The Guardian’s Ian Black examines a report on Arab human rights abuses issued by a Cairo based organisation. While this could be a welcome break from the newspaper’s regular focus on alleged Israeli “human rights violations”, the story contains the following:
The report highlights “grave and ongoing” Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, especially in the Gaza Strip, in a year which witnessed the continuing blockade of the territory and an Israeli offensive which led to 1,400 deaths, 83% of them civilians.
Where does Black get his casualty figures from? A look at the summary of the Cairo report reveals that Black simply cut and pasted the figures directly from there without either making this clear. In any case, Black should have clarified that these figures are disputed.
The IDF’s own research completely contradicts these figures. Among the 1,166 names identified by the IDF’s research department of Palestinians killed during the war, 709 were identified as Hamas terror operatives, 162 men were not yet attributed to any organisation, and 295 were identified as Palestinian civilians.
In addition, academic research has also been produced by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism that systematically examines the casualty figures and puts paid to the claims made by so-called Palestinian human rights organisations and repeated by newspapers such as The Guardian.
Please write to The Guardian – [email protected] – asking why Ian Black failed to clarify the source of his casualty figures and the fact that they are disputed.
