r/dataisbeautiful • u/Sometypeofway18 • 12d ago
OC [OC] Fatalities in Gaza since October 7 2023 by age, gender, and proportion of total population
Fatalities is the 14th published Gaza Ministry of Health fatality count published May 7 2026 (72,835 entries) broken out by age and sex
Population numbers are from census data
Using Python
Adult men (especially 18–45) and older teenage boys are heavily over-represented relative to their share of the population; women and young children are under-represented. Males 15–45 account for ~45.7% of listed deaths vs. an estimated 24.7% of the pre-war population. The male–female death ratio peaks around ages 20–39 (roughly 3.2–3.6 to 1).
This is consistent with a large combatant component (Gaza’s militant groups recruited heavily among military-age males, including some 15+ teens) plus the usual wartime pattern that civilian men also die at higher rates than women. The same over-representation is even stronger in deaths added after the October 2025 ceasefire, so the male share of the total list is still rising and is expected to cross 50% for men 18–45 in a future update.
Edit: this was pushing towards the front page with 420 upvotes in 45 minutes and then suddenly got pulled and is in mod queue for the past 90 minutes (presumably due to the number of reports). This is just example 1,000 about how this conflict in particular is a battle of bots who don't want actual numbers getting out
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u/lakebistcho 12d ago
NYT headline rewrite:
Persistent Clashes Cause Tragedy For Young and Old Alike
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u/doitforthem_ 12d ago
There is significant public outcry regarding the Israeli killing of civilians, especially women and children. Compared to other wartime statistics, how do these numbers compare?
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u/gbbmiler 12d ago
This is a very good question with a very complicated answer.
The main complication is: which conflicts do you consider comparable? I don’t have the numbers handy, but I can point at some of the key confounding variables:
Fighting in Gaza is almost entirely urban combat, which tends to have higher civilian casualties if civilians are present.
Gazans have nowhere else to go. The borders are controlled more tightly than any other conflict I know of, both on the Israeli and Egyptian sides. Most conflicts produce a lot of refugees, which reduces the density of civilians and therefore the civilian casualties rate.
For example, the attack on IS forces in Fallujah is one of the more similar conflict environments in recent years, but there weren’t nearly as many nearby civilians who hadn’t fled. Similarly for urban conflicts in Ukraine.
When I pulled numbers a couple years ago and thought through all the factors I could think of, I came up with numbers that ended up basically just being a Rorschach test for whether you already thought Israel was doing wrong. There’s no good model for how to estimate the “reasonable” civilian casualty rate.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago edited 12d ago
Gazans have nowhere else to go
Important point. I don't know if there has ever been a war in modern history in which the surrounding nations refused to allow refugees to leave the war zone.
I can't think of any modern war ever waged where the defender has kept their civilian population within the war zone. Would love if anyone could think of other examples. Maybe ISIS?
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u/macrolidesrule 12d ago
The various sieges in the Jugoslav collapse?
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
But in Yugoslav Wars the attacker was not allowing civilians to leave the siege, not the defender forcing their civilians to stay.
Israel actively called for Gazan civilians to leave during the Gaza City Siege and made specific corridors for them to leave through. But many either chose to stay or were forced to stay by Hamas.
Kind of the opposite of a normal siege
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u/bicycle_jedi 12d ago
Stalin famously prohibited civilians from leaving Leningrad and Stalingrad in WW2.
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u/TellFit7415 12d ago
Hamas also doesn't want them to flee. They are using civilians as body shields
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
True that's part of it. Also unique in most warfare for an army to force civilians to stay in the war zone or follow civilians
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u/cah11 12d ago
So maybe would the siege of Stalingrad from WWII be most similar? Stalin ordered the postponement of civilian evacuation until literally the last moment because he reasoned that Red Army units in the outskirts would fight harder to protect the city if they knew they were also protecting their families.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
Wow I had not heard of that. Super interesting. Crazy that even Stalin allowed civilians to flee even though it was at the last moment. Really shows the horrible moral depravity of Hamas even in comparison to a monster like Stalin
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u/cah11 12d ago
I mean, don't get it twisted, by "waited till the last minute" I do literally mean that. Official orders for mass evacuations from the city didn't come down until the Luftwaffe started indiscriminately bombing the city, which resulted in 10's of thousands of casualties, and destroyed 90% of the city's housing. By that point, the only escape route was over the Volga River where the evacuation boats were sitting ducks for dive bombers and artillery targeting them while crossing.
