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Archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20240303014749/https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/gaza-journalists-targeted-spyware/ http://web.archive.org/web/20240303014749

by Qem 3y ago

Archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20240303014749/https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/gaza-journalists-targeted-spyware/ http://web.archive.org/web/20240303014749/https://pressgazet... > Around 10% of Gaza's journalists have been killed versus 2.5% of healthcare workers. These figures are insane! The number of journalists killed crossed the threshold where Gaza journalists can be declared officially decimated, according to the historical definition of the term as 1/10 killed[1]. I noticed if we plot the journalist killings against general population killings in Gaza, the graph deviates from an approximately straight line that might be expected if journalists were merely being killed as a result of "collateral damage" amidst indiscriminated bombings, and I got nerd sniped[2] by the question: Do data give any clues Israel purposefully targets journalists, beyond the large values[3]? After spending some days grappling with it, I think the shape of data supports it, as displayed here: Graph: https://imgur.com/a/SWNSYOn https://imgur.com/a/SWNSYOn Journalist killing data: https://pastebin.com/S1ykpSMR https://pastebin.com/S1ykpSMR (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...) General population killing data: https://pastebin.com/EGq6cgH8 https://pastebin.com/EGq6cgH8 (from https://www.ochaopt.org/ https://www.ochaopt.org/) Discussion: Looking at the plot of the ratio of journalists killed by israeli forces over all killed, it appears to be slightly decreasing over time instead of keeping constant. My working hypothesis is, as journalists are dispoportionally targeted, their numbers get comparatively depleted over time, making slightly harder to kill more journalists. This can be modelled as an urn problem[4], when each ball colour has different odds of being drawn, in addition to being present in different numbers. But instead of black/white balls, we have people, and instead of being drawn out from an urn, they are drawn out of life, by being shot at[5], shelled, bombed, run over by bulldozers[6], et cetera. The urn problem with different weights on each color can be modeled by a noncentral hypergeometric distribution[7], either Wallenius' noncentral hypergeometric distribution[8], for the case where balls are sampled one by one in such a way that there is competition between the balls, or Fisher's noncentral hypergeometric distribution[9], for the case where the balls are sampled simultaneously or independently of each other. There's some disagreement on published numbers of killed journalists. For example, the Comitee to Protect Journalists counts around 90 jornalists killed[10]. The Euro-Med Monitor over 130[11]. I'm not sure about the causes of this disagreement, but I suspect is due to who is counted as journalist, only people that actualy write reports and give face and voice to established news sources, or also their supporting crews (camera men, fixers, drivers...) and freelancers. In doubt I used data extracted from a table given by wikipedia[12], that is closer to the more conservative estimate given by CPJ and lists individual names and sources. The pattern of journalists killed each day in the dataset (1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1) indicates they're taken down mostly one at a time, and even large individual massacres, like the recent flour bag massacre[13], kills less than 1/10000 of the total population from Gaza Strip each, so Wallenius' distribution should approximate it better. In fact, it appears it is more likely for journalists to be killed together with their families at home than together with other journalists doing fieldwork, as we can infer by reading the entries in the description field of the table. For the figures on the whole strip, I collected daily reports published in the site of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and scraped some barcharts[14]. 1/3 (continues)

Qem 3y ago
SciPy stats includes a Wallenius’ discrete random variable[15], that takes four parameters on its creation: M is the total number of subjects, n is the number of Type I subjects (journalists), and odds is the odds ratio: the odds of killing a journalist rather than a non-journalist when there is only one individual of each. The random variate represents the number of journalists that end dead if Israeli forces kills pre-determined x people from Gaza Strip one by one. The total population in the strip (M) is approximately known. x is known from OCHA daily stats. For the effective population of journalists (n) and odds ratio (odds) we can use Wallenius' to test several value pairs and check which best fit the data. From the article we can estimate the membership of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate at 1200. That is a upper bound on the effective number of journalists, taking into account the likely inclusion of supporting staff and the many professionals forced to flee the Strip[16], sometimes after receiving explicit threats[17]. About the odds ratio, the current body count is about 1.3% of the total population in the Strip. Meanwhile, US estimates about 20%-30% of the 30000 strong Hamas forces were killed[18]. This number is probably exaggerated, as it implies every dead male in the age bracket around 13-60 is being counted as a Hamas militant, but for the sake of iron-manning the argument, let's assume those figures are true. That means the average Hamas militant is about 20:1 to 30:1 times more likely to be killed than a random person. So we should expect jurnalists' odds ratio to sit between somewhere between random citizen and Hamas militant, taking into account occupational hazards but not deliberate targeting. In doubt I took 100:1 as an upper bound, and wrote a model (source bellow). The best fit I got over the search grid had an effective journalist population of 155 and odds ratio of 75:1. As the data is noisy, I took the top 20 matches to have some idea of error intervals, and got ranges of 135 - 205 effective population and 51 - 96 odds ratio. The odds ratio is larger than our estimate for Hamas militants, indicating that in fact Israeli forces are busier targeting journalists than Hamas militants. Even if we assume the total kill counts are underestimates, given all people missing under the rubble and lack of proper rescue work due to targeting of rescue crews, say, adding a xs = [2*x for x in xs] line after the first definition of xs, to double the total counts, we still get killing odds for journalists equal or greater than for militants. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) [2]. https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ [3]. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/global-media-outlets-sign-letter-urging-protection-journalists-gaza-2024-03-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/global-media-outle... [4]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urn_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urn_problem [5]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 [6]. https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202/Israeli-tanks-have-deliberately-run-over-dozens-of-Palestinian-civilians-alive https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202/Israeli-tanks-hav... [7]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncentral_hypergeometric_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncentral_hypergeometric_dist... [8]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenius%27_noncentral_hypergeometric_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenius%27_noncentral_hyperg... [9]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_noncentral_hypergeometric_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_noncentral_hypergeo... [10]. https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/ https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-... [11]. https://twitter.com/EuroMedHR/status/1761121386347516095 https://twitter.com/EuroMedHR/status/1761121386347516095 [12]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... [13]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rashid_humanitarian_aid_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rashid_humanitarian_aid_inc... [14]. https://www.ochaopt.org/ https://www.ochaopt.org/ [15]. https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.stats.nchypergeom_wallenius.html https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.s... [16]. https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/p/Cz9MfelKk3x/ https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/p/Cz9MfelKk3x/ [17]. https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/516373.aspx https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/516373.aspx [18]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-believe-israel-killed-just-20-30-of-hamas-terrorists-in-gaza-fighting/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-believe-israel-kill... 2/3 (Continues)

