There seem to be two fundamentally incompatible interpretations of "Never again" [1]. I thought it was a no brainer for universal adoption, but TIL that for some it means more of the same.
>"The claims that the IDF abused a toddler are completely unfounded and serve Hamas propaganda." The spokesperson said.
>"On the contrary: The toddler was brought by a Hamas operative into a dangerous area to be used as a human shield.
Same old denials as usual, aren't they getting tired? These spokespersons don't know anything, their only job is to deny that anything happened. Which does work a lot if there are no witnesses or video. Same deal with the ambulances or journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh.
Deny. Deflect. Gaslight. Obfuscate. And if irrefutable evidence emerges, they deserved it. Weaponised narcissism by a country.
Well that was depressing. While I already held these opinions I had some hope that what I believed wasn't true, because I didn't like what that would say about the us. A lot of people are going to have their 'are we the baddies?' moment in the near future.
Are you claiming the Hamas does not use the entire civilian population under their rule as human shields? I hope not, because that reality is obvious. It's not merely individuals, either: it's policy.
(Before responding with rhetoric in the other direction, please note that I have not taken a position on Israel here.)
I think I should find some datsset about Israeli citizens and with a configurable radius determine how many civilians live within radius of an IDF or Mossad member. Then compare the numbers against Palestine.
Where would they go where there isn't civilians that isn't just target practice for Israel?
But let's flip it, Israel does it, like outting a military HQ in a mall.
It's just an excuse used by Israel to obliterate any building they want. Hamas shot some missile from there 10 minute's ago (why would they stay around?), so they send a bomb that takes out the block. Any civilians were just human shields anyway.
There are places in Gaza that are agricultural and suitable for rocket launches. It's not residential blocks from fence to fence.
Hamas is motivated to damage Israel's international reputation as much as possible. (Not that Netanyahu isn't helping with that). Deliberately launching from civilian areas then condemning Israeli retaliation is in alignment with Hamas rethoric and incentives.
If a Hamas rocket hit civilian areas nearby the Israeli military HQ and Hamas said it was the target, then it would be a militarily justified launch.
US managed to use ground forces against the Taliban without leveling the city.
So you do think Hamas stay around after launching a rocket? As it would take quite a few minutes for Israel to determine launch location, get a plane in the air and drop it on that location. Then they use block leveling bombs rather than a smaller precision bomb.
Do you think the lies and denial for the buried ambulances case or the killing of journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh were just one off cases?
It's sort of mind-blowing to see 1940s being repeated. Of course both times the victim group were viewed as sub-human/barbaric "other"...
Before someone yells "Godwin!", read the Wikipedia page about that law, Godwin himself said it's fine to mention Nazis when it's actually a comparable thing.
If you have 3 hours, there's a documentary you can watch, about a man who was part of a government-sanctioned killsquad to kill a lot of "communists" in 1960's Indonesia: The Act of Killing (available at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDeEObjR9Q ).
It's sort of understandable why the defenders of the genocide have to keep defending it. Stopping doing so today would mean admitting that until yesterday you've been defending utter inhumanity.
A review:
> Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a challenging documentary. It is not only difficult to watch, but it also probes into one of the most grotesque aspects of human nature: the capacity for self-delusion in the face of horrific atrocities. This isn’t a film about history, facts, or statistics; it’s about the memories of the men who killed, the stories they tell themselves, and how they continue to live with the horrors they’ve inflicted on others. The film’s power lies in its ability to take the viewer beyond a surface-level understanding of evil and into the psychological abyss of those who have committed atrocities—and seemingly moved on with their lives.
I think even if they agree at first, this can be traumatic anyway. If I remember correctly, I read about Vietnam veterans that killed civilians including children out of anger and then were horribly traumatized. So both things can be true.
Unless someone gives me a genuine reason as to why people are flagging it and the people who are flagging it can come state the reason publicly, just as how I am able to defend that this should be talked about and discussed publicly. I will continue to re-post this.
I just want to raise awareness and not let censorship win.
This post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post. I hope I can convey that and I hope that the streisand effect plays a part here and people become well aware of this post.
@dang, can you please prevent such posts from getting flagged? Unless there is a reason as to why these might get flagged from a hackernews moderation standpoint, it feel as if a blatant misuse of the abuse feature.
> genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith
Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link. Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
> post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post
If it’s not political, it’s irrelevant. Gawking at humanitarian disaster isn’t a popular pass-time outside narrow bands of the internet.
If you’re posting it to effect change, it is political. That’s fine. But I’m also sceptical why this would be expected to change the balance of views on the wars in the region. IDF and Hamas—the former, probably due to resources, at larger scale than the latter—being horrible to captives is well established.
This subthread was originally in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557437 before we merged the threads. (I mention this because otherwise the bit about archive links doesn't make sense.)
Dang, can we post topical Ukrainian news stories now? Because it wasn't allowed for so long and all the strong wording around it not being allowed most people have probably given up, but it would be good to know if the seemingly new policy applies to all conflicts now or just Gaza/Iran seeing as you are now un-flaging conflict related threads.