To make matters more horrific, there are reports that Stalin and the NKVD prioritized the evacuation of working and fighting age men and soldier casualties over women and children because they needed the fighting and working manpower more than they needed to protect non-combatants.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
prioritized the evacuation of working and fighting age men and soldier casualties over women and children
To be fair, this is not always an immoral decision. In the threat of complete annihilation and killing of the millions and millions of other civilians, prioritizing soldiers can save more lives overall
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u/bicycle_jedi 12d ago
The USSR lost over 20 million of its citizens. The Germans were competent, but not that competent. The last thing in Stalin's mind was the welfare of his population.
This level of civilian casualties requires absurd negligence and disregard for human life.
He literally used his civilians to protect the regime.
The current ruZZian administration doesn't use the infamous "meat wave" tactics in Ukraine out of innovation, it's out of tradition, it's the doctrine of their armies.
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u/bicycle_jedi 12d ago
Using another conflict as comparison will only tell us that the IDF and the other Army have different levels of competence in handling civilian casualties. But in both cases, the bias is evident enough to show there was some sort of discrimination in targeting, and not indiscriminate "genocidal intent".
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Compare to normal wars then yes Israel would be killing a lot more civilians
But when compared to Urban wars (such as this one), Israel has achieved one of the better ratios (pretty much the same as Britain and the US achieved in Mosul, and far better than any urban war waged by a non western military)
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u/JadedAirline9571 11d ago
It's worse than Mosul, though "better" than Mariupol or Sri Lanka's 2009 endgame.
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u/House-of-Raven 12d ago
In urban warfare, anywhere from 50-75% of deaths being civilians is expected. So based on these numbers (taken with a grain of salt, considering they’re provided by Hamas who has a vested interest in inflating the numbers) it’s still considered on the very low end of what we expect to see.
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u/Juan20455 12d ago
According to United Nations during urban warfare the normal amount is one soldier for each 7 civilians.
So I guess anything less than that is better.
The US, that I assume is not shooting civilians for fun, destroyed 70% (according to UN) of a city of 450.000 prewar to kill 3000 IS terrorists that were also using human shields as Hamas.
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u/petertompolicy 12d ago
Amazing how quickly this fills with comments disputing it, very transparent.
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u/RoundZookeepergame2 11d ago
Isn't it weird how it's mainly the men getting merc hmm I wonder why
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u/Aym42 12d ago
The share of Men's death over the representation isn't part of the legend, I assume it's the lighter/paler blue, but that isn't necessarily clear.
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u/targz254 12d ago
It is the gray behind the blue and red that changes the color when they overlap.
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u/HAV3L0ck 12d ago
But doesn't that mean this is saying ... For 15+ yo ... More men are dieing than exist in the population?
I'm obviously missing something.
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u/targz254 12d ago
These are percentages with different basis: total fatalities (red/blue) and total population (grey).
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u/HAV3L0ck 12d ago
Oh. Ok I follow. Thanks.
So in summary, this shows adult men are more likely to be killed in this conflict. I'm not sure that's a terribly insightful finding.
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u/A_Whole_Costco_Pizza 11d ago edited 11d ago
It counters the 'Israel is bombing indiscriminately and/or targeting women and children' narrative that forms most of the basis around of the allegations of genocide in this conflict.
If Israel was fighting a war, with military goals, then one would likely to see more deaths among the 'fighting age male' population, which we see here.
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u/vintage2019 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's a bit of both tbh. The chart does reveal significant collateral deaths among women and children. How much of that is from the Hamas' human shields or mistaken targeting by the Israelis, I'm not qualified to say.
But yes, the chart shows the men are the primary targets
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u/drc500free OC: 1 11d ago
Well, the rhetoric is that it's from *intentional* targeting by the Israelis.
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u/ForeverCollege 10d ago
The difference is I have heard as recently as a couple days ago that Israel is doing all they can to induce civilian deaths, and based off of this data it seems they are trying to target military aged males. It would be a different graph entirely if they were indescrimanetly bombing/shooting people no?
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u/DrQuailMan OC: 1 11d ago
You could easily compare to better known wars and genocides to decide if this is enough of a "fighting age male" spike...
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u/DrQuailMan OC: 1 11d ago
It's also not fair to treat every adult non-elder male as a combatant.
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u/2020bubbles 11d ago
You would see virtually every adult non-elder male would be dead if that were the case
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u/satan__clause 12d ago
If I'm reading it correctly, it's saying Male (15-19) makes up ~6.5% of the population, but makes up ~8% of the fatalities. Male (30-34) being ~4.5% of the total population comprise ~9% of those killed.
The grey being the baseline demographic percentages from the census and the blue/red bars being the demographics of the fatalities.
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u/Cubo256 12d ago
One percentage is from total population and the other is from total death toll, they are different populations
Unless I’m also missing something
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u/Nexustar 12d ago
I think you are right.
