News Reader

Tangentially related but where does this come from and why is it so widely repeated (as in this article):

> ...Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world

I've seen this claim (both in the "one of the most..." and "the #1 most..." forms) many times and I don't know where it comes from. What am I missing?

Here[0] wikipedia says Gaza Strip has ~5,046/sqkm. I thought maybe Gaza City was meant, it's density is 13,000/sqkm[1]. Neither of these come close to ranking on wikipedias list of cities by population density[2], and I haven't been able to find any "most populated places" lists that list anything below 15,000 people per square kilometer, which Gaza city is well below.

Is the BBC just plain wrong here or am I missing something? I hope it's me because if it's the former, that says something really bad about their fact checking and would suggest that BBC is not a reliable/trustworthy source, at least on this topic.

    0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
    1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_City
    2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density

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You're probably missing this listing:

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

Where Gaza listed as its own country, it would be one of the densest, since it's basically a city and its urban sprawl and nothing more (like the other densest entries on the list). Of course, Gaza is itself arguably only part of Palestine, but the West Bank itself is pretty dense (see how high Palestine ranks on that list).

That sounds like "technically correct with caveats".

So does OPs entire post. Gaza is, by all reasonable accounts, among the most densely populated areas in the world. There's no real reason to start questioning the credibility and trustworthiness of a news organization over the fact that Gaza is referred to as such, it's a very bizarre thing to fixate over.

Your point about my argument regarding BBC's credibility based on this one point is fair, I can see how my argument can reasonably be considered overstated.

Your point about "fixating" (assuming you're referring to me) is not fair. If you want to accuse someone of being fixated on this point, please direct your critique at the BBC and other media outlets who repeat the phrase about Gaza and only Gaza (not all of the other more populous places) constantly.

Perhaps you are overly sensitive to this issue? I've more often heard the phrase from the BBC in regard to Singapore or Hong Kong.

In this case it makes perfect sense to mention how densely populated Gaza is because the reader probably doesn't know much about Gaza other than it's occupied by Israel. Every other area with the population density of Gaza looks very different on Google Maps.

See OPs above comment and you can see where his standpoint is so it's not that surprising.

Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world. And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more densely populated than Gaza. Bnei Brak was hit by rockets this week.

Can you link me to some articles that refer to "Hamas firing rockets on Bnei Brak, one of the most densely populated cities in the world"? Or "on israel, one of the most densely populated countries"?

If not, my question for you is: why do we see this phrase so commonly in reporting on Gaza but not on other more densely populated areas?

Same reason that this conflict always gets the same optics in international media — jewish lives are worth less. At first, as you don't want to believe it, you argue, you investigate, you really try to find any sane reason that while these things are happening on ground with you and your family, everybody else still sees a different picture, and then you just come to realisation that there's no other explanation for it.

But more Palestenian lives are being lost. Purely from a numbers perspective if you put aside all other variables or blame, wouldn't that explain why one side is being criticized extra right now?

How about criticizing Hamas, a terrorist organization, for shooting rockets at civilian populations of a country with one of the most advanced armies of the world?

How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers?

Seems like the media is willfully ignorant here.

Then you have nonsense like: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hid...

Clearly this smells foul.

> How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers?

How about criticizing Israel, a country with one of the most advanced militaries in the world, for bombing civilians that can't defend themselves, in retaliation for very basic level attacks by a terrorist group Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from?

Hamas are the bad guys, Israel are even worse because they could show restraint and not murder civilians, not evict Arabs and resettle their lands with Jews and all the other war crimey shit they do, yet they still do that, under a very corrupt leader that mostly stays in power with nationalistic and proto-fascistic rhetoric.

How about criticizing both Hamas and Israel for shooting rockets at civilians? Blame can go both ways.

On top of that, many people, me included, criticize Israel for illegally occupying Palestinian territory, stealing houses from Arab Israels, and generally treating Palestinians as second-rate citizens and worse. There's simply no excuse for that.

Imagine yourself in a situation like that. Whatever you do, whoever you complain to, the situation only gets worse. You're helpless against enormous injustice. While I don't condone violence, I do understand why people resort to violence when everything else fails.

> How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers?

Looking at google maps it sure seems that the IDF does the same, keeping their headquarters in the middle of densely populated center of Tel Aviv. Between a large hospital and a shopping mall.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Israel+Defense+Forces/@32....

If you are gonna both-sides this, you should commit to it.

Are you asking Hamas to walk out into the desert and build a base there? This is equivalent to the Revolutionary War-era Brits telling the colonists to fight fairly instead of hiding in the woods. Fighting fair is for fair fights. In unfair fights, people use the tactics available to them. If Hamas were to build a purely military base, it would be leveled and everyone on it would be dead within two days. One might suspect at that point that they weren't seriously trying.

It is not the Palestinians' job to submit quietly to gradual but violent displacement by an occupying outside force. It is also not the Palestinians' job to make a big show of getting murdered in an open field with honor. Those are not the requirements for a people to be defended from ethnic cleansing.

> Purely from a numbers perspective if you put aside all other variables

Why would you put aside variables that are more important to casualty numbers? It's not a symmetrical situation.

