00:00:00
Andrew Fox a former British officer and
00:00:02
a disinformation expert three tours of
00:00:05
Afghanistan you yourself have been to
00:00:07
Gaza when the world's media sees Gaza
00:00:10
the Israelis are going to have a really
00:00:11
really challenging time explaining that
00:00:14
because it's really hard to walk people
00:00:16
through that level of damage and
00:00:17
destruction do you think that the death
00:00:18
toll is large enough for this to be
00:00:20
classified in any way shape or form as a
00:00:23
genocide I'm not seeing any tactics they
00:00:25
use that certainly we in the British
00:00:26
army or the American Army wouldn't use
00:00:29
in terms of the mismatch between the two
00:00:32
forces um there's nothing in
00:00:34
international humanitarian law that says
00:00:35
War has to be a fair fight we found
00:00:37
Clear Proof of people who died of
00:00:39
natural causes being on those lists so
00:00:40
there could be as many as 6,000 people
00:00:43
on those fatality lists attributed to
00:00:44
the idea if he simply died of natural
00:00:46
causes the number of overall people in
00:00:49
Gaza has risen since the start of the
00:00:50
war 60,000 Mark of babies born in Gaza
00:00:53
since the start of the war which is more
00:00:55
than even the number of people that Hass
00:00:56
claimed have been killed so particularly
00:00:59
when it comes to gen side actually if
00:01:00
the number of people in Gaza has
00:01:02
increased that very much is is not uh
00:01:05
destroying in hole or in part any Comm
00:01:07
of group in Gaza
00:01:09
whatsoever Andrew one of the things
00:01:11
you've been working on for the last few
00:01:13
months is the death doll in Gaza it's
00:01:16
one of the most hly debated aspects of
00:01:18
the Israel Hamas War you have done a
00:01:20
very very in-depth report on all of
00:01:23
these reports around the death toll what
00:01:25
are the main findings of this
00:01:27
report it's been an interesting few
00:01:29
months digging into these figures where
00:01:31
we've been living daily with thousands
00:01:35
of dead civilians I think it's very
00:01:37
important to start by acknowledging that
00:01:38
fact that a number of Innocents have
00:01:41
died in Gaza um that is one of the
00:01:43
features of War though unfortunately
00:01:45
when Wars occur women and children and
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Innocents are usually the greatest
00:01:51
victim what we found looking into the
00:01:53
Hamas fatality statistics from Gaza
00:01:56
however is that there is enough data
00:01:58
manipulation in there to raise real
00:02:01
concerns so things we found we can give
00:02:03
you examples of people who are listed as
00:02:05
being killed by IDF action uh who've
00:02:08
gone into Israel to receive cancer
00:02:10
treatment we've found people that died
00:02:12
in 2014 in
00:02:14
2022 uh We've also found a real trend of
00:02:17
reducing the ages uh of people on those
00:02:20
lists to drag them down from being 18
00:02:22
year olds to being 17 year olds and
00:02:24
therefore children and so our key
00:02:26
finding is that when you're presented
00:02:28
with uh breakdowns of men women and
00:02:30
children killed these are almost
00:02:32
certainly
00:02:34
unreliable so how many civilians would
00:02:36
you say have died in this war so far
00:02:39
it's still a very significant number and
00:02:42
if we take the rough 42,000 that Hamas
00:02:45
have listed um 34,000 plus of those are
00:02:49
named uh and they claim they have bodies
00:02:51
for them uh obviously we have no way to
00:02:53
verify that uh the IDF claimed 17 to
00:02:57
20,000 Hamas militants have been killed
00:02:59
in those numbers and we found a degree
00:03:02
of data that actually does support that
00:03:04
men particularly in the 15 to 50 age
00:03:06
group are indeed dying in much greater
00:03:08
numbers than women and children and
00:03:10
people who are in the elderly or in the
00:03:12
infant bracket uh my estimate of
00:03:15
civilians killed at the moment is still
00:03:17
sitting around the potentially the
00:03:19
20,000 Mark so you plus or plus or minus
00:03:22
