United Nations Slashes Gaza Casualty Figures

After months of claims by statisticians that the Gaza casualty numbers cannot possibly be accurate, the United Nations revised their figures downward significantly last week without providing an explanation. It was left to reporters to seek an explanation at a press conference later in the week.

There are big differences between the numbers reported in their infographics published on Monday 6th May and Wednesday 8th May.

First, the main change was a line added on 8th May to say that only 24,686 of 34,844 dead had been identified, cutting the number in which there might be some level of confidence by almost 30 percent. The number not identified seems to have been gathered from various media reports.

Second, the number of dead women was cut from ‘more than 9,500’ to 4,959 – a major reduction of at least 47.8 percent. Third, the number of dead children (people younger than 18) was cut from ‘more than 14,500’ to 7,797 – another major reduction of at least 46.2 percent.

This means that the total number of casualties quoted up until 8th May could have been overstated by 29 percent, almost one third. Even more important, the number of men included in the casualties has been very significantly understated – something that benefits Hamas propaganda.

That inaccurate data suggested the Israelis have caused high casualty rates among non-combatants, leading to widespread accusations of genocide. But the emerging reality is that the ratio of non-combatants to combatants is almost certainly less than 2 to 1 – a remarkably low figure for urban warfare, that shows the Israelis are taking great care in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Asked about the change in the casualty numbers at a press conference on Friday, UN spokesman Farhan Haq seemed unapologetic, saying:

“You know, of course, in the fog of war it’s difficult to come up with numbers.
We get numbers from different sources on the ground, and then we try to cross check them.
As we cross check them, we update the numbers, and we’ll continue to do that as that progresses.”