One side tries to increase casualty numbers on both sides of the conflict.

The other side tries to decrease casualty numbers on both sides of the conflict.

How would comparing casualty numbers in this situation tell you anything about the conflict?

Bombing civilian buildings is not a way to decrease casualty numbers on both sides of a conflict. The more peaceful alternative to bombing civilian buildings is not sending leaflets and then bombing civilian buildings, it is declining to bomb civilian buildings.

Using slightly less violence than is available to you does not make you the good guy, especially when the violence you use is drastically higher than the violence that is even possible from the other side.

> civilian

Citation needed. If a building is used for warfare, it is not civilian building.

> If a building is used for warfare, it is not civilian building.

Citation needed! Show that all the buildings Israel has bombed were being used for warfare.

First of all, Israel's goal is not to decrease casualties: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/an-eye-for-a-tooth/

Second of all, even if I accept your premise, that "One side tries to increase casualty numbers on both sides of the conflict. The other side tries to decrease casualty numbers on both sides of the conflict.", then clearly it's not working, right?

Regardless of motivations, the outcome is Palestinian lives are being lost at a disproportionally higher rate than Israeli. That must be understood.

The standard Israeli response to this is "Hamas uses human shields." OK....so you know this, and are still shooting missiles. That means you are knowingly killing human shields.

OK, so maybe these human shields are protecting military equipment. Military equipment that is primitive and is completely neutralized by the Iron Dome.

The point I'm making is that even if you accept ALL of Israel's narratives about Hamas, about IDF's strategy (which have all sorts of other problems, such as when they get caught sniping civilians and medical personnel), you still wind up in a situation where you have a massive power differential and one side knowingly killing civilians.

> That means you are knowingly killing human shields.

That means that you decrease amount of your citizens that will end up dead.

> Military equipment that is primitive and is completely neutralized by the Iron Dome.

It's not. IDF and official Israelis obviously want everyone to believe that, but in reality, Iron Dome is not limitless, and can simply run out of ammunition, if Hamas launch sites are not counter-attacked. Which means a couple of thousand, or tens of thousands, of dead israelis in a few hours.

This is a war where one side, Israel, attempts to minimize both sides casualties, while the other side, Hamas, tries to maximize both sides casualties, including their own people. Purely from intentions perspective, it's clear who should be criticized.

I'm sorry to hear you're living through violence. That sounds horrible, and I hope you and your family are safe.

I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. They are not the same. I oppose the Israeli government's policies and actions towards Palestine, but that does not mean I wish harm on you or your family, nor does it mean I don't see and value the Israeli lives lost during this conflict. There ARE other explanations for it.

> I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives.

No. I'm saying that putting israeli government under a completely different set of standards than any other country in the world cannot be explained with anything else rather than pure anti-semitism.

What different standards do you mean?

I've never, in any other conflict, witnessed a public opinion on the side of the aggressor. I've never, in any other conflict, seen an army that's not fighting overseas, but is desperately trying to prevent massive loss of life in it's own population, accused of "disproportionate" response — even though it would take measures to prevent any casualties that are completely unprecedented in world practices and makes achieving it's goals (see above) significantly harder. I've never in my life seen calls for genocide of entire nation (that's exactly what "from the river to the sea" means, if you're not aware) widely supported through out the world.

Every time this conflict happens again, I can't help but realise that if it was not for IDF, my family would have long have been brutally killed, and all those first-world liberals who're so busy fighting for their causes wouldn't even mind.

Yes, the coverage of the conflict is one-sided and popular opinion is on the side of the Palestinians. The reason for that is that the conflict itself is one-sided. Gaza is occupied by Israel.

Further, Israel has the overwhelming advantage in military power and the Palestinians suffer the overwhelming majority of casualties every time there is conflict.

In the 2008-09 war, the total number of Israeli citizens killed was 13, 10 of whom were combatants and 3 non-combatants (according to the IDF, see [1]). The total number of Palestinians killed was, depending on the source, between 1166 (IDF estimate) and 1440 (Palestinian ministry of Health, Gaza) [1].

The IDF protects your homes and your families, yes. It also crushes the lives and obliterates the houses of the Palestinians. Public opinion is against Israel not because the IDF protects Israeli citizens, but because the IDF kills Palestinians.

Finally, the IDF can protect your families and your homes, but there is nobody to protect the lives and homes of the Palestinians. Public opinion is their only shield and it doesn't stop bombs.

My comment is by way of explanation, not by way of accusation.

____________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War_(20...

How do you explain the same exact global reaction in 2006, when Hezbollah started a war by kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers on the border and firing missiles into Israel? Massive protests, 'Israel is committing war crimes/genocide', followed by international condemnation.

OP that you're responding to is exactly correct - there is zero outrage against the Syrian or Yemen Civil war (where Iranian-funded troops have starved thousands of people to death). Same goes for the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Same goes for Ethiopia vs Tigray.

re: outrage at Israel and not at Syria, etc.:

1. Israeli bombings, unlike actions in Syria and Yemen, are directly funded by the United States, which makes them a highly relevant issue for Americans and for people concerned with America's role in geopolitics.

