naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Is your argument that the half of names and ages cleared for publication are not representative of half of the sample? Why not specify that, and importantly, why do you believe that?
I think there are actually a pretty sizable number of reasons to suspect that dead children will be identified slower (they won't be in many photo databases, are less likely to have parents or siblings in other cities, may not be fully set up within any database given Kibbitz politics, and in extreme cases bones are easier to damage and dental records are less useful or present), and once identified that they are less likely to have their names released (there are broad norms not just in Israel against sharing the identities of deceased minors without parental permission, in many).
Meanwhile, there are absolutely zero under-3-year-olds (and only one 4-year-old), while there is photographic evidence that I am decidedly not going to link to of multiple dead <1-year-olds.
There are more complex and esoteric issues, but these are the ones that should have been pretty obvious to anyone looking at the data with even a passing familiarity with the situation. Meanwhile, groups such as the lqgist twitter account you link don't bother even to spell out that half of the dataset is missing entirely or missing names.
The higher count is a (surprise) twice the value of the half amount I specified, and it’s three weeks old because the original Hamas incursion was four weeks old.
Someone with any degree of insight might ponder if it would be the slightest bit strange for that number to not have gone up across three weeks, even as the count of casualties on Oct 7 nearly doubled. Might think just the slightest about if there's something of relevance there
Then my figure (which is based in evidence) did turn out inaccurate, and that will be important to note in the future. Do you think that impacts my point being made? It would be 26x more children, rather than 66x, and the point I am getting across would stand.
And there's the punchline.
That is why I'm not going into any more serious analysis of the casualty counts, or comparing to other sources than haaretz. You don't care, and now you've said you don't care. The argument is nothing more than a soldier.
There are discussions I could present on the broader topic you want to make your point -- how much should we trust Gazan casualty counts? What responsibility does Israel have for insufficiently vetting strikes to minimize civilian harm, and Hamas for collocating military caches with civilian infrastructure or refuges? How many, if any, casualties can or should we accept for a valid military objective, and where and who does 'valid' military objectives come from? Where is the breakdown for civilian combatant casualties, and where does the line between combatant self-defense, police or pseudo-military, and terrorism fall? (How do you measure non-combat civilian casualties, which Israel has probably caused more of?)
But there's not really much point if you're not engaging with the most wildly concrete components with any degree of even-handed analysis. And you, specifically, have been following this long enough and in enough detail that I know a lot of the reasons you should be skeptical aren't a surprise.
I just found a UNOCHA report today, updated as of November 4th, that also reinforces my numbers (courtesy of Paul Graham of all people, weird world). 31 out of 1135 identified casualties out of 1400 total reported casualties. If we extrapolate from the ratio it’s still a little under 40 children. Now to address the reasons for thinking there could be many more childrens’ names released,
they won't be in many photos / databases / no nearby family
I’m just not so persuaded by this. It’s 2023, I think they know exactly who is living in these areas especially so close to Gaza. Every Israeli is reaching out to other Israelis in the affected areas, there’s social media, there’s employers, there’s property records, cell phone plans … so I’m not persuaded here. But of course, I can be wrong! But I think my assessment is somewhat more probable. This isn’t a natural disaster where all the lines are down and hundreds of thousands have fled to various shelters.
norms
Possible, I guess. But I think Israel would also be interested in determining deaths from youngest to oldest, identifying younger individuals first.
how much should we trust Gazan casualty counts
My original linked article from the intercept provided a compelling argument that we should trust the ministry of health figures, because they have historically proven to be accurate. By that I mean, their reports during past conflicts were later concluded to be accurate by international bodies like the UN.
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Notes -
I think there are actually a pretty sizable number of reasons to suspect that dead children will be identified slower (they won't be in many photo databases, are less likely to have parents or siblings in other cities, may not be fully set up within any database given Kibbitz politics, and in extreme cases bones are easier to damage and dental records are less useful or present), and once identified that they are less likely to have their names released (there are broad norms not just in Israel against sharing the identities of deceased minors without parental permission, in many).
Meanwhile, there are absolutely zero under-3-year-olds (and only one 4-year-old), while there is photographic evidence that I am decidedly not going to link to of multiple dead <1-year-olds.
There are more complex and esoteric issues, but these are the ones that should have been pretty obvious to anyone looking at the data with even a passing familiarity with the situation. Meanwhile, groups such as the lqgist twitter account you link don't bother even to spell out that half of the dataset is missing entirely or missing names.
Someone with any degree of insight might ponder if it would be the slightest bit strange for that number to not have gone up across three weeks, even as the count of casualties on Oct 7 nearly doubled. Might think just the slightest about if there's something of relevance there
And there's the punchline.
That is why I'm not going into any more serious analysis of the casualty counts, or comparing to other sources than haaretz. You don't care, and now you've said you don't care. The argument is nothing more than a soldier.
There are discussions I could present on the broader topic you want to make your point -- how much should we trust Gazan casualty counts? What responsibility does Israel have for insufficiently vetting strikes to minimize civilian harm, and Hamas for collocating military caches with civilian infrastructure or refuges? How many, if any, casualties can or should we accept for a valid military objective, and where and who does 'valid' military objectives come from? Where is the breakdown for civilian combatant casualties, and where does the line between combatant self-defense, police or pseudo-military, and terrorism fall? (How do you measure non-combat civilian casualties, which Israel has probably caused more of?)
But there's not really much point if you're not engaging with the most wildly concrete components with any degree of even-handed analysis. And you, specifically, have been following this long enough and in enough detail that I know a lot of the reasons you should be skeptical aren't a surprise.
I just found a UNOCHA report today, updated as of November 4th, that also reinforces my numbers (courtesy of Paul Graham of all people, weird world). 31 out of 1135 identified casualties out of 1400 total reported casualties. If we extrapolate from the ratio it’s still a little under 40 children. Now to address the reasons for thinking there could be many more childrens’ names released,
I’m just not so persuaded by this. It’s 2023, I think they know exactly who is living in these areas especially so close to Gaza. Every Israeli is reaching out to other Israelis in the affected areas, there’s social media, there’s employers, there’s property records, cell phone plans … so I’m not persuaded here. But of course, I can be wrong! But I think my assessment is somewhat more probable. This isn’t a natural disaster where all the lines are down and hundreds of thousands have fled to various shelters.
Possible, I guess. But I think Israel would also be interested in determining deaths from youngest to oldest, identifying younger individuals first.
My original linked article from the intercept provided a compelling argument that we should trust the ministry of health figures, because they have historically proven to be accurate. By that I mean, their reports during past conflicts were later concluded to be accurate by international bodies like the UN.
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