by Hugh Fitzgerald
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Hamas has provided the lies and damned lies. Israel provides the statistics. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Center (ITIC) recently published its study — its “statistics” — of the Palestinian casualties during the first two days of the recent conflict. A report on its findings is here: “In First Two Days of Conflict, Over 70% of Gaza Casualties Caused by Israeli Strikes Were Combatants: Analysis,” by Sharon Wrobel, Algemeiner, May 25, 2021:
A study of the first two days of the recent clashes between Israel and Hamas showed that more than 70% of the casualties caused by Israeli airstrikes were militant operatives, and that 21% of the total deaths on those days were caused by errant Hamas rockets.
The preliminary study, released on Friday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), analyzed the names and identities of 74 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip between May 10 and May 12, based on death notices by various Palestinian sources, including Hamas.
The group’s breakdown of the casualties showed that 16 died as a result of errant rockets that were fired by Hamas but which landed in Gaza. Those deaths included two Fatah operatives, seven people with unknown civilian-combatant status, and seven minors.
Out of the remaining 58 deaths, which were caused by Israeli strikes, 42 were identified as terrorist activists; among the operatives were 30 Hamas militants, 8 Fatah operatives and 3 Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives. The other 16 deaths included six people listed with unknown civilian-combatant status; nine women or minors; and one 67-year-old male civilian.
The findings show that “out of those killed in Gaza on the first two days of the conflict as a result of Israeli attacks, about two thirds were terrorists and that many of the civilians who lost their lives in Gaza on those two days were hit by Palestinian fire. The full research is still ongoing,” Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, director of the ITIC, told The Algemeiner.
Among the killed militants listed were Jamaa Tahla, head of Hamas’s cyber command; Jamal Zebeda, Hamas’ head of projects responsible for rocket development; Bassem Issa, Gaza City Brigade commander since 2017 and senior military official in the city; and Hazem Al-Khatib, head of Hamas’ engineering and production division….
The hostilities claimed the lives of 12 Israelis, including one Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, about 250 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli attacks. The Gaza ministry does not provide specifics beyond selective information on the number of dead women and children, and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants killed.
By not distinguishing between civilians and combatants killed, the Hamas-run health ministry can, and does, play fast and loose with their identities, allowing it to claim that many more of those killed were innocent civilians, cut down by those ruthless war-criminals, the mad-dog Israelis. Now the head of Hamas’ military wing, Yahya Sinwar, has emerged from hiding to declare that of those 250, only 80, or less than a third, were combatants.
The ITIC can comb the records of death announcements in Gaza, and figure out that young males of a certain age — including education of a certain type — are more likely to have been Hamas operatives. What day they were killed, and where, can also lead to certain conclusions. If, for example, there had been a massive Israeli airstrike on a Hamas outpost in Beit Hanoun on May 11, and a 22-year-old male is reported as having died on May 11 at Beit Hanoun, with no further information given, it is reasonable to assume he was a member of Hamas.
This time even fewer sources in the Gaza Strip (the Ministry of Health, and terrorist organizations) than in previous operations have made the deaths of terrorist operatives public. With the exception of senior activists on whose deaths official announcements were published on behalf of the militant groups to which they belonged,” the ITIC study found. “The Hamas administration is trying to create a false impression that the vast majority of those killed were uninvolved civilians. The Ministry of Health in Gaza emphasizes in announcements and in its publications the number of women, children and the elderly killed and unlike in the past it does not publish detailed lists that include the names of those killed. On social networks and Arab media channels a large number of killed terrorist operatives are listed as ‘civilians’ for the same reason.”
The ITIC analysis is based on Palestinian sources, photographs, social media tributes, and official feeds of Palestinian groups. As an example, the study cited information by the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, which reported that at 6:10 p.m. on May 10, a shell hit the house of Attallah Almasri, in Beit Hanoun city, killing eight Palestinians, including six children, and injuring 18 more, of whom 10 were children. The Al Mezan Center did not attribute the incident to an Israeli air strike.
If the Al Mezan center did not claim that Israel was responsible for the deaths but instead remained tellingly silent, that must have meant that a Hamas rocket fell short in Gaza itself, hitting the house of Attallah Almasri. Hence the silence on the source of the attack.
