NUMBER OF PALESTINIANS INJURED ALSO “GREATLY EXAGGERATED” BY UN OFFICIALS
Many international media have stated that 1,250 Palestinians were killed during Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory without telling readers and viewers that these were completely unverifiable figures provided by pro-Hamas sources. Foreign governments then rushed to condemn Israel for the supposedly large number of civilians among the Palestinian dead, reporting that as many as half of the casualties may have been civilian. (At the same time, the media all but ignore the 132 other conflicts around the world, despite the much greater numbers of civilians deaths in many. Only today, for example, The Guardian – but not other newspapers – reports that a U.S. airstrike killed 25 civilians in Afghanistan.)
Cremonesi, who made several trips to all Gaza’s hospitals and interviewed families of casualties, assessed the number of wounded to be far lower than 5,000, the number quoted by Hamas and repeated by the UN and the Red Cross in Gaza. “It is sufficient to visit the hospitals to understand that the numbers don’t add up,” he wrote.
In the European hospital in Rafah, one of the facilities which would presumably be filled with wounded from the “war of the tunnels,” many beds were empty, according to Cremonesi. A similar situation was noted in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, and in the privately-run Amal Hospital Cremonesi reported that only five out 150 beds were occupied.
13 Israelis were also killed during the 3-week operation, which was aimed at halting rocket fire on southern Israel and destroying Hamas’ infrastructure.
Original in Italian
corriere.it
Link and translation at
tomgrossmedia.com
More at that link
Gaza doctor: Hamas exaggerated Gaza death toll – 500 to 600 killed, mostly fighters, not 1,250
January 22, 2009
* Italy’s leading newspaper, after a thorough investigation in Gaza, reports that the Gaza death toll was 500 to 600, mostly fighters, not 1,250 as other media have claimed. Other media relying on thoroughly impartial, bigoted UN sources
* “Hamas using UNRWA school buildings and hospitals as torture centers”
* Torture by Hamas of Palestinian opponents continues at a children’s hospital, but Western media and NGOs are suddenly silent
* Pro-Gaza demonstration in Ramallah canceled for a lack of protesters. Third Intifada? Not anytime soon
* New polls show only a minority of Americans now think Palestinians should have their own state
...
INCREDIBLE PRECISION AT AVOIDING COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Unlike, for example, the shamefully biased British and French press, the leading German news magazine Der Spiegel has had good on-the-ground reporting from Gaza post-cease fire, noting the precision of Israel’s hits.
The magazine wrote: “Whole rows of houses stand in darkness. In between, precisely destroyed individual buildings can be seen again and again. There is usually a green Hamas flag lying in tatters somewhere in the rubble.”
***
NO, IT’S NOT STALINGRAD (AS SOME OTHER MEDIA SUGGESTED)
There is also the testimony of the (London) Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher. He is generally very harsh on Israel, which makes it all the more telling that this week he writes:
“I knew Gaza well before the attacks, so when Israel ended its ban on foreign journalists reaching Gaza on the day the ceasefire was announced, I was able to see for myself.
“One thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944. There had been no carpet bombing of large areas, no firebombing of complete suburbs. Targets had been selected and then hit, often several times, but almost always with precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged and there had been some clear mistakes, like the firebombing of the UN aid headquarters. But, in most cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt… For the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be.”
***
Tom Gross adds: Here, for example, is a video of Israel changing a missile’s path and shooting into a field to avoid civilian casualties when a terrorist-filled car they were following drove into the driveway of a civilian house.
HAMAS FIRES FROM GAZA FOREIGN PRESS BUILDING
During the conflict Hamas didn’t only fire at Israel from hospitals and UN schools but also from the offices of Arab news media.
Here is live footage of al-Arabiya TV reporter Hannan al-Masri as she learns that a Hamas missile was being fired from her building which houses the al-Arabiya studio in Gaza.
ARABIC - www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY50cktUKbA
And with subtitles:
ENGLISH - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_Y_3LKCGA
SPANISH - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw3j26pi2i4
RUSSIAN - www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAkL54eJPgk
GERMAN - www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7M07pvW4NU
FRENCH - www.youtube.com/watch?v=195u-HgC47c
HAMAS FIRING OUT OF A SCHOOL YARD
Hamas firing out of a school yard, Jan 8, 2009.
* The school is administered by UNRWA. UNRWA employs more than 24,000 staffers, 99% of whom are Palestinians. That’s more than any other UN agency, including the UNHCR, which has only a quarter the manpower of UNRWA yet has to take care of all other refugees worldwide, totaling more than 11 million. As I have pointed out in previous dispatches, the existence of UNRWA itself is one of the reasons the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not yet been solved.
* During the three-week conflict Hamas sent 852 flying bombs packed with shrapnel into Israel – all aimed at civilian targets in what is as clear a case of a war crime as you can get – killing four Israelis and injuring over 700. Many Israeli civilians remain hospitalized, including seven-year-old Orel Yelizarov, who lies gravely injured with shrapnel in the brain.
...
WAVE OF EXECUTIONS BY HAMAS CONTINUES
I noted in previous dispatches that many of the Palestinians killed and injured in Gaza this month were shot by Hamas operatives who continue to crack down on Fatah and against any other sign of dissent against Hamas’s one-party rule. According to Palestinian sources, it is estimated that about ten percent of Gazans killed in the recent three week war between Hamas and Israel were Palestinians executed by Hamas.
These executions have been widely reported over the last month in the Palestinian and Israeli press (as well as on this website) but not by duplicitous Western news outlets like CNN and the BBC (the world’s two biggest international news broadcasters) who are interested in falsely suggesting that all Palestinian suffering is caused by Israel.
Sources in Gaza relate that some of the bodies of those Fatah men executed by Hamas were then laid out for filming by Palestinian cameramen working for international news agencies and relayed to gullible Western news outlets, which then reported that they were victims of Israeli attacks.
FINALLY SOME WESTERN MEDIA REPORT ON THIS
Finally one or two mainstream media (but not, of course, organizations like the BBC) are reporting on these executions by Hamas.
For example, today The San Francisco Chronicle began its news report:
“As Israel’s last troops left the Gaza Strip Wednesday, Hamas officials conceded that they are executing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel during the three-week invasion.
“In the West Bank, Fatah officials said at least 19 of its members have been executed and many more brutally tortured. Gaza residents say Hamas is using schools and other public buildings in Gaza City, and in the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah as detention centers to interrogate members of Fatah, their political rivals. They said three men have been blinded during questioning and more than 60 have been shot in the legs as punishment.”
The San Francisco Chronicle continues:
“…In Gaza City, Fatah activists told spine-chilling stories of retribution. Relatives of Abed al-Gharabli, a former Fatah security officer who spent 12 years in an Israeli prison, said he was kidnapped by a group of Hamas militiamen who shot him in both legs after severely torturing him.
“Ziad Abu Hayeh, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade commander, is reported to have been blinded after being abducted from his home in Khan Younis by Hamas gunmen.
“In other cases, Fatah supporters were simply shot in the legs – a favored Hamas tactic during the 2007 coup that drove Fatah out of Gaza.”
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