However, after assessing the competing claims in paragraph 361, the report's authors come down on the side of the Palestinian figures:

    The Mission notes that the statistics from non-governmental sources are generally consistent. Statistics alleging that fewer than one out of five persons killed in an armed conflict was a combatant, such as those provided by PCHR and Al Mezan as a result of months of field research, raise very serious concerns about the way Israel conducted the military operations in Gaza. The counterclaims published by the Government of Israel fall far short of international law standards.

The importance of this judgement becomes clear later in the report when the indictment against Israel is summed up.

    1885: The Mission recognizes that the principal focus in the aftermath of military
    operations will often be on the people who have been killed more than 1,400 in just three
    weeks...
    1886. In this respect, the Mission recognizes that not all deaths constitute violations of
    international humanitarian law. The principle of proportionality acknowledges that, under
    certain strict conditions, actions resulting in the loss of civilian life may not be unlawful.
    What makes the application and assessment of proportionality difficult in respect of many
    of the events investigated by the Mission is that deeds by the Israeli armed forces and words of military and political leaders prior to and during the operations indicate that, as a whole, they were premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at the enemy but at the "supporting infrastructure." In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population.
    ....

    1890. The Mission recognizes that some of those killed were combatants directly engaged in hostilities against Israel, but many were not. The outcome and the modalities of the operations indicate, in the Mission’s view, that they were only partially aimed at killing leaders and members of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades and other armed groups. They were also to a large degree aimed at destroying or incapacitating civilian property and the means of subsistence of the civilian population.

If five out of every six fatalities were non-combatants, as claimed by Palestinian sources, this would offer strong evidence of a systematic pattern of indiscriminate force and lend support to the even more serious allegation that Israeli forces intentionally targeted civilians. However, if around half or more of the fatalities were members of armed groups, the argument is much less compelling.

Hamad's admission gives greater credence to the assertion of British Colonel Richard Kemp that the Israelis acted with greater restraint than other military forces engaged in similar circumstances. The Israeli forces encountered an environment in which opposing forces were intermingled with civilian populations; distinguishing combatants from non-combatants was difficult. This difficulty was compounded by the intentional blending of civilians and combatants by Hamas. During the war, the New York Times reported that the Hamas leadership issued instructions for its fighters to shed their uniforms in order to blend in to the civilian population.

Avoiding civilian casualties is challenge for any military force under such circumstances and a balance is always struck. For example, a report by the BBC on May 15, 1999 highlights the realities of fighting irregular forces insinuated among civilians. After a NATO bombing attack on a Serbian village claimed the lives of nearly 100 civilians, NATO

    issued a statement that the village was a "legitimate military target" and that it had identified Serb forces dug into positions there. Nato said it deeply regretted any accidental civilian casualties that were caused by the attack.

The civilian casualty counts in Iraq and Afghanistan offer even grimmer testimony to this reality. The UN Human Rights Council has singled out Israel for opprobation and the alleged ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties provided a crucial pretext.

Media Uninterested

The media outlets that "flooded the zone" with coverage of the Goldstone Report have paid little attention to Hamad's statement, even though it clearly contradicts one of the major themes of the report. Starting in mid-September 2009, when the conclusions of the Goldstone Report were first leaked, through the end of October, after the report had been made public, the New York Times published at least 15 articles and many letters discussing it in detail.

The question of the proportion of civilian casualties was always a main topic of discussion. On April 4, 2009, on same day that the Times announced that Richard Goldstone had been appointed to investigate alleged Israeli violations during the Gaza war, guest op-ed contributor George Bisharat cited statistics provided by UN Human Rights Council rapporteur Richard Falk that, "Of 1,434 Palestinians killed in the Gaza invasion, 960 were civilians, including 121 women and 288 children..."

On April 23, 2010, the Times provided a more detailed discussion of the competing casualty claims of the Israelis and PCHR.

In paragraph 1923 it states:

    The Mission also concludes that Israel, by deliberately attacking police stations and
    killing large numbers of policemen (99 in the incidents investigated by the Mission) during
    the first minutes of the military operations, failed to respect the principle of proportionality
    between the military advantage anticipated by killing some policemen who might have
    been members of Palestinian armed groups and the loss of civilian life (the majority of
    policemen and members of the public present in the police stations or nearby during the
    attack). Therefore, these were disproportionate attacks in violation of customary
    international law. The Mission finds a violation of the right to life (ICCPR, article 6) of the
    policemen killed in these attacks who were not members of Palestinian armed groups

This judgement has been contradicted by another Hamas representative named Abu Khaled who, in an interview published by The Christian Science Monitor on Nov. 1, 2010, confirmed that "two thirds of Hamas policemen are police by day and Al Qassam [military wing of Hamas] by night".

