Biden spoke with Netanyahu on October 29, telling him to minimize civilian casualties. But the only figures we have for such casualties come from Hamas. “In call with Netanyahu, Biden urges major boost in flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, October 29, 2023:
According to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip, some 8,000 Palestinians have died since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, which was launched with the aim of eradicating the terror group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
However, these figures cannot be independently verified and are believed to count both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. Israel says it killed some 1,500 Hamas terrorists inside Israel on and after October 7.
If the IDF killed 1,500 Hamas members inside Israel, that leaves — if we are to believe Hamas’ figures, when there is every reason not to do so — 6,500 people killed inside Gaza. How many were Hamas operatives? It’s simply not possible to know, especially while a war is going on, and one side, that of Hamas, routinely lies about its own casualties and those of the enemy.
Biden himself has drawn flak for doubting the veracity of the casualty figures coming out of Gaza, saying last week that he has “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
That “flak” came from Hamas supporters. What Biden noted, quite correctly, is that numbers, and other information, put out by Hamas is not to be trusted. He had “no confidence”in their numbers. Who knows how many Gazans have actually been killed or wounded, and how many were Hamas operatives and how many were civilians? Will we ever know? After all, just the week before Biden phoned Netanyahu, a spectacular example of this Hamas-suppled misinformation had been brought to the world’s attention. Hamas claimed that an “Israeli airstrike had hit the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, and 500 people had been killed.” Israel noted that there had been no airstrikes in the area, and that the depression caused by an explosion was much smaller than the large crater that such an airstrike would have caused. Israel concluded that the explosion was caused by a rocket launched from Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that misfired, landing in Gaza at the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Hospital. The Israelis had recorded a telephone call between two Hamas operatives discussing the fact that an errant rocket launched by the PIJ had caused the explosion. Israel also noted that the explosion took place in the parking lot attached to the hospital, which had remained largely unscathed. An Israeli airstrike would certainly have destroyed much of the hospital. Finally, European intelligence services concluded that there were not “500 dead” at the site, as Hamas had claimed, but only “10 to 50.” The Americans, having conducted their own investigation of the incident, concurred in all respects with the Israeli claim. So did the intelligence services of the U.K. and Germany. To wit: first, that it was not an Israeli airstrike but a missile that misfired after being launched from Gaza by PIJ; second, the misfired missile landed not on the hospital itself but in the hospital’s parking lot; third, the number of those who were killed numbered from 10 to 50, far fewer than Hamas’ figure of 500. This was just one of the examples of misinformation put out by Hamas, and which led Biden to declare that he had “no confidence” in the claims made by Hamas.
In urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to take every precaution to minimize civilian deaths, Biden was asking him to do what the IDF is already doing, and has done for its entire existence, It has warned Gazans to move south of the Wadi Gaza, that bifurcates the Gaza Strip, and then, once in the south, to go to certain designated areas where Israel will not, for now, be operating. Israel continues to warn civilians away from buildings about to be targeted, even though it knows such warnings will allow Hamas operatives, too, to escape. Israel has doubled the amount of water it sends to the Gazans, but it can do nothing to persuade Hamas to release diesel fuel to operate Gaza’s desalination plants.
President Biden would do well to make a public appeal for Hamas to release the fuel it has been hoarding, so that those desalination plants can again provide potable water. And here’s another idea: why don’t the Americans publish a list of the three most astoundingly corrupt Hamas leaders, noting that they are all living far from Gaza, in five-star hotels in Doha. Most embarrassing of all for Hamas, the Americans should publish the information about the fortunes they have amassed from the aid money they have been stealing for so long. Not nearly enough attention has been given to the corruption of Palestinian leaders, whether in Hamas or in the Palestinian Authority. How demoralizing for the Gazans to discover that Mousa Abu Marzouk has a net worth of $4 billion, that Ismail Haniyeh has a net worth of $3 billion, and Khaled Meshaal has a net worth of $4 billion. That is all money stolen from the aid that was meant for the people of Gaza. How much “humanitarian aid” could have been bought for eleven billion dollars? How much decent housing? How many schools and hospitals? The people of Gaza know, in a general way, that there is a great deal of corruption in Hamas, but have no idea just how massive it is. Once they are made aware of the staggering amounts that have been stolen by just three of the Hamas leaders, the morale of Gazans should plummet. And supporters of Hamas outside Gaza may have to think again. Which, of course, is a good thing.