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New Report Proves Gaza Casualty Numbers Are a Lie — the Media Still Reports Them

People demonstrate in the city of Santander, Spain, under the motto ‘Let’s stop the genocide in Gaza,’ on Jan. 20, 2024. Photo: Joaquin Gomez Sastre/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

A new report by the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) reveals what has been obvious all along: The death toll provided by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza does not add up.

Despite the Palestinian casualty figures being disputed by Israel, this hasn’t stopped most mainstream media outlets from treating them with barely deserved credibility.

The HJS report analyzed a collection of 1,378 articles published by leading English-language newspapers and media outlets, specifically The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, and the Australian ABC.

The findings are staggering:

  • 84% of the publications analyzed failed to make the critical distinction in total numbers between combatant deaths and civilian deaths.   
  • In 19% of the publications analyzed, the numbers of fatalities provided by Hamas-run institutions were used without citing any source, thereby suggesting those figures were undisputed.  
  • A mere 5% of outlets cited the casualty statistics provided by Israel; 98% cited figures by the Hamas-run MoH. The Israeli figures were questioned in half of the articles that cited them, whereas the Hamas figures were often taken at face value. 
  • Men were recorded in fatality lists as female when the same individual was reported as a male in the Palestinian Population Registry. Similarly, the ages of several fatalities have been found to be inaccurate — men in their twenties or thirties are reported as children and babies, skewing the reported number of women and children killed. 
  • There is a disproportionate number of young men of fighting age listed among the casualties. There is no differentiation between civilians and Hamas combatants. 
  • The figures reported by the Hamas-run MoH include those who died of natural causes.

These results underscore a clear pattern of Hamas systematically influencing the media’s perception of the war.

This is not the first time the death toll in Gaza has been inflated by Hamas. Hamas has striven to influence the media’s perception of its wars with Israel since at least 2009, aligning with the terror organization’s broader objective of influencing international opinion to garner sympathy and condemnation of Israeli actions.  

In past wars between Israel and Hamas, Hamas has issued guidelines that call on Palestinians to consider all casualties to be “innocent civilians.”  

However, these “innocent civilians” are frequently found to have connections with Hamas or other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.

How many news outlets will acknowledge the HJS report, or even cover it in their own stories?

Sadly we know the answer, because doing so would require them to admit to using inaccurate death tolls provided by Hamas. When Hamas has quietly revised the number of casualties, the media have turned the other way. What better way to villainize Israel while avoiding accountability for propagating false information provided by a terrorist organization?

This has had serious implications in media reporting of casualty numbers in recent months ,as outlets have claimed 70% of casualties in the war are women and children.

Not only were these reports using statistics with misleading sample sizes, but the added findings provided by the HJS report indicate that the misclassification of men as women, as well as other inaccuracies in casualty data from Hamas-run institutions, have further distorted these figures.  

Andrew Fox, the author of the report asserted “This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing sentiment and media coverage.”  

It is undeniable that the casualty figures provided by Hamas are inaccurate and should not be relied on by any media outlet. Nonetheless, when asked for a response to the report by The Telegraph, the BBC claimed, “It is challenging to report accurately on the death toll in Gaza as Israel does not allow independent access to international journalists.”

Yet, the BBC does have correspondents in Gaza. Is the BBC acknowledging that it cannot trust its correspondents in Gaza to report on the war accurately or impartially? Perhaps BBC media workers in Gaza could investigate the casualty figures but that would necessitate the BBC having to publicly state that there is no press freedom in Gaza due to Hamas influence and control.

Hamas has enticed the media to push out a lie so extravagantly crafted that admitting the truth now after more than a year of war would cause embarrassment to the outlets that took a terrorist organization’s claims at face value.  

If Hamas’ own casualty figures don’t add up, neither do the media narratives that echo them.  

Born in Toronto, Sharon Levy moved to Israel in October 2023 and has held various roles in Israel advocacy and research institutions. Sharon has a Masters degree in Government with a specialization in Counterterrorism and Cyber Security from Reichman University. The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post New Report Proves Gaza Casualty Numbers Are a Lie — the Media Still Reports Them first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd

Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang

i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.

Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.

The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister

A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo

Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.

Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.

Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.

Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.

Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”

Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.

Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.

Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.

Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.

Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.

The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels

View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.

i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.

The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.

“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”

The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.

“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.

The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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