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Comment by nsguy | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how we got to "tens of thousands of children" when even the Hamas reports don't claim that. I think 12,300 is the last claim I saw a little bit back which is not "tens of thousands" but I agree is a large number.

You're assuming the children are evenly distributed and buildings are attacked randomly and evenly. None of which is true.

Many buildings have been demolished with explosives or bulldozers while empty. Many buildings were damaged during combat with walls being breached to provide access.

In many cases buildings were attacked in areas that have been ordered to evacuate. (yes not all cases).

There's no doubt many children have been killed. We've all seen terrible photos of individual children dead. I don't think it's "tens of thousands" and I'm not sure we'll have accurate numbers. Other than that as you note there's a large number of children and so they've definitely and unfortunately impacted.

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The article under discussion says that even by internal Israeli calculations in the early days of the war on a typical day “another thousand Gazans have died, most of them civilians.” Given the population demographics of Gaza, I do not think it’s a stretch you might get to 20,000 minors killed.

The article also questions your claim that the IDF was careful to protect civilians by eg destroying empty building. On the contrary, the IDF accepted extremely high civilian deaths to kill even one suspected minor militant.

I didn't claim that the "the IDF was careful to protect civilians by eg destroying empty building". I made no particular observation about the IDFs efforts or lack thereof to protect civilians.

I'm claiming many of the destroyed buildings have been empty. This really has nothing to do with the article. I'm addressing the parent's logic/argument. There have been many examples of buildings destroyed while empty, for example to make up the new boundary area Israel has created from the border. The attempt to calculate casualties via the number of destroyed buildings is a very poor methodology. Your statement and mine are not mutually exclusive- it's possible the IDF targeted buildings that had many civilians in them to get at one target. I don't know the demographics of those civilians. I don't know whether what happened in the early days of the war continued throughout the war. I would agree that early in the war Israel very likely accepted a larger number of civilian casualties to get at Hamas targets. I think the new thing potentially in this article is questioning the degree to which the targets were valid military targets.

What do you possibly get about trying to hairsplit the number OF DEAD CHILDREN. Oh, yes, you’re right. It wasn’t 20,000 so we shouldn’t say “tens of thousand” it was just twelve thousand three hundred children.

“Impacted” is definitely one word for it. Murdered another.

Hopefully I get you to be more accurate and specific when discussing this loaded emotional topic. Words literally kill. I think using defusing language is conductive to de-escalation.

Words are important. And you're right those are different words. The word murdered has a specific meaning, e.g. "to kill (a person) unlawfully and unjustifiably with premeditated malice". The word impacted means: "strongly or directly affected by something especially in a negative way." The word "child" also has a definition. In this context it usually refers to people under the age of 18.

I'll turn the question back at you, what are you trying to get out of claiming "tens of thousands" or "murdered"?

I think the word murdered is IMO more appropriate to the children Hamas killed in Israel on Oct 7th and civilians it has killed in Israel over the years and less appropriate for the children killed in Gaza by IDF action during a war. That said my heart breaks for every single child, whoever they are, that lost their lives. It's not their fault. This war didn't need to happen. We should try our best to protect children, here and everywhere, and I do recognize that at some level you're trying to do so, thanks for that.

Your pedantry isn't even correct. Say it with me: "One point two tens of thousands of dead children."

I'm just really annoyed with the use of language that is meant to evoke emotions and leaves incorrect impressions. This is all bad enough without riling people up to make it worse. There's little doubt what images someone seeks to invoke by saying "10's of thousands" and "murder". Even if I interpret it as people genuinely wanting to minimize human suffering I think it ends up with the opposite result and is really not how anyone involved here makes progress. Also I know we live in a post-truth reality but I for all of us to have debates based on facts is still important. For me as someone who is generally pro-Israeli I have no problem with fact based criticism of Israel. What I have a problem with is that the anti-Israeli side is basically making stuff up. If something is factual then it is. If there are unknowns then we should openly say they're unknowns. And no, if you're pointing out something is a lie, you're not "justifying the killings of children". If you point out certain information is still not clear or comes from questionable sources you're not either.

Say it.

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