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Please Don't Discount Death Tolls from Gaza: It Is Dangerous [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-27 x Looking back at major Israeli bombardments of Gaza and what the health ministry reported and what the Israeli military acknowledged in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021 there is close agreement, not dispute. — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) October 24, 2023 x What the Israeli military does usually significant dispute is who makes up those deaths, severally minimizing the number of civilians killed and almost inverting the proportions reported by the ministry. — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) October 24, 2023 x Additionally, Palestinians have consistently called for and stated their willingness to cooperate with international and independent probes while Israel has systematically rejected doing so and worked to make such investigations nearly impossible. — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) October 24, 2023 Plus, there is this. (He is Irish.) x My understanding is Hamas casualty counts have generally aligned with Israeli estimates. The disagreement is over the relative numbers of combatants vs civilians. I think the fact we're seeing such high numbers if deaths from journalists & UN workers suggests casualties are high https://t.co/nf6aMargKC — Ronan (@rfitz77) October 25, 2023 And here is another thread on that from a Palestinian. x them. On several occasions, docs had to make the decision to bury the unclaimed victims in mass graves to prevent a health disaster. 2. The number of those killed tallies bodies that make it to hospital or injured declared dead by a doctor. 3. In previous wars, these same doctors — Nour Odeh 🇵🇸 #NojusticeNopeace (@nour_odeh) October 24, 2023 From Leah McElrath (I think tweets are coming sort of faulty because she has disabled retweets. So, not sure if you will actually see these tweets.) x Additionally, there’s reportedly history of MoH casualty counts tallying accurately with numbers from international and Israeli observers in the past. I’m concerned the current narrative is aimed at controlling public outcry in advance of potential mass civilian casualties. 2/ https://t.co/LzC5QA6aUN — Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) October 25, 2023 x I’ll add: I personally have viewed photos and videos of hundreds of young children and babies killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes. Hundreds. The evidence is accessible on X, Telegram, etc. Israeli airstrikes are massacring civilians. That is a fact, not a question. 4/ — Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) October 26, 2023 And she has been pretty supportive of Biden so far. Continues to be in fact. Plus, here is Washington Post (Adam Taylor). x President Biden says he has "no confidence in the number [of deaths] that the Palestinians are using.” Here's what @OmarSShakir of Human Rights Watch has to say about the numbers used by the Gaza Health Ministry. In short: he's sure they're accurate. https://t.co/lfzfJDNMlD pic.twitter.com/TPWkyzRqTP — Alex Kane (@alexbkane) October 25, 2023 International organizations including the United Nations usually rely on these same figures as they are seen as the best available. The partial exception is the database of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which checks both Gazan and Israeli numbers with at least one other source, according to its website. This takes time, however, and OCHA has not updated its database with tolls from the current war. The United States does not directly provide funding to the Gaza Health Ministry because of its ties with Hamas. However, the State Department cited its death toll statistics in a report published only a few months ago. [...] “Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.” Shakir said Human Rights Watch would not use figures provided by parties with “a propensity to misrepresent information.” “We know that a health ministry is going to base [death tolls] on assessments coming from hospitals, morgues, etc.,” he said. “They have an ability to collect that in a way that other sources not there can’t do.” And this is OCHA a few days back (25th Oct). The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached an unprecedented point. UNRWA, by far the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, warned that unless fuel is allowed into Gaza immediately, the agency will be forced to halt all operations tonight. Hospitals are shutting down. They lack fuel, water, medical supplies and personnel. Fuel is being severely rationed and is used to run a selected number of critical facilities. The back-up generators are not designed for continuous operation and could break. UN personnel yesterday visited hospitals. In one, they noted hundreds of wounded men, women and children. Many of them were unconscious, with open wounds, lying on beds, stretchers and on the floor, with limited medical attendance. In the yard, there was a tent with tens of dead bodies, including children. Many of the dead are kept there because the morgues are full. Food stocks are running out. The World Food Programme estimates that current supplies of essential food in Gaza are sufficient for about 12 days. However, the available stock in shops is expected to last only five days. People are resorting to well water, which is extremely high in salt and poses immediate health risks. Health partners have also detected cases of chicken pox, scabies and diarrhoea due to the poor sanitation conditions and the consumption of water from unsafe sources. The number of internally displaced people is now estimated at more than 1.4 million, including nearly 590,000 people sheltered in UNRWA-designated shelters. More than 15 per cent of the displaced people are estimated to have disabilities, yet most shelters are not adequately equipped for their needs. More than 40 per cent of all housing units in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged, according to local authorities. Can 40 percent of all housing be destroyed with no or few civilian casualties? As the Washington Post article by Mr. Taylor says, OCHA usually does independent verification of the casualties. It has not yet done it but they do have confirmed UN reports all the same. Plus, as per current OCHA data: Mr. Lazzarini said that as of today, at least 53 UNRWA staff members have been confirmed killed. All historical and current evidence says that thousands have already been killed in Israel’s air strikes. I must add that US has this pattern of abusing power to kill (or support killing) innocent Black and brown people elsewhere (as at home but this time calling it just war on terrorism), call them collateral damage when you/they acknowledge them, and then, just shrug, express pain, and go on doing it in some other place. Or deny the death count altogether. As the following thread by a historian will demonstrate. x When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, with US military and diplomatic backing, its armed forces killed 50-100k civilians in the first 12 months (roughly 15% of the population). US officials flatly denied the scope and scale of killing:(https://t.co/IvfHMVTZYt) pic.twitter.com/ojX12qsnh3 — Brad Simpson (bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social) (@bradleyrsimpson) October 25, 2023 You can read the whole thread. And yes, this applies to Biden administration too. Biden administration has continually discounted concerns about India’s democratic backsliding, targeting of journalists, and murders of Muslims. As the thread above demonstrates, US including Biden admin have a history of obfuscating or denying when crimes are committed by allies or client states. Once again, mistakes are bound to happen during war counts, especially when the war is ongoing. That is not a reason to discount the whole method. This might lead to more deaths (because attackers and allies will dismiss death counts and thus there would be no holding back). There is no point to repenting later. The dead will not be brought back. They were not brought back in Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. The damage done will not be healed. Please stop discounting the Palestinian dead. That will only lead to more death. Note: For people who say the death count is on Hamas or Palestinians deserve them for electing Hamas (even if most of them are kids and probably did not vote in that election and as per polls, most Gazans do not support Hamas as on Oct 6th): Have you ever used that argument for Americans who elected Bush who attacked Iran and Afghanistan leading to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives? Is it okay to drop bombs on US because US elected Bush and Trump? By the same logic, Hamas would be justified in attacking Israeli civilians because if you look at the data in that first tweet thread above or even from the UN, thousands have been killed in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and before that under Israeli occupation. Hundreds or more have been dispossessed or killed in West Bank. Would you say that Hamas is justified? As far as I know, no. The idea that Palestinians must bear the blame and the punishment for Hamas' activities is the same one used by terrorists everywhere to attack civilians. It was used by Bin Laden to attack Usians for example (that is a link to an Atlantic article by Conor Friedersdorf from 2014). If you want to read Bin Laden's actual words, Guardian has it (it is a terrorist’s letter and might make you uncomfortable). The style and rherotic can be useful for other comparisons as well. It is not just violent non-state actors that use binaries and the threads of good and evil. States do it too. US especially uses it regularly. x This was the explicit rationale given by Bin Laden and al-Zwahiri on why it’s permissible to target and kill enemy civilians- that they vote for govts and pay taxes which carry out and fund repressive anti-Muslim policies in the Middle East and so are culpable 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️ https://t.co/csqXgfCGfR — Conrad Barwa (@ConradkBarwa) October 25, 2023 Do not discount the Palestinian dead. Do not see their deaths as justice for Israeli dead or the price to pay for security for ordinary Israelis. Neither is true. And anyone who does not speak up against this cruelty, or justify or back this death visited up on Palestinians is complicit, especially the Biden administration that has backed Israel’s bombardment through arms and words. Do not discount the Palestinian dead. Please. 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