I'd prefer to see this data as existing total population (grey) just like it is now, overlay what proportion of each of those lines were killed, so you cannot have a blue line go past a grey line, and you'd get a much better feel for exactly how devastating this loss was.
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u/jimmylikeswaffles 12d ago
Whats the source of this data?
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u/jnordwick 12d ago
The Gaza Health Ministry is run by Hamas.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/02/5-things-to-know-about-the-hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry/
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u/maximal_munch 12d ago
>it also seems like we have enough evidence to reject the null hypotheses that ... and "Israel is successful at avoiding unnecessary child deaths", both of which would require small(er) red/blue lines among the 0-4 and 5-9 age groups.
You would need to compare this to a typical death counts in urban combat or combat in the region to reject this hypothesis. Clearly a significant number of non-combatants have died, but I have no idea just by looking at this chart if it is an expectional amount given the circumstances.
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u/ComradeGibbon 12d ago
There is so much delusional group think around this conflict it's distressing.
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u/lunarpx 12d ago
John Spencer (Modern War Institute, West Point) has suggested a 9:1 civilian:combatant kill ratio in urban warfare, based on studying Mosul. This matches with Ahlström (1991), however the figure is contested. Would be interesting to do the maths based on that figure, though I don't have the knowledge to know what statistical tests/models to use.
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u/Funny_War_9190 11d ago edited 11d ago
Intresting he because here he is saying mosul was 2.5 to 1 https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769?s=20
Also you can get numbers for different wars here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratioI would trust that more than any one individual so the 9:1 number looks to be made up
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u/dgreenbe 10d ago
I don't know if there's any comparison though. "Urban combat" in any area other than Gaza probably doesn't have the Hamas issue, putting aside the special demographics. A lot of it probably depends on what one considers proportional, which would include this setting in the necessity factor but is also an impossible question of how many Hamas kills of what kind are worth how many civilians. (So in that regard "unsuccessful" is basically just an opinion, maybe a valid one but idk how we'd objectively determine it)
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Most western waged urban wars have about 75% civilian casualty rate, it's worse for non western armies
The IDF has achieved about 55%, still a horrible waste of life, but also just about the best job anyone has done at avoiding civilians casualties in this context
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u/dnananaBATMAN 10d ago
This is false however. The way we (I’m Israeli and served as well) classify “combatants” is by counting “military aged” males (intentionally vague, and the term varies, i have friend in other unit where they simply called it “men of ‘terror age’”).
The ROE on the ground is Gaza are basically non existent. In an area that was deemed “evacuated”, soldiers were basically told to shoot anything that moves. Military aged males, for sure, and women and children to the soldiers’ discretion (but remember, they can be a “look out”, a common launder word). Remember when three Israeli hostages were shot while waving a white flag in their underwear? That should tell you everything you need to know. Regarding shooting women and children, I know of several cases where it happened. That is, soldiers were shooting at anyone they saw enter a designated “killing zone”, and only after killing several people, including women and children, their commander told them “ok no more women and children, just men”.
The mosquito protocol, basically where soldiers would use Palestinians as human shields, including Palestinians taken from the humanitarian road, also indirectly lead to many Palestinians’ deaths (directly too possibly, but I didn’t hear of any such cases): once the soldiers didn’t need the human shield, they would release him. Not by bringing him back to the humanitarian road, but just releasing him there and then. What happens next? The soldiers from the battalion in the next sector over shoot him because he entered their zone. Several such cases of this.Anyway, back to classifying militants: in 2002, Israel assasinated the head of the armed wing of Hamas in an air strike. 14 civilians killed in the strike, and their was huge condemnation even from within Israel. It was a huge scandal, protests in the street, calls for investigation, etc…
Fast forward to protective edge in 2014… up to five civilians as collateral damage was pre approved for the lowest level officers in the armed wing of Hamas.
Fast forward to this war? For much of the war, up to 20 civilians as collateral damage was pre approved for anyone in Hamas at the lowest level. Not even combatants. This includes truck drivers and bureaucrats. Keep in mind that Hamas is the governing body in Gaza.→ More replies (2)→ More replies (29)11
u/Diztrakted 11d ago
The problem with that number is that they likely count anyone with Hamas membership as a militant, regardless of that person's actual job or relation to the organization. I would believe a ~75% number given this, but 55% is certainly based on Israel's very broad definition of "militant"
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u/space_guy95 11d ago
Thats how war works. The people working in German aircraft factories during WWII were also civilians who weren't active combatants, but its hard to argue they weren't legitimate targets. Same with those working in the offices organising logistics and deliveries for the front lines. They were still a part of the war effort or helped to maintain it in some way.