2. Visibility. Israel is given extreme favor in US political circles, but that ironically works against it in this case. Their struggles are highly visible, but as a result, so is their aggression.

3. We're working on it. International solidarity protests have seen a dramatic rise in recent years, but we can only learn so quickly.

Will start with point 1: Take Europe instead of just the US - protests in Europe against Israel with no equivalent against Iran or Russia, both of whom funded and sent troops to Syria where Assad has committed actual genocide leading to displacement of millions. Europe trades with Russia and Iran and could apply economic pressure. Where were the mass protests in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe or nerve gas attacks against civilians? No calls for the end of Russia or Iran as countries. Why do you think this is?

> Take Europe instead of just the US - protests in Europe against Israel with no equivalent against Iran or Russia,

The protests are because people are upset not simply at Israel, but at their own governments for not devoting energy to constraining Israel.

> Take Europe instead of just the US - protests in Europe against Israel with no equivalent against Iran or Russia, both of whom funded and sent troops to Syria where Assad has committed actual genocide leading to displacement of millions.

The reason for this is that most people around most of the world see the US as the greatest threat to world peace and the prosperity of nations, with China probably second and Iran and Russia very distant contenders. This is certainly true in the Arab world, but in Europe also.

Remember also that the US, under president Trump, went back on a peace deal with Iran, leaving the EU in a very difficult position, between the US rock and the hard place of even more strife in the Middle East. And for many of us, the Middle East is next door, not half a world away as it is for the US. I appreciate of course that Israel is in the Middle East but that's exactly the point. For Europeans, a large region right at our doorstep full of people armed to the teeth and chomping at the bit to kill each other, not to mention that at least one of them is a neuclear power, is a very pressing matter.

Or, if you want a different perspective, Europeans see Israel as closer to European culture (you're even in Eurovision!), a secular democracy with an educated and modern population that can be influenced by international politics and by the popular opinion in European countries. So it makes sense that they would try to influence you.

While I agree that there should be more outrage about other tragedies, "Better than Syria" is not the standard that I want to hold my country to, so I don't engage in such arguments. We (Israel) consider ourselves to be a western nation, with western ideals and standards. And so it is reasonable that we'd be called out if we fail to live up to the standards of the crowd we want to hang out with. I'd be disappointed if we started to be grouped along with Syria and Yemen.

I wasn't referring to Israeli actions vs Syria, which are clearly not comparable, but the difference in reactions. If you think that the protests calling Israel an illegal state are just trying to hold Israel to a higher standard then you are clearly misinterpreting what is happening. They're chanting "From the river to the sea" not "Hold yourselves to a higher standard".

Just to clarify, my comments here are no endorsement of calling Israel an illegal state in any way, shape or form.

Fair enough, I think there are a lot of protestors (in real life as well as on Twitter) that have entirely unrealistic goals, hoping for an ideal situation but not really thinking through what the ramifications of their plan would be. I've seen this among "Greater Israel" Israelis as well - I once had a long chat with a settler in the Jordan Valley region about how he envisions annexation working out, the best he could come up with was "all the Palestinians will voluntarily move to Canada, which will take them in because Trump is going to broker a deal". Not exactly the strongest answer to accusations of ethnic cleansing.

To be clear, anyone hoping for "from the river to the sea" is not in touch with the reality in the region. The only way that could happen is with a terrible war that would make the current war look like a small scuffle. I'm pretty sure there's no diplomatic path from where we are today to a one state solution of any kind that doesn't take several generations, and we're not moving in the right direction.

I don't remember the reaction to Hezbollah's attack. I remember the incident, but not the reaction in the news. If you felt that was one-sided, then I will defer to your opinion and accept that I don't have an explanation for it, other than the fact that news organisations are very often prejudiced and their reporting is dictated by their political affiliations.

Regarding Syria, Yemen, Armenia and Ethiopia, perhaps you are right that the atrocities committed there are not given the same atttention in the news (it depends on where you are; in my country, Syria received the same amount of coverage, mainly because we received a large number of refugees from the war).

However, even if those atrocities were given the same attention as the atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinians, that would not necessarily mean that the latter atrocities would somehow be considered less severe, or that public opinion would turn against the Palestinians. Is that what you would expect?

I should also say that the Palestinian issue has been going on for more than 40 years now without resolution and it's natural that there is more attention paid to it, if nothing else because everyone would like to see the end of it.

In any case, realistically speaking, the occupation is a cause célèbre and there's nothing anyone can do about that, except perhaps ending the occupation.

Some of the things you're saying are true, but I think you need to make an effort to put yourself in the mindset of the other side. I live in Tel Aviv, I am sympathetic to the way you feel and know many fellow Israelis who feel the same way. But it's not an absolute, universal truth that the Palestinians are the aggressor. Just as convinced as you are that they are evil, bloodthirsty people hellbent on killing you, many of them are convinced the exact opposite - that you are all of those things toward them.

I say this to everyone reading: if you can't understand your enemy, if you cannot fathom why they act the way they do, if you cannot get into their heads and hearts and empathize with them, you ought to wonder if you simply lack imagination or are living in a bubble.

