Danny Wakil, (Letters December 10, 2024) if the circumstances weren’t so tragic I could hardly stop myself from laughing at your accusations of bias levelled at David Gilet.
What are the actual numbers? According to figures from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). From November 2023 to December 5, 2024 there have been 968 Palestinian deaths and 15,879 Palestinian injuries in the West Bank. Over the same period there were 49 Israeli fatalities and 312 injuries. OCHA states that these figures are independently verified by at least two credible sources. OCHA has not yet published the official death toll in Gaza since October 2023 however, clearly it far exceeds the fatalities resulting from the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The majority of agencies who collect such data estimate that there have been around 45,000 Palestinian deaths of which at least half are women and children. The estimate for fatalities from the Hamas attack on October 7 was around 1,200 and 240 hostages taken with 100 or so released.
I am the child of two Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust. Your extreme bias and false accusations lead only to the perpetuation of hate. Have you no heart? Do you really believe that those dead and injured babies we see on our television screens are Hamas combatants?
As for the space in Gaza you believe exists for civilian shelter, the ABC has done the figures. Gaza has a population similar to Brisbane yet Brisbane is 45 times bigger. Greater Sydney would fit 35 Gazas into it and Melbourne is 28 times the size of Gaza. Hamas may have built tunnels to hide themselves and their military equipment in but unless I am hallucinating my television screen shows me innumerable destroyed buildings that look like they were residences or schools or hospitals? Are Hamas combatants going to allow women and children into the tunnels constructed for military purposes?
You state that we ‘should name one army in all of history in any war that has done more to protect civilians of its enemies than Israel has done in this war?’ And others? You have a very short memory. Perhaps you have forgotten the Sabra and Satilla massacre which was a massacre of up to 3,500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
A massacre overseen by then Israeli Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon. Or the 1948 deaths of around 15,000 Palestinians and the expulsion of over 750,000 from their land in 1948. Of course, this was to provide a homeland for those European Jews who wanted to flee Europe where they had lived for generations prior to the Holocaust.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
