US wants to see fewer, smaller Israeli strikes on Beirut
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is calling on Israel to “scale back” some of its strikes in and around Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
“The number of civilian causalities have been far too high,” he said. “We would like to see Israel scale back some of the strikes in and around Beirut, and we would like to see a transition to negotiations that would allow civilians on both sides to return to their homes.”
Israeli strikes have been pounding Beirut with little let-up since mid-September when Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon, killing hundreds of people.
On October 10, a failed attempt by Israel to assassinate a Hezbollah official killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
Killing civilians is fine, just make it small numbers so the western media can ignore it.
Meanwhile the fighter to civilian killed ratio in Gaza is between 1:1.5 to 1:21
Official death toll (bodies recovered) stands at 42,500
Euromed monitor sets it at 50,292 (including those still buried under the rubble)
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6494/New-report..-De-Gaza:-A-Year-of-Israel%E2%80%99s-Genocide-and-the-Collapse-of-World-Order
The IDF released a statement of 17,000 fighters killed but can only account for 8,500 deaths in official reports.
https://acleddata.com/2024/10/06/after-a-year-of-war-hamas-is-militarily-weakened-but-far-from-eliminated/
The Lancet published a study in July saying it's plausible 186 thousand people will have died after the dust settles (if the war had ended in July)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
Take the most IDF favorable numbers, 17,000 : (42,500-17,000) = 1:1.5 (which is the number the IDF boasts about)
Euromed 17,000 : (50,292-17,000) = 1:2
The Lancet (17,000 * 10/12) : (186,000 - (17,000 * 10/12)) = 1 : 12
The detailed reports from the IDF, 8,500 : (42,500-8,500) = 1:4
Euromed, 8,500 : (50,292-8,500) = 1:5
The Lancet, (8,500 * 10/12) : (186,000 - (8,500 * 10/12)) = 1 : 21
That's up to 21 civilian deaths for every claimed fighter killed. And I'm low balling it, since the official death numbers are from bodies that were recovered and brought to a hospital. Meanwhile the IDF routinely takes dead bodies out of Gaza or they end up buried in a mass grave, under rubble or dumped on by a bulldozer and thus never end up in the official death toll. So while there is probably some overlap between the IDF numbers and official death toll, it's definitely not 1:1
Also the IDF considers anyone affiliated with the Hamas government a Hamas target, civil services included. How many were actually fighting the IDF or involved with October 7th, no idea. We know at least 200 Palestinians from Gaza were killed in Israel on Oct 7 (initial death toll of 1,400 revised down to 1,189 unidentified likely Palestinian corpses removed), but no figures on how many entered Israel.
796 civilians were killed on Oct 7, at the very least 25 thousand civilians have been killed in Gaza, over 2,000 in Lebanon, 700 in the West Bank
When is enough, enough....
