Why No Numbers for Hamas’ Combatant Deaths
Of all the journalistic abuses committed by the mainstream media’s one-sided, anti-Israel (and, in some cases, antisemitic) news coverage of the Gaza War, no issue has been more divisive and contributed more to hatred of Jews than the indefensible reporting on the war’s casualties.
We’ll begin by focusing on the latest death toll number which is roughly 75,000 for the three-year war.
The problem: Just using such a number, without context, is, at best, misleading, at worst, defamatory because Israel is generally blamed for the human tragedy. Hamas escapes any charges of culpability.
In many cases, the figures are cited as fact and not even attributed to Hamas’ Health Ministry. Of course, the terrorist organization would not distort the numbers. It would be unfairly cynical to believe that.
Frequently, to “hide” the source, the media attributed the data to “Gaza health authorities.” Those “health authorities” are the Hamas Health Ministry and its Government Media Office, the only two offices which provide information to the media.
In reporting fatalities, never, and I mean never, did the media publish figures separating civilians and combatants. And there is a good reason for that: Hamas did not provide that information. And there is a good reason for that as well: Such a number would allow analysis of the ratio between civilians vs. combatant causalities, a vital, necessary fact in judging whether competing armies have violated the rules of war, or acted unnecessarily aggressively and cruelly in targeting civilians.
Such information, most likely, would show that the ratio between civilian and combatant deaths in Gaza is not out of the norm in wartime. And Hamas, hiding the number of combatants killed, understood that all too well.
Also, never –- and again never–- did the media even ask Hamas for that number nor why it would not provide such information. Surely, if Hamas is able to distribute names, ages, occupations of civilians allegedly killed by Israel, it has the identities of its soldiers.
Why didn’t the media pressure Hamas for the information? Because, besides journalistic incompetence, it would undermine their anti-Israel case. Again, another instance of distortion by omission.
A little history on the issue of combatant vs. civilian deaths in wartime:
Generally, 30-60% of war casualties are civilians. Much depends on variables such as population density –- and the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Moreover, Hamas implemented a strategy that promoted civilian deaths, fighting from civilian infrastructures, i.e. hospitals, mosques, schools, homes, etc. It even held Israeli hostages in the homes of Gazans.
“No blood. No news,” said Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader killed by Israel forces.
In WW II, the civilian-combatant ratio was 2:1 (the first number represents civilians). While death toll numbers vary widely, the combatant fatalities totaled about 15 million and civilians between 30-45 million.
Here are some other ratios: Korea, 2:1 with civilians comprising 74% percent of the deaths; Vietnam, 1:21 and civilian deaths accounted between 46-67% of the fatalities.
In Gaza, Hamas and Israel use different tracking methodologies and it is difficult to independently verify either one. What numbers exist vary greatly, with some putting the civilian-combatant ratio at 4:1 (some higher for civilians) and others 1:1 to 1:5, the wide margins between the two, due, at times, to the politics of the researcher. (With exact numbers for combatant deaths not available from Hamas, and figures for civilians suspect, all analyses can be written off as speculative).
For the purposes of this column, we’ll split the difference which is, sadly, the “norm” –- or even lower –- for wars, particularly those fought in areas with high population densities. Whatever the actual figure, it is not unfair or irresponsible to conclude, it is not close to the hysterical, distorted reports promulgated daily by the media around the world.
And, discussed in this space frequently, the civilian death tolls in other countries at war such as the Sudan, Yemen and several others, are considerably higher–-much higher, –- than in Gaza, yet the media and the world turn a blind eye.
Worth noting (again), in World War II, the Allies killed –- intentionally–- hundreds of thousand civilians in Germany and Japan. And I won’t mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, bombings over Tokyo within 48 hours, claimed between 80,000-130,000 civilian lives. In the Vietnam War, between 300,000-500,000 civilians lost their lives while, post 9/11, the civilian death toll in Afghanistan was around 50,000. (These are rough figures; they vary widely.)
As to the accusation of genocide, it is nothing less than a blood libel. The charge is malicious, scandalous, slanderous, invidious and so much more. And it is never-ending; its roots continue to deepen and grow stronger in political soil contaminated with antisemitism.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group with the intent to destroy that group. It was defined in 1944 by a Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, during the Holocaust in WW II, and, through the years, was accepted as a crime by the international community. Lemkin lost his family in the Holocaust.
After WW II, former Nazi leaders were the first to be officially charged with genocide at the Nuremberg trials in 1945.
I am pretty confident that most in the media –– and the politicians or lay people charging Israel with genocide –- never heard of Lemkin, or know the definition of genocide or how the crime came to be adopted internationally.
(An aside: On October 7, which marked the third commemoration of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who leads a city, home to 1.3 million Jews, took the opportunity to condemn the “devastating ongoing genocide in Gaza.)
All that said, to be clear, very clear, one grieves for the Palestinians and their suffering. The heart aches, and the tears just keep coming. Tragedy is the unavoidable consequence of war.
As Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who implemented scorched-earth tactics in attacking civilians and their infrastructures in the South in his March to the Sea, said “War is Hell.”
What is the ratio of fair stories about Hamas vs. Israel? It is so one-sided against Israel, it makes the distorted numbers for the Gaza War look good.