POLITICS MAY 6, 2009
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On December 27, the first morning of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza Strip, Khalil Shaheen was driving in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City when he spotted a friend and got out of his car to say hello. Suddenly, an Israeli F-16 appeared in the sky and dropped a bomb on a building 200 feet up the road--one of many such bombings part of the IDF’s 22-day effort to stop Hamas rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel.
The building, which Shaheen identified as a Hamas internal security headquarters, immediately collapsed, sending an observation tower flying 100 feet, hitting a woman. Pandemonium broke out on the street, where Shaheen says hundreds of schoolchildren and adults were shouting and running from the blast. Predicting the F-16’s next target, Shaheen tried to restrain a group of children from running to the street’s west side. A minute later, the plane dropped four missiles on “the ex-prisoners museum,” a community center and exhibition space for former inmates of Israeli jails. During that particular bombing, says Shaheen, no Hamas fighters were killed, just a woman in a nearby apartment building, a man in his shop, and two young girls leaving school.
Though Shaheen is not a Hamas soldier, he is on the front lines of a different battle: the P.R. war that has erupted since the end of hostilities. As head of the Economic and Social Rights Unit for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), he is one of the people behind the fatality figures beamed across the world this past winter. On March 12, the PCHR released its most recent statistics: 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 non-combatant police officers, and 236 fighters. It was PCHR’s numbers, particularly the high proportion of civilian casualties, that in large part led to an international outcry against Israel, and “its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades” according to The New York Times. In the weeks since, the European Union has frozen its upgrade of relations with Israel, Norway’s chief prosecutor is considering a request to charge Israeli leaders with war crimes in Gaza, and the United Nations is sending a fact-finding team to the region--all arguably based, to a large extent, on Shaheen’s numbers.
During the war, Shaheen and a team of about 35 professional and volunteer field researchers braved the crossfire to visit hospitals, interview victims’ families, and document the location and circumstances of every single war casualty. “It’s a very dangerous job,” says the soft-spoken Shaheen, who spent his nights sleeping in his brother’s basement, and his days “moving, moving” up and down the Strip for up to 11 hours, all the while fielding hundreds of phone calls from media outlets hungry for numbers of the dead and wounded. "I am so lucky to be alive," he says.
So you can imagine his dismay upon hearing that the IDF is disputing his fatality figures. On March 26, two months after the unilateral cease-fire and two weeks after Shaheen released his stats, the IDF parried with its own fatality count: 1,166 dead, 709 of them Hamas terror operatives, 295 “uninvolved Palestinians” (89 under the age of 16, and 49 of them women). In addition, the IDF identified 162 men whose names had not yet been attributed to any organization.
If the IDF’s alternate numbers are accurate, they paint a very different picture in terms of the toll on civilian life. How is there such a big disparity between the two sets of numbers? Though the IDF has refused to elaborate in any detail on how it obtained its figures, insight into its methods can be gained in the cluttered basement home office in Toronto of retired Israeli intelligence officer Jonathan Dahoah Halevi. “PCHR’s list is inaccurate,” he asserts. “I get the impression they intentionally tried to inflate the civilian numbers.”
He begins to rattle off indictments. “Why is Said Siyam"--the de facto defense minister of Hamas--"listed as a civilian?” he asks. “Muhammad Dasouki Dasliye. Do you know who he is?” Halevi says that Dasliye was a Palestinian Resistance Committee operative and suspect in the terrorist attack against three American security guards in Gaza in October 2003. “Nizar Rayan,” Halevi chuckles. “He’s a civilian?” In fact, news reports describe Rayan as a militant cleric who mentored suicide bombers and sent his own son on a suicide mission in 2001, killing two Israelis.
Halevi, a pugnacious father of two, is an insider, a former IDF analyst who works days as a counterterrorism consultant but counts Gaza fatalities in his free time. “It’s an intellectual challenge,” says the dark-haired, 44-year old, whose parents immigrated to Israel from Yemen. It will take him six months to research all 1,400 of PCHR’s names, comparing them to a database of thousands of terrorist operatives he has compiled, as well as whatever he finds on the Internet.
