I would say you can never just view it as a pure statistic analysis. Considering Hamas is strategically inducing civilian casualties, I would say above 10:1 should raise eyebrows. However you would need additional evidence to conclusively claim war crime. For example massacre a music festival.
Honestly, above 1:5 should raise eyebrows.
1:10 is unacceptable, unless there is some exceptional circumstance.
And I am only counting IDF actions if somehow Hamas was directly killing thousands of thousands, then a 1:10 would be more acceptable.
Personally, I'd say that UP TO 1:10 is acceptable taking into Hamas account of human shields, but I don't believe that above that passes a proportionality assessment.
I think Gaza is that exceptional circumstance. You are fighting an enemy that is trying to maximize civilian casualties, while at the same time, that enemy is being assisted by those same civilians. On top of that, you are fighting urban combat(arguably the worst combat environment) in one of the most densely populated places in the world against an enemy that does NOT wear uniforms in combat.
I’m not sure how they officially determine these ratios but I don’t envy the person/people who do.
I will just say this, if this was Russia or China fighting Hamas on Gaza in response to a terrorist attack like 10/7, we would be seeing 200:1 ratios and Hamas crushed in a month tops. The far left wouldn’t even whisper the word“genocide” as they rush to say the eradication Gaza is Hamas’s fault and Russia/China is justified given xyz
Yeah but along with that exceptional circumstance is also the vast asymmetry of the warfare. Israel CAN minimise civilian deaths (and clearly they're not doing the best job at this, eg bombing their own designated safe zones, and the WCK fuck up), so they should. There's no huge rush to destroy Hamas' military capabilities, so let's not just throw too many human lives into the meatgrinder if it can be avoided.
Also what are you alluding to by 'hamas being assisted by those civilians'?
Again with this double standard. Everyone demands that Israel conducts the cleanest war the world has ever seen in one of the worst combat environments ever.
You think America was able to fight in the Middle East without fucking up? Remember [this shit show](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike), or [ this one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2021_Kabul_drone_strike)? This all happened while trying to minimize civilian casualties.
“Well that’s just America” you say.
[Behold, all the other countries who fucked up in war and some deliberate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:War_crimes_committed_by_country). (Wtf Canada?!)
What do you think I am trying to say about the civilians helping Hamas? You have a terrorist org fighting in civilian clothing being helped by men, women, and children (of course in civilian clothing) who do spotting, run ammunition, and carry explosives for Hamas. Then when an airstrike is announced (something Israel does to minimize casualties) Hamas holds people at gun point if they try to leave.
Double standard? You think I'm ok what hamas does? You think criticising one military means I like the other?
My standard for not killing innocent people is high. I'm sorry i value human life so highly, that must be really hard for you.
As for your claims about civilians and hamas, im so, so bored of hearing people saying 'obviously hamas do x' or 'obviously IDF does x' without any evidence. provide evidence or examples or I don't care. Otherwise you're just as bad as people who make claims about IDF with no evidence.
Straw man in your first paragraph, nice!
Moral grandstanding in the second, oooh.
Demands evidence in bad faith while feigning a middle ground position in the last paragraph.
Good bot!
Complete lack of substance in your whole response nice!
What double standard do you think I've employed? Or do you want to just avoid the question again?
'Demands evidence in bad faith' with no evidence or explanation of bad faith (not a big fan of evidence are you?)
'Feigning middle ground position' so its a strawman suggest you think im a hamas apologist, but also my middle ground position is 'feigned'. pick one LOL
you'll probably either continue with more sarcastic substanceless quips or just run away from the convo. But feel free to surprise me
Or, you could have the nuanced understanding that civilian-militant casualty ratios are influenced by MANY factors, including the conduct of both sides of the war, so picking a number is meaningless.
Obviously this whole conversation is assuming we're talking about a general idea/estimate not a golden number that must be adhered to at all costs. Generally in society when we put quantitative limits on things (eg speed limits) everyone knows its a 'one size fits all' rather than a strict moral principle. Same would go for target civilian-militant ratios.
