Changes in UN Gaza fatalities numbers due to reporting method - info - no flames please

[LeftInTX]

Last edited Sun May 12, 2024, 03:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Changes in the UN Gaza fatalities report makes it appear that the number children fatalities has decreased by 50%, it is because the new numbers are derived from positive identification of bodies.

The Gaza Health Ministry never distinguishes between civilians and combatants. That becomes clearer after the dust settles, when the U.N. and rights groups investigate and militant groups offer a tally of members killed. The Israeli military also conducts post-war investigations.

The Health Ministry doesn’t report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or other means, like errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression.”https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033

Prior to May 8, the number of men were left out of the report

It appears at this time, the actual number of children's fatalities decreased by 10%, not 50%.

The Positive ID number is based on Apr 30th stats and will probably not be updated until sometime in June

Israel estimates that 16,000 Hamas combatants have been killed.

Data is available at United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs https://www.ochaopt.org/


May 6:
Number of Fatalities 34,735
Positive ID (Not Available)
Children Est: > 14,500 42%
Women Est > 9,500 27%

May 8
Number of Fatalities 34,735
Positive ID 24,686
Men Identified 10,006 40%
Children Identified 7,797 32%
Women Identified 4,959 20%
Elderly Identified 1,924 8%


Israel states that it has killed approx 16,000 Hamas fighters


https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215


https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213

[Think. Again.]

1. And as noted in the graph...

"Not including the more than 10,000 reported missing or under the rubble."

[Marcus IM]

2. 218 days since Oct 7

According to the Brady campaign to end gun violence in the USA, on average 117 people are killed with guns every day.

218 days X 117 gun deaths/day = 25,506

So, according to Israeli numbers, the USA has had more gun deaths alone than the IDF campaigns since Oct 7.

With body counts like this, it is so strange that we don't have protests nor intense media coverage over this ongoing war in the USA.

Shocking statistics here --> https://www.bradyunited.org/resources/statistics

[lostnfound]

9. Why bother, didn't do any good. Better to be cynical and ignore all the dying.

Take your point and carry just a bit further

[SarahD]

3. Fighting over numbers.

Some people seem to feel that the numbers justify their position. Or exaggerating the numbers makes one side worse. Or better. Or more or less of a victim. Or something. There have been endless arguments about the numbers on this board, and people seem to feel vindicated every time they post something about casualty or fatality numbers. I don't get it. Both sides in this conflict seem happy to kill each other, with many civilians caught in the middle while the combatants vow to keep fighting until they exterminate their enemies. As far as I can see, both sides are using the numbers debate to claim the moral high ground, but I'm not sure there is a moral high.ground.

[Marcus IM]

4. Good/bad people on both sides?

Mark me down as shocked. SHOCKED I tell ya.

[SarahD]

5. I know. We disregard the facts of violence and death.

"Your bad people are worse than my bad people." And then comes some point about how your bad people killed more civilians, or more babies, or killed them more mercilessly, or with greater enthusiasm, or more hatefully.

[gulliver]

8. The numbers are hopeless and unusable to any but the innumerate.

But the media reports them anyway.

One thing I don't see is the projected number of Israeli innocents who will be murdered in the bestial, Oct. 7th style of Hamas if it keeps its promises. (I guess that's one step too "brain-hurty/mathy" for the TLDR click-it-for-my-payday media-tainment industry.)

Hamas' promise to continue its attacks indefinitely arguably creates a "contract" that should be reliable for projections in any math- or rationality-centric scheme. Actuaries should be able to predict what the true 10- and 20-year expected casualty numbers are. Only thinking about the present and the near past is immoral. Future lives are as important as current ones, both Gazan and Israeli. And this is not to mention the risk Hamas-like thinking presents to humanity in general and the United States (my personal favorite country) in particular.

Intuitively, the elimination of Hamas and, more importantly, the world-wide elimination of its mentality, is good for humanity in my book.

[NickB79]

6. The numbers Hamas puts out are statistically impossible

The Gaza Health Ministry is part of the Hamas government.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Tell me this graph of Gaza deaths is real with a straight face.

