Hamas caused most of the casualties in Gaza
September 8, 2023 by Thomas Wictor
When you factor in everything that we know about Operation Protective Edge, it becomes inarguable that Hamas caused most of the casualties in Gaza. Yes, the Israeli Defense Forces killed terrorists and some civilians, but Hamas directly and indirectly, deliberately and accidentally brought about most of the deaths during the conflict.
Palestinian casualty figures are lies
The Palestinians counted people twice. They also included the names of people killed accidentally and deliberately by Hamas.
At least 71 of the list were terrorists, but in some cases, they “died twice” because death notices were announced both by Hamas and by Palestinian Authority interior security forces.
“Dual identity allows Hamas to employ many military operatives in the security forces, give their activity governmental legitimacy, and pay them salaries intended for members of the security forces in the Gaza Strip,” ITIC explained.
Palestinians also list terrorists as civilians. Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Nasser was a member of the Abu Rish Brigade. Though twenty-six, he was described to the UN as a thirteen-year-old boy.
Terrorists are also recorded as emergency responders. Three members of an ambulance crew killed in an August 1 airstrike were actually Islamic Jihad operatives.
Here’s a blown-up Palestinian ambulance in Shijaiyah. The green arrow marks an unexploded Qassem rocket warhead that the vehicle was transporting.
Mahmoud Abbas said that 861 Fatah members were killed in the war. Although he declined to state whether or not they were fighting, the number is very specific, and I would guess that nearly all were terrorists.
“Human rights” groups hostile to Israel believe that the Palestinians include in their death toll victims of domestic violence and those who died of natural causes.
Finally, the Palestinian death list includes people who are still alive. The most famous is Salem Shamaly, the Man in the Green Shirt, allegedly shot by an Israeli sniper in Shijaiyah on July 20, 2014.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that Shamaly’s body was recovered after two days, but NBC News said that he’d lain “decomposing in the sun” for a week. Salem’s father even went to the morgue to identify the body, a brief glimpse of which was shown before Salem was buried in a vacant lot.
However, the same family that went to the morgue and buried Salem in a vacant lot told Max Blumenthal a third story.
The Shamaly family is lying. Salem isn’t dead. You don’t give such conflicting accounts when you’re telling the truth.
Hamas murdered hundreds
Mahmoud Abbas says that Hamas deliberately killed large numbers of people.
Hamas also murdered dozens of accused collaborators. The number will never be known, but as the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center noted above, their names are included in the PCHR list of people “killed by Israel” that’s given to the UN and then reported by the press as hand-over-heart truth. More than fifty had been murdered by July 31, and a further thirty-eight were murdered in “Operation Strangling the Necks,” August 21-22.
The Hamas-affiliated police shot and killed an unknown number of protesters. Their names were on the PCHR list. At least seven can be confirmed.
Hamas accidentally killed hundreds
At the beginning of the ground phase of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas set off over 1000 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Each of these explosives destroyed multiple houses, according to the IDF. You can see the effects of Hamas IEDs in the form of blast damage to buildings.
Many if not most of the photos of explosions coming out of Gaza were faked. If this photo is genuine, it shows Hamas IEDs being detonated.
The Israelis don’t have munitions that make such large explosions, and the orange smoke indicates bombs made from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (AMFO). Orange is a telltale sign that either an improper ratio of oil was added, or the explosives were compressed from a massive impact.
In Operation Protective Edge, so many booby trapped buildings and weapons caches were discovered that field commanders began refusing to send in their men. Instead, the air force would target the structure. Video and photos indicate that inert cement bombs are used . The most common inert aerial munition appears to the the BDU-56 2000-lb (907 kg) bomb.
Here’s a closeup.
Unquestionably genuine photos of explosions in Gaza are rare, and very few of those show Israeli airstrikes. It’s very significant that there’s almost no evidence of fragmentation damage on destroyed buildings in Gaza. Explosive aerial munitions and high-explosive artillery shells create thousands of small holes in every surface.