5,000 do you think that there is enough
00:03:25
the the death toll is large enough for
00:03:26
this to be classified in any way shape
00:03:29
or form as a
00:03:30
genocide perhaps the beginning of a
00:03:33
genocide no not at all and there's
00:03:36
there's a number of key reasons for that
00:03:38
uh first of all is the amount of
00:03:39
munition dropped in Gaza you there's
00:03:42
almost uh I think it's two tons for
00:03:44
every civilian killed which either
00:03:47
suggests one of two things either it's
00:03:49
uh the idea of attempting a genocide and
00:03:51
being the least accurate shots in
00:03:53
history or it's that they are following
00:03:55
a proper targeting process and hitting
00:03:57
targets that are uh that are legitimate
00:04:01
and proportionate military targets and
00:04:03
the main reason that the civilian death
00:04:04
count is so low is that in the areas
00:04:06
where the idea are fighting there are no
00:04:08
civilians or indeed very few civilians
00:04:11
and that's because the IDF has taken
00:04:12
unprecedented measures to evacuate
00:04:15
civilians from the area and critics of
00:04:17
Israel can't have it both ways they
00:04:19
can't publish the images of civilians
00:04:21
evacuating from these areas and claim
00:04:24
that is somehow part of a humanitarian
00:04:26
disaster and then at the same time claim
00:04:28
that civilians are dying in genocide
00:04:30
level figures uh it's one of the other
00:04:32
of course
00:04:33
humanitarian situation uh such as we
00:04:36
have in Gaza is extremely challenging
00:04:38
for those civilians and we must consider
00:04:40
those poor gazin who are innocent and
00:04:42
sat in alasi humanitarian camp with
00:04:44
their homes destroyed and their personal
00:04:47
possessions limited to what they can
00:04:49
carry but that doesn't make it a
00:04:51
genocide there's a lot of talk about
00:04:53
proportionality if you look at social
00:04:55
media critics of Israel will very often
00:04:57
say the response is not
00:05:00
proportional what is proportionality as
00:05:03
defined in in in military law you can't
00:05:06
look at the conflict in its entirety and
00:05:08
look at the effects of the conflict and
00:05:10
make any assessment of proportionality
00:05:12
whatsoever the important thing to note
00:05:14
about proportionality is that it has to
00:05:16
be assessed on a strike by strike action
00:05:18
by action basis and the simple question
00:05:21
is this is the target struck worth the
00:05:25
number of Civilian or other collateral
00:05:27
damage inflicted by that air strike so
00:05:30
for example had they used an air strike
00:05:33
on sinoa they could have Justified a
00:05:35
large amount of Munitions and that's
00:05:37
what they were able to do with Muhammad
00:05:38
deif who was simar's number two he was
00:05:41
killed in a huge air strike with a
00:05:42
number of 2,000 pound bombs and a bunker
00:05:44
busting bomb yeast and there was sign
00:05:47
significant collateral damage in that
00:05:48
air strike but it was hamas's number two
00:05:51
you could justify a huge amount of
00:05:53
damage to take a take out a target of
00:05:55
that exceptional military value if that
00:05:58
had been a lone Hamas gunman you
00:06:00
couldn't have Justified that whatsoever
00:06:02
and so proportionality you can't look at
00:06:04
the entirety of the conflict you have to
00:06:06
look at each individual air strike and
00:06:08
so was that justified against the amount
00:06:10
of damage it caused in terms of the
00:06:13
reports how what are the main sources
00:06:15
that you analyzed when you did this
00:06:17
report on the the Gaza death toll what
00:06:20
are the sources aside from the Gaza
00:06:22
Ministry of Health so there are two main
00:06:26
sources of casualty figures from Gaza
00:06:28
there's the Gaza Ministry of Health and
00:06:29
there's the government media office in
00:06:32
in Gaza and we've tried to focus on
00:06:34
their documentation because actually
00:06:36
there's a load of reports and there's
00:06:37
loads of people who've looked at these
00:06:39
figures and they've produced statistical
00:06:41
analyses some have said that they think
