Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg Reflects on the news, Torah, Israel: The IDF killed no civilians in Gaza

The IDF killed no civilians in Gaza

October 12, 2014 by Thomas Wictor

Today I learned a fact that both exhilarated and depressed me. The exhilaration is the result of my faith in the Israeli Defense Forces being indisputably and permanently justified. However, I’m depressed because once again, prominent Israelis show me that they aren’t willing to debunk the lies that demonize and demoralize the fighting men and women of the IDF. The rationale is that we must “be careful.” Well, I’m not going to “be careful.” The Israeli Defense Forces killed no civilians in Gaza.

What I mean is that the IDF did not knowingly undertake actions that resulted in civilian deaths. Civilians were killed because Hamas and other terrorist groups took extraordinary steps to ensure that such deaths occurred. Yet even in the face of such depravity, the IDF killed a statistically nonexistent number of civilians. I’ll prove it to you, and then you’ll be forced to agree with me.

First, we must show the fraudulence of the lists that claim 2100 Palestinians were killed.

The International Middle East Media Center published the names of all the Palestinians killed in the fifty-day war. Here’s the photo they include.

That’s a lie. She’s reacting to the news of Operation Four Little Martyrs, in which Hamas murdered four children and blamed it on Israel. All the photo captions say she’s the mother of one of the dead boys, photographed outside the morgue of al-Shifa hospital after seeing the corpse of her son.

No name and no tears.

The mother of one of the four Palestinian children from the Baker family, whom medics said were killed by a shell fired by an Israeli naval gunboat, grieves outside the morgue in Gaza City

I don’t care if you think I’m being harsh. This woman is pretending. She’s acting for the camera. When I see falseness, I call it out.

The list of dead Palestinians presented by the International Middle East Media Center includes people who were not killed.

Salem Shemaly is the star of the bogus sniper video that the International Solidarity Movement produced.

His family told two completely different stories about when they recovered his body and what condition it was in. Max Blumenthal diligently debunked the Shemaly family’s lies, for which he deserves an attaboy.

Attaboy, Max!

So that list of dead Palestinians is worthless. What about the list of dead Palestinian children that the Telegraph published? Well, it includes terrorists.

Anas Yousef Qandeel was a member of the Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigade.

Here’s another terrorist.

Though only fifteen, Waseem Rida Salhiyeh was a member of the Abu Rish Brigade.

Therefore another worthless list.

The Palestinians count names twice, and they also include the names of those they accidentally killed themselves and those they murdered. During the fifty-day war, Hamas set off an unbelievable number of massive improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

They leveled entire city blocks.

In addition, 875 rockets fell inside Gaza. All those rockets and IEDs exploded in populated areas. Most of Gaza’s citizens are squeezed into 57 square miles (155 km squared). That’s the size of Gardendale, Alabama.

Gardendale has a population of 13,735, compared to Gaza’s 1.8 million. The population density of Gardendale is 767 per square mile (295 per km squared.) Gaza has a population density of 13,069 per square mile (5046 per km squared). The terrorist IEDs and rockets killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Hamas also murdered hundreds. There were summary executions.

The police killed dozens of protestors, and dozens of accused collaborators were murdered. More names for the death list.

According to Gazans, Hamas committed savage war crimes. These included:

1. Rounding up about 400 members of the opposing political parties, “probably” killing them, and blaming Israel.

2. Locking civilians inside their houses after Israelis warned them to leave, thus ensuring that the residents would be killed.

3. Blocking exits from neighborhoods that the IDF warned would be targeted.

4. Shooting and killing civilians trying to flee from the fighting.

5. Breaking into occupied homes to fire at Israeli troops, in an effort to get civilians killed.

6. Summarily shooting and killing anyone found outside after the order was given to not evacuate.

Now comes the information I learned today that both exhilarated and depressed me.

During the fifty-day war, about 760 Gazans died of natural causes. This is an estimate based on data from the CIA. Since the leading cause of death in Gaza is heart disease, it’s guaranteed that more than 760 Palestinians died of natural causes during Operation Protective Edge. The stress and shock would’ve caused many heart attacks.

However, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center—which is trying to determine the rate of Palestinian civilian deaths versus combatant deaths—says that it will not “brand figures released by the Palestinians as deliberate deception.” The Center would “rather err to the detriment of Israel” than make claims it can’t back up.

Would you say that the New York Times is especially pro-Israel? Here’s what it says about whether or not the Palestinians include deaths from natural causes in their lists of those killed by Israel.

“Most likely”? OF COURSE Hamas counts those who died of natural causes in the list of people “killed by Israel.” They lock civilians in their houses to be blown up, they murder children, they kill their own leaders and blame it on Israel, but you think they’re going to draw the line at adding death by natural causes to the list of war dead?

“Khaled, I don’t like this! We can’t blame Israel for these deaths! It’s dishonest!”

The official and utterly unverifiable number of Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge is 2100.

If we break down the numbers the way “human rights” organizations admit we should, here’s what we have.

900 combatants killed by the IDF +
760 dead from natural causes +
120 Fatah members killed by Hamas +
400 opposition members killed +
50 protestors killed +
38 “collaborators” killed =
———————————-
2260

That figure does not include those killed by the 1000 IEDs and the 875 rockets. Itdoes not include those forced to stay in their houses during the fighting. It does not include those killed when their homes were used as combat posts. It does not include the total number of those summarily killed for violating whatever rule Hamas deemed violated. It does not include those killed as the collateral damage of terrorist offensive and defensive ground operations. And it does not includethose killed in “false-flag” operations, such as Operation Four Little Martyrs or the Hamas assault on the UNRWA school at Jabalia.

The IDF assault on Shijaiyah—the center of gravity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad—took place a little after midnight on July 20, 2014. Because the civilians didn’t flee, the Israelis chose to forgo artillery preparation. Having been warned of the assault four days in advance, the terrorists readied one of the largest ambushes in the history of urban warfare. At 1:00 a.m. they hit the Golani Brigade with mortars, heavy machine guns, IEDs, recoilless rifles, antitank guided missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, rifle grenades, hand grenades, explosively formed penetrators, and land mines.

In a desperate effort to save the lives of their men, the IDF fired 600 155mm high-explosive artillery shells and dropped 100 MK-84 2000-lb bombs. The fortress of Shijaiyah was demolished.

Seventy Palestinians were reported killed. Out of 100,000.

But wait!

In the Gatestone Institute article about Hamas war crimes, linked above, here’s what a Palestinian said.

In the Shijaiya area, people received warnings from the Israelis and tried to evacuate the area, but Hamas militants blocked the exits and ordered people to return to their homes. Some of the people had no choice but to run towards the Israelis and ask for protection for their families. Hamas shot some of those people as they were running; the rest were forced to return to their homes and get bombed. This is how the Shijaiya massacre happened. More than 100 people were killed.

According to the Palestinians, Hamas caused all the deaths even in the assault on Shijaiyah. Therefore, the death tally is increased.

Remember that the official toll is 2100. This proves two things, the first being that Palestinian figures are completely worthless.

Secondly, it proves that the Israeli Defense Forces achieved the impossible: They fought a major war without killing civilians. Virtually all of the civilians who died were killed by Palestinian terrorists or were the victims of illness, accident, or domestic violence.

You may not think that Israelis are God’s chosen people, but the Israeli Defense Forces deserve to be God’s chosen military.