Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

is the Gaza Health Ministry/Palestinian Ministry of Health no longer the best source for those numbers?

My understanding is of a Palestinian authority still counting the dead, but also more work done to show that casualties are a lot more than what the Palestinian authority have come out with.

It's not a road I love going down, but I think it's reasonable to ask for a bit more information when a person with no listed credentials and no formal organization is claiming that you're obviously a genocide denialist if you don't already recognize that the death toll is multiples higher than even the highest estimates that have been put out, and the person she's retweeting is an unnamed business school phd candidate who just says "is now estimated" without a source. Even that Lancet thing was actually just an opinion letter written to the Lancet, not a Lancet-published peer-reviewed paper.

(xpost) The letter, and its appendix, are grim grim reading, but I don't understand reposting it as supporting a claim of 368k deaths - it really doesn't.

After a bit more reading, it seems to be some random shitposter deciding that the letter to the Lancet said "actual deaths to direct deaths are usually 3x to 15x so let's say 4x" and deciding, sure, let's do that here.

“they’re not killing as many innocent people as you say they are! you are wrong!!!”

listen to how you sound.

arguing over these numbers seems like a losing game to me. I think everyone here knows that there's no way the toll is truly 41,000, especially when you factor in disease and starvation. the horror is we can't know, the level of devastation is so immense.

stories like these are more horrifying to me (in a way) than trying to make estimates: https://apnews.com/article/gaza-war-hamas-dead-graves-40000-988d16b648e06e222f04964dc9440da0

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tiers of graves are stacked deep underground in a bloated Gaza cemetery, where Sa’di Baraka spends his days hacking at the earth, making room for more dead.

“Sometimes we make graves on top of graves,” he said.

Baraka and his solemn corps of volunteer gravediggers in the Deir al-Balah cemetery start at sunrise, digging new trenches or reopening existing ones. The dead can sometimes come from kilometers (miles) away, stretches of Gaza where burial grounds are destroyed or unreachable.

The cemetery is 70 years old. A quarter of its graves are new.

...

Even in death, Palestinians have been displaced by Israel’s offensives.

Palestinians move corpses, shielding them from the path of war. Israel’s military has dug up, plowed over and bombed more than 20 cemeteries, according to satellite imagery analyzed by investigative outlet Bellingcat. Troops have taken scores of bodies into Israel, searching for hostages. Trucked back to Gaza, the bodies are often decomposed and unidentifiable, buried quickly in a mass grave.

or this: https://www.savethechildren.ca/article/gazas-missing-children-over-20000-children-estimated-to-be-lost-disappeared-detained-buried-under-the-rubble-or-in-mass-graves/

arguing over these numbers seems like a losing game to me. I think everyone here knows that there's no way the toll is truly 41,000, especially when you factor in disease and starvation. the horror is we can't know, the level of devastation is so immense.

OTM

Israel has overwhelmed Palestinians' ability to count the bodies, which is just...

I remember hearing all the time about these badass Israeli commandos, the 'best in the world' etc... seems like it was just utter bullshit. That's who you would send in to clear tunnels or liberate a school or hospital, instead they just call in airstrikes on said schools/hospitals

most moral army in the world, baby

Fuck off, tabes. Either you're being lazy or you're being dumb, and neither has a place on this thread.

rob otm

fuck you Andrew

Even that Lancet thing was actually just an opinion letter written to the Lancet, not a Lancet-published peer-reviewed paper.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 11 September 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Would it matter to you that it was? Unless you or I have the skills to go through the evidence you are reading it in some form of good will.

But I think its worth sharing that people are doing some work on this and that we are staring at the extermination of a people.

yeah I should clarify that I believe researchers making these estimates is important work (the Lancet's work on the US's Iraq invasion death toll was critical to piercing the fog of jingoistic nonsense clouding those years). I just don't want to get into arguments about specific figures on ilx

I do think calling the Lancet letter "actually just an opinion letter" is going too far, given the institutional affiliations of the writers and the, afaict, eminently reasonable claims made in the letter.

but above all this was otm:

Israel has overwhelmed Palestinians' ability to count the bodies, which is just...

