Pages

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Today's named deaths in Gaza, plus a "child"

Ma'an actually names some of the people who were killed today in Gaza. Out of the 27 people named, 22 were known "militants" and two are ambiguous. All were men.

If we exclude the two who are unclear, this means that 88% of those named were confirmed terrorists.

One in particular is of interest: Muhammad Nader Abu Sha’ban, aged 17. He was fighting at the time he was killed, but there is no doubt that Gazan doctors will count him as a child civilian, not as a "militant."

Over the years, a significant number of the "children" that Israel has killed in various operations have been 16 or 17, far out of proportion to what one would expect in a normal distribution - and a great number of them were engaged in violent actions at the time they were killed.

Over half of the "child" victims in Gaza over the past year have been 15 or older. There is no reason to think that this number is any different now.

Keep that in mind every time someone quotes a statistic on how many children the IDF killed. Many if not most of them are very likely to have hardly been innocent.