Thread by @History__Speaks

1/20 The most important research on the "war" in Gaza—for which I was honoured to be a peer reviewer—was just published by @airwars.

This 🧵details their findings, which in my view expose the murderous and likely genocidal nature of the IAF's October 2023 bombing campaign.

2/20 Airwars studied incidents in Oct 2023 involving civilian casualties (all or almost all of these were IAF airstrikes). They compiled 606 such incidents accounting for at least 5,139 civilian fatalities.

Among the 606 incidents, only 4% involved a single militant death.

3/20 What of the 4% of incidents that did result in militant fatalities? Even here, the ratio of civilian to combatant fatalities is lopsided (pic related), with at minimum 522 civilians versus 32 militants killed. (a 16:1 ratio).

(At most, 60 militants were killed.)

4/20 In total, the 606 incidents studied by Airwars in Oct 2023 entailed at least 5,139 civilian deaths and at least 32, or at most 60, militant deaths.

In other words, across these incidents, 99% of those killed (rounded DOWN) were civilians.

(Chart is mine, data theirs.)

5/20 Other findings littered throughout the study shock any intact human conscience.

These include the fact that when one civilian was killed in an incident (again, overwhelmingly IAF airstrikes), an average of FOURTEEN family members were killed with him or her.

6/20 The number of Gazan children killed in October 2023—not even a full month of war—approximately equals the number of children killed across the Syrian Civil War (by all parties, Assad, Putin, rebels, ISIS, US, etc) in its bloodiest ENTIRE YEAR for children, 2016.

7/20 Regarding children killed by Israel in October 2023, there is a clear pattern: children being killed alongside their mothers and grandmothers in multigenerational Palestinian homes.

In >90% of cases where women and children died, they were killed in residential buildings.

8/20 October 2023 - not even a complete month of war, as the war started on the 7th - is by far the deadliest month for children in all wars Airwars has studied.

6.8 times more Gazan kids were killed in Oct 2023 than in Jan 2016 in Syria, the 2nd deadliest month for children.

9/20 The number of women killed in October 2023 in Gaza is also historic.

It is 7.5 times greater than the second deadliest month for women in a war @airwars has studied. It is three times greater than the figure who died in the entire Battles of Raqqa and Mosul COMBINED.

@airwars 10/20 The IAF practice of systematically killing entire families together in their homes is grimly illustrated by the fact that, when one woman was killed in October 2023, nearly six children were killed with her: mothers and grandmothers being killed alongside children.

11/20 I’ll end with a brief discussion on how this study decimates the “human shields” hasbara, which has been one of the most powerful sources of propaganda for the IDF in this “war” and over the years, as well as the “Where’s Daddy?” program.

12/20 Israel says it kills civilians behind whom combatants hide. But in October 2023, for 96% of incidents (IAF airstrikes for the most part) resulting in civilian death, 0 militants were killed.

Israel killed civilians purposefully/recklessly, not to get at combatants.

13/20 We can infer from the Airwars study that IAF airstrikes were mostly aimed at non-militarized residences. This decimates the “human shields” hasbara, according to which most Gazan civilian casualties result from Israel targeting civilian infrastructure militarized by Hamas.

14/20 The pattern of bombing non-militarized homes corroborates the “Where’s Daddy?” program reported by @972mag, where entire families are bombed to death to kill a single Hamas militant.

But the facts are even worse/more murderous than the "Where's Daddy?" program suggests.

@972mag 15/20 In "Where's Daddy?" airstrikes, we'd expect to see one militant killed along with a family. However, in the vast majority of cases of airstrikes to homes Airwars studied, zero (0!) combatants were killed. Only women, children, and civilian men were killed.

@972mag 16/20 In sum, Israel committed mass murder in its October 2023 airstrikes, as defined under the laws of war: most likely through deliberately targeting civilians, and definitely through reckless indifference as to whether they were killing civilians (also a mens rea for murder).

@972mag 17/20 The main characters in this story are the victims: the civilian population of Gaza slaughtered in a high-tech massacre: no, a genocidal massacre. Their extermination needs to be memorialized and never forgotten, particularly by the perpetrators (chiefly 🇮🇱 & 🇺🇸).

@972mag 18/20 Western intellectuals, pundits, politicians, and influencers who whitewashed this slaughter are crying out for reputationally accountability. These include charlatans @spencerguard, @EliLake, @tedcruz, @RobertKennedyJr, @DouglasKMurray, @KonstantinKisin, & endless others.

19/20 In terms of the Internet sphere, those begging us for reputational accountability include pic-related charlatans Coleman Hughes (@coldxman), Lonerbox (@boxloner), Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou, Sam Harris, and Destiny (@TheOmniLiberal).

@coldxman @BoxLoner @DrewPavlou @TheOmniLiberal 20/20 Above all, the United States government must come to terms with the fact that it has funded a mass murder campaign against a trapped, impoverished, starving civilian population. It will continue denying this, but the truth cannot be suppressed forever in a free society.