UN-believable? No end in sight for misdirections…

From the beginning of the war Hamas-run authorities in Gaza have claimed 70% of all casualties had been women and children to fuel the narrative that the IDF was bombing indiscriminately. UN agencies and representatives – including High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk – adopted these figures uncritically and repeated them often and loudly without attribution until several statisticians demanded receipts.

In May the numbers were quietly revised down to around 50% women and children at which point I naively believed this fallacious line of argument had finally been put to rest. Not so!

A recent report by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) has apparently rekindled such allegations judging by the headlines:

• BBC: Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women and children, UN says
• Guardian: ‘Almost unparalleled suffering’ in Gaza as UN says nearly 70% of those killed are women and children
• CNN: Around 70% of deaths in Gaza are women and children, says UN

Well played, Mr. Türk!

But how come the OHCHR is making claims so much bolder than even the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health?

As it turns out the report is not actually making any such claims, rather the confusion is a result of a clever play-on-words. What the report actually claims to have found is that nearly 70% of verified fatalities had been women and children.

(The report does not explain the verification methodology other than commenting in a footnote that “OHCHR’s verification methodology requires at least three independent sources” without giving examples of “sources” or going into detail on the meaning of “independent”, in contravention of the OHCHR’s Guidance on Casualty Recording (GCR) which states that “reports must describe the methodology applied, set out the scope and define the terms used”.)

Reporting on the period from the beginning of the war to the end of April 2024 the OHCHR has thus far verified 8,119 fatalities, less than a quarter of the nearly 35,000 Hamas is claiming for this period. According to the report the age and gender distribution among fatalities mirrors that of the Gazan population which it implies to be an indication of indiscriminate killing by the IDF: “Where verified deaths mirror the demographic makeup of a population at large, rather than reflecting the known demographic of combatants, this raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction”.

To further stress this point the authors of the report contrast these numbers with the age and gender distribution of fatalities from the 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls and 2014 Operation Protective Edge (both of which also garnered accusations by the OHCHR of Israel disregarding the principle of distinction), writing: “Compared to previous escalations, such as in 2021 and 2014 […] the current ongoing escalation has killed women (26 per cent of verified fatalities) and men (30 per cent) in roughly equal numbers.”

If indeed Palestinians were targeted indiscriminately, an age and gender distribution mirroring that of the general population would be expected. Conversely, by the same logic, an overrepresentation of fighting age men would indicate a larger share of combatants and thus adherence to the principle of distinction.

Curiously this line of reasoning did not seem to impress the OHCHR in its accounting of fatalities during Operation Protective Edge. In that conflict the official UN figures attest to 1,462 civilians out of 2,251 killed, of which 551 children and 299 women leaving 612 civilian men. The fact that civilian men apparently died at twice the rate of civilian women merited no special consideration in the UN report. Incidentally, if we instead assume a similar number of male and female civilian casualties, then the number of combatants would rise to over 1000 very much in line with the IDF estimate of (at least) 936 combatants.

Still, there are several flaws with this logic in the current report:

First, there is very strong evidence to suggest that the roughly 8000 verified fatalities are not at all representative of the totality. As the report points out almost 95% of them were killed in residential buildings. In 2014, according to the UN report, less than 1/3 of deaths occurred in residential buildings, but over 82% of women and 66% of children reportedly died in residential buildings.

Additionally, the regional distribution also does not align with the timeline of the war. Half of all verified fatalities were reported in Middle Gaza (Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat) and Rafah, both of which areas in which IDF ground troops had not operated by end of April. The most intense fighting had taken place in Gaza City and Khan Younis.

All of this suggests that the data exhibits a significant selection bias – not least due to the methodology requiring 3 independent sources – massively overrepresenting Gazans killed in high casualty airstrikes with many eye witnesses compared to combatants who died in tunnels or engaging IDF ground troops in battle.

Second, the report makes no attempts to identify combatants in contravention to the GCR which lists the status of victims in International Humanitarian Law (i.e. combatant or civilian) as a minimum data requirement.

This is important, because the demographic makeup of fatalities in fact does not quite reflect the demographic makeup of the population at large. There is a slight but distinctive bump for men aged 30-45 – about the age of a mid-level or higher Hamas commander – as well as women aged 25-40 – about the age of a wife of a mid-level or higher Hamas commander – indicating that these findings may reflect airstrikes targeted against mid-level or higher Hamas commanders in their home. That would be consistent with an unverified report from last month according to which Hamas officials privately admitted that 80% of deaths in Gaza were Hamas members and their families.

It is abundantly clear that the confusion underlying the international headlines is no mere faux pas by overzealous journalists but an absolutely deliberate misdirection by the OHCHR.

Where the GCR instructs casualty recorders that “to the greatest extent possible, the strengths and weaknesses of the data should […] be explained”, the report’s authors instead chose to obfuscate the data’s weaknesses and vastly overstate its implications. Pointing to the analysis of verified fatalities in an effort to make them seem representative of the situation in Gaza, the report states: “Hostilities in Gaza had killed 34,535 Palestinians […] according to the Ministry of Health of the State of Palestine. […] The majority killed and injured were estimated to be civilians, with a large proportion of children and women.”

There is a strong urge to simply blame such shameless vitriol on hatred alone, but we have to resist that impulse. Antisemitism may play a part, but we must recognise the main reason humanitarian organisations get to lie with impunity is that they are perceived to be driven by honourable intentions – which for the most part I do not doubt they are.

The OHCHR clearly understands as its mission the protection of innocent victims of war, which is commendable. The issue, however, is that in assuming this role its functionaries become activists in service of a cause and activists make for poor arbiters of truth. After all what is an omission here, an exaggeration there, a misleading report if it might save a child’s life?

Of course, this does not absolve journalists, who contrary to the UN are actually tasked with exposing the facts of the matter, of their responsibilities. Indeed, countering these bad incentives would require holding humanitarian organisations to account for their dishonesty.

The onus is on us all and none more so than journalists to meet the activists’ proclamations with scepticism rather than reverence. Only, I fear many journalists have renounced the business of truth arbitration in favour of picking up the mantle of activism themselves.

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A German version of this article first appeared on the website of the Austrian think tank Mena-Watch.