Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder
(LifeSiteNews) — As U.S. President Joe Biden suspends arms shipments to Israel, claims in response are made that the United Nations casualty figures in Palestine have been exaggerated.
Following the announcement on May 8 by U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin that the U.S. has “paused” arms shipments to Israel, a UN report on casualties of the Gaza war has been said to overstate deaths “by 50 percent.”
One pro-Israel lobby group, the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), has claimed in a piece titled “UN Halves its Estimate of Women and Children Killed in Gaza” that “The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revised its child fatality figure from the Gaza war sharply downward, reporting more than 14,500 deaths on May 6 but then 7,797 on May 8.”
It continued, “OCHA also revised downward its figure for women fatalities from more than 9,500 deaths to 4,959 deaths.”
The FDD quoted its own experts to suggest the UN was not only relying on figures “published by Hamas,” but that their alleged revision comes “too late to undo the harm already caused” to global attitudes towards Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Responding to these claims, now widespread amongst pro-Israeli outlets such as Fox News and across social media accounts, the UN responded with a statement which explained that the new figures were lower as they applied only to those dead who had been identified.
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN secretary-general, stated on Monday that the number of fatalities from Gaza “remains unchanged.”
Haq said, out of 34,622 reported deaths, 24,686 have been fully identified, including 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men.… pic.twitter.com/DWGrGo4Vgz
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 14, 2024
Speaking in New York, UN spokesman Farhan Haq’s response was reported by Reuters on May 13th,
There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those – which of those are children, which of those are women – that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete.
Haq explained further in a report by The Guardian that “[t]he overall number of fatalities… remains unchanged, and it’s more than 35,000 people since October.”
She said the data was altered due to the bodies having been identified, before warning that numbers would rise as this process continues.
“What’s changed is the ministry of health in Gaza has updated the breakdown of fatalities, for whom full details have been documented.”
Genocide charge
The UN reported in March that its special rapporteur Francesca Albanese had found “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of genocide has been met” by Israel’s actions in Gaza.
As Israeli settlers blockade and destroy U.S. aid packages intended for Gaza, reports continue to urge that a famine is underway as a result of the deliberate obstruction of international relief efforts. Middle Eastern Eye said that Palestinians are now “too starved” to flee Rafah, as Israel intensifies its assault on the civilian population of around 1.2 million, half of them children – according to the UN.
US citizens: these are the Zionist colonists your tax dollars sustain while they destroy the aid you also pay for, all so their military can commit a genocide your government denies pic.twitter.com/PWVxtwEMoB
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) May 14, 2024
In separate statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said 190 UN aid workers had been killed since the start of the conflict.
Israel’s concentration of the Palestinians into a city “once home to 250,000” has led UNICEF to warn of “a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties.”
Biden, who faces Republican calls for his impeachment over the suspension of weapons sales to Israel, has been severely criticized for his actions by leading neoconservative John Bolton.
Biden, whose decision came in opposition to the Israeli army “entering Rafah,” has been accused of “holding our strongest ally hostage” in refusing armaments to fuel this operation.
Where others see a war on civilians, Bolton sees a culture war. He said in a tweet on May 13, “The left wing of the Democratic Party is holding American support for our strongest ally hostage,” condemning the “break” between Israeli and U.S. policy as “an existential threat” that is “unprecedented.”
Such a break is indeed without recent precedent. Despite personal endorsement on camera of a stated policy to destroy the peace process and the hope of a Palestinian state – along with many of its people – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far enjoyed the unqualified support promised him by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an October 12 meeting in the Israeli capital, Tel Aviv.
“I come before you as a Jew,” Blinken told the Israeli prime minister, before stressing that “the United States has Israel’s back.”
His assurance to Netanyahu seemed unshakable – at the time.
“As Israel’s defense needs evolve, we will work with Congress to make sure that they’re met. And I can tell you there is overwhelming – overwhelming – bipartisan support in our Congress for Israel’s security,” Blinken had added.
The repeated references to Israel being a major ally of the United States in the Middle East are contradicted by others. In a recent Judge Andrew Napolitino interview with retired U.S. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the colonel makes it clear that, far from being a U.S. ally, Israel has become a substantial liability to the United States while enduring privileges greater than that of any American states.
Blinken and Bolton are most likely aware that Netanyahu has long planned a “large scale attack on the Palestinian Authority causing them to fear that everything is about to collapse.” Netanyahu says this in a video from 2001, whose emergence in 2010 led to its coverage by the Washington Post.
In 2001, unaware cameras were rolling, Netanyahu unwittingly detailed his blueprint for the Israeli genocide we are witnessing today in Palestine.
Please watch and share, to help expose the truth that this didn’t start on 7/10 but was always part of his evil, Hitler-esque plan. pic.twitter.com/yXlpDQ3D03
— Red Collective (@RedCollectiveUK) May 12, 2024
Appearing to speak without the knowledge that he was being recorded, Netanyahu is asked how he will respond “when the world says we are the aggressors.”
“They can say whatever they want,” he said, explaining that “America is something you can easily maneuver – and move in the right direction.”
He says how he confronted Bill Clinton, and exacted concessions from the U.S. which destroyed the peace process.
“So then they say something? So what? 80 percent of Americans support us,” he claimed.
With the recent attempts to downplay a war whose atrocities have made Israel an international pariah, a view held in Israel itself, perhaps the limit of Netanyahu’s power to maneuver America has been reached.
Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder