New Analysis Of Gazan Casualties In Operation Protective Edge: As of July 23rd (Update)
David Lange
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Important Update: It has been discovered that the Al Jazeera list (based on Gaza Health Ministry data) has many duplicates, and hence has inflated the number of Gazans killed. Read here for more.
Following on from the Gazan casualties analysis I published on Sunday – which has been widely disseminated – comes this latest one, based on the casualties list published on Al Jazeera as of today, which contains the names and ages of 535 palestinians.
Note: The Al Jazeera list contains some palestinians of age unknown, or who are unidentified, or whose names are gender neutral, meaning some of this data is skewed. The reader who did the analysis states that “there may be more of a bias towards women then there should be.”
Since the last analysis (which was based on approximately 200 fewer casualties):
- Percentage of males killed has slightly fallen from approx 82% to 78%
- The percentage of those males killed, who were of combat age (18-28)* has fallen from approx 50% to 44%. Meaning, the total percentage of those killed who most fit the profile of a possible combatant has fallen from 41% to 34%
- The percentage of males in the 29-48 age group (which also conceivably contains combatants) has more or less remained stable at 20%.
- The percentage of children killed has risen from 18.6% to 19.5%
The new figures – like those of the previous analysis – bring into question how many of those killed were really innocent civilians, and still indicate that Israel has not been indiscriminately killing Gazans.
One would imagine, if Israel was purposely trying to kill Gazan civilians, 18-28 year-old men would not make up so many of the deaths. The percentage of women would be way higher than 22% (since they make up almost half the population), and the percentage of children killed would be way higher than approximately 20%, given nearly 50% of Gazans are under 14.
Also, compare these figures to those published by the UN:
- 599 palestinians killed
- 443 civilians (74%)
- 147 children (25%)
- 74 women (12%)
* Although as we have seen, young children have been used as combatants
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David Lange