by Qem 3y ago

Qem 3y ago

SciPy stats includes a Wallenius’ discrete random variable[15], that takes four parameters on its creation: M is the total number of subjects, n is the number of Type I subjects (journalists), and odds is the odds ratio: the odds of killing a journalist rather than a non-journalist when there is only one individual of each. The random variate represents the number of journalists that end dead if Israeli forces kills pre-determined x people from Gaza Strip one by one. The total population in the strip (M) is approximately known. x is known from OCHA daily stats. For the effective population of journalists (n) and odds ratio (odds) we can use Wallenius' to test several value pairs and check which best fit the data. From the article we can estimate the membership of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate at 1200. That is a upper bound on the effective number of journalists, taking into account the likely inclusion of supporting staff and the many professionals forced to flee the Strip[16], sometimes after receiving explicit threats[17]. About the odds ratio, the current body count is about 1.3% of the total population in the Strip. Meanwhile, US estimates about 20%-30% of the 30000 strong Hamas forces were killed[18]. This number is probably exaggerated, as it implies every dead male in the age bracket around 13-60 is being counted as a Hamas militant, but for the sake of iron-manning the argument, let's assume those figures are true. That means the average Hamas militant is about 20:1 to 30:1 times more likely to be killed than a random person. So we should expect jurnalists' odds ratio to sit between somewhere between random citizen and Hamas militant, taking into account occupational hazards but not deliberate targeting. In doubt I took 100:1 as an upper bound, and wrote a model (source bellow). The best fit I got over the search grid had an effective journalist population of 155 and odds ratio of 75:1. As the data is noisy, I took the top 20 matches to have some idea of error intervals, and got ranges of 135 - 205 effective population and 51 - 96 odds ratio. The odds ratio is larger than our estimate for Hamas militants, indicating that in fact Israeli forces are busier targeting journalists than Hamas militants. Even if we assume the total kill counts are underestimates, given all people missing under the rubble and lack of proper rescue work due to targeting of rescue crews, say, adding a xs = [2*x for x in xs] line after the first definition of xs, to double the total counts, we still get killing odds for journalists equal or greater than for militants. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) [2]. https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ [3]. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/global-media-outlets-sign-letter-urging-protection-journalists-gaza-2024-03-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/global-media-outle... [4]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urn_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urn_problem [5]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 [6]. https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202/Israeli-tanks-have-deliberately-run-over-dozens-of-Palestinian-civilians-alive https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202/Israeli-tanks-hav... [7]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncentral_hypergeometric_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncentral_hypergeometric_dist... [8]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenius%27_noncentral_hypergeometric_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenius%27_noncentral_hyperg... [9]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_noncentral_hypergeometric_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_noncentral_hypergeo... [10]. https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/ https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-... [11]. https://twitter.com/EuroMedHR/status/1761121386347516095 https://twitter.com/EuroMedHR/status/1761121386347516095 [12]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... [13]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rashid_humanitarian_aid_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rashid_humanitarian_aid_inc... [14]. https://www.ochaopt.org/ https://www.ochaopt.org/ [15]. https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.stats.nchypergeom_wallenius.html https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.s... [16]. https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/p/Cz9MfelKk3x/ https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/p/Cz9MfelKk3x/ [17]. https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/516373.aspx https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/516373.aspx [18]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-believe-israel-killed-just-20-30-of-hamas-terrorists-in-gaza-fighting/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-believe-israel-kill... 2/3 (Continues)