I knew this was coming.... Hamas at first claimed the most casualties it could when the media was broadcasting.Based on a report by a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, CAMERA notes that first Hamas milked the claim of Israel's 'disproportionate force' for all it was worth:However, once Hamas got all the mileage it could out of that tactic, it had to deal with the flip side of the issue, that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government which had made no effort to shelter them. Since 2007, Hamas has been the government in Gaza, and it is, at least in principle, obligated to look after the well-being of the population it rules over. The flip side of the claimed low Hamas casualties and high civilian casualties is the lingering image of Hamas fighters retreating to prepared hideouts after firing off rockets, leaving the civilian population to absorb the punishing Israeli military response.Read CAMERA's complete report.
Gaza is a small territory, its residents would certainly have been aware that the Israeli attack was precipitated by the escalating volume of rocket fire directed at Israel from Hamas controlled territory. In order to defuse resentment at having abandoned its own constituency during the Israeli military response, Hamas has to show that its fighters did not simply run and hide, but had stood their ground and taken many of the casualties.
the BBC last year via news.bbc.co.uk
