Genocide denial: UK-based Zionist ‘think tank’ under fire for disputing Gaza death toll

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

A UK-based organization bankrolled by the Zionist lobby has come under blistering fire for its recent report claiming that the death toll from the ongoing genocide in Gaza has been “inflated to vilify Israel.”

The Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a notorious right-wing, Islamophobic and Zionist think tank, advocating for military intervention policies, alleged that the Gaza Ministry of Health is overstating casualty figures resulting from the Israeli genocidal war that has been raging for the past 439 days.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Tel Aviv regime launched its all-out genocidal war against the besieged territory on October 7, 2023.

More than 9,000 massacres have been committed during this 14-month period. Human rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher as tens of thousands remain trapped under the rubble.

However, disputing the data provided by the Gaza authorities, HJS claimed that the Gaza ministry is “operating under Hamas, failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.”

Field observers and various human rights groups assert that the claim not only disregards the catastrophic impact of Israel’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza but also serves to absolve the Zionist regime of its responsibility for perpetrating the modern era’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.

Claims made by HJS

The new report released by HJS earlier this week, subsequently published by The Telegraph newspaper, claims that fatality figures released by Gaza’s Ministry of Health are “riddled with statistical anomalies and methodological flaws.”

“Men have been repeatedly misclassified as women, adults have been recorded as children, and deaths unrelated to Israel Defense Forces action – such as natural deaths or fatalities from misfired rockets – have been included,” claims the report, without providing any evidence to prove otherwise.

It attempted to cook up a false narrative, saying these “errors” would “systematically inflate” the civilian death toll and “obscure the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.”

In a new fabrication to whitewash Zionist war crimes, the agency said “The majority of those killed are fighting-age men,” insinuating that many of the fatalities were likely combatants.

It also claimed that approximately 17,000 of the reported fatalities in Gaza were Hamas fighters.

HJS criticized Western media outlets including the BBC, The New York Times and CNN for citing fatality figures from “Hamas-controlled sources” without critical scrutiny.

It accused authorities in Gaza of “manipulating the figures” for “propaganda purposes.”

The author of the report, according to the HJS meeting, Andrew Fox had previously served in the British Army between 2005 and 2021, including three stints in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, he was attached to the US Army Special Forces, who have been 

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HJS claims debunked

But, are these claims made by the UK-based “think tank” rooted in reality, or are they mere fabrications aimed at propagating Israeli fake narratives to whitewash its diabolic war crimes in Gaza?

HJS is not the only entity making such unsubstantiated assertions: amid the raging war that continues to claim innocent civilian lives, Israel has consistently alleged that nearly half of those killed in Gaza are combatants. According to this flawed narrative, only half of the casualties are civilians.

However, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based non-governmental organization focused on reducing and preventing armed violence globally, in a report in late October reaffirmed that Israel’s claims about civilian casualties in Gaza “don’t add up.”

“According to this analysis for Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), we conclude that at least 74% of the 40,717 Gazan fatalities identified by the Ministry of Health in Gaza [during the first full year of the war (7 Oct 2023-7 Oct 2024)] are – in fact – civilians,” AOAV said.

“Our conclusion that three-quarters of identified fatalities in Gaza are civilians is, in itself, likely to be an underestimate,” it added. Of the total deaths (at most) some 10,595 were combatants, it noted.

According to the AOAV, the credibility of Ministry of Health data is backed by its history of reliability, as well as the fact that both the US government and Israeli intelligence rely on and trust its information.

“Indeed, when the [Israeli military] itself analyzed a list of fatalities released by the (Gaza) Ministry of Health this January, it confirmed that at least 83% of the names were real people,” it said.

Furthermore, AOAV noted that thousands of Gazans have been unaccounted for by the MoH because they remain trapped under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.  

Based on data released by the Palestinian Civil Defense, at least 10,000 Gazans are buried under the rubble. However, it is a conservative estimate. The actual figure is believed to be much higher.

“Israel has offered no evidence to back its claim for numbers of combatants killed and it cannot be reconciled with the demographics of the MoH data without adding in thousands of uncounted combatants,” AOAV concluded.

In July, The Lancet, a reputable scientific journal, made a startling estimation: considering the reported Gaza death toll of over 37,000 as of June, the actual number of fatalities in the besieged territory could be an alarming 186,000, revealing an even more harrowing reality of the human cost in Gaza than previously reported.

“Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza,” read the Lancet study.

The Israeli daily Haaretz earlier this month in a report titled “A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza” also confirmed that the reports of the Gaza Ministry of Health are “quite credible.”

“Israel tries to make a point of denying the ministry’s figures. Local media outlets usually note that the source of such data is ‘Hamas’ Ministry of Health,’” the report stated.

However, it added, few Israelis know that not only do the Israeli military and the members of the Israeli cabinet not have their own, alternative figures regarding the number of fatalities, but that senior Israeli sources, lacking no other data, end up effectively confirming that published by the ministry in Gaza.

