Lebanese health minister is not being exactly forthcoming about casualty statistics

Lebanon Health Minister Firass Abiad spoke with NPR on Wednesday, saying how civilians are the major victims of Israeli airstrikes.

SUMMERS: I've heard you mention the high number of casualties among civilians, particularly on Monday, the most intense day of airstrikes there. Can you give us a sense of how you and the government have determined that so many of these victims were civilian victims?

ABIAD: I mean, you could see that. You know, the civilians were coming from residential areas. They were coming from their homes. Remember that our ambulances are the ones that were transporting. You know, we're talking about women. We're talking about children, and we're talking about people at different ages. I mean, we're not talking about combatants.

And furthermore, you know, I've been asked this question several times by the international media. And my answer to them is, you know, unlike Russia, the media in Lebanon can go everywhere they want. And they can judge for themselves whether these are areas that were where civilians live or whether these are areas where combatants live.

Abiad's claim is that Israel is randomly targeting civilian houses in Lebanon, and certainly no Hezbollah members would be in civilian houses.

So his bias is clear. Before this month, nearly every casualty in Lebanon was Hezbollah or Hamas, and everyone knows it. 

I find it interesting that while his health ministry was eager to publish the statistics of women and children killed on Monday, they have not released any such figures the rest of the week.

Here are the best tallies I can find:

Monday: 569 people killed, including 94 women and 50 children

Tuesday: 11 people killed, no mention of women and children

Wednesday: 72 killed, , no mention of women and children

Thursday: 92 killed, no mention of women and children

Friday: 25 killed so far, no mention of women and children

If Abiad is so eager to claim that Israel is randomly murdering Lebanese people, why is he not releasing figures on women and children every day?

What about Monday? If Israel was randomly firing at residential areas as Abiad claims, then we would expect about 220 women and 120 children killed according to current demographics. So even his own statistics prove him wrong.  Israel was targeting Hezbollah and Hezbollah was hiding among civilians, as we saw in their meeting last week hit by an airstrike in a sub-basement of a residential building, something Abiad is certainly aware of.

In the days since then, the ministry's refusal to publish the same statistics - which take no more effort to compile than the deaths themselves - indicate that the percentage of women and children killed has become significantly lower. 

Abiad already proved that he cares more about propaganda than facts, but he doesn't want to be caught in a lie. Better not to mention the current statistics than to be proven that his thesis of Israeli depravity has no basis.

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