Ukraine has been my pet war for years now. I never got this sense. It just needed to have a novel technological or geostrategic angle to make the front page. "Russia is being evil" didn't usually meet that threshold because it's not news, just colouring in between the lines.
> Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link
This wasn't the case with the previous post that I mentioned yet it got flagged
? . Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
I am editing this for that, thank you for suggesting this!
Edit: I can't edit the hackernews post, I am a bit sorry then to hackernews community for just sharing the archive.org link but I had accidentally pasted just the archive link instead, a bit sorry about that, perhaps moderators (if they wish) can change to this particular link or if someone wants to read it: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl...
> I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong
Did a physician ever evaluate the child? And were the neighbours’ accounts that the child was unharmed when handed over by the father to the IDF independently verified?
Torturing a toddler wouldn’t be out of character for the IDF right now. But just because something is believable doesn’t mean it’s true. The fact that nobody else is reporting on this should be cause for pause.
There are details here including quotations from an unnamed doctor. If feel you can't trust the media credentials of the Independent, you could contact them for the identity of the unnamed doctor (who they are likely protecting based on the nature of the conflict) and ask them directly.
The doctor is named in the article now, perhaps as part of a later edit.
Since people are questioning the objectivity of the other domain, we'll use this link you found for the merged thread. I'll put the original link in the top text.
> Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas
All of this requires substantiation. Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
> how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny?
What does "accepted" mean in this context? I'm forming a personal opinion. Based on the preponderance of evidence–evidence you'll see, in this very thread, I was earlier sceptical of–it looks like serious people are putting their names to the opinion that this toddler was tortured.
> Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
That’s your opinion. I disagree. It’s not credible, because being a “professional” does not mean you are capable of ignoring your own biases, especially when they run deep as they do in this particular conflict. I’ll also point out that the medical opinion you’re referring to lacks any actual details. For example - if the injuries are consistent with a cigarette burn, what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones? Why is anything substantial conveniently omitted from all these stories, which instead all use the vague phrasing of “consistent with”? Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere?
That's fair. For what it's worth, we need more polls that have a ESH option for Israel and Palestine, because my patience with both sides in this has basically run empty.
> what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones?
I'm not a medical professional. Another medical professional would need to disagree with the findings for this to rise to meriting attention again.
> Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere?
They gave a name. Are you claiming they're a fake doctor?
Did you investigate it? If someone posted that Claude code created a new language that was typesafe and 50% more efficient for LLM coding and 20% faster for a human to review without any details about the language, would you not look it up?
No knock on you directly, just an observation about the attitude in our culture. If this is true a child was tortured, if it's false someone is lying and needs to be outed (with facts) so they are not trusted. Neither one is good but is no one looking into it?
Nope. Rejecting a source doesn’t mean I am obligated to investigate it. As I said, whether this is true or not doesn’t seem particularly politically relevant. It would be interesting to know. But purely for curiosity, not because I think it will have practical effects.
I generally don’t like something not related to tech in hacker news.
Humanitarian crisis is happening across the world. There were no posts here for Sudanese people. None for Nigerian Christians or Bangladeshi Hindus. Or is humanitarian crisis only happen when certain people are involved in them?
I have noticed this all across the wider web. Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them.
Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus. Sudan and Somalia have both been supported by the gulf countries. Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
> Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus
Hello, I am an Indian (Hindu) person, I have made my stance extremely clear when the recent attack on India was done by terrorists in which there was a religious angle as well where Islamist extremist terrorists asked to recite an Islamic prayer otherwise they were shot.
That event has traumatized me as well, I may not have submitted it but there has always been a conflict between Hindus and Muslims after the British divided us.
I also support the baloch movement, in the sense that, Pakistani corruption/militarial aggression has severely underfunded the region while its get its resources extracted from.
So, if anything, according to your comment, you should feel like I should be against all of muslims.
but that is not the case, there are good muslims and bad muslims, just as how there are good jews and bad jews and just as how there are good and bad hindus
Essentially, religion doesn't play a role in good or bad but religion certainly extremizes the elements
In this case it was religious extremist agression from Israel (Jewish faith) to Islam/Palestine.
In our case it was religious extremist aggression from Islamist Extremist terrorist to India in pahalgam attack which had shook the nation to its core.
My point is, I can't/won't see Innocent people/kids dying, and yes, this goes beyond religion, for the most part.
I have also been aware of the sudanese people, its a real tragedy where UAE/Dubai are funding opposite sides and rape/murder/slaughtering of Innocent people are also happening, its really scary as well.
> Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
I kind of do, It's just that Innocent Muslims are dying in higher proportions simply because they are in war-torn regions caused by Israel/US in this case of Iran/Palestine.
I genuinely want all wars to go over and have either an element of co-existence or mutual agreement for the most part.
> Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them.
There are vast numbers of posts about Ukraine and its attack by Russia. Daily I see many comments expressing human feelings for people across the spectrum, muslim, non muslim, male, female, et al.
I have seen posts about Palestine here much more than the one you got for the Nigerian Christians. The one you got is from 2025 even when the issue is still ongoing.
