Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
The IDF is supposedly performing ethnic cleansing. Yet the total death rate is significantly lower than urban conflicts in the GWOT, and waaaay less than current urban warfare in Ukraine.
Getting fed and accepting a sound bite from a biased media source is not complicated. Actually caring to learn and validate true facts about the situation in Gaza is a complicated and nuanced process, I'm afraid.
Your tweet is from a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
EDIT: I VERIFIED DATA PER SOURCE. YOU CAN GOOGLE IT, TOO.
Here’s the most recent credible figure I can find for Palestinians killed in Gaza:
64,656 fatalities (and 163,503 injured) as of September 10, 2025, per the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MoH). OCHA notes this total includes 401 fatalities retroactively added on Sept 4 after their identification details were approved. OCHA OPT
And in daily news updates since then:
“More than 64,900” killed as of September 17, 2025, according to Associated Press, based on Gaza MoH reporting. (AP describes the toll as “nearing 65,000”.) AP News
What to quote: If you need an official, UN‑corroborated number, use 64,656 (as of Sept 10, 2025). If you want the very latest newsline language for today, use “about 65,000” (as of Sept 17, 2025), noting it’s from Gaza MoH and widely cited by major outlets.
Why numbers differ (and why UN uses MoH figures):
Gaza’s MoH shifted in Oct 2024 to counting only identified victims, after a period in which “unidentified” war dead were included; that change and ongoing disruptions mean the official toll likely undercounts the true total (thousands are believed still under rubble). Both UN agencies and the WHO have historically regarded MoH figures as credible for situational reporting. Reuters
OCHA also flags that public breakdowns it publishes are based on identified fatalities, and it labels any unverified inputs by source
Quoting an AI, rather than specific sources of information, isn't helpful and certainly should not be used to support an argument.
//Yet this is what the grocery stores look like, as of two weeks ago
Israel has systematically obstructed food entering Gaza, in the easily-confirmed words of Daniela Weiss again “THE ARABS WILL MOVE, DON'T GIVE THEM FOOD.”
In terms of qualifying a Famine, all three criteria have been met long-since.
Starvation: At least 1 in 5 households face an extreme shortage in their consumption of food
Malnutrition: Roughly 1 in 3 children or more are acutely malnourished
Mortality: At least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily because of outright starvation or the combination of malnutrition and disease
"BBC -How Israel's policies created famine in Gaza" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg4p90z1kxo
The figure _compiled and published by Israel_ confirms it. Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56k tonnes of food to enter the territory; less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period.
Even if every bag of UN flour had been collected and handed out, and the GHF had developed safe systems for equitable distribution, starvation was inevitable. Palestinians did not have enough to eat.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/the-mathematic...
Oh yes and the closed-doors, Jewish-only property-expos in America at the moment offering properties in illegally occupied Palestinian territories are just one more piece of that biased media I suppose.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/1mmilhz/property...
Really looking forward to 'Stealing Sunset' - where Indya Moore, Rain Dove and Heydon Prowse posed as real estate influencers to gain access to the Israeli realtors, hoteliers and developers making a killing from real estate and tourism on Palestinian land.
They included Tomer Mor Yosef, VP of Kass Group, who developed the ‘Magic Kass’ mall, hotel and amusement park in the West Bank); Ze’ev Epshtein, owner of Harey Zahav, who infamously photoshopped blueprints for beach front villas on the bombed out ruins of Gaza; and Shelly Levine, one of Israel’s leading realtors for overseas purchasers in illegal West Bank settlements.
https://operationsunbird.com/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stealing-sunset#/
I see lots of blame on Isreal, but to me it seems Isreal was provoked into this fight, and the other countries bordering Gaza are unwilling to take refugees or help in any meaningful way. It is odd to me that Isreal is taking the blame for actions clearly endorsed by anyone that has to deal with Gazans. Is it because they are the ones taking action?
Even the most simplest of research would give you the answer to that question. The main escape/aid route from Egypt to Gaza is the Rafah crossing. This is now de-facto controlled by Israel.
Israel requires that aid from Egypt go through security checks, customs clearances, etc. There have already been dozens of reported instances where food from Egypt has gotten spoiled waiting for clearance. It was sensational news earlier, but folks have mostly given up reporting on this now. It is clear that Israel wants Palestine to suffer.
> It is odd to me that Isreal is taking the blame for actions clearly endorsed by anyone that has to deal with Gazans.
Pardon me, but I didn't know that Egypt and other neighbours were bombing Gaza. Can you give me relevant citations ? I mean the nation-state bombing Gaza and controlling its access to food would logically take the blame for massive civilian casualties and famine right ? Or does your supreme logic lead to another interpretation ? Kindly explain your chain of reasoning for enlightenment.