As of last month, Halevi has a list of 171 people the PCHR defines as civilians that he claims he can prove are actually combatants affiliated with Hamas or other terrorist groups. His contention is based on a simple principle: When fighters die, they don’t just leave behind a body, a family, and eyewitnesses--they leave a paper trail. Martyrdom posters, photographs of funerals, articles celebrating heroes’ exploits, lists of payments to families--these sources help Halevi disprove that a particular fatality was a civilian as opposed to a fighter. Intelligence analysts around the world are following this paper trail, and they don’t just work for the Shin Bet or CIA. In fact, in the era of the Internet, vast amounts of intelligence are available to anyone with fluent Arabic, a little training, and a lot of time and patience.
Halevi's macabre hobby began during Israel’s 2002 Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli incursion into six West Bank cities that targeted Hamas and other terrorist cells responsible for a number of recent suicide bombings. Halevi was perplexed. “It made no sense that on the one hand, Palestinians claimed their fighters were performing valiantly, but at the same time they said they were being massacred.” So the dogged and methodical Halevi compiled his own list of fatalities in the Jenin refugee camp. “I read everything I could get my hands on--militant web sites, articles, books of fighters’ memories. I found that 65 percent of [Palestinians] killed in the Jenin refugee camp were terror operatives, including some children,” he says gravely. The Palestinians later independently reduced their fatality number from an estimated 500 to 56.
It was addictive. Soon Halevi found himself spending all his free time cross-checking Palestinian fatality lists. In his opinion, the best and most trusted lists belonged to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and PCHR. “These data banks have an enormous influence," he says. "I found PCHR statistics in UN reports…The UN relies on them.” So Halevi published dozens of articles on a popular Hebrew news sites, reporting his findings, always precise, never overstating his claim, but scathing nevertheless. Soon he found himself in a war of words with a B’stelem’s spokeswoman, who wrote on Israel’s News1 web site, “Halevi is exploiting a Palestinian family’s tragedy for political gain” and “he dances on Palestinian blood.” For his part, Halevi says both organizations are frequently inaccurate, and attributes their contortions to their political motives: “The former chairperson of the board of B’Tselem said in an interview that the organization’s goal is a one-state solution. PCHR has the same goal. They reject Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Halevi is already knee-deep in PCHR's latest list from Cast Lead. He has produced a spreadsheet with the names of 230 police fatalities cited by both the Gaza police department and PCHR. For 171 of these, he provides the name of the faction they fought for as well as brief biographies, such as “a munitions expert” or “arrested by Israel in 1993 for weapons acquisitions for suicide missions.” Most of the 171 moonlighting policemen are listed as operatives in the Qassam Brigades, with others belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Resistance Committee.
“This information wasn’t hard to find,” Halevi says. Type one of the names into a Google search and up pops a web site with photos showing the Gaza cop sporting a martyr’s headband and M-16. Halevi grants that many of these policemen did actually perform police duties like patrolling streets or directing traffic. “But then they get a call from their friend who says, ‘Come on, it’s time for a mission,’” Halevi says. “One of the police casualties was even affiliated with al-Qaeda.”
Shaheen stands by his numbers. “The police force is totally civilian,” he insists. While ten of the fighters on PCHR’s list are described as policemen, more than 250 of those described as policemen are labeled civilians. Many Gazans enter the police force because they are poor and need the money, he explains. “I can assure you that all these people were working in police traffic or as guards.”
Many of the disparities between the PCHR and IDF numbers seem to be definitional. The IDF has repeatedly stated that any member of Hamas security forces--armed or unarmed--is fair game. Shaheen has a much narrower definition of an uninvolved civilian: “According to international humanitarian law, all armed people are classified as militants and all the people who are unarmed [are civilians],” he says. So if the person was armed at the time of death--which he or his fieldworkers determine by investigating the bodies as they arrive at the hospital--he’ll count them as a militant. If the person is not armed, his team will check with family members, neighbors, political parties and Palestinian armed factions to determine the deceased’s status as a militant or a civilian. He also checks press releases issues by armed factions. “[The IDF] can say whatever they want," he says. “I mean, [these are] facts on the ground.”
