NYT, BBC, Cast Suspicion on Gaza Casualty Count

August 13, 2014

3 min read

United Nations statistics and the Palestinian Ministry of Health show nearly 1,900 have been killed in Gaza over the course of Operation Protective Edge, most of whom they identify as civilians.  Statisticians from the New York Times and BBC, however, question the conclusions drawn from the breakdown of the numbers.

On August 6, the UNHRC reported that 1,843 Palestinians had perished, 1,354 of them civilians, including 415 children and 214 women.  216 were acknowledged as terrorists and 320 were unidentified, leaving another 725 male civilians dead.  However, according to both news agencies, the disproportionate number of male casualties, especially between the ages of 20 and 29, casts suspicion on their identities, as well as on the claim that Israel’s attacks were “indiscriminate”.

“The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll: They are 9 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34 percent of those killed whose ages were provided. At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71 percent of the population and 33 percent of the known-age casualties,” the paper published on August 5.

Head of Statistics for the BBC Anthony Reuben noted to the Times of Israel in response to these numbers, “Nonetheless, if the Israeli attacks have been ‘indiscriminate’, as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women.”

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Israel has vigorously denied targeting civilians, and while it acknowledges more civilians than combatants have been killed during the current operation, its breakdown is vastly different.  According to Israeli military officials, between 750-1,000 of the Palestinian dead were fighters.

Hamas urges civilians, including children, to stand on the roof of a target where the IDF has warned of an impending strike.
Hamas urges civilians, including children, to stand on the roof of a target where the IDF has warned of an impending strike. (Photo: IDF)

“But the difference between roughly half the dead being combatants, in the Israeli version, or barely 10 percent, to use the most stark numbers on the other side, is wide enough to change the characterization of the conflict,” the Times observed.

Israel claims Hamas intentionally puts its own people in harm’s way, encouraging them to serve the “cause” as human shields.  Thus, the number of civilian casualties in Gaza is high, despite Israel’s best efforts to avoid them.  Israel also believes some of the casualties included in the count are actually the result of errant Hamas rockets originally aimed at Israel.

Reuben brought a number of possible explanations for the skewed numbers, not all of which validate Israel’s claims.  He was quick to absolve the UN from any wrongdoing: “This is in no sense the fault of the UN employees collecting the figures – their statistics are accompanied by caveats and described as preliminary and subject to revision.”

He did, however, conclude with an important observation.  “…it does mean that some of the conclusions being drawn from them may be premature,” he wrote.

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