I microblogged about a discussion regarding that IDF database suggests that at least 83% of Gaza dead were civilians. Posting my repsonses here in full length, since HN flagged the post, and non-users can't read it.

tguvot wrote;

17% are terrorists that IDF can identify by name. Unidentified people with RPGs in their hands that were blown up don't suddenly become civilians. If we stick with that logic, 99.9% of dead in war in Ukraine are civilians, because opposite party can't identify them

My response:

In war, a person is civilian unless positively identified as a combatant. “Unidentified” does not mean militant. that’s true in international law, conflict research, and even the IDF’s own internal counting. The “17% identified by name” point actually supports the claim. Israel’s own intelligence database–which Israeli sources call the only authoritative militant tally–shows ~8,900 confirmed or probable militants killed out of ~53,000 total deaths at the time.

The “RPGs in their hands” is a strawman. The database does not count assumptions; it requires intelligence-linked identification. Israeli investigations and internal testimony show civilians were routinely misclassified as “terrorists” in field reports to inflate ratios

The Ukraine comparison is simply wrong. Ukraine has uniforms, unit records, POW lists, and mutual identification. Gaza is a besieged civilian population where Israel itself admits it cannot identify most victims. No serious dataset suggests 99.9% of Ukraine’s dead are civilians.

moreover, many independent investigations suggest the same. Airwars’ civilian harm analysis documented unprecedented civilian casualty patterns (large family deaths, high women/child counts), far exceeding norms seen in other 21st-century conflicts https://gaza-patterns-harm.airwars.org

Even conflict data experts (e.g., Uppsala Conflict Data Program) note that the proportion of civilians in this conflict is far higher than typical war patterns and comparable only to extreme cases like Rwanda and Mariupol

breppp wrote:

He is right, the logical leap would be hilarious if not a symbol for today's journalistic standards.

Let's say the IDF has positively confirmed 17% combatants. The negation of that set is not "Non combatants" but "Not positively identified by the IDF as combatants". which means that some may still be combatants, and most probably some are as the standard here is to confirm names, something hard to do when someone is under the rubble. Therefore the title here which says 83% civilians according to IDF data is simply false.

That's forgetting the other issues with this article (single IDF unit not tasked with research, multiple databases with different numbers, using Hams death data, forgetting about non-Hamas non-PIJ groups, low reputable source, etc) but I am sure that if you can see this misstep you can understand the general value of what you read there

My response:

I'm not sure if you understand how casualty classification works. “not positively identified as combatant” is not logically equivalent to “proven civilian.” No one claims it is. What it does mean is that the IDF has no evidence those people were combatants. And in law, statistics, and every serious conflict dataset, you don’t get to assign lethal status based on vibes.

Also calling Aman “a single unit not tasked with research” is false. It’s Military Intelligence, and Israeli sources say this database is the only one they can stand behind. If your position requires assuming thousands of unidentified dead people were combatants without evidence, then your position is not analytical rather ideological.

tguvot wrote:

so, your position that 10 unidentified, people each with rpg that they were observed to used, without military uniform, blown up count as 10 civilians ? right ?

My response:

No and this is misleading. First, that’s not how civilian status is determined. Civilian vs. combatant is not decided by uniforms or post-strike assumptions but on direct participation in hostilities at the time and positive identification. Someone actively firing an RPG is a combatant at that moment but that does not justify retroactively classifying every unidentified body as militant. I'm honestly surprised that I've to explain that.

Second, the example is a hypothetical case to erase the real issue. The claim about ~80% civilian deaths is not based on “assuming everyone is civilian,” but on subtracting those Israel itself could identify as militants using intelligence-linked, name-based records. Israel’s own database explicitly excludes people it merely suspects or assumes were fighters.

Third, this logic fails at scale. Gaza’s death toll includes tens of thousands of women, children, elderly, and entire families killed in homes, shelters, hospitals, and aid lines, not people observed using RPGs. Field reports and Israeli investigations show many victims were later posthumously labeled militants without evidence, inflating numbers.

Forth, the argument flips the burden of proof. You don’t get to call people militants because you can’t identify them. If that standard were accepted, any mass-casualty air war could declare most of its victims “terrorists” by default, which is exactly why serious militaries and conflict datasets reject that logic.

That user, tguvot, has a specious activity on almost every Israel-related post, gives Unit 8200 vibes. #Israel #Conversation #Politics