If you lock a dog in a cage and starve it, who's the aggressor when it eventually bites you?

looks like you hit a nerve by correctly diagnosing the situation.

Since this question revolves around words and their effect…

"most populated" > "crammed" > "jailed" > "the new warsaw ghetto"

there must be a word that describes your question of why:

The word you're looking for also describes what's enabling the cognitive dissonance of putting Gaza in the same category as a Singapur, a Tokio or Hong Kong without blinking: Economic powerhouses that draw talent from developing and developed nations worldwide vs. a town with an economy that only consists of NGOs, the Hamas and UN-Organizations (The wage gap between ordinary gaza citizens and those working for the state is 50%).

But instead of owning that word, it's easier to just keep uttering "Israel is bombing one of the most densely populated places in the world".

What's the phrasing you'd prefer? "Children were once again murdered in cold blood in Gaza, a metropolis that could be just like Singapore, Tokyo, or Hong Kong given its dense population and prime geographic location, were it not under constant military oppression from a country whose illegal nuclear weapons program is more successful than that of North Korea"?

I think a lot of people would find that uncomfortably partisan, so news organizations tend to self-censor, unfortunately.

Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in cold blood". That's just not what those words mean.

Can you explain why I am misusing the phrase? I believe it to be objectively accurate.

Again, that phrasing might make people uncomfortable. as I wrote above. I understand that, and I understand why people desire to censor it. But I don't believe it's incorrect, which is another thing entitely.

You can have your beliefs, but that doesn't make them facts.

Meanwhile a cleptocratic regime is firing missiles at civlians using as launching pads hospitals, kindergartens or office buildings housing international journalists.

>office buildings housing international journalists.

Weird how those journalist agencies themselves missed that.

What's the slow colonisation with settlements about? Liberation of land controlled by evil terrorists?

Also as far as Israel is concerned there is no recognised regime or other such government there. It's apparently a stateless area with stateless people to be slowly ethnically cleansed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-57136883

"Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Gaza press building bombing

Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified."

> Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified

There’s a pretty big difference between a politician (even one less flagrantly corrupt than Netanyahu) making a claim about their conduct of war and that claim being true.

I agree. I unsuccessfully tried finding an article I read a couple days ago that contained quotes from the head of the BBC office declaring that Hamas had no presence in the building. They said they actively check to the best of their ability because Israel is known to bomb media buildings and blame it on Hamas' presence. They also stated Israel has provided no proof of its claims.

I'd like to think I would have resisted responding, but I see another response that doesn't answer your question, so, oh well-

The dictionary seems to use "murder" for premeditated killing. Even if you think Israelis are the devil incarnate, killing children doesn't serve their interests. You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die, and then turn around and explain to everyone how they try to prevent those kids from dying. It certainly serves Hamas's interests more than it serves Israeli interests.

Google's dictionary returns "without emotion or pity; deliberately cruel or callous" for cold-blooded. See above. Any reasonable pro- or anti-Israel position would concede that Israelis would be happier without civilian casualties.

> You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die

Not really: it's well-reported that Israeli policy reasons about Arabs primarily in demographic terms. A stated Israeli priority is to keep low the number of Arabs in its territory. It's not even a secret.

You might find this so abhorrent and morally indefensible to be unlikely, but really it's just another day in the Middle East.

You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem and Israel would like to do that despite all the abuse they will receive from the rest of the world for doing so? Like, fine, assume absolute evil, why not, but evil and stupid simultaneously? Hence "conspiracy territory".

> You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem

No I'm not, I'm just pointing out that this sort of attitude is obviously a natural result of their stated intent.

> evil and stupid simultaneously?

Stupid is a given, considering Occam. Asymmetrical warfare in general has been "propaganda-stupid" ever since Jewish tradition popularized David and Goliath. Yet armies still routinely engage in it, because propaganda is only one dimension of a conflict. Being stupid, however, doesn't exclude being anything else.

Is it a conspiracy theory, then, that the US engaged in the premeditated killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, deliberately obliterating an area much wider than the legitimate military targets in those cities - that they in fact wanted a large number of civilians to die - and then turned around and argued (almost certainly correctly!) that they were actually trying to minimize civilian casualties by not bombing Tokyo or mounting a land invasion? Is it improbable to believe that an entire chain of command authorized those deaths without emotion? Does it require believing that Americans, as a whole, are the devil incarnate for such a thing to have happened?

Like I said, maybe the words make people uncomfortable. But I don't think they are untrue.

What do you call it when a military air force with enormous reconnaissance capabilities bombs civilian targets and civilians, including children, die?

I don't understand your argument. You want to point out that this is terrible, and in an ideal world, no one should be bombing anyone? Of course! That doesn't mean you should say, e.g. that Israelis are cannibals just because cannibalism is bad.

How is it not cold blooded murder then? The bombing is a killing. It is deliberate. It is done with ample preparation time and not under fire. You said it was misuse of the term. What keeps it from being proper to not call it cold blooded

The nations can do what they want special pleading is the only argument I can see against murder but it would be an inconsistent one. Fiven the sheer number of state acts called murder completely unchallenged as such. Since WWII at least "at war" isn't an excuse for murder. While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2.

