What's really happening in Gaza?

just gonna sneak in here to say thank you @zephyreks@hexbear.net for this thread

@zephyreks@hexbear.net this is an amazing resource. Thank you so much for compiling this.

[2023/10/21] [Hebrew] One Apache pilot reflected on the tortuous dilemma of whether to shoot at people and cars returning to Gaza. He knew that many of those vehicles may have contained Israeli captives. But he chose to open fire anyway. “I choose targets like that,” the pilot reflected, “where I tell myself that the chance that I am shooting here on hostages as well is low.” However, he admitted that his judgment “was not 100%.” “I understand that we have to shoot here and quickly,” the commander of the Apache unit, Lt. Col. E., told Mako in a separate report

Translated by people online - translation may be unreliable

[2023/11/15] Haaretz has released a list of 1175 confirmed casualties

This list is continually updated. Per this list there are 1175 casualties (1087 from October 7th): 771 civilians, 59 police, 332 IDF, and 13 emergency services. Some number of these casualties are foreign, non-Israeli migrant workers.

[2023/10/08] Bezalel Smotrich [Israeli finance minister and settler leader], urged the Israeli army to “hit Hamas brutally and not take the matter of the captives into significant consideration” during a cabinet meeting late on 7 October as the Hamas attack was still underway.

[2023/10/15] "It was only around 9:00 a.m. that some of them began to spray the terrorists with the cannons on their own, without authorization from superiors.” “The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the target" ... After landing his Apache to reload ammunition at roughly 10:00 am, the commander of the 190 squadron instructed the other pilots “to shoot at everything they see in the fence area,” separating Israel from Gaza.

Translated from an article by Yedioth Ahronoth that I cannot find because I do not speak Hebrew.

[2023/10/20] [Hebrew] [Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri] told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that as desperation began to set in, “the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate Hamas fighters along with the hostages.”

Translated by Middle East Observer

[2023/11/10] Israel has revised its official estimated death toll of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the number to about 1,200 people, down from more than 1,400, a spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday night.

[2023/10/17] Haaretz has released a list of Israeli's killed on October 7th

This list separates losses into "civilians", "emergency services", "IDF", and "police."

By my count, there are 93 civilians, 5 emergency services workers, 171 IDF, and 41 police on this list.

[2023/10/20] The division was compelled to request an aerial strike against the base itself [Israeli base Erez Crossing] in order to repulse the terrorists.

Regarding the "by Hamas" part:

• [2023/10/22] Mondoweiss: A growing number of reports indicate Israeli forces responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths following October 7 attack

[2023/10/27] Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the numbers were being manipulated. “We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable,” he said

“Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”

[2023/11/09] A senior Biden administration official said the death toll of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is likely far higher than the 10,000 number being reported by the health ministry amid Israel’s war against Hamas.

[2023/10/27] Palestinian health officials have been daily releasing a death toll of those killed in Israel's bombardment of the enclave. On Thursday, as questions have been raised about its figures' validity, the ministry released a document that gives a death toll of 7,028, with all but 281 having been identified by name, age, gender and identification number. By gender, 3,899 are female and 2,813 are male. There are also 2,665 deceased children, according to the ministry.

The document in question: https://www.moh.gov.ps/portal/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/تقرير-نهائي-باسماء-الشهداء-1.pdf

[2022] In the past, the US state department’s annual human rights report indirectly relied on the same ministry’s casualty figures in quoting UN statistics drawn from Palestinian data.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/415610_WEST-BANK-AND-GAZA-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf

Edit: Added State Department report

[2023/10/27] Speaking with reporters on Friday, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said that few have doubted the credibility of the figures in previous wars. “In the past, the five, six cycles of conflict in the Gaza Strip, these figures were considered as credible and no one ever really challenged these figures,” Lazzarini told reporters in Jerusalem.

Still amazed IDF doesn't seem to keep any native Arabic speakers on staff lmao

[2023/10/12] White House walks back Biden’s claim he saw children beheaded by Hamas. US president spokesperson says comments were based on news reports and claims of Israeli officials.

[2023/10/12] “BEHEADED BABIES” REPORT SPREAD WIDE AND FAST — BUT ISRAEL MILITARY WON’T CONFIRM IT

[2023/10/16] Al Jazeera: Did Hamas behead babies? I Fact Check

[2023/11/15] On Tuesday night, the IDF released footage showing boxes of guns, weapons and flak jackets hidden behind an MRI scanner that it said were used by Hamas terrorists.

I've been trying to avoid active commentary, but this is just plain silly. An MRI machine isn't a tarp to hide weapons under. It's an incredibly complex and dangerous piece of machinery whose operation is impacted by the presence of metals in the vicinity. The MRI magnet is on as long as the MRI is powered: it's standard procedure to not allow metals within the room an MRI machine is in. MRIs are basically never turned off because quenching can harm the superconducting magnets (don't ask me how, I don't know). There are records of guns being discharged by an MRI machine and there are records of people being hit in the face when a knife is magnetized by the MRI. Out of all the places in a hospital, the MRI room is the worst place to store guns and weapons (especially explosives...), though I imagine modern flak jackets would be fine because they're made of soft fibers.

Sources seem to suggest that MRI scans were being conducted in al-Shifa:

[2023/11/14] Shifa has over 500 beds and services like MRI scans, dialysis and an intensive care unit. It conducts roughly half of all the medical operations that take place in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

[2023/11/15] [Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht] said the raid at Al Shifa was not focused on hostages.

[2023/11/15] [The IDF] re-uploaded the video because they forgot to blur the laptop. The laptop was already logged in , with [a picture of an IDF soldier] opened in full screen.

The evidence for that claim was more from statements made by IDF officials and soldiers IIRC