Alastair Mitchell

Having closely observed the news that has come out of Palestine and Israel over the past few years, I have become accustomed to outlandish statements and blatant falsehoods. However, a recent comment by the head of Israel’s Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, is high in the running for a prize in this category.

He claimed that Israel has killed ‘1000 terrorists’ in the Gaza Strip in the past two years.  This is despite the fact that only 816 people in total were killed in 2006 and 2007 in Gaza.  Perhaps he is counting some ‘terrorists’ who didn’t actually exist.  In addition, of this number 152 were actually children and many were men and women who took no part in hostilities at all. Amongst the youngest of those killed were Maria Akel, age 5; Aya al-Astel, age 8; Muhand Amen age 6; Yehia Abu Salmiya, age 9 and his brother Nasrallah, age 5; Maisa, Maryam, Saad and Mahmoud Othamneh ages 9 months to 10 years; Hadil Ghiben age 7; and Mahmoud and Sara Abu Ghazal, age 8.  As the Israeli human rights movement B’Tselem dryly put it, ‘It appears that the head of the ISA defines every Palestinian killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip as a terrorist.’