But even facts can be subjective. For example, Halevi accuses Shaheen’s organization of mislabeling Hamas cleric Nizar Rayan as a civilian. Shaheen explains that Rayan was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home. There are jihadist posters of Rayan all over Gaza, and yet, “I cannot count him as a militant or fighter,” Shaheen says. Rayan was unarmed with his wives and children when he was killed, Shaheen explains. “I cannot count this case as a fighter because he didn’t participate as a fighter in the offensive. He was a civilian the whole time--going to the mosque, praying, coming back to his house.”
Both agree, however, that the war does not end when the fighting stops. “In every war there are two components,” says Halevi. “The first is the battle itself, defeating the other side, and the second is presenting the facts of what happened.” If a country is not vigilant, he warns, “The other side will rewrite your history.”
Simona Weinglass is a freelance writer based in Washington, DC.
By Simona Weinglass
29 comments
If I understand Shaheen's argument correctly, it goes as follows: If a Hamas militant is carrying a pistol when a several ton warhead falls on him, he's a combatant. If he put the pistol down a couple minutes ago, he's a civilian. Does any country in the world actually fight a war like that?
- eli green
May 6, 2009 at 4:37am
According the international humanitarian law, and widely accepted war ethics (say, Walzer's), a person is a legitimate target only insofar as he is engaged in fighting. The fact the someone once was, or someday will be, invovled in militant activity does make him less of a civilian. Many Israelis are IDF reservists. Does that make them all fair game for Hamas terror attacks? According to Israel's logic, it does.
- Avner
May 6, 2009 at 10:55am
Avner, You are equating a member of a sovereign country's armed forces (i.e. the IDF or the U.S. Army) with a person fighting for a terrorist organization such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad?
- Sara
May 6, 2009 at 3:11pm
Thank you for a very interesting article. In a world where 10,000 or more people may be killed with little more than a sigh from the rest of the world (Congo, Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka), the level of detail being debated over every casualty in Palestine is striking. I have read of the conflicting figures of combatant v. civilian, with little understanding of the criteria used by each side. Having read this article, the Israeli figures seem more valid. A person who wages war without bothering to don a uniform does not become an innocent civilian by the mere act of hiding his weapon two minutes before he is killed. There have been numerous reports of the tremendous efforts made by the Israeli military to avoid civilian casualties (phone calls, dropping leaflets, etc.). I am not aware of any other military in the world that has ever gone to such lengths to protect the civilians of the opposing side. The Israeli figures on Gazan combatant and non-combatant casualties appear to bear out the efficacy of these efforts.
- listener
May 6, 2009 at 4:00pm
You are making it up Avner, and the relevant distinction does not depend on whether someone is a terrorist or the member of the armed forces of a sovereign state. If, in the course of a war (and it is war when the de facto government of Gaza fires missiles into Israel) the forces of one side are all sitting around, in their barracks in their underwear, watching a movie, it is legitimate to blow up the barracks. It is of no importance whether at that moment they are carrying weapons or engaged in fighting. The organization is fighting and the members of the organization are therefore legitimate targets. Period. It does not matter whether they are snipers or clerks.
- roidubouloi
May 6, 2009 at 6:06pm
So if Hitler had been killed in the Allied bombing of Berlin and he wasn't wearing his sidearm at the time, he'd be a civilian casualty? That's neat. The estimates of civilian dead in Iraq run into the hundreds of thousands, yet America and Britain haven't endured a fraction of the scrutiny that Israel has over Gaza. "Shock and Awe" is a zippy slogan that translates into piles of bodies. Why isn't anyone grumpy about it, including the same Americans and British who regularly excoriate Israel? Why? Why? Why?
- Larry
May 6, 2009 at 10:01pm
I hate to be this blunt, but who really cares? Each side is guilty of trying to kill the other. The civilians on each side mostly support what is being done. This will only end when one side is defeated. The sooner the better really. Now I for one know which side I would be more comfortable with as the 'winner' and it's not the current occupents of Gaza.
