This past Friday, the Globe and Mail published an incendiary op-ed by Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian’s chief negotiator, who among other libels slurred against Israel, erroneously claimed the following: “While thousands of Palestinian civilians were being slaughtered in Gaza, Canada was among the very few countries that encouraged Israel to continue its attack on the besieged territory.”

We asked the Globe, on what basis can Erekat prove with verifiable evidence that thousands. read at least 2,000 if not more, Palestinian civilians were “slaughtered” by Israel in Gaza? Israel contends that half of the Palestinian casualties killed during the Gaza war were legitimate combatants or terrorists, which saw a ratio of 1:1 for civilian vs. combatant deaths. Gaza’s Health Ministry (read Hamas) and the UN say it was more like 70% of casualties were civilians. Of course, casualty tolls vary, but let’s say the total was about 2,200. Even if we went with the 70% figure, that would be only 1,540 civilians allegedly dead, though again Israel contends that at least 1,000 terrorists were killed.

Therefore, it was factually incorrect for Erekat to claim that “thousands of Palestinian civilians were being slaughtered in Gaza.”

Subsequent to HRC’s intervention, the Globe amended the oped which now says: “While more than a thousands Palestinian civilians were being slaughtered in Gaza..”

As well, an editor’s note was affixed to the commentary which says: “Eds Note: This has been updated from an earlier version to clarify the number of Palestinian casualties in last summer’s Israeli military operation in Gaza.”