
On August 21, the day before the UN’s mechanism for assessing famine, the IPC (the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) confirmed, in a devastating report, that the most severe famine conditions are occurring in the Gaza Strip, the Israel-based +972 Magazine and Hebrew Call, along with the Guardian, simultaneously published their own independent analyses of a revelatory document that they had received in May — an official assessment by the Israeli military, contained in a database compiled by Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, of how many Palestinian resistance fighters they believe the IDF had killed since their military assault on the Gaza Strip began following the deadly military incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
As Yuval Abraham explained for +972 Magazine, “Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said the army views it as the only authoritative tally of militant casualty figures.” As one of them said, “There’s no other place to check.”
The figure — of around 8,900 fighters — is revelatory, in the first instance, because it is consistently lower than figures regularly touted by Israeli government spokespeople, which have included, in November 2024, Benjamin Netanyahu putting the number “close to 20,000”, the outgoing Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi stating in his retirement speech in January this year that Israel “had killed 20,000 militants in Gaza since October 7”, and a report in June by the right-wing Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, which “cited military sources claiming that the number of militant casualties in Gaza stood at 23,000.”
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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