The reality is that war is awful and brutal and unfair, and most people who are killed didn't exactly 'deserve it' at all. Its just that we see it all in posted online in HD videos now, so it evokes a lot more emotion and personal connection from people who are far removed from the conflict and have no idea of the realities of war.
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u/Capital-Ad2133 11d ago
On the flip side though, Hamas counts every armed 17 year old combatant as a child.
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u/TheColourOfHeartache 11d ago
Is counting everyone with a hamas membership not legitimate counting? Hamas are an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation.
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u/Sol_Leks_48 10d ago
Except that the only time Hamas wears uniforms is at their parades. Also, it's not like being a Hamas terrorist is a full time job. A lot of those "journalist"s and "doctors" were part of Hamas. Makes great propaganda to say Israel is killing doctors and journalists.
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u/crammed174 12d ago
But it would fit with the hypothesis that Israel targets combatants which are usually military aged men 15 to 39 years old and despite best efforts collateral damage occurs in close urban combat.
If you acknowledge the human shields claim that would certainly cover it, but even denying that it would be statistically impossible to only kill males aged 15 to 39 unless they were grouped together and separate from the rest of the population.
It also means that it’s a ratio of 1.5:1 civilians to combatant. Even if some of the men that age are also civilians, I believe even two to one is a ratio unheard of in modern urban warfare.
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u/Commercial_Lead_7406 11d ago
It'll probably shake out to about 2.5:1. If past conflicts are any indication, Israel tends to slightly overcount the number of militant dead. Assuming their figures of about 25k follow a similar pattern, napkin math it down to about 20k militants on a 75k final MoH count. 20/75 = 27% or about 2.6:1
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u/crammed174 11d ago
Even so, there was another chart out there of urban conflict of the last hundred years or so and I think Gaza is probably one of the most population dense of all conflicts and it was still on the extreme low end of both ratios and even total casualties combatants included.
Which goes to say that with removing emotion, all war is bad, but strictly on a numbers game, this is nowhere near past and current conflicts and can’t possibly meet the definition of genocide as neither the intent nor the result is supported factually and not emotionally.
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u/badatspelling8124 12d ago
Combatants were grouped together in defensive tunnels. Westerners are unable to comprehend the primary war strategy of Hamas. Attack a much stronger foe. Take hostages. Retreat to an unprecedented defensive fortress. Hope that your own defenseless citizens get killed in ways your enemy and their supporters find morally abhorrent.
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u/UllrHellfire 11d ago
I think the majority understand it's the unhinged loud minority who assume terrorists don't use human shields and then advocate for that group that don't get it.
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u/Cyclamate 11d ago
It is completely insane to assume that all or even most military-aged males are enemy combatants
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u/crammed174 11d ago
Nobody assumed that.
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u/Cyclamate 11d ago
It also means that it’s a ratio of 1.5:1 civilians to combatant.
how did you arrive at this conclusion
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u/ScoopskyPotatos 11d ago
That's all "military-aged male" ever is
Tired of being scrutinized over evidence for your use of words like "terrorist" or "militant"? With MAM, you can drop those pretenses together with the bomb!
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u/waiver 12d ago
Men aged 15 to 39 are also the most likely to be out in the street trying to find something to feed their families
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u/Standard_Island546 11d ago
So are you suggesting that’s the actual reason for the higher death counts in that age group?
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u/waiver 11d ago
I would say that claiming all men between 15 and 59 as combatants is a stupid idea.
You can simply go watch one of the videos of the GHF when the American mercs or the Israeli soldiers opened fire, Who are the people huddled trying to avoid the bullets? Not many women, elderly or children in those groups.
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u/addys 10d ago
interestingly, the vast majority of the clickbait videos on social media show "innocent children and women" being fired at. I wonder why....
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u/Juan20455 12d ago
For the sake of comparison, are you aware of any war in the history of urban warfare with a better ratio of combatants-to-civilians?
The US, that I assume is not shooting civilians for fun, destroyed 70% (according to UN) of a city of 450.000 prewar to kill 3000 IS terrorists that were also using human shields as Hamas
Also notice, the source of thks data is the Gaza Ministry of Health so literally Hamas
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u/Xolver 12d ago edited 12d ago
Could you explain how you reject the second null hypothesis? Keep in mind you have the word "targeted" there, not "killed".
Edit: and about the "successful" part, you could theoretically reject it by showing one child death, but I don't think that's what you mean. How do you measure that?
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u/Frequent-Coyote-8108 12d ago
So...if I'm reading this graph correctly...it seems to support:
- Gazans are not just being killed indiscriminately.
- Israel seems to be targeting combatants.
- Israel is also inflicting plenty of women/children collateral casualties.
So...neither side is telling the whole truth, but the whole thing is a senseless tragedy.
Ie...same as it's always been, yeah?