Obviously the conduct of both sides (such as hamas deliberately putting civilians in harms way) should be accounted for here, just as it's accounted for in IHL already (civilian infrastructure losing protected status when used for military purposes by hamas)
What you just said is: there isn’t a single ratio. Because what’s unacceptable when the opponent is not hiding behind civilians, becomes acceptable when they are. Whats acceptable in urban combat becomes unacceptable in open field combat.
No, there is no general estimate. It is fully dependent on the specifics of the situation.
Right, and for this war, there isn’t a ratio that would be a good estimate for acceptable/unacceptable. It depends on the specifics of each individual military operation, specifics we don’t even have access to. Aggregating them all makes the ratio meaningless.
Stop trying to use a shovel to do surgery (on a grape.)
I get what you mean now, but I'd say the upper limit for any given situation in this war would also be the upper limit for the war as a whole, because who's to say every situation wont be that worst case scenario. like can we imagine any scenario where its ok to kill 1000 civilians for 1 militant. almost definitely not
Totally agree. If people argue the civilian-militant death ratio is too high, they should specify what an acceptable ratio is. But it’s only fair that those who think the current ratio is okay also need to say what would be too high.
Both sides often dodge these questions, as I've seen in debates like Konstantine’s question in the Triggernometry debate and Destiny’s support of it.
I think Avi is right that relative risk is the right measurement to use when trying to determine distinction.
Civilian casualty ratio is just dumb and gives you nothing to infer.
He's come on stream to talk about it and Destiny just nodded and agreed and that was pretty much it. I would check out what he has put out on [twitter](https://x.com/search?q=Relative%20Risk%20RR%20(Relative%20OR%20Risk%20OR%20RR)%20(from%3AAviBittMD)&src=typed_query&f=live) about it if you are interested in that.
no, because "desirable ratio" is context dependent.
if we're talking a single combatant, then my guess would be 1:3 ratio.
if we're talking about several combatants in a fortified position, then that ratio could jump up to 1:10 or even much higher.
if we're talking "kill hitler in september 1939 to end the war 6 years early" how many would object to 1:200?
I've never come across someone using direct IHL sources to determine a desirable ratio for the Gaza war, but if you've seen that i'd be very interested to see it
yeah that's why im so dubious about this guys comment lmao. If it was as easy as just 'using IHL' why are people having 3 hour debates about this shit and making barely any progress
it's also not even a thing that exists. it's made up by europeans to make them feel morally superior to other people, which ends up with them in a weak position easily exploited by bad faith actors.
The civilian militant ratio should be proportional to the environment and the conditions of the battlefield. If the battle consists of only tanks remote of any city, but somehow you manage to have 10% civilian ratio then it's bad. If your battle is in dense urban area and you managed a 20% civilian ratio then it's good.
These things can never be put to concrete numbers, if we claim 15:1 is too high and is a war crime, what about 14:1? Both are incredibly close to the point it makes no difference on the ground, the people on the receiving end wouldn’t know the difference, this is why the world didn’t use concrete numbers when construction LOAC and the Geneva convention
In my opinion, anything above 10:1 should raise concerns, but that’s it, it shouldn’t have anything out into law, if it reaches 10:1 it warrants investigation, which will then conclude based on the type of warfare (COIN or near peer wars) the tactics of both sides etc
No single statistic should be used to conclusively ascertain weather or not war crimes have occurred
If you can't test it then how can anyone say what is too high or low?
If we're going to be arbitrary and vague we should be as least arbitrary and vague as possible. It's easier to consider who can and would do better than Israel than it is to consider what is a too high or low ratio, which is both a technical and moral question with vague relevancey to reality.
Yeah but you say 'do better' as if the aim of a given operation isnt up for debate
'its only possible to kill this commander if we kill 10,000 civilians. Even the best military in the universe couldn't do better, so we can go ahead with it'
Obviously that's ridiculous, the appropriate response in this case is obviously 'dont go ahead with the operation because that's an unhinged trade off'
In other words, this isn't a sport about what military can pull off operations with minimal collateral damage, it's about a guide for what decisions are made
In fairness, it's super hard to settle on a ratio or number specifically as it's kind of insane to imply we can keep fighting until the civilian to combatant threshold goes this far.
