There are No Winners in War

Victims

Much has been made of the issue of victims of war. Much has been said of who died in numbers while ignoring much in the way of facts. Palestinian sources suggest numbers far beyond reality. Even when scaling the numbers closer to reality, there is a debate as to how many were civilians and how many combatants. Several lists supplied to the Goldstone commission were inaccurate, many of the witnesses biased, inaccurate, and even untruthful.

Gaza doctor refutes casualties reported in Cast Lead op

A doctor at Gaza's Shifa Hospital told the Gaza correspondent of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead might have been 500 or 600, mostly young men between the ages of 17 and 23, "drafted by Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter."

The doctor, who refused to identify himself out of fear for his life, also told the correspondent, Lorenzo Cremonesi: "It might have been like in Jenin in 2002. First they talked about 1,500 dead, and in the end it turned out to be only 54, among them 45 fighters." The doctor said he was surprised that aid groups, including Western ones, reported the numbers without confirming them.

ICT Report: Casualties in Operation Cast Lead

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism has carried out an intensive research project to gain a clearer picture of the casualties of the IDF military incursion in Gaza in December 2008-January 2009. The research was based on the list of casualties published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), supplemented by Hamas and Fatah websites and official Palestinian government online sources.

Although the study relied on the PCHR’s raw data throughout, our analysis of this data disproves the PCHR’s claims regarding “indiscriminate Israeli fire” on civilian areas. In fact, by checking the names on the PCHR list against Hamas websites, we found that many of those claimed by PCHR to be “civilians” were in fact hailed as “militant martyrs” by Hamas. Others listed by PCHR as “civilians killed in Israeli raids” later turned out to be Fatah members killed by Hamas, some of them in “execution style” killings.

Beyond the PCHR’s failure to apply its own standards accurately in determining who was and was not a militant, any black-and-white categorization scheme like theirs is bound to be ludicrously inadequate in characterizing a conflict where fighters do not wear uniforms, where combatants are intimately (and deliberately) commingled with noncombatant civilians, and where many unaffiliated civilians become actively involved in confronting invading forces and thus become “ad hoc combatants”.

While Hamas and its allies did everything possible to maximize the extent to which the civilian population of the Gaza Strip would be exposed to combat should Israel respond in force to cross-border missile attacks on Israeli towns, a closer look at the demographics of the casualties reveals that at least 63% to 75% of the Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead were combat-aged males over and above the number that would be accounted for by random Israeli attacks. This group includes identified combatants, policemen, and several hundred additional young men whose combatant status could not be verified from the sources we used. Thus, PCHR’s own data refutes its claim that Israel’s attacks were “indiscriminate”.

IDF releases Cast Lead casualty numbers

The IDF formally released precise figures on Thursday for the first time detailing Palestinian casualties incurred during Operation Cast Lead, and said a large majority of those killed were terrorists.

Of the 1,166 names of Palestinian dead gathered by the IDF's Research Department, 709 have been identified as "Hamas terror operatives," the IDF said, adding that the terrorists hailed from a variety of organizations.

According to the IDF, 162 additional names of men killed during the operation "have not been yet attributed to any organization."

A total of 295 Palestinian non-combatants died during the operation - 89 of them under the age of 16, and 49 of them women, the army added.

The figures were released "following the publication of reports that introduced false information originating from various Palestinian sources," the IDF said.

Goldstone Report Endorses Unreliable Witnesses

Israeli Casualties

By contrast, Israel's casualties were much lower in number than in Gaza. There were many reasons for this - few were recognized or examined by Goldstone's mission.

• The most fundamental of differences between the two battle areas. Israel's population sought shelter during rocket attacks - though given the proximity, many places had a mere 15 seconds warning. At the same time, Gaza's leaders sought shelter in deep underground bunkers, leaving their civilian population to fend for themselves.
• Israel placed its weaponry (staging grounds, etc.) in open fields surrounding Gaza. At the same time, Gazan military operations were staged from within civilian areas such as hospitals, schools, and mosques. Ironically, a blinded Goldstone mission was unable to confirm this common phenomena despite readily available evidence posted to many websites (such as YouTube) throughout the war.

Despite attempts to avert civilian loss, Israel was pounded by hundreds of rockets before, during, and after Operation Cast Lead.

On December 27, Israel was hit with 61 rockets and 33 mortars. Each day of the Cast Lead Operation was similar and as the operation progressed, the numbers of incoming attacks dwindled down such that on January 18th there were 16 rocket and 2 mortar attacks.

Total on Israel side:

• Rocket and Mortar Attacks: 571 rockets and 205 mortar shells landed in Israeli territory
• Wounded from Rocket and Mortar fire: 4 people killed (3 civilians and 1 soldier)
• 16 wounded seriously to critically
• 351 sustained minor injuries
• Several hundred were treated for shock
• Israeli soldiers wounded or killed in Gaza: 9 IDF soldiers were killed and 336 were wounded

The following table shows Israeli population centers within harms way for the last eight years. Each time a rocket was fired, it had the potential of hitting (and killing) over 700,000 people just in these cities (these numbers do not reflect dozens of smaller villages and towns that were also within rocket fire range throughout the operation and in the years before Israel launched Cast Lead.