> While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2.

You’re completely unaware of the indiscriminate aerial bombing that typified WW2, or you’re entirely dishonest.

We like arguing in hypotheticals here on HN so lets bring a modified trolley problem into the discussion:

This modified version has the trolley heading steady on course to the next station, there is nobody on the track and nothing will happen if you leave it alone. However you stand next to a lever, and if you pull the lever you will divert the trolley and it will hit 200 people (some are criminals but most aren’t). You have ample time to think it over. If the trolley passes, you still have the option to pull the lever and the next trolley will hit those 200 people. You know full well what happens if you pull the lever. You also know you will not be punished if you do.

Say you are an observer in this modified version, and you observe me pulling the lever. 200 people are now unessisary dead because of my action. Do you consider me a cold blooded murderer?

This is not a good-faith simplification of the situation in Gaza.

I know its not, that was sort of the point here. I made sure to qualify this with arguing in hypotheticals before coming up with the scenario.

Starting this sub-thread with a debate about what makes a cold blooded murder is another way of taking the debate into arguing hypotheticals and is not a good-faith tactic. What I did here is simply taking the bait and continuing to the logical next step.

@dang there is something odd going on here.

The comment I'm replying to from user woodpanel says (in part):

""most populated" > "crammed" > "jailed" > "the new warsaw ghetto"... The word you're looking for also describes what's enabling the cognitive dissonance of putting Gaza in the same category as a Singapur, a Tokio or Hong Kong without blinking... a town with an economy that only consists of NGOs, the Hamas and UN-Organizations"

This dead comment[1] from user idownvoted says:

"You're missing the intention of those pushing this claim: Painting Israel as running a prison intentionally bad, or vice-versa making Gaza the new Warsaw-Ghetto.

If other commentators can't note the rediculousness of putting Gaza next to Tokio, Singapur or Hong Kong, I will: A place with virtually no economy outside of NGOs, the Hamas and UN-Orgs vs. economic beacons that draw talent from all over the world."

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27188683

Don't look directly at the hasbara.

Of course, I'm a typical German troll farm run by the mossad. You clearly have incorporated the word I was hinting at.

Why not own it?

> Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world.

You're looking at the second table, which includes only the 100 most populous countries. If you look at the main table, which includes all countries, Israel is #17.

Good point, thank you.

> And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more densely populated than Gaza.

This is only because the term "city" is used inconsistently around the world. Bnei Brak is part of the district of Tel Aviv, and most geographers would consider it part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo urban agglomerations[1].

The absolute size of an area puts a ceiling on the density - roads etc take up space, and the larger the area the more likely it is to include freeways, or hit geographic features that limit density.

It would be better to think of it as a 7 sq km district, and as such its density (29,345 people per square km) isn't particularly high[2]. Looking at districts with similar geographic size Imbaba in Cairo is 8 square km and has a density of 177,038 per square km, or Güngören in Turkey is 8 sq km and has a density of 41,349 people per km. If we look at similar populations (204,639) then Manhattan Community Board 7 (population 207,699) has a density of 42,387 people per sq km, or Zaveri Bazar (pop 202,922) has a density of 114,001 people per sq km.

So yes, Bnei Brak is dense, but not especially so by comparable urban area standards.

[1] https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/charact...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_popu...

Bnei Brak is part of the "Tel Aviv metropolitan area" but it's not part of the city of Tel Aviv, in the classic meaning: it has its own municipality, budgets, taxing system, etc. Counting it as the same city in any meaning would be wrong as the two have very different goals re: neighborhood design, density, commercial business focus, events, city services, etc.

It's part of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_District

Many "cities" have political structures similar to what you describe.

> If not, my question for you is: why do we see this phrase so commonly in reporting on Gaza but not on other more densely populated areas?

One difference is that most of its residents aren't allowed to leave, from my understanding.

On top of that, most of its residents, whether they are allowed to leave or not, are also stateless, which essentially locks them out of much of the developed world.

Because most people are stupid, and this level of truth-bending will not be punished.

Gaza would have ranked 5th on population density, or 3rd if you remove places with tiny population (i.e take a "pop > 1MM" threshold).

It's basically after Singapore and Hong-Kong.

Can you walk me through your thinking here? I don’t quite follow. I am listening and open to being wrong.

Thinking? I didn't do any. I divided the #pop by #area in units I can relate to (Km^2), then looked at the table and figured out it would be #5.

Ok I think I’m able to piece back together what you’re talking about: it sounds like you’re ranking Gaza on the list of most densely populated “Country (or dependent territory)” but excluding cities. The article refers to it as one of the most densely populated “places” in the world.

What’s the reason for excluding cities when ranking the most densely populated places in the world? When I imagine “the most densely populated places in the world” I think first of cities, I assume most people do.

They are not removing cities blindly, they are only including cities with more than 1m people. That removes places like Pateros which, while incredibly dense, are not particularly populous.

Avip is not including cities when s/he ranks Gaza #5, s/he is only including countries. If I asked you "what's the most densely populated place in the world?" you would probably answer with the name of a city. Avip is excluding cities from his "densely populated places" ranking. This doesn't make sense to me. If you say "world's most densely populated places" of course I'm going to think of cities, as anyone would.

