Statistical analysis indicates most dead Palestinians chose conflict with
Israeli forces

The "al-Aqsa Intifada" - An Engineered Tragedy

20 June 2002 International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism

[Full report http://www.ict.org.il/researchreport/researchreport.htm ]

A just-completed study at the International Policy Institute for
Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya provides
an in-depth look at the fatalities on both sides of the current
Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Based on thorough research using Palestinian
and Israeli open sources, the study provides a breakdown of those killed by
age, sex, and combatant status. The results lead to some surprising
conclusions.

Combatants, Noncombatants, and Responsibility

Around 1450 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the "al-Aqsa
Intifada", compared to more than 525 Israelis. Numbers like these are used
to create an image of lopsided slaughter, with Israel cast as the villain.
But such numbers distort the true picture: They lump combatants in with
noncombatants, suicide bombers with innocent civilians, and report
Palestinian "collaborators" murdered by their own compatriots as if they had
been killed by Israel.

More meaningful figures show that Israel is responsible for around 568
Palestinian noncombatant deaths, while Palestinians have killed more than
420 Israeli noncombatants. Over 50 percent of the Palestinians killed were
actively involved in fighting - and this does not include stone-throwers or
"unknowns". And Palestinians are directly responsible for the deaths of at
least 185 of their own number - one out of every eight Palestinians killed.

On the Israeli side, almost 80 percent of those killed have been
noncombatants. While Israelis account for only about 25 percent of the total
"Intifada" fatalities, they represent about 40 percent of the noncombatant
victims.

+ Breakdown by Gender

Women and girls account for 30 percent of all Israelis killed in the
conflict, and almost 40 percent of the Israeli noncombatants killed by
Palestinians.

Palestinian fatalities, in contrast, have been consistently and
overwhelmingly (over 95 percent) male; even when combatants (almost all of
whom have been male) are removed from consideration, fewer than 8 percent of
Palestinians killed by Israel have been female.

In absolute terms, even though more Palestinians than Israelis have been
killed overall, Israeli female fatalities have far outnumbered Palestinian
female fatalities. If we include all reliable reports of women and girls
killed in the conflict, the ratio is 152 Israeli females compared to 61
Palestinian females - a ratio of 2.5 to 1. If we restrict the comparison to
noncombatant Israeli females killed by Palestinians and noncombatant
Palestinian females killed by Israel, the difference is even more dramatic:
42 Palestinians compared to 150 Israelis, a ratio of more than 3.5 to 1.

+ Breakdown by Age

Israeli combatant fatalities are concentrated in a narrow age range, as we
would expect for soldiers in a uniformed army. Israeli noncombatants, in
contrast, display a near-random age distribution. This is equally
unsurprising, given that these fatalities are the result of terrorist
attacks on accessible civilian targets.

Palestinian fatalities present a quite different picture. Palestinian
combatant fatalities, like those on the Israeli side, are concentrated in a
narrow age range - although this concentration is slightly less pronounced.
(This is unsurprising, given that Palestinian combatants are mostly members
of unofficial terrorist/guerilla organizations.) Palestinian noncombatant
fatalities, however, show an age distribution completely unlike that on the
Israeli side. Instead of a "sloppy" distribution over a broad range of ages,
Palestinian noncombatant fatalities are heavily concentrated among teenagers
and young adults.

+"Mature" and Young Fatalities

A more specific focus on older and younger victims of the conflict further
highlights the difference between Palestinian and Israeli noncombatant
fatalities. When we compare the "mature" noncombatant Israelis killed by
Palestinians to the "mature" Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel, we
see that the Israeli death toll far exceeds the Palestinian. In fact,
Palestinians have killed at least 154 noncombatant Israelis aged 40 and
over, while Israelis have killed 69 Palestinian noncombatants in the same
age bracket. The ratio is more than two to one.

When we look at children and teenaged noncombatants killed in the conflict,
we see a rather strange pattern. Among both Palestinians and Israelis, the
number of young children (under the age of 8-9 years old) is comparatively
small (although more young Israeli children were killed as a proportion of
total fatalities). The number of Palestinian children killed begins to
increase at about 10 years of age, and jumps up dramatically between the
ages of 12 and 14. However, the increase consists entirely of boys - the
number of Palestinian girls killed shows no age-trend, and is very low for
all ages.

Young Israelis killed by Palestinians show a different profile: Both boys
and girls show an increase starting at age 14 (perhaps a year earlier for
boys), and just as many teenaged girls were killed as teenaged boys.

+Another Look at Age and Gender

It is worth taking another look at the relationship between age and gender
among the noncombatant victims of the conflict. If we look at Palestinian
noncombatants killed by Israel, we see that the few female fatalities appear
to be randomly distributed by age. The male fatalities, on the other hand,
are overwhelmingly young (although, as noted above, relatively few are below
the age of ten). To be more precise, 66 percent of all Palestinian
noncombatants killed by Israel were boys and men between the ages of 13 and
30.

Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians show a much closer balance
between the sexes - as mentioned above, three out of eight were women and
girls. In fact, slightly more girls than boys were killed below the age of
20; and the ratio is nearly one-to-one for those aged 60 and over.

In contrast to the high percentage of male Palestinian noncombatants between
13 and 30 years of age, only 27 percent of Israeli noncombatants killed by
Palestinians were males from 13 to 30 years old.

+The Significance of the Statistical Patterns

The statistics show that Israeli noncombatants over the last 21 months have
been killed essentially at random, as Palestinian terrorists have chosen to
attack whichever civilian targets were accessible. Palestinian fatalities,
however, have been strongly concentrated within a particular population
segment - 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.

In contrast, Palestinian noncombatant fatalities have been overwhelmingly
young (but over the age of 11) and male. This pattern of Palestinian deaths
completely contradicts accusations that Israel has "indiscriminately
targeted women and children." It is clear that the vast majority of the
Palestinians killed did not die as the result of random Israeli attacks on
inhabited areas, or on mixed-sex crowds at roadblocks and the like. 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. Certainly, at least after the first few days of
the conflict, these Palestinian men and boys (or, in the case of the younger
ones, their parents and teachers) have to have been aware that they were
placing themselves in harm's way.

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" - 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.