An inflated toll?

A number of bloggers have pointed to the story of the Gaza doctor who reported that the death toll claimed by Hamas and swallowed by the MSM was significantly inflated.

Elder of Ziyon points out how difficult it would be to figure out the actual death toll. Jonathan Tobin asks if this death inflation is Shades of the al-Dura Case? Subsequently there’s been another report that the IDF is confirming that really over 1300 Gazans were killed the fighting. This leads Tobin to compare this case to the al-Dura case and wonder:

But whether that’s true or not, had the IDF been a bit more skeptical about the false claims made regarding the case, it’s possible that the story wouldn’t have become such a big propaganda success for the anti-Israel crowd.

But maybe the IDF believes that the death toll matches the higher figure and that they have an interest in letting Hamas know. The later report contained this information:

Israeli defense officials on Thursday said there were around 1,300 Palestinians killed during the fighting in Gaza and that a majority of them were Hamas operatives.

The IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration have already compiled a list with 900 names of Palestinians killed during the operation, out of which 750 are believed to be Hamas operatives.

Keep in mind that if Israel has a list that shows that 750 out of 900 killed were Hamas operatives that means that Israel hit the terrorists with an 83% accuracy rate.

Edward Luttwak wrote two weeks ago:

Consider: According to Gaza sources, until the ground fighting started some 25% of the 500 dead were innocent civilians. The Israelis claimed that 20% of the casualties from the aerial attack were civilians. Either way, this was an extremely accurate bombing campaign. (Even in the 1991 and 2003 U.S. air campaigns against Iraq, when most of the bombs were already precision-guided, gross targeting errors killed many civilians.)

A targeting accuracy of 75% — by the lowest estimate — cannot have been merely obtained by overhead photography from satellites or reconnaissance aircraft, because few Hamas objectives were classic “high-contrast” targets such as bunkers or headquarters. Most targets were small groups of people in nondescript civilian vehicles that blend in with traffic, or inside unremarkable buildings. Nor could telephone intercepts have yielded much intelligence, because all Palestinians know that the Israelis have long combined voice recognition with cellular-grid location in order to aim missiles very accurately at single vehicles in traffic, or even at individuals standing about with their cellphones switched off.

So how did Israel do it? The only possible explanation is that people in Gaza have been informing the Israelis exactly where Hamas fighters and leaders are hiding, and where weapons are stored. No doubt some informers are merely corrupt, paid agents earning a living. But others must choose to provide intelligence because they oppose Hamas, whose extremism inflicts poverty, suffering and now death on the civilian population for the sake of launching mostly ineffectual rockets into Israel. Hamas completely disregards the day-to-day welfare of all Gazans in order to pursue its millenarian vision of an Islamic Palestine.

If Israel has compiled a list of those it killed it shows an intelligence gathering capability in Gaza. Similarly after the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Yaacov Amidror wrote:

Hizballah is still functioning and was functioning during the entire war. We have identified by name and address 440 members of Hizballah who were killed during the war. From my experience, this figure is between half and two-thirds of the actual casualties, which were not less than 500 and may have reached 700 – a figure greater than all the casualties Hizballah has suffered during the last twenty years. It will take Hizballah at least two years to rebuild its capabilities and to recruit and train new people. This is why Hizballah is keeping the cease-fire.

Both the recent Jerusalem Post article and the Amidror article suggest that Israel knows who they are targeting. And if the 83% accuracy is correct, as Luttwak wrote, it suggests that Israel has spies on the ground helping them. Maybe the army has figured that the difference between the numbers don’t really matter, but that they have a way of telling Hamas that its support has been compromised. Maybe this is a warning to Haniyeh and company that they can claim victory, but that they ought not to rest too comfortably.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.