Likewise, there’s no independent verification when the Hamas minister of healthcare periodically announces the number of casualties, but the media tends to take it at face value as it was the crystalline truth. When this is most likely an inflated number to keep Israel in the worst light possible, and to exert political pressure for the USA to stop supporting Israel with weapons of war. It’s all with the intent of the Hamas getting away with it.
The Hamas has a history of lying and deception in order to support the narrative in their favor.
There’s the incident of Hamas accusing Israel of bombing an hospital last year, which the media widely reported as truth before checking, but in the end it was in a building a block away from the hospital. Since this embarrassment the media has been more careful before confirming anything coming from Hamas official sources.
Also the Hamas had a guy that multitasked as an News Reporter, Combatant, Healthcare Professional, Bloodied Victim. This was reported in social media, a guy from Hamas appearing in photos doing all those things in different occasions. Give this guy an Oscar already!
The Hamas does not hesitate to manipulate facts to confirm their intended narrative. Their track record is tarnished at this point. But, to be honest, an organization that takes hostages as a leverage to negotiate a ceasefire in a war they themselves started, from this point it was already very clear they’d do anything to achieve their goals. From using civilians as human shields to lying without shame, these things are just the cherry on top of the heinous acts they committed as the catalyst of the war. They were not trustworthy from the start.
And what you say about “IDF using Palestinians as shields” makes no sense. That’s what the Hamas do, actually. The Hamas see their civilians as disposable sacrifice for a religious end. If an IDF soldier took a Palestinians civilian literally as a human shield in order to avoid being shot by a Hamas militant, the militant would shoot both of them without hesitation, because they see their civilians as sacrifices in a religious sense. Just an addendum, the Islamic State leaders used to say “we love death like you love life” as a point of comparison of the radical islamic worldview compared to the western worldview. That’s the kind of thinking that drives the Hamas, and that’s why they’re not ashamed to call for the extermination of all Jews as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
About the deaths in the West Bank, I’m not too knowledgeable about this to comment further.
The media isn’t taking the numbers at face value, unless you’re also making the claim of the UN and UNICEF because they use the same numbers. The fact is, given the wide destruction, the actual numbers are much worse. If you can’t admit that last point then I assume you’re not familiar with what percentage of homes have been destroyed or how many dead journalists and their families have been murdered.
I can’t see how the UN and UNICEF can get to an accurate number for the number of casualities, as most bodies are in a zone of war. And just because a building was blown up doesn’t mean there were civilians inside. Most civilians are in tents in refugee camps. I’m not trying to say there’s no casualities in a war, but that it’s impossible to count all bodies right now because of the warfighting, and there’s probably bodies under rubble as well. Only when the war is over it’ll be possible to get an exact number.
Not sure if you realized, but you moved from “Hamas’s numbers can’t be trusted” to “we can’t trust any numbers because it’s war”.
I’d take this with a grain of salt because it’s just the tale of one man. But if it’s true, it’s sad becuase it would represent the wheel of hatred turning.
