The terrorist to civilian ratio of Palestinian deaths in Operation Protective Edge is an unprecedented 1:1, a news study released last week reveals - supporting earlier findings regarding the so-called "civilian casualties" Hamas touts to international media.
According to the highly respected Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), 49% of the "martyrs" listed on the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry (PHM) list were found to have been linked to terrorist organizations; just 51% were confirmed civilian casualties.
The study, which has examined PHM's death tally since the war's early stages, has now tracked roughly 40% of published casualties during the war - some 842 people.
According to the ITIC, of those 842:
PHM - the officiating body for casualty counts in Gaza which has enacted a monopoly on Western media - is run by a known Hamas terrorist, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qurda.
The PHM does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians, but several "Palestinian rights groups" - including one UN-based group - do, and have estimated the civilian casualty rate at between 72-82%.
Israel, however, has maintained since the early stages of the operation that some 900 of those killed, or 47%, were terrorists.
Such a ratio of combatant to non-combatant casualties - roughly 1:1 - would be almost unprecedented in the history of urban warfare.
ITIC's results surface in the midst of the Palestinian Arab leaderships' continued insistence that Israel has committed "genocide" and "war crimes" during its fifty-day self-defense operation, and days after Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas perpetuated the accusation at the UN General Assembly.