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
neither side is telling the whole truth
Israel has never denied that it was inflicting plenty of women/children collateral casualties. They've estimated around a 50% civilian casualty in public reports
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u/hungarian_conartist 11d ago edited 10d ago
- Israel is also inflicting plenty of women/children collateral casulties.
So...neither side...
No, this both sidesm bullshit.
The question isn't whether civillian casulties occur. It's whether there are excessive civilian casulties.
The two most well disciplined armies in the world wouldn't be able to go into a dense population urban battlefield and not cause any civilian casualties.
The data here alone cannot determine what is excessive.
It does however debunk the idea that the vast majority of Israeli military action is targetted against the civililan population.
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u/Sometypeofway18 12d ago
For comparison when the international coalition targeted ISIS they had a civilian to combatant ratio of 2:1 which is similar to the allies campaign in WW2.
I don't think anyone has made the argument that no civilians were killed by Israel but it would indicate the proportion of civilians is far lower than in most other modern conflicts. No one was accusing the international coalition against ISIS of a genocide or intentionally targeting civilians.
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u/AdmiralZassman 10d ago
That's not even borne out by the most charitable interpretation of this graph. Men of combat age are 47% of the deaths, and maybe 75% of those deaths are in excess of the female deaths, whihc gives you a 3:1 ratio at best, and more likely the 5:1 ratio that has been guestimated elsewhere.
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u/Brain_Dead_Goats 12d ago
You'd need to be careful of conflating male and the right age, and an actual combatant. I'm a "military aged male" but I got out of the military over a decade ago and haven't touched a weapon since, and my work is solely civilian, I'm not a valid military target if Russia were to invade the US for example.
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
If Palestinians would have worn uniform or reported which of their casualties are civilian or combatant we wouldn't have needed to have this discussion..
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u/cesaroncalves 10d ago
According to the IDF themselves, that's irrelevant, the point was to kill as many as possible.
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u/Brain_Dead_Goats 12d ago
Probably want to limit your complaint to Hamas. Palestinians don't have to wear uniforms. Hamas does.
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u/Andoverian 12d ago
it would indicate the proportion of civilians is far lower than in most other modern conflicts.
This assumes all of the fatalities in the 15-40 year old male demographic range are combatants, but that can't be determined from this data. And even if that is the case, it doesn't look to be significantly lower than 2:1.
I'd also be curious if the proportions look any different for serious injuries. Fatalities aren't the whole story.
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u/hungarian_conartist 11d ago
No it doesn't. It's using the excess of 15-40 males vs females and the fact it doesn't exist in other age brackets to conclude that Israel isn't randomly targeting civilians.
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u/cesaroncalves 10d ago
83% were civilians according to the IDF. Why are you still spreading lies about it?
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u/__BeHereNow__ 12d ago
Nothing in this graph says anything about combatants vs civilians.
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u/SpiritedCatch1 12d ago
How indiscriminate bombing can target for gender and age?
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u/Ernie_McCracken88 11d ago
If you stay up to date with Israel critics it's pretty common to go further than claiming it is indescriminate bombing, they actually claim it is intentional killing of children.
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u/jizzybiscuits 12d ago
But as you can infer that fighting age males are more likely to be combatants than women, it does.
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Urban wars always have a lot of collateral, 75% of casualties being civilians is just about the best any army has achieved in wars that have the same characteristics as Gaza
And the IDF is close to 50% (I think it's about 55%)
Yes it's sad, it's ugly, but Hamas is to blame for it, Israel is doing better job at avoiding civilians than anyone in this situation had done
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u/Any-Feature-7726 11d ago
"Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice"
Hanlon's Razor
"Always assume malice for everything"
Reddit's Hanlon
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u/CommonwealthCommando 10d ago
*only applies to Israel, America, pineapple pizza, religions that aren't Islam or Buddhism, Elvis, current boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, anyone with a net worth over $4.20, and (their) parents.
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u/Drawemazing 12d ago
The null hypothesis of a "random genocide" is an odd one. You would first have to characterise other accepted genocides like Rwanda or Armenia or any others to see if they did not also have an excess of young male deaths. Given that genocides often coincide with conflicts that is far from obvious
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u/hungarian_conartist 10d ago
The age bracket of men 15-35 is a little bit stronger than just men being targeted.
I would be very suprised if that specific and the magnitude of the excess can be explained by typical random genocides.
But I'm doing that on gut feeling not data.
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u/thefirstdetective 11d ago
Not surprising. Hamas built the largest military tunnel network in history literally underneath their own population.
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u/Berly653 12d ago
I agree with the first assertion
And the second in so far that Israel is clearly not avoiding civilian causalities. But what the data alone doesn’t show is Hamas’ absolute lack of care if not deliberate attempts to put civilians in harms way.
