Discussion for the Israel-Hamas War: A thread in the Pit

To add to this – a very large part of my anger and horror at the actions of Israel is my Jewish background. My grandmother had to escape from Germany in the 30s. Many of her relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Israel should be better and must be better. It’s horrifying that they’ve descended into such atrocious brutality.

Do you condemn the fact that numerous NGOs claimed that Gaza was in a state of famine that by their own definition would kill thousands of people a day of starvation, and when that failed to materialize, of course, do you condemn their failure to correct the record?

…Anas Al-Sharif was a journalist. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise? (Apart from a screenshot that claims he was in a military battalion seven years ago)

Because I’m happy to provide any evidence you like about anything I’ve just mentioned here.

Are you going to answer any of my questions?

…I would if what you said were true.

But as with almost everything you say these days, this is a lie. I know this is a lie because I dug deep into it when you made these claims originally. I look forward to debunking this lie when you post your source.

I find that evidence plenty convincing, because I’m familiar with the IDF and how it operates, and they don’t make up shit like this. I’ve never seen any credible evidence that leads me to believe it does, and no matter how much you screech about it, I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not sure what kind of third party evidence of membership in a terrorist group you’re expecting; it seems pretty delusional to expect that.

Great, what is your evidence that Israel lied about the records that clearly show he was a commander of a Hamas cell? Let’s assume that I don’t think all Jews and Israelis are ontologically evil liars, just for the sake of argument.

Do you understand the concept of verifiable evidence? As in, those of us who don’t implicitly trust the IDF (or US military or any other organization) aren’t going to accept claims of theirs without evidence that can be independently verified?

I get that you implicitly trust the IDF. That’s your right. But you must realize that not everyone does, right?

…LOL.

ROFL.

“So just trust me bro” isn’t evidence. We’ve got a screenshot. That’s it. All of your bluster about journalists, and this is the best you have got. Just one single screenshot for one journalist. You keep on going back to this one because it doesn’t get any better than this.

I’m happy to concede for the purposes of debate that seven years ago, Anas Al-Sharif may have been the “Team Commander”, “Soldier of the 3rd rank” of the Northern Brigade Artillery company.

This doesn’t mean he is a terrorist. That doesn’t mean he was conducting terrorist activities immediately before October the 7th, on October the 7th or after it.

This doesn’t show he was conducting terrorist activities at the time he was assassinated. I’ve got zero reasons to believe he was a legitimate target. He was on air reporting to such a regular degree it’s almost impossible for me to believe he was leading a double life.

The burden of proof here isn’t on me. That isn’t how the laws of war work. If that screenshot of a spreadsheet is all you’ve got, then that isn’t enough to justify this extrajudicial killing.

Go ahead, debunk me. Where are the thousands of people who starved to death in Gaza?

The UN says:

The IPC’s own definition is:

If 640,000 people are in Stage 5 famine then every day 2 per 10,000 or 128 deaths a day.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/famine-facts/

The IPC claimed that Gaza was in famine for 4 months, which would be 15,000 deaths just for the people in Stage 5. Stage 4 is 1 to 1.99 deaths per 10,000 per day, or around 171 deaths per day for the population the IPC claimed was in Stage 4 famine. That’s another 20,000 deaths over the four months when the IPC claimed Gaza was in famine.

Needless to say, 35,000 people did not starve to death in Gaza. That’s a delusional claim. The real number of malnutrition related deaths as claimed by the Hamas Ministry of Health, is around 450, almost all of whom had a preexisting condition that meant they needed a highly specialized diet which they weren’t able to get during the war. That’s shitty and tragic, but it’s also multiple orders of magnitude off from the IPC’s claims about mass starvation.

Will the fact that the IPC was off by two orders of magnitude give you any pause whatsoever? I highly, highly doubt it. You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

Now Banquet Bear will ignore the evidence and instead claim that statistical analysis in and of itself is a racist tool of oppression. Never mind that the initial IPC famine classification is also a form of statistical analysis.

No, but Hamas’ own documents are, even if they’ve been through Jew hands.

Lol. Lmao, even. Ok, buddy. A Hamas fighter in an artillery company is not a terrorist.

What documents? Please link. All I’ve seen is a screenshot. A screenshot is not a document (much less “Hamas’ own documents”).

…I never claimed that “thousands of people starved to death in Gaza.”

It’s important here to point out the dates.

The article you are citing here was published on the 22nd of August. It was a warning published on the very same day as the release of the IPC report. The actual report said this:

“The FRC finds the analysis team’s classifications plausible for the period (1 July – 15 August 2025), indicating Famine (IPC Phase 5) for Gaza Governorate and IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) for Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. "

The FRC also considers the analysis team’s classifications for the projection period (16 August – 30 September 2025) of Famine (IPC Phase 5), to be plausible for Gaza, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis governorates.”