00:06:42
the death toll will be up to 186,000
00:06:45
some have said it's far lower than that
00:06:47
um actually that's no real use because
00:06:49
they're secondary source so we've always
00:06:50
tried to stick to the primary source
00:06:52
where we can the other main source we've
00:06:54
used is the social media of Hamas and
00:06:58
gazin themselves and through that we
00:07:00
found people who are openly accepted to
00:07:03
have been beaten to death by Hamas
00:07:05
during the conflict they're included on
00:07:06
the list as having been killed by the
00:07:08
rdf and we found some really interesting
00:07:11
stuff pushed out by Hamas on Facebook in
00:07:13
earlier Wars where they are exhorting
00:07:16
civilians in Gaza not to mention
00:07:18
militant deaths not to mention if one of
00:07:21
their loved ones was Hamas and to keep
00:07:22
that as secret as possible and so when
00:07:25
people say in previous conflicts these
00:07:27
Hass lists have been reliable that's not
00:07:29
true either because there was a clear
00:07:31
pattern of herass suppressing fighter
00:07:33
deaths throughout their recent conflicts
00:07:36
with Israel one of the big scandals at
00:07:37
the beginning of the war was the the
00:07:39
alaki hospital which immediately became
00:07:43
a massive social media story and not
00:07:45
just it actually became a major
00:07:46
mainstream media story where theas
00:07:50
version of events was immediately taken
00:07:51
at face value I believe there was even a
00:07:53
New York Times front page run with that
00:07:56
and it then turned out that it was
00:07:58
actually an Islamic Jihad rocket that
00:08:01
had misfired how many of the deaths do
00:08:03
you think are actually due to misfired
00:08:06
Rockets Friendly Fire um and and Hamas
00:08:10
just basically self-regulating and
00:08:12
policing the area under their control
00:08:14
it's extremely tricky to say Hamas make
00:08:16
these lists incredibly difficult to
00:08:18
interrogate to start with they don't
00:08:20
declare any cause of death uh and that
00:08:23
makes verifying it incredibly
00:08:25
challenging they also mix up the lists
00:08:27
so rather than go from 1 to 50 for list
00:08:29
one and then continue at 50 to 100
00:08:32
philis T they jumble the order of the
00:08:34
names each time they add in columns take
00:08:36
away columns and it makes comparing the
00:08:38
lists side by side extremely difficult
00:08:40
we can say with certainty that thousands
00:08:42
of rockets have been fired from Gaza
00:08:44
into Israel since the war started and we
00:08:46
know a significant proportion of those
00:08:48
drop short again we don't have the exact
00:08:50
figures of that in a way that we can
00:08:52
verify but these will have almost
00:08:53
certainly caused civilian casualties uh
00:08:57
we also know that the natural death rate
00:09:00
before the war was 514 people in Gaza a
00:09:02
month died of natural causes and that
00:09:04
clearly would have 514 a month of
00:09:07
natural cause 54 month so of old age of
00:09:10
old age of disease of illness uh and
00:09:14
that gives us a total of 6,000
00:09:16
potentially have died since start of the
00:09:18
war and again we found out we found
00:09:20
Clear Proof of people who died of
00:09:22
natural causes being on those lists so
00:09:23
there could be as many as 6,000 people
00:09:26
on those fatality lists attributed to
00:09:27
the idea if who simply died of natural
00:09:29
causes it's also worth noting that the
00:09:33
probably the number of overall people in
00:09:35
Gaza has risen since the start of the
00:09:37
War uh we've seen clear reports that
00:09:39
there's a birth rate of over 5,000 a
00:09:41
month uh which puts us somewhere around
00:09:43
the 60,000 Mark of babies born in Gaza
00:09:45
since the start of the war which is more
00:09:47
than even the number of people that
00:09:48
Hamas claim have been killed so
00:09:51
particularly when it comes to genocide
00:09:52
actually if the number of people in Gaza
00:09:54
has increased that very much is is not
00:09:57
uh destroying in whole or in part any
00:09:59
etive group in Gaza whatsoever one of
