Anyone know where to find what the current accurate count of number of journalists killed in the Gaza bombardment to date?
Last I heard it was 170.
There are also journalists who lived but their whole family died in the strikes.
I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally pay the price of war).
And no, it's unlikely these are journalists who picked up a gun - the IDF is dropping up to 2,000 Lbs bombs, and that's possibly how many are killed; however there have been many reports of journalists homes being targeted in direct strikes, at least one journalist I heard who's wife and children/whole family were killed but he wasn't.
It's not surprising in reality if it's 170+ journalists amongst 30,000+ killed.
There are videos of IDF soldiers harassing and brutally assaulting journalists, if that's any indication of the rules of engagement they subscribe to; I'm obviously not linking to any here on HN - this topic is already a minefield.
What HN is missing is going one layer up, where all of the various points brought up are catalogued-organized - and then allow a second round of discussion, perhaps with a more sophisticated UI/UX for people (from "both"/all sides) to contribute things like citations to evidence/data support the claim/statements, etc; and then those cited sources and data could also then be another layer deeper to constrain or contain further contextualized-narrowed conversation to the analysis of those sources.
Yes. One is a clear cut war crime, the other is not. (Or at least not in and of itself. There are of course factors that could make those civilian deaths be a war crime, but it depends on the circumstances.)
(To be clear, what i am saying is that intentionally targeting journalists (who have not picked up a gun and joined the fight) is an unambigious war crime. Killing journalists incidentally while targeting something else may or may not be a war crime depending on all sorts of factors)
I consider things that are war crimes to be much worse than things that are not. So i do think there is a big difference between the two scenarios.
I think its also important to recognize that this sort of thing has huge propaganda value for the Palestinian side, so its important to be careful when evaluating circumstantial evidence (and to be clear i would say that about any side in any war when it comes to information that makes their oponent look bad). As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It can be very difficult to know what is going on in the middle of a conflict.
It's also the case that more generally, Israel's practice of dropping 2000-pound bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Any targeting of civilian areas has to weigh the military gain against the damage to civilians, and Israel is not doing that. It has emerged that Israel is knowingly targeting buildings where it knows hundreds of civilians will die, just to kill one individual who is suspected of being associated in some way with Hamas. Israel specifically targets suspected Hamas associates when they're at home. These people are identified based on a pattern of behavior and things like cell-phone data, without Israel even knowing whether they really are combatants.[0] In this conflict, Israel has completely taken the gloves off and quite obviously does not care about civilian casualties.
0. https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
At least until the war has subsided and independent orgs can gain access.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-healt...
This is the best meta-analysis I've seen: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fat...
Here is another that questions the statistics of the underlying reported data: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-securit...
>Gaza’s most widely quoted source on casualties is Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. From an office at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, al-Qidra receives a constant flow of data from every hospital in the strip.
>Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition.
Given this, it is entirely possible that there are additional dead that otherwise do not make it to the hospital morgue, those lost in rubble, those left behind, or cases were the violence was so great there is no body to note. To your question Hamas has made a point to be conservative and validate the death tolls, meaning that there are likely a great number of dead that don't reach these standards and are not counted.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-mini...
This list has 96 total in Gaza since the beginning of the war. So not 170.
Many of the names use this reference: "97 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 92 Palestinian, 2 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese."
https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
Is media worker always a journalist? The list seems in disagreement with the other list. Also if you work for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are you a journalist? Where does that line pass? Are IDF media people journalists or are they soldiers? Either way, even by the most generous interpretation not everyone on that list is a journalist. e.g. a "a sound engineer working for the Gaza’s Hamas government owned Al-Rai radio and freelancing for other local radio stations" is not a journalist.
I would trust the list a lot more if there was a reference to their work. Are they published journalists? The list says nothing about what media they worked for. Random e.g. on the list uses Al Jazeera as a reference: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/8/israel-war-...
"Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists – Abdullah Baris and Muhammad Abu Dayer"
A journalist should mean "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.", is there a list that includes what newpapers, magazines, or news websites those people worked for?
I drilled down the wikidata reference link from the article. Some of the people have some references to them being journalists. Others don't.
EDIT: Btw the list of clarifications in the bottom of the CPJ source is also interesting.
"CPJ has removed two Israeli journalists, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, from this list after their outlets confirmed that the journalists were not on assignment to cover the music festival, nor did they have any opportunity to begin reporting on the attack by Hamas militants that killed them on October 7. CPJ’s global database of killed journalists includes only those who have been killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related."
