Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Sunday that evidence suggested a misfired rocket was the likely cause of an explosion that resulted in heavy casualties at a hospital in Gaza on Oct. 17.
My understanding is this lie was used by Hamas to isolate Israel from Arab nations where much of the public was frankly horrified by the brutal violence Hamas had aimed specifically at civilians. So no, it wasn’t just “the one relatively inconsequential thing,” it is a lie that has had serious consequences.
The reason people believe Gazan death tolls is that they’re found to be reliable by almost every organization working in the region. And the reason most people refuse to believe what Israel says without confirmation is because they’ve been caught lying on multiple occasions, many times going as far as fabricating evidence (remember the Al-Shifa calendar)?
They don’t, though. Check. They can’t. No independent body can operate freely in Gaza, it’s under Hamas control. They know that Hamas can rescind whatever meager access they have, and so they figure that humanitarian purpose is better satisfied by preserving access by not angering Hamas.
But they don’t have access to strike sites, they don’t have access to morgues. Islam requires the dead be buried by nightfall, so there’s simply no opportunity for independent observers to actually verify body counts. They’re just demographically “verified” - “oh, we know about that many people lived in the apartment block, so X is a plausible figure for deaths.” But that’s not confirmation.
Kind of like no independent journalists can investigate in Gaza about Israeli-built tunnels under a hospital under IDF control, right?
Okay, so explain this: why would Israel lie about the tunnels? It makes perfect sense that Hamas would operate largely in tunnels including under vital infrastructure, tunnels are used for smuggling in other places around the world, and bringing the IDF into hospitals is a huge headache in terms of PR. So what’s in it for Israel?
The truth should matter, shouldn’t it? In both cases/ways/directions.
I don’t understand why you would not want to know this truth? As it seems relevant too. And it does not take away from the horrors that are occurring in the Gaza strip one bit.
I think the truth does matter, and it also shows that getting reporting right on anything happening in the chaos of war should be reported on properly and preferably with jumping to as little conclusions as possible and without taking any sides press releases as gospel.
The truth matters for the historical record, but it wasn’t a lie like the other poster said; it was at worst a false conclusion. Instead of treating this like a reasonable mistake, though, they’re cooking up conspiracy theories to assign malicious intent to what is pretty clearly just a result of the fog of war.
If it was a mistake. I’m reserving judgement until there’s an actual forensic investigation and a truth-and-reconcilliation commission for Israel’s crimes.
I would argue the truth always matters not just in hindsight. The news making such a blunder in reporting will just makke it easier for future reports to be poopooh’ed away as “fake news”.
In this case the news jumped on the bandwagon without knowing what was going on and that is just stupid, as this conflict has enough evidently disgusting things happening where there is less or no ambiguity in who did what.
People do not need excuses to accuse something of being fake news. Also, there really weren’t a lot of reporters that actually reported this as an Israeli airstrike - they mostly just reported about the claims that were being made of an Israeli airstrike, but tried to stay neutral.
Though yes, some jumped to conclusions. Reasonable conclusions in my opinion, but that’s bad reporting.
But if truth matters, then we shouldn’t react to bad reporting with wild and speculative claims about people lying to make Israel look bad.
Well the initial reporting was that it was Israël, it was updated a few hours later to more generic language, but the push notification I got then was " Israël kills 500 in bombing of Gaza hospital".
Your comment on fake news is correct… I used a hyperbolic term often used by the MAGAettes et al. I more meant to say is that the average person will be more able to ignore all the reporting because such a big and horrific event turned out to be less cut and dry than initially reported.
Reasonable conclusions… I tend to disagree as both sides are skilled manipulators of the truth, and both have shown to have no qualms of doing this on the backs of dead children.
I tend to trust the internet osint community more than the mainstream media, as the online sleuths usually add the supporting information to their claims.
And your last point I agree to completely, we should not be jumping to conclusions or making wild accusations. Both sides of the conflict (so not the civilians caught between them) seem to be grade A assholes.
My understanding is this lie was used by Hamas to isolate Israel from Arab nations where much of the public was frankly horrified by the brutal violence Hamas had aimed specifically at civilians. So no, it wasn’t just “the one relatively inconsequential thing,” it is a lie that has had serious consequences.
It’s also a large part of why people believe everything Hamas says (e.g. death tolls) while also refusing to believe anything Israel says.
