HOLY LAND CASUALTY TOLL: Almost

HOLY LAND CASUALTY TOLL: Almost every days now, there seem to be headlines about some new incursion of Israeli armor, or attack by Israeli helicopters, in one or another part of the Gaza Strip, or in Nablus or Hebron.
When I was in Israel last summer, many Israelis warned that if Prez Bush launched a “big” war against Iraq, then Sharon might well be tempted to launch his own mirror-image of it against either the Palestinians, the Lebanese, or the Syrians. And of these, of course, the Palestinians, being only very lightly armed and not having a state to protect them, make the easiest prey. The thrusts and parries that the IDF have been undertaking against various Palestinian neighborhoods could be Sharon’s equivalent of the kinds of “softening-up and probing” exercizes that the US forces have been stepping up in recent weeks, against the Iraqi forces in and around the “no-fly zones.”
I’ve been trying to track the casualty figures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They are certainly NOT as high as they were at the height of the rampage Sharon launched there last March and April (489 Palestinians killed in the OPTs in those two months, of whom 47 were minors.)
According to the Israeli Center for Human Rights, B’tselem, between Jan and March 26 this year, 114 Palestinians have been killed in the OPTs (including 15 minors), while 2 have been killed by Israeli civilians. 11 Israeli security personnel have been killed by palestinians in the OPTs in that time, as have 2 Israeli civilians.
Meanwhile inside Israel, 15 Israeli civilians (none recorded as minors) and 2 members of the Israeli security forces have been killed by Palestinians, while 5 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security people.
The number of Palestinians listed as “killed by the Israeli security forces” does NOT include those who lose their lives as a result of the delays that may be either imposed on ambulances by Israeli checkpoints, or that result from sick people not being able to reach ambulances because of the barricades and trenches around all palestinian population centers.
In general, the trend of Palestinians being killed has remained fairly stable– though shockingly high!– over the past 10 months, while the trend of Israeli casualties has gone down. But watch for the latest numbers, and get some other really fascinating detail from B’tselem’s website. Those folks, who sincerely care about every human life whatever the “nationality” of its bearer, are truly worth their weight in rubies.