00:10:01
the most striking images of this war is
00:10:06
or or images are the images of the
00:10:08
rubble of Gaza I mean clearly it has
00:10:11
been flattened you yourself have been to
00:10:14
Gaza but you were also an active duty
00:10:16
soldier who did three tours of
00:10:19
Afghanistan H how does this conflict how
00:10:21
does does the destruction that you saw
00:10:23
in Gaza compare with what the American
00:10:27
and Allied Forces were doing in
00:10:29
Afghanistan over the course of your
00:10:32
service it's very difficult to compare
00:10:34
and contrast because Afghanistan
00:10:36
certainly where I served was a very
00:10:37
rural desert area um Afghans don't live
00:10:40
in um in tower blocks in the way that we
00:10:43
do uh certainly L down in Helmand anyway
00:10:46
and we certainly fired a number of air
00:10:49
strikes we' use 1000 pound bombs 500
00:10:51
pound bombs and we would absolutely
00:10:52
level buildings if the Tactical
00:10:54
situation required us to do
00:10:56
that now extrapolate that tendency to
00:11:00
use air power uh to an urban setting you
00:11:03
can see that the devastation is going to
00:11:05
be enormous couple that with the tunnels
00:11:07
in Gaza where we know almost every
00:11:09
building either has a tunnel underneath
00:11:10
it or attached to it you can certainly
00:11:13
explain the level of damage that we see
00:11:15
in Gaza um but I would agree that it is
00:11:17
Dreadful and one thing that really needs
00:11:19
to come out at the end of this war is a
00:11:21
plan to rebuild Gaza and I think when
00:11:24
the world's media sees Gaza the Israelis
00:11:26
are going to have a really really
00:11:27
challenging time explaining that
00:11:29
because it's really hard to to to to
00:11:32
walk people through that level of damage
00:11:34
and destruction uh so I think the best
00:11:36
thing Israel could do is make sure there
00:11:37
is a fully swept up reconstruction PL to
00:11:40
get Garza back on its feet hopefully in
00:11:42
a far healthier condition than before
00:11:44
this war started how much of the
00:11:47
destruction in Gaza do you think is
00:11:50
actually necessary to root out Hamas how
00:11:53
much of it is truly taking out a
00:11:55
building because that building is
00:11:57
serving as a base surely not every every
00:11:59
single house in Gaza is a is a base for
00:12:01
Hamas right no wrong wrong the exact
00:12:05
manner in which Hamas fights is from
00:12:06
building to building they use the
00:12:08
tunnels to as a maneuver Corridor so
00:12:10
they'll maneuver down the the tunnel
00:12:12
underground they'll pop up shoot at the
00:12:14
IDF and then disappear again and of
00:12:16
course that window then to to strike
00:12:18
those people shooting at the rdf is
00:12:19
extremely small and I'm not seeing any
00:12:21
tactics they use that certainly we in
00:12:23
the British army or the American Army
00:12:25
wouldn't use the other factor to
00:12:27
consider is these tunnels almost every
00:12:29
house in certain parts of of Gaza has a
00:12:32
tunnel attached and because Hamas have
00:12:35
looked at how the IDF operated in Gaza
00:12:38
City and in bis certainly in Rafa they
00:12:41
started booby trapping the tunnel
00:12:43
entrances that are in every other house
00:12:46
uh and quite understandably rather than
00:12:47
risk their engineers and risk their
00:12:49
soldiers to try and diffuse those bombs
00:12:51
which are remote detonated attached to a
00:12:53
camera um they detonate the building
00:12:55
instead so yes that might seem extremely
00:12:59
stock but it's absolutely what I'd have
00:13:01
done where I in their shet from your
00:13:03
personal combat
00:13:05
experience how difficult is it to
00:13:08
differentiate a fighter from a civilian
00:13:12
how easy is it to make a mistake in in
00:13:14
urban Warf I know that you fought
00:13:16
obviously in heland and it was a rural
00:13:17
area but again when you were fighting
00:13:20
the Taliban the the Taliban wasn't in
00:13:22
uniforms this was a a militia of sorts
00:13:25
of Terror organization a terror
00:13:27
Army how how hard was it in combat
00:13:31
