Assistant Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip , Dr. Abdul Latif Al-Hajj, said that those wounded in the war waged by Israel on the Strip need about half a million surgical operations in light of the collapse of the health system.Al-Hajj explained - in an interview with the Anatolia News Agency - that there are "more than 94 thousand wounded in Gaza, and these people need an average of 3 to 4 surgical operations after the war."He added, "The number of surgeries required for those injured after the war may reach half a million."
These numbers are made up out of thin air.
Al Hajj doesn't know all the types of injuries. There are no real statistics on injuries. He has no idea how many surgeries - if any - the injured would need. We don't even know if the health ministry counts a sprained ankle as an injury.
Beyond that, the "94,000" total number of people injured is another figure made up by the Gaza health ministry. Their latest infographic, when they claimed about 91,000, admitted that 25,000 of them were "undocumented" - 64,000 injuries had full documentation.
The health ministry may also count people with pre-existing conditions who require medical treatment, like kidney problems, as part of the "injured." They seem to base the numbers on ambulance trips but ambulances would be called for any injury or illness, whether war related or not.
But half a million is such a nice, round number, tailor made for headlines. Expect to see that number in Western media soon enough.
