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The Gaza Death Toll Dispute
By Paul Widen / January 23, 2009
The Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi recently claimed that the death toll in Gaza has been inflated (read the original Italian article here and a summary in English here). His estimates, based on a conversations with a Palestinian doctor and Palestinian reporters* (who risked their lives telling him this), puts the number of casualties in Gaza at 500-600, and not 1,500 as the Palestinian Ministry of Health claims. "Most of them [were] youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter."
Palestinian reporters drew a parallell between the latest round of fighting in Gaza with what is known as "the Jenin Massacre" in Palestinian mythology. During an IDF operation in April, 2002 against terrorists hiding among civilians in the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinians claimed that close to 1,500 people had been killed. The correct figure ended up being 54, out of which 45 were armed men.
Some suggest that the Palestinians in general and Hamas in particular have everything to gain from the exagerated casualty figures, which might explain why the Palestinian Ministry of Health would try to sex up the toll. Their website does appear less than objective.
The IDF refutes the deflated bodycount, too, curiously enough. Or not so curiously: the 400-mark was passed on New Years Day, so if Mr. Cremonesi’s numbers are to be trusted, the IDF kept this war going for another 17 days, dropped more than 1,500 tons of bombs and invaded the Strip with a massive ground force, but still only managed to kill an average of 10 Hamasniks a day. So what were they doing there all that time?
On the other side of this weird equation we have the 10 IDF soldiers that were killed during the war, at least three of them by friendly fire. We know that the Israeli soldiers were better trained and equipped, but still… Two weeks of fighting on the ground and the Hamasniks only managed to take out seven Jews? These numbers are just not consistent with what one would expect from urban warfare. Either the Hamas combatants were major hacks and/or cowards, or the IDF really didn’t engage them. Or both. Kind of like Capoeira: looks like they are kicking each other in the head, but they are actually dancing.
What the Hamasniks did find time to do instead of fighting the Zionist enemy was to torture their fellow Palestinians. People in Gaza got their eyes poked out, kneecaps shot, and bones broken, sometimes for the "crime" of smiling in public, which was interpreted as joy over Israel’s success in the war (which they simultaneuosly denied, of course).
The fog of war has obviously not cleared yet. All we know for certain is that this operation was named after a dreidel. We can assume that it will continue to spin for another little while.
* The original sentence erroneously stated that this claim was based on conversations with several doctors and tours of several hospitals. Corriere Della Sera relied on multiple sources, but only one was a physician. And while the original Italian article referred to several hospitals in Gaza, it is unclear that the author toured them all.
POST A COMMENT
yonah-
You make an elementary error. I was not asserting that the IOF minimized their casualties; I was simply commenting on Widen’s narrow perspective in not even considering that such a ploy were possible.
As for IOF falsifications, well, didn’t Widen himself implicitly raise that question when he wondered if
"…Â the IDF really didn’t engage them (Hamas)."Â
despite IOF assurances of skirmishes?Â
hey ismail,
   you seem to be including the kitchen sink when you argue the possibility of IDF falsifying its own casualty lists. any proof of previous IDF falsification of casualties? why would they do it this time if they haven’t before? this argument is not an argument, but street corner babble.
Stuart gets this week’s Stupidity Prize.
First, Stewie’s claim that I "said nothing" is a wish, not a fact. As even a minimally aware parakeet would see, I made several specific claims about Widen’s journalistic shortcomings, agreed to even by Phantom, who has the honesty to acknowledge the obvious despite disagreeing (I think) with me on most counts.
Second, Stewie’s silly dilemma posits a Hamas which won on the promise of going to war with Israel. Perhaps he might provide a source? And no fair coming up with a promise to resist Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, which is the entirely honorable obligation of the leadership of an occupied and blockaded people.
The other horn of Stewie’s dilemma involves Hamas’ "putch" (sic) which most serious observers agree was a defensive move against a Fatah which was preparing to topple the elected gov’t in Gaza. Plus, Stewie gets bonus points for his historically illiterate but hasbarically useful equation of Hamas with Nazis.