Maybe your impressions are muddied?
That error on your part aside, submission _topics_ here on HN are biased toward US / Western / English speaking tech interests and geographies ...
Hence the low low number of Chinese posts about tech in rural China, etc.
The topics that are posted, however (eg: Gaza, Ukraine in the political sphere) attract a breadth of viewpoints (both pro Israel and pro Palestine in the Gaza example).
Your post above essentially laments that everything is pro Muslim on HN.
The site moderators have said that they do not see @ mentions. If you want to reach them, use the email address on the contact page linked at the bottom of the page.
Re-submitting links to try to force attention to it is also not the correct approach. If you believe a story has been wrongly flagged, directly email the HN administrators with a link to the original submission.
It just proves again how White people think suffering is only for "WHITE PEOPLE", for other barbarian people, it doesn't matter.
Hackernews is dominated by white people and Indians, it's not surprising they support rape and all other crimes of Israel. If it was not the case, then this should have been surprising.
I am an Indian (Hindu), Ironically, People have accused me of only caring about only Muslim feelings (:
I don't stand with rape and all other crimes of Israel because I don't judge these actions by the religion of the victims and yes, even if that might mean that, that religion might have done the same to us (Pahalgam attack which shook the nation)
I think my point is, just because muslim extremism has impacted our lives doesn't mean that Innocent muslims, especially kids should be tortured. I am more than happy if everyone removes extremist element, period.
I have said this consistently here, but this goes beyond any religion. People are treating it as a muslim kid being impacted but I am seeing it as my kid being impacted.
This war started recently, the people living their didn't know this could happen to them
We dont know the future, what if something like this might happen to one of us where the enemy might be someone else, maybe even Extremist Islam
I have raised my voice against opresssion, I don't discriminate against who I speak or not as I try to speak against the wrong, as long as someone innocent is getting opressed, My heart goes out to them and religion shouldn't have to do too much with it.
My idea maybe is that too, that, if we show support of normal people even if religious differences collide, we can show that we are beyond religion and actually help bring down Extremism/will help them bring internal resistance too if something bad is done from their extremist side.
At some point, I believe in Humanity and sharing that Humanity, So its quite shocking to say, but, its best that we start treating muslim people as humans too.
Atleast that's what my religion has taught me personally, I really don't discriminate based on religion for the most part but I do understand why people might do that but I feel like all it does is seperate us even further and I wouldn't be able to have a coherent moral framework if I become hypocritical in who I criticize/don't and become partial to it.
What islamo supremacists? What are you talking about? I just see constant news stories of genocidal violence against children in Gaza and settlers shooting unarmed teenagers or old women in the West Bank.
To ensure there is no bias going on lets talk in numbers.
* How many children have died in Gaza versus Israel in the last two years?
* How many Israelis have died in the West Bank as a result of violence in the last two years as compared to Palestinians in the West Bank?
From the outside looking in everything looks like a bunch of racists inventing their own narrative, without evidence, to justify killing children and taking land. The US, where I am from, went through this too a century ago on a much smaller scale in what the US calls lynchings and again a century before that with forced relocations.
Ever heard of the Muslim Brotherhood (Erdogan is one of them for example), Hamas, IRGC, ISIS??
Go watch what these Muslim immigrants shout in the streets of Germany saying it's their land now and they will enact sharia law and create a new caliphate, then come back and talk about islamo supremacists.
The "normal" Muslims are so against "colonization" but are ok, and see no issue, that Arabs conquered all the Middle East and North Africa killing millions and forcing conversion.
> How many children have died in Gaza versus Israel in the last two years?
We don't actually know how many died and how many were innocent children as the count is run by Hamas and they count all the children soldiers as non combatants.
> How many Israelis have died in the West Bank as a result of violence in the last two years as compared to Palestinians in the West Bank?
Why only count in Judea and samaria? 100 Israelis were killed and hundreds were injured just in Judea and samaria, it goes up to 250 in Israel proper. The only reason this number isn't higher is the tight security control that was even more strengthened after 7/10.
As always the PA publishes causality numbers that include terrorists that were eliminated or even died in prison.
Number don't tell the whole story, they lack context.
The article has several sources including Sky News and the Red Cross, the IDF confirmed the arrest and the father is still missing even though nothing happened. Protesting actions like these is not anti-semitism.
The article is essentially just the Sky News video in print. The parts that aren't are like "we couldn't verify this", like this quote:
"I observed multiple deep, uniform lesions on his lower body, which are clinically consistent with deliberate cigarette burns used as a form of physical torture," she told Sky News. The Independent could not verify the report.
It does not use the Red Cross as a source.
Did you read the article? The kid's father carried him into the yellow zone and the IDF had to shoot the ground to get him to stop approaching. Did you watch the video? The kid's injuries are consistent with shrapnel from that, including "a wound caused by a sharp object", described in more detail later on by his mother as "entry and exit wounds... [i]t seems like they used a metal tool to pierce him." Weird, that's exactly what shrapnel is....
