International Media Favours Hamas

The international media are once again spreading the latest Hamas claim that the death toll from the fighting in the Gaza Strip has now exceeded 40,000. It is not just pro-Palestinian organisations like Al Jazeera that have reported this as a fact, but Reuters, Associated Press, Sky News, BBC News - the list goes on and on.

But there is little critical examination of the Hamas-run Health Ministry numbers, despite the major revision of United Nations statistics back in May.

The UN’s latest figures indicate that more than 7,500 of the claimed dead were still unidentified at the end of June - only a small improvement on more than 10,000 unidentified earlier in the year. And that does not mean there are 7,500 bodies waiting to be identified. Many deaths have been reported in the absence of a body.

There are multiple issues to do with these figures, but a couple of key points are:

(1) The natural rate among the Gaza population would be expected to have seen more than 5,000 deaths over the 10 months of fighting.

(2) Hamas does not report on the number of its fighters who have died. The Israelis estimate that they have killed 17,000 of them.

So, even if one starts with the figure of 40,000, deducting 5,000 natural deaths and 17,000 terrorist deaths leaves a figure of 18,000 civilian deaths caused by the fighting - a dramatic reduction of the picture portrayed in the media.

The media has long been challenged on its uncritical reporting of the Hamas figures - see for example, CAMERA UK’s review of BBC reporting.

But there is little or no improvement and interviewees often make mistakes, such as the claim in this Sky News review of the papers, that 40,000 deaths have been confirmed. The relevant segment starts at 5 minutes 30 seconds.