HN Explorer

11 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 27.9 ms ] thread
yawpitch
> use of weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas […] Israel has in the past said it […] takes steps to mitigate risk to civilians by using precise munitions.

A JDAM guiding 2-5000 pounds of high explosives and used to level a densely-populated housing complex on to the head of one man is both precise AND of (very) wide area effect, but really stretches the definition of “mitigat[ion]”.

[dead] snvzz
[flagged]
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
Deukhoofd
A bit of a bad headline and summary (from the UN as well as the BBC). The important part of the number is that almost half (44%) the verified casualties were children, and the most hit age category is the category of 5-9, followed by 10-14, and then 0-4.

The actual report also compares it with previous conflicts in Gaza, which do not show this skew towards younger ages.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countrie...

dogma1138
The previous counts are final, this dataset is less than a quarter of the reported deaths.
magicalhippo
This page[1] by CIA was informative to put the numbers in context.

While there's roughly an equal amount of men and women in Gaza, 40% of the population is under 14 years old.

Given the growth curve I guess it's reasonable to assume most of those are on the younger end of the spectrum.

[1]: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/