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I used high estimates for Japan in WW2, because that's what numbers released by Hamas are at the best of times if not totally made up. Remember when they claimed that Israel had bombed and flattened a small hospital, had a 500 dead number ready within hours, only for it to become clear from live TV footage on Al Jazeera of all stations it was a stray rocket from an affiliated group that, instead of hitting some random target in Israel, had hit the parking lot of that hospital? Al Jazeera then had the audacity to publish an "analysis" that claimed the rocket was shot down by the Iron Dome over Gaza, even though the rocket broke up during its boost phase. Iron Dome only intercepts rockets once they have used up their fuel and are on a predictable ballistic trajectory and they never do this over Gaza, because that's where those rockets with a failure rate of up to 20% are still in the boost phase.

According to Hamas, those 500 dead became 750, then 470, because apparently they are using an RNG. The 470 are still part of the total death toll that for some inexplicable reason is called reliable by far too many people and organizations that I once thought were trustworthy. That many people wouldn't fit into that small parking lot if they stood shoulder to shoulder. Hamas even doubled down that it was an Israeli bomb, had the audacity to claim that the rocket debris had "dissolved" when people were asking for an independent investigation.

I like to mention this particular example, because we have the receipts here, we can see exactly how Hamas' reporting of casualty figures works and we can clearly see it's bogus. It's not far-fetched to then have some serious doubts about the rest of their numbers.

Before you get angry with me: I'm not doubting that lots of people are getting killed in Gaza. I'm not denying that many if not the majority of them are civilians. What I have a problem with is trusting the terrorist organization that started this stupid war they have no chance in hell of winning to be even remotely reliable when they report their numbers, since they rely on psychological warfare, on creating international pressure on Israel through every dead Palestinian, real or not. I am revolted by people here and elsewhere uncritically citing these numbers, doing Hamas' propaganda work for them. Hell, so many of them are claiming that all of the dead Palestinians in Gaza or all but a few dozen are civilians, falling for the simple trick Hamas is using of not distinguishing between military and civilian casualties anymore.

Once these little lie have been accepted, widely shared until they are gospel and anyone critical of them gets tarred and feathered by a self-righteous outrage mob that thinks just because they are doing the noble thing and rooting for what they believe to be the plucky underdog fighting against "colonizers", they can't possibly be wrong, it's not that difficult to move on to the big lies from there, like that no Israeli civilians were harmed by Hamas on October 7 (which makes the Israeli response look that much more monstrous), that the hostages were treated well, that Hamas is fighting for the Palestinian cause instead of for a global Islamic caliphate and a second Holocaust.