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Comment by kjkjadksj | Hacker News Reader

The people working on these understand the alternative looks like a WWII bombing campaign with greater loss of life

That isn't that calculus that a moral people run. We operate in the present, with the tools we have now with compassion. Unless you are the people working on these AI targeting tools, how do you know what they understand.

Not to be combative with the response here, but the density of destruction in Gaza is on par with the likes of Dresden. It's not really exaggeration to say that Gaza is one of the most bombed places since Vietnam, and you don't have to take anyone's word for it. You can go to companies like Maxor and purchase satellite images on the open market and see for yourself.

The ratio of civilian deaths to military combatants seem to indicate a different picture: https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb...

Hamas’s Oct 7th attack also had a 2:1 civilian to soldier death ratio. Yet the author of that article credits the IDF for setting a new, humane standard.

“The latest death toll from the attack is now 767 civilians, 20 hostages and 376 members of the security forces, giving a total of 1,163. One person remains missing.” https://www.barrons.com/news/new-tally-puts-october-7-attack...

Irrelevant. The horrors of October 7th have no bearing on whether Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians should continue.

It’s directly relevant to the linked article in the comment I was responding to, which uses the IDFs reported Palestinian civilian to soldier death ratio to claim that Israel’s military actions are uniquely humane. That conclusion is challenged by a showing that Hamas’s achieved Israeli civilian:soldier death ratio.

The question I’m implicitly raising is why would one be worse than the other?

In fact, Israel is counting every adult male as Hamas in their death counts. If we were to use “IDF rules” and count every adult male victim of the Oct 7th attack as a “soldier” (a claim made by Hamas, bolstered by the fact that almost military service is required of most Jews in Israel), then the ratio would be less than 2:1.

And now they know they were wrong?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com