Israel’s unacknowledged terror victims

The current AP boilerplate for Gaza is as follows:

The Egyptian-brokered deal aims to end a year of violence that has killed more than 400 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and seven Israelis in a bloody cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals.

That’s actually an improvement from a few days ago:

The cease-fire, which Egypt labored for months to conclude, aims to bring an end to a year of fighting that has killed seven Israelis and more than 400 Palestinians, many of them civilians, since the Islamic militant group Hamas wrested control of Gaza a year ago.

The thing is, both of the boilerplates have completely ignored dozens of Israeli casualties in this terror war. The “seven Israelis” the AP mentions are the tip of the iceberg. The AP is only counting civilian deaths. But that’s wrong. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed by terrorists from Gaza in the past year. Here are the total number of deaths caused by terrorists from the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over:

July 12, 2007 – Staff Sgt. Arbel Reich, 21, of Yuvalim was killed when Hamas terrorists ambushed IDF troops engaged in anti-terror activity in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The terrorists detonated previously planted explosive devices and then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.

Oct 17, 2007 – Sgt. Ben Kubani, 20, of Hadera, was killed in an exchange of fire with terrorists during IDF activity targeting the terror infrastructure near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Oct 29, 2007 – IDF reservist St.-Sgt. Maj. Ehud Efrati, 34, of Beit Yehoshua was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in southern Gaza Strip, near the Sufa crossing.

Jan 15, 2008 – Carlos Andrés Mosquera Chávez, a 21-year-old volunteer from Quito, Ecuador, was killed by a Palestinian sniper from the Gaza Strip as he was working in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. The Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Feb 27, 2008 – Roni Yihye, 47, of Moshav Bitcha in southern Israel, a student at Sapir College, was killed Wednesday afternoon when a Kassam rocket exploded in a parking lot near the Sderot campus. He died shortly after sustaining massive wounds to his chest. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 1, 2008 – St. Sgt. Doron Asulin, 20, of Beersheba and St. Sgt. Eran Dan-Gur, 20, of Jerusalem were killed in an exchange of fire with Hamas terrorists during an IDF anti-terror operation in northern Gaza targeting rocket launchings. The gunmen reportedly fired mortar shells, antitank and RPG missiles at the soldiers.

Mar 6, 2008 – An IDF soldier – a Bedouin tracker, 27 – was killed during a routine patrol along the security fence in the central Gaza Strip, near Kissufim, when Palestinian terrorists detonated an explosive device near the jeep in which he was driving. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
St.-Sgt. Liran Banai, 20, of Ashkelon, the critically wounded jeep driver, succumbed to his injuries on Sunday, March 9.

Apr 9, 2008 – St.-Sgt. Sayef Bisan, 21, of the Druze village of Jat in the western Galilee was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in an overnight IDF operation against terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip. Two soldiers were wounded.

Apr 9, 2008 – Oleg Lipson, 37, and Lev Cherniak, 53, both of Beersheba, were killed when Palestinian terrorists, after firing a salvo of mortars at the Nahal Oz area, penetrated the fuel terminal and opened fire on the civilian employees.

Apr 16, 2008 – Three IDF soldiers – Sgt. Menhash al-Banyat, 20, of the Bedouin community of Kseife in the Negev; Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, of Moshav Patish in the western Negev; and Sgt. David Papian, 21, of Tel Aviv – were killed in a confrontation with armed Palestinian gunmen approaching the Gaza security fence south of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. Three other soldiers were wounded.

May 9, 2008 – Jimmy Kadoshim, 48, of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, was killed by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip while tending his garden.

May 12, 2008 – Shuli Katz, 70, of Kibbutz Gevaram, was killed while visiting relatives at Moshav Yesha, some 15 kms (9 miles) from the Gaza Strip.

June 5, 2008 – Amnon Rosenberg, 51, of Kibbutz Nirim was killed and four other employees were wounded when a mortar bomb fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip exploded outside the Nirlat paint factory in Kibbutz Nir-Oz. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

That’s eighteen deaths due to Gaza terrorism—not seven. The AP wants to have it both ways: Keep Palestinian terrorists in the casualty count, but eliminate Israeli soldiers killed by terrorists. The end result ameliorates the effects of Hamas terror since the takeover of Gaza.

It’s an utter whitewashing of the real Israeli casualties, and very typical of the mainstream media. The double standard is reprehensible. Palestinian civilian deaths, and overall Palestinian death totals, are played up—while Israeli soldier death tolls are ignored utterly. Note that I didn’t even count the deaths by terrorists that occurred within Israel itself, even though some of them were perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. Those figures, too, are ignored by the AP. But just because the AP doesn’t report the deaths doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.

In Gaza, though, the AP is misrepresenting the facts. Eighteen Israeli deaths by terror occured between June 15, 2007 and June 15, 2008—in the “year of violence,” as the AP called it. The evidence is right there, in black and white. Seven civilians and eleven soldiers were killed. Perhaps the AP should change its count to reflect the facts accurately. After all, it has no such compunctions about including the American soldier casualty counts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But that’s a post for another day.