- CounterSuit
May 6, 2009 at 11:06pm
It seems that people should reread the article. It's not a simple question of armed = militant, unarmed = civilian. Dropping or hiding a weapon prior to death is not the issue here; in fact that suggestion is irrelevant at best, and is an intentionally deceptive straw man argument at worst. Shaheen counts all armed casualties as militants, and double checks the identities of unarmed victims to confirm whether or not they are actually civilian: "If the person is not armed, his team will check with family members, neighbors, political parties and Palestinian armed factions to determine the deceased's status as a militant or a civilian. He also checks press releases issues by armed factions." Avner is correct about someone's past history or future potential as a militant does not make them any less civilian. Otherwise all veterans, reservists, and citizens who are or will soon be eligible to serve are legitimate targets. Israel or Hamas or Islamic Jihad's respective statuses as "legitimate" or not are not applicable when classifying the dead as civilian or combatant. Another problem is the overreaching range of Israel's classification whereby all Hamas members are termed "militants". Hamas has many wings, the political and community oriented ones are civilian, whereby the military ones are not. Analogs would be Senators and employees of the Department of Transportation who are clearly civilian, even though they work for our government.
- Shawn
May 7, 2009 at 12:52am
It seems that people should reread the article. It's not a simple question of armed = militant, unarmed = civilian. Dropping or hiding a weapon prior to death is not the issue here; in fact that suggestion is irrelevant at best, and is an intentionally deceptive straw man argument at worst. Shaheen counts all armed casualties as militants, and double checks the identities of unarmed victims to confirm whether or not they are actually civilian: "If the person is not armed, his team will check with family members, neighbors, political parties and Palestinian armed factions to determine the deceased's status as a militant or a civilian. He also checks press releases issues by armed factions." Avner is correct about someone's past history or future potential as a militant does not make them any less civilian. Otherwise all veterans, reservists, and citizens who are or will soon be eligible to serve are legitimate targets. Israel or Hamas or Islamic Jihad's respective statuses as "legitimate" or not are not applicable when classifying the dead as civilian or combatant. Another problem is the overreaching range of Israel's classification whereby all Hamas members are termed "militants". Hamas has many wings, the political and community oriented ones are civilian, whereby the military ones are not. Analogs would be Senators and employees of the Department of Transportation who are clearly civilian, even though they work for our government.
- Shawn
May 7, 2009 at 12:52am
It seems that people should reread the article. It's not a simple question of armed = militant, unarmed = civilian. Dropping or hiding a weapon prior to death is not the issue here; in fact that suggestion is irrelevant at best, and is an intentionally deceptive straw man argument at worst. Shaheen counts all armed casualties as militants, and double checks the identities of unarmed victims to confirm whether or not they are actually civilian: "If the person is not armed, his team will check with family members, neighbors, political parties and Palestinian armed factions to determine the deceased's status as a militant or a civilian. He also checks press releases issues by armed factions." Avner is correct about someone's past history or future potential as a militant does not make them any less civilian. Otherwise all veterans, reservists, and citizens who are or will soon be eligible to serve are legitimate targets. Israel or Hamas or Islamic Jihad's respective statuses as "legitimate" or not are not applicable when classifying the dead as civilian or combatant. Another problem is the overreaching range of Israel's classification whereby all Hamas members are termed "militants". Hamas has many wings, the political and community oriented ones are civilian, whereby the military ones are not. Analogs would be Senators and employees of the Department of Transportation who are clearly civilian, even though they work for our government.
- Shawn
May 7, 2009 at 12:55am
This is a much needed outing of the phony demonizing Palestinian PR war against Israel with the active complicity of the media. Google "pallywood" for an education and ride your indignation to do something about it.
- Alex Goodsmith
May 7, 2009 at 12:23pm
All Israeli's already are targets
- tobias
May 7, 2009 at 4:33pm
I think many here have missed the point. It's not a matter of whether they have been or (at some point in the future) whether they intend to fight as a militant. It is purely a question about whether they are right then and there in the present a member of the fighting forces of the other side regardless of whether they were carrying a weapon. If so, they are not civilians even if they were caught on the toilet. In war, you do not need to give the soldiers of the other side enough warning for them to pick up their guns and start fighting back for them to be legitimate military targets. You can bomb an army base even if the soldiers are playing cards or sleeping. This is also the position of international law and anybody who says otherwise is either speaking from ignornace or a liar. And what's this about this military leader cleric, who clearly is an active part of Hamas' organisation, being classified as a civilian? This just goes to show how rediculous the complaints made against Israel are.
