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.
"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."