The Reasons Behind Hamad’s Admission

Hamas initially admitted to only 48 fatalities. This low figure was remniscent of a similar tactic used by Hezbollah in 2006, when it reported similarly low losses during its summer conflict with Israel. Only later, after the media din died down and the human rights groups had moved on, did Hezbollah officials admit, with little publicity, to larger losses. Why after intentionally downplaying its own losses for nearly two years, did Hamas decide to reveal a much larger casualty figure? Domestic political considerations in Gaza lie at the heart of this decision.

A report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center discusses the motivation behind Hamad’s admission. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the media image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the casualties. This also has the benefit of enhancing the image of the group in the Arab world. Hezbollah was widely lauded for its purported success in fighting Israel in 2006.
However, once Hamas got all the mileage it could out of that tactic, it had to deal with the flip side of the issue, that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government which had made no effort to shelter them. Since 2007, Hamas has been the government in Gaza, and it is, at least in principle, obligated to look after the well-being of the population it rules over. The flip side of the claimed low Hamas casualties and high civilian casualties is the lingering image of Hamas fighters retreating to prepared hideouts after firing off rockets, leaving the civilian population to absorb the punishing Israeli military response.

Gaza is a small territory, its residents would certainly have been aware that the Israeli attack was precipitated by the escalating volume of rocket fire directed at Israel from Hamas controlled territory. In order to defuse resentment at having abandoned its own constituency during the Israeli military response, Hamas has to show that its fighters did not simply run and hide, but had stood their ground and taken many of the casualties.

Conclusion
While the media has largely given Hamad's admission the cold-shoulder, others directly involved with the conflict have taken a different stance.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a point of mentioning Hamas's admission in his speech to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America on Nov. 8, 2010, remarking:

    Hamas finally admitted last week that over 700 of its fighters in Gaza were killed by the IDF during that war. This is precisely what the Israeli army said all along – that roughly 50% of the casualties in that war were Hamas terrorists...

    The authors of the Goldstone Report owe the Israeli army an apology. And all those who supported and helped to spread this libel owe the State of Israel an apology.

abu_rashid wrote on Dec 9^th, 2010 at 7:23pm:


Is this before they kneecap Fatah supporters, or after?
Which 'people' is it that they purport to represent where the populace live in fear?

Fatah are quite clearly a Zionist puppet group. They always have been, the fact that no opposition existed before to expose them doesn't change their reality.

Classic? Yes it is quite classic, in fact it's been known amongst Muslims for the past half a century. Back in the 1960's, Islamic scholars began exposing them as a Wester/Zionist backed movement that was going to eventually infiltrate the Palestinian resistance from within and become a lackey 'authority' on their behalf. And they were right. Today the masses also know it, and hence their rapidly disappearing grip on that authority.

abu_rashid wrote on Dec 9^th, 2010 at 7:23pm:

Abu, you truly are pathetic.

The Goldstone report has been shown to be a sham, half the people who worked on the report have been sacked because of it,

    * The report violates international standards for inquries, including UN rules on fact-finding, replicating earlier UNHRC biased statements.
    * The Commission systematically favored witnesses and evidence put forward by anti-Israel advocates, and dismissed evidence and testimony that would undermine its case.
    * The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel; the report reproduces earlier reports and claims from these agencies.
    * At the same time, the Commission inexplicably downplayed or ignored substantial evidence of Hamas’ commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of terror, including specifically its victimization of the Palestinian population by its use of human shields, civilian dress for combatants, and combat use of protected objects like ambulances, hospitals and mosques.
    * The Commission openly denies a presumption of innocence to the Israelis accused of crimes (while honoring Hamas’ presumed innocence) and acknowledges that it made accusations of crimes without proof that would stand up in court.
    * The report contains numerous gratuitous digressions into issues beyond the purview of a fact-finding commission that are inaccurate and profoundly hostile to Israel and Jews.
    * The Commission distorted legal standards, imposing on Israel standards that reverse their generally understood and applied meaning, while ignoring important rules of international law that put the onus of responsibility on an organization as base, by Goldstone’s own standards, as Hamas.

The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel


****I would not say hostility...more impatience with Israel constantly flouting its responsibilities under the Laws of Occupation and UN Resolutions. Israel holds the record for being in violation of the most number of Resolutions than any other country in the UN. 69 Resolutions!

In order to be accepted into the UN,Israel agreed to implement Resolution 194.....we are still waiting.