> other countries bordering Gaza are unwilling to take refugees
My apologies, but this is unforgivable ignorance. Please be aware that Egypt has taken >100k Palestinian refugees since 2023. I don't have the recent figures for Jordan, but they have taken in millions of Palestinian refugees over the last couple of decades.
Aid delivery via Rafah is hampered by the fact that the Rafah crossing is designed as an entry point for people, not goods, making it difficult for large convoys to pass through.
The Rafah crossing has been repeatedly bombed, causing disruptions in aid - not to mention deliberate bombing attacks as Israel forces Palestinians to flee via Rafah, and then bombs the crossing.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-bomb-rafah-cros...
The war has prompted Israel to conduct more stringent checks on aid as it seeks to prevent the entry of what it calls “dual-use equipment,” products it says are “intended for civilian use but liable to serve military needs for the strengthening of Hamas.”
Trucks carrying aid must pass through three layers of inspection before they can enter the enclave, Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general, has said.
This is further compounded by Israel's draconian 'dual-use' inspections which create intentional bottlenecks at the Rafah crossing, supposedly prevent the entry of what it calls “dual-use equipment,” products it says are “intended for civilian use but liable to serve military needs for the strengthening of Hamas.”
Among items deemed “dual use” by Israel are power generators, crutches, field hospital kits, inflatable water tanks, wooden boxes of children’s toys and, “perhaps most depressingly, 600 oxygen tanks.”
https://www.wfp.org/stories/hungers-border-why-aid-trucks-ta...
Provocation or any other citable action may explain, but in no way excuses, the war crime of collective punishment. No one other than Zionists have endorsed war crimes as the way to 'deal with Gazans'.
Israel are 'taking the blame' because they are committing war crimes with impunity, including the murder and subsequent coverup of journalists and aid workers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/10/how-palestin...
As for the unwillingness to take refugees, that is simply facilitating the endgame of Israel - the depopulation of Palestine and contested territories.
There is certainly hunger. It is an active war zone. But your numbers are grossly exaggerated.
When you mention the relatively small amount food entering between March and June, you neglect to mention the 6 months supply of food that was provided in January. That seems to be an important factor.
Also of note - there have been warnings of imminent mass starvation in Gaza since October 2023, and none of those warnings came about until recently, at which point Israel increased the amount of food entering Gaza.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05ed5rgld3o
The IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) report issued on August 22, 2025, confirmed Famine (IPC Phase 5) in Gaza Governorate, marking the first official famine declaration in the Middle East. The report, based on a special snapshot for the period of July-September 2025, projected famine to expand to other governorates and highlighted catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, particularly among children
IPC Report Confirms Famine in Gaza: Joint Statement by UN Security Council 14 Members https://www.un.org/unispal/document/joint-press-statement-se...
As you're a green account, I won't be responding to any more of your ghoulish bad-faith engagements.
// The United Nations chief has described the famine confirmed in Gaza City and its surrounding areas as a "failure of humanity".
Antonio Gutteres said the situation was a "man-made disaster" after a UN-backed body, which identifies hunger levels around the world, raised its food insecurity status in parts of the territory to Phase 5 - the highest and most severe.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says more than half a million people across Gaza are facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death".
The report was labelled an "outright lie" by Israel, which has denied there is starvation in the territory.//
Genocide is defined by intent, and the European Jews have intended to remove or kill all Palestinians since they began the Zionist project last century, culminating in their decision to start a war by attacking and invading Palestine in 1947/1948, with Palestine being occupied by a foreign invasion force ever since.
Israelis are guilty of genocide.
The genocide itself is simple enough; the thousands of years of conflict leading to the genocide are not. Anyone who believes they can unpick all that history to come to a neat conclusion about who are the 'goodies' and who are the 'baddies' is a fool.
My only interest in this conflict is in keeping it as far away from myself, my kith and my kin as possible.
What's happening in Gaza is different because now we have cell phones and the Internet, and AI isn't quite good enough yet to fake a genocide.
They definitely knew that Jews were being rounded up and sent to camps for slave labor in horrid and dangerous conditions that would kill many of them.
When anybody has doubts about how fucked up world and humans are, I just direct them into this medium-term conflict, facts are easy enough to find.
And icing on the cake - today on NPR the head of that UN agency which produced that conclusion of genocide in Gaza failed to give proper definition of genocide which was the very first question by the interviewer. The part she omitted?
She omited "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,".
This is the full definition https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
This is the interview transcript https://www.npr.org/2025/09/16/nx-s1-5543246/israel-is-commi...
When you hear such omission you immediately understand that it is a propaganda job.