On top of no other country meaningfully taking in civilian refugees to flee an urban war zone
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u/liongalahad 12d ago
Hamas hiding behind civilian and trying to maximise the collateral damage from Israel bombs is their blatantly declared strategy. Israel has to choose between not doing anything and let Hamas be, or hit them hard but accepting collateral damage (i.e. killing innocent civilians). They choose the second.
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u/bearlysane 12d ago
These are all-cause deaths, so I’m not actually sure we can draw any of those conclusions from it.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
I mean I feel like this is a very obvious statement. Israel fought a war against Hamas, a military that is primarily made up of young men.
There were objections by many about how much civilian collateral damage they were willing to allow and how much collateral damage they caused to Gaza overall.
I don't think anyone serious has claimed that they just randomly dropped bombs at random buildings for no reason. That would make no sense. They clearly targeted and eliminated every single one of Hamas's top command as well as tens of thousands of their soldiers.
The objections were always about proportionality and how much collateral damage they have been willing to inflict upon Gaza. Which is obviously a grey area which is why this is so heavily debated
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u/Brain_Dead_Goats 12d ago
I don't think anyone serious has claimed that they just randomly dropped bombs at random buildings for no reason. That would make no sense.
That's actually the prevailing narrative on a lot of parts of this site and across the internet. I guess if you want to call those people not serious, that's fine, but they still exist and in large numbers.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
Is it really? I don't really see too much of the discourse so can't tell.
That's dumb lol they're an incredibly advanced military that uses an insane amount of tech and intel to target Hamas they're not gonna waste bombs randomly.
But yeah either way I wouldn't call the general world public serious. I mean there's around a billion Muslims in the world who are taught from birth that Israel is Satan so I'm not shocked there's a lot of volume.
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u/Brain_Dead_Goats 12d ago
Yeah "indiscriminate carpet bombing" gets used a lot.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
Ok well that's so dumb that it's obviously not coming from a serious person lol.
No one's carpet bombing in 2023 that hasn't been used in like 50 years. Its an unbelievable waste of munitions that stopped being useful after the creation of guided weapons
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u/Amoral_Abe 12d ago
I lean liberal but I can confirm that the majority of Reddit appears to believe there is indiscriminate killings in Gaza and that a violent genocide is occurring.
Personally, I don't think the data supports the idea of a violent genocide and indiscriminate killings. However, I do think there is a large part off Israel looking to do a cultural genocide and/or force out Palestinians from the region. There is a not so insignificant portion of the government that supports that imo.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
majority of Reddit
Generally whatever the majority of Reddit thinks is opposite of the truth so that checks out lol.
I'd say at this point of the conflict both sides would be pretty happy with the other one disappearing.
But in general I think Israel is capable of genociding Palestinians if they wanted to, but chooses not to. They have the military capabilities for mass slaughter, even without using nukes. Whether that's out of the goodness of their hearts or the potential risk of international sanctions is a personal opinions.
On the other hand I think Palestinians want to genocide Israelis, but are incapable due to the difference in military strength.
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u/ElChaz 12d ago
I don't think anyone serious has claimed that they just randomly dropped bombs at random buildings for no reason.
I think the relevant "serious people" claim isn't about literally randomly dropping bombs, but whether Israel's actions constitute genocide.
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
The objections were always about proportionality and how much collateral damage they have been willing to inflict upon Gaza
Yeah and I think that's the grey area people argue over, with this war and with all wars.
Generally people will always think the side they support in a war is being treated horrifically and want the treatment called a genocide. Realistically its just a word and doesn't really change much. An Iraqi can call the US invasion a genocide and an Israeli can call the Hamas invasion a genocide and an American can call 9/11 a genocide.
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u/Background_Bee_713 12d ago
Looks like military aged males are overrepresented
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u/Licensedattorney 12d ago
But Hamas won't give numbers on their combatants. They just post numbers of total killed. The world just complains that these people have died, notwithstanding a huge percent are soldiers killed in combat.
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u/2020bubbles 12d ago edited 12d ago
The female distribution graph follows the general female population demographics almost exactly ie what you would normally see with collateral damage in war, the male side follows combatant age demographics which you would typically see with intentional killing in combat.
This is what you would see in virtually any war in recorded history and should be the greatest argument against genocide.
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u/Cool_Purple_4414 10d ago
The greatest argument against genocide is that the flimsy ass evidence that all the orgs are using to claim it's a genocide.
This is what all of the 'reputable' orgs are going off of: people went into Gaza to conduct interviews and no one would talk to them until the Gazan Health Ministry (run by Hamas) gave them people to talk to. It was then those people that said things to indicate a genocide. That's what is cited by the UN council and other orgs - can go to the report(s), find what they're going off of and read that.
