TEL AVIV Ñ Virtually all of Palestinian casualties in the more than
two-year war with Israel have been young males, an Israeli research center
asserts.
In contrast, the study by the center said, about a third of the Israeli
casualties have been women.
The study by the Herzliya-based International Policy Institute for
Counter-Terrorism examined casualties on both sides. The study, based an
open sources, breaks down the casualites by age, sex and combatant
status.
About 1,600 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in
September 2000. More than 600 Israelis have been killed.
"The statistics show that Israeli noncombatants over the last 23 months
have been killed essentially at random, as Palestinian terrorists have
chosen to attack which ever civilian targets were accessible," the report,
entitled "An Engineered Tragedy: Statistical Analysis of Casualties in the
Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," said. "Palestinian fatalities, however,
have been strongly concentrated within a particular population segment Ñ
teenaged boys and young men."
"Population segments like women or older people are not military
targets; thus their higher prevalence among Israeli fatalities is an
indication of the degree to which Palestinian terrorists have killed
Israelis simply for the 'crime' of being Israeli," the report said. "In
contrast, Palestinian noncombatant fatalities have been overwhelmingly young
and male."
The institute, part of the Interdisciplinary Center and which cooperates
with Western governments on the issue of counter-terrorism, reported that
most of the Palestinian casualties were what the report deemed combatants.
The study said 617 out of those Palestinians killed were noncombatants, a
majority of the victims. In contrast, 417 of Israeli casualties, or 80
percent, comprised noncombatants.
The study said 203 Palestinians, one of out every eight casualties, were
killed by Palestinians themselves. They also include Palestinians killed in
assembling bombs for suicide attacks against Israel.
Among Israelis, the study said, females account for 31 percent of all
Israelis killed in the war. Women comprise almost 40 percent of the Israeli
noncombatants killed by Palestinians.
Among Palestinians, more than 95 percent of the casulaties have been
male. A huge majority of the Palestinians are young males.
"If we look at Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel, we see that
the few female fatalities appear to be randomly distributed by age," the
report said. "The male fatalities, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly
young. To be more precise, 63 percent of all Palestinian noncombatants
killed by Israel were boys and men between the ages of 12 and
29."
The report said the pattern of Palestinian casualties "completely
contradicts accusations that Israel has indiscriminately targeted women and
children." The study said the vast majority of the Palestinian casualties
were not killed as the result of random Israeli attacks on inhabited areas.
"There appears to be only one reasonable explanation of this pattern:
that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brought them into
conflict with Israeli armed forces," the report said. "In fact, the highly
specific pattern of Palestinian noncombatant fatalities suggests that many
of these deaths have resulted from an active Palestinian
indoctrination campaign glorifying 'martyrdom' Ñ effectively encouraging
boys and young men to confront Israeli forces and risk death even when there
was no real likelihood of causing material harm to Israelis."
