In war, the saying goes, the first victim is the truth. Writing in the Hamilton Spectator, David Rennie obliquely refers to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, a military effort at preventing incessant rocket fire at Israeli cities, and egregiously distorts the casualty statistics of that conflict by falsely claiming that Israel had killed “1,500 unarmed (Palestinian) civilians in 2008.”
While varying casualty statistics have been tallied by the Israeli government, Palestinian sources, and NGO’s, most have concluded that approximately 1,200 people were killed. Of that 1,200, Hamas’ own Interior Minister, Fathi Hamad, recently confirmed that “On the first day of the war, Israel targeted police stations and 250 martyrs who were part of Hamas and the various factions fell." He added that, "about 200 to 300 were killed from the Qassam Brigades, as well as 150 security personnel."” Bottom line: 250 Hamasniks died on the first day, followed by 200-300 from the Qassam Brigades, plus an additional 150 security personnel, for a total of 600-700. That’s directly in line with the IDF’s numbers all along.
Are we correct in concluding that the Hamilton Coalition Against the War considers 700 armed Hamas terrorists as being just “unnamed civilians”?
