Competing Statistics, Deliberate Manipulation

"Hamas doesn't really want the blockade on Gaza lifted. What Hamas wants is to gain legitimacy as a terror group that governs territory, and Israel will not accept that."
Israeli Justice MinisterTzipi Livni

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Smoke from an Israeli strike rose over Gaza City Saturday.

The 72-hour truce agreed to by Israel and Hamas through the intermediary actions of Egypt was broken by rockets sent across the border into Israel by Hamas hours before the truce was set to expire. Israel had offered to extend the truce, and Hamas had responded characteristically by scorning the offer. Effectively setting the Palestinians in Gaza up for continued casualties, and a mounting death count. But this is precisely what Hamas counts upon.

Still, Palestinian negotiators remain in Cairo, stating their hope of salvaging the talks. The head of the Palestinian delegation stated they would remain in Egypt until an agreement that "ensures" the rights of the Palestinian people becomes a reality. Perhaps he might wish to travel to Qatar, to speak with the political leader of Hamas, living in serene comfort and luxury in his ultra-starred hotel, to convince him to stop attacking Israel, and then the Palestinians might realize their advantage in peace.

By late Friday some 60 rockets had been catapulted into Israel. Predictably, and with good reason, Israel responded with a series of airstrikes from which Palestinian officials said 'at least' five people were killed in three separate strikes, two of them close to mosques. The United Nations and human rights groups operating in Gaza claim that of the 1,900 Palestinians so far killed in the current clashes roughly three-quarters are civilians.

For its part, Israel estimates that 40 to 50 percent of those killed in Gaza were Hamas members and fighters. The gross count is not disputed, but those gathering statistics use various methods and standards to discern who is a civilian and who a fighter. The UN and human rights groups depend on witness accounts and contacts from within communities to distinguish combatants from civilians. Growing international criticism, equally predictably, damns Israel.

"The massive deaths and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world", claimed UN chief Ban Ki-moon, whose lavish condemnation would be far more suitable in the Iraq and Syria context. Israel responds to assaults against its people and their communities by firing back in the direction from which the rockets and missiles have been shot. And Hamas deliberately and with malice aforethought leads Israeli retaliation from heavily crowded civilian areas. What's Mr. Ban's solution to that?

Hotels, mosques, schools and hospitals are not immune to having their premises used as rocket launching sites and as weapons cache sites. According to Brig. Gen. Mickey Adelstein, senior Israeli army commander, forces under his command "avoided attacking many many targets" when civilians were seen to be present and that "Hamas took advantage of that issue".  So while the military estimates that 1,700 to 2,000 Palestinians had died, the numbers representing dead militants was under-reported.

"At least 50 percent were ... members of the Hamas terrorist movement" he said, in one set of 300 names classified as civilians. It has been shown and demonstrated that Hamas fighters will have their distinctive uniforms changed for civilian clothing to identify them as civilians, that people who die of natural causes during the conflict are included in the tally, that Palestinians killed by Hamas rockets misfiring and Palestinians killed by Hamas as collaborators are also included in the tally.

The larger question should be why does the world body hold the honesty of Gaza officials in high respect, while questioning the reliability of Israeli figures?