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mods are still sleeping

If you look at the bottom of the page, you’ll find guidelines that mention which content is welcomed: “Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.”

That said, I find this particularly of interest here given the growing attention to the use of algorithms and AI (including generative AI) for surveillance and targeting of palestinians.

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Personally, I find the political machinations around this conflict particularly interesting.

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> In October 2025, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion [wikidata] finding that Israel's claims that UNRWA had been infiltrated by Hamas were unsubstantiated. The advisory opinion also said that Israel's decision to end cooperation with UNRWA and restrict humanitarian aid to Gaza breached its obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. It furthermore found that Israel's Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was not an adequate substitute, noting that more than 2,100 Palestinians had been killed near its distribution points and that conditions in Gaza had deteriorated to the point that international experts declared a famine in some areas in August. The ICJ further held that the mass transfer or deportation of civilians within occupied territory is prohibited, citing Israeli measures that forced large populations into overcrowded areas and severely restricted UN access. It also ruled that the two Knesset laws ending cooperation with UNRWA in the occupied territories were unlawful, noting that 360 UNRWA staff had been killed during the conflict. The court concluded that Israel, as an occupying power, had unlawfully impeded aid delivery, used starvation as a method of warfare, and failed to respect the immunities of UN personnel and premises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA_and_Israel#International...

It’s still pretty surprising that a country so armed to the teeth with ground troops and missile defense systems would have let Oct 7 happen for as long as it did, and with so many people dying. I agree that it was wrong of Israel to do that.

I condemn the terrorist that stands behind a hostage; I condemn the sniper that takes the shot anyway.

The human shields narrative has long been debunked.

The report states they are not bombing military targets, so you can't explain the numbers away just by saying Hamas may recruit children.

> Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated residential areas despite mounting child casualties, the commission said.

Ok, first: The author sits on the board of HonestReporting and writes for NGO Monitor, UN Watch, and the Henry Jackson Society. These are pro-Israel media-monitoring and advocacy organisations.

It paints Hamas's Ministry of Health as a propaganda machine incapable of an honest number (sure) while Israeli military estimates (the 25,000 combatant figure, al-Ahli) are accepted at face value -- seriously? The IDF has been proven to lie numerous times.

Also, the article still relies on the MoH's numbers when it's convenient to the point it's trying to make.

The Gaza Mortality Survey, published in The Lancet Global Health in early 2026, run by Michael Spagat who's a war-mortality specialist (Kosovo, Iraq), with a long record of debunking inflated war-death claims, estimated 75,200 violent deaths between Oct 7, 2023 and Jan 5, 2025, which is around 25,000 more than the official Gaza Ministry of Health figure for that period.

The Lancet survey found that women, children, and older people comprised 56.2% of violent deaths. An OHCHR analysis separately found that 70% of those killed in residential buildings were women and children.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...

Let's see, what else: A ratio of 1.5 civilians per combatant means roughly 40% of all deaths are fighters. If 56% of the dead are women, children, and elderly, then every adult male death would have to be a combatant to reach 40% — which is obviously false.

The Washington Institute concluded that the available data cannot yield a civilian-combatant ratio because the MoH doesn't classify combatant status. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fat...

The combatants numbers: The 25k combatants figure is an estimate from IDF statements while it dismisses the 8.9k figure (militants the IDF actually identified) as absurd. "Let's make up a number and call the only real documented count" -- and whether it itself is real or not is debatable.

Then lies about natural deaths: Yes, there were about 6.3k deaths in Gaza before the genocide started, however it cherry-picks this subtraction while ignoring the corresponding addition. the same surveys that quantify baseline deathhs also find thousands of excess non-violent deaths caused by genocide. The lancet survey has 8.5k excess deaths. The 3.3k confirmed deaths the article cites are below the 6k baseline. Natural deaths are undercounted. Not inflating it.

Hamas kiling Gazans: Sure, but thousands? It's overblowing numbers for the al-Ahli hospital case and then extrapolating a bunch of bs as a result.

There is a genocide going on. We've seen the footage. We have the testimony about the horrors from both IDF soldiers and Palestinians. Why are we disputing numbers like holocaust deniers?

I think powerless is entirely the wrong word as they are actively supplying the arms to do it

The USA won't do anything about it because the USA is also guilty of heinous war crimes, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights at scale - in fact, it is the worst criminal on the world stage when it comes to un-prosecuted war crimes... so Israel facing justice will only mean that the USA will face the same justice, and we all know that there is nothing more heinous in all the world to an American than to be embarrassed by their state facing justice at the hands of any other international entity.

But the terrible tragedy is that this situation is not going to resolve until these countries actually prosecute their war criminals, who have been getting away with it in the current context for 20+ years. Which means the only ones with any power to do anything about the USA/Israels' war criminals, are the citizens of those countries themselves - which is why the situation is just so dire.

Until there is a real appetite for prosecuting ones own war criminals instead of bleating like sheep for the blood of perceived enemies of other states, there will not be the moral stance/altitude required for Americans to do anything effective about the war crimes of any other nation.

Until Americans prosecute their own war criminals they can do nothing effective about Israels', Russias', Ukraines' war criminals, either ...

Please don't engage in whataboutism on HN.

The European Press Prize this year went to "What the wounds are telling us", an investigation into the wounds of Palestinian dead children. I recommend you read it.

https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/what-the-wounds-a...

The claim in report is that Israel deliberately targeted newborn delivery hospitals and similar. I don't think they have proof of "deliberately", I assume hamas people could use those hospitals as potentially safe zones for gathering, weapons stashes, etc.

It's pretty clear Israel systematically kills Palestinian children to those paying attention. According to a public statement by the United Nations, Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. At least 21,289 children have been killed. They starve the population, drive them out of their homes. (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...) This is the modus operandi of the Zionist belief system. It is a colonial settler ideology and they have to eradicate the natives, much like American settlers killed the native people and destroyed their way of life until they could keep them in tiny """sovereign nations""" where they would be crushed if they every truly tried to display any real sense of sovereignty. To be sovereign is to have a government with a monopoly on violence, the "reservations" are occupied.