Note the pockmarks in these Syrian buildings.
Most destruction in Gaza is from pressure waves. Therefore I conclude that the majority of the damage in Gaza was caused by Hamas IEDs, and this in turn caused the majority of the casualties, since it was in Hamas’s interest to have as many civilian deaths as possible. I believe that Hamas brought down buildings without warning, killing hundreds.
In addition, 825 Hamas rockets fell on Gaza. Those alone could account for most of the casualties. This video shows the aftermath of a Hamas rocket that hit a tree in Shijaiyah, killing passersby.
Smoke stains on the wall and the irregular pattern to the fragmentation damage mean that this was not caused by any Israeli munition.
It’s as clear as day what happened. Israeli forces don’t shoot at trees.
The dead were caught by surprise when a Hamas Qassam rocket went out of control, careened in from the left, smashed into the tree, and sprayed its lethal fragments downward and across the street. Since it’s daylight and the victims were outside, Hamas fired the rocket during one of the Israeli ceasefires.
Hamas killed scores as collateral damage
There’s absolutely no question that Hamas opened fire on the UN school at Jabalia. The school was hit with heavy machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and antitank guided missiles.
The Israelis admit to firing an unspecified number of tank shells toward mortar teams engaging them. The first news stories said one tank shell.
For urban combat the Israelis use the M329 Kalanit tank round, which does not produce the kind of damage visible in any photos of the UN school. It’s obvious that Hamas shot at the Israelis from the vicinity of the school and then raked the school with fire from multiple weapons.
When the Israelis observed a ceasefire in Shijaiyah on July 20, 2014, Hamas continued fighting. These explosions are mortars being fired from the building above.
You can tell it’s outgoing fire because there are no impacts, and you can hear and see debris being shaken loose from the walls.
At 1:00 a.m. on July 20, 2014, Hamas ambushed Israeli infantry in Shijaiyah. The Hamas fortress was completely interwoven with the civilian infrastructure.
Hamas fired at the Israelis with heavy machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, antitank guided missiles, and recoilless rifles, all situated in civilian structures. Do you think Hamas warned the civilians to leave first? And do you think each Hamas terrorist took special care to not hit any civilians? This hole in the wall did not come from an Israeli munition.
I have no doubt. It’s from a rocket-propelled grenade or antitank guided missile. The smaller holes were made by a heavy machine gun or autocannon.
Israel’s operations are nearly bloodless
Even though Hamas carried out a gigantic ambush in Shijaiyah, and even though the Israelis fired 600 high-explosive 155mm artillery shells and dropped 100 2000-lb bombs, the death toll for the Palestinians was seventy. At least half were terrorists.
The IDF can level entire buildings without hurting anyone.
The cameraman was only about 200 feet (60 meters) from the building. Ask an IDF soldier if he’d be willing to stand within 200 feet of a target hit by a 2000-lb MK-84 explosive bomb. So the Palestinians knew that inert munitions would be used to bring down the apartment without killing bystanders or damaging structures on either side.
And don’t forget the Israeli “knock on the roof” that warns people to leave. This video was edited to take out at least half an hour.
The IDF says it killed over 750 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
Looking at the numbers, 750 + 861 + 120 + 38 +50 + 7 = 1826. I’m going to add 300 civilians killed by Hamas, given the 1000 IEDs and 825 rockets that blew up in Gaza. We thus have a total of 2126.
According to the PCHR, the Palestinian death toll is 2,168. That includes names counted twice; people who didn’t die; victims of domestic violence; those who died of natural causes; political dissenters; protesters; accused collaborators; and terrorists disguised postmortem as civilians, children, and emergency responders.
Once again the IDF proves itself the most moral fighting force on the planet.
Bonus
Utterly fake video of explosions in Gaza during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.
Go full screen to see that there’s no debris, and the smoke and fireballs are obviously computer graphics. Not only that, the same “explosion” sound is used over and over. It’s a cheap fraud that was made because there simply wasn’t enough genuine death and damage to report.
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