Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war • Hacker News Board

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#231

Post by immibis » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:21 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #112

moshun wrote: post #32

For context, a total of 69 journalists were killed in WWII, 63 in the Vietnam war both of which lasted several years. As of today March 6th 2024, the Gaza invasion has left 86 journalists dead in less than 4 months. That is an amazingly high percentage for the expected mean in a conflict. Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/israel... https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/02/over-75-of-all-j…

That's a remarkably small number. It makes me think journalists weren't present in the warzone at all. Irrespective of which side you support, Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians. An elevated civilian death count, including journalists is to be expected. However, the numbers being THIS high in this short a time is alarming and tragic.

You began the sentence with "Irrespective of which side you support, Hamas" so you might not be aware that both sides use human shields.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#232

Post by archagon » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:21 PM UTC

vladgur wrote: post #228

archagon wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the law permits thousands of innocents to be slaughtered, then maybe it needs to change.

THe reason these "international laws" are accepted by majority of modern nations is because they are somewhat reasonable and allow parties to military conflicts to wage military campaigns while attempting to minimize civilian casualties. If the laws are rewritten to state "you are never allowed to attack a hospital or a school. No exception", then what will follow is one party to the war will put their military insta…

Regardless of any second-order effects, the truth on the ground is that many thousands of innocents are suffering, and I have a hard time seeing any societal configuration where civilians can be legally blown up or starved en masse as anything but immoral. If a terrorist government is embedded in your population centers, it should not be legal to raze those population centers in retribution.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#233

Post by tacheiordache » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:22 PM UTC

hersko wrote: post #114

CommanderData wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing Journalists is bad. .. Then bombing their innocent families homes is bad. We should talk about bad things paid for by our taxes and supported by us indirectly. Discussion on Reddit+HN shutdown/down voted by organized Zionist groups. Also bad.

That doesn't answer my question? A lot of things are bad, most don't make it to the HackerNews front page...

> That doesn't answer my question? A lot of things are bad, most don't make it to the HackerNews front page...

Most likely because of the current events and the indiscriminate and out of proportion reaction by Israel towards Gazans. Was just reading some news today that Israel approved more Israeli settlements in West Bank. It seems that this conflict will only end when Israel will have killed/deported all Palestinians. Now how come only bad news are coming from Israel? Is there anything else interesting happening in Israel to take steam away from this conflict? They do have a tech scene with startups and all that. I've read some stuff like that on HN but nothing interesting or out of the ordinary is happening in that area at the moment...

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#234

Post by js4ever » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

henry2023 wrote: post #129

js4ever wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30k dead (from Hamas source) including at least 10k terrorists over a population of 2.2M is nowhere close to a genocide. Only hamas supporters are claiming it's a genocide.

Half of that population was already displaced and lack basic services such as food, shelter, and electricity. Israel even goes to bomb civilian shelters because why not. I’m glad you’re not being targeted by any genocide but if you would. I’d stand for you.

Hamas (elected government of Palestine) started a war on October 7. Did they expected no retaliation? Jews should just die silently? Not really going to happen. As anywhere else in the world, response to this kind of attack Is a war.

When terrorists use shelters or any civilian infrastructure to launch rockets they are turning them In legitimate targets according to laws of wars.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#235

Post by erokar » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

nsguy wrote: post #213

erokar wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The ICJ said no such thing. Read the ruling. It said something along the lines of the "rights of the Palestinian people to be protected from genocide and the rights of South Africa to seek this protection are plausible". The use of the word genocide in this context is just pure propaganda. There are plenty of conflicts with significantly higher human toil where this word is not used.

The ICJ did say that South Africa's accusation of genocide was plausible, which is also the reason they decided to proceed with the case.

This is what a professor of international law has to say about the case: https://www.ejiltalk.org/speaking-the-law-plausibly-the-inte...

And if over 30,000 dead Palestinians so far isn't enough for you, the intent is the central issue of genocide, though the Palestinian casualties will undoubtably rise.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#236

Post by immibis » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

simpletone wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% would be considered an extremely high death rate for soldiers involved in the fighting. Even 2.5% for healthcare workers is ridiculously high. Would be interesting to see what the death rates for journalists, medics, soldiers, etc was in afghan war, iraq war, vietnam war, etc. I highly doubt any reaches 10%.

