[Jerusalem Post] Yaakov Katz - While the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported that two-thirds of all fatalities in Gaza were civilians, IDF figures put the civilian death toll at no higher than a third of the total. With regard to the incident near a UN school in Jabalya, IDF Col. Moshe Levi said, "From the beginning, Hamas claimed that 42 people were killed, but we could see from our surveillance that only a few stretchers were brought in to evacuate people." The IDF has identified more than 1,200 of the Palestinian fatalities, listing their names, their official PA identity numbers, the circumstances in which they were killed and, where appropriate, the terrorist group with which they were affiliated. Several fatalities who had been classified by the Palestinians as "medics" were in fact Hamas fighters, including Anas Naim, the nephew of Hamas Health Minister Bassem Naim. The IDF showed photographs of Naim posing holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a Kalashnikov assault rifle that had been posted on a Hamas Web site.
2009-02-16 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive