Latest news with #SaloAizenberg
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hamas terror outlet quietly cuts Gaza death count, reveals most killed were combat-age men
Hamas has revised its casualty figures from the Gaza war, removing hundreds of names from its official list of war fatalities, and revealing that 72% of those killed were men aged 13 to 55 – a demographic largely composed of combatants. The updated figures contradict Hamas' earlier claims that most casualties were women and children. Salo Aizenberg, from the U.S.-based nonprofit HonestReporting, uncovered the changes through a detailed analysis of Hamas' casualty lists. The investigation revealed that 3,400 names, including over 1,080 children, were removed from the group's March 2025 report after being listed in 2024. Aizenberg pointed out that the original reports, published by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, were widely cited by major international organizations, including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC). "These 'deaths' never happened. The numbers were falsified – again," he wrote. The History Of Gaza Amid Trump's Plan To Rebuild Enclave The United Nations did not respond to a Fox News Digital request asking if the world body regretted disseminating those numbers in light of the revised figures. A spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating Israel for war crimes, told Fox News Digital, "We cannot provide comments on matters related to ongoing investigations. This approach is essential to protect the integrity of investigations, and to ensure the safety and security of victims, witnesses, and all those with whom the Office interacts." Read On The Fox News App David Adesnik, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has also been tracking the figures, reached a similar conclusion. According to his analysis, 72% of the fatalities fall within the male combat-age bracket of 13 to 55. "Even at age 13, there's a major excess of male over female deaths, and the disparity grows with age," Adesnik told Fox News Digital. "If you calculate from age 13 to 59, there's a little more than 15,000 excess men. That gives you an idea of how many are actually fighters." His analysis showed a striking gender imbalance: at age 13, there are 588 male casualties compared to 385 females; by age 19, the gap widens to 800 males versus 285 females. This trend continues throughout the age spectrum, suggesting a disproportionately high number of male combatant deaths. Adesnik also highlighted issues with how deaths were recorded. "Significant numbers of names disappear from the list over time. It's like 2,000 names are removed and new ones added," he said. Report Exposes Hamas Terrorist Crimes Against Families During Oct 7 Massacre: 'Kinocide' He explained that Hamas maintains two lists: one for deaths confirmed by hospitals, and another for deaths reported by family members via an online form – often in cases where bodies couldn't be retrieved. "Over time, officials realized many of these family-reported names were inaccurate or unverified, and started quietly removing them from the count – replacing one set of data with another to cover up their original manipulation," Adesnik said. The head of the statistics team at Gaza's health ministry, Zaher Al Wahidi, told Sky News that names submitted via the form had been removed as a precautionary measure pending a judicial investigation into each one. "We realized that a lot of people [submitted via the form] died a natural death," Wahidi said. Some families submitting false claims, Wahidi said, may have been motivated by the promise of government financial assistance. Adesnik referenced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's previous comments about Gaza war casualties. "He said 30,000 dead – 14,000 fighters, 16,000 civilians – while Hamas claimed 70% were women and children. This data gives us a clearer picture of the demographic breakdown and supports the IDF's claim that it is targeting combatants," he said. The broader debate over casualty accuracy intensified after an Israeli strike on March 23 killed 15 humanitarian workers, including a paramedic, according to the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. The incident sparked outrage. However, the Israeli military stated that "the aid workers were mistakenly identified as terrorists". According to preliminary findings, the incident occurred during a covert IDF operation. Roughly two hours earlier, Israeli forces had engaged in a firefight with terrorists in the same area. Later, feeling threatened, an IDF official told Fox News Digital, the troops opened fire on suspicious vehicles. The incident is still under investigation by the IDF. In a related development, the IDF announced this week that Mohammed Saleh Mohammed Al-Bardawil, a senior Hamas terror leader, was killed in a targeted operation. Although referred to as a journalist in Gaza, the IDF said Bardawil was involved in producing propaganda videos, including footage of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. "The IDF and ISA will continue to target and dismantle Hamas' infrastructure to mitigate the threat it poses to Israeli civilians," the military said. In a separate statement, it emphasized: "The IDF makes great efforts to estimate and consider potential civilian collateral damage. The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target children."Original article source: Hamas terror outlet quietly cuts Gaza death count, reveals most killed were combat-age men
Fox News
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Hamas terror outlet quietly cuts Gaza death count, reveals most killed were combat-age men
