I'm asking a super simple question about one of the claims. It sounds like you agree that it is physically impossible to lose that much weight that quickly. I'm not questioning the rest of the article.
If you kidnapped someone and didn't feed them at all for 45 days, they'd lose around 25 pounds. This guy claims he lost 55 pounds. Every resource I find indicates that this is literally impossible, hence my question.
The article doesn't allege starving, dehydration, or forced labor. Even assuming appalling conditions, with ~500 kcal per day, and accounting for 5-10 lbs of water weight loss due to dehydration, we'd still be talking about a daily calorie deficit of around -3000 kcal. That's "run a marathon every day" territory. I don't see how that is physically possible.
Is it medically possible to lose 25kg in 45 days? That's like 1.2 lbs per day. You'd have to eat literally nothing and also run a marathon every single day. This part seems wildly implausible.
This was apparently an apartment building a Belgian group was using until they evacuated. Hamas could have started using it since the war started, or Israel thought they were, or it even could have been an accident. All way more plausible than singling out a Belgium aid group for a revenge bombing.
Here's an actual source that isn't a Turkish propaganda network: Reuters
Note how a real news agency states facts instead of injecting an elaborate "revenge for funding the UNRWA" narrative, mentions that the date and reason for the bombing is unknown, and notes zero expected casualties.
To anyone visualizing a comically long canal running straight through like 5 countries, you're not actually far off. Unfortunately, it's just a railroad to Moscow.
Ah yes Iran, that great bastion of human rights where they throw gay people off buildings and stone people to death.
Iran doesn't give a shit about Palestinians. Instability in the region keeps them in relative power. Everything they do should be viewed in that light.
I'm fairly pro-Israel and even I think this is wildly hyperbolic.
Palestinian civilian death counts, which are about 18k of the total 26k estimated total deaths, are on the high side even for urban combat. They're not the insane numbers that would indicate deliberate genocide, but they are totally consistent with a strategy of accepting collateral damage when a military target is possible to hit. This isn't even necessarily the wrong tactic, as Hamas is clearly using human shields, operating out of hospitals, etc, but it is at odds with the assertion.
The article seems to be arguing a subtly different claim, namely "Israel is doing a lot to prevent civilian casualties given their tactical choices". That may well be true, but let's not pretend there weren't options that reduced civilian casualties at the cost of Israeli military deaths.
Hopefully I've sufficiently angered both political extremes here.
Unfortunately I think we need to be drawing from the "children" numbers here. Hamas uses teenage soldiers extensively, and they have every incentive to put them on the front lines and report them under the "dead children" numbers.
My personal belief, and feel free to disagree, is that the numbers look something like this:
Hamas militants killed: 3000 adults, 5000 children (aged 16 - 18), all male. Totaling 8000.
Oh they definitely exaggerate - all parties to a conflict do. I accounted for that by using their estimates from more than a month ago against Hamas's current casualty counts. I think that's a fairly even-handed take but I'm sure people will disagree.
You think Israel dropped 25,000 bombs, invaded, and has been waging urban combat for 4 months, but has only killed 1,000 Hamas militants? That's just silly.
Also Hamas uses child soldiers extensively (including as suicide bombers) so you can drop the "adult" part.
Almayadeen is a Hezbollah-aligned propaganda network that is banned here.