around 1,200 of UNRWA’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who belong to the Islamist militant groups

Weasel words in "have links" and "close relatives." Mary Trump for instance recognizes the threat Donald Trump poses and speaks out against him constantly, but you could instead say she's a close relative and imply the opposite. Same with Paul Gosar's family. Would I "have links" to Hamas if I worked at a hospital they ran?

I have come to dislike

I'll tell you what I dislike, this trend in the world where as soon as you "officially" label someone a terrorist, you're allowed to bomb them...and whoever is in the vicinity of the blast simply becomes "collateral damage." It's purely a matter of perspective. When I consider the perspective of Palestinians...what their daily life must be like...having hell rained down from above on a people with no real defenses after their homes have been flattened has to be far more terrifying than feckless rockets, suicide bombers, beheadings...etc. I'm not saying anyone is the good guy or the bad guy here, just that "terrorist" has become shorthand for people that don't have billions of dollars worth of equipment on their side.

[+] C0unterfactual@sh.itjust.works -6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hamas is the elected government, one which has openly stated that its aim is to wipe the jews out of the Middle East completely. It enjoys broad support among the population in Gaza, despite having demonstrated on October 7 that it has no qualms about shooting teenagers with assault rifles at a peace rave. We saw the footage that they themselves took; no doubt there. They own it. That's the goal. Many Palestinians who were not members of Hamas appear to have streamed across the border to take part on that day, too.

And, yes, Hamas, as the government in Gaza, also happens to be tallying casualty figures that Lemmy eats up without question.

[–] MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

Nobody is excusing Oct 7th, we don't need a retelling of it. I don't think shooting civilians is any more barbaric than bombing them to pieces from above. You'll have to excuse me for not recognizing it as the civilized way to kill your enemies.

And, yes, Hamas, as the government in Gaza, also happens to be tallying casualty figures that Lemmy eats up without question.

Go count them yourself then. You seem to have no self-awareness of how absolutely disgusting it is, morally speaking, to insinuate "there haven't been THAT many innocents killed" with nothing but your own doubt and bias to argue the point. But this is how you folks tend to work, you don't have to prove anything, just cast amorphous doubt and leave it at that.