― symsymsym, Wednesday, September 11, 2024 6:39 PM (yesterday)

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has just published a 649-page document with the the name, age, gender, ID number of every Palestinian killed in Gaza from October 7 to August 31 that it has info for (over 34k out of 40k). The 1st 14 pages the age is listed as 0 (under 1 year old) pic.twitter.com/NZZNLLf7ml

— Sharif Kouddous شريف عبد القدوس (@sharifkouddous) September 15, 2024

nyt report:

Wireless Devices Explode Across Lebanon After Israel Warns Hezbollah

A Lebanese official said pagers belonging to Hezbollah militants had exploded, and the health minister said hundreds of people were injured. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Large numbers of “wireless devices” simultaneously exploded across Lebanon in an apparently coordinated attack that caused hundreds of injuries, Lebanese health officials said on Tuesday, a day after Israeli leaders warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah.

A Lebanese intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said that the blasts occurred after pagers belonging to Hezbollah members exploded across the country. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said that hundreds of people had been injured in the blasts but that the authorities were still working to gather an exact figure.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement that many people had arrived at Lebanese hospitals after being wounded when their wireless devices exploded. The ministry warned citizens to stay away from similar devices until it was clear what had caused the blasts.

The Lebanese Red Cross said in a statement that 80 ambulances were responding to “multiple bombings” in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as in Beirut, the capital, and Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces Directorate asked people to clear the roads so people could be rushed to hospitals.

The blasts appeared to be the latest salvo in an 11-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began last October, after Hezbollah began firing into Israeli territory in solidarity with its ally, Hamas. The conflict has largely remained contained to exchanges of missiles and rockets, but for months, leaders on either side have warned that it could expand into a war involving ground forces.

pretty bold to frame this as part of a military campaign

Reuters report suggests the pagers were part of a new shipment brought in in recent months, hell of a sabotage operation if so: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-members-wounded-lebanon-when-pagers-exploded-sources-witnesses-2024-09-17/

more than 2700 wounded: https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-hezbollah-israel-exploding-pagers-8893a09816410959b6fe94aec124461b

What a wild cyber attack damn

Tweet puts this in historical context.

Remotely exploding pagers carried by hundreds of people including paramedics, civil defense workers and civilians in 2024, and planting hidden explosives inside children toys back in 1982, are different methods of terrorism by the same genocidal Zionist colonial entity.

— Ghassan 𓂆 ☭ غسان (@GhassanKDE) September 17, 2024

yeah, that is crazy, and likely implies that it is more than a simple cyber-attack, i.e. something was inserted into those pagers somewhere along the supply chain (this isn't sure, but for now everything I've read seems to imply that it is unlikely to be able to pull something like this off by software alone)

If this was warfare, it was psychological warfare. It might be clever, but it will have no measurable military benefit and I can't see that it will deter Hezbollah in any way. It will certainly get cheers from the militantly anti-Arab segment of the Israeli population and Bibi might get a bit of a PR boost from it.

i was reading about this, which certainly if not stopped ahead of time might have led to some more "complexity" in Israel's relations with its US and UK allies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair

Thread from the analyst I usually follow:

THREAD: Israel's unprecedented and highly sophisticated security operation today in which almost 3000 people have been injured so far, is by all means a massive blow to Hizbullah. This is all more so the case given that Hizbullah has always credited its performance in the July…

— Amal Saad (@amalsaad_lb) September 17, 2024

who the hell uses pagers anymore? hezbollah, I guess

the tweet explains why!

But a few civilians killed too. Be a while before the dust settles on this..

The one reported death from the detonated pagers so far is 10-year-old girl Fatima Jaafar Abdullah.

However much Israel's cheerleaders claim otherwise, conflicts have rules.