“How senior? Benjamin Netanyahu himself. On March 10, for example, the prime minister stated in an interview that Israel had killed 13,000 armed Hamas militants and estimated that for every one of them, 1.5 civilians had been killed,” the report further added.

According to Haaretz, based on Netanyahu’s remarks between 26,000 and 32,500 people had been killed in the besieged Palestinian territory and on that day, the Palestinian ministry issued a figure of 31,112 fatalities in Gaza, within the range cited by Netanyahu.

“In late April, The Wall Street Journal quoted an estimate by high-ranking IDF officers that the number of dead was approximately 36,000 – more than the number published by the Palestinian ministry at the time,” it added.

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What is Henry Jackson Society?

According to Ramy Abdu, human rights advocate and chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, HJS is recognized for promoting military intervention and stringent military policies.

Abdu wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that despite its proclaimed mission to bolster “freedom, democracy, and human rights,” the Zionist organization has been criticized for perpetuating anti-Muslim sentiment and demonstrating a lack of professionalism in its methods.

“The institution has been accused of adopting an anti-Muslim narrative, portraying Muslims in its reports and analyses as a primary threat to [Israel’s] security,” he added.

This approach, according to Abdu, fuels Islamophobia by excessively focusing on Muslim communities and associating them with “terrorism and extremism.”

He added that HJS adopts ideological positions that serve right-wing political agendas and rely on “controversial and unreliable sources in its reports.”

Abdu described HJS as “one of the most controversial think tanks in the United Kingdom” for its “clear bias in favor of Israel” and “marginalizing or ignoring Palestinian suffering.”

British rapper and activist Kareem Dennis, better known by his stage name Lowkey, also in a thread of posts on X in February shed light on the deep-rooted connections between HJS staff and managers and the Israeli occupation military, the cabinet, and settlement expansion firms.

HJS executive director Alan Mendoza is also president at the UK branch of the largest settlement-building body in Palestine, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), where Netanyahu is a patron, he said.

Lowkey explained that HJS “historically shares funders” with the notorious Israeli military so-called charity, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, and Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson, racist and Islamophobic Israeli figures in Britain.

“Its international patrons include former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold, Israel lobbyist Natan Sharansky, and former director of the CIA James Woolsey,” he added.

At least two employees of the HJS have transitioned directly to positions within the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, Lowkey highlighted.

The Mint Press News podcast host also noted that Goor Tsalalyachin, a senior research fellow at the HJS, previously held key roles such as head of strategic war games in the Israeli military operations directorate, spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister, and media advisor to the Israeli war minister.

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David Miller, a UK-based academic and co-producer of Press TV’s flagship weekly show ‘Palestine Declassified’, in a post on X in February also expressed concern regarding the “broader Zionist movement,” warning there might be more than 2,000 organizations akin to HJS in the UK.

“Amongst its core activities are penetration of UK power structures, sabotage of the pro-Palestine movement, indoctrination and radicalization of Jewish youth (so that they support genocide and some of them join the genocide as recruits to the ‘IDF’ in the ‘Lone Soldier’ programme); and of course, direct financial, organizational and intelligence support for the genocide in Gaza.”

During an episode of Palestine Declassified aired in mid-March, Miller discussed the sources of funding for HJS. He said the organization’s primary donors are predominantly Zionist family foundations.

These foundations, he said, have also been known to fund illegal settlements, the Israeli military, and, in some instances, Jewish supremacist groups.

“This is an organization which is set up to push Islamophobia and to push the [UK] government, in particular, to go further and further with Islamophobic policies,” Miller stated

He cited the UK government’s counter-terrorism policy, Prevent, as an example, saying that it disproportionately targets Muslims while overlooking extremism in other communities, such as the British Jewish community, particularly in relation to their support for Zionism.

Miller characterized HJS as an elite organization with significant political clout, emphasizing its presence in the corridors of power.

Its advisory board includes members of Parliament, the House of Lords, and even current Members of Parliament, and it has been very successful, he said.

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Backlash over HJS report

HJS’s claims regarding the Gaza death toll have been met with significant backlash.

Activists argue that these assertions, which question the accuracy of casualty figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health, aim to distort the global understanding of Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

“Amid moral bankruptcy and the inability of Israel’s supporters to conceal its brutality and crimes in Gaza, they have resorted to an unreliable right-wing think tank to question the numbers of civilian casualties resulting from the genocide in Gaza,” Abdu wrote on X.

Abdu also slammed the British Daily Telegraph, for its decision to publish the controversial research by HJS which he said is “infamous for its misinformation and falsifications.”

A human rights advocate, writing under the pseudonym “DutchieVs” wrote on X that HJS report is “worthless, biased and not based on fact.”

“Hamas has not inflated the death toll. If anything the number is smaller than the real total. The IDF systemically uses bulldozers to bury the dead. Be it combatants, or civilians killed by bombs, tanks or snipers,” DutchieVs added.

Laurence “Larry” Boorstein, a Project Manager, criticized HJS’s claims that the Gaza death toll is inflated, referring to them as “garbage” in a post on X.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk