We had a look at the casualty figures from Gaza two weeks ago (H/T Pounce) and based on the figures available then it looked like 61% of the casualties were fighting age men (18 to 60 years old…of course there will also be many under 18 who are fighters and not all men in the age bracket will be fighters.)
The BBC refrained from doing any analysis on these figures and preferred instead to give us casualty numbers as provided by Hamas, via the UN….importantly these figures didn’t make an honest effort to discriminate between possible militants and others.
I have heard a lot of the reporting from Gaza by the BBC and what has been missing from much of it is any sense that the Israelis are fighting ‘someone’….the reports tell us the Israelis have been attacking or bombarding or bombing Gaza but don’t explain why….Hamas seem to have been erased from the picture…..if the Israelis are firing the must be firing for a reason, at something…the BBC gives the impression that they are firing ‘indiscriminately’ …Sheila Fogarty herself admitted that people had the idea that Israel was just ‘carpet bombing’ Gaza…..wonder where they got that idea?
Maybe those ideas will start to change as the BBC starts to report the truth about what the Israeli army has been targeting…….
The BBC gave Hamas a months worth of priceless anti-Israeli PR by quoting those figures unchecked…but it has finally come clean and started to question the data….
Caution needed with Gaza casualty figures
War zones are not easy places to collect statistics.
In the Gaza conflict, most news organisations have been quoting from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which leads a group of humanitarian organisations known as the Protection Cluster.
Its recent report said that as of 6 August, 1,843 Palestinians had been killed and 66 Israelis and one Thai national since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July.
There has been some research suggesting that men in general are more likely to die in conflict than women, although no typical ratio is given.
Nonetheless, if the Israeli attacks have been “indiscriminate”, as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women.
An analysis by the New York Times looked at the names of 1,431 casualties and found that “the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll. They are 9% of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34% of those killed whose ages were provided.”
“At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71% of the population and 33% of the known-age casualties.”
Some of the conclusions being drawn from them [the figures] may be premature.
Israeli military officials said 750-1,000 Hamas and other gunmen had been killed in the fighting as of Tuesday, August 5.
The big question is will any of this ‘caution’ filter down to inform the other BBC reports?
I guess not…..
Ironically as the BBC publishes the above it also publishes this…claiming only 166 of the casulaties are ‘militants’:
Gaza conflict: The hundreds who lost their lives
And what of the nearly 500 Hamas rockets that misfired and fell within Gaza. The BBC are forever telling us that they are ‘harmless’, so presumably it’s a zero casualty count there. And pigs may fly over the nearest minaret.
From Honest Reporting is this:
http://honestreporting.com/bbc-and-nyt-admit-gazan-civilian-casualty-stats-not-credible/
http://honestreporting.com/anyone-see-a-terrorist/
I am trying to get my head round the idea that all women (and for that matter ‘children’) are civilian and where the BBC’s take on it is. From Lord Hall downwards is the claim that there must be more women. In the Israeli army there are, but none fighting for Hamas? Why not? Yet we know that there have been women suicide bombers – but none in this conflict. We have heard of the 100+ children killed digging out Hamas tunnels. We have heard from the Israeli side how Hamas was sending children down the tunnels with guns and that the hesitation by the Israeli Army in how to deal with them resulted in Israeli deaths. Are these children innocent or militants? And how old does a boy have to be to become a ‘militant’? What does the BBC know of the two boys who were militants? And Mr D is over 60 but I am sure he could help with the planning of any campaign, as I am sure any member of Hamas aged over 60. Doesn’t make them innocent. Think I can fairly say that these matchstick drawings of Gaza deaths (does the BBC think we are too thick to understand numbers) are deliberately presented to show the IDF and Israel as suffering the least.
So many questions but cannot expect a multi billion pound organisation to come up with any real analysis.
One of the captured fighters who attacked Israel through a tunnel (while committing the was crime of wearing an IDF uniform) was 16 years old. Had he died would he be listed as child or ‘militant”?
16-year-old Gaza terrorist treated in Israeli hospital
But the figures still admit only 166 “militants” – absolutley ridiculous.
These age bracket figures have available for ages, have they not. So why is the BBC only advising today that casualty figures coming out of Gaza should be treated with caution?
Either the BBC newshounds have only just discovered those figures or they are happy to perpetuate the myth that only civilians have been killed in Gaza.
Either way, a piss poor showing from what purports to be one of the world’s leading and balanced news organisation (their words, not mine).
this it the problem with these figures,hamas like there child murdering cousins in iraq isis have a well oiled propaganda machine that basically tell lies to confuse there enemy in a time of battle,it clearly says in the koran that you can lie to the infidel and kuffar to protect your religion and fellow muslims,that is what is happening here in the gaza strip in relation to the number of deaths in this conflict,hamas tell lies to demonise the idf the same way the the left and the far left in this country use the word anti zionist as a cover to express there anti semetism and hatred of jews,
Hamas propaganda machine is far from being ‘well oiled’. It depends entirely on the sad fact that the BBC and other lefty media are happy to accept any story against Israel, crude and dubious as it may be.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/08/BBC-Caution-needed-with-Hamas-Supplied-Gaza-Civilian-casualty-figures
Another piece of information that is not given in the BBC article, but noted by the New York Times, is
Human rights groups acknowledge that people killed by Hamas as collaborators and people who died naturally, or perhaps through domestic violence, are most likely counted as well.
Worth also noting that the BBC article that questions the casualty figures, the only one barely resembling any kind of honesty thus far, is only found as a link inside any other of their articles that continue to demonize Israel as much as possible. Like – Gaza’s tragedy – The visual story of all the lives lost
Any scepticism about casualties is not referred to in any of the main articles themselves and the BBC are happy to quote the figures given to them by Hamas as truth.
Rather intrigued that, in a relatively small population, over a relatively small period, human rights groups are conceding that during a shooting war there seems time & inclination by a significant number to off the missus.
Not sure why, as there seems little need to worry about consequences any other time?
Maybe it was more mothers less keen on the family moppet being fed into the ‘Gaza’s Got Corpses’ by Pallywood star-struck wailing stage dads?
And not supporting even thespian ambition there can appear dangerous.
Another article appearing twice on the BBC Mid-East webpage is this one:
Graphic content – How international media differ on use of Gaza images
Why is this important?
I can’t think of any other article where the BBC decided to show any differences.
It becomes clear when one scrolls down in the article and then the 3rd country from the bottom, India, is shown. (highlights mine)
India
Among India’s leading TV channels, private English-language NDTV has given the most prominent coverage to the conflict in Gaza. On others, it has been negligible.
NDTV sent one of its leading correspondents, Srinivasan Jain, to Gaza, and the resulting daily coverage was strongly pro-Palestinian. The channel’s choice of images is generally similar to that of other international broadcasters.
Srinivasan Jain reports from Gaza (4 August 2014) An NDTV crew filmed rare pictures of militants preparing to launch a rocket
NDTV’s coverage was less pro-Palestinian at the start of the fighting, when it also represented pro-Israeli views while being sympathetic to the plight of affected residents of Gaza. However, shortly before the three-day ceasefire began on 5 August, Jain and his team captured rare footage of militants quietly preparing to fire a rocket from a densely populated area of Gaza. The pictures were subsequently used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a news conference.
Aside from NDTV, reporting on Gaza has been limited on other TV channels such as CNN-IBN and Times Now. CNN-IBN has relied on CNN for its reportage, while Times Now has focused on domestic politics.
So now if anybody questions why the BBC hasn’t reported on how Hamas was launching missiles from built up areas it can point to this piece. Otherwise they prefer to ignore it, and they for sure have never witnessed it themselves.