The reason people believe Gazan death tolls is that they’re found to be reliable by almost every organization working in the region. And the reason most people refuse to believe what Israel says without confirmation is because they’ve been caught lying on multiple occasions, many times going as far as fabricating evidence (remember the Al-Shifa calendar)?
They’re “found reliable”, but not actually checked. Like, nobody actually checks Hamas’ numbers; they just “confirm” them.
Confirming numbers comes from actually checking them.
Pedanticism isn’t a good look.
They don’t, though. Check. They can’t. No independent body can operate freely in Gaza, it’s under Hamas control. They know that Hamas can rescind whatever meager access they have, and so they figure that humanitarian purpose is better satisfied by preserving access by not angering Hamas.
But they don’t have access to strike sites, they don’t have access to morgues. Islam requires the dead be buried by nightfall, so there’s simply no opportunity for independent observers to actually verify body counts. They’re just demographically “verified” - “oh, we know about that many people lived in the apartment block, so X is a plausible figure for deaths.” But that’s not confirmation.
Kind of like no independent journalists can investigate in Gaza about Israeli-built tunnels under a hospital under IDF control, right?
This is one of the few both-sides arguments that can be legitimately made.
Never mind the fact that Palestinians haven’t had an election in Gaza in almost 20 years and a number of elected officials are in Israeli jails.
since Hamas took over
Well ofc since Hamas was elected since Hamas is the ruling party now.
I thought that would be self-evident.
Okay, so explain this: why would Israel lie about the tunnels? It makes perfect sense that Hamas would operate largely in tunnels including under vital infrastructure, tunnels are used for smuggling in other places around the world, and bringing the IDF into hospitals is a huge headache in terms of PR. So what’s in it for Israel?
Kind of the opposite, in fact? The IDF brought in independent journalists to the tunnels, proving that they’d been right about them all along.
Considering the fact that Israel is now bombing and invading every hospital, what difference does it make?
If this was a lie then it was only a lie by a few weeks. Israel has fulfilled every accusation that Hamas has made.
The truth should matter, shouldn’t it? In both cases/ways/directions.
I don’t understand why you would not want to know this truth? As it seems relevant too. And it does not take away from the horrors that are occurring in the Gaza strip one bit.
I think the truth does matter, and it also shows that getting reporting right on anything happening in the chaos of war should be reported on properly and preferably with jumping to as little conclusions as possible and without taking any sides press releases as gospel.
The truth matters for the historical record, but it wasn’t a lie like the other poster said; it was at worst a false conclusion. Instead of treating this like a reasonable mistake, though, they’re cooking up conspiracy theories to assign malicious intent to what is pretty clearly just a result of the fog of war.
If it was a mistake. I’m reserving judgement until there’s an actual forensic investigation and a truth-and-reconcilliation commission for Israel’s crimes.
I would argue the truth always matters not just in hindsight. The news making such a blunder in reporting will just makke it easier for future reports to be poopooh’ed away as “fake news”.
In this case the news jumped on the bandwagon without knowing what was going on and that is just stupid, as this conflict has enough evidently disgusting things happening where there is less or no ambiguity in who did what.
People do not need excuses to accuse something of being fake news. Also, there really weren’t a lot of reporters that actually reported this as an Israeli airstrike - they mostly just reported about the claims that were being made of an Israeli airstrike, but tried to stay neutral.
Though yes, some jumped to conclusions. Reasonable conclusions in my opinion, but that’s bad reporting.
But if truth matters, then we shouldn’t react to bad reporting with wild and speculative claims about people lying to make Israel look bad.
Well the initial reporting was that it was Israël, it was updated a few hours later to more generic language, but the push notification I got then was " Israël kills 500 in bombing of Gaza hospital".
Your comment on fake news is correct… I used a hyperbolic term often used by the MAGAettes et al. I more meant to say is that the average person will be more able to ignore all the reporting because such a big and horrific event turned out to be less cut and dry than initially reported.
Reasonable conclusions… I tend to disagree as both sides are skilled manipulators of the truth, and both have shown to have no qualms of doing this on the backs of dead children.
I tend to trust the internet osint community more than the mainstream media, as the online sleuths usually add the supporting information to their claims.
And your last point I agree to completely, we should not be jumping to conclusions or making wild accusations. Both sides of the conflict (so not the civilians caught between them) seem to be grade A assholes.