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Hamas Claim that 70 Percent of Gaza Dead Are Women and Children "Demonstrably False"

(Telegraph-UK) Patrick Sawer - Claims by Hamas that 70% of casualties in the Gaza conflict are women and children have been dismissed as "demonstrably false" in a new report by the Henry Jackson Society think tank. The report claims that the IDF has generally managed to avoid disproportionately harming civilians, even though many thousands have been killed. In the report, Prof. Lewi Stone and Prof. Gregory Rose said that claims made by the Gaza Ministry of Health of a 70% casualty rate for women and children are inconsistent with its own underlying hospital casualty figures. They found that Gaza hospital records and lists of the deceased showed that, since the start of the conflict, women and children have accounted for 51% of deaths overall, and that in the past year the rate of civilian casualties has fallen to below that figure. For example, the report found that although women and children comprised 75% of the population of the city of Khan Yunis, during fighting last year they accounted for 34% of deaths. Numerous warnings were issued by the IDF for civilians to leave Khan Yunis before its troops began their search for Hamas combatants. Of 11,224 people killed since October 2024, 76.3% (8,565) were male and 23.7% (2,659) were female. Of these, 58% were men of fighting age. "The reduced proportion of women and children casualties indicates increased Israeli avoidance of Gazan civilian harm since Oct. 7, 2023. This data shows the opposite picture to what one would expect from the narrative of Hamas and its allies, who alleged indiscriminate killing." Stone and Rose said their work "identifies extensive statistical anomalies, glaring inconsistencies, and a concerted effort by Hamas to inflate the number of civilian deaths - particularly among women and children - while systematically omitting combatant fatalities, especially among its own operatives." Prof. Rose said: "Hamas has waged not just a physical war but an information war, and far too many in the West have fallen for it."
2025-04-27 00:00:00
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