On May 10, the clashes were triggered by Hamas firing rockets towards Jerusalem after a 6 p.m. “ultimatum” elapsed which had called for Israel to withdraw security forces from the Temple Mount and release Palestinian prisoners. An Israeli security official said that the deaths of civilians in Gaza shortly after the Jerusalem attacks were caused by failed Hamas rockets, occurring before Israel commenced retaliatory airstrikes against the terrorist group hours later.
Israel did not begin its retaliation for the rockets fired from Gaza on Jerusalem until several hours later; all the Palestinian casualties during that time had to have been victims of Hamas’ own rockets.
The ITIC said that due to the fact that the Israeli army used missiles during the hostilities rather than rockets or shells, it can be assumed that the May 10 attack can be attributed to terror organizations.
Though many of us use the terms “rocket” and “missile” interchangeably, they are not the same. Rockets are vehicles that use an engine to propel themselves at high speeds; missiles are rockets that are guided and contain explosives of some kind.
According to Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid, at least 50 Palestinians died in Gaza as a result of failed rockets by Hamas and 150 fighters were killed during the 11 days of clashes. The Israeli army has estimated the death toll of militant operatives at 200.
In most of the statistics and reports by various sources including the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian NGOs or human rights groups they don’t distinguish in their casualties reports between civilians and fighters,” Eid told The Algemeiner. “They have their own agenda and it is not a humanitarian agenda. Not one Palestinian was reported to be killed by Gaza rockets by these sources.”
Bassem Eid, a human rights activist and one of the rare Palestinians who – like Khaled Abu Toameh – insists on speaking the truth, has estimated that fifty Palestinians died from Hamas’ own rockets during the conflict. Israel has calculated that sixty Palestinians died from Hamas’ rockets falling short, close enough to Eid’s figure to suggest that somewhere in that range of 50 to 60 is the correct figure. Hamas and the Palestinian NGOs, of course, continue to insist that Hamas rockets never killed a single Palestinian.
The estimates by Eid and the Israelis are also close on the number of Hamas fighters killed. Eid has arrived at the figure of 150, the Israelis believe they killed 225, including 25 senior commanders of Hamas and the PIJ. It’s unclear if the figure Eid gave included those 25 commanders, or if he chose to treat them as a separate category. In any case, the numbers are again close enough — a range of 150 to 225 – that we would not be far wrong to settle on 200 as a reasonable estimate. This is an astonishingly low figure, given the fact that the IDF destroyed more than 6,500 terrorist targets in 1,600 attacks, including Hamas and PIJ operational headquarters, intelligence offices, weapon production sites and arsenals, and over 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Hamas’ infamous grid of terror tunnels. The IDF’s ability to minimize casualties, both through its system of warning residents living or working in buildings that are soon to be hit (warnings given anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours before the attack), and the extraordinary precision of its pilots, is likely without precedent in the annals of modern warfare.
One thing we have all learned from the many wars Israel has fought, and from the casualty figures, both of enemy combatants and civilians, that it releases, is that the IDF doesn’t lie. Hamas lies, Hezbollah lies. Fatah lies. Yahya Sinwar lies. Mahmoud Abbas lies. Arafat lied all the time. Gamal Abdel Nasser lied. But the IDF doesn’t lie. And now Hamas is doing it again, by claiming that there were at least 200 civilians killed by the Israelis, that no Palestinians were killed by Hamas’ own rockets falling short, and – this last just in from Yahya Sinwar – only 80 Hamas fighters were killed in the eleven days of high-intensity warfare, that is, less than eight a day. Not even Israel could keep enemy casualties that low. Israel hit 1,600 targets, some of them more than once. If we were to believe Yahya Sinwar,, that would mean one Hamas fighter was killed for every 20 targets hit by Israeli missiles fired from its warplanes. How plausible is that?
First published in Jihad Watch.
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One Response
I don’t believe the lies / I just make use of lies / That use makes for perfect / Service to my Master, Hate. / As you note, there’s no rhyme or reason (tho there is some alliteration) / But there is limitless unjustifiable vituperation!