Throughout the 3 weeks of Operation Cast Lead, Israel was unable to provide firm official figures as to a breakdown between the combatant and civilian components of the Gaza death toll.
In the absence of solid IDF data, both Israeli and international media were left with, and thus reported inflated Hamas-Gaza-supplied figures as to the death toll from the Gaza War.
It is too little, too late, but finally the IDF has finally finished checking the incident and has stated that
the number of noncombatants killed near the UN school in Jabalya is dramatically lower than what Hamas reported/distorted:
The most emblematic distortion of the death toll in the Gaza war relates to the deaths near the UN school in Jabalya on Jan. 6. Palestinian medical officials claimed that some 40 Palestinians, many of them women and children, were killed at the school by IDF shells.
These claims sparked condemnation from the UN, widespread allegations of a "massacre" against Israel and escalated international political demands for an urgent end to the fighting.
The IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) reported on Sunday, after careful checking, that the Palestinian death toll in that incident - which involved Israel returning fire against Hamas gunmen outside the school facility - caused 12 fatalities, nine gunmen and three noncombatants.
CLA head Col. Moshe Levi acknowledged on Sunday that all this information - on both such specific incidents as the UN school and the overall classifications of the dead - would probably be largely ignored today, since it was being made available so long after the fighting ended. But Levi explained that the IDF was not prepared to issue information unless and until it was confident of its accuracy, no matter how grievous the damage to Israel's image, and the consequent political pressures caused by the delays in contesting inaccurate facts and figures.
Levi remarked that, in future conflicts, the IDF might need to bolster the resources it allocates to establishing, in real time, facts as basic as the number and identities of the dead.
No kidding...