Because Gaza is, for all intents and purposes, a city-state, like Singapore or Hong Kong. It’s not really one part of a larger nation, so it doesn’t make sense to compare it to places that are.

It’s also being blockaded by its neighbors, so there is no freedom of movement in or out. If rockets are fired at Bnei Brak, the residents there can flee to the rest of Israel. If rockets are fired at Gaza, the residents have nowhere to go.

> If rockets are fired at Bnei Brak, the residents there can flee to the rest of Israel.

When rockets rain down on their homes, citizens of Bnei Brak can flee from their homes in car or on foot, go ??? somewhere (where exactly?) and hope they’re not blown to bits along the way. Wow, those privileged Israelis. The very lap of luxury.

Israel isn't big, but there are plenty of less likely (and less dense) targets than the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Israelis can also leave the country. That's not "luxurious", but those are privileges that residents of Gaza don't have.

I'm not sure why you're responding so aggressively; you asked why Gaza is singled out as densely populated, and that's the answer.

I’m responding with derision because you’re so casually hand-waving away attacks on Israel as no big deal or not the same because they are “able to flee” (you still haven’t specified where is the safe place they can flee to). Have some empathy for Israeli civilians, just as you have empathy for Gazan civilians.

As for the technical question of “most densely populated“ or “more densely populated“ I don’t know why people keep bringing up stuff like supposed “ability to flee“ “bordered by other countries or by the sea or surrounded by countryside“ when arguing about population density. None of these things change the population density. Otherwise I could say “Hawaii is extremely densely populated by virtue of the fact that it’s really really really far from continental mainlands“ which makes no sense.

The fact of the matter is that Israeli civilians have options that Gazan Palestinians do not. I'm empathetic to them as well — it's horrible that anyone has to fear being killed in a conflict. But there is absolutely a disparity, and it's not "hand-waving" to note that it exists without qualification.

That disparity, by the way, is exactly why it doesn't make sense to compare Gaza to cities with regard to population density. It's technically a city, but that's really not an apples-to-apples comparison. For all intents and purposes it's a country/territory, by which standard it is one of the most densely populated in the world.

Gaza is not technically a city. I encourage you to learn more about the fundamentals and history of this situation before making broad assertions about it.

Curious that you keep trying to compare its density to cities rather than other territories, then.

Anyway, we’re clearly talking past each other. Have a nice day!

Can you find a single reference stating that it's the most dense city or area in the world? I tried looking for one but failed.

There are well over 10,000 cities in the world and Gaza City is likely among the top 500 for population density, which would put it in the top 5%.

Do you generally call things out as being untrustworthy for claiming that the top 5% is among the highest in a rank?

Here is a single reference: https://www.middleeastobserver.org/2016/07/12/pcbs-reports-g...

"Do you generally call things out as being untrustworthy for claiming that the top 5% is among the highest in a rank?"

The reason I consider this claim "misleading" is that I never see the "one of the most densely populated..." phrase on stories about Paris, Kathmandu, Seoul or any of the hundreds of more densely populated areas, yet I constantly see it in reference relatively much-less-densely-populated Gaza. When I start seeing news stories that read "The mayor of Hoboken NJ, one of the most densely populated areas of the world, opposes a measure that would increase affordable housing..." then the phrase won't make me scratch my head anymore.

Why does this phrase always come up in relation to Gaza and not the hundreds of other cities/regions that are more densely populated?

If we're trading references, can you show me some where the BBC refers to Paris as "one of the most densely populated places in the world?"

Are Paris, Kathmandu, Seol, or Hoboken under blockade by a government that claims their land but makes the people on that land stateless, and also periodically bombs their urban infrastructure?

It's possible that the density of gaza is in some way relevant to the current events taking place there in a way that it might not be for the other places you've listed.

There are plenty of stories where this would be relevant. "Many refugees are landing in suburbs of Paris, one of the most densely populated..." "...rural Korean population is flocking to Seoul, one of the most..."

Anyway it's clear that Gaza is a densely populated area. I still consider the highly selective use of the "one of the most" phrasing curious. For the record I think it's bad to drop bombs onto (or fire rockets into) civilian areas even if they are only sparsely populated, for what it's worth.

> There are plenty of stories where this would be relevant. "Many refugees are landing in suburbs of Paris, one of the most densely populated..." "...rural Korean population is flocking to Seoul, one of the most..."

I mean, is it? The suburbs of Paris and Seoul are relatively unbounded in size, if nothing else. Gaza has a hard line on how many sqmi it is in a way very few other jurisdictions do. The density of Gaza is particularly relevant because the situation makes that density a problem in ways it isn't really for Paris or Seoul, as they are not being bombed, blockaded, or subject to limitations on when they even have power or water.

That’s very disingenuous - there are zero territorial claims against Israel in Gaza Strip. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, dissolving all settlements in the area, back in 2005.

The blockade is simply an ongoing state of war between Gaza and Israel. Gaza also borders with Egypt.

