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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1264 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 28, 2023

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I wonder why places where people live are called "towns" in Lebanon but "settlements" in Israel.

insisting that Hezbollah withdraw thirty miles away from the border.

Actually I think this is a mistake here - 30 km or 18 miles. This is not a random number - that's where the Litani river is - and by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah is not supposed to have any military presence south of Litani. Of course, Hezbollah has been blatantly ignoring it all the way since 2006, but now Israel is insisting on finally implementing this decision.

20k in Gaza

It is important to note here that the only source for this data is Hamas, these numbers are not verifiable outside Hamas, and people giving those numbers are the same people that told us there were over 500 casualties from an Islamic Jihad rocket falling on Al Ahli hospital (they said it was Israeli attack) which was a complete fabrication. Moreover, they declared the number within less than a day (which would be utterly impossible if they actually counted anything). Given that absolutely no identity information is disclosed about any of the supposedly deceased (except Hamas terrorists high profile enough to deserve official acknowledgment when they are eliminated) - not that, again, it'd be possible to verify that information outside Hamas - a smart person would consider these numbers with enormous amount of skepticism. The real number is probably around 10x less.

Actually I think this is a mistake here - 30 km or 18 miles. This is not a random number - that's where the Litani river is - and by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah is not supposed to have any military presence south of Litani.

Ah thanks for the correction.

It is important to note here that the only source for this data is Hamas, these numbers are not verifiable outside Hamas

I think that's why the study went with 'buildings destroyed" rather than casualties, since it's easier to verify externally. Given the rapid rate of bombing relative to Allepo, etc, I think saying less than half that bodycount has been produced doesn't seem like a wildly exaggerated number.

An Israeli military spokesperson earlier this month was saying probably about 5000 militants killed, with twice as many civilians killed for a total of around 15,000. Since the conflict hasn't stopped since then around 20k seems like about what both sides figure.

I'm sure Hamas lies and they obviously lied about the hospital explosion, and its a shame that media uncritically re-reports Hamas numbers but even the Jerusalem post puts palestinan deaths in Gaza at >13k.

If you have a credible argument for the real number being less than 6th of that then I would like to hear it.

I'm not sure what "even Jerusalem Post" adds here. JP does not have any sources besides Hamas' reports. Nobody does. They discount it in certain way, but it's just baseless and unverifiable assumptions, I don't see why it should be given more weight that anybody else's. Are you able to find any substantiation to these figures that ultimately doesn't converge on believing Hamas' word?

I don't have any independent sources either, I just do a rough estimate based on what I learned about how much they are willing to lie. Like, if Israel attacks a building and they say 10000 people died, nobody is going to believe that - too much. But if 5 people died and they say 50 - there's a chance that goes through. Saying something like 7 would be pointless - too little added, saying something like 500 would strain the credibility too much, probably - the real multiplier is somewhere within those bounds. Of course, I have no means to accurately estimate it either beyond that.

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