So what Babale is doing here is conflating a warning about what the numbers suggest will happen in a month with what actually happened a month later.

This is disingenuous and dishonest.

They weren’t. You can read what they actually wrote here.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Famine_Review_Committee_Report_Gaza_Aug2025.pdf

There is a difference between a “fact-sheet” (that you linked to) which is written for the layperson and the sort of detail that you see in the actual report. You will note how careful they are because information was so difficult to get out of Gaza because Israel had been targeting hospitals and medical facilities and had enacted a total siege.

I shouldn’t have to tell you what difference a month can mean. Or the difference between “forecasts” and “actuals.”

What you don’t acknowledge here is that it should never have gotten to this point in the first place. Because total sieges of civilian populations are generally regarded as atrocities. The problem here isn’t the fact that the UN posted a warning but the fact that Isreal decided to use food as a weapon. Why aren’t you condemning that?

This, of course, is another one of these things that people say because they think it makes them look good, when in reality it just shows how depraved and sick-in-the-head they are.

Those people with ‘pre-existing conditions’ deserved to live. They died because of the genocidal actions of the Isreali government and the IDF. And you must be sick-in-the-head to defend this.

There is this “fantasy” version of me that lives in your head. I’m constantly amused by the weird things you say about me.

…we’ve all seen the screenshot. That alone doesn’t justify an extrajudicial assassination.

Are former IDF fighters in artillery companies that served seven years ago terrorists?

…so you admit that the IPC classification of Gaza as Stage 5 and 4 famine for 4 months was a lie?

Why do you think they were off in their prediction by two orders of magnitude? Maybe because they were being disingenuous and dishonest?

What you don’t acknowledge here is that it did not in fact get to this point. There was no famine in Gaza.

Do you admit that by the IPC’s definition of stage 3, 4, and 5 famine, Gaza was not actually in those stages of famine per the IPC’s own definition, as evidenced by the fact that no one starved to death due to a lack of food?

The IDF is not Hamas. IDF fighters currently in an artillery company are not terrorists.

…can you provide a cite for what the IPC actually said here, please? Because the initial report was highly localised and were projections.

But no, based on what I’ve seen, they didn’t “tell any lies.”

They didn’t project the number of deaths you claim they did for starters. That isn’t how it works.

And the amount of access they had to information on the ground was limited. Because Isreal had Gaza in a total siege. They were bombing and targeting hospitals and medical facilities. Communication was very limited. It was extraordinarily difficult to make these assessments, but they did the best that they could.

I don’t understand why you don’t understand this. These kinds of assessments are difficult enough in normal circumstances, but in the case of a total siege? It’s entirely reasonable to expect imperfect information.

And the whole thing about projections, and I’m still struggling to understand why you don’t understand this, is that the goal is to prevent this from happening. And thats what the people on the ground did.

There are stories about doctors in Gaza who were fainting in the operating room because they were forgoing food so their patients could eat. The people on the ground…the absolute heroes that you will never ever acknowledge…did their best to try and stop people dying.

No. You simply have to read the actual report to see that.

This is a lie.

This is, of course, another lie.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-starvation-deaths-reach-453-including-150-children-health-ministry/3703311

The death toll from malnutrition caused by Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza has risen to 453 people since October 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

A ministry statement said 150 children were among Palestinians who died of malnutrition and famine in the territory, with food and other essential supplies blocked by a longstanding Israeli blockade.

According to the ministry, 175 people, including 35 children, have died of starvation since the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared famine in Gaza this August.

Bolding mine.

…the IDF are a genocidal military that have committed countless atrocities and warcrimes since October the 7th.

They are genocidal monsters.

Nice cherry picking!

Except that you were full of shit. That’s not an attack, that’s a fact. You proved it was a fact when others asked you to back up your claims and you couldn’t/wouldn’t.

But I’m not going to continue to argue with you about this, because apparently the hijack is more important.

I would say the same, but I understand perfectly well the game you’re playing here.

This wasn’t “imperfect information”, this was them saying that conditions on the ground were such that over the next few months hundreds of people would starve to death on a daily basis, and that simply didn’t happen; 400 people died of malnutritionin total.

Superhuman prevention efforts might explain why the deaths were half of what was predicted, if we are being very generous. Not two orders of magnitude. Being that far off can only be explained by the factors used to make the prediction being entirely full of shit.

Really? How can it be that hundreds of thousands of people were in Stage 4 and 5 famine, which by definition would mean that hundreds died each day, when only 450 people died of malnutrition in total? How do you reconcile these two incompatible facts?

And if I knew the conflict entirely through bullshit online propaganda, instead of being friends and family with many IDF members, I might actually be mind numbingly ignorant enough to believe that nonsense when you spewed it.

Yes, many of these journalists were verifiably doing journalism around the time they were killed. O don’t actually care if they were terrorists 7 years earlier.