- Sebastian
May 7, 2009 at 7:08pm
What people need to understand is that terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Taliban fight while using civilians as human shields. They do everything they can to cause civilian casualties. Having done that they take advantage of the mixture of naiveté, incompetence, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism prevalent among the liberal media and lie about both the extent and the cause of those casualties. The liberal media, of course, lap it up. So far as they are concerned Anti-Americanism is the mark of sophistication, and anti-Semitism is, well, downright trendy. The alliance between western progressives and Islamofascism is reminiscent of the alliance of western leftists with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. Why do so many people who consider themselves “enlightened” and “progressives” side with the enemies of all the good that mankind has achieved? Why do these sensitive souls side with militant Islam, the quintessence of sexism, racism, homophobia, violence and all-around stupidity?
- bulbman1066
May 9, 2009 at 2:44am
A "Dirty Jew" is dragged before the Inquisition, confesses his sins, has some "holy water" sprinkled on him, and becomes a "Pure Christian"! However, taking Ronald Reagan's "Trust, but Verify" dictum to heart, the Inquisition appears at the New Christian's door the following Friday evening, to find the New Christian wife sprinkling water on a piece of brisket. "You vood like, maybe, a nice piece gefilte?" she smilingly offers the Grand Inquisitor! So it has always been with the Shaheens, the ICRC's, the UN's and all the assorted Grand Inquisitors that wish to revisit blood-libels upon Israel. A few lying words sprinkled around with abandon, and the whole world becomes topsy-turvy.
- elixelx
May 9, 2009 at 9:57am
For those of us suffering from Palestinian Sympathy Fatigue, things like Gaza's party about 911 and the Sedar Massacre trump any concerns about enablers, supporters and seemingly willing human shielding getting got when Little Satan acts out
- courtneyme109
May 9, 2009 at 11:03am
I thank the writer and particularly the Toronto researcher for trying to correct the massive efforts of anti-Israel sympathizers to skew the truth about casualties in the war. In all likelihood it will do little to stem the public stance of many European governments who act in the narrow interests of what they believe to be their national interest; many of their people know better and positions such as these are cynical. Merely ask yourself where the nationals of these countries go for vacations, and their backpacking children.
- mur
May 9, 2009 at 3:04pm
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May 9, 2009 at 3:18pm
Rocket squads can require 3 or 4 people, and there can be look-outs, and even on-lookers, who are in the same squad. Is only the one behind the trigger of the launcher "armed"?
- Adam
May 9, 2009 at 4:33pm
Congressmen/women, the PRESIDENT of the United States are not your ordinary "civilians," At least not average ones, considering they 1) have the authority to declare war on our (read: Public) behalf and 2) they received additional secret service protection. Yes, they are civilian in terms of war. But certainly not in terms of their status as leaders of the country. Missing here is the temporal factor: since when is there a statute of limitations on going after those who launched rockets into civilian areas? What supporters of Shaheen's method say is that unless those individuals are caught in the act of launching attacks, then they are civilians. You can't compare that to the reservists in the IDF precisely because the IDF is the armed forces of a sovereign entity and operates under the rules of war. Hamas has no such signature when it comes to the Geneva COnvention, last time I checked. But if you do want to go down that route, then please know that many pro-Palestinian supporters DO consider reservists or children legitimate targets because they have or will engaged in combat. SO if anything, the pro-Palestinian supporters want to have it both ways, not Israel.
- Mir
May 9, 2009 at 9:09pm
When someone's baby girl is killed for someone else's ideology, the spirit of the holocaust lives on in the murderer. Lord have mercy.