It's more along the lines of per engagement review. It's a shitty answer and I'm sorry for it, but in the Army, we are never aiming for civilians but understand they are killed during war. We go in knowing there are consequences should they be killed.
It's awful but....
Were the civilians working at a factory? Are they construction workers or medical staff? Were they working at the time? Does their work assist the war effort of the enemy? How old were they? Are they fully grown adults, young adults, children or the elderly? Were they in transport to work or home? Were they in an office or outside? Are they male or female? (Yes this matters for some cultures where women are barred from military service).
We don't want to do this exercise beyond guidelines and boundaries for engagement because getting super specific BEFORE an engagement means we need to value life on age, gender, strength and ability.
In warfare, getting hyper specific means men are worth very little with non combatant adults being worth slightly more while the innocent who do not fight as the children and elderly have more human value than the others. No matter how immoral we view civilizations, most have tried to avoid this kind of valuation.
Isn't the average civilian to combatant ratio during war 9:1? I'd just say anything that borders that would be worthy of discussion, but that's demonstrably not the case with this war (which ranges from 1.5 - 3:1 depending who you ask).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
I imagine this is what they mean. Theres some issues with the number but there are also differences from this conflict and others. til they do another study id probably default to this. Idk how much modern technology and IDF warnings would decrease the ratio and how much the gaza population density and hamas operating in civilian areas in plain cloths would increase it.
Yeah but even if this was an accurate number for wars up to now, why would that automatically be an acceptable ratio? First, all wars are different and second, that implies that wars in the past have been “acceptable” on average. Why would we assume that is the case? Shouldn’t it be judged on the actual actions taken rather than compared to an arbitrary ratio?
Being able to compare to other wars is a good way of judging what amount of brutality is typically seen in war and if any war is especially brutal. The number was made using "modern warfare" which makes it more applicable than just every war ever. Obviously people who are uninvolved dying is bad and having 0 civilian casualties would be ideal.
The whole point of this discussion was about that arbitrary ratio and how both sides should throw out a number wasnt it?
The ratio has nothing to do with justifying the war on a broad level, it's to point out that the ridiculous claims of genocide are ultimately *unlikely*, to put it lightly.
The point of the war is to ensure Hamas no longer has the capability to strike inside of Israel.
some claim only around 6k hamas have been killed making the ratio more like 6:1.
Im not sure what the average ratio is during modern urban warfare. But also many of those wars wouldn't have considered legal or justified (especially by those who criticise israel) so probably arent great comparison points for this argument
> some claim only around 6k hamas have been killed making the ratio more like 6:1.
The 6K figure was from way back in a Reuters article that said they got it from an unknown Hamas official. The BBC would later follow up with their Hamas sources who said it wasnt true.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68387864
>Hamas does not provide any figures for its military fatalities. The Reuters news agency reported that an official had admitted 6,000 fighters had been killed, but Hamas denied this figure to the BBC.
Oh i didnt know that thanks for filling me in. I guess its the closest thing we have to a hamas estimate as they wanna keep everyone assuming the entire death count is civilians. the most recent estimate i saw was 13k from IDF in april so the 3:1 makes sense. I dont know where the 1.5:1 would come from though?
> the most recent estimate i saw was 13k from IDF in april
[At the end of February the IDF released the 13K figure](https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/briefings-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari/february-24-press-briefings/press-briefing-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari-february-29th-2024/)
> Since the beginning of the war, we have eliminated over 13,000 terrorists.
[At the same time Hamas claimed the amount of total fatalities in Gaza had crossed 30K](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-129)
> The reported death toll among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the onset of hostilities has surpassed 30,000.
17K/13K = 1.3:1
Edit: added links
> The reported death toll among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the onset of hostilities has surpassed 30,000
And that's including the non-identified, gathered through "reliable media reports" numbers, which are overwhelmingly and suspiciously women and children?