Israel recognizes no government in Gaza (neither the Palestinian Authority, which has no power there, nor Hamas, which they recognize as terrorists not a government), claims control over entry and exit to the territory of goods and people, including by sea, and claims the right to enter the territory at any time to carry out military activity.

Israel also does not recognize a Palestinian state in general to be at war with to begin with. There is some lip service to an eventual two state solution that gets less and less paid to every year, but as it stands there's no one to be at war with, as far as Israel is concerned. There's just a bunch of stateless people stuck in a postage-stamp-sized jurisdiction that they've left in a lawless state.

"Disengagement" is not devolution is not autonomy. The idea that this is a war is a convenient PR fiction.

Were you using the term "claims control over entry of goods into the territory" instead of "claims their land", there would be much less to argue about.

"claims their land" sounds like Israel would like to annex Gaza and make it part of Israel - which is ridiculous and patently false.

Is it? Certainly, there are political factions within Israel that claim it should be part of Israel -- that's why there were settlements to remove in the first place. It would be ridiculous to deny that, honestly. Those factions seem to continue to grow in influence every year as well.

The idea that Israel should be one state that covers the entirety of the former mandate of Palestine seems to actually be pretty popular in Israel right now. It may not be the official policy, but it is a very real possibility.

Regardless, if a country exerts every measure of control over a territory it can including entry and exit from it along international borders, it's really hard imo to argue that it sees it as sovereign in any way. Israel clearly does not see Gaza as an independent state. So if it's not an independent state what exactly is it a part of if not Israel.

Or, to put it a little bit more snarky: you can't neglect your way out of an occupation. Neglect is, in fact, a weapon in cases like this.

Does Egypt also claim their land?

Not as far as I know?

Egypt does control access in and out along their own border, as every country does, but afaik the nature of that control is at least somewhat dictated by agreements between Egypt and Israel.

As far as I know Egypt does not do any of the other things I listed, like controlling what can go in and out of Gaza through borders that aren't their own, nor do they make military incursions into it or bomb it.

Also, and I think this is actually pretty key to the idea that Israel believes the land of Gaza to be part of Israel, if Egypt were to invade Gaza do you really believe that Israel would allow that to stand? If Israel truly considered Gaza a state not under its jurisdiction, Egypt annexing Gaza would likely be a welcome outcome.

> Does Egypt also claim their land?

Nope. It (or rather the United Arab Republic, of which modern Egypt is a successor but not the sole successor) temporarily occupied it (officially, pending resolution of the Israel/Palestine issue, but terminated early by force) from 1959-1967 without claiming it.

There was some ambiguity about Egypt’s stance between 1967-1978, but after 1978 they unambiguously had no claim, even administrative, over Gaza.

> "claims their land" sounds like Israel would like to annex Gaza and make it part of Israel - which is ridiculous and patently false.

It very much is not. A recent a Netanyahu election ad showed a map of Israel without Gaza and the West Bank cut out, overlaid with the words “one state”. Among other examples. https://twitter.com/jewish_worker/status/1394036492213833728...

They’re referring to the fact Gaza/Palestine is one of the densest countries in the world.

Gaza is also completely surrounded by sea and another country, so it’s an incredibly dense place with no room to grow. Seoul and Paris are also dense places, but you can keep walking and eventually you see it thin out without a clear border on city limits. Put a fence around Paris city core and fire a missile on the city center—news will talk about one of the densest places on earth being blown up.

Gaza actually has borders with two countries.

> If we're trading references, can you show me some where the BBC refers to Paris as "one of the most densely populated places in the world?"

"Tricks from the most densely populated city... Paris is one of the most densely populated city in the EU with relatively few green spaces."

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p06sbtzz/tricks-from-the-most...

> The reason I consider this claim "misleading" is that I never see the "one of the most densely populated..." phrase on stories about Paris, Kathmandu, Seoul or any of the hundreds of more densely populated areas, yet I constantly see it in reference relatively much-less-densely-populated Gaza.

War in dense urban areas is a special kind of hell.

And it's not particularly rare to note dense population when it is especially relevant.

> Officials in Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, have said the country is overwhelmed with the Rohingya population that has emerged in the Cox’s Bazar area.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/stateless-persecuted...

> At first, Rwanda’s president, Juvénal Habyarimana, refused, protesting that Rwanda was among the most densely populated countries in the world

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/12/americas-secret...

> For four months in 2017, an American-led coalition in Syria dropped some ten thousand bombs on Raqqa, the densely populated capital of the Islamic State.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-o...

> Withholding of more precise data raises eyebrows as rights groups remain sceptical of geographic coordinates in densely-populated areas.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/27/us-led-coalition-a...

From your examples only Bangladesh is referred to by reporters (not as a quotation) as one of the most densely populated in this case “countries” (which is much easier to count than “places”) in the world. (“Most densely populated places” means something different as of course cities are “places” and the definition of place is highly debatable as this thread shows.)

Kudos & good examples. I still think this meme is attached particularly to Gaza but clearly it’s not exclusive.

> From your examples only Bangladesh is referred to by reporters (not as a quotation) as one of the most densely populated in this case “countries”

Not true. Only is a quote (the Rwanda one) and two of the four quotes are not about countries (Raqqa - a city, and "densely-populated areas").

