Thread by @Michael_Spagat

1. Yesterday I presented new research on what I'm calling the "demographic fingerprints" of armed conflict — and what they reveal about Gaza.

2. Here is a recording of the presentation:
vimeo.com/1175493576?sha…

3. The core idea: different types of violence leave behind distinctive patterns, not just in the total numbers killed, but in the proportions falling into detailed age/sex categories — a conflict's demographic fingerprint.

4. Using a statistical clustering method applied to 20 conflicts, I find three distinct patterns:
🟡 Combatant-skewed — deaths concentrated among young adult males. Examples: Colombia, Northern Ireland, Peru.

5. 🔵 Male-targeted — males across a wide age range systematically killed regardless of combatant status. Examples: Bosnia, Srebrenica, Kosovo.

6. 🔴 Indiscriminate — deaths spread across ages and sexes, with women, children and elderly present in substantial numbers. Examples: Rwanda and Cambodia.

7. Gaza post-October 7 falls within the Indiscriminate cluster — alongside Rwanda, Cambodia and the El Mozote Massacre from the civil war in El Salvador. This holds across two separate analyses, including one that accounts for Gaza's young population structure.

8. A common objection is that Gaza's somewhat elevated proportion of young adult male deaths proves the IDF was targeting combatants. But that male excess is modest compared to conflicts within the Combatant-skewed and Male-targeted clusters.

9. Like a fingerprint at a crime scene, this is evidence, not a verdict. It does not establish genocidal intent on its own. But it places Gaza in uncomfortable demographic company and substantially narrows the range of plausible innocent explanations.