> Protesting actions like these is not anti-semitism
Parroting garbage like this, being a useful idiot for anti-semites, is anti-semitic. People walking on to this issue in the last year or so thinking they have moral clarity on it while knowing literally nothing about the history or all the groups involved are only making a bad situation worse.
Someone had submitted the same article and I was reading that article and I was in complete and utter shock and then I reloaded the hackernews page and I saw the post flagged.
I really don't know/wish to know what your ideology is, but why this struck my mind was the imagination that this could've been my kid or this can be your kid, to whoever is reading this within wars and the brutality of this.
I just can't out of good faith, let that discussion be ended, it is worth talking and worth submitting again. I have also archived the web page on archive.org
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind"
I just can't help but think, have we already lost mankind/(humanity?) in cases like these.
I wish for everyone to stay safe and hopefully, this time around, this post doesn't get flagged.
Ignoring the possibilities bots and engagement for disingenuous purposes, there are many people who benefit from the status quo, still other horrible people who support it, and still others who patronizingly declare certain topics must be censored for some fanciful, tone-deaf ideals that fail to meet the moment. All will be remembered how they failed to stop suffering, destruction, and calamity or possibly cheered it on. There is no right or left, only right and wrong and ultra-rich vs. everyone.
Well, TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel and in favor of Islamism. It’s a propaganda outlet for Erdogan. Other outlets repeating it - Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, etc - are all propaganda outlets and extremely biased on the topic of Israel and Gaza.
And Honest Reporting’s description of this situation seems accurate. What evidence is there really? It seems like one person’s claim is being laundered through many pro Palestine news outlets. That’s basically what this Honest Reporting article says, and that part seems irrefutable.
> TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel
Sure. I called that out, too [1]. Two bad sources doesn't a good source make [2].
> in favor of Islamism
Islamism in its formal sense [3] falls into the same category as Christian nationalism in Europe and America, Hindutva in India and the current governing ideology of Israel's government. I am not personally in favor of marrying religion and politics. But I'm not going to discard someone's opinion about something just because they believe that.
I agree with the principle. However, the Honest Reporting article isn’t actually making any particular claim and isn’t a “source” in the same way, right? Their article is just pointing out the flaws in the widely-circulated claims from pro-Palestine news media and reasons to be skeptical of those claims.
As for your comparison of Islamism to others - I feel it goes too far in framing these various movements as the same, as these all are different in their goals and the level of intolerance against other beliefs. One key difference - Islamism (the political movement) is much more prevalent among Muslims than Christian nationalism is among Christians. And it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely. Sam Harris has spoken about this in length if you want to hear it from others. Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”. The recent reframing of “Hinduness” into a pejorative is just a vague racist-tinged political attack against a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers. The intersection of many eastern religions with politics, to whatever extent they exist, are far less of a threat to free societies than the supremacist versions of Christianity and Islam.
> it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely
Within their relevant geographies, so does, it seems, the other movements.
I agree that Islamism is currently more in power and more violent, extreme and ridiculous than those others. But again, I’m not discarding anything they say as a result of it.
> Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”
As it’s practiced it has involved excusing and in many cases encouraging murderous riots. (Islamism parsed literally also sounds innocuous.)
> a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers
This is revanchism. All extremists do it. Islamists and Christian nationalists want a return of their golden ages.
The list keeps growing.
- Flour massacre
- World Central Kitchen drone strikes
- Gaza aid distribution massacres
- Rafah paramedics massacre
- Targeting of journalists
- Forced starvation
- Crop destruction
Israel will deny all of those. But the world have seen it with their own eyes.
Let's not forget all the raping of prisoners
And the killing of Hind Rajab, her family, and the paramedics that went to help her.
There seem to be two fundamentally incompatible interpretations of "Never again" [1]. I thought it was a no brainer for universal adoption, but TIL that for some it means more of the same.
1: Never again - Wikipedia https://share.google/LGCVvfaJFeJOizox9
"Israeli politician Yitzik Kroizer endorses targeting children": https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1s42uo8/isr...
"IDF assault and arrest CNN journalists covering the settlements": https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1s5zzey/isr...
"Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 129 press killings in 2025" - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/25/record-number-...
>"The claims that the IDF abused a toddler are completely unfounded and serve Hamas propaganda." The spokesperson said.
>"On the contrary: The toddler was brought by a Hamas operative into a dangerous area to be used as a human shield.
Same old denials as usual, aren't they getting tired? These spokespersons don't know anything, their only job is to deny that anything happened. Which does work a lot if there are no witnesses or video. Same deal with the ambulances or journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh.
Deny. Deflect. Gaslight. Obfuscate. And if irrefutable evidence emerges, they deserved it. Weaponised narcissism by a country.
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO).
Apropos: 'Iran and Gaza Are ONLY THE BEGINNING' (Chris Hedges at Princeton) March 2026
https://youtu.be/TV9dkU2E8j0
Well that was depressing. While I already held these opinions I had some hope that what I believed wasn't true, because I didn't like what that would say about the us. A lot of people are going to have their 'are we the baddies?' moment in the near future.