> 10% would be considered an extremely high death rate for soldiers involved in the fighting. Even 2.5% for healthcare workers is ridiculously high. Hamas based their operations where conventional rules of war prohibit fire. That makes comparing casualty rates incredibly difficult. (To my knowledge, nobody else has done this so comprehensively. Though given its success, I expect it to be emulated. Which unfortunately…

What's the point of hiding soldiers among civilian targets if Israel is just going to bomb the civilian targets? The point of any fighter using human shields is that the enemy doesn't fire because they don't want to hurt the human shields. If they're willing to kill the human shields, they don't help you, so why bother with them?

This apparent myth rubs me the same way as "there's no food because Hamas is stealing it" - really? All of it? For what purpose?

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#237

Post by tacomonstrous » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

sgift wrote: post #91

phone8675309 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hamas based their operations where conventional rules of war prohibit fire. This has not stopped the IDF

Yes, and if you look up the rules of war you will see that if you base your operations there the enemy is allowed to attack it. Besides a desire to not kill your civilian population that's another reason countries don't do that. But Hamas doesn't care for civilians.

>But Hamas doesn't care for civilians.

Neither does the IDF by all available evidence.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#238

Post by nsguy » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

hmcq6 wrote: post #193

nsguy wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy." We've seen some evidence that hospitals are used outside their humanitarian function. It's true that even if the hospital loses it's protection that does not mean that it's ok…

> [It] Doesn't make sense It does when your enemy is Amalek. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/south-africa-is...

There's certainly been no shortage of rhetoric on the Israeli side to exact revenge for Oct 7th. Some of it very extreme. The events of that day traumatized Israelis.

I don't think most Israelis really think the Palestinians are the biblical "Amalek". More like the children of "Ishmael", i.e. "cousins". They likely do view Hamas specifically as an entity that should be annihilated. i.e. all 40k or so Hamas combatants killed or captured. But even if we take this at face value it's still stupid to waste energy on a place that's known to not be a military threat while there are active military threats. First finish the military threat.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#239

Post by leereeves » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:25 PM UTC

jonbodner wrote: post #155

hmcq6 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that Israel has never ordered an evacuation. I pushed back on the commenter who stated that finding a militant in a hospital or school makes it a valid target. > From my observation Well from Human Rights Watches observation: > Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals. When a journalist at a news conference showing vid…

You are aware of Human Rights Watch’s history with Israel, right? Here’s a taste: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/07/fu...

> the organization's senior Middle East official, Sarah Leah Whitson, attempted to extract money from potential Saudi donors by bragging about the group's "battles" with the "pro-Israel pressure groups."

What's wrong with that? Any honest observer will have battles with groups who want to spin the truth.

I'd say one of the biggest problems in the US political system right now is that we don't have enough organizations willing to battle against our own partisan pressure groups (without siding with any of them).

Perhaps that's what's troubling: so many of our organizations have taken sides that it's difficult to understand an organization that hasn't.

As for raising money in Saudi Arabia: they were raising money from private supporters there, not the Saudi government. Do you think no one in SA supports human rights?

Or, if the suggestion is that HRW is siding with the Saudis, take a look at:

https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/north-africa/saudi-arabia

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#240

Post by adamckay » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 10:25 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #33

g-b-r wrote: post #26

Besides the statistics I advise anyone to also look at the reports of how the individual deaths happened, I've seen them very little discussed in western media. There's often enough evidence to show an extremely likely deliberate killing (usually with weapons that Hamas doesn't have). Journalists have been killed outside of the Gaza strip as well. Just make your own informed opinion. Furthermore, there have been so f…

It's also worth seeing if there's a historical pattern of behaviour: "One Martyr Down: The Untold Story Of A Canadian Peacekeeper Killed At War" - https://legionmagazine.com/one-martyr-down-the-untold-story-... A Canadian Army Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was assassinated after the IDF "accidentally" bombed a United Nations post that he was posted at - soon after he reported war crimes that he witnessed the IDF doi…

For context, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener emailed [1] days before saying that Hezbollah were using his positions and the IDF was being forced to fire on them out of "tactical necessity". This isn't as clear-cut as you're attempting to paint it.

1 - https://web.archive.org/web/20061010012455/http://www.canada...