Up to 21,000 children [1] are estimated to be missing in the chaos of the war in Gaza, many trapped beneath rubble, detained, buried in unmarked graves, or lost from their families, said Save the Children. The agency’s child protection teams are reporting that the latest displacements caused by the offensive in Rafah have separated more children and further increased the strain on families and communities caring for them.
How did Save the Children manage to make that estimate?
It is nearly impossible to collect and verify information under the current conditions in Gaza, but at least 17,000 children are believed to be unaccompanied and separated and approximately 4,000 children are likely missing under the rubble [2], with an unknown number also in mass graves. Others have been forcibly disappeared, including an unknown number detained and forcibly transferred out of Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their families amidst reports of ill-treatment and torture.
Ah, it is 17,000 "believed to be unaccompanied" plus 4,000 "likely missing under rubble."
Where did the 17,000 number come from? It came from a statement from UNICEF's "State of Palestine"spokesperson Jonathan Crickx in February: "UNICEF estimates that at least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied or separated. ...Of course, this is an estimation since it is nearly impossible to gather and verify information under the current security and humanitarian conditions."
So there is no source for that number. It is completely - and I mean completely - made up. There is no methodology, no background on how this estimate was calculated, nothing.
How about the 4,000 children estimated to be missing under the rubble? That one comes straight from from Hamas plus an additional lie laundered through the UN:
More than 10,000 people are believed buried under the rubble in Gaza after nearly seven months of devastating conflict, UN humanitarians said on Thursday, citing the enclave’s health authorities.Citing the Palestinian civil defence authority, OCHA said that the recovery of dead bodies from the debris is a huge challenge, owing to a lack of bulldozers, excavators and personnel.
The number of people supposedly missing under rubble is another completely fictional number made up by Hamas with no mention of how that estimate was arrived at. In addition, the estimate that 40% of those fantasy victims are children is a further lie, based on the idea that 40% of those killed in Gaza are children, when in fact the number is 32% according to the last detailed report from the health ministry in May. If you exclude boys from 15-17 who are of military age the percentage of children killed according to the latest dataset is 28%.
Save the Children adds up two wholly made up numbers to arrive at a third, and pretend that there is some sort of science behind it.
The old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" needs to be updated to "propaganda in, propaganda out."
The report goes on to add even more lies:
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 14,000 children have been killed since 7 October, roughly half of whom have not yet been fully identified, partially due to their bodies being harmed beyond recognition [3]. Children are also among those recently found in mass graves, according to UN experts, with many showing signs of torture and summary executions, as well as potential instances of people buried alive.
The 14,000 number is another absolute falsehood, and there are not 7,000 bodies of children who are unidentified. That was a weak attempt by the health ministry to explain to Western reporters why there was such a discrepancy between their "verified" statistics and the ones that Hamas made up. The "mass graves" libel are likewise Hamas propaganda.
Save the Children then adds an almost unbelievable afterthought in weak attempt to pretend to be evenhanded:
At least 33 Israeli children have been killed since October, while it is unclear if any children are among those still being held hostage in Gaza.
We know that there are still two children in Gaza, Kfir (1) and Ariel (4) Bibas. The language from Save the Children is shockingly inconsiderate and dismissive, either questioning whether the Bibas children were ever kidnapped or unconcerned over whether they are still alive.
This NGO dedicated to "saving the children" happily parrots Hamas lies about fictional children but cannot even say a single word of concern for the two unreleased children kidnapped by Hamas and now missing somewhere in Gaza.
Knowingly lying about the number of children missing and killed in Gaza is not "saving the children." It is repeating propaganda from a terror group that wants to kill and ethnically cleanse every single Jewish child in the Middle East.
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