The Israel Defense Forces are now admitting that they have killed twice as many civilians as Hamas fighters. And the IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus today bragged that it means they are doing a “tremendous” job protecting civilians.
The Times of Israel reported that two unnamed senior military officials said yesterday that the IDF had determined the 2:1 ratio. One of them added: “I’m not saying it’s not bad that we have a ratio of two to one,” but it is part of Hamas’ “core strategy” to use human shields. Today, CNN asked Conricus about the 2:1 ratio, to which he effusively proclaimed that it was worth bragging about. Conricus said, given that it is urban terrain, “that ratio is tremendous, tremendously positive.” When the official IDF numbers come out, they will show, “We are indeed targeting the terrorists,” not the civilians, “and we are going through great efforts in order to keep it that way.”
Another military official, when asked about media reports of 5,000 Hamas deaths, said they were “more or less right.” Among other things, that would correspond by their figuring to a total of 15,000 Palestinian deaths—about what Gaza’s Health Ministry has been reporting all along. Their best count, as of yesterday, was around 15,900. For eight weeks, Western media have disparaged the figures of what it calls the “Hamas-run” Gaza Health Ministry. While the UN has always confirmed the Gaza Health Ministry’s previous death counts, Israel has never done so. Yesterday’s IDF admission was only implicit, so no one should hold their breath for an explicit confirmation.
Of note, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said that some 70% of the 15,900 deaths are children, women and elderly men. That leaves less than 4,800 of the deaths being among males, ages of 18 and 65. Evidently, the IDF, in saying about 5,000 Hamas fighters have been killed, is claiming that all the dead are Hamas fighters. That is, a killed male in that age range was ipso facto a Hamas fighter. That would seem to make Israel’s Hamas “targeting” a pretty simple affair.
