A lot of Hamas apologists try to claim that Hamas has a track record of telling the truth in its casualty claims in previous wars. But that is not true.
Hamas didn't lie much about things it could not get away with, like total deaths, because there were NGOs on the ground counting. But they did lie about everything they could.
Hamas's armed wing said on Monday it lost only 48 fighters during Israel's 22-day operation in Gaza and vowed to fight on unless the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the Palestinian enclave."We announce to our people the martyrdom of 48 Qassam fighters,," Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a televised press conference.Abu Obeida also claimed that Israel lost "at least 80 soldiers" in the fighting. The Jewish state listed 10 soldiers killed.
Israel had failed to achieve "any of the objectives it had set for the war ... and only killed hundreds of children, women and old people," [Abu Obeida said.]
It took 22 months for Hamas to admit Israel's numbers were correct. From Haaretz, November 9. 2010:
Hamas admitted last week that between 600 and 700 of its militants were killed during Operation Cast Lead – a figure consistent with that reported by the Israel Defense Forces.The figure is several times higher than the previous number of fatalities that Hamas claimed it sustained during the operation.Hamas military wing had previously claimed that only 49 of its militants were killed during the three-week operation that the IDF launched in December 2008. Israel had put the figure at 709.
As of a month ago, Israel says that it has killed some 12,000 terrorists so far. Hamas claims that 72% of those killed are women and children and very few are Hamas members. (They denied and denounced one Hamas spokesperson admitting to a news agency 6,000 Hamas members were killed.)
The current Al Qassam Brigades spokesman is the very same Abu Obeida!
Who has a better track record of telling the truth? And given this track record, why on Earth do reporters and NGOs still believe anything Hamas says and do everything but call Israel liars?
Because they choose to.
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