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Israelis and Palestinians Killed in the Current Violence

At least 6,348 Palestinians and 1,072 Israelis
have been killed since September 29, 2000.

American news reports repeatedly describe Israeli military attacks against the Palestinian population as “retaliation.” However, when one looks into the chronology of death in this conflict, the reality turns out to be quite different.

Source: The number of Palestinian deaths is almost certainly an underestimate as it does not include the most recent deaths in the West Bank. B'Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories reports that 4,908 Palestinians were killed by Israelis and 1,062 Israelis were killed by Palestinians between September 29, 2000 and December 26, 2008. (Visit their statistics page.) The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that at least 1,440 Palestinians were killed during the Israel’s assault on the Gaza strip, between December 27, 2008 and February 5, 2009. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that 5 Israeli soldiers and 4 civilians were killed by Palestinians between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009, and 1 soldier was killed on January 27, 2009.

We apologize for how long it has been since the number of people killed has been updated! Unfortunately, B'Tselem, our main source for this information, has been extremely slow in adding the many Palestinians killed (and few Israelis killed) to their statistics page. We have contacted them requesting that they update this information. You may wish to contact them encouraging them to do so as well!

The numbers cited above include civilians and combattants killed by members of the opposing nationality (and therefore, do not include Palestinians killed by an explosive device that they set or was on their person, Israelis killed in 'friendly fire' incidents, etc.). The numbers also do not include the sizable number of Palestinians who died as a result of inability to reach medical care due to Israeli road closures, curfews, the Israeli closure of border crossing from Gaza, etc.

The figure for Palestinian deaths is extremely conservative, since it is difficult for B'Tselem to report on deaths in the Palestinian territories. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, internationally respected for its statistical rigor, reports significantly higher numbers of Palestinian deaths. We do not doubt the reliability of their data, and only use B'Tselem's more conservative numbers because they collect data on both populations.

In the past we used the statistics provided by Israel’s military for the number of Israelis killed, but they have not updated their statistics page since early in 2006. In addition, there is reason to believe that their numbers may have been somewhat inflated.

* The Palestinian people do not have a military, so the usual classification of civilian is not being used. Instead B'Tselem provides data on the number of Palestinians who did not participate in hostilities, a significantly more stringent qualification than the one used to identify Israeli civilians. We do not know how many of the Israelis listed as civilians participated in the hostilities. Many settlers who illegally have taken over parts of the West Bank (and used to live in parts of the Gaza Strip) are heavily armed and there have been numerous reports of their brutal attacks on their Palestinian neighbors.

Causes of Deaths of Israeli Soldiers
2005

Source: Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, Oct. 10, 2005, p. 6.
Note: The paper also reported that since 1992, 459 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide.

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