The truth about Gaza is beginning to come out

The truth about Gaza is beginning to come out, but the damage is already done. The Palestinian fabrications were used unquestioningly by human rights groups and the UN. What this report does not say is that some of the "children" listed in Palestinian reports are really adult Hamas terrorists according to the IDF. It also doesn't say that the Hamas "police" have the hobbies of throwing Fatah rivals off roofs and assisting in "resistance." .   

Israel's Gaza toll far lower than Palestinian tally

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel says far more armed fighters and far fewer Palestinian civilians were killed during its 22-day offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in January than reported in widely-used Palestinian figures.

In the first Israeli death tally to appear in an official publication since the Dec 26-Jan 18 war, it said a total of 1,166 Palestinians were killed, not 1,417 as reported by Palestinian human rights activists.

The figures were contained in a briefing paper issued by the public affairs department of the Israeli embassy in London on Wednesday (http://london/mfa/gov/il).

It says 295 civilians lost their lives -- about a third of the figure of 926 reported by Gaza's Palestinian Center for Human Rights (www.pchrgaza.org), which published a full list of names earlier this month.

The document said at least 709 of the dead in Gaza were armed militants, not 236 as reported by the Palestinians.

The Palestinian group said "255 police and 236 fighters" died in Israeli bombing and shelling -- a total of 491.

Israel has made clear it regards police under the control of the Islamist Hamas ruler of Gaza as the equivalent of armed fighters.

The Israeli paper said the "degree of involvement" in the armed conflict of a further 162 killed in its offensive was "still under investigation."

It did not say how the figures were obtained.

The central aim of the embassy briefing paper was to reject charges of war crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza from human rights groups.

It said there was so far no adequate ethical code of war "to regulate the war on terror" in which "amoral" adversaries flouted the rules of war and used human shields with total indifference to human suffering.

All Western armies currently face the same dilemma, it said.

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Philippa Fletcher)