Hamas has released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages and claimed that they were killed by Israeli airstrikes.

The video showed a female hostage named in Israeli media as Noa Argamani, 26, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed in captivity. It was not clear when or where the video was filmed and there was no independent confirmation of Hamas’s claims.

The three hostages were shown in a 37-second Hamas video released on Sunday in which the group urged the Israeli government to halt its aerial and ground offensive and bring about their release. The undated clip ended with the caption: “Tomorrow [Monday] we will inform you of their fate.”

In a statement released with the new video, Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades, said the two men, believed to be Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itay Svirsky, 38, had been killed in “the Zionist army’s bombing”.

    • Count042@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      So far, on average, they have been closer to the truth than the IDF’s figures have been.

      That’s how trust works, when it isn’t ideological.

      Someone says something and later on when the truth is independently verified, or subsequent things prove the original claim to be true, you are more inclined to believe that person or group.

      If someone says something, and later on it is proven untrue, you are less likely to believe that person or group.

      When both sides of a conflict do both, you take the aggregate.

      Israel has had a literal media policy of lying with exaggerated claims, with the view that people won’t view corrections, for decades.

      Does Hamas lie? Yeah, but not as systematically.

      And you’re surprised that people believe Hamas death toll numbers?

      • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I’ve seen a lot of instances when the reverse is true. People take sides for whatever reasons, then refuse to even review the the side they oppose. They immediately call it propaganda or question source. They don’t apply logic because it doesn’t line up up with their internal narrative. The world is not black and white and denial of that fact gets you no closer to a conclusion.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Dudes over here trying to be like ‘there is no objective truth’ while totally ignoring the non-throwaway bit about lying being systemized by Israel.

          It’s literal state media policy. They’ve been open about it.

          When one side objectively, countably, lies more than the other, that side is believed less. It’s that simple.

          Also, when a country restricts access to food, potable water, and medicine to a population they consider undesirable and than says it isn’t committing genocide, then you also don’t believe them. Those two things are mutually incompatible.

          • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            The point is the determination that only one side is at fault should not prevent you from listening to both sides. But, for some it does.

            • Count042@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              One side is a nuclear armed entity that had 2.2 million trapped in an open air prison and intentionally blockaded them and publicly boasted about only allowing in a starvation diet amount of calories.

              The other side can dig tunnels.

                • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  You’re trying to discredit the ungodly number of dead from a nuclear powered military that is intentionally targeting a population of mostly woman and children because they don’t want to engage in tunnel fighting.

                  You’re doing it by questioning the source of the number that has been shown to be accurate multiple times by multiple uninvolved unbiased groups.

                  The very question you started with ‘why do people believe Hamas’s numbers’ is obvious bad faith propaganda.

                  • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    No, this response has to do with information denials. There is another response about numbers. Read that one.

      • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You think it might be possible that if you are held hostage you might say what you are told to say?

          • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Yup. Being hit by a bombing run is pretty frightening.

            Point is Noa Argamani wasn’t there, obviously. She was told that and repeated it.

            • Count042@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Do you think a country starving a population it considers undesirable is genocide?

              It’s a simple yes or no question that has a simple answer if you actually believe in ‘Never Again’

              It will also be obvious what your answer is if you don’t respond.

                • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  People won’t listen to a person who is an obvious genocide denier.

                  Answer the question.

                  Do you believe that starving a population you don’t like is genocide?

                  • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    It still has nothing to do with what I wrote. You can taunt all you like, but I’ll address you when you respond to what I communicate rather than your beliefs.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          How many west bank civilians are held as hostages by the IDF? Is it in the tens of thousands? I think it is.

          Those are hostages.

          They are picked up without committing crimes, tried by a military tribunal, not a court system and held arbitrarily. Meanwhile, settlers are tried via courts of their settler peers.

          • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Which has nothing to do with what I wrote. Hostages tend to say what their captures tell them to say, wouldn’t you agree?

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      10 months ago

      The Guardian - Can we trust casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry?

      In the past, the US state department’s annual human rights report indirectly relied on the same ministry’s casualty figures in quoting UN statistics drawn from Palestinian data.

      Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said he saw no evidence that the numbers were being manipulated.

      “We have been monitoring human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip for three decades, including several rounds of hostilities. We’ve generally found the data that comes out of the ministry of health to be reliable,” he said.

      • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s interesting, as there is no way to verify that data. We know that Hamas adds its own losses to the numbers by their own admission. In addition, in that part of the world the dead are buried quickly so there is no way to verify. Still, the numbers are there and they should be taken with a grain of salt. But, it seems strange to swear by them.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          It seems strange for someone who refuses to answer the question:

          Do you think a government intentionally withholding food, potable water, and medicine from a population they consider undesirable is genocide.

          To people who aren’t trying to make a bad faith propaganda argument that unrestrained bombing in a area the size of Manhattan with a population of 2.2 million wouldn’t cause at a minimum 23,000 deaths it seems pretty obvious.

          I would believe Hamas if they said the sky was blue on a sunny day, too.

    • Count042@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Hamas is the government.

      This whole ‘Hamas is evil incarnate’ thing is propaganda itself. Everyone hears Hamas and thinks militant.

      Hamas is the government.

      The pencil pusher ministry of health dude? Hamas.

      The hospital administrator? Hamas

      The non doctors without borders doctors? Hamas.

      This is like calling every person that was a reservist in the IDF at the festival a combatant. It’s as much of a lie.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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        10 months ago

        You forgot quite a few roles!

        Those guys touting a dead body on a car? Hamas.

        Those guys starting a war they’re too weak to finish? Hamas.

      • Andy@slrpnk.net
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        10 months ago

        I think your point is well made, and I want to expand on it a bit, because it’s a tricky thing for people to make sense of.

        Hamas’ militant arm is highly independent. Their civil administration answers to and collaborates with the same leadership, but the civilian leadership has very little control over the fighters, which operate along the lines of a militia, but in concert with a civil administration. So when we say “Hamas”, we could be talking about the administrative workers or the military, and they’re pretty different groups.

        This makes describing them difficult. It’s somewhat inaccurate to characterize Hamas as merely a terrorist group, but also as a conventional government. They’re more of an unofficial ruling party that dominates a collapsed state, I think.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        10 months ago

        Just because they’re the government doesn’t mean everything they say is true. They’re going to lie and push propaganda just like any other government or organisation would.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          And yet, multiple different unbiased organizations have found the Hamas Ministry of Health numbers to be accurate.

          At this point, accusing them of being wrong ‘because Hamas’ is obviously bad faith propaganda.

          It also goes with what our lying eyes see. Unrestrained bombing in a location the size of Manhattan with 2.2 million inhabitants is going to kill a lot of people.

          Trying to argue otherwise is trying to argue against what is obviously true.

            • Count042@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              You keep responding with sentences that are literally not related to the questions asked.

              Almost like you don’t have answers that don’t sound horrifically racist.

              • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                You have yet to tell me when the last election was that made Hamas the government.

                • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  17 Years ago.

                  Do you believe a government starving an undesirable population is genocide?

            • Count042@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Also, just to go back to this point:

              This is an argument that holocaust deniers use to try and deny the holocaust. It’s even stupider for them, because the numbers didn’t actually go up, but no one ever said that holocaust deniers were smart.

              Do you want to be using the same argument holocaust deniers try and use?

      • AdeptusPrimaris@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Is this the one where israeli soldiers said Monday to Sunday were terrorists lol.

        What i don’t understand is how brazen they were. They just pointed to the calendar and said the days of the week were terrorist names without even censoring it and expected people to believe them. Like what level of hubris is this?

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          They continue to believe that people can’t translate.

          It’s amazing the difference in the speeches Bibi gives in English vs Hebrew

    • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I don’t reflexively distrust things attributed to Hamas but if Israel says anything nowadays I assume it’s a lie, and I don’t really trust defenses of the IDF’s behavior either. If there is no genocide in Gaza then they should send all the money back and there better be a thank-you card in the envelope.

      Don’t downvote me, give me my money back.

    • Andy@slrpnk.net
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      10 months ago

      It seems pretty reliable that the hostages are dead.

      The best case scenario is that Hamas is lying about the cause, and the IDF didn’t kill them. That still means that the military campaign is obviously coming at the cost of these people’s lives.

      Netanyahu can save the hostages or water war, but not both. That’s what a hostages situation is. He chose war, and the hostages are going to die if an outside force doesn’t intervene.