Current Violence in Gaza

Finally, in an area where a state of war has existed without interruption for the last 60 years, violence and death is not unknown in the Middle East on almost a daily basis...and yet Goldstone fails, yet again, to admit to this reality. There is one truth in war - there are no winners. Innocent civilians died on both sides of this conflict. The flaw then, is assuming that you can investigate only those on one side, or only those who died in a conflict that has raged for many years.

While the world is focusing on whether Gazans killed during Cast Lead were civilians, policemen, combatants or whatever, Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) continues to document more violations of civil rights. Following is part of their report for one month alone (August, 2009, see here). What is important to point out here is that these are examples of ongoing, and continues violations in Palestinian society - none of which seem to bother Goldstone and his mission.

Their focus, their flawed mission, was to ignore local abuses and focus only on Israel. What Israel did, not why. What Israel caused, not what caused Israel to enter Gaza in the first place. Never has the United Nations instigated an investigation into these ongoing human rights violations and the deaths of Palestinian civilians as a result of internal violence. Never have they commissioned a study, and Richard Goldstone and his commission failed, yet again, to show that in this violent society, human rights violations are a daily event. 

For the month of August, 2009:

Deaths among local Palestinian population:

The most salient of points for the list of deaths during the month of August, 2009 are the next two paragraphs:

• ICHR documented 48 cases of death in the Palestinian-controlled Territory during August 2009
• 41 of these 48 deaths took place in the Gaza Strip.
• In terms of cause of death, these cases are distributed as follows:
  • 28 deaths were attributed to armed clashes in Rafah city
  • 3 deaths were linked to violent family disputes and rivalry.
  • In addition, 3 lives were lost due to security chaos and manslaughter
  • 7 death cases resulted of tunnels accidents.
• As for the West Bank, 7 death cases occurred, the causes of which are distributed as follows:
  • one death case occurred in a detention center in Nablus;
  • 5 deaths were linked to family disputes
  • one death case occurred as a result of negligence and the non-adoption of general safety precautions.

Among those who died are:

• a 14-year old child resident of Far’oun village in the Tulkarem governorate, died of fatal wounds that he sustained to the head as a result of an axe stroke by his neighbor.
• a 22-year old resident of Khan Younis, died of a bullet
  to the neck which was shot from his colleague’s weapon by mistake.

Freedom of the Press and Movement

The ICHR report continues with a list of hundreds of violations of human rights - almost all a result of Palestinian security force members against the local population, including the restriction of journalists and aid organizations:

• On 10/8/2009, the Ministry of Interior in Gaza confiscated three vehicles owned by the association of the National Center for Community Rehabilitation - NCCR. According to
  information obtained by ICHR, the Ministry informed the association’s manager that the vehicles were confiscated because the association is in no need for them. While the latter told ICHR that the association is in urgent need of the vehicles as they had to suspend their work since they depend on them for offering their services to the disabled.
• On 12/8/2009, a Palestinian police force stationed at the vicinity of Ansar building circle to the west of Gaza detained Mazen el-Bilbisi, a reporter to al-Itijah Satellite Channel, and his cameramen and prevented them from conducting their journalistic work. According to information obtained by ICHR, members of the Palestinian police banned them from filming in the area for the preparation of a report for their work. After a short while, he and his colleagues were released after the tape recorder had been destroyed.

Failure of Palestinian Supreme Court to Enforce Decisions

As for the Palestinian Supreme Court rulings, ICHR documented a number of complaints on the nonenforcement
of decisions issued by the Supreme Court while the PNA has not implemented them and they remain unimplemented until the time of writing of this report. The major cases of un-enforced court decisions are:

• On 24/6/2009, the Palestinian Supreme Court of Justice issued a decision that annuls the decision of the Ministry of Interior regarding the appointment of a temporary preparatory committee for the administration of the Islamic Society for Orphan Care-Yatta instead of the formerly elected administrative Body. This came as a result of not justifying the decision of the MOI and to its violation of Article 37 of the law on Charitable Societies and Associations of the year 2001.
• On 22/4/2009, the Palestinian Supreme Court of Justice issued a decision which stated the return of Nour Eddin Salh Hamad who was terminated from the police service on 1/11/2007. Until the time of reporting, the aforementioned decision has not been put into effect.
• On 23/2/2009, the Palestinian Supreme Court of Justice issued a decision for the revocation of a construction license for land #7 at al-Taybeh for Najib Nabil Khouri. The Abu Falah police station/ Beir Zeit is supposed to implement the decision yet the police has not implemented until the this time.
• On 26/11/2008, the Palestinian Supreme Court of Justice issued a decision to return Majdi Abdul Fatah Hassan to his work in the police service and to cancel his expulsion. However, the police have not implemented the decision until the writing of this report.

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