Hamas has revised its casualty figures from the Gaza war, removing hundreds of names from its official list of war fatalities, and revealing that 72% of those killed were men aged 13 to 55 – a demographic largely composed of combatants. The updated figures contradict Hamas' earlier claims that most casualties were women and children. Salo Aizenberg, from the U.S.-based nonprofit HonestReporting, uncovered the changes through a detailed analysis of Hamas' casualty lists. The investigation revealed that 3,400 names, including over 1,080 children, were removed from the group's March 2025 report after being listed in 2024. Aizenberg pointed out that the original reports, published by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, were widely cited by major international organizations, including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC). "These 'deaths' never happened. The numbers were falsified – again," he wrote. The United Nations did not respond to a Fox News Digital request asking if the world body regretted disseminating those numbers in light of the revised figures. A spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating Israel for war crimes, told Fox News Digital, "We cannot provide comments on matters related to ongoing investigations. This approach is essential to protect the integrity of investigations, and to ensure the safety and security of victims, witnesses, and all those with whom the Office interacts." David Adesnik, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has also been tracking the figures, reached a similar conclusion. According to his analysis, 72% of the fatalities fall within the male combat-age bracket of 13 to 55. "Even at age 13, there's a major excess of male over female deaths, and the disparity grows with age," Adesnik told Fox News Digital. "If you calculate from age 13 to 59, there's a little more than 15,000 excess men. That gives you an idea of how many are actually fighters." His analysis showed a striking gender imbalance: at age 13, there are 588 male casualties compared to 385 females; by age 19, the gap widens to 800 males versus 285 females. This trend continues throughout the age spectrum, suggesting a disproportionately high number of male combatant deaths. Adesnik also highlighted issues with how deaths were recorded. "Significant numbers of names disappear from the list over time. It's like 2,000 names are removed and new ones added," he said. He explained that Hamas maintains two lists: one for deaths confirmed by hospitals, and another for deaths reported by family members via an online form – often in cases where bodies couldn't be retrieved. "Over time, officials realized many of these family-reported names were inaccurate or unverified, and started quietly removing them from the count – replacing one set of data with another to cover up their original manipulation," Adesnik said. The head of the statistics team at Gaza's health ministry, Zaher Al Wahidi, told Sky News that names submitted via the form had been removed as a precautionary measure pending a judicial investigation into each one. "We realized that a lot of people [submitted via the form] died a natural death," Wahidi said. Some families submitting false claims, Wahidi said, may have been motivated by the promise of government financial assistance. Adesnik referenced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's previous comments about Gaza war casualties. "He said 30,000 dead – 14,000 fighters, 16,000 civilians – while Hamas claimed 70% were women and children. This data gives us a clearer picture of the demographic breakdown and supports the IDF's claim that it is targeting combatants," he said. The broader debate over casualty accuracy intensified after an Israeli strike on March 23 killed 15 humanitarian workers, including a paramedic, according to the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. The incident sparked outrage. However, the Israeli military stated that "the aid workers were mistakenly identified as terrorists". According to preliminary findings, the incident occurred during a covert IDF operation. Roughly two hours earlier, Israeli forces had engaged in a firefight with terrorists in the same area. Later, feeling threatened, an IDF official told Fox News Digital, the troops opened fire on suspicious vehicles. The incident is still under investigation by the IDF. In a related development, the IDF announced this week that Mohammed Saleh Mohammed Al-Bardawil, a senior Hamas terror leader, was killed in a targeted operation. Although referred to as a journalist in Gaza, the IDF said Bardawil was involved in producing propaganda videos, including footage of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. "The IDF and ISA will continue to target and dismantle Hamas' infrastructure to mitigate the threat it poses to Israeli civilians," the military said. In a separate statement, it emphasized: "The IDF makes great efforts to estimate and consider potential civilian collateral damage. The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target children."
Telegraph
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
It is now far past time to stop paying attention to the lies of Hamas
Ask anybody how many Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and the number will be at their fingertips. It now stands at more than 50,000; they heard as much on the BBC. Ask them how many of those sorry souls happened to be fighting Israel at the time, however, and you'll find that they soon draw a blank. Three weeks after October 7, 2023, I wrote a column in this paper under the headline ' The gullible West is falling for Hamas's fictitious death figures '. It is a theme to which I and others have returned on many occasions. A year ago, for instance, I wrote about 'the devastating proof that Hamas is faking its death figures,' when the American data scientist Professor Abraham Wyner became the first of several analysts to comprehensively debunk them. 'By rights,' I argued, 'if the central pillar of the anti-Israel edifice has been discredited, the whole structure should come tumbling down.' Fat lot of good that did. This week, it emerged that Hamas had quietly dropped 3,400 fully 'identified' deaths from its casualty figures, including 1,080 children. 'These 'deaths' never happened,' wrote Salo Aizenberg, a board member at Honest Reporting, the NGO which made the discovery. 'The numbers were falsified. Again.' But not before they had been verified by the United Nations and parroted by a gullible — or ideologically blinkered — media. Further analysis of the data showed that among those old enough to be fighting for Hamas, 72 per cent of the dead were male, a testament to the care and precision of the IDF on a battlefield often crowded with human shields. By contrast, in the most tragic statistic of all, the balance of child casualties was 50-50 between boys and girls. This builds up a picture of the way Israel is fighting this war, confirming that they are targeting belligerents, the very opposite of a 'genocide'. Moreover, Honest Reporting found that Hamas had unscrupulously included natural deaths in the list of supposed victims of the IDF, including infant mortality rates of around 780 each year. This amounted to about 8,300 fatalities that any reporter acting in good faith would remove from the total. But the media has shown a singular lack of curiosity about that. If we take into account Israel's