Everybody Is Upset About Civilian Casualties in Gaza, but Where Do the Numbers Come From?

Robert Spencer : PJ Media - The Israeli defensive action in Gaza has become, we are told, a massive humanitarian crisis, and it must stop. All the most trustworthy people in the world tell us so.

“The United States is unequivocal; international humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” declared putative Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday. “Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”

Then on Monday, the Associated Press, with a fine regard for journalistic objectivity, reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Soviet Union) and what it called “a robust group of Democratic senators” were “done ‘asking nicely’ for Israel to do more to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.” These fearless solons “warned President Joe Biden’s national security team that planned U.S. aid to Israel must be met with assurances of concrete steps from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government.” Sanders thundered, “The truth is that if asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today.” AP added, “It was time for the United States to use its ‘substantial leverage’ with its ally, the Vermont senator said.”

To buttress their indignation and increasingly shrill demands, Harris and Sanders and the rest can look to no less an authority than the United Nations. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Sunday published a chart of “Reported Casualties” in Gaza, and the numbers look grim indeed: over 15,523 deaths, with 4,257 women and 6,387 children making up fully 70% of that figure.

The far-left establishment media is putting out substantially the same figures; the UK’s Guardian wrote Tuesday that “in the last three days, bombing has been heavy, and the total death toll since 7 October has risen to 15,899.”

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