Intent matters. The actual death toll (which we don’t actually have for Gaza - we only have Hamas reporting figures, which includes obvious lies like that hospital parking lot incident that I’m sure you remember) is actually irrelevant in assessing whether or not something is a genocide. Think about this for a second: Would an army hell-bent on committing genocide roof-knock, drop leaflets, send warnings by telephone, messenger, social media and hacked TV stations? Why bother, why give warning to an enemy (any time you warn civilians, Hamas fighters will also be able to flee or hide) if the actual goal, like you are claiming, is eradication?
Before you’re saying that this is just a smoke screen: The Israeli government clearly doesn’t care about outside appearances, as they have stated multiple times, and would bring this war to its conclusion no matter what the world is saying, as they have also stated multiple times.
Also, stagnation doesn’t mean everything stops, it means the fighting continues, it means extremely limited access for aid workers, it means chaos, it means people fleeing, it means supplies getting stolen by Hamas.
@DdCno1 just to be clear, the reason I am calling this a genocide is because it closely matches Raphael Lemkin’s definition of a genocide.
I agree with you, intent matters.
A note on the death toll though, historically Hamas health authority figures have been fairly accurate to final independently assessed death tolls. This is according to all the biggest NGOs and news agencies I trust such as MSF and BBC. Obviously there are logistical challenges and they are likely undercounting those killed in rubble.
International humanitarian NGOs are now sounding the warning about looming deaths due to secondary causes malnutrition and disease which in a deliberate man-made famine situation still count.
Would an army hell-bent on committing genocide roof-knock, drop leaflets, send warnings by telephone, messenger, social media and hacked TV stations?
This is all IDF propaganda. Even if they are doing all of these things consistently and precisely, what evidence is there that these efforts have any effect I’m reducing civilian casualties?
We’d need an honest and open accounting of casualties to check that. And the IDF will not do that.
This does not read like propaganda to me and paints a balanced picture. It shows that there is both an enormous effort to save civilians, but that from the perspective of those civilians, the process is still confusing and traumatizing. There are unfortunately no perfect solutions. At the very least, homes can be rebuilt, people cannot.
@DdCno1 I would much rather stagnation than genocide.
At least 1.5% of the population of Gaza has been killed in under 5 months.
To put that into perspective, in the Bosnian Genocide 3% of Bosniaks were killed in a process which took over 2 years.
Intent matters. The actual death toll (which we don’t actually have for Gaza - we only have Hamas reporting figures, which includes obvious lies like that hospital parking lot incident that I’m sure you remember) is actually irrelevant in assessing whether or not something is a genocide. Think about this for a second: Would an army hell-bent on committing genocide roof-knock, drop leaflets, send warnings by telephone, messenger, social media and hacked TV stations? Why bother, why give warning to an enemy (any time you warn civilians, Hamas fighters will also be able to flee or hide) if the actual goal, like you are claiming, is eradication?
Before you’re saying that this is just a smoke screen: The Israeli government clearly doesn’t care about outside appearances, as they have stated multiple times, and would bring this war to its conclusion no matter what the world is saying, as they have also stated multiple times.
Also, stagnation doesn’t mean everything stops, it means the fighting continues, it means extremely limited access for aid workers, it means chaos, it means people fleeing, it means supplies getting stolen by Hamas.
@DdCno1 just to be clear, the reason I am calling this a genocide is because it closely matches Raphael Lemkin’s definition of a genocide.
I agree with you, intent matters.
A note on the death toll though, historically Hamas health authority figures have been fairly accurate to final independently assessed death tolls. This is according to all the biggest NGOs and news agencies I trust such as MSF and BBC. Obviously there are logistical challenges and they are likely undercounting those killed in rubble.
International humanitarian NGOs are now sounding the warning about looming deaths due to secondary causes malnutrition and disease which in a deliberate man-made famine situation still count.
This is all IDF propaganda. Even if they are doing all of these things consistently and precisely, what evidence is there that these efforts have any effect I’m reducing civilian casualties?
We’d need an honest and open accounting of casualties to check that. And the IDF will not do that.
The world must be very simple for you. Anything that doesn’t fit within your worldview is automatically labelled as propaganda. Read this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67327079
This does not read like propaganda to me and paints a balanced picture. It shows that there is both an enormous effort to save civilians, but that from the perspective of those civilians, the process is still confusing and traumatizing. There are unfortunately no perfect solutions. At the very least, homes can be rebuilt, people cannot.
Funny. You didn’t read past the first sentence of my comment.