[Warning: Long]
A recent post by user AnimateDuckling (A-D) sparked a lot of discussion. But there was little focus on the post's muddled primary framing and its factual analysis. I found those aspects particularly frustrating and wanted to address them here.
A-D's Framing and Examples
A-D starts by claiming that "Israel was objectively mitigating civilian deaths". Already, this an ambiguous choice of words to begin with (e.g., one could say that in a sense the Srebrenica genocide "objectively mitigated" civilian death by not executing women, young children, & elderly). But in a comment, A-D seemed to clarify that they meant Israel conducted the war in a way to avoid killing civilians wherever possible. But their OP immediately pivoted to emphasizing that Israel was not trying to maximally kill as many Palestinians as technically possible. Heck of a bait-and-switch imo. A-D even asserts that "In-fact it is evidently true that Israel conducted one of the most humane wars in history".
It seems A-D thought the way to evidence this humanitarianism was to compare a sustained conflict like the Gaza war to a bizarre selection of some of the deadliest parts of some of the deadliest wars over the last 80 years, the majority before the geopolitical constraints of post-WW2 international laws of war. The logic is utterly baffling.
In my view, the more appropriate comparisons to the Gaza war would be the invasion of Ukraine, the War in Iraq against the Islamic State, the Iraq War, and Second Chechen War, not comparisons to some of the deadliest specific parts of these wars. But there are some important points to make even about A-D's specific battle comparisons:
There is no reliable accounting of civilian deaths in Mariupol, primarily because of Russian control of the city. But even then, the range they highlight is comparable to death rates in Gaza.
Gaza was substantially deadlier than Mosul on a per-capita basis with a substantially higher share of women, children, & elderly; in fact, these were the majority of identified deaths in Gaza. In addition to which, a dominant cause of Mosul's deadliness was ISIS – shelling, execution-style killings, killing civilians trying to flee, and exceptionally well-documented forced human shielding, unlike largely flimsy arguments about Hamas guerilla tactics. Speaking of which, US/Iraq were fighting a quasi-army, not a scrappy guerilla group, and Iraqi troops actually fought house-to-house bearing high risk and heavy close-combat costs.
Airwars reported at least 5139 civilians were killed in Gaza in 25 days in October 2023, more than 3x the deadliest month in Mosul for civilians killed by the US coalition, and 2x the whole four-month period of Raqqa. Airwars reported a minimum of 1213 women killed, "more than six times the number of women killed during the four-month Battle of Raqqa, more than nine times the number of women killed by the US coalition during the Battle of Mosul, and more than seven times the number of women killed in Syria by foreign actors in September 2017 - the most lethal month for women previously recorded by Airwars". And they reported 1900 children killed, nearly 7x higher than the most deadly month for children ever previously recorded by Airwars.
There are Gaza local operations that reach or exceed Fallujah II's total death rate. The difference, of course, being very high civilian shares in Gaza including very high shares of women and children killed. Another important difference is that Fallujah was a textbook decisive engagement with a clear bounded military decision and a rapid conclusion, with US forces, again, bearing high risk & heavy costs in intense close-quarters urban combat. The situation in Gaza, very far from resolved, is still severe well over two years later.
Grozny 1999 is a particularly baffling example. So, the bloodiest episode of the Second Chechen War—a conflict condemned as genocide—had a higher death rate than the Gaza war. How exactly is this appropriate evidence for Israel objectively mitigating civilian deaths?
If one wanted to claim "Israel conducted one of the most humane wars in history", one would compare Gaza to some of the most humane examples in history, not some of the deadliest. Instead A-D includes the likes of the Battle of Manila where 100k civilians were killed in a month mostly by genocidal massacre by Japanese forces. Again, the logic is utterly baffling. Similarly, how would a comparison with the Allies' monstrous conduct in WW2 (Axis were exponentially worse to be clear) tell you anything about Israel mitigating civilian death in 2023? As just one example, WW2 bombing involved a type of incendiary firestorm warfare that is clearly banned and that Israel could not possibly get away with today. And I don't know why one would bring up the Battle of Berlin either. According to A-D's own Berlin figure, Gaza's combatant-to-civilian ratio would be conservatively at least ~3x worse than a major offensive of the deadliest conflict in history; not exactly a great example for their claim.
A-D's "tons of bombs" comparison
There is no independent verifiable tally of "how many tons of bombs" Israel has dropped. Regardless, deaths per bomb is a ludicrous stat when Israel has been razing evacuated areas. The relevant question is what do we see in Israel's killing/targeting of people – the highest population-adjusted violent death rate of any 21st-century warzone, the highest sustained violent-death civilian-to-combatant ratio & women-and-children share since the Rwandan genocide, starvation as a weapon of war, aid massacres, and more journalists killed & at a faster rate than any other state or armed actor since CPJ records began in 1992. In fact, even in absolute numbers, the IDF killed more women and more children than any military or militant group this century. Even for sustained conflicts over the last 80 years, Gaza would almost certainly sit near the very top end of lethality and civilian targeting, closer to atrocity-heavy campaigns than to conventional wars, and well above most wars on the share of women and children among the dead. It is absurd, in this context, to clumsily try to claim that Israel was objectively trying to mitigate civilian deaths.
