Friday, July 26, 2024
Elder of ZiyonCNN's fact check says
Claim: Netanyahu said a commander in Rafah told him that there practically no civilian deaths in the city with the exception of “a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.”
Fact: There have been multiple reports of several Israeli strikes in Rafah that have caused civilian casualties....
At least 29 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli attacks on displacement camps in Rafah, according to Palestinian and UN officials.CNN has verified videos from Rafah and spoken to several health officials, humanitarian workers and eyewitnesses who have reported civilian fatalities as a result of Israel’s military assault on the city.
This doesn't contradict Netanyahu - CNN doesn't know if the 29 were civilian or terrorists. And the other civilian fatalities could fit in the "practically none" quote from Netanyahu.
NPR dealt with the statement similarly, and chose to do what journalists do: counter the facts with heartbreaking stories of loss of in specific incidents in Rafah. But the casualties they mention do not add up to large numbers.
More importantly, CNN and NPR took Netanyahu's statement out of context. He prefaced it by saying:
[D]espite all the lies you’ve heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare. And you want to know where it’s lowest in Gaza? It’s lowest in Rafah. In Rafah. Remember what so many people said? If Israel goes into Rafah, there’ll be thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of civilians killed. Well, last week I went into Rafah. I visited our troops as they finished fighting Hamas’ remaining terrorist battalions. I asked the commander there, “How many terrorists did you take out in Rafah?” He gave me an exact number: 1,203. I asked him, “How many civilians were killed?” He said, “Prime Minister, practically none...."
Bibi's statement that the experts predicted thousands of deaths is an understatement. AP, May 3, said, "The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be 'at imminent risk of death' if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. "
UNRWA said “A military incursion into Rafah could lead to a bloodbath because of how densely populated Rafah has become.”
WHO similarly warned about a "bloodbath" and stated confidently that a "Rafah incursion would substantially increase mortality." Weeks later, even after the offensive started with relatively low casualties, WHO claimed a "substantial" increases in deaths can be expected,
In the ten weeks since the Rafah operation began, there has been - according to Hamas authorities - an average weekly death toll of 395. In the ten weeks preceding it, the average weekly death toll was 489. Instead of the expected tenfold increase of casualties due to fighting in a crowded urban environment, the numbers went down.
The "experts"were wrong. Israel has continued to reduce the number of total casualties even as it has been scoring more successes against Hamas.
Even if, say, 100 civilians were killed in Rafah during the incursion, assuming that the 1,203 terrorists killed is accurate, this would be a totally unprecedented urban terrorist to civilian death toll of 12-1. The ratio was indeed lowest in Rafah, as Bibi said. In terms of real wars, "practically none" is not an inaccurate assessment.
This is the sort of information that CNN and NPR most definitely do not want you to know. They do not point out when Netanyahu is correct and they cherry-pick statements out of context to make him look like he is lying.
But he is right, and the experts were wrong about Rafah. And so are the "fact-checkers."
(h/t Irene)
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