As the Lebanon–Israel war continues, with Israel attacking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and elsewhere, casualties are mounting.
Unlike the rising death toll in Gaza, however, the official count from Lebanese authorities is in general more accepted by Israel and appears to be used readily by the Israeli military.
As of Oct. 28, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, 2,710 people in Lebanon had died since Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
In Gaza, Hamas-controlled health authorities have long been accused by Israel and some observers of fudging and outright fabrication in an effort to inflate the casualty count.
But with the Lebanese numbers, how much influence Hezbollah has on casualty counting is a much more open question. While the Iran-financed terrorist group controls nearly half of the Lebanese Parliament, with many loyalists in the government bureaucracy, it doesn’t comprehensively run Lebanon in the way that Hamas runs Gaza.
“I think [Lebanese casualty figures] are generally reliable, much more reliable than figures provided by the Ministry of Health in Gaza,” Kobi Michael, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and Misgav Institute, told The Epoch Times.
There are still some problems with the numbers from Lebanon, according to Michael.
“Lebanon doesn’t distinguish between Hezbollah and civilians that are killed. They count them all as civilians,” he said.
The same thing happens in Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry doesn’t indicate how many of the roughly 43,000 killed in the war are members of Hamas or other terrorist groups. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has stated that at least 17,000 are. By some estimates, more than three-quarters of all deaths there are Hamas members or their families.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told soldiers on Oct. 19 while meeting with them that at least 1,500 Hezbollah operatives had been killed, according to Michael.
“And he meant military, but Hezbollah has civilian operatives as well,” Michael said.
With about 2,700 total casualties according to the Lebanese government, that means that more than half were from the terrorist group, and among the 1,200 remaining, some were civilians in Hezbollah, he said.
“You live in an apartment and your apartment is used for storing weapons for Hezbollah. You are a legitimate military target. You are killed when we attack. You were warned to leave. You preferred not to leave,” Michael said.
“From the IDF’s point of view, you are a Hezbollah operative. You gave Hezbollah your apartment to use for terror purposes.”
One indication that Israel is minimizing collateral damage is the gender breakdown. The health ministry stated that of the 2,710 killed, 532 were women and 157 children. The remaining 2,021 were men.
The fact that nearly 75 percent of those killed were men suggests Israeli success at targeting Hezbollah fighters and minimizing the collateral damage that civilian deaths represent.
Israel’s attack wherein about 1,500 Hezbollah operatives’ pagers and cellphones blew up was an example of precise targeting, Michael said.
“It’s the most accurate attack in the history of warfare,” Michael said. “Any person who carries a Hezbollah pager is a Hezbollah operative. Otherwise, why carry it?”
There have been instances of dramatically inflated death tolls being reported and then rolled back, but only after the much higher number had spread through the news media.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) found a serious instance committed by an Israeli publication, the left-leaning Haaretz.
Sourcing “Israeli officials,” it erroneously reported on Sept. 27 that the airstrike that day killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also killed about 300 Lebanese.
Haaretz repeated the number on Sept. 28, according to CAMERA.
But according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health on Sept. 29, CAMERA stated, six people were killed—far fewer—and 91 injured. The Carnegie Endowment also reported much lower casualties, which included those killed in other bombing raids that night.
While Haaretz corrected its error, the damage was done, according to CAMERA, as other foreign media publications cited the inflated figure of 300 killed.