If you violate those rules, you have committed war crimes, and you should face justice. https://t.co/treJys9Vwe pic.twitter.com/Fhrg13towc

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) September 17, 2024

If this was warfare, it was psychological warfare.

try telling that to the guys w/ missing hands

the psychological warfare aspect is obv pertinent ... israel is pulling off crazy assassination stunts when there are no repercussions for drone bombing so i don't want to minimize that part

the thread xyzzzz posted is interesting but the other side of that coin is that even if we're to believe that israel's enemies being forced into using primitive communication was good for planning covert attacks, everyone seems to agree that one of the major impediments in ceasefire negotiations is that sinwar in particular communicates thru human carrier pigeon. so you could view this from the angle of that tweeter -- why did israel reveal that it could mass blow up its enemies' communication lines? -- if we follow the argument that hezbollah et al will burrow further away from israeli's ability to spy on them. but in the instance of this war where drawn out cease fire "negotiations" give israel a space to bomb away while playacting as peacemaker, further straining the communication between itself and its enemies plays in its favor

Al Jazeera is saying that the pagers in the Israeli attack were indeed packed with explosives and were imported into Lebanese territory *five months ago*, and Axios says that the decision was made by the Israeli state to detonate the pagers a week ago.

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) September 17, 2024

You guys know Hezbollah has been shelling civilians in Israel for the past year, right?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-30/a-cratered-field-a-mangled-fence-clues-emerge-from-strike-that-killed-12-children-in-golan-heights

Yes, we talked about that when it happened.

the golan heights? a lovely place

You guys know Hezbollah has been shelling civilians in Israel for the past year, right?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-30/a-cratered-field-a-mangled-fence-clues-emerge-from-strike-that-killed-12-children-in-golan-heights

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, September 17, 2024 3:01 PM (three hours ago)

Yes. Did you know that "The thousands of Israeli attacks since October have far outnumbered Hezbollah attacks into Israel"? And "Israeli airstrikes and shelling in Lebanon have killed nearly 500 people, at least 100 of them civilians, according to the U.N. and Lebanon’s health ministry"?

(from: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/08/world/middleeast/israel-lebanon-destruction.html)

I'm sure you did know that though. They've been firing at each other for years before 10/7, so what's your point exactly? That this pager attack was justified and/or proportional?

I think man alive's point is obvious. Frustrating to have it rehashed so frequently on this thread

TBC when I first read about it it sounded pretty targeted at Hezbollah members. Now I’m not as sure and trying to wait for more info. But I don’t really feel upset by Israel attacking an Iranian proxy militia that not only attacks Israel but fucks things up for Lebanon.

Just an fyi, Israel blew up a bunch of doctors, medical workers, teachers and children in Lebanon today. They targeted a brand of pager that wasn’t exclusively held by Hezzbollah, and indiscriminately attacked civilians in the process. Israel will do anything to push regional war

— Remi Kanazi (@Remroum) September 17, 2024

"Pretty targeted" huh?

I…don’t think that’s true?

Important notice:
The pagers that exploded in Lebanon were not solely used by resistance fighters; employees of Hezbollah's institutions, which include civilians, also used them. It's important to note that Hezbollah is a political party (part of the Lebanese government) and it…

— Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah) September 17, 2024

You guys know Hezbollah has been shelling civilians in Israel for the past year, right?

are you saying that hezbollah and israel are morally level

As far as I can tell, the pagers were specifically used by Hezbollah for secrecy/security reasons. They were not being used by schoolteachers and nurses, unless they were schoolteachers and nurses who also happened to be Hezbollah fighters. But hey some guy tweeted otherwise. Israel probably just likes harming random Lebanese people for no reason.

Israel probably just likes harming random Lebanese people for no reason.

Incredible to say this with such derision about a state actively engaged in genocide.

presuming for a second your "as far as i can tell" is worth more than "some guy tweeting otherwise", and setting aside the obvious sarcasm in your last line and taking the point made - neither of which is a very comfortable thing to actually do, btw:

do you think israel, as a govt, sets an acceptably high bar on the unfortunate necessity of harming random lebanese people? is that where you expect ppl to meet you here as a discussion point?

^^

Considering that (1) it has been widely reported that Hezbollah uses pagers for security reasons and (2) basically no one else does in 2024, it’s a pretty reasonable assumption xp.

mate.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-pagers-explosives.html

They were literally ordered by Hezbollah for security reasons.