Are you claiming the Hamas does not use the entire civilian population under their rule as human shields? I hope not, because that reality is obvious. It's not merely individuals, either: it's policy.
(Before responding with rhetoric in the other direction, please note that I have not taken a position on Israel here.)
I think I should find some datsset about Israeli citizens and with a configurable radius determine how many civilians live within radius of an IDF or Mossad member. Then compare the numbers against Palestine.
Where would they go where there isn't civilians that isn't just target practice for Israel?
But let's flip it, Israel does it, like outting a military HQ in a mall.
It's just an excuse used by Israel to obliterate any building they want. Hamas shot some missile from there 10 minute's ago (why would they stay around?), so they send a bomb that takes out the block. Any civilians were just human shields anyway.
There are places in Gaza that are agricultural and suitable for rocket launches. It's not residential blocks from fence to fence.
Hamas is motivated to damage Israel's international reputation as much as possible. (Not that Netanyahu isn't helping with that). Deliberately launching from civilian areas then condemning Israeli retaliation is in alignment with Hamas rethoric and incentives.
If a Hamas rocket hit civilian areas nearby the Israeli military HQ and Hamas said it was the target, then it would be a militarily justified launch.
So target practice then?
US managed to use ground forces against the Taliban without leveling the city.
So you do think Hamas stay around after launching a rocket? As it would take quite a few minutes for Israel to determine launch location, get a plane in the air and drop it on that location. Then they use block leveling bombs rather than a smaller precision bomb.
Do you think the lies and denial for the buried ambulances case or the killing of journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh were just one off cases?
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Nothing shocks anymore
With all this brutality and dehumanisation, no wonder the IDF are seeing the highest rates of PTSD and suicide.
It's sort of mind-blowing to see 1940s being repeated. Of course both times the victim group were viewed as sub-human/barbaric "other"... Before someone yells "Godwin!", read the Wikipedia page about that law, Godwin himself said it's fine to mention Nazis when it's actually a comparable thing.
If you have 3 hours, there's a documentary you can watch, about a man who was part of a government-sanctioned killsquad to kill a lot of "communists" in 1960's Indonesia: The Act of Killing (available at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDeEObjR9Q ).
It's sort of understandable why the defenders of the genocide have to keep defending it. Stopping doing so today would mean admitting that until yesterday you've been defending utter inhumanity.
A review:
> Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a challenging documentary. It is not only difficult to watch, but it also probes into one of the most grotesque aspects of human nature: the capacity for self-delusion in the face of horrific atrocities. This isn’t a film about history, facts, or statistics; it’s about the memories of the men who killed, the stories they tell themselves, and how they continue to live with the horrors they’ve inflicted on others. The film’s power lies in its ability to take the viewer beyond a surface-level understanding of evil and into the psychological abyss of those who have committed atrocities—and seemingly moved on with their lives.
From: https://docthisway.com/2024/09/23/the-act-of-killing-review/
Genuine question. Are you indicating the IDF are not supporters or don’t believe in what they are doing? Their actions are forced because of duty?
I guess if a massacre is a massacre then it would have a high chance of affecting those involved regardless of belief.
I think even if they agree at first, this can be traumatic anyway. If I remember correctly, I read about Vietnam veterans that killed civilians including children out of anger and then were horribly traumatized. So both things can be true.
What are you comparing to? The Irish military?
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This has been flagged twice by people of Hackernews.
I genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith but I will still try to do my best.
Previous discussion (at edit 27 points): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47553964
Unless someone gives me a genuine reason as to why people are flagging it and the people who are flagging it can come state the reason publicly, just as how I am able to defend that this should be talked about and discussed publicly. I will continue to re-post this.
I just want to raise awareness and not let censorship win.
This post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post. I hope I can convey that and I hope that the streisand effect plays a part here and people become well aware of this post.
@dang, can you please prevent such posts from getting flagged? Unless there is a reason as to why these might get flagged from a hackernews moderation standpoint, it feel as if a blatant misuse of the abuse feature.
Have a nice day.
> genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith
Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link. Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
> post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post
If it’s not political, it’s irrelevant. Gawking at humanitarian disaster isn’t a popular pass-time outside narrow bands of the internet.
If you’re posting it to effect change, it is political. That’s fine. But I’m also sceptical why this would be expected to change the balance of views on the wars in the region. IDF and Hamas—the former, probably due to resources, at larger scale than the latter—being horrible to captives is well established.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Eye
This subthread was originally in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557437 before we merged the threads. (I mention this because otherwise the bit about archive links doesn't make sense.)
Dang, can we post topical Ukrainian news stories now? Because it wasn't allowed for so long and all the strong wording around it not being allowed most people have probably given up, but it would be good to know if the seemingly new policy applies to all conflicts now or just Gaza/Iran seeing as you are now un-flaging conflict related threads.
> it wasn't allowed for so long
Ukraine has been my pet war for years now. I never got this sense. It just needed to have a novel technological or geostrategic angle to make the front page. "Russia is being evil" didn't usually meet that threshold because it's not news, just colouring in between the lines.
> Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link
This wasn't the case with the previous post that I mentioned yet it got flagged
? . Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
When the post had gotten flagged/ I had thought of giving another link like msn (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/gaza-toddler-released-f...) and this is a bit more in-depth (https://www.msn.com/en-us/war-and-conflicts/military/palesti...)
But I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong
Also oops, yea I had just the link of archive.org and not the proper link (https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl...)
I am editing this for that, thank you for suggesting this!
Edit: I can't edit the hackernews post, I am a bit sorry then to hackernews community for just sharing the archive.org link but I had accidentally pasted just the archive link instead, a bit sorry about that, perhaps moderators (if they wish) can change to this particular link or if someone wants to read it: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl...
> I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong
Did a physician ever evaluate the child? And were the neighbours’ accounts that the child was unharmed when handed over by the father to the IDF independently verified?
Torturing a toddler wouldn’t be out of character for the IDF right now. But just because something is believable doesn’t mean it’s true. The fact that nobody else is reporting on this should be cause for pause.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-to...
There are details here including quotations from an unnamed doctor. If feel you can't trust the media credentials of the Independent, you could contact them for the identity of the unnamed doctor (who they are likely protecting based on the nature of the conflict) and ask them directly.
The doctor is named in the article now, perhaps as part of a later edit.
Since people are questioning the objectivity of the other domain, we'll use this link you found for the merged thread. I'll put the original link in the top text.
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> Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas
All of this requires substantiation. Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
> how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny?
What does "accepted" mean in this context? I'm forming a personal opinion. Based on the preponderance of evidence–evidence you'll see, in this very thread, I was earlier sceptical of–it looks like serious people are putting their names to the opinion that this toddler was tortured.
> Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
That’s your opinion. I disagree. It’s not credible, because being a “professional” does not mean you are capable of ignoring your own biases, especially when they run deep as they do in this particular conflict. I’ll also point out that the medical opinion you’re referring to lacks any actual details. For example - if the injuries are consistent with a cigarette burn, what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones? Why is anything substantial conveniently omitted from all these stories, which instead all use the vague phrasing of “consistent with”? Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere?
> That’s your opinion. I disagree
That's fair. For what it's worth, we need more polls that have a ESH option for Israel and Palestine, because my patience with both sides in this has basically run empty.
> what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones?
I'm not a medical professional. Another medical professional would need to disagree with the findings for this to rise to meriting attention again.
> Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere?
They gave a name. Are you claiming they're a fake doctor?
And we should only trust Israel that never lies?
Did you investigate it? If someone posted that Claude code created a new language that was typesafe and 50% more efficient for LLM coding and 20% faster for a human to review without any details about the language, would you not look it up?
No knock on you directly, just an observation about the attitude in our culture. If this is true a child was tortured, if it's false someone is lying and needs to be outed (with facts) so they are not trusted. Neither one is good but is no one looking into it?
> Did you investigate it?
Nope. Rejecting a source doesn’t mean I am obligated to investigate it. As I said, whether this is true or not doesn’t seem particularly politically relevant. It would be interesting to know. But purely for curiosity, not because I think it will have practical effects.
I generally don’t like something not related to tech in hacker news. Humanitarian crisis is happening across the world. There were no posts here for Sudanese people. None for Nigerian Christians or Bangladeshi Hindus. Or is humanitarian crisis only happen when certain people are involved in them? I have noticed this all across the wider web. Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them. Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus. Sudan and Somalia have both been supported by the gulf countries. Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
> Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus
Hello, I am an Indian (Hindu) person, I have made my stance extremely clear when the recent attack on India was done by terrorists in which there was a religious angle as well where Islamist extremist terrorists asked to recite an Islamic prayer otherwise they were shot.
That event has traumatized me as well, I may not have submitted it but there has always been a conflict between Hindus and Muslims after the British divided us.
I also support the baloch movement, in the sense that, Pakistani corruption/militarial aggression has severely underfunded the region while its get its resources extracted from.
So, if anything, according to your comment, you should feel like I should be against all of muslims.
but that is not the case, there are good muslims and bad muslims, just as how there are good jews and bad jews and just as how there are good and bad hindus
Essentially, religion doesn't play a role in good or bad but religion certainly extremizes the elements
In this case it was religious extremist agression from Israel (Jewish faith) to Islam/Palestine.
In our case it was religious extremist aggression from Islamist Extremist terrorist to India in pahalgam attack which had shook the nation to its core.
My point is, I can't/won't see Innocent people/kids dying, and yes, this goes beyond religion, for the most part.
I have also been aware of the sudanese people, its a real tragedy where UAE/Dubai are funding opposite sides and rape/murder/slaughtering of Innocent people are also happening, its really scary as well.
> Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
I kind of do, It's just that Innocent Muslims are dying in higher proportions simply because they are in war-torn regions caused by Israel/US in this case of Iran/Palestine.
I genuinely want all wars to go over and have either an element of co-existence or mutual agreement for the most part.