figures, which state that about 20,000 of the dead were combatants, that means that about one civilian is killed for every fighter. This is a humanitarian feat that has never been equalled by any other army, in spite of the fact that Hamas herds its own people into the firing line to produce the footage we see on the BBC. That is the true story of this war. But according to research by the Henry Jackson Society, extenuating Israeli data is cited in just 5 per cent of news reports (which is why most people are unaware of it), whereas 98 per cent repeat numbers provided by Hamas. Soberingly, while thousands of despairing Palestinians are rising up against their jihadi overlords in Gaza, the West continues to do all it can to foist their propaganda agenda upon the public. Every human life is sacred and it is macabre to talk in such terms about the grim arithmetic of death. But those on my side of the argument have no choice but to respond in such terms to the obsession with casualty numbers that has characterised coverage of this war since the start. Put it this way: do you have any idea how many civilians were killed when we destroyed Islamic State, or waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq? No? That tells you something.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
It is now far past time to stop paying attention to the lies of Hamas
Ask anybody how many Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and the number will be at their fingertips. It now stands at more than 50,000; they heard as much on the BBC. Ask them how many of those sorry souls happened to be fighting Israel at the time, however, and you'll find that they soon draw a blank. Three weeks after October 7, 2023, I wrote a column in this paper under the headline 'The gullible West is falling for Hamas's fictitious death figures'. It is a theme to which I and others have returned on many occasions. A year ago, for instance, I wrote about 'the devastating proof that Hamas is faking its death figures,' when the American data scientist Professor Abraham Wyner became the first of several analysts to comprehensively debunk them. 'By rights,' I argued, 'if the central pillar of the anti-Israel edifice has been discredited, the whole structure should come tumbling down.' Fat lot of good that did. This week, it emerged that Hamas had quietly dropped 3,400 fully 'identified' deaths from its casualty figures, including 1,080 children. 'These 'deaths' never happened,' wrote Salo Aizenberg, a board member at Honest Reporting, the NGO which made the discovery. 'The numbers were falsified. Again.' But not before they had been verified by the United Nations and parroted by a gullible — or ideologically blinkered — media. Further analysis of the data showed that among those old enough to be fighting for Hamas, 72 per cent of the dead were male, a testament to the care and precision of the IDF on a battlefield often crowded with human shields. By contrast, in the most tragic statistic of all, the balance of child casualties was 50-50 between boys and girls. This builds up a picture of the way Israel is fighting this war, confirming that they are targeting belligerents, the very opposite of a 'genocide'. Moreover, Honest Reporting found that Hamas had unscrupulously included natural deaths in the list of supposed victims of the IDF, including infant mortality rates of around 780 each year. This amounted to about 8,300 fatalities that any reporter acting in good faith would remove from the total. But the media has shown a singular lack of curiosity about that. If we take into account Israel's figures, which state that about 20,000 of the dead were combatants, that means that about one civilian is killed for every fighter. This is a humanitarian feat that has never been equalled by any other army, in spite of the fact that Hamas herds its own people into the firing line to produce the footage we see on the BBC. That is the true story of this war. But according to research by the Henry Jackson Society, extenuating Israeli data is cited in just 5 per cent of news reports (which is why most people are unaware of it), whereas 98 per cent repeat numbers provided by Hamas. Soberingly, while thousands of despairing Palestinians are rising up against their jihadi overlords in Gaza, the West continues to do all it can to foist their propaganda agenda upon the public. Every human life is sacred and it is macabre to talk in such terms about the grim arithmetic of death. But those on my side of the argument have no choice but to respond in such terms to the obsession with casualty numbers that has characterised coverage of this war since the start. Put it this way: do you have any idea how many civilians were killed when we destroyed Islamic State, or waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq? No? That tells you something. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel launches fresh military operation to seize ‘large areas' of Gaza
Israel has launched a major expansion of its military operation in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, saying that its army would seize 'large areas' of the Palestinian territory. In a statement early on Wednesday morning, Israel Katz, the country's defence minister, said that Israel would expand its presence in Gaza to 'destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure'. The operation would 'seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones', he said, without explaining how much territory Israel would take. The announcement comes after he warned last week that the military would soon 'operate with full force' in additional parts of Gaza. Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a ceasefire in the war with Hamas that had lasted almost two months. The war was sparked by Hamas's attacks on Israel on Oct 7 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,000 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. A report by the Henry Jackson Society in December said that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict had probably been inflated by Hamas to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people. Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based non-profit organisation Honest Reporting, said that Hamas's March 2025 casualty update had removed thousands of people it previously listed as having been killed last year. The Israel Defense Forces said that it has killed 20,000 Hamas combatants during the fighting and does all it can to mitigate civilian casualties. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
