Hamas is Obviously Lying About Number of Gazans Killed During Hostage Rescue

The daring raid by the IDF into the middle of Rafah, where its soldiers managed to extricate two hostages surrounded by Hamas fighters, has left the terror group in a “state of shock.” Its initial reports about an Israeli attack in Rafah did not even mention the rescue of the hostages, but only said that 67 civilians, “mostly women and children,” had been killed in overnight airstrikes. No one, of course, can verify the Hamas claim, which has not prevented the mainstream media from reporting that figure as fact. More on the hostage rescue, and Hamas’ reaction, including its claims of casualties, can be found here: “Israeli forces rescue 2 hostages in dramatic Gaza raid that killed at least 67 Palestinians,” Associated Press, February 12, 2024:

Israeli forces rescued two hostages early Monday, storming a heavily guarded apartment in a densely packed town in the Gaza Strip and extracting them under fire and covering airstrikes that local officials said killed at least 67 Palestinians.

In the middle of Rafah, its population now swollen to 1.3 million by the Gazans who have fled from the north, on the second floor of an apartment building in a residential area, surrounded by Hamas guards, somehow the IDF managed to shoot its way in, killing all the guards and extricating the two hostages while simultaneously firing on even more Hamas fighters, who, roused by the gunfire, came rushing to stop the IDF’s rescue attempt. But the IDF soldiers, and the hostages, managed to escape. And all this happened without the loss of a single Israeli soldier. Only one was lightly wounded. This has left Hamas in what has been reported as a “state of shock.” It did not even mention the hostages in its initial reports, limiting itself to accusing the IDF of a massacre of 67 civilians.

The plight of the dozens of hostages held by Hamas has profoundly shaken Israelis, and the rescue in Rafah briefly lifted the spirits of a nation still reeling from the militant group’s cross-border raid last year that started the war. Israel has described Rafah — a city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where 1.2 million Palestinians have fled fighting elsewhere — as the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the territory and signaled that its ground offensive may soon target the city.

In Gaza, the operation unleashed another tragedy in a war that has killed 28,340 Palestinians in the territory, displaced over 80% of the population and set off a massive humanitarian crisis.

More than 12,300 Palestinian minors — children and young teens — have been killed in the conflict, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday. About 8,400 women were also among those killed. That means minors make up about 43% of the dead and women and minors together make up three quarters.

Let’s stop right there to examine the plausibility of Hamas’ figures. The terror group has claimed that 28,000 Gazans have been killed so far. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its reporting, hoping to suggest that all, or almost all, of those killed were civilians. The IDF, which unlike Hamas is determined to tell the truth, estimates that so far it has killed 10,000 Hamas combatants. If every single Gazan casualty had been a civilian, that would mean a maximum of 18,000 civilian deaths, and — using Hamas’ own breakdown — 12,300 were minors (children and young teens) and 8,400 were women. Not only does that total — 20,700 — exceed the maximum number of civilian deaths — 18,000 — that we can calculate based on figures from both Hamas and the IDF, but Hamas is telling the world that every single one of its casualties is either a child, a young teen, or a woman. In other words, we are expected to believe that not a single Hamas combatant has been killed in 130 days of heavy fighting between the IDF and Hamas in Gaza.

There is no way to verify Hamas’ claims, either about the total number of people killed by Israeli airstrikes and — which Hamas did not mention — by the IDF soldiers in the rescue party. Hamas claims that “women and children” were among the 67 it says were killed in airstrikes; we have no way to verify any of its claims as to those killed, but dozens of them must have been the guards both inside and around the house where the hostages were kept.

Obviously, Hamas is lying.