Stewie, come on down and accept your award!Â
First of all, I have to agree with Ismail that countering the figures put out by the UN, Red Cross and Israel itself with an anonymous "doctor" and "several Gazans" is comical at best.  The author must have a low opinion of the intelligence of the Jewcy readership.
But what does it really matter? We’ve seen the videos and the images of Gaza, and it looks like Armageddon. Whole blocks and neighborhoods have been leveled. Entire apartment buildings are nothing but rubble now. To play the numbers game is truly a shame.
What shocks me even more though is that Hamas has the nerve to claim victory after all that has happened and all that has been destroyed. From one side of their mouths they complain that 1500 people have been killed, and much of Gaza ruined, and from the other side of their mouths they claim victory. I feel sorry for the innocent people who died. However, some of my sympathy is lost when I come to the realization that Hamas was elected by the people, and at some level it comes to my mind that you get the government you deserve.
Yet other than sarcasm, you said almost nothing.
 But one thing you did say, was to refer to Hamas as ‘the elected government’. So let me posit this.
Either – Hamas was duly elected. Hamas ran on the Promise to make war with ‘the Zionist enemy.’ People may have voted for them because they were seen as less corrupt than Fatah, because Fatah ran several candidates er slot and Hamas only one, because Hamas runs social institutions, or because of the promise they made. Regardless, the peple voted for them knowing they would start war. That the war they wanted did not go well for them is no one’s fault but the people who voted for Hamas.
 OR
Hamas, while elected to be PART of the government, staged a brutal putch which eliminated any legitamacy they once had, similar to the one committed by the Nazis after they were elected, in which case the suffering of the Gazans is entirely the responsibility of Hamas.
Which one is it? Or are you too busy saying little iin many words?
"His estimates, based on tours of several hospitals in Gaza and interviews with Palestinian doctors (who risked their lives telling him this)…"
Poor Widen can’t even quote his own source correctly. The Italian reporter spoke with one (singular) doctor, conveniently anonymous, and several Gazans, also anonymous, whose reports contradict the numbers provided by the UN, Red Cross and the Zionist entity itself! Hold the presses! What a story! Nothing like this since Dewey beat Truman!
The credulous Widen also uncritically swallows the anonymous, unsourced and patently risible assertion that yes, most definitely, I know for a fact that these casualties, spread throughout Gaza, were to a man youth recruited by Hamas. All wore the Hamas decoder ring, you see. As one expects from the wily Arab, some of the strapping lads even disguised themselves as infant girls, the better to besmirch the brave but reluctant murderers of the IOF.Â
"…terrorists hiding among civilians in the Jenin refugee camp…"
This hoary trope again. As Uri Avnery recently wrote (and I paraphrase), one can almost hear Goebbels blaming the vicious Churchill gang for hiding out among the ordinary citizens of London, forcing the weeping Luftwaffe to bomb London, over and over again.Â
Then boy Widen wonders at the low casualty rate among IOF brigands and solves the puzzle thusly;
"Either the Hamas combatants were major hacks and/or cowards, or the IDF really didn’t engage them. Or both."
Demonstrating his own blinkered sense of possibility and proving the truism that propagandists notoriously fall for their own propaganda, Widen never considers that perhaps the IOF is lying and that Israel suffered more casualties than it admits.
Perhaps realizing that his "reportage" so far would be tossed as unusable even by the editors of the local Pennysaver, Widen hastens to throw in another claim, itself fragrant with the perfume of the barnyard-Hamas is torturing the agents of our friend, the kleptomaniacal quisling Abbas.
First, there is no doubt that Fatah informers are active in Gaza and that like informers everywhere, they have met rough justice at the hands of the elected government at a time of war. Widespread torture? Forgive me if I raise an eyebrow at the assurances of Fatah, which, while Palestinians in Gaza were under assault and Palestinians in the West Bank lost hundreds of dunums more of land to Israeli expansion, turned its guns on….its own people demonstrating against Israel!
Back to your pancakes, my friend, and leave the reporting to the skeptical and the curious.Â
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