Researchers also found that approximately 5,000 natural deaths were added to the list of casualties, including cancer patients who were listed as still receiving treatment. According to the report, the inaccurate information has “led to a narrative where the Israel Defense Forces are portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians.”
The UK-based Henry Jackson Society discovered through the “Questionable Counting” study, which analyzed Israeli and US military and intelligence reports, that mainstream news outlets failed to distinguish between civilian and terrorist casualties and relied on the erroneous statistics from the Hamas-run agency reporting on the war and gave the figures no scrutiny. Conversely the same outlets overwhelmingly scrutinized statistics and reports provided by the Israel Defense Forces.
Gaza officials claim more than 44,700 people have been killed in the territory following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel but they don't say that over 17,000 of those were Hamas terrorists. Many media outlets parroted the Hamas narrative according to the study, which was published on Saturday, after analyzing all articles with Gaza fatality statistics published from February through May 2024 in CNN, BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Associated Press, Reuters and the Australian ABC.
The study claimed that the Hamas-operated Gaza Health Ministry overstated casualties by including natural deaths and over-reporting the number of women and children killed. Additionally, researchers found that men were included on lists of women who were killed and adults were found lists of child deaths.
The study’s author, Andrew Fox, said, “This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing sentiment and media coverage,” according to the New York Post.
