I’m of the opinion the number of killed in Gaza is vastly higher then is being reported. It’s commonplace when the empire or it’s allies attack others to minimize the casualty count. Excerpts from an article by Jonathon Cook, read entirely at link provided.
The reported death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this — all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.
On May 6, seven months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.
Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 — or an increase of 4,665.
It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600.
The linear figure entirely misses the bigger picture. How?
1. Because in addition to the continuing Israeli bombardments, Palestinians have had to endure three more months of an intensifying famine. With each day of a famine, more people die than died the day before.
The deaths in a famine are not linear, they are exponential. If five people died yesterday of starvation, 20 people will die today, and 150 tomorrow. That is how prolonged famines work. The longer you are starved, the higher the probability you will die of starvation.
2. Because Palestinians have had three more months deprived of medical care after Israel destroyed their hospitals and medical institutions. If you have a chronic illness — diabetes, asthma, kidney problems, high blood pressure, and so on — the longer you are forced to go without medical attention, the greater the chance you will die from an untreated condition. Again, the death rate in such circumstances is exponential, not linear.
3. Because without medical care, all sorts of other things that happen in everyday life become more dangerous.
4. Because, for exactly the same reasons, those injured by Israel’s continuing bombardments are likely to have poorer outcomes than those similarly injured in earlier attacks.
5. Because we know that — given the insanitary conditions, the lack of water and food, the weakened health status of the population, and the destruction of hospitals — epidemics now are breaking out. The WHO has already warned of a likely outbreak of polio, but there are sure to be other diseases emerging such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery that have yet to be isolated and identified
Last paragraph
None of their lives should be reduced to cold statistics on a graph. But if that is where we are, and sadly it is, then at the very least we need to point out that the headline figures are a lie, that Israel’s barbarism is being grossly minimised, and that we are being lulled into a false sense complacency.
3 replies on “Israel’s Barbarism Is Grossly Minimised”
If there are no repercussions to this. Than its unfortunate, but genocide will be accepted as a valid form of warfare.
And Thus the world falls into a new era where Might makes Right. And thus the argument of not using nuclear weapons goes do with 1.
I’m thinking genocide has been accepted as a valid form of warfare for some time now
Sanctions usually wipe out plenty of people before the actual war starts
Thinking of Madeline Albright and the all the dead Iraqi children, she thought was worth it.
🙁
The Iraq war did go past my head. But it felt like the causalities there were written off as accidental. This one is way more blatant.
However when following the regular news as well it does seems that food water relief is happening against the displeasure of some Israeli minister.
But then again, how reliable is any info.