On Wednesday, July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress, which was attended by members of both ruling parties in the United States.
Benjamin Netanyahu said, speaking about the military operation in Rafah, that “the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.” He added, “In Rafah. Remember what so many people said? If Israel goes into Rafah, there’ll be thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of civilians killed. Well, last week I went to Rafah. I visited our troops as they finished fighting Hamas’ remaining terrorist battalions. I asked the commander there, ‘How many terrorists did you take out in Rafah?’ He gave me an exact number: 1,203.”
He added, “I asked him, ‘How many civilians were killed?’ He said, ‘Prime Minister, practically none. With the exception of a single incident, where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people, the answer is practically none.’”
“You want to know why? Because Israel got the civilians out of harm’s way, something people said we could never do, but we did it,” Netanyahu said.
Misbar investigated Netanyahu's claims about the absence of civilian casualties in Rafah and found them to be misleading. The Israeli air force bombed many civilians after storming Rafah last May. In this article, we mention some of the massacres committed by the Israeli forces against unarmed civilians in Rafah.
Occupation Forces Kill 45 Civilians at Kuwaiti Peace Camp
On May 26, the Israeli Air Force targeted the Kuwaiti Peace Camp for displaced persons in Rafah, killing more than 35 victims and injuring dozens, most of whom were women and children. The bombing caused tents crowded with displaced persons to catch fire, and the occupation tried to evade its responsibility by claiming that the bombing targeted armed elements, a claim for which it did not provide any evidence.
In a report issued by the organization “Save the Children” on May 29, it was stated that at least 66 Palestinians, including children, were victims of the Israeli bombing, in addition to hundreds of other wounded, only in the first weeks of the occupation forces storming the city of Rafah, in areas that Israel claimed were safe. This contradicts Netanyahu's claim that Israel provided safe passages for the displaced and did not target any civilians during its military operations in Rafah.
Israel Kills More Than 21 Palestinians in Al-Mawasi Massacre in Rafah
On May 28, the Israeli occupation forces committed another massacre when they bombed tents for displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah. The attack resulted in 21 victims, including 12 Palestinian women, and 64 others were seriously injured, according to a report by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza at the time. This is an area that the occupation authorities had declared safe for displaced people and those fleeing the war in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu Uses Inaccurate Figures on Gaza War Casualties
Netanyahu said in his speech before the U.S. Congress that “the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.” The Israeli Prime Minister relies on figures provided by the Israeli occupation forces, which he estimated last May at 14,000 combatants versus 16,000 civilians. However, Netanyahu did not mention how the number of those killed from Hamas's military wing was calculated, nor did he address the civilian casualties resulting from the air, sea, and land bombardment of Gaza and other areas under Israeli aggression. In contrast, the official spokesman for the Israeli government, Avi Hyman, said in an interview with the British broadcaster Piers Morgan on his program broadcast on May 8 that “the Israeli army does not have accurate figures on the number of civilian casualties.” This statement was made when Morgan asked him about the number of those killed from Hamas's military wing, which Hyman stated was close to 14,000 combatants since the start of the aggression on October 7. When Morgan insisted on asking about the number of civilian casualties, Hyman responded that they did not have accurate and confirmed information on civilian casualties, which contradicts the numbers Netanyahu uses when discussing the number of civilians and their ratio to the number of Hamas dead.
In February, the BBC published an investigation into the numbers claimed by the Israeli army for the number of Hamas dead and found that few of the videos published by the Israeli forces contained visual evidence of the killing of Hamas members.
According to the BBC, some experts are concerned that the Israeli army might be counting “some non-combatants as fighters merely because they are part of the Hamas-run territory's administration.”
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London, told the BBC: “Israel takes a very broad approach to 'Hamas membership,' which includes any affiliation with the organization, including civil servants or administrators.”
It is worth noting that the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, whose figures are adhered to by the United Nations and a large number of other international human rights organizations, estimated the number of victims of the Israeli aggression from October 7 to July 25 at 39,175 and 90,403 injuries.
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