Report: Over a Third of Palestinian Deaths in Recent Firefight Were Caused by Failed Gazan Rockets

By Garion Frankel July 10, 2021 at 8:57am

Every time the Israel-Palestine conflict flares up, the narrative remains the same, that the Israelis are savage baby-murderers who kill indiscriminately, while the authorities in Gaza are fighting for freedom and have no terror connections.

Naturally, this narrative is blatantly false, but many public figures — including Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — would have you believe it.

US Rep. Ilhan Omar was asked if she regrets her comments comparing the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban:

“I don’t” pic.twitter.com/4a1ew5mxJf

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 4, 2021

It’s a particularly popular narrative on social media as well. One of the narrative’s central arguments is that the fact that Israel — which has the Iron Dome air defense system — had fewer civilian casualties than Palestine (which has no Iron Dome and leaders such as Hamas are not interested in the welfare of local residents) is somehow an indictment against Israel.

The level of anti-Semitism still shocks me.

I tell myself nothing Israelis do will shock me but then I check the news. In the past hours they killed a prominent journalist in Gaza, didn’t allow humanitarian aid into the strip, killed a 16yo in the West Bank, targeted medics with bullets, & sang about freedom in Eurovision.

— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) May 19, 2021

And the death toll in Israel is ?????????? vs Palestine’s 213. You also have the iron dome. Palestine has no defense and has higher casualty rates. You’re the new Nazis and you should be ashamed of yourselves. pic.twitter.com/4akJOeSWCA

— BooBoo The Got Damn Clown (@gotdamnbooboo) May 19, 2021

The truth about the casualty numbers — as the Bedin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies illustrates in a new report — is, of course, far more nuanced, and it largely centers on the incompetence of Hamas militants, as well as the construction of tunnels under civilian buildings.

According to Dr. Alex Safian, author of the report, “Hamas aims to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, but its rockets place both Israelis and Palestinians in peril, because many of those rockets—in this case 680—misfire and explode inside Gaza.

“The death and destruction caused is, of course, usually blamed on Israel. The question addressed here is how many Palestinians are likely to have been killed by these errant Palestinian rockets in May. The estimate arrived at is 91, amounting to 36% of the alleged Palestinian death toll.”

The estimate is based on a combination of mathematical models and real-time reports. Two examples of those real-time reports are below:

In a second incident around 6:05 p.m., a homemade rocket fired by a Palestinian armed group fell short and killed eight Palestinians, including two children. The rocket landed in Saleh Dardouna Street near Al-Omari Mosque in Jabalia, according to evidence collected by DCIP.

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) May 11, 2021

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center confirmed that this second case was caused by Palestinian rocket fire as well.

Six Palestinian children and two adults were killed in a third blast that occurred around 6 p.m. in Beit Hanoun about 800 meters (2,600 feet) west of the Gaza Strip perimeter fence.

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) May 11, 2021

“Many buildings in Gaza may have been undermined by Hamas tunneling, adding to their inability to withstand shaking and increasing the Palestinian death toll,” Safian said, citing an example of a tunnel attack causing the collapse of a nearby building, killing 20 civilians.

Safian concluded that, in essence, “rather than providing protection for Gaza’s civilians Hamas digs tunnels underneath those civilians—in fact, hides behind them—at enormous cost.”

In the end, this report tells us a lot of what we already knew, that Israel cares about civilian welfare during wartime, while the authorities in Gaza are not troubled by such matters.

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