I wonder when we see how many of the 1200 were shot from helicopters?
It's the only actual "example" the NYT gave in this article for why we should be doubting "Hamas-controlled health ministry" numbers:
Some uncertainty has been sowed by the varying figures that Gazan health officials initially gave to reporters for the number of people killed in the Oct. 17 explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which ranged from 500 to 833 before they announced a final count of 471.
There are still no videos of that rave next to the military base that is right next to the concentration camp. Hamas people had their own GoPros and Israel has lots of cameras everywhere. My guess is they aren't releasing anything because Israel killed the vast majority of the civilians there. But Israel's strategy works, each new lie (like 40 beheaded babies, we didn't bomb that hospital that one time etc.) spreads through the Western political system and the media, is used to justify war crimes and then gets quietly retracted weeks later.
There were a couple videos early on from that trance festival. I never saved any and haven't looked hard enough to find them again - I suspect most are still on telegram. The one that was longest and stood out to me was security or IOF in black uniforms surrounded by dozens of festival goers laying on the ground, all using scrub brush bushes to hide, there is no gunfire, then the 2-3 black clad security or IOF guys get up and start shooting handguns in one direction. So they're drawing fire from guys with rifles while surrounded by unarmed hidden festival goers, with no actual cover just concealment.
And a good chunk were IDF Apache gunships strafing with 30mm autocannon fire crowded highways filled with civilian vehicles. Blows my mind that the Israeli military did a reenactment of the iconic WikiLeaks "collateral murder" Apache gunship flight recorder video on their own citizens multiple times in one day. Hamas launches an attack and Israeli helicopter gunship crews just lose their shit on a scale i can't recall having happened anywhere else at any other time. Professional military my ass, bunch of bottom of the barrel idiots armed with hundreds of billions of dollars in top of the line US military hardware.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231109132729/https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt
hexbear thread here: https://hexbear.net/post/1040236?scrollToComments=false
So that’s
(1,200 / 1,400) * 159/11s, which comes out to12.85714285719/11s.imagine what the headlines would be like if the gazan health ministry did this. the media would erupt into "HAMAS IS LYING HAMAS IS LYING!!". but israel lied, so its perfectly fine and no cause for alarm for them.
Of the 1200 Israelis who were killed on October 7, at least 31 are confirmed to be children according to the UN. That accounts for 2.5 (two and a half) percent.
Of the 11000 Palestinians who were killed by Israel since October 7, at least 4500 are confirmed to be children. That accounts for 41 percent.
https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/Gaza_casualties_info-graphic_10_Nov_2023%20final.pdf
are there third party neutral observers counting? I'm just stumped as to why they would admit that, why not lie, why not adjust it up, it's not like that would be beyond the pale.
Because 1400 was the original estimate and now that they've had time to actually count everyone they've lowered it. Its not like anyone on the Palestinian side was claiming the number was inflated. If you replace every instance of Israeli propaganda citing the 1400 with 1200 nothing changes so there's no reason to lie about it. If the new estimate was something like 700 there's no chance they'd be admitting it.
I don't want to speak for the person you're replying to, and idk if you have the answer to this kind of basic human motivation puzzle, but my continuing question would be - why adjust the number at all?
My guess is that whether or not there are third parties currently verifying the number, there will be eventually. Israel knows they're loosing their PR war at this point and a story breaking that they knew the number was lower and they kept touting the higher number is the only situation in which the count being off by 200 would matter. Adjusting the number prevents that news cycle.
If the number was way inflated from the beginning, the PR calculus would be different.
My speculation is the number is far, far lower. And a great number of the dead were killed by Israeli tanks and helicopters panic firing into civilians.
Let's just do a little math here. There's a 10k death toll in Gaza from a month's worth of indiscriminate bombing by one of the better funded, better trained militaries in the world. The government in Israel is claiming Hamas, on paragliders, while kidnapping 240 hostages (meaning they were not just firing wildly, they had motivations not to kill people), in one evening was able to achieve 15% of the causalities the IOF took a month to do? Add that to the utter cesspool of propaganda coming out of Israel, that number smells very badly.
When it comes out that there were 200 dead and 115 of them were shot with cannons from Apaches, if they claimed it was 1400 dead it'll be an uproar. If they walk the number down, it will be palatable.
Well see, but I just think that if the 1400 number was patently absurd we would have heard pushback from Hamas and even some Israelis questioning it.
I don't think looking at it from a pure numbers of lives perspective like that makes sense. Hamas and Israel's actions have been completely different tactically.
Because the most convincing lie and the most effective form of propaganda is one that even you yourself believe in.
The process is almost never “we’re the evil psychopaths, we lie through our teeth”, it’s more like “we’re being criticized of inflating the numbers, is it true? ok let’s run a formal investigation and see if that’s the case, oh, look, they’re right, instead of 1400, it’s actually only 1200.”
It’s believable, it’s convincing, and it perpetuates the propaganda against the Palestinians.
Shoot, I left my conversion calculator at home. How many 9/11s does this put us at?
This isn't a lie by Israel. Show this article to someone who doesn't have a firm stance on the war and they'll say it makes complete sense to have a final body count be slightly off from the initial estimate. This happens with every war or disaster.
The best take here is by @windowlicker@hexbear.net: if the Gazan Health Ministry did this exact same normal thing, the headline would be about how this is lies and propaganda, even though it's normal.