I partially deal with your quibbles on the definition of "place" here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27190788

But I think it's fair to compare similarly geographically sized areas, preferably with somewhat similar political status (ie, there's a big difference between a very dense city surrounded by countryside to support it, vs a city state with no surrounding support area)

It's hard to find many places as big as the Gaza Strip (365 sq km) that are as densely populated (5610 people per square km).

Dhaka is the most closely comparable city: 306 sq km with a density of 29,069 ppl/sq km. But a city isn't comparable to a territory like the Gaza Strip. That is more similar to islands, enclave or isolated country.

On Wikipedia's list[1] Singapore (722 sq km, 7,894 ppl/sq km), Hong Kong (1106 sq km, 6781 ppl/sq km), Bahrain (778 sq km, 1,982 ppl/sq km), and Malta (316 sq km, 1,633 ppl/sq km) seem the obvious comparisons.

The Gaza strip obviously sits right up there amongst them. It is difficult to argue it isn't one of the most densely populated places in the world looking at comparable "places".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

Since the original post is about Google maps, lets use that as a tool for a moment:

Gaza city and Tel Aviv have about the same population size according to Wikipedia (about 590,000 and 460,000 respectively). The Tel Aviv metro area is about 1,500 km² which is almost 3 times larger then the entire Gaza strip (365 km²). The Tel Aviv urban area has about half the population size of the entire Gaza Strip while the Tel Aviv Metro area has almost double the population size as the entire Gaza strip. Both Tel Aviv and Gaza city border the coast, both are somewhat bounded by borders to the East.

So Gaza and Tel Aviv should be somewhat comparable when we look them on a map. However if you take a look at this:

First Tel Aviv: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0703502,34.8333795,11.38z

It looks pretty normal, a dense urban core with some sprawl around it.

Now lets look at Gaza City with the same zoom level: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5083142,34.4330704,11z

Now this looks odd. There is only the dense urban core and then some nothing and then some borders. This is not how cities grow naturally.

Look at a zoomed in level of Gaza City: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.517549,34.4848539,13.55z

And the same zoom level of Tel Aviv: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0641297,34.8076298,13.55z

Notice how abruptly the Gaza City ends, while Tel Aviv looks like a city. Clearly there is something going on there. Looking at the map alone I would not guess that Gaza City was a city the same size as Tel Aviv. I think it is worth reporting this fact given the anomalous nature of Gaza.

Another—and a more important—reason this is worth reporting is precisely the fact that Gaza is a densely populated area that is abnormally bounded in growth. This makes Gaza unique (except maybe Singapore and Hong Kong; but I do recall news media like mentioning those as being densely populated as well).

If Hoboken NJ was blurry on Google Maps they would also describe it as "one of the most densely populated areas of the world" because it's fucking weird that a place with such a population density would be blurry on Google Maps.

Articles citing articles citing articles... aka cliche. They're not really wrong. The definition of "place" is just arbitrary, so it's always "debatable.^"

Bnei Brak, incidentally, is also often described as the densest place in the world. It's just in other contexts that don't interest an international readership. It was mentioned often, in covid related contexts.

^Meaning, pointlessly debateable.

It must just be something that gets repeated without verification at this point. For comparison Gaza City has a slightly higher population density than NYC (but less than Hoboken, NJ) while the entire Gaza Strip has the same population density as Boston (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities...).

> For comparison Gaza City has a slightly higher population density than NYC (but less than Hoboken, NJ) while the entire Gaza Strip has the same population density as Boston

Comparing Gaza to Boston is a bit misleading. Boston is closely integrated into an entire metro area, and the city limits of Boston are artifacts of history. Comparing to NYC is even less meaningful, because NYC is part of an integrated tri-state area and also the geographical center of a larger connected megopolis that contains 1/6th of the population of the entire US.

Gaza, on the other hand, is a strip of land the size of Queens (New York), and it is entirely cut off from everything around it (both land and sea). People who live in Gaza never leave, and nobody else enters. There's no "commuting" to or from Gaza.

I’m sorry if I came across as trying to minimize the dire situation those who live in Gaza are in. You’re right - people in NYC don’t have a foreign power controlling their airspace and shoreline as well as the numerous other differences. I was responding to the idea that it has a higher population density than most other cities and giving some comparisons solely on that metric.

The closest comparison that leaps immediately to mind would be Hong Kong.

But I think the underlying theme is that descriptive words can editorialize - which is pretty obvious.

So maybe the wordsmiths in the media could select a more descriptive adjective than most dense.

> People who live in Gaza never leave, and nobody else enters

The border crossing with Egypt is (or was) open earlier this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing

It's maybe worth noting that objective metrics of population density are generally by land area and subjectively, density is about floor space or even volumetric. Building size could have a big impact on what is perceived as population dense.

> Neither of these come close to ranking on wikipedias list of cities by population density

> Is the BBC just plain wrong here or am I missing something?

What you're missing is that you don't have to be anywhere near that list to be one of the most densely populated places in the world. Most of the world is empty.

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