> There were no posts here for Sudanese people.
You've made two submissions, neither were about Sudan.
> None for Nigerian Christians
Here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45789043
> Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them.
There are vast numbers of posts about Ukraine and its attack by Russia. Daily I see many comments expressing human feelings for people across the spectrum, muslim, non muslim, male, female, et al.
Perhaps your impressions are a little blinkered.
I have seen posts about Palestine here much more than the one you got for the Nigerian Christians. The one you got is from 2025 even when the issue is still ongoing. Maybe your impressions are muddied?
Your impression was there were _none_.
That error on your part aside, submission _topics_ here on HN are biased toward US / Western / English speaking tech interests and geographies ...
Hence the low low number of Chinese posts about tech in rural China, etc.
The topics that are posted, however (eg: Gaza, Ukraine in the political sphere) attract a breadth of viewpoints (both pro Israel and pro Palestine in the Gaza example).
Your post above essentially laments that everything is pro Muslim on HN.
You are wrong.
The site moderators have said that they do not see @ mentions. If you want to reach them, use the email address on the contact page linked at the bottom of the page.
Re-submitting links to try to force attention to it is also not the correct approach. If you believe a story has been wrongly flagged, directly email the HN administrators with a link to the original submission.
It just proves again how White people think suffering is only for "WHITE PEOPLE", for other barbarian people, it doesn't matter.
Hackernews is dominated by white people and Indians, it's not surprising they support rape and all other crimes of Israel. If it was not the case, then this should have been surprising.
I am an Indian (Hindu), Ironically, People have accused me of only caring about only Muslim feelings (:
I don't stand with rape and all other crimes of Israel because I don't judge these actions by the religion of the victims and yes, even if that might mean that, that religion might have done the same to us (Pahalgam attack which shook the nation)
I think my point is, just because muslim extremism has impacted our lives doesn't mean that Innocent muslims, especially kids should be tortured. I am more than happy if everyone removes extremist element, period.
I have said this consistently here, but this goes beyond any religion. People are treating it as a muslim kid being impacted but I am seeing it as my kid being impacted.
This war started recently, the people living their didn't know this could happen to them
We dont know the future, what if something like this might happen to one of us where the enemy might be someone else, maybe even Extremist Islam
I have raised my voice against opresssion, I don't discriminate against who I speak or not as I try to speak against the wrong, as long as someone innocent is getting opressed, My heart goes out to them and religion shouldn't have to do too much with it.
My idea maybe is that too, that, if we show support of normal people even if religious differences collide, we can show that we are beyond religion and actually help bring down Extremism/will help them bring internal resistance too if something bad is done from their extremist side.
At some point, I believe in Humanity and sharing that Humanity, So its quite shocking to say, but, its best that we start treating muslim people as humans too.
Atleast that's what my religion has taught me personally, I really don't discriminate based on religion for the most part but I do understand why people might do that but I feel like all it does is seperate us even further and I wouldn't be able to have a coherent moral framework if I become hypocritical in who I criticize/don't and become partial to it.
This is not the right forum for this discussion. Flagging is exactly the correct response.
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The HN moderators have repeatedly said that they have not seen evidence of coordinated downvoting, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818
Test it out then. Say something critical about Israel. See the downvote my original reply has.
I sort of agree in the sense that this particular thing has been FLAGGED on 3 different occasions...
and your original comment has been flagged as well, so I am not even sure what it might've said in the first place.
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What islamo supremacists? What are you talking about? I just see constant news stories of genocidal violence against children in Gaza and settlers shooting unarmed teenagers or old women in the West Bank.
To ensure there is no bias going on lets talk in numbers.
* How many children have died in Gaza versus Israel in the last two years?
* How many Israelis have died in the West Bank as a result of violence in the last two years as compared to Palestinians in the West Bank?
From the outside looking in everything looks like a bunch of racists inventing their own narrative, without evidence, to justify killing children and taking land. The US, where I am from, went through this too a century ago on a much smaller scale in what the US calls lynchings and again a century before that with forced relocations.
> What islamo supremacists?
Ever heard of the Muslim Brotherhood (Erdogan is one of them for example), Hamas, IRGC, ISIS??
Go watch what these Muslim immigrants shout in the streets of Germany saying it's their land now and they will enact sharia law and create a new caliphate, then come back and talk about islamo supremacists.
The "normal" Muslims are so against "colonization" but are ok, and see no issue, that Arabs conquered all the Middle East and North Africa killing millions and forcing conversion.
> How many children have died in Gaza versus Israel in the last two years?
We don't actually know how many died and how many were innocent children as the count is run by Hamas and they count all the children soldiers as non combatants.
> How many Israelis have died in the West Bank as a result of violence in the last two years as compared to Palestinians in the West Bank?
Why only count in Judea and samaria? 100 Israelis were killed and hundreds were injured just in Judea and samaria, it goes up to 250 in Israel proper. The only reason this number isn't higher is the tight security control that was even more strengthened after 7/10.
As always the PA publishes causality numbers that include terrorists that were eliminated or even died in prison.
