In response to the JNS article “After faulting ‘fog of war’ for cloudy Hamas casualty numbers, UN’s new stats still don’t appear to add up” (published online May 14) there is yet another reason to believe that the count of Gaza “innocents” is vastly overstated. 

With respect to child casualties, “children” includes all minors under the age of 18 who have died. Yet U.S. Representative Brad Sherman, D-Calif., among others, has argued “Hamas has a long history of recruiting and using child soldiers. [There is] extensive documentation of the use of child soldiers, including videos of minors used by Hamas to transfer explosives and use automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.”(Newsweek, January 10, 2024). Likewise, the U.S. State Department reported in 2023 “armed wings of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas have allegedly recruited and used children.” 

Placing child soldiers in an active war area, if only to transmit communications and ammunitions, is a direct violation of international law and, hence, a war crime. Moreover, it makes the IDF’s ability to avoid child casualties that much more difficult. 

The presumption that child casualties — even when counted accurately — are all “innocent” is natural when we consider civilized military conflicts (i.e., those that comply with international law). Unfortunately, we can hardly consider Hamas civilized. As such, we should expect that the number of “innocent” child deaths will continue to be grossly overstated by combatant casualties.

Susan Feigenbaum
Town and Country