Daily Telegraph’s Twisted Headline

The IDF released updated casualty stats from the January Gaza war. According to Haaretz, the army lists 1,370 fatalities overall,…

By March 26, 2009

The IDF released updated casualty stats from the January Gaza war. According to Haaretz, the army lists 1,370 fatalities overall, which include:

  • More than 600 members of terror organizations.
  • 309 confirmed civilians, of which 189 were children under the age of 15.
  • 320 people whose status as civilian or fighter has not yet been confirmed.

This prompted a very twisted headline in the Daily Telegraph:

Daily_telegraph

In reality, 189, while tragic, is a very small number when you consider that a large percentage of Gaza's estimated population of 1.4 million are children. 

Had the IDF had indeed attacked civilians targets indiscriminately in the densely populated strip, the stats would show a sharply higher percentage of kids among the overall casualties.

But the majority of casualties are among men of fighting age, suggesting that even when accidents happened, the IDF was actually deliberately targeting its fire rather than indiscriminately blasting away.

© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025

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