Mainstream media sources repeatedly cite the number of those killed in Gaza by the IDF according to “Palestinian health authorities” or the like. Most recently the number has been set at some 23,000. The Wall Street Journal, for example, takes up the issue this morning in “Israel, Under Pressure to Scale Back Intensity of War, Pulls Thousands of Troops From Gaza” (“More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, the majority of them women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities…”).

At least the Journal reporters add that the “numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.” The numbers — they are the the numbers, as the Journal puts it, supplied by “Palestinian health authorities” or, more accurately, the numbers according to Hamas propaganda.

The Hamas propaganda has been incredibly effective. The Journal story includes this characteristically mind-blowing comment from a Biden administration spokesman: “White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that while Hamas remained a threat to Israel, Washington didn’t want to see any more civilian deaths.”

Well, I know the feeling. We don’t want to see Joe Biden any more. Listening to these people kills brain cells I can’t afford to spare.

The Journal, by the way, publishes the story under the byline of two reporters and credits six others with contributing to it. It takes a team of six and unnamed editors to perform a basic job this poorly.

Retired British Colonel Richard Kemp is an outsider to Israel’s conflict who knows what he’s talking about. He has embedded with Israeli troops in combat to report on the current conflict. In the video below he looses a truth blast on the Hamas propaganda.