?w=1200&q=70&auto=format&dpr=1

[Celerity]

7. Thank you for posting this, K&R.

[HandmaidsTaleUntold]

10. Typical Propaganda

Just play with the numbers like it’s a marketing gimmick. Reagan used to do this. I recall when unemployment went down. But he just added members of the military that weren’t included before.

[AverageOldGuy]

11. Are there any figures for UNIDENTIFIED?

Listen up: I spent a long time in a year in a place called "Vietnam" -- most of you probably read a paragraph or two about Vietnam in your history books. For some of us, it was real. Very real.

The movies are bullshit. In the movies, someone fires a shot, someone clutches their chest and falls dead, everyone gathers too look at the dear departed.

Not so in real life. I put young men into body bags and sent them home to their mothers -- that is, we put into body bags all the pieces we could find. Ditto for North Vietnamese troops -- a torso with a piece of jaw attached to the neck; torso with head attached, legs separated somewhere. Military ordnance is designed to kill and destroy and it works exceptionally well.

The greatest killer on the battlefield is artillery -- and when a 155mm shell loaded with 22 pounds of composition B detonates in a playground filled with kids . . . .

And let's not get started on aerial rockets fired with great precision from helicopters, and bombs -- 500, 1,000, 2,000 pounders.

Look at the pics of the cement buildings reduced to rubble. Imagine what that does to human flesh.

This re-assessment of numbers is all an attempt to whitewash mass murder of innocents.

[AloeVera]

23. +1000 Agree wirh all you say.

Just look at the mass destruction.

What gets lost is a little footnote in the UN report stating that AT LEAST 10,000 people missing or buried under rubble and not included in the count of 35,000.

At least.


Thank you for providing some real-life context and a dose of reality.

[EX500rider]

12. And children defined as up to how old?

From what I have read it is up to 18yo, which would include many 16, 17 & 18yo hamas members killed while launching rockets & firing RPG's & AK-47's, hardly the things actual children do.

But a propaganda win for hamas to include them in the children category for sure.

[AloeVera]

24. I don't understand that thinking.

Children are no longer children because they take up arms, in service of some cause they don't yet have the capacity to fully understand? I thought we in the West were appalled by child soldiers for the reason that these kids are exploited and harmed? Looks like our liberal, humanitarian values, our concern for children, don't apply to the children of Gaza.

[EX500rider]

25. No children aren't children if they are eighteen or seventeen

Children generally refers to someone under the age of thirteen not eighteen

[AloeVera]

27. Is that why there are so many 13-17 year olds in the IDF?

Sarcasm of course.

But seriously, you don't consider anyone over 12 a child???

[EX500rider]

30. I consider them a adolescent or teenager or young adult

And you can join the US military at 17

[et tu]

13. enough

cease fire now!

[Don1]

14. In case there is confusion, here is why there are unidentified

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-hamas-war-health-system-collapse-in-gaza-leaves-authorities-struggling-to-count-the-dead-13107279

[cliffside]

19. Thx, makes sense "The collapse of healthcare infrastructure has left thousands of dead unidentified..." nt

[AloeVera]

28. It's the situation in the north...

No major hospitals functioning to report casualties, blackouts, ground offensives plus bombardments.. Mass graves, improvised graves, unreported dead, no journalists to witness and report, where entire families are killed no one is left to report.

AT LEAST 10,000 missing or under rubble.

It's going to be really bad.

[cliffside]

29. Not just a north problem, as things closed down in the north and people were told to move south ...

the problem of identifying the dead has escalated.

Take all of those problems you listed and imagine a wave going south, culminating into the unidentified dead that was recently reported, which was spun to reduce to casualties.

Residents are not allowed to easily flee to another country as they are in Ukraine.

I was in Slovakia last year around this time, a family member participated in a triathlon outside of Bratislava. Gorgeous, friendly city and not far from Vienna, but people did speak of the influx of people from Ukraine.

I went to a grammar school in a small town town where we had every Jewish holiday off and then to a Catholic boarding school in high school where I met friends from central and South America. My parents took out a loan in 1969, Beneficial Finance I believe, for me to accept an invitation to visit my high school friend in Caracas, we were not wealthy, but they knew the experience was worth it, I visited the country three times.

