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Comment by _kbh_ | Hacker News Reader

> Because the Gaza footage is quite a mess. You will have hard times matching it with Ukraine footage. Sometimes, whole neighbourhoods of civilian high rises were levelled.

Russia has literally deleted entire Ukrainian cities off the map, so this is a very strange paragraph to right.

The only difference is in Ukraine the civilians were told to evacuate there homes when the Russians are near by, in Gaza they are told to stay in there homes by Hamas.

It is also much harder to evacuate people in Gaza.

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That is the difference. People in Gaza also have nowhere to go if they wanted.

> That is the difference. People in Gaza also have nowhere to go if they wanted.

Exactly, the difference isn't that in the Ukraine war that the Russians are being careful or precise, it's that the Ukrainian citizens can actually evacuate from the areas they are in.

They won't be if Russia decided to start with a massive air strikes campaign before even starting ground offensive.

But that's not happened - not against the apartment blocks, anyway.

Really? So you don't remember the bombing of Kyiv where corners of high rise apartment blocks were blown of by rockets and artillery.

Or Kharkiv where whole blocks of apartment buildings were demolished by indiscriminate shelling?

As a fact, no, I don't. The amount of carnage seen on Palestine photos and videos is not matched.

Of you read words written by press, you may get an impression that it is comparable. But you will struggle to find evidence backing it up. Because there is not.

Alright please then: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-26/frightening-moment-a-...

Also you seem to be fixed on carnage inflicted to Palestine but not a word about the videos and images of beheadings and wanton murder of Israelis by the hamas terrorists. Why is that? Did not hamas unleash this round of violence by absolutely barbaric attacks?

So on display is an apartment block being hit by "a missile". That would be our exhibit A.

However, the issue is that exhibit B is whole rows of apartment blocks hollowed out, visibly mangled or even levelled out by Israeli air strikes.

This was my original point.

> However, the issue is that exhibit B is whole rows of apartment blocks hollowed out, visibly mangled or even levelled out by Israeli air strikes.

It’s like your exactly describing what the Russians did to Bakhmut.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/18/stark-b...

As it was already noticed, it was not due to unannounced airstrikes in Bakhmut but due to ground offensive. Any civilians could and should have been evacuated by then, or at least took cover.

If we will seee ground offensive in Gaza, the picture will likely be the same but on larger scale. This is on top of air strikes damage, for which the population in these blocks could not prepare.

> As it was already noticed, it was not due to unannounced airstrikes in Bakhmut but due to ground offensive. Any civilians could and should have been evacuated by then, or at least took cover.

Sure,

So like the Dnipro apartment block strike that was from a Russian Kh-22 and flattened part of the building.

Here's a photo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Dnipro_a...

Again, this is one missile (maybe it was shot down by AA rocket, or just went off course). And most of the building is still standing. The point of this launch was likely some military target.

Compare that to Palestinean videos where a dozen of blocks are levelled indiscriminately.

Also note that it's just been two weeks, as opposed to almost two years. Two years of fighting which resulted in just some cherry-picks.

> Again, this is one missile (maybe it was shot down by AA rocket, or just went off course).

The amount of precision guided missiles that we have seen hit civilian targets makes me think this is just as likely to be an intentional targeting as it is “flying off course”.

Also it would be an AA missile not rocket, rockets are unguided.

> The point of this launch was likely some military target.

You have no way of knowing this, and one could say literally the same thing about the Israeli strikes.

> As a fact, no, I don't. The amount of carnage seen on Palestine photos and videos is not matched.

You’re not looking very hard then.

The carnage is identical the Russians have literally leveled entire cities in Ukraine, I dare say the Russians have leveled an area that is overall larger then Gaza in its entirety.

This is before we get to the especially brutal parts of Russias war like when they launched an anti ship missile at a shopping centre.

Launching "a missile" at a target pales in comparison with a row of apartment blocks levelled by air strikes.

And no, ground offensives are not the same. I hope we won't see those in Gaza - there is still chance.

> Launching "a missile" at a target pales in comparison with a row of apartment blocks levelled by air strikes.

It literally nearly levelled a shopping mall and killed 20+ civilians and injured close to 60.

So I guess the real question becomes, are civilian causalities okay or not?, if they are not okay then Russians indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians in Ukraine is just as bad as Israels.

> And no, ground offensives are not the same. I hope we won't see those in Gaza - there is still chance.

So if Israel kills civilians in a ground offensive does that make it okay?.

Ground offensive makes it worse but it's already very bad. Worse than most of the stuff seen in the Russo-Ukrainian.

The question is actually a different one: about the collateral damage. But in the case of both Palestine and Israel, that question does not even enter the picture. Both sides show no discretion in killing one other.

The kind of restraint that brought us atrocities of Bucha and the childrens torture chambers of Kherson?

Murder and genocide has been russian m.o for ever. You can’t downplay this.

You never answered the questions, are civilian causalities okay or not?.

Given how multiple cities in Ukraine look after Russias “ground offensive” I presume you’d be fine with Israel flattening Gaza in a ground offensive?.

Considering that’s exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine.

> The question is actually a different one: about the collateral damage.

Or are you saying that if Ukraine used civilians as meat shields and forced them to stay in place that you would have a problem with what Russia is doing?.

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