GAZA: 3,195 children killed in three weeks surpasses annual number of children killed in conflict zones since 2019
GAZA: 3,195 children killed in three weeks surpasses annual number of children killed in conflict zones since 2019
The number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across conflict zones
Since October 7, more than 3,257 children have been reported killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and Israel respectively. The number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally – across more than 20 countries – over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.
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Why should we trust a Ministry of Health in Gaza? Are they not a part of Hamas?
Edit: they even say later: “Save the Children is an independent, impartial organisation. With the ongoing complete siege of Gaza, journalists and international organisations are not able to get access to Gaza to verify independently and provide updated data on the impact of ongoing bombardment on the civilian population.”
They are not a part of Hamas actually. This article explains a little bit of the political situation in regard to the health ministry and why they have historically been trusted to provide accurate data.
Thank you for the link. That was all extremely informative.
Quotes from the article-
“Yet the Gaza-based Ministry of Health — an agency in the Hamas-controlled government continues to tally casualty numbers….
In previous wars, the ministry's counts have held up to U.N. scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel's tallies.
But an outlier is the ministry’s death toll from an explosion at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City last week.”
So while they have been trustworthy im the past, i still would prefer some third-party oversight after that hospital story. They threw their credibility and caught a bunch of news orgs with their pants down for trusting them.
Here, you forgot the rest of the quote
Yet the Gaza-based Ministry of Health — an agency in the Hamas-controlled government — continues to tally casualty numbers. It released its first detailed report on the casualties Thursday, giving names, ID numbers, ages and gender for Palestinians it says have been killed. The total toll is 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 minors, according to the ministry.
The ministry is the only official source for Gaza casualties. Israel has sealed Gaza’s borders, barring foreign journalists and humanitarian workers. The AP is among a small number of international news organizations with teams in Gaza. While those journalists cannot do a comprehensive count, they’ve viewed large numbers of bodies at the sites of airstrikes, morgues and funerals.The AP wrote the article for anyone who cares to look. There's genuinely a lot to learn about in there.
I was addressing the previous statement saying the ministry was not a part of Hamas when their own article clearly states -an agency in the Hamas-controlled government-
The article also said that their data was wrong in a story everyone remembers a week ago with the hospital.
Obviously a lot of people are being killed, I am not saying they aren’t. But accurate sources are important.
"Hamas, as Gaza's ruling authority, exerts control over the Health Ministry. But it's different than political and security agencies that Hamas runs.
The Palestinian Authority, which controlled Gaza before Hamas overran the area in 2007, retains power over health and education services in Gaza, though it's based in the occupied West Bank. The ministry is a mix of recent Hamas hires and older civil servants affiliated with the secular nationalist Fatah party, officials say."
We can keep quoting the whole article.
Is relation to the hospital explosion:
“U.S. President Joe Biden said he had “no confidence” in the accuracy of the ministry’s reporting. However, the U.S. government’s annual human rights assessments from the region frequently cite the Gaza ministry.
Gaza’s Health Ministry stands by the 471 figure and includes it in the total death toll. When asked about conflicting accounts, authorities emphasize the difficulties of their work and vigorously deny any fabrication”
My takeaway is, they have been accurate historically and are used internationally, but they should be verified, especially after recent events.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you about desiring third party verification, you said that Hamas controls the Health Ministry. But it doesn't and now you're moving the goalposts. Joe Biden's comment means absolutely nothing and is actively countered by the next sentence. Joe Biden only says what his handlers tell him to say. And it definitely would be difficult to accurately number the amount of deaths from a bunch of dismembered body parts.
But it literally says in your quote that Hamas exerts authority. It would be foolish to assume they wouldnt use every source of outrage they could get.
It also literally says that the Palestinian Authority retains control over it. At this point it's clear that you're not looking for a fact based argument. You have already decided that anything coming out of Palestine is immoral and untrustworthy and that Israel is the good guy in this conflict. And anything that is remotely contrary to that belief of yours must be incorrect. We will not be able to bridge this gap in this thread. Have a good night.
Wouldn't a good way to stop that be to stop the bombardment and let in people to take a full accurate tally? Israel would stop to do that if they cared about that number, and yet the bombs keep dropping.
I mean, that street goes 2 ways. Hamas could also release the hostages and surrender. That would also end the bombardment and let in people to take a tally.
Good point. Why are they bombing the place where the hostages are? That seems like they also don't care about the hostages. Are the hostages Palestinian?
Nope, the hostages are from all over the world because Hamas targeted civilians at a music festival.
Unlike IDF who are targeting war assets that are conveniently located beneath schools, mosques, hospitals, and apartments.
Which is why i dont trust Gaza data. They want civilians to die to spread propaganda against Israel so people like you can have talking points.
People like me that care about people? What do you mean people like me?
Sorry, that was rude of me to say.
I mean people that would use that data/story to make Israel look like the aggressor and Palestine the victim, when it is not that black & white.
I don’t want kids on any side to die, but using kids as a shield to hide behind is really shitty. So while i want kids to be safe, my anger is directed at Hamas for using them. Not Israel for fighting a group that massacred it’s people 3 weeks ago.
you don't believe, under the context of thousands of dead kids, there's any right way to perceive Palestine as the victim? There were less kids killed in the Oct 7 attack than there have been since in the West Bank, and they didn't do anything to deserve that. Did they? This all just sounds like collective punishment to me.
Collective punishment is a war crime prohibited by treaty in both international and non-international armed conflicts, more specifically Common Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 6 of the Additional Protocol II.
Hamas is also committing countless warcrimes.
“1. In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives…
- The taking of hostages is prohibited. Common Article 3; GC IV, Article 34.
- The prohibition against taking hostages in armed conflict is a fundamental guarantee whose breach is a war crime.”
Meanwhile the International Humanitarian Law clearly states:
“ 1. The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.
- Under no circumstances shall medical units be used in an attempt to shield military objectives from attack. Whenever possible, the Parties to the conflict shall ensure that medical units are so sited that attacks against military objectives do not imperil their safety.
It's often claimed that groups like Hamas and others in areas like Palestine use the proximity of civilians as cover to justify the collateral damage, but Gaza is densely populated and paramilitary groups are part of the civilians. There is no way for them to separate the populations. It's a well known tactic. https://progressive.org/latest/human-shields-excuse-war-crimes-zunes-210617/
PS Just want to add the extra fucked up aspect of looking up information and finding an article from two years talking about the horrific bombing campaign by Israel then, and how the information war is exactly the same now. Nothing ever changes.
Are you not better than Hamas? Nobody here is supporting Hamas? Does this justify the killing of thousands of children?
Have you considered that they have tunnels and shelters under these buildings because they have been bombed by the IDF for decades? Have you seen even a single shred of verification of the military nature of these targets, like munitions, weapons or anything of the sort?
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What I'm saying is they have shelters in residential areas because they are bombed in civilian areas by the IDF, so they need shelters everywhere. It's not civilians as air raid shelters, the civilians are everywhere and they are bombed everywhere, there are too many people and too little space for there to be a large distinct separation between the military and civilians in Palestine. The militants are the civilians because there is popular resistance against Israel from Palestine.
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I'm saying that Israel is in the wrong and they have the choice to disengage in the conflict and try to create peace. They have not elected to do this in the decades they have had the opportunities. They do not accept the terms that Palestine has put forth. Israel occupies areas that are designated as territory for Palestine based on previous agreements, and they continue to push further and claim more territory in Palestine, pushing their goal of eliminating Palestine as a state. If they withdraw and decrease their blockading of Palestine there would be a reduced risk of terrorism.