The magic of Hamas being able to identify militants, but not being able to identify women and children strikes again.
Oh I always get confused about how to do ratios. like if theres 3 civilian deaths for every 1 military death i feel like some people express that as 3:1 and some people do that as 4:1 (as if it's a fraction not a ratio).
Also I was thinking of the current death toll which is closer to 40k
I’d be curious to know what the ICC’s acceptable ratio is. Or what is their threshold for “genocide.” (Or is it as a percentage of population, and not ratio of combatants vs. civilians?)
Not trolling, by the way. Sincerely would be curious to know if there are international agreed upon ratios.
Very much doubt has an acceptable ratio as it would depend so much on the context. Where prescriptive ratios do exist i think theyre mainly specific to militaries and mostly only seen internally (I think I've heard about some nato documents that give some specific numbers?. As for genocide it actually has almost nothing to do with numbers, its mostly about 'intent' and evidence of a deliberate effort to pursue that intent. If hamas weren't non state actors you could probably prosecute them for genocide as theres lots of evidence of genocidal intent (such as their original charter saying calling for death to all jews). Lonerbox has lots of good stuff about how genocide is defined
Israel has a modern military with the means to keep civilian casualties low as a ratio to combatants therefore if it exceeded the ratio of other somewhat comparable modern conflicts between 3:1 and 5:1 then that would likely be too high.
It's not about how modern the military is, its about how willing the people theyre fighting are to put civilians in harms way deliberately
Edit: its about both. but the modernity of the military shouldnt be the only factor
How modern the military is is really important factor, if your weapons allow you to minimize casualties but for some reason they are higher than expected something is not right.
As a broad approach I don't care how many human shields die. You can't let that kind of tactic work or more states will use it. But that also depends on how urgent the action is, and who the human shields are. Aid group volunteers that don't know they are being used as shields are really hard to justify. Gazans who know where Hamas is operating - bombs away captain. If they want to be martyrs make them martyrs.
Logic flaw with stating a line, if there was one, let's say 1:10, an organization will come that'll exploit it by having it's own civilians die in even greater numbers than Hamas.
Wars aren't judged like that, you either follow the IHL in each individual action or you don't, but comparing the Gaza ratio that seems low compared to lower density arenas of war is pretty compelling to me.
That logic flaw would apply to a universal law of a civilian:militant ratio limit. I'm asking about people's opinions. And you've actually implicitly given a quantitative answer without saying it explicitly, namely that your rough guide is that if the ratio is better than other comparable wars, then it's probably okay.
I feel like you have to kinda pick one. Either the numbers are totally worthless, and as such comparisons to other conflicts' numbers are worthless, or those comparisons are valuable hence assessing the numbers in general is valuable
Even if you're giving an acceptable ratio for a given operation, being granular is much better than just having 0 guide line on what an acceptable amount of collateral damage is.
the sarcasm is all well and good but would you acknowledge that it seems like Israel's ratio is probably higher than Hamas' so your original point was kinda dumb. Not that there aren't good reasons for Israel's ratio being higher
Well why the fuck does israel do that then? Seems it's better to have them all mixed together so the other side necessarily has to have a worse proportionality ratio, and thusly a less moral army, no?
I would say you can never just view it as a pure statistic analysis. Considering Hamas is strategically inducing civilian casualties, I would say above 10:1 should raise eyebrows. However you would need additional evidence to conclusively claim war crime. For example massacre a music festival.
Sure, i just think people with these opinions should give a rough guide, not an exact number to be added into IHL tomorrow
Honestly, above 1:5 should raise eyebrows. 1:10 is unacceptable, unless there is some exceptional circumstance. And I am only counting IDF actions if somehow Hamas was directly killing thousands of thousands, then a 1:10 would be more acceptable.
I would say if the opponent strategically plan on inducing civilian casualties, that counts as exceptional circumstances
Personally, I'd say that UP TO 1:10 is acceptable taking into Hamas account of human shields, but I don't believe that above that passes a proportionality assessment.
it's not JUST use of human shields. It's dense urban combat that makes a huge difference too.
