More and more "civilians" being added to the list

PTWatch and t34zakat continue to scour various sources to identify more of the "civilians" killed in Gaza on the PCHR list that were in fact terrorists.

As the widget on my upper right corner shows, so far we have identified 331 terrorists who were named as "civilian" by the PCHR, in statistics that were unquestioningly used by other NGOs.

19 of them were also listed as "children."

Perhaps most importantly, we now have identified, by name, over 70% of the policemen killed in Gaza - 197 out of 280 - that were also members of terror organizations. In other words, we have conclusively proven that Hamas does not employ the principle of distinction between its supposedly civil police and its terrorist wing. This fact had been further proven in recent days as Hamas used uniformed Al Qassam Brigades terrorists - not police - to fight the Jund Ansar Allah group in Rafah, and in today's news that the Al Qassam Brigades claimed a "martyr" who was performing police duties.

This means that, contrary to the claims of human rights groups, Israel was more than justified legally in targeting the Hamas police force in the first days of the operation as being, effectively, the Hamas army. It also means that nearly half of the dead in Gaza have been identified as legitimate military targets by name. (This is not counting the real civilians who died directly because of Hamas/PIJ actions, like hiding weapons caches in civilian neighborhoods or using them as human shields, whose deaths would be considered legal as well when the targets are considered to be important military objectives.)

According to the IDF, over 90% of the police have been identified as terrorists. We're still working on reconciling that list.

There is no doubt that hundreds of civilians died in Gaza during the three weeks of Cast Lead. However, the numbers (using PCHR figures) show that the civilians were not a vast majority of the victims, and possibly not even a simple majority. Considering that Hamas and Islamic Jihad bragged about hiding among civilians and that they were shooting at Israel wearing civilian clothing, Cast Lead cannot be considered a "massacre" - it is more like a model for how to fight terrorists effectively while minimizing civilian casualties.

No other nation has ever shown greater regard for the lives of enemy civilians than Israel. Few other groups have shown more blatant disregard for the lives of their own people than Hamas and their cohorts.

The Arab and NGO meme of Israeli brutality is simply a grotesque lie that gets repeated far more often than the truth can be told.