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Number of Civilians Killed in Gaza "Inflated to Vilify Israel"
(Telegraph-UK) Patrick Sawer - The number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict has been manipulated for propaganda purposes to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people, according to a study by the Henry Jackson Society think tank. The Gaza ministry of health is accused of overstating casualty data by including natural deaths, failing to differentiate between civilian and combat casualties, and over-reporting the numbers of women and children killed. In fact, the majority of those killed are fighting-age men. Around 5,000 natural deaths, which would have happened even without the conflict, appear to have been added to the list of casualties. The casualty figures also failed to distinguish between Gazans killed by the IDF and those killed by misfired Hamas rockets. The Hamas-sanctioned casualty figures are taken at face value by the BBC, the New York Times and CNN. Only 5% of 1,378 news articles cited casualty figures issued by the Israeli authorities, while 98% used those provided by Hamas. During previous conflicts, similar inaccuracies were documented.