situations that you yourself have been
00:13:32
in to differentiate the two it can be
00:13:34
exceptionally nuanced and Hamas and the
00:13:36
Taliban actually fairly similar tactics
00:13:38
where um we talked about the maneuver
00:13:40
tunnels and how they'll move around
00:13:42
underground then pop up into a house or
00:13:44
they'll come out into the street across
00:13:46
the road where there will be weapons
00:13:48
pre-positioned so until they're about to
00:13:50
take a shot at you they won't be
00:13:51
carrying a weapon and that makes them
00:13:53
very hard to Target you have to what we
00:13:54
call PID positively identify an enemy
00:13:57
before you can legally open fire
00:13:59
so you might be divining an offensive
00:14:02
intent or you might be divining an
00:14:04
active threat to you but either way you
00:14:05
need to have something that says I think
00:14:07
that person is an enemy before you open
00:14:09
fire now clearly if an enemy is in
00:14:12
civilian clothing and is moving from
00:14:14
house to house with no weapon that makes
00:14:16
deciding who is an enemy and who isn't
00:14:18
exceptionally difficult uh and it's
00:14:20
inevitable that mistakes will happen at
00:14:22
that point I saw it happened in
00:14:23
Afghanistan um and I don't know for a
00:14:25
fact but I'm still certain that it
00:14:26
happened in G with the IDF because is
00:14:29
that is the nature of War it's chaotic
00:14:31
it's challenging it's ex extremely
00:14:34
terrifying uh and you're making life or
00:14:36
death snap second decisions and mistakes
00:14:39
happen in those kinds of circumstances
00:14:41
can you tell us about the situation that
00:14:42
you yourself saw
00:14:44
personally yes uh I know of a soldier
00:14:47
who um shot A man carrying a broom uh he
00:14:51
was a farmer in a field he was carrying
00:14:53
a a broom the soldier saw it Mook it for
00:14:56
a rifle uh in in poor lighting and sh
00:14:59
got and killed uh what we can only
00:15:00
assume as an innocent farmer you know an
00:15:02
absolute tragedy uh all we could do was
00:15:05
compensate his family financially uh but
00:15:08
it still meant that we felt pretty
00:15:09
dreadful for the next weeks months years
00:15:12
um nobody in a moral Army be that the
00:15:16
British The American or the Israeli goes
00:15:18
to war to kill innocent civilians that's
00:15:20
not why we do it and when that happens
00:15:23
it stays with you for a long time do you
00:15:24
think that there's any Morality In the
00:15:26
fight that Hamas is fighting I'm not
00:15:28
conin that they've approached this in in
00:15:30
a moral way in any way shape or form uh
00:15:33
I don't think that you can declare war
00:15:35
by going on a rape torture and murder
00:15:37
and mutilation Rampage and then claim
00:15:40
subsequently that there's anything moral
00:15:42
to what you're doing I think you lose
00:15:44
the moral High Ground the moment that
00:15:45
you start targeting civilians as they as
00:15:48
they did on 7th of
00:15:49
October uh in terms of the mismatch
00:15:53
between the two forces um there's
00:15:55
nothing in international humanitarian
00:15:56
law that says War has to be a fair fight
00:15:59
and actually it's vastly better for your
00:16:01
own side if you do have the mismatch the
00:16:03
IDF has and that was really hamas's
00:16:05
mistake in the sense that they started a
00:16:07
fight with someone who massively
00:16:09
outgunned them uh and now Israel has
00:16:11
been backed into a corner where they had
00:16:12
no real choice but to respond if we
00:16:14
think of their options they could have
00:16:16
done nothing which was clearly not
00:16:17
acceptable they could have done some
00:16:19
sort of limited raid where they simply
00:16:20
just decapitated what Hamas they could
00:16:22
but that would have been exceptionally
00:16:24
difficult because they were all in the
00:16:25
tunnels and probably wouldn't have
00:16:27
achieved any strategic aims of making
00:16:29
Israel more safe or they could do what
00:16:31
they've done so they didn't have a huge
00:16:32
amount of choice uh and Hamas have
00:16:34
forced them into that I think they
00:16:36
thought they would be able to get them
00:16:37
to stop through International pressure
00:16:39
that didn't work either uh and now they
00:16:41
are unfortunately uh reaping the
00:16:43
Whirlwind of their decisions uh and poor
00:16:46
innocent Garin are the ones caught in
00:16:48
the middle and and are the ones
00:16:49
suffering the most Andrew one of the
00:16:52
things that the IDF and the IDF PR
00:16:56
machine tries to really highlight is the
00:16:59
very low civilian to combatant ratio
00:17:02
from your analysis of these reports on
00:17:04
the death tolls what have you found
00:17:06
about the the death the combatant to
00:17:10
civilian death ratio yeah our analysis
00:17:11
broadly supports that particularly if
00:17:13
the 17 to 20,000 is correct uh even by
00:17:16
hamas's numbers that's still bouncing
00:17:17
around one to one slightly above that um
00:17:20
if we take the civilian uh civilian
00:17:24
deaths by natural causes into account
00:17:26
it's even below one: one but we can't
00:17:28
say of that decisively um what's really
00:17:31
important to note though is that this is
00:17:33
very similar to the proportionality
00:17:34
question it actually doesn't matter what
00:17:36
the ratio is what matters is how those
00:17:38
civilians died were they legitimately
00:17:41
legally collateral damage in an air
00:17:44
strike or were they targeted because
00:17:46
actually even if you've got a 1 to 0.5
00:17:49
ratio if you've deliberately targeted
00:17:51
those civilians it's still illegal so
00:17:52
it's completely irrelevant what the
00:17:54
ratio is so what really matters is the
00:17:56
idea for following a proper human Aran
00:17:59
law compliance targeting process and
00:18:01
Rules of Engagement on the ground uh and
00:18:03
from everything I've seen from the time
00:18:04
I've spent with the IDF both in back
00:18:08
offices in Brigade and divisional
00:18:09
headquarters and on the ground in Gaza
00:18:11
I'm convinced that they are doing that
00:18:14
there are some images videos often taken
00:18:16
by IDF soldiers that we've all seen
00:18:19
floating around be it on X or on
00:18:21
Facebook or on telegram that that do
00:18:24
show the IDF doing some fairly shocking
00:18:27
things entering mosques and and singing
00:18:31
songs in these mosques desecrating
00:18:33
desecrating the Quran going through
00:18:35
women's wardrobes in Gaza and houses
00:18:38
that they've entered these videos do
00:18:39
exist what what do you say to that yeah
00:18:42
I've taken a very strong stance against
00:18:44
this and I've criticized them for that
00:18:45
repeatedly first of all um it's immoral
00:18:48
and poor disciplined behavior and no
00:18:51
Commander certainly would ever
00:18:52
countenance that in their troops um if
00:18:55
they held discipline or accountability
00:18:56
to be important things um I am aware
00:18:59
that a number of IDF soldiers have been
00:19:01
sacked over this and where it has
00:19:02
crossed the threshold into being a war
00:19:04
crime of looting uh I know for a fact
00:19:07
they are being investigated and charged
00:19:08
by the idf's military Advocate General
00:19:11
so whil these are terrible uh pieces of
00:19:14
behavior the IDF is dealing with it and
00:19:17
what I consider consider to be a moral
00:19:18
way um it's also incredibly stupid from
00:19:21
an upsc perspective because the second
00:19:23
you take your phone into a war zone uh
00:19:26
you become potentially a signals
00:19:27
intelligence Target so not only are they
00:19:29
acting in an ill disciplined and and
00:19:32
morally poor way they're also putting
00:19:34
all their mates and their flanking cool
00:19:36
signs at risk as well and that's really
00:19:39
really poor Behavior and the IDF should
00:19:41
be given a strong slap on the wrist for
00:19:43
it um is it the worst thing that's ever
00:19:45
happened in war absolutely not is it
00:19:47
something that a proper Army would deal
00:19:49
with in a very Stern and strict way then
00:19:51
yes it is and I really hope that does
00:19:53
happen with the RF thank you very much
00:19:55
Andrew really appreciate your time thank
00:19:57
you stepan
