Palestinian death toll triples this year

And, on the day that Saddam goes to the gallows, comes news from the conflict that - more than any other - fuels the war on terror.

Three times as many Palestinians died in 2006 than died the previous year and there has been a drop in the number of Israelis who have died as a result of this conflict. Not that you'd know any of this if you listened to the hysteria of Israel's supporters.

Israeli human rights organisation, B'Tselem, said 660 Palestinians had been killed during 2006, including 141 minors. The report claimed that at least 322 of those killed were not fighters.

That is almost half of the people killed who are not combatants. A truly shocking ratio by anyone's standards. The Israelis have immediately questioned the organisations definition of combatant although they have not questioned the overall figures quoted.

Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem said the figures were based on the organisation's own fieldwork. She said: "More than half the Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past year weren't participating in fighting when they were killed. The Israeli government has a tendency to describe every Palestinian killed as a terrorist."

One has become used over the years to the Israeli government's claims, which often have next to no bearing on reality.

In Gaza alone, since the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid on 25 June, Israel has killed 405 Palestinians, including 88 minors. Of this total, 205 were defined as non-combatants. B'Tselem said the number of civilians killed showed a "deterioration in the human rights situation in the occupied territories". That impression was reinforced by the demolition of 292 homes, housing 1,769 people, 279 of them in the Gaza Strip. Israel also demolished 42 Arab homes in East Jerusalem built without a permit.

The terror that Israel has rained down on Gaza since the kidnap of Gilad Shalit has amounted to nothing less than a war crime. It is certainly a crime of collective punishment as the people of Gaza had nothing at all to do with the abduction of the young Israeli soldier.

Now, finally, we are getting the figures of Israel's carnage in that small, oppressed, community. The world, which expressed outrage at Israel's conduct in Lebanon, has remained mostly silent as the constant assault on Gaza has taken place.

Nor has Israel's relentless violence towards the people of Gaza brought Gilad's release. Indeed, there were times when it appeared as if his release was irrelevant to them as their actions seemed guaranteed to produce his death.

I hope he is safe, and I hope one day soon he will be returned to his parents who have acted with dignity throughout their ordeal.

However, his eventual release will not justify the sheer carnage and horrible death toll that Olmert has inflicted upon the Palestinians in his name.

Israel's supporters will do what they always do. They will begin by questioning the validity of the figures in question and then finally, once the figures are verified, they will attempt to move the blame for the deaths on to the Palestinians themselves.

This game is as old and tired as it is immoral and reprehensible.

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tag: Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Olmert, Palestinian death toll, Gilad Shalit,