- Gary AndrewS
May 9, 2009 at 11:01pm
“As we know… Those who care what happens to their neighbors are called Socialists… Those who don’t care what happens to their neighbors are called Sociopaths… Both are incurable… Both can be treated… with care… Jesus said, ‘Love your Neighbor…’ [Mark 12:31]… then went beyond the old scriptural codes. [Leviticus 19:18 & Hadith 1:2:12]… Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies, bless those that curse you…’ [Mathew 5:44] He didn’t say this because He was weak, but because He was wise… He understood that the first step toward true peace is to love just enough to listen… so as to understand other peoples and so gain their respect… then their trust… Jesus cared…” Gary AndrewS, Author of “No Gods Before Me”
- Gary AndrewS
May 10, 2009 at 9:07am
So if the US Army kills Osama bin-Laden and he is not engaged in fighting or holding a gun at that particular moment, Shaheen would say he is a civilian?
- Susan
May 10, 2009 at 9:09am
The crowd that shouts "war-crime" at every action Israel takes, serve to undermine the very existence of recognized rules of war. We've seen this degradation of moral categories in the arguments twisting reality to justify suicide bombings--with devastating consequences for Iraq and other Arab societies where the moral degradation took root. If we allow the same type of degradation to take place in our thinking vis-a-vis rules of war, the standards will not be taken seriously and war will become even more brutal in the way Westerners wage it.
- Dan
May 10, 2009 at 9:22am
Israel's mistake here is not to demand the unconditional surrender of the enemy and fight to the finish no matter what the UN, the US or the EU says. That is how we won World War II and that is how Sri Lanka is dealing with Tamil separatists. The UN may squawk about civilian casualties, but once the Tamil Tigers are crushed, those casualties will cease.
- nbarry
May 10, 2009 at 9:14pm
Almost every country in this world has a military. They wear uniforms and are subject to the laws of their respective state. Currently there is no such entity as an internationally and formally recognized Palestinian state (yet). As a result, there is no such thing as a Palestinian military (army, air force, etc). Therefore, all 1,417 dead in Gaza may be theoretically classified as "civilians". Perfect! Great! We are now free to hate Israel with no pangs of conscience or annoying obligations of appearing evenhanded. And please don't remind me that there were Israeli civilians killed by Hamas bombs. They were proportionally so few. Actually we can accuse Israel of the crime of "disproportionate reaction". Yey! Is there some international law requiring a "proportionate response" in case of war? If not, we should adopt one. As an afterthought, maybe we can extend it to domestic incidents. For example, if a lone terrorist breaks into a bank and holds everybody hostage, sending the police and a SWAT team should be illegal. One terrorist, one policeman, to make it proportional. To wrap this up, I'd like you all to know that some of my best friends may be Jewish, and maybe even Israelis (I'm still investigating).
- Victor
May 11, 2009 at 12:36pm
The problem here lies not so much with definitions as methodology: "If the person is not armed, his team will check with family members, neighbors, political parties and Palestinian armed factions to determine the deceased's status as a militant or civilian." In classifying active but unarmed Hamas operatives as civilians, Shaheen is knowingly and deliberately publishing falsified data. The United Nations accepts these numbers as unconditionally as it rejects the IDF's, reflecting a double standard in the world court of public opinion: the burden of proof is always on Israel.
- Shakin' Dave
May 26, 2009 at 11:00pm
BOTH Shaheen's definitions and methodology are worthless. When the US bombed an al Qaeda training camp or the intelligence headquarters of Saddam Hussein, people killed in the attack were not all carrying weapons but were perfectly legitimate military targets. As for methodology, Hamas did not send a soldier's weapons to the hospital; weapons were collected and reused. Hamas fighters were rarely if ever fighting in uniform, so only an idiot or a liar would count fighters by looking for weapons or uniforms on the Hamas wounded or dead. These numbers should be clearly and definitively rejected by governments and NGOs. Countersuit: it matters because millions of people believe the PHCR's lies and use them as a basis for attacks on Israel and for their officially-nurtured hatred of Jews.
- Zvi
May 29, 2009 at 1:24am
Up to 1400 dead in 22 days of combat amounts to about 2 or 3 lives lost per hour, depending on which statistics you accept. Traffic accidents could conceivably kill that many. Certainly one man with a rifle could kill a few people in an hour. The overall picture is unavoidable: Israel was being extremely careful, working hard to methodically hit only a few, specific targets.
- Fred2
June 1, 2009 at 6:28pm