"Nowhere does the UNOCHA provide the qualification that your article does. UNOCHA uses the MoH breakdown, which is not explicitly between fighters and civilians, but distinguishes between men, children, women, and the elderly. Based on the article’s claim that the MoH does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, many readers would be surprised to learn that they do make these other related distinctions."
September 12, 2024
To:
Peter Edwards, Reporter, Toronto Star
Donovan Vincent, Public Editor, Toronto Star
Nicole MacIntyre, Editor-in-Chief, Toronto Star
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East to express serious concerns about your recent article titled: “Accusations Toronto man planned nightmare Oct. 7 anniversary attack prompt warnings over ‘dangerous trend of terrorist activity’ in Canada” published on September 10, 2024.
I am troubled by the inaccurate and misleading characterization of Gaza casualty reports in the article. Specifically, I take issue with this sentence:
“The FBI said Khan told undercover officers he wanted to ‘slaughter’ Jews in New York City on or around the Oct. 7 anniversary of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200. That attack sparked an Israeli war effort that has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count.”
It is not entirely true that Gaza’s Health Ministry “does not differentiate between fights and civilians in its count,” or at least, it is misleading. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) uses the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) data in its regular updates published online. Nowhere does the UNOCHA provide the qualification that your article does. UNOCHA uses the MoH breakdown, which is not explicitly between fighters and civilians, but distinguishes between men, children, women, and the elderly. Based on the article’s claim that the MoH does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, many readers would be surprised to learn that they do make these other related distinctions.
Ultimately, the claim that the MoH does not distinguish between fighters and civilians serves to unfairly cast doubt on their reporting by not giving readers the whole picture.
The chart below is taken from the September 11, 2024 UNOCHA update on the situation in Gaza. As you can clearly see, distinctions are clearly made between 4 categories.
As the data shows, the majority of those killed in Gaza have been women, children, and the elderly. Again, while the MoH does not explicitly say these are “civilians,” most readers would likely assume, on solid ground, that the vast majority of those killed in these categories are civilians. As such, the qualification your article makes is misleading.
It is important to add that the Lancet Medical Journal recently published a journal article titled “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential,” where Rasha Khatib Et al. wrote the following:
In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.
The Lancet noted that the lower figure does not account for those buried under rubble or the "indirect" deaths resulting from Israel’s deliberate dismantling of Gaza’s infrastructure. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain unidentified—some burned, others whose limbs got blown—making it hard to make precise categorization of victims.
This context is crucial, which is why I urge you to change your sentence to this: That attack sparked an Israeli war effort that has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, with the majority being children, women, and the elderly which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count though recent reports have deemed this to be a considerable underestimation.”
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to seeing these corrections reflected in your reporting.
Sincerely,
Lynn Naji
Junior Analyst, Canadians for Justice and peace in the Middle east