For low-level militants, the targeting officers preferred to use dumb bombs that can destroy entire buildings. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” one Israeli officer said. That likely explains all the dumb bombs dropped in the war.
Maybe Biden should authorize more high tech bombs being sent to Israel rather than limiting them to appease extremists in his own party.
As to the casualty numbers, UN seems to have reduced the numbers of estimated female and minor fatalities.
UN seemingly halves estimate of Gazan women, children killed
Jerusalem Post said:
On May 6, the UN published data showing that 34,735 people had reportedly been killed in Gaza, including over 9,500 women and over 14,500 children.
On May 8, the UN published data showing 34,844 people had reportedly been killed, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.
[...]
The UN also highlighted that the plurality of identified fatalities were men (40%), while children were (32%) and women (20%).
Note again that "children" here means everybody under 18, not just actual children. And Hamas et al like to recruit younger teenagers, so many of these "children" are really combatants.
It is obvious you have some points and while this is usually true, you also have some fictions and desires of things to be true that are not. These all get mixed together into a mush and then people respond to the parts that are untrue while your supporters only focus on true portions and highlight those.
So let me state some of the true parts: Hamas is evil. Hamas might have minors in their membership. And some PORTION of the numbers might be Hamas minors. It is very likely and we could try to do some back of napkin estimates for this. And also it is true that the percents are different.
Now, to the fictitious parts that you've copied from a misleading source of information. This section here:
On May 8, the UN published data showing 34,844 people had reportedly been killed, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.
[...]
The UN also highlighted that the plurality of identified fatalities were men (40%), while children were (32%) and women (20%).
There are TWO DIFFERENT DENOMINATORS:
- Denominator#1: 34K people, those are bodies of dead people.
- Denominator#2: 24686 dead people who have specifically been identified, i.e. their names and identifying personal info have become known, i.e. beyond a mere physical form of identifying the body's demographics.
The 4949 women and 7797 children are out of DENOMINATOR#2, i.e. 24686, not out of DENOMINATOR#1, i.e. 34,844 people.
So a statement that:
On May 8, the UN published data showing 34,844 people had reportedly been killed, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.
ought to read more like
While there are reportedly 34,844 killed, out of those very specifically identified (24686), 4959 are women, 7797 children, and 10,000 men.
Writing it as if it is out of DENOMINATOR#1, makes it appear that the vast majority are men, even if it is apparent that it is a plurality as mentioned. This makes the bizarre statement a lie by omission that leads to something misleading.
When you ignore the denominators, it allows you to charge that one numerator is only half of the next numerator and give it a title of:
UN seemingly halves estimate of Gazan women, children killed
Again, 14500 is out of 34735 and 7797 is out of 24686. We do not then mathematically say that 14500 should be compared to 7797. Mathematically, we might predict that the full 34735 ought to have nearly the same ratio. So we might compare 14500/34735 to 7797/24686. The former is 41.7% and the latter is 31.6%.
This isn't half (50%), but more like 76%.
It is difficult to say why the numbers are different without examining the specific estimate reports and the context found in the reports. I'd assume that in the first instance, the estimates came from a source that used population demographic estimates in combination of a reported 90% random civilian casualty count to get numbers. While the second report had better information involving specific identifications and so quickly tried to revise numbers.
Looking
here we can begin to understand what has happened:
The destruction of morgues, and hospital infrastructure, and displacing people around in different ways has led to early precise identifications and following that increasing counts but with unidentified persons.
So initially a group may have used population estimates with typical civilian vs Hamas death proportions, while later a revised number included percents of identified and unidentified persons.
And yes, the proportions are different because those assumptions seem to have been wrong, but they are not as wrong as reported.
