Financial Times corrects false civilian casualty figure

A Financial Times op-ed by Kim Ghattas, (“Its strategy may be in ruins, but Hizbollah will not admit defeat“, Sept. 24), included the following claim:

In 2006, after a devastating war between Israel and Hizbollah which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and killed 1,200 Lebanese civilians, Nasrallah admitted that he would not have ordered the capture of Israeli soldiers on the border if he had known it would provoke such a devastating conflict.

However, the 1,200 figure merely represents the total number of those killed in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War – both combatants and non-combatants. We contacted editors, who amended the sentence to the following:

In 2006, after a devastating war between Israel and Hizbollah which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and killed more than 1,100 Lebanese, the vast majority of them civilians, Nasrallah admitted that he would not have ordered the capture of Israeli soldiers on the border if he had known it would provoke such a devastating conflict.

This is an improvement, but is still misleading, as the Lebanese government never reported a specific civilian death count. They cited a death toll of around 1,200, without alleging that the “vast majority” were civilians. Here’s what the UNHRC wrote on Nov. 23, 2006:

The 33-day conflict in Lebanon had a devastating impact, notably in southern Lebanon. It exacted a heavy human toll. According to Lebanese authorities, the conflict resulted in 1,191 deaths and 4,409 injured.

Further, UN officials estimated at the time that around 500 of the 1,200 killed were Hezbollah fighters, while Israel claimed that 600 were members of the terror group (see page 55 here).

Nevertheless, the following addendum was added at the bottom of the op-ed, noting Ghattas’s error.