I digress, but diversity, travel if possible, should be cherished, just get out of your your space to those to others who have an open mind. Book knowledge is great, so is meeting people from other countries.

[AloeVera]

31. Kudos to your parents.

Travel absolutely broadens the mind. I was last in Slovakia 5 years ago. Did a tour of Eastern Europe. Amazing place but I'm biased, being from that area originally. My relatives there tell me how sad it is to see the women and children refugees from Ukraine.

But yes, now it's getting bad everywhere in Gaza. I mentioned the north because that's been cut off from the world for months and we don't really know what's happening there. But if Al-Shifa hospital is any indication, it's not good.

[cliffside]

32. Thx! And as you said "Travel absolutely broadens the mind!!! ...

an old doctor told me of his travels to Afghanistan, Iran etc.and all the great experiences.

Seems like our world is closing in on us, more and more places are off limits.

What a closed minded society we have become!

I'm happy to have visited Venezuela three times in the late 60's early 70's from the beaches, an island my friend tells me in now gone, to the snow covered mountains and the sand dunes of Coro. So many places to visit in the world, eastern Europe, before Putin takes over, Scandinavian countries, Asia ... if only money was no object.

[WarGamer]

15. I don't trust Hamas or the IDF to give truthful stats...

[LiberaBlueDem]

16. It's official

Over 35,000 killed in Gaza

[brush]

26. Isn't that number about what has been reported all along.

Then there was the report last week or so by the IDF that reduced the number by quite a lot.

[LiberaBlueDem]

33. Yes

The numbers are the same it is the propaganda which has grown

[cliffside]

17. Thank you for digging deeper and posting the links. nt

[lees1975]

18. We have names, photos, and background stories on most of the Israeli casualties from Octoner 7.

That was a terrorist attack, tragic, horrific, and in every possible sense of the word, it was evil. The fact that this stands out now as the worst attack on Jews in the world since the Holocaust is chilling. It should be. The fact that any people group or race or ethnicity is singled out because of their ethnicity and subjected to terrorist attack is an affront to peace, and is a testimony of the continued failure of human reason and intellect to resolve the human problem of violence. We know the names and the stories of many of these victims, knew who they were, who their family was, some of their achievements and dreams, and the horror and tragedy of their death. That attack was yet another reminder than evil exists in the world and that human beings, in spite of their intellect and their character, can do things like that and enjoy it or think it is a just cause or walk away emotionally indifferent. That's pure evil.

And here we are, in a discussion about numbers of deaths among Palestinians in Gaza, bickering over the fact that the death numbers reported for children may have been higher than they actually were. Seriously? When each of those children was someone's family member, loved and cared for in similar fashion to their Israeli counterparts, some entire families have been wiped out, people with hopes, dreams, ambition and who cared for their family members. They existed on the "other side of the border," where Hamas was operating, and from where Hamas attacked. Some of them saw Hamas as their heroes and protectors, others for the evil terrorists that they are but that doesn't matter with regard to who loses their live in a missile attack that destroys their home, and everything else.

Instead of talking about how numbers of deaths are counted, why doesn't the discussion turn toward the sanctity of human life, and what can be done to put an end to this slaughter?

[manicdem]

21. UN Peacekeepers

I would send in UN Peacekeeprs coming from other neutral middle east nations such as Egypt and Jordan to Gaza, and Japan and others to Israel. Keep them there long term to keep the peace, investigate, and enforce the cease-fire on both sides, politically or militarily.

[manicdem]

20. Revised numbers seem more credible.

The new revised numbers seem a bit more credible accounting for militants killed, which would consist of males and older children. 16,000 militants killed seems plausible as Hamas was estimated to begin the war with 30,000 to 45,000, to include children who begin training at a young age.

The graph of casualties is a amazingly consistent. Did the Health Ministry ever retract the 471 killed from the Al-Ahil Hospital at the beginning of the war? The one where it was claimed Israel bombed the hospital, but instead a Palestinian rocket hit the parking lot?

[LeftInTX]

22. No..they consider it to be Israel's fault.

All deaths under military occupation are considered to be due to Israeli aggression.
If Hamas misfires, it is considered due to Israeli aggression.