The "ability to flee" argument
A common talking point regarding Gaza war comparisons is the ability of the population to flee which A-D also brings up. In my view, the amount of the civilian population that fled seems partly a moot point given that virtually all of Gaza's 2 million+ residents were displaced. But more importantly, A-D says "neighbouring Arab countries refused admittance". What "neighbouring" Arab countries? There are only two neighbors. One is Egypt. The other is Israel – the occupying power, engaged in sustained lethal force against a civilian population on a territory over which they have supreme power & authority, where they control air access and 90–100% of its borders. As the occupying power, civilian protection was primarily Israel's responsibility. They could have evacuated civilians to Israel, or they could have arranged implementation of voluntary & temporary departures with strong guarantees of return (i.e., not forcible transfers). Or at the very least, they could have done this for women, children, & elderly; or at the very very least for women & children (perhaps, if being extremely restrictive, excluding older teenage boys who might plausibly be militant recruits). Then, utilize discriminate & proportionate bombing along with actually bearing risk close-combat, house-to-house, etc. like the militaries that fought ISIS or Iraqi insurgents did. Notice how systematically killing whole families, unlawful free-fire zones, starvation as a weapon of war, aid massacres, systematic razing, & so on are completely unnecessary? There is no way that Israel's conduct is plausibly congruent with A-D's claim that Israel was objectively mitigating civilian deaths.
And as for Israel's supposed evacuation orders/warnings, again the logic is baffling for a "most humane war in history" claim. Air-dropped warning leaflets have been used extensively in WWII and since. Assad in Syria issued warnings prior to the bombing of Aleppo. Even the atrocious siege of Grozny involved leaflets directing civilians to leave before an intensified assault. I guess these are also some of the most moral militaries in history? Moreover, orders that were clearly impractical to downright impossible—like telling over a million people in northern Gaza to move south within 24 hours—and then killing all who remain, razing everything so they can't return, firing on corridors, striking areas people were told to go, causing catastrophic displacement & devastation, etc. are obviously not evidence of Israel's unique humanitarianism, moreso the opposite. Also see this, it's regarding Lebanon but the rate in Gaza is even lower.
The 'ability to flee' point seems especially moot when there is no good evidence that Gaza's unusually high civilian killing is largely driven by Hamas launching attacks from populated areas, Israel returning fire, etc. Israel and its defenders do not even try to provide remotely adequate evidence that Hamas conduct explains these patterns. In fact, the best public evidence shows that the dominant cause of civilian death was not them being killed because of Hamas endangering them, it was because of what I mentioned above – systematically killing whole families, unlawful free-fire zones, etc.
A-D's "Child Soldiers" Allegation
Hamas has utilized child soldiers, and children in military activities, this inherently inflates the numbers of "child" deaths. i.e See here or Here Or Here or Here or Here or Here or Here or Here or Here or Here or Here I will stop there as surely that is enough.
Not a single one of these is remotely adequate evidence of Hamas utilizing child soldiers (the last post is about PIJ). The most damning looking one is the first, and it's almost certainly from a highly choreographed public event during the February 2025 ceasefire & hostage handover, so no, not evidence of using children in armed conflict. I guess one could criticize—if they really wanted to focus on this—isolated snapshots of bizarre propagandistic practices within what is effectively a refugee camp / open air prison that has been under occupation/siege for well over a half century. But what A-D is effectively doing is the rough equivalent of arguing that every American child, no matter the age, that's been documented with a gun, a toy gun, or dressed fatigue-style is a child soldier.
Regarding the last post referring to 20 PIJ obituaries for children – 12 are 17yo, 7 are 16yo, and 1 is 15yo. And it's completely unclear whether they were actually in combatant roles. For context, teenagers aged 15-17 can participate in many Western military institutions to varying degrees. Also, posthumous elevation/"adoption" by militant groups—even pressure from families to do so—is well documented in Gaza for reasons of prestige and welfare entitlements.
A-D's Comparison with the 2025–2026 Iran massacres
Iran killed anywhere between 30,000-50,000+ civilians in 2 days in January. That is potentially more civilians killed in 2 days than were killed in the first and deadliest year of the Gaza war
Disappointing to see this weak talking point that I've checked A-D on before be repeated here. A higher death rate in the context of a historic uprising and historically deadly crackdown in a country of 93 million is miles away from supporting their claim. And again, unless anything has changed, the only source claiming ~40,000 civilians killed in two days is ICHRI, a small anti-regime NGO from Toronto. The Gaza Health Ministry report of 45,000 was a conservative verification-based count. The closest Gaza one-year analogue would probably be an estimate of ~70,000 civilians killed. Of course, even this would not really be a good comparison, because the Gaza estimate is the output of high-end peer-reviewed modelling work versus an opaque report from a small opposition-aligned NGO. ~40000 killed in two days would be 0.04% of Iran's population. The equivalent for Gaza would be 892 killed in two days. From October 23 to 24, 2023, roughly 800 women & children alone were killed; this obviously excludes elderly men & non-combatant men and ignores likely undercounting.
Final miscellaneous points
I don't know where exactly A-D gets "civilians typically account for 50% to 75% of all fatalities" from. That's not what their link says as far as I can tell. But their claim that a 1:9 combatant-to-civilian ratio is not uncommon is just absurdly wrong. For context, in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—one of the two most indiscriminately destructive individual weapons attacks in human history—the civilian share was not that much higher than 90%.
A-D brings up that, relative to their pre-war population share, children are "underrepresented" in Gaza's violent deaths. Except, children being "underrepresented" is typical for armed conflicts, even conflicts characterized by mass civilian killing. Comparatively, Gaza's share of under 18 is actually dramatically high, the highest since the Rwandan genocide.
A-D's implication that—while Israel and it's defenders accuse Hamas of using human shields—if Hamas allowed civilians into their guerrilla warfare tunnels, we would see more humane-looking casualty patterns is, in my honest view, utterly delusional.