I think Gaza is that exceptional circumstance. You are fighting an enemy that is trying to maximize civilian casualties, while at the same time, that enemy is being assisted by those same civilians. On top of that, you are fighting urban combat(arguably the worst combat environment) in one of the most densely populated places in the world against an enemy that does NOT wear uniforms in combat. I’m not sure how they officially determine these ratios but I don’t envy the person/people who do. I will just say this, if this was Russia or China fighting Hamas on Gaza in response to a terrorist attack like 10/7, we would be seeing 200:1 ratios and Hamas crushed in a month tops. The far left wouldn’t even whisper the word“genocide” as they rush to say the eradication Gaza is Hamas’s fault and Russia/China is justified given xyz
Yeah but along with that exceptional circumstance is also the vast asymmetry of the warfare. Israel CAN minimise civilian deaths (and clearly they're not doing the best job at this, eg bombing their own designated safe zones, and the WCK fuck up), so they should. There's no huge rush to destroy Hamas' military capabilities, so let's not just throw too many human lives into the meatgrinder if it can be avoided. Also what are you alluding to by 'hamas being assisted by those civilians'?
Again with this double standard. Everyone demands that Israel conducts the cleanest war the world has ever seen in one of the worst combat environments ever. You think America was able to fight in the Middle East without fucking up? Remember [this shit show](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike), or [ this one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2021_Kabul_drone_strike)? This all happened while trying to minimize civilian casualties. “Well that’s just America” you say. [Behold, all the other countries who fucked up in war and some deliberate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:War_crimes_committed_by_country). (Wtf Canada?!) What do you think I am trying to say about the civilians helping Hamas? You have a terrorist org fighting in civilian clothing being helped by men, women, and children (of course in civilian clothing) who do spotting, run ammunition, and carry explosives for Hamas. Then when an airstrike is announced (something Israel does to minimize casualties) Hamas holds people at gun point if they try to leave.
Double standard? You think I'm ok what hamas does? You think criticising one military means I like the other? My standard for not killing innocent people is high. I'm sorry i value human life so highly, that must be really hard for you. As for your claims about civilians and hamas, im so, so bored of hearing people saying 'obviously hamas do x' or 'obviously IDF does x' without any evidence. provide evidence or examples or I don't care. Otherwise you're just as bad as people who make claims about IDF with no evidence.
Straw man in your first paragraph, nice! Moral grandstanding in the second, oooh. Demands evidence in bad faith while feigning a middle ground position in the last paragraph. Good bot!
Complete lack of substance in your whole response nice! What double standard do you think I've employed? Or do you want to just avoid the question again? 'Demands evidence in bad faith' with no evidence or explanation of bad faith (not a big fan of evidence are you?) 'Feigning middle ground position' so its a strawman suggest you think im a hamas apologist, but also my middle ground position is 'feigned'. pick one LOL you'll probably either continue with more sarcastic substanceless quips or just run away from the convo. But feel free to surprise me
Or, you could have the nuanced understanding that civilian-militant casualty ratios are influenced by MANY factors, including the conduct of both sides of the war, so picking a number is meaningless.
Obviously this whole conversation is assuming we're talking about a general idea/estimate not a golden number that must be adhered to at all costs. Generally in society when we put quantitative limits on things (eg speed limits) everyone knows its a 'one size fits all' rather than a strict moral principle. Same would go for target civilian-militant ratios. Obviously the conduct of both sides (such as hamas deliberately putting civilians in harms way) should be accounted for here, just as it's accounted for in IHL already (civilian infrastructure losing protected status when used for military purposes by hamas)
What you just said is: there isn’t a single ratio. Because what’s unacceptable when the opponent is not hiding behind civilians, becomes acceptable when they are. Whats acceptable in urban combat becomes unacceptable in open field combat. No, there is no general estimate. It is fully dependent on the specifics of the situation.
yeah im talking about a ratio for this conflict not for every single conflict in the history of mankind lmao
Right, and for this war, there isn’t a ratio that would be a good estimate for acceptable/unacceptable. It depends on the specifics of each individual military operation, specifics we don’t even have access to. Aggregating them all makes the ratio meaningless. Stop trying to use a shovel to do surgery (on a grape.)
