Comment by hmcq6 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hmcq6 | Hacker News Reader

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That's a bad explanation because it relies on an assumption about how the press in Palestine are operating on the ground and I'm guessing no one on hackernews actually has that info.

We don't know that reporters are rushing into danger or hanging out where the danger is going to be.

In fact, a lot of the "reporters" who we've been watching were never war reporters to begin with. Motaz, for instance was an aspiring travel photographer. Bisan was a filmmaker. Wael was the cheif of Al-Jazera in Gaza.

They're (most likely) not seeking out death and war, they're just reporting on the condition of their city, of their people.

It also ignores 75 years of history. CPJ stated this was the deadliest conflict for journalists in the past 30 years. Reporters Without Borders has accused Israel of intentionally targeting journalists. Human Rights Watch signed a letter stating the US needed to put pressure on Israel to stop killing journalists. Amnesty international says Israel must be investigated for the war crime of killing journalists.

This has also been one of the deadliest wars for civilians in general. Also when you’re using such a loose definition of journalist obviously the deaths would be greater.

Are you saying this war has a higher civilian casualty ratio that other wars? Sadly history shows that civilians have been casualties of war at high rates compared to combatants.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio

That article suggests the average ratio to be 1:1, so yes this war has a higher ratio.

The US defined combatant in their latest wars as any male killed over the age of 14, so the ratio is a bit up to how people choose to define combatant vs civilian.

The wikipedia article should be read as a starting point in understanding how extremely unreliable those numbers are, and how much it depend on how people define combatant and civilian.

The article also gives examples of many major wars, with the majority of examples have numbers of civilians killed usually greater than combatants.

So, as horrific as this war has been, I don't think the claim that this is "one of the the deadliest wars for civilians in general" holds up.

Israel estimated 12,000 Hamas at a time when Hamas figures claimed 26,000 dead. That's pretty close to 1:1.

Part of the trouble is Israel can't prove the 12,000, and no one actually believes the Hamas figures are legitimate. But there are not better figures available for either number. So 1:1 for Gaza is the best we can estimate.

I don't think they said that it was the highest, they just said "one of." From that list, 2:1 or 3:1 is certainly quite deadly.

The original post made it sound unusual that civilians are dying in such high numbers. It is unfortunately not unusual that civilians die at higher numbers than combatants during war, the opposite is often true.

> This has also been one of the deadliest wars for civilians in general.

I don't think that is a true statement. Obviously it is bad for civilians in any war, but there are other conficts that have been much worse.

> This has also been one of the deadliest wars for civilians in general.

That's not actually true. The ratio is similar to other wars. Civilians die in war, they die a lot. War sucks. But Gaza is not unusually deadly compared to other wars.

Compare it to the Russia/Ukraine war. Not even close.

In any case Israel is not conducting a war, they are conducting a massacre.

The double standards are pretty breath-taking - Russia's conduct in Ukraine was labelled a genocide, but Israel's conduct is comparatively white-washed.

While the initial cause for war is obviously different, that does not justify war crimes.

I don't think western-brained folks realise how bad this looks to the rest of the world. For example to India, and the amount damage it does to the West's reputation.

> Wael was the cheif of Al-Jazera in Gaza.

I find it vanishingly unlikely that all the things that have happened to this man and his family are just tragic coincidence. He was clearly targeted.

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