No stranger to criticism, Israel’s latest operation to root out terrorists in the Gaza Strip is no exception.

Operation Protective Edge, which began two weeks ago, has turned into an all-out war against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups responsible for indiscriminate rocket fire and terror attacks on Israel.

Critics of Israel, however, cry foul against the supposed Israeli induced humanitarian crisis happening in Gaza. Specifically, Israel’s haters are claiming that the IDF is purposely targeting innocent civilians living in Gaza.

Regardless of the facts on the ground – that the IDF personally reaches to those in Gaza via email and cell phone calls if they are located in the vicinity of an upcoming attack; dropping leaflets over areas in Gaza warning residents to flee their homes; the “knock on the door” tactic giving residents of a home about to be targeted a final one minute warning to evacuate – all of this is not enough.

There are numerous instances of IAF pilots and drone operators calling off strikes because of civilians nearby the location of an upcoming strike.

What else could the IDF possibly do to avoid civilian casualties?

The IDF has the capability, should it ever choose to, to completely destroy Gaza. However, unlike Hamas and their fellow terrorists, Israel actually values human life (and animal life too!) and adheres to international rules of warfare.

It is an unfortunate side effect of war that innocent civilians should die. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict. Israelis have died as a result of terror and Palestinians in Gaza have died due to their leadership.

Hamas leaders, while they live the high life in Qatar, away from the fighting in Gaza enjoying luxurious accommodations and stuffing their faces with gourmet food while people in Gaza are starving, have ordered its followers to use civilians as human shields in the hopes of deterring Israel.

Hamas leaders have urged its militants to fire rockets from children’s schools, religious institutions and hospitals in the hopes of stopping Israel’s might.

In a recent IDF operation in the northern Gaza city of Shuja’iya, the army warned civilians for literally days to leave, to save their lives. Hamas set up shop in Shuja’iya, a densely populated civilian city, scattering its rockets and terror tunnel infrastructure under homes.

And what happened? Hamas told the citizens of Shuja’iya to ignore the IDF’s pleas and stay in their homes. People died. Women and children died. Unnecessarily. To borrow a phrase from Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, Hamas is perpetuating a “self genocide.”

This is the real humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Most of the world ignores these facts and blames Israel for the deaths of the innocent. The truth falls on deaf ears, yet again.

Everybody’s favorite Al-Jazeera has been fanning the flames of the “hate on Israel” fire. The media outlet has a list on its site it updates called “Gaza Under Siege: Naming the Dead” of the purported death toll of innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

An anonymous reader on the IsraelReallyCool blog site decided they wanted to do some fact checking and the results are startling.

Majority of those Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge are men, at a whopping 81.9 percent. Women, in comparison, are only 18.1 percent.

Of those males killed, majority are between the ages of 18 and 28 (45.5 percent). A further 20 percent are between the ages of 29 and 48.

From a simple list we can extract so much information. It is no secret that many of Hamas’s followers are young, adult males. Many of the combatants belonging to Hamas and other terror groups are hand-picked from the classrooms and mosques in Gaza, trained (aka brainwashed) to blindly follow the orders of terrorist leaders. Leaders, who, to reiterate, are not even present.

Israel has made it clear that it is purposely targeting terrorists. They don’t care what the age – if you are a terrorist, you are fair game.

If Israel had in fact been indiscriminately killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza, wouldn’t the numbers, or rather the list, say otherwise? Wouldn’t there be more women and children killed?

It seems that the pro-terror Al Jazeera has shot themselves in the foot with their own list.

While I can only surmise what the numbers mean, the truth is loud, clear and simple: not everything is always what it appears.