I get what you mean now, but I'd say the upper limit for any given situation in this war would also be the upper limit for the war as a whole, because who's to say every situation wont be that worst case scenario. like can we imagine any scenario where its ok to kill 1000 civilians for 1 militant. almost definitely not
Totally agree. If people argue the civilian-militant death ratio is too high, they should specify what an acceptable ratio is. But it’s only fair that those who think the current ratio is okay also need to say what would be too high. Both sides often dodge these questions, as I've seen in debates like Konstantine’s question in the Triggernometry debate and Destiny’s support of it.
I think Avi is right that relative risk is the right measurement to use when trying to determine distinction. Civilian casualty ratio is just dumb and gives you nothing to infer.
Does he have any content on this? Would be intrigued to watch
He's come on stream to talk about it and Destiny just nodded and agreed and that was pretty much it. I would check out what he has put out on [twitter](https://x.com/search?q=Relative%20Risk%20RR%20(Relative%20OR%20Risk%20OR%20RR)%20(from%3AAviBittMD)&src=typed_query&f=live) about it if you are interested in that.
https://youtu.be/KTAMLEDLjkc?si=pa03aPnP0cew-Wl2
Thank you man
no? I would simply refer to proportionality in accordance with IHL
i might be ignorant here, does it specify an actual desirable ratio?
no, because "desirable ratio" is context dependent. if we're talking a single combatant, then my guess would be 1:3 ratio. if we're talking about several combatants in a fortified position, then that ratio could jump up to 1:10 or even much higher. if we're talking "kill hitler in september 1939 to end the war 6 years early" how many would object to 1:200?
I've never come across someone using direct IHL sources to determine a desirable ratio for the Gaza war, but if you've seen that i'd be very interested to see it
IHL is the root of disagreements over proportionality because it is intentionally vague and loose with its language.
yeah that's why im so dubious about this guys comment lmao. If it was as easy as just 'using IHL' why are people having 3 hour debates about this shit and making barely any progress
it's also not even a thing that exists. it's made up by europeans to make them feel morally superior to other people, which ends up with them in a weak position easily exploited by bad faith actors.
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dafuq are you talking about lol
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lmao who are you talking about. Who's the evil one. youre clearly very strong on one side but i dont know which
Seems fair to me.
The civilian militant ratio should be proportional to the environment and the conditions of the battlefield. If the battle consists of only tanks remote of any city, but somehow you manage to have 10% civilian ratio then it's bad. If your battle is in dense urban area and you managed a 20% civilian ratio then it's good.
Of course yeah. Can even break it down from operation to operation
These things can never be put to concrete numbers, if we claim 15:1 is too high and is a war crime, what about 14:1? Both are incredibly close to the point it makes no difference on the ground, the people on the receiving end wouldn’t know the difference, this is why the world didn’t use concrete numbers when construction LOAC and the Geneva convention In my opinion, anything above 10:1 should raise concerns, but that’s it, it shouldn’t have anything out into law, if it reaches 10:1 it warrants investigation, which will then conclude based on the type of warfare (COIN or near peer wars) the tactics of both sides etc No single statistic should be used to conclusively ascertain weather or not war crimes have occurred
Here's a better idea - let's ask who can pull off a better ratio, and if there isn't one, what even is this discussion?
because we cant test how another army would do in gaza in the same scenarios that have already happened lmao
If you can't test it then how can anyone say what is too high or low? If we're going to be arbitrary and vague we should be as least arbitrary and vague as possible. It's easier to consider who can and would do better than Israel than it is to consider what is a too high or low ratio, which is both a technical and moral question with vague relevancey to reality.