To illustrate the difference - Putin in his war declaring speech clearly identified that Ukrainian identity is to be destroyed, and the Russian official propaganda has been talking about destruction of "Ukrainianness" as a goal of the war, whereis Israel has been talking about destruction of HAMAS not Palestinians. Thus Russia clearly commits genocide in Ukraine, while i don't see such a genocidal intent displayed by Israel. Genocide isn't a crime of numbers, it requires genocidal intent mentioned above. Even 1 person killed with such an intent would already be a genocide while scores of people killed as a collateral in a valid military operation - not a genocide (if there were no such genocidal intent accompanying the operation), though obviously a tremendous tragedy and catastrophe.
Edit: To the commenter below - i didn't say "Everything is HAMAS". I said Ministry of Health is HAMAS which is the fact which even you didn't refute. Not being able to refute the fact, you tried to drown it in "memes/jokes" instead. And failure of UN and WHO bureaucrats to do their job only emphasizes how low trust can be placed in the reports/conclusions they produce.
We should consider the possibility that the UN report does in fact cover that point. To find out we should look at the original source: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
There are many occurrences of "intent" and "destroy" in that document. It includes both the definition you mentioned, and analysis of how it applies in Gaza.
To answer the point that a lot of the data comes from Hamas, the other major data source is the Israeli military (e.g. the "COGAT" link somebody posted above with pictures of grocery stores overflowing with produce) so it's surely equally suspect. If third parties were given free access to do their own investigations, that would be useful, to be sure. The party blocking access (and blocking humanitarian aid) is the Israeli military.
It isn't something. It is the primary thing here. For a professional such an omission can be only deliberate. The radio interview would be heard by millions of people while the report would be read by a much-much-much smaller number of people. Such an omission in the whole context of the other things - like not calling out genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS on Oct 7, 2023 - can lead to only one conclusion.
today on NPR the head of that UN agency which produced that conclusion of genocide in Gaza failed to give proper definition of genocide which was the very first question by the interviewer. The part she omitted? She omited "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,"
From your link to NPR's transcript of the interview:
CHANG: So first, can you just define for us what is genocide, according to the U.N. Genocide Convention?
PILLAY: Firstly, it's accepted by all that genocide is a monstrous crime, an extremely serious crime, which is the killing and destruction of a people in whole or in part. That's why we say it has a specific overarching intent.
The phrasing is a bit clumsy (e.g. "that's why we say") but the idea that Pillay is trying to sneakily hide something here is rather bizarre. It seems very likely that "specific overarching intent" is meant to refer to the specific clause you highlighted. Obviously a live radio interview is going to be a bit less polished than the final written conclusions of a two-year study; that hardly implies malice.
You're kidding. "Top UN legal investigator" on genocide is clumsy with genocide definition. And not on some detail. She is "clumsy" on the main thing delineating genocide from the other crimes otherwise similar.
That isn't clumsy. That is absolutely incorrect. It isn't "why ... intent" . The intent in genocide is the "why". She obviously knows it, and thus does it deliberately. There is no other explanation here.
That's not what they said the UN investigator was clumsy with. They said she was clumsy with how she orally delivered their justification for why they think it fits the definition of genocide.
> Firstly, it's accepted by all that genocide is a monstrous crime, an extremely serious crime, which is the killing and destruction of a people in whole or in part.
The UN investigator is saying that the genocide as it's been perpetrated leaves no doubt that it is intentional by observing of the scale and horror of the destruction. "That's why [they] say it has a specific overarching intent."
"Why UN uses MoH figures:
Gaza’s MoH shifted in Oct 2024 to counting only identified victims, after a period in which “unidentified” war dead were included; that change and ongoing disruptions mean the official toll likely undercounts the true total (thousands are believed still under rubble). Both UN agencies and the WHO have historically regarded MoH figures as credible for situational reporting. Reuters
OCHA also flags that public breakdowns it publishes are based on identified fatalities, and it labels any unverified inputs by source."
-ChatGPT 5 Pro
Please stop polluting the conversation with ChatGPT slop.
It's quite hard to get information out when you're actively trying to make that to be the case. But I understand why they wouldn't let im journalists. That would completely undermine the narrative.
Also, why are you so opposed to taking something from one side of the conflict when you are YOURSELF quoting the Israeli government...
Please go take a civics class
Why is a former Israeli general saying that deaths are at least 200,000?[0] And Israel military intelligence saying 80% of death are civilians? Are they also Hamas?
Netanyahu is on record prior to October 7th bragging about how Israel aided Hamas, a designated terror organization by their book, in order to weaken the PLO. You have no legs to stand on.
You're arguing in bad faith or being willfully ignorant because you're not adressing what has been talked about ad nauseum by the other side.
[0] https://portside.org/2025-09-13/ex-idf-chief-confirms-gaza-c...
