Local peace activist Becky Johnson makes an interesting observation on her blog
Becky writes:
The Israeli Defense Forces just published its verified death list for the 2009 Gaza operation, Operation Cast Lead, in which they dispute previous death tolls issued by Palestinian organizations. The Palestine Center for Human Rights has put the death toll from that conflict at 1417, 926 civilians, 236 "fighters" meaning armed combatants or 65% civilian death toll. Since the IDF spent over 6 months preparing its list, exhaustively cross-checked its lists of known Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, etc. with their own lists. They monitored funerals in Gaza and took note of which deaths were dubbed "martyrs" for Hamas, and they were able to weed out the approximately 400 or so "natural" deaths which occur each month in Gaza. A final note is that PCHR claims 116 women lost their lives in the conflict, and the IDF claims 49 women perished from the conflict. Even if we take the PCHR's higher number, that means that only 8% of the deaths were women. The IDF figures are even lower at 4%. If the IDF REALLY were bombing civilians indiscriminately as many "Peace" organizations claim, why aren't more of the deaths women?
Great observation Becky. Read more here
I wonder how HRW logs the deaths of fatah members killed by Hamas, in their effort to use the war as a smokescreen to consolidate their power?
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times’ Taghreed El-Khodary described a stunning scene at Shifa Hospital in Gaza that had nothing to do with the war. .. As El-Khodary talked to the doctor, he saw armed, masked militants roaming the hospital’s hallways. They claimed to be conducting security...
Hamas militants were on the hunt for “collaborators,” whom they would stop and summarily execute on the spot. Luckier ones would be tortured and released.
http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me090423c.htm
Hamas and Jihad terrorist do not wear uniforms.
ReplyDeleteThanks to whoever posted this for me. I'm still learning the ropes of this blogging thing. Not sure how HRW counts Arab on Arab violence, but Alison Weir of "If Americans Knew..." always just adds them in as "Palestinian deaths" allowing her readers to assume they were killed by Israeli violence. There should be a list of 137 suicide bombers who died, but there isn't.
ReplyDeleteYears ago Paul Larudee gave me a copy of the booklet "Remember these children"- the list of Palestinian children killed in the conflict was overwhelmingly older teenaged boys. If you could over 16 years old it was 80%- if you could over 13- it was 95%. Not only does this prove that Israel ISN'T targetting civilians, and think it proves that the Palestinians are using children as soldiers and human shields
ReplyDeleteit is indisputable that the evidence collected from multiple sources by independant NGOs support the charge israel committed war crimes. israel has hampered all investigation into the events of operation caste lead and is now paying bloggers to write favourable comments. only someone guilty with something to hide acts in such a way.
ReplyDeleteis now paying bloggers to write favourable comments
ReplyDeleteThey are???!!!?? Dammit, where's MY check?