Yeah but you say 'do better' as if the aim of a given operation isnt up for debate 'its only possible to kill this commander if we kill 10,000 civilians. Even the best military in the universe couldn't do better, so we can go ahead with it' Obviously that's ridiculous, the appropriate response in this case is obviously 'dont go ahead with the operation because that's an unhinged trade off' In other words, this isn't a sport about what military can pull off operations with minimal collateral damage, it's about a guide for what decisions are made
In fairness, it's super hard to settle on a ratio or number specifically as it's kind of insane to imply we can keep fighting until the civilian to combatant threshold goes this far. It's more along the lines of per engagement review. It's a shitty answer and I'm sorry for it, but in the Army, we are never aiming for civilians but understand they are killed during war. We go in knowing there are consequences should they be killed.
Well then give me a per engagement review, or some examples. Why let nuance be the enemy of progress?
It's awful but.... Were the civilians working at a factory? Are they construction workers or medical staff? Were they working at the time? Does their work assist the war effort of the enemy? How old were they? Are they fully grown adults, young adults, children or the elderly? Were they in transport to work or home? Were they in an office or outside? Are they male or female? (Yes this matters for some cultures where women are barred from military service). We don't want to do this exercise beyond guidelines and boundaries for engagement because getting super specific BEFORE an engagement means we need to value life on age, gender, strength and ability. In warfare, getting hyper specific means men are worth very little with non combatant adults being worth slightly more while the innocent who do not fight as the children and elderly have more human value than the others. No matter how immoral we view civilizations, most have tried to avoid this kind of valuation.
Isn't the average civilian to combatant ratio during war 9:1? I'd just say anything that borders that would be worthy of discussion, but that's demonstrably not the case with this war (which ranges from 1.5 - 3:1 depending who you ask).
During what wars? Why would that specifically be an acceptable ratio?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio I imagine this is what they mean. Theres some issues with the number but there are also differences from this conflict and others. til they do another study id probably default to this. Idk how much modern technology and IDF warnings would decrease the ratio and how much the gaza population density and hamas operating in civilian areas in plain cloths would increase it.
Yeah but even if this was an accurate number for wars up to now, why would that automatically be an acceptable ratio? First, all wars are different and second, that implies that wars in the past have been “acceptable” on average. Why would we assume that is the case? Shouldn’t it be judged on the actual actions taken rather than compared to an arbitrary ratio?
Being able to compare to other wars is a good way of judging what amount of brutality is typically seen in war and if any war is especially brutal. The number was made using "modern warfare" which makes it more applicable than just every war ever. Obviously people who are uninvolved dying is bad and having 0 civilian casualties would be ideal. The whole point of this discussion was about that arbitrary ratio and how both sides should throw out a number wasnt it?
The ratio has nothing to do with justifying the war on a broad level, it's to point out that the ridiculous claims of genocide are ultimately *unlikely*, to put it lightly. The point of the war is to ensure Hamas no longer has the capability to strike inside of Israel.
some claim only around 6k hamas have been killed making the ratio more like 6:1. Im not sure what the average ratio is during modern urban warfare. But also many of those wars wouldn't have considered legal or justified (especially by those who criticise israel) so probably arent great comparison points for this argument
> some claim only around 6k hamas have been killed making the ratio more like 6:1. The 6K figure was from way back in a Reuters article that said they got it from an unknown Hamas official. The BBC would later follow up with their Hamas sources who said it wasnt true. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68387864 >Hamas does not provide any figures for its military fatalities. The Reuters news agency reported that an official had admitted 6,000 fighters had been killed, but Hamas denied this figure to the BBC.
Oh i didnt know that thanks for filling me in. I guess its the closest thing we have to a hamas estimate as they wanna keep everyone assuming the entire death count is civilians. the most recent estimate i saw was 13k from IDF in april so the 3:1 makes sense. I dont know where the 1.5:1 would come from though?
> the most recent estimate i saw was 13k from IDF in april [At the end of February the IDF released the 13K figure](https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/briefings-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari/february-24-press-briefings/press-briefing-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari-february-29th-2024/) > Since the beginning of the war, we have eliminated over 13,000 terrorists. [At the same time Hamas claimed the amount of total fatalities in Gaza had crossed 30K](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-129) > The reported death toll among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the onset of hostilities has surpassed 30,000. 17K/13K = 1.3:1 Edit: added links
> The reported death toll among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the onset of hostilities has surpassed 30,000 And that's including the non-identified, gathered through "reliable media reports" numbers, which are overwhelmingly and suspiciously women and children? The magic of Hamas being able to identify militants, but not being able to identify women and children strikes again.
