• Nearly half of these are childrens. It is true that Hamas is a terrorist organization that keeps the population hostage, but terrorism cannot be combated by indiscriminately bombing the population, schools and hospitals, causing thousands of deaths as “collateral damage” to catch perhaps 2-3 terrorists. This is what makes the Israeli government terrorists just like Hamas.

      • Hamas is a terrorist organization that keeps the population hostage

        Israel has kept the population hostage since even before Hamas won a free and fair election in 2006, and in retaliation, for the last 16 years Israel made their imprisonment even more draconian.

        • Terrorism can never be a solution. Independent that Hamas was freely elected and then abused its power in a terrorist regime, like the Israeli governments that believe that with apartheid and violence against the population in an imperialist policy they achieve peace. With this path, conflicts can never be resolved at the cost of the population on both sides. Terrorism on the one hand is not solved by killing tens of thousands of people. What Israel is doing is genocide as such, that cannot be justified with “legitimate defense.” They do not fight Hamas, even shooting refugees fleeing a besieged Hospital, where hundreds of people die due to lack of food, medicine and energy, nor indiscriminately bombing towns and even refugee caravans and ambulances. With this they create terrorism in the ranks of Palestinians because with their actions they justify it.

      • So we’re blindly accepting hamas death tolls now? People never learn

        People never seem to learn their reputation in this regard before making comments such as yours.

        One snippet out of a lengthy article.

        Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements.

        “Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”

        Shakir said Human Rights Watch would not use figures provided by parties with “a propensity to misrepresent information.”

        Why news outlets and the U.N. rely on Gaza’s Health Ministry for death tolls

        And another:

        Throughout four wars and numerous bloody skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, U.N. agencies have cited the Health Ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.

        In the aftermath of war, the U.N. humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records.

        In all cases the U.N.’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza Health Ministry’s, with small discrepancies.

        — 2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.

        — 2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.

        — 2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.

        What is Gaza’s Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war’s death toll?