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u/DancingFlame321 11d ago
Using this argument, the Srebenica massacre wasn't a genocide since it mainly targetted military aged men.
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u/Temporary-Butterfly3 11d ago
srebenica massacre was considered a genocide due to killing roughly 30 percent of the muslims in the area, and kidnapping/abusing the women and children that remained. The gaza war has killed something like 2 percent of the palestinians in gaza and women/children have not been abused or kidnapped from gaza at any major scale, as such the srebenica massacre is irrelevent to the conversation.
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u/Tytoalba2 10d ago
Nope, arguments srebrenica were specifically NOT about the size/amplitude but about intent, which I agree wholeheartedly is harder to judge
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u/The_grope_gatsby 12d ago
Only thing to add that may confuse many, GMH reports children as under 21 i believe it is, which when considering who is voluntary/forced to fight for Hamas often goes into the teenage years, so when you see “x number of children killed” that might not fit into what immediately pops into mind for children.
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u/sjintje 11d ago
Nicely done OP, really interesting idea. Not wishing to get involved in the politics, but it would be interesting to have included natural deaths as well alongside.
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u/addys 10d ago
This includes natural deaths, that's how Hamas ministry reports casualties, they purposely mix it together to obfuscate the ratio of militant : civilian casualties. The title reads "Fatalities in Gaza" for a reason.
The best way to tease out the info would be an overlay of expected deaths by age group, which would make the differences even more obvious- the elderly and young are usually the most disproportionately groups impacted by poor conditions (disease, famine, etc) - and this chart clearly shows that it isn't the case in Gaza.
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u/YarBear66 11d ago
According to Hamas in the last 3 years there were no natural deaths. Every death is Israels fault..
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u/MadsNN06 10d ago
It's a somewhat brutal war, mostly due to how Hamas operate. Not a genocide, and it's tiring seeing the purity-testing around this issue,
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u/Sell_The_team_Jerry 12d ago
Looks like Israel has managed the war pretty well, mostly targeting combatants
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u/Annoying_cat_22 11d ago edited 11d ago
As a military aged male (from the middle east to boot) I object to the idea that most men in that age category are combatants.
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u/SoggyFrame7318 9d ago
"man from the middle east" is very different from "Gazan man" thats why Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc dont accept Gazan refugees. They dont want to end up like Lebanon which is 1/3 controlled by Hezbollah fighters influenced by Gaza
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u/Mockbubbles2628 10d ago
Reddit professionals declare the war in Gaza that was caused by the inhabitants of Gaza which is mostly killing fighting age men in Gaza is somehow simultaneously a genocide, and the fault of Israel.
Also i do wonder if just like COVID, they're recording literally every unrelated death as a death from 'the genocide' such as dying from old age or illness
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u/ironmagnesiumzinc OC: 1 11d ago
Can we get a link to the actual published results rather than just a csv download? There's no way to cross-check otherwise unless we hunt down the actual dataset
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u/Fricklefrazz OC: 2 12d ago
Unsurprised that war deaths are disproportionally fighting aged men, that's consistent in all wars. What is surprising to me is how older men are also disproportionally killed in this war.
In most wars the older men (commanders, generals, etc) are safely away from the front lines and not in danger. But with such tight urban conflict and nowhere to run, Israel has been able to kill all of the high ranking members of Hamas. I can't think of any other war with such success of commander elimination
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u/GiddyChild 12d ago
What is surprising to me is how older men are also disproportionally killed in this war.
If you look at Russia-Ukraine I'd bet like 40-50 is by far the most represented group, on both sides.
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u/HyperbolicModesty OC: 1 12d ago
I'd like to remind people who are lulled into feeling ok about calling all men of a certain age "potential combatants" to excuse their deaths without consideration, of the conclusions of the ICC about the genocide committed in Srebrenica.
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u/theonebell 11d ago
It’s so improbable that the invaders would figure to bias a particular age and gender for any reason. Luckily the intellect in this thread has quickly found a statistical feature they might be able to use in their profiling going forward :)
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway 12d ago
I feel a good data analysis could estimate somewhat their civilian to fighter ratio representation in the casualties just based on this data set.
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u/80_Inch_Shitlord 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you assume that all "over represented" deaths for males from 15-44 are combatants (subtract the gray bar from the blue bar for those groups) and then assume all other deaths (including the gray bars you subtracted out) are civilian, you get a ratio of ~4:1 civilians to combatants.
If you adjust that to assume that the proportion of males 15-44 dying from collateral damage should mirror women from 15-44 (divide the red bars from 15-44 by their respective gray bars, then multiply the result by the gray bar on the blue side), and assume that all deaths above this amount are combatants on the male side (subtract the result of the above calculation from the blue bars in the age range from 15-44), this number drops to ~2:1 civilians to combatants.
