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Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

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Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#331

Post by hmcq6 »

brink wrote: post #242
pests wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An elevated civilian death count, including journalists is to be expected. Is it???

Yes? Use your basic reasoning. Hamas fights in civilian clothing, they hide in civilian buildings, they hide in hospitals. They use regular civilians as shields. This is not your average fight; Hamas hates their enemy more than they love their own country.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/30/israel-forces-...

What can be done when Israel is willing to break the rules of engagement?

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#332

Post by mschuster91 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #323
mschuster91 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>> Hamas using hospitals It's going to take decades just to unwind this one statement. Look at the history of Al Shifa hospital and who has been in control of it at what times. It is storied, and messy. This conflict has added to it in a major way, and may represent the second largest intelligence failure of the IDF in this whole mess (the first being missing the attack all together). The build up to them taking the…

It's not just al-Shifa, but also other hospitals such as al-Rantisi [1] or Nasser [2] that have at least substantial claims of Hamas activity, and there have been statements by arrested Hamas operatives that support these claims [3].

I agree that the facts are still nebulous (it's an active war after all), but there is IMHO enough indications for Hamas violating international law at scale.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/14/middleeast/israel-alleges...

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/19/middleeast/gaza-nasser-ho...

[3] https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/12/20/hamas-member-admits-...

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#333

Post by shprd »

hersko wrote: post #152
tehjoker wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you can watch this documentary where journalists wearing identifying gear away from the action were shot by a sniper during the peaceful "March of Return" (2018). These were the "Palestinian Gandhis" Israel supporters keep talking about. They were massacred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZSaKYmP2s

> peaceful "March of Return" How is trying to storm a sovereign border peaceful? Pretty sure if a mob stormed any normal government border they would be shot.

> Pretty sure if a mob stormed any normal government border they would be shot.

I'd think they'd point their weapons at the ones actually storming not the journalists

Unless you're saying the IDF didn't point and just fired aimlessly in the march's general direction?

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#334

Post by davidf18 »

ars wrote: post #293
falseprofit wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article suggests the average ratio to be 1:1, so yes this war has a higher ratio.

Israel estimated 12,000 Hamas at a time when Hamas figures claimed 26,000 dead. That's pretty close to 1:1. Part of the trouble is Israel can't prove the 12,000, and no one actually believes the Hamas figures are legitimate. But there are not better figures available for either number. So 1:1 for Gaza is the best we can estimate.

[dead]

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#335

Post by nsguy »

g-b-r wrote: post #329
nsguy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hamas may(?) have less leverage over foreign reporters. For local reporters there's a history of Hamas threatening and using violence against the reporters and their families to get the kind of reporting they want. I agree with the observation that many of those outlets are mouthpieces for their respective government though. Here are a few references to keep in mind when thinking about journalists working in Gaza…

What matters most from the journalists is their video reports, especially the live ones In the current situation I don't think Hamas can exert very much control on the population, anyhow. The handful of times that other journalists managed to enter, by the way, they confirmed what had been reported ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdIZmZr29L0 )

I expect Hamas is still exerting plenty of control.

I'm not sure what "confirmed what had been reported" really means here. The problem isn't that we're necessarily getting outright lies and fake news (I'm sure we're getting some), but that we're getting a very selective and emotional view into the horrors of war.

There's zero doubt that the impact of the war on Gaza is immense and so there's zero doubt that journalists can get heart wrenching stories of death and destruction out of it. As they can from any war.

Here are some thought experiments:

- Is there a way Israel could have defeated Hamas in a way where the media wouldn't be able to show any death and destruction? I believe the answer is no.

- Could the media have painted a very different picture of the war by changing focus? For sure.

There's just no way you're not getting a biased view here. I can tell any story with the same "raw reality" by selecting things that promote my cause, whatever it is. Where the bias is vs. some "nominal" ground reality is hard to say. If you look e.g. at the Ukraine-Russian war it's clear most western media is 100% biased towards Ukraine.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#336

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hersko wrote: post #197
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that actively moderated. dang uses a pretty light hand here.

That's not true at all. Try posting an overtly political article and it will be blocked. But maybe i'm wrong? I posted this[1], let's see what happens. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39622270 Edit: as expected, it was flagged, which I am not complaining about. I don't want divisive political stories on HN. My point is that when the occasional political story makes it through to the front page, it almost alw…

Overtly political articles are off-topic, as the site guidelines clearly say.

Also, "flagged" is users, not moderators. Maybe you were just imprecise in what you said?

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#338

Post by nsguy »

g-b-r wrote: post #330
nsguy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hamas may(?) have less leverage over foreign reporters. For local reporters there's a history of Hamas threatening and using violence against the reporters and their families to get the kind of reporting they want. I agree with the observation that many of those outlets are mouthpieces for their respective government though. Here are a few references to keep in mind when thinking about journalists working in Gaza…

As to the reliability of some more reputable news sources, anyhow... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-...

Interesting since in my book CNN is very anti-Israeli. Maybe not as anti-Israeli as The Guardian. The "funny" thing is that if some consider you pro-Israeli and some consider you anti-Israeli that doesn't mean you're neutral. It all depends on your viewpoint.

I feel that will take a long time to be able to actually look at the current events with perspective when we have more facts and less emotions. Right now we're seeing an information war and attempts to recruit media and control the narratives.

The thing I find most frustrating is media pretending to be neutral and unbiased where they are in fact always taking sides. To look at another conflict, western media takes the side of Ukraine while still pretending to just be covering the war (and we're mostly ok with that because nobody in the west is taking Russia's side anyways). I think the media should disclose their position and report facts. Instead they often repeat misinformation (and both sides here have similar claims), don't give good context, and take sides without disclosing that.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#339

Post by chefandy »

czl wrote: post #314
wolverine876 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (1) Definition of journalist (2) quantity of journalists (3) willingness to be on the very front lines in order to get better stories (4) technology enabling journalists thus being able to be more dangerous spots. How have these things changed, and how have the changes affected the number of journalists killed? The changes could reduce the number. My point is, we need much less speculation and possibilities, and mu…

Internet does not allow nearly all to be publishers? Does not foster many small online news sources? Has number of news sources not gone up with rise of the internet? Outsourcing of news collection by global news sources to (technology connected) hired locals has not gone up? Number doing (and claiming to be doing) journalism has not gone up?

TFA has a list of those included, who they worked for, and the circumstances of their death. I saw one that was only credited with having a podcast (which has 225k followers on their instagram account,) and a few others that seemed to work for smaller local websites and whatnot, but it seems like the vast majority had affiliations with established news agencies.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#340

Post by [deleted] »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #6

I appreciate that this is on here and I hope we can collectively handle it. Tech isn't isolated from this situation, as difficult as it is to admit and talk about with civility and care. A US military software engineer even self immolated recently in protest of what's happening. I don't see what's happening in Gaza as being culturally particular to the specific identity groups involved here. It's a very human situati…

[deleted]
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