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Comment by atwrk | Hacker News Reader

I mean the share of civilians killed in the war (by Israel) is over 80 percent of the total casualties. That is worse than the rate in WW2. In Ukraine it's under 5%.

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

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I deplore current Israeli policies, but Ukraine isn't disguising its war fighters as civilians like Hamas is, which is an important qualifier to your numbers.

But Russia is doing exactly that systematically for years now, disguising as civilians. I'm also pretty sure Hamas isn't disguising themselves as children, who make up the largest share of the civilian victims.

Someone said that Russia has conducted its invasion in a way as to keep civilian casualties to only 5% of Ukrainian casualties. In evaluating that number, it is relevant that Russia's task is made easier by Ukraine's adherence to the widely accepted principle that a war fighter should wear the uniform of the side he is fighting for.

In contrast, for the purposes of this thread, it is irrelevant that "Russia is doing exactly that systematically for years now, disguising as civilians" (to quote you).

This isn't a contest to see how many negative things we can say about the Russians or the Israelis. Or at least that is not a coversation I would be interested in.

I think Israel's actions since Oct 2023 have been deplorable and disgusting. But that doesn't mean I am interested in no nuance at all in discussing how deplorable and disgusting.

> I'm also pretty sure Hamas isn't disguising themselves as children, who make up the largest share of the civilian victims.

Even the very slanted wikipedia article doesn't claim such a crazy thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war

They do claim everyone under the age of 18 to be a "child", which I know is the UN definition, but is pretty absurd in this situation with Hamas fighters of 15, 16, and 17 years of age being very common.

School children aren’t “disguised Hamas”.

They can be. Plenty of 16-olds still in school and also a member of Hamas of Islamic Jihad outside school hours.

Every Zionist in Palestine is a valid target. They’re on stolen land.

Ok, so now you just actually called for genocide. And by that logic all US citizens that are not Native Americans are valid targets in another genocide. Of course, since the UK has been re-invaded many times, all UK citizens are now valid targets for genocide. The palestinian arabs were also invaders according to this logic, so also valid targets for your proposed genocide. Etc. etc. You're calling for genocide of everyone.

I don't see how that's relevant, nor why such a distinction matters in such an asymmetric conflict where international law clearly allows for violent resistance to occupation.

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