HAMAS perpetrated the genocide of Jewish people, and now its propaganda is used as the basis to declare genocide supposedly perpetrated by the Jewish state while fighting against HAMAS. You don't see anything strange here?
And another strange thing - why UN didn't call out the genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS?
Just look at death tolls maybe? October 7, 1200 people. While despicable, nowhere near the effort Israel is putting in, right?
Aside from the affect that the Israeli government has pretty much said they want to get all the Palestinians out of Gaza and are actively working towards that.
No one is justifying October 7.
Crime of genocide has nothing to do with numbers.
It sounds though that for you the numbers do matter, and that the 1200 deaths isn't enough for you. What number is enough for you?
>No one is justifying October 7.
You haven't heard any pro-Palestinian protests and their various supporters?
>Aside from the affect that the Israeli government has pretty much said they want to get all the Palestinians out of Gaza and are actively working towards that.
Moving refugees from one camp to another may be warranted to solve serious security issues (Jordan for example kicked out Palestinians from Jordan back then when the Palestinians attacked Jordan which was hosting them at the time - a lot of similarities to how Palestinians attacked Israel. Nobody argued against expelling Palestinians from Jordan back then). Or do you mean that Gaza is the Motherland of those living there, and they aren't refugees anymore?
It does, not in absolute sense put in percentages. Also, besides weapons of mass destruction you cannot commit genocide in a day on a population this big. It's the persistence that does it.
No one ever called 9/11 genocide either right?
> You haven't heard any pro-Palestinian protests and their various supporters?
I mean in this thread, obviously. You want to own all of the stuff coming out of ben gvir and smotrich? Because if you do, we can settle the genocide discussion right here.
> Moving refugees from one camp to another may be warranted to solve serious security issues
So as soon as you've invaded an area and created the refugees you can push them wherever you want?
We're not talking about Israel pushing refugees out of their country.
And finally, where are they supposed to go, and how?
> Just look at death tolls maybe? October 7, 1200 people. While despicable, nowhere near the effort Israel is putting in, right?
It should also be noted that most of Hamas's murders in October 2023 were on that first day, further bolstering my claim. And they did not target military leaders, warning away civilians like Israel does. Instead, the pulled babies from wombs and burned babies alive.
Genocide requires intent and deeds. I think it's reasonable to consider the attacks of October 2023 to be genocide. The intent is clear from their founding statements, and the deeds likely qualify as well.
However, I also think it's reasonable to consider the ongoing war in Gaza to be genocide as well. The statements from officials waver but are often genocidal in nature, and the destruction and loss of life is too.
It's not a contest, both genocides are bad. But using one to justify the other doesn't make the second one better.
Contrast that with the frequent genocidal declarations made by the Hamas and other Muslim entities against the Jews, which themselves are confirmed by their actions on the ground.
Sure, but they're not. Israel however? I think there is compelling evidence that it is being given the chance and taking the world up on it.
Again, no one is justifying what Hamas did.
Do you need for me to spell out how that would be genocide for the Jews, or are you at least familiar enough with the Middle East for that to be clear?
Be there no mistake, even if Hamas wins that does not mean peace. Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies are waiting to pour into the holy land, those Shiites will do the Sunni Hamas exactly what Hamas had done to the Jews. And Hamas knows this.
I still don't understand how you can be worried about one side committing genocide if you're okay with the other side doing it.
I'd love to get data from an unbiased source, but how do you do that in this situation? Ministry of Health can't be trusted, Israeli sources can't be trusted, independent journalists don't have reasonable access and are regularly killed while reporting.
> And another strange thing - why UN didn't call out the genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS?
I would think priority needs to go to activity that is ongoing. This report may help bring an end to the ongoing activity, but the Hamas attacks are not ongoing.
This report was specificially not on that topic, but mentioned that it may qualify as genocide. The ICC did issue an arrest warrant for a Hamas commander and there was widespread condemnation of the attacks. Further specific reporting would likely benefit from cooperation of Israeli sources, but Israel doesn't like to cooperate with the UN.
In 2007, so 18 years ago?
i think it's worth stating simply and unequivocally that denying or defending a genocide that is the culmination of a century of colonialism and apartheid is Bad
You’re bringing emotion and hunches and your own biases to this more than the reasonable reply.
Not that it matters but I’m neutral on the issue, headed towards “your side” over time. So, know what I say above isn’t coming from someone in favor of this conflict.
Humian philosophy acknowledges that logic is driven by conviction and justified post hoc. Meaning: if my logic is driven by conviction, so is yours. All logic is, in the end.
I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.
It has been ranging between -1 to 3, so a mix of votes and downvotes. It is 0 as of the time of this reply.
EDIT: -1 now right after I pressed submit.
This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.
Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.
One man cannot fix everything.