patrick.net

Reminder: Gaza has a land border with Egypt. The Egyptians don't want Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad infiltrators blowing up resorts or Pyramid Tourists or attacking Copts and so are thus greatly restricting aid they're willing to send that way.

Note there is no international screaming 24-7 for Egypt to open it's border and allow aid.

Taken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers. Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily. We know this because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real. Then they assigned about 70% of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.

There are other obvious red flags. The Gaza Health Ministry has consistently claimed that about 70% of the casualties are women or children. This total is far higher than the numbers reported in earlier conflicts with Israel. Another red flag, raised by Salo Aizenberg and written about extensively, is that if 70% of the casualties are women and children and 25% of the population is adult male, then either Israel is not successfully eliminating Hamas fighters or adult male casualty counts are extremely low. This by itself strongly suggests that the numbers are at a minimum grossly inaccurate and quite probably outright faked. Finally, on Feb. 15, Hamas admitted to losing 6,000 of its fighters, which represents more than 20% of the total number of casualties reported.

Taken together, Hamas is reporting not only that 70% of casualties are women and children but also that 20% are fighters. This is not possible unless Israel is somehow not killing noncombatant men, or else Hamas is claiming that almost all the men in Gaza are Hamas fighters.

Are there better numbers? Some objective commentators have acknowledged Hamas’ numbers in previous battles with Israel to be roughly accurate. Nevertheless, this war is wholly unlike its predecessors in scale or scope; international observers who were able to monitor previous wars are now completely absent, so the past can’t be assumed to be a reliable guide. The fog of war is especially thick in Gaza, making it impossible to quickly determine civilian death totals with any accuracy. Not only do official Palestinian death counts fail to differentiate soldiers from children, but Hamas also blames all deaths on Israel even if caused by Hamas’ own misfired rockets, accidental explosions, deliberate killings, or internal battles. One group of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health compared Hamas reports to data on UNRWA workers. They argued that because the death rates were approximately similar, Hamas’ numbers must not be inflated. But their argument relied on a crucial and unverified assumption: that UNRWA workers are not disproportionately more likely to be killed than the general population. That premise exploded when it was uncovered that a sizable fraction of UNRWA workers are affiliated with Hamas. Some were even exposed as having participated in the Oct. 7 massacre itself.

The truth can’t yet be known and probably never will be. The total civilian casualty count is likely to be extremely overstated. Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1. By historical standards of urban warfare, where combatants are embedded above and below into civilian population centers, this is a remarkable and successful effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life while fighting an implacable enemy that protects itself with civilians.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Here's more info on the airdrops and the building of the dock.

Looks like the US has airdropped in 124k food packets as of Friday. Also, the US is not the only country airdropping in supplies. Looks like the airdrops are mostly in Northern Gaza (the area that needs the food the most).

About 1000 US military personnel are going to be constructing the dock. The first ship carrying aid is expected to arrive in Gaza in about 2-3 days.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/israel-hamas/2024/03/09/israel-hamas-war-live-news-updates/72909715007/

AmericanKulak says

Note there is no international screaming 24-7 for Egypt to open it's border and allow aid.

Probably because Israel has bombed the Rafah crossing MULTIPLE times, including during the Super Bowl(can anyone say distraction?).

Palestine has an Arabian population, surrounded by Arab countries who have been trying to send aid since the beginning. I believe Gaza has significant oil or gas reserves, so US boots on the ground for the excuse of "sending aid", makes perfect sense.