Left: Mahmoud Atiyya al-Hamaida, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative (paldf.net). Right: Mohammad Mohammad al-Bakri, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative (gulfup.com)
The findings to date
1. This document is the fourth in a series of publications of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), as part of a project examining the names of the Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge. The project’s goal is to ascertain the identity of the Palestinians killed during Operation Protective Edge, to determine which of them are terrorist operatives and which are non-involved citizens, and to examine the ratio between them.
2. The number of names of those killed, examined by the Information Center to date, is around 600, about 30% of the Palestinians killed to date. The examinations carried out by the Information Center are based on the names on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s lists, despite the reliability problems and deficiencies found in them. From these lists we have removed duplicate names and have added a number of terrorist operatives who do not appear on them (both for technical reasons and as a result Hamas’s policy of concealment and deception). We have examined a total of 667 names of those killed.
3. Weighting the findings of the current examination and the findings of the three previous examinations (detailed in the previous documents) yields the following results:
A. 273 of those killed were terrorist operatives (65 + 66 + 71 + 71).
B. 316 of those killed were non-involved civilians (76 + 93 + 66 + 81).
C. The identity of 78 people who were killed is unknown at this stage (34 + 26 + 15 + 3). Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether they were terrorist operatives or non-involved civilians.
D. Of the 589 dead who could be identified on the three lists that were examined, terrorist operatives constitute approximately 46% of the names. Non-involved civilians constitute approximately 54% of the names. This ratio may vary as the ITIC continues to examine the names of those killed.
The findings of the current examination
4. The current document examined an additional basic list, issued by the Palestinian Health Ministry, of the names of 150 Palestinians, most of whom killed from July 20 to July 22, 2014
5. In this document as well, to the number of dead who appeared on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s list we added 25 terrorist operatives killed in battle in Shejaiya (as we did in the previous document). This was done in order to balance the bias that was created because the Palestinian Health Ministry rarely included the names of terrorist operatives killed in battle in Shejaiya on its lists (for an explanation of our methodology, see the previous document, Part Three). This bias is also evident in the current list, which identified only a few operatives from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and other terrorist organizations who died in Shejaiya.
6. The examination of the names that appeared on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s list (150), with the additional names of the terrorist operatives killed in battle in Shejaiya, yielded the following findings:
A. We identified 40 of those killed as terror operatives. To this figure we added 25 unidentified terrorist operatives (killed in battle in Shejaiya, whose bodies are still under the rubble). Thus, the total number of terrorist operatives is 65 (photos of 24 of them were found, see Appendix B).
B. We identified 76 names as non-involved civilians.
C. We were unable to identify 34 names that appeared on the list, and have designated them as unidentified.
7. Below is a breakdown of the 65 terrorist operatives:
A. 24Hamas / Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades terrorist operatives
B. 5PIJ / Al-Quds Battalions terrorist operatives
C. 3 Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) terrorist operatives
D. Oneoperative of a Fatah terrorist network
E. One Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) terrorist operative
F. 31 terrorist operatives whose organizational affiliation is unknown (in our assessment, most of them are members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades)
8. Of the 141 identified names (about 81% of the names examined), 65 are terrorist operatives, representing about 46% of the names examined. In addition, 76 non-involved civilians were identified, comprising about 54%.
Appendicies
9. This document includes three appendices [See full pdf version of this report]:
A. Appendix A: Findings of the examination of 150 additional names of those killed in Operation Protective Edge, based on a list released by the Palestinian Health Ministry’s spokesman, Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra.
B. Appendix B: Photos of 24 terrorist operatives out of 40 operatives who appear on Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra’s list.
C. Appendix C: An additional 150 names, based on lists released by Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra.
Notes
[1]Further to the ITIC Information Bulletin from August 19, 2014: “Examination of the names of Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge – Part Three”.
[2]Further to our previous document; based on the next 150 names on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s list
* This article was originally published on August 26, 2014, on the Meir Amit website under the title “Examination of the names of Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge – Part Four.”