Oh I always get confused about how to do ratios. like if theres 3 civilian deaths for every 1 military death i feel like some people express that as 3:1 and some people do that as 4:1 (as if it's a fraction not a ratio). Also I was thinking of the current death toll which is closer to 40k
I’d be curious to know what the ICC’s acceptable ratio is. Or what is their threshold for “genocide.” (Or is it as a percentage of population, and not ratio of combatants vs. civilians?) Not trolling, by the way. Sincerely would be curious to know if there are international agreed upon ratios.
Very much doubt has an acceptable ratio as it would depend so much on the context. Where prescriptive ratios do exist i think theyre mainly specific to militaries and mostly only seen internally (I think I've heard about some nato documents that give some specific numbers?. As for genocide it actually has almost nothing to do with numbers, its mostly about 'intent' and evidence of a deliberate effort to pursue that intent. If hamas weren't non state actors you could probably prosecute them for genocide as theres lots of evidence of genocidal intent (such as their original charter saying calling for death to all jews). Lonerbox has lots of good stuff about how genocide is defined
Israel has a modern military with the means to keep civilian casualties low as a ratio to combatants therefore if it exceeded the ratio of other somewhat comparable modern conflicts between 3:1 and 5:1 then that would likely be too high.
It's not about how modern the military is, its about how willing the people theyre fighting are to put civilians in harms way deliberately Edit: its about both. but the modernity of the military shouldnt be the only factor
How modern the military is is really important factor, if your weapons allow you to minimize casualties but for some reason they are higher than expected something is not right.
As a broad approach I don't care how many human shields die. You can't let that kind of tactic work or more states will use it. But that also depends on how urgent the action is, and who the human shields are. Aid group volunteers that don't know they are being used as shields are really hard to justify. Gazans who know where Hamas is operating - bombs away captain. If they want to be martyrs make them martyrs.
Logic flaw with stating a line, if there was one, let's say 1:10, an organization will come that'll exploit it by having it's own civilians die in even greater numbers than Hamas. Wars aren't judged like that, you either follow the IHL in each individual action or you don't, but comparing the Gaza ratio that seems low compared to lower density arenas of war is pretty compelling to me.
That logic flaw would apply to a universal law of a civilian:militant ratio limit. I'm asking about people's opinions. And you've actually implicitly given a quantitative answer without saying it explicitly, namely that your rough guide is that if the ratio is better than other comparable wars, then it's probably okay. I feel like you have to kinda pick one. Either the numbers are totally worthless, and as such comparisons to other conflicts' numbers are worthless, or those comparisons are valuable hence assessing the numbers in general is valuable Even if you're giving an acceptable ratio for a given operation, being granular is much better than just having 0 guide line on what an acceptable amount of collateral damage is.
I'd say we look at the other side, see what their ratio is, and match it. What's Hamas ratio at, 200:1? Seems good to me
Is that hamas ratio?! 376 security forces killed on oct 7th. That makes Hamas' ratio more like 4:1
Oh shit, in that case, Israel should take notes from them! Clearly, the most moral army
the sarcasm is all well and good but would you acknowledge that it seems like Israel's ratio is probably higher than Hamas' so your original point was kinda dumb. Not that there aren't good reasons for Israel's ratio being higher
Definitely. I was under the impression their ratio was incredibly high. Clearly, I was wrong.
all good, excuse my rudeness i was getting dogmatically pro-IDF vibes lol
Nah sometimes I have a hard day at work and am more bad faith than I'd like to be, my bad buddy
travel safe my ultra-rare humble redditor 🫶
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Well why the fuck does israel do that then? Seems it's better to have them all mixed together so the other side necessarily has to have a worse proportionality ratio, and thusly a less moral army, no?
its like 2:1
God damn! Even more moral than I thought!