Number don't tell the whole story, they lack context.
Numbers might lack context, but they are evidence. You should always start with evidence. You then validate the numbers to arrive at context.
Everything else is just lies and bullshit.
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I fail to see how this can be anti semitic propaganda, the child is a Semite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Shaddap
The article has several sources including Sky News and the Red Cross, the IDF confirmed the arrest and the father is still missing even though nothing happened. Protesting actions like these is not anti-semitism.
The article is essentially just the Sky News video in print. The parts that aren't are like "we couldn't verify this", like this quote:
"I observed multiple deep, uniform lesions on his lower body, which are clinically consistent with deliberate cigarette burns used as a form of physical torture," she told Sky News. The Independent could not verify the report.
It does not use the Red Cross as a source.
Did you read the article? The kid's father carried him into the yellow zone and the IDF had to shoot the ground to get him to stop approaching. Did you watch the video? The kid's injuries are consistent with shrapnel from that, including "a wound caused by a sharp object", described in more detail later on by his mother as "entry and exit wounds... [i]t seems like they used a metal tool to pierce him." Weird, that's exactly what shrapnel is....
> Protesting actions like these is not anti-semitism
Parroting garbage like this, being a useful idiot for anti-semites, is anti-semitic. People walking on to this issue in the last year or so thinking they have moral clarity on it while knowing literally nothing about the history or all the groups involved are only making a bad situation worse.
Can't be because it is a semitic child.
Someone had submitted the same article and I was reading that article and I was in complete and utter shock and then I reloaded the hackernews page and I saw the post flagged.
I really don't know/wish to know what your ideology is, but why this struck my mind was the imagination that this could've been my kid or this can be your kid, to whoever is reading this within wars and the brutality of this.
I just can't out of good faith, let that discussion be ended, it is worth talking and worth submitting again. I have also archived the web page on archive.org
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind"
I just can't help but think, have we already lost mankind/(humanity?) in cases like these.
I wish for everyone to stay safe and hopefully, this time around, this post doesn't get flagged.
Have a nice day.
Ignoring the possibilities bots and engagement for disingenuous purposes, there are many people who benefit from the status quo, still other horrible people who support it, and still others who patronizingly declare certain topics must be censored for some fanciful, tone-deaf ideals that fail to meet the moment. All will be remembered how they failed to stop suffering, destruction, and calamity or possibly cheered it on. There is no right or left, only right and wrong and ultra-rich vs. everyone.
Well said, I agree with you. Some things go beyond politics and this is one of them and you're either on the right side of the history or wrong.
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“HonestReporting or Honest Reporting is an Israeli media advocacy group” [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HonestReporting
Well, TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel and in favor of Islamism. It’s a propaganda outlet for Erdogan. Other outlets repeating it - Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, etc - are all propaganda outlets and extremely biased on the topic of Israel and Gaza.
And Honest Reporting’s description of this situation seems accurate. What evidence is there really? It seems like one person’s claim is being laundered through many pro Palestine news outlets. That’s basically what this Honest Reporting article says, and that part seems irrefutable.
> TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel
Sure. I called that out, too [1]. Two bad sources doesn't a good source make [2].
> in favor of Islamism
Islamism in its formal sense [3] falls into the same category as Christian nationalism in Europe and America, Hindutva in India and the current governing ideology of Israel's government. I am not personally in favor of marrying religion and politics. But I'm not going to discard someone's opinion about something just because they believe that.
> What evidence is there really?
The Independent quotes a named doctor.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557483
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism#Criticism
> Two bad sources doesn't a good source make
I agree with the principle. However, the Honest Reporting article isn’t actually making any particular claim and isn’t a “source” in the same way, right? Their article is just pointing out the flaws in the widely-circulated claims from pro-Palestine news media and reasons to be skeptical of those claims.
As for your comparison of Islamism to others - I feel it goes too far in framing these various movements as the same, as these all are different in their goals and the level of intolerance against other beliefs. One key difference - Islamism (the political movement) is much more prevalent among Muslims than Christian nationalism is among Christians. And it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely. Sam Harris has spoken about this in length if you want to hear it from others. Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”. The recent reframing of “Hinduness” into a pejorative is just a vague racist-tinged political attack against a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers. The intersection of many eastern religions with politics, to whatever extent they exist, are far less of a threat to free societies than the supremacist versions of Christianity and Islam.
> it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely
Within their relevant geographies, so does, it seems, the other movements.
I agree that Islamism is currently more in power and more violent, extreme and ridiculous than those others. But again, I’m not discarding anything they say as a result of it.
> Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”
As it’s practiced it has involved excusing and in many cases encouraging murderous riots. (Islamism parsed literally also sounds innocuous.)
> a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers
This is revanchism. All extremists do it. Islamists and Christian nationalists want a return of their golden ages.
Ok, I've added that link to the toptext as well.
Add this https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-denies-repo... while you are at it
Ok that seems like a better source than the GP link so I've replaced it above. Thanks.
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It’s pretty safe at this point to directly associate any support for Israel as a form of violent racism.