UNRWA’s John Ging Exaggerates Gaza Destruction
First it was Jimmy Carter and then came Gideon Levy. Now UNRWA’s John Ging jumps on the bandwagon, wildly exaggerating the number of Gaza homes destroyed and damaged during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. A Dec. 29, 2009 UN News Centre report states:
“The Israeli blockade has meant that almost no reconstruction materials have been allowed to move into Gaza even though 60,000 homes were either damaged or completely destroyed. So we in UNRWA have been saying ‘let’s lift this senseless blockage,’” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told UN Radio.
It seems that Mr. Ging has not been doing the requisite U.N. reading homework. Paragraph 1238 of the U.N.’s Goldstone report reads:
Figures about the overall damage to residential housing vary according to the source and time of the measurement as well as the methodology. The human rights NGO Al Mezan reports that a total of 11,135 homes were partially or fully destroyed. According to the human rights NGO Al-Dameer-Gaza, 2,011 civilian and cultural premises were destroyed, of which 1,404 were houses that were completely demolished and 453 partially destroyed or damaged. A UNDP survey immediately after the end of military operations reported 3,354 houses completely destroyed and 11,112 partially damaged.
Table 23, found on page 25 of Al Mezan’s report entitled “Cast Lead Offensive in Numbers,” details:
Likewise, a recently published report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (an organization which has exaggerated civilian casualty figures on the Palestinian side, hardly a friend of Israel), stated:
PCHR figures indicate that 2,114 houses (comprising 2,864 housing units) were completely destroyed, affecting 3,314 families (19,592 individuals). 3,242 houses (5,014 housing units) were partially destroyed – rendered uninhabitable – affecting 5,470 families (32,250 individuals). A further 16,000 houses suffered moderate damage.
Thus, PCHR weighs in with the highest figure for destroyed and damaged houses with some 24,000, a little more than a third of the number that Ging cites.
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