> Setting aside the fact that these are numbers provided by Hamas […]
This is an unserious argument.
1. The numbers come from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is indeed “controlled” by Hamas since Hamas is their governing entity.
2. The Ministry has no verifiable history of being wrong on the civilian casualty numbers. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: The Ministry’s numbers have held up to scrutiny in ALL of the previous wars (including scrutiny from Israel) [0].
3. The Biden Administration has corroborated the numbers.
4. Israel hasn’t denied the numbers. In fact, in one report from the IDF a couple months ago, they corroborated the Ministry’s numbers at the time.
5. The same silly argument could be made to dismiss just about anything coming from Israel given their documented history of lying and even manipulating our (American) media, from lies about beheaded babies [1] to pushing propaganda via U.S. media outlets like the New York Times [2].
> The United States killed many more Japanese civilians than American civilians who died during the war, that doesn’t make them right. […]
This is just a whataboutism and another unserious argument.
One evil act doesn’t justify another evil act. This is as serious of an argument as someone trying to justify slavery in 2024 by pointing to America’s history with slavery.
> The Ministry has no verifiable history of being wrong on the civilian casualty numbers
This is laughable. They claimed that Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people that the Palestinians themselves bombed. You are either hopelessly biased and unserious or uninformed.
I'm afraid you broke the site guidelines repeatedly and very badly in this thread. That's not ok. You're welcome to make your substantive points while respecting HN's rules, and indeed they will become more persuasive if you do so. But please, no more snark, name-calling, personal attacks, or flamewar posts—no matter how right you are or feel you are, and no matter how divisive the topic.
"However, the sound preceding the explosion, the fireball that accompanied it, the size of the resulting crater, the type of splatter adjoining it, and the type and pattern of fragmentation visible around the crater are all consistent with the impact of a rocket.
Evidence available to Human Rights Watch makes the possibility of a large air-dropped bomb, such as those Israel has used extensively in Gaza, highly unlikely."
Even Human Rights Watch (anti-israel propaganda outlet at this point) has said it was a Palestinian rocket:
"However, the sound preceding the explosion, the fireball that accompanied it, the size of the resulting crater, the type of splatter adjoining it, and the type and pattern of fragmentation visible around the crater are all consistent with the impact of a rocket.
Evidence available to Human Rights Watch makes the possibility of a large air-dropped bomb, such as those Israel has used extensively in Gaza, highly unlikely."
This is an unserious argument.
1. The numbers come from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is indeed “controlled” by Hamas since Hamas is their governing entity.
2. The Ministry has no verifiable history of being wrong on the civilian casualty numbers. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: The Ministry’s numbers have held up to scrutiny in ALL of the previous wars (including scrutiny from Israel) [0].
3. The Biden Administration has corroborated the numbers.
4. Israel hasn’t denied the numbers. In fact, in one report from the IDF a couple months ago, they corroborated the Ministry’s numbers at the time.
5. The same silly argument could be made to dismiss just about anything coming from Israel given their documented history of lying and even manipulating our (American) media, from lies about beheaded babies [1] to pushing propaganda via U.S. media outlets like the New York Times [2].
> The United States killed many more Japanese civilians than American civilians who died during the war, that doesn’t make them right. […]
This is just a whataboutism and another unserious argument.
One evil act doesn’t justify another evil act. This is as serious of an argument as someone trying to justify slavery in 2024 by pointing to America’s history with slavery.
[0]: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-mini...
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2023/12/14/israel-biden-beheaded-ba...
[2]: https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schw...