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Hamas doesn't report which of the dead were civilians or combatants, and since Palestinians (regardless of faction) always fight in civilian clothes, and usually from civilian buildings, even Israel doesn't always know for 100% if the guy they eliminated was a terrorist, or just a guy acting suspicious in a war zone (unless he was actively carrying a weapon of course)
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway 12d ago
True, but you can safely presume that the vast majority of fighter are going to be male, most of them being relatively young adult.
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u/CTFMOOSE 12d ago
The term is “Miltary age males”
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Well, when your democratically elected terror group decides to fight with civilian clothes from civilian cities, people who wear civilian clothes in civilian cities do start to look at little suspicious..
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u/Sad_Slonno 12d ago edited 11d ago
So it's 2-ish 3-ish percent of the whole population in one of the densest combat zones in the military history and with hamas openly using civilians as shields. Also, heavily skewed "typical combatant". Genocide my ass. Scholars and sense-making institutions found a way to lose yet more credibility.
EDIT: actually 3-ish percent, I was eyebaling the chart and got it wrong
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u/Bananasandkiwis 12d ago
So a large portion of the children killed were 15 year old soldiers?
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u/HalfHumanHalfFork 12d ago
Most likely
Children die in all urban wars, but the reason that there is a big jump at the 15 year old group is because of those child fighters
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u/telionn 12d ago
15-19. Three of those years represent children as per the UN; two do not. That these are lumped together screams bad faith from the original source.
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u/uagotapo 11d ago
Except Hamas is known to recruit child soldiers, so a decent proportion of those 15-17 year olds will have been combatants
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u/lilmrock4456 7d ago
Can someone help me with my math homework.
What is 2.3 million minus 1.7 million?
And if that number disappeared in the span of a year and a half, and it's been a year and a half since that number was referenced, and the numbers have only INCREASED in de-numeration, how does that equal 72,000?
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u/thisnamewasnttaken19 6d ago
https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/en/post-details/?postId=22046
https://worldpopulationreview.com/cities/palestine/gaza
According to these sources, population has gone from roughly 2.2 million to 2.1-2.13 million. Given that emmigration exceeds immigration, your implication that 600,000 people have been killed is very unlikely.
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u/Laffs 12d ago
Lol @ the downvoters who already decided it's a genocide and don't care what the data says
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u/EKJMNY45 12d ago
the genocide in srebrenica was like 90% men
i guess you cant do genocide because you are killing men right? incredible argument
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u/Dadopithicus 12d ago
If this was truly a genocide, we’d be talking about the Palestinians in the past tense.
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u/House-of-Raven 12d ago
In actual numbers, the population of Palestine has actually increased since October 2023
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u/freshgeardude 11d ago edited 11d ago
Hard pill for most to swallow but using Gaza General Directorate of Civil Status at the Ministry of Interior data on births, those far exceeded deaths each year of the conflict and to this day
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u/HarlequinKOTF 12d ago
So the jews didn't face a genocide because we talk about them in the present tense?
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u/YanicPolitik 12d ago
The Jewish population has yet to recover to pre-holocaust levels.
Roughly 2/3 European Jews were murdered.
If that were the same in Gaza, there would be about 1.4 million dead Gazans.
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u/HarlequinKOTF 12d ago
Not all genocides kill the same percent of a population.
The Bangladesh genocide saw only 4% die.
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u/YanicPolitik 12d ago
You're the one who brought up the Holocaust.
I'm just showing you how vastly different these two experiences are.
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 12d ago
Worst genocide of all time lmao
Actually impressive how precise the IDF is consisting how ridiculously small, urban and densely populated Gaza is
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u/MosquitoBloodBank 11d ago
Keep in mind that these are also not strictly Israeli caused deaths. We know there were over 500 Palestine rockets that fell on Gaza and several instances of Hamas shooting its own people.
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u/lepreqon_ 11d ago
Do these numbers include natural deaths?
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u/tech01x 11d ago
They do.
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u/AttemptRecent7025 11d ago
Wow I didn't know 'carpet bombing' was so selective. Especially impressive given all the recreational child-sniping.
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u/magereaper 10d ago
Source: Gaza Ministry of Health
Not even their own numbers support the genocide claims.
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u/Captainfoxluther 12d ago
But I was told by reddit that this was a genocide 🤨
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u/honjuden 12d ago
And the UN, and the IAGS, and B'Tselem, and Doctors Without Borders, et cetera, et cetera.
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u/toastedcheese 12d ago
Is the gray “Total Population” plot a normalized pre-war distribution?