SciPy stats includes a Wallenius’ discrete random variable[15], that takes four parameters on its creation: M is the total number of subjects, n is the number of Type I subjects (journalists), and odds is the odds ratio: the odds of killing a journalist rather than a non-journalist when there is only one individual of each. The random variate represents the number of journalists that end dead if Israeli forces kills pre-determined x people from Gaza Strip one by one. The total population in the strip (M) is approximately known. x is known from OCHA daily stats. For the effective population of journalists (n) and odds ratio (odds) we can use Wallenius' to test several value pairs and check which best fit the data. From the article we can estimate the membership of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate at 1200. That is a upper bound on the effective number of journalists, taking into account the likely inclusion of supporting staff and the many professionals forced to flee the Strip[16], sometimes after receiving explicit threats[17]. About the odds ratio, the current body count is about 1.3% of the total population in the Strip. Meanwhile, US estimates about 20%-30% of the 30000 strong Hamas forces were killed[18]. This number is probably exaggerated, as it implies every dead male in the age bracket around 13-60 is being counted as a Hamas militant, but for the sake of iron-manning the argument, let's assume those figures are true. That means the average Hamas militant is about 20:1 to 30:1 times more likely to be killed than a random person. So we should expect jurnalists' odds ratio to sit between somewhere between random citizen and Hamas militant, taking into account occupational hazards but not deliberate targeting. In doubt I took 100:1 as an upper bound, and wrote a model (source bellow).

The best fit I got over the search grid had an effective journalist population of 155 and odds ratio of 75:1. As the data is noisy, I took the top 20 matches to have some idea of error intervals, and got ranges of 135 - 205 effective population and 51 - 96 odds ratio. The odds ratio is larger than our estimate for Hamas militants, indicating that in fact Israeli forces are busier targeting journalists than Hamas militants. Even if we assume the total kill counts are underestimates, given all people missing under the rubble and lack of proper rescue work due to targeting of rescue crews, say, adding a xs = [2*x for x in xs] line after the first definition of xs, to double the total counts, we still get killing odds for journalists equal or greater than for militants.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) [2]. https://xkcd.com/356/ [3]. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/global-media-outle... [4]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urn_problem [5]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 [6]. https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202/Israeli-tanks-hav... [7]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncentral_hypergeometric_dist... [8]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenius%27_noncentral_hyperg... [9]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_noncentral_hypergeo... [10]. https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-... [11]. https://twitter.com/EuroMedHR/status/1761121386347516095 [12]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... [13]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rashid_humanitarian_aid_inc... [14]. https://www.ochaopt.org/ [15]. https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.s... [16]. https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/p/Cz9MfelKk3x/ [17]. https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/516373.aspx [18]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-believe-israel-kill...

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