A friend writes: I think you'll find this UN methodology on civilian deaths as of 12/29 noteworthy. The UN would not even count a UN employee or trainee killed in Gaza as civilian unless she was a woman. That's flawed. Excluding all men from the figures suggests that all are with Hamas or other
armed groups and that's absurd.
From UN transcript:
"Mr. [Under-Secretary-General John] Holmes said that, based on his latest information, there were 320 dead on the Palestinian side and 1,400 people injured. Based on UNRWA information, 62 of the casualties were civilian casualties, a count that
included only women and children, and not civilian casualties who were men. On the Israeli side, two persons had been killed by rocket attacks. He did not have a number of injured people. The scale of casualties on the Palestinian side reflected that no matter how hard one tried to target, in a densely populated area such as Gaza, civilian casualties were almost impossible to avoid. A United Nations compound had been hit and badly damaged and one United Nations staff member and eight UNRWA trainees had been killed a couple of days ago.
"Responding to numerous questions about why only women and children were counted as civilian casualties, Mr. Holmes said the UNRWA figure of civilian casualties had been given to avoid accusations of exaggeration or unclearness about civilians, or others who might be Hamas militants. It was meant to give a credible, minimum figure. He knew
that there were civilian men who had been killed, including one UNRWA staff. It was not meant to be "super considerate" of Israel, as one correspondent suggested. There were civilians killed who were men, but women and children were the only ones one could reasonably be sure were civilians. The given number was not based on a methodology, he said. Neither did he mean to say that all men killed were Hamas."
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This is more brazen racism. Are dead Israeli men automatically assumed to me combatants? I doubt it, even though it is VASTLY more likely that they would be, than a random Gazan man, given that all male Israelis serve in at least reserve forces until they are, what 45? 50? Someone on this blog who knows, please correct my estimate.
In the proportionality stake, these are worth one Israeli arm:
Or was that one fingernail?
Same rationale as Israel used in earlier attack on Gaza:
Eitan Arusi, an Israeli military spokesman acknowledged that "some civilians" were killed but said the Israeli policy was to refrain "as much as possible" from targeting civilians. However, an initial investigation into the fatalities by B'Tselem – the Israeli organisation that monitors and documents human rights violations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza – found that 41% were civilians "who took no part in the fighting". B'Tselem also found that 19 children under the age of 17 had been killed by Israeli forces. Arusi categorically denied such a large number of civilians were killed. "I don't care that its B'Tselem who reported the numbers," he told Aljazeera.net.
Arusi persisted that, with the exception of some 10 civilians and a 65-year-old man, all Palestinians killed in northern Gaza since Wednesday were in their 20s and 30s. Arusi gave no answer, however, when asked if Israeli military policy considered every Palestinian male in the 20-40 age bracket a legitimate target for liquidation just because he happened to be within a bracket typically associated with military recruitment.
– Al Jazeera, Palestinian civilians in Israel's sights?, 4 Oct 2004.
Link at homepage.
Well, keep accommodating Israel. Soon they will say that women, too, must not be counted since there are women members of Hamas. Keep it up. Keep it up. I can say only one thing to all those who keep accommodating the zionazis. It is all being recorded. All being noted. Whose blood is on whose hands. History will not forgive. Palestinians will not forgive. Revenge will be the name of the game.
The latest U.N. "count" referes to one third of Gaza casualties as "children". What is the age that the U.N. is using to define a "child"? Is it under 18 years? Because many of the militants are 17, 16, and 15 years old.
In Somalia, boys as young as 13 are in the battlefield with AK-47's killing and raping civilians.
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