I don't see any evidence that the Gazans reported killed were killed in connection with their work.
"After receiving reports that Palestinian journalist and presenter Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat may have survived the attack thought to have killed her, CPJ has removed her name from its casualties list pending further investigation." - so people are sometimes reported killed but aren't.
"CPJ has removed a Palestinan man, Mohamed Khaireddine, from this list. Khaireddine was previously identified as a journalist, but his family later clarified that he was neither a journalist nor a media support worker." - so we have people reported as journalists by someone ... but aren't.
also: "The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them."
EDIT2: This is a more in-depth analysis of the specific journalists and their affiliations from the Israeli side: https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2024/02/E_013_...
Here's an example of how the IDF treats people who are clearly journalists:
Arguably behaviour of a Gestapo, no? The "wolves in clothing" aspect of this is quite the mind fuck once enough puzzle pieces come together and you realize what's realy going on; and where it makes sense that such deceit as a strategy, long-time, long-running, and long-form propaganda as a psychological manipulation strategy is the only way you can get to this stage of fascism that we're seeing with this current Israeli government.
Re: Interview with a journalist - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6MFu5MNUoX/
Repeat behaviour, a pattern by Israel/IDF reminds me of this quotes that general go something like this: it's never the well-intentioned who want-demand censorship.
Conclusions,
We actually have the opportunity this time to stop this fascist regime in its tracks before 10s to 100s of millions of people die.
Unlike during NaZi Germany anyone who spoke up could quickly be visited by Gestapo, first reported on by 60%+ of their neighbours, and so were easily found.
Today with the internet that is still free enough - where information and evidence can rapidly be studied and curated before distribution - where there are simply too many people already who starting from the comfort of their own homes are able to see and share the truth, or at least present a different perspective - and ideally engage in long-form conversations and see if the person they're engaged with is intellectually honest or not, able to learn and incorporate new information when cognitive dissonance is triggered; there is still suppression going on as part of the "war"-control effort - an attempt to keep specific channels of indoctrinated ideologues kept in bubbles and "ideally" unexposed to questions and thought exercises that would start them down a line of thinking to shatter the veil of the propagandists.
BONUS: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C48GSaOuT5u/
- A short interview clip where it's mentioned that the Gaza bureau Chief of Al Jazeera - his wife, son, and daughter were killed in a strike; was it targeting the journalists' home and that's why it happened, or it was from their indiscriminante bombing of Gaza; which by the way, they're likely killing all of the hostages, too, right?
- So people who support these bombardments are also supporting killing their own citizens - "kill Hamas at all costs" seems to include murdering people that could have been you.
I commented here because the truth is not being told about the number of journalists killed in Gaza. That number is artificially inflated and used as propaganda. You're misdirecting to the family of Al Jazeera bureau chief. He was not killed by the way (you seem to imply he was). I don't know the circumstances related to that attack so I can't comment on it. Lots of innocent people were killed in this war and the blame lies squarely on Hamas.
Your comment about the hostages is intellectually unfair. Given Hamas' attack on Oct 7th it is Israel's right to eliminate that threat. Given the situation on the ground and the goal of minimizing casualties to your own side you're inevitably going to see something that looks very similar to what you've seen. There's no way to use massive military force against an enemy like Hamas under the conditions as they exist in Gaza without that.
But even ignoring that, do see you Hamas returning those hostages? There's precedence here, they've held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and they've been holding Avre Mengisto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avera_Mengistu ) since 2014. Given the combination of the imperative to eliminate Hamas for Israel's security and the fact Hamas would not release hostages unless it is forced to then there's no a lot of wiggle room here. I'm pretty sure Israel is trying to avoid killing hostages which is probably why the Hamas leadership is still alive.
Your comparison to the Gestapo and the Nazis just shows me you know nothing about either. But hey, what else can we talk about on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you do want to compare someone to the Nazis try Hamas, a much better fit.
Unfortunately you can't "see the truth" from the comfort of your home on TikTok. You're seeing what some people want you to focus on. You need to step back, look at the whole picture, not just specific events, and use some critical thinking skills to fit everything, not just one event, to a reasonable theory of what is going on.
If you're interesting in how Hamas treats journalists here's some resources:
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-hamas-must-end...
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-journalist-fac...
You're likely not going to get any "truth" from any Palestinian in Gaza because they risk retribution for not toeing the Hamas line.