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[da_nang]

He talks about the horrendous death of civilians then proceeds to use the death of children as the metric for death of civilians.

Thus in his eyes, a battle between nations with younger demographics is worse than a battle between nations with older demographics, even if the number civilians killed are equal. Nevermind the fact that being a civilian doesn't care about one's age.

Add to that Gaza's bottom-heavy population pyramid, and Gazan militants' complete and utter disregard for the laws of war, the metric appears to be arbitrary and almost tailored towards a specific conclusion.

[Strongpoint]

The full quote is:

Now, I have been very clear in denouncing the violations of international humanitarian law and the violations of protection of civilians and I have not a mandate to classify the acts that are entities that are recommended.  But I think that more important than a discussion on names is the facts and let’s see the facts.  As you know, we report every year on children killed in armed conflict.  I have already presented seven reports.  In the seven reports, the highest number of children killed in one year by one actor was by the Taliban in 2017, 2018.  The second by the Syrian Government and its allies in again before 2020 and again it was around 700.  We have had Russia last year 350.  We had Saudi Arabia.  If you remember the uproar in relation to Yemen.  In one year, the maximum 300.  Now without entering into discussing the accuracy of the numbers that were published by the de facto authorities in Gaza, what is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed.  So this is what matters.  We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I am Secretary-General.

Your take is slightly disingenuous given the above.

My take is a quote from the UN News Twitter. So...

But even if we take the metric of killed children, I would love to believe that Ukraine in 2022 had fewer than 5K dead children(persons under 18) killed but I don't. Same for other deadly wars like the Ethiopian one in 2020-2021. Perhaps the UN should start to evaluate civilian casualties better and by the same standards.

We have had Russia last year 350
*self-censored*

[hector13]

The difference is that the current war in Gaza has gone on for 6 weeks. If we were to project that to a year you’ll get ~40k dead.

[Strongpoint]

The difference is that the current war in Gaza has gone on for 6 weeks. If we were to project that to a year you’ll get ~40k dead.

Still comparable to other modern wars. Still nothing "unprecedented". Still manipulation with statistics if not an outright lie.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Gaza is also (very roughly) a twentieth of the population of Ukraine. Five thousand children in Gaza are thus (also very roughly) equivalent to a hundred thousand children in Ukraine. The absolute numbers may be smaller, but per capita the rate is significantly worse in Gaza.

[da_nang]

Are we going to account for population density as well?

[hector13]

The difference is that the current war in Gaza has gone on for 6 weeks. If we were to project that to a year you’ll get ~40k dead.

Still comparable to other modern wars. Still nothing "unprecedented". Still manipulation with statistics if not an outright lie.

It’s not manipulating statistics. It’s sensationalizing, at worst.

The war in Ukraine has been going on for a little over a year and a half, and we know Russia has actively targeted civilians. 10k civilians killed in that period, which is less than the total number killed in the six weeks of the Gaza war.

Are we going to account for population density as well?

Just means Israel has to be more careful. Or it makes it easier for their “damage, not accuracy” policy, depending on how cynical you want to be.

[McTraveller]

It's absolutely manipulating statistics - it's what they're there for!  "Statistics never lie, but they can be made to say whatever you want."

War sucks.  You don't need a statistic to tell you that.

[anewaname]

Besides having one of the highest population densities (from NBC News, "The Gaza Strip, at about 15,000 people per square mile, is as dense as London and Tel Aviv."). The average building height in Gaza was never as high as those cities, and it keeps dropping.

@Hector
The 10k civilians killed in Ukraine... plus some much larger number of civilians moved through filtration camps into Russia (from wikipedia, "According to the Ukrainian government, some 1.6 million Ukrainians have been forcibly relocated to Russia, with about 250,000 of these being children."¹) Also, Russia would have done the dirty deeds of moving pro-Ukrainians into Russia and keeping pro-Russians in the occupied territories to support their fabricated claims of "Ukrainians want to rejoin Russia", so the ones relocated to Russia aren't going to have much freedom, if they have any at all. The adults will be slowly worked to death for room and board, while the children are taught to be Russians.

¹Let's say the Ukrainian government doubled the actual numbers, it is still going to be a lot more than 10k.

[hector13]

It’s a similar story in Gaza, with 1.1 million people at one point given 24 hours notice to move to the south from the north, and then still getting bombed in the south.

My contention was Strongpoint comparing statistics accrued over a year versus statistics accrued over six weeks.

[Schmaven]

Thinking about a "2 state solution", and ignoring for the moment the state of Gaza's infrastructure and Hamas activity, wouldn't Gaza itself be a fine location for the Palestinian state?  What was the Palestinian argument against that?

[Frumple]

Are... are you serious? Gaza is smaller than barbados. You're asking why they didn't want to try to fit several million people into an area smaller than barbados. It's also like a fifteenth the size of the west bank, depending on how you measure the parts of it being actively occupied by illegal settlers. The palestinian arguments against that should be obvious, because the idea is remarkably poor on a pile of different levels.

[martinuzz]

Israel's strikes on military targets in Gaza sadly take civilian lives. It's what's called collateral damage. All those deaths are to be blamed on Hamas terrorists using civilians as meat shields.

I have not seen any footage yet of burned charred raped Palestianian woman's vaginas. I have seen too many videos of burned raped charred Israeli woman vaginas from the october 7th attacks, with fucktards in the background shouting sex slave in Arab.
Hamas is the big evil here. Every Palestinian civilian death is blood on the hands of Hamas.

That aside, violence by zionist idiot terrorists on the West Bank is terrible. I repeat that zionist nationalist Israeli should also be called terrorists.

[anewaname]

Apparently Area C of the West Bank and the sea zone off the coast have significant oil and gas reserves... Area C is the framework of roads, military bases, and colonizer settlements that the Israeli disallow Palestinian access.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development's 2019 report on this topic..

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the Occupied Palestinian
Territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the occupied
West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip. However, occupation continues to
prevent Palestinians from developing their energy fields so as to exploit and benefit from such
assets. As such, the Palestinian people have been denied the benefits of using this natural resource
to finance socioeconomic development and meet their need for energy. The accumulated losses
are estimated in the billions of dollars. The longer Israel prevents Palestinians from exploiting their
own oil and natural gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs and the greater the total costs of
the occupation borne by Palestinians become.

This study identifies and assesses existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves
that could be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, which Israel is either preventing
them from exploiting or is exploiting without due regard for international law.

Does the rest of Israel know what business is being conducted in the West Bank? How many of the businesses working those resources are owned and operated by the far right?

@Hector
I hit a state of surreal when I found I was comparing "1 million people attempting to migrate and being bombed" to "1 million people being relocated into economic or actual slavery".

[Strongpoint]

If you want to compare by population size and density, go for Mariupol vs Gaza. If you want a short timeframe, go for February-May of 2022 only.

And then there is the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the ratio of killed civilians there is also not... pretty. The world was busy with Covid during that time and promptly ignored that bloodbath.

And, damn, will the history books of the future also have a claim of 10K Ukrainian civilians killed when the death toll of Mariupol alone, by the most conservative estimates, is triple that size? I wanna throw up.