Fact-Check: Viral Chart Misrepresents Figures for Palestinians Killed by Israel
The claim shows inflated figures for number of deaths in Palestine, as a result of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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Sharing a timeline from 2008 to 2020, social media users have shared figures ranging from 1,659 to 31,588, claiming that the list shows the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces each year, over the years.
(Archives of more posts sharing the same claim can be seen here and here.)
But...?: The figures are misleading.
As per the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' (OCHA) data, the numbers in the claim show a combined number of Palestinians who were injured and killed due to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
How did we find out?: Using relevant keywords, we looked for the United Nations (UN) historical data for recorded deaths in Palestine resulting from the Israel-Palestine conflict.
This led us to the UN's OCHA website, which maintains data for people killed and injured on the Israeli and Palestinian sides in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Here, the website showed that the number of Palestinian fatalities for each year was far lower than the figures in the claim.
OCHA's website shows a significantly lower number of deaths.
(Source: OCHAOPT/Screenshot)
It also had details for injuries and fatalities per year on the Israeli side.
The website specified that OCHA's field staff collected the figures and only included numbers for casualties that are a direct result of confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians.
It does not include people killed due to "reckless use of weapons" and "collapse of tunnels," it said. Among the numbers for injured people, it does not include persons receiving treatment for psychological shock.
For reference, here is a table with details of Palestinian deaths and injuries as reported by the UN, compared to the figures stated in the viral claim.
This table compares claimed and official figures for the number of Palestinians killed or injured as a result of their conflict with Israel.
(Source: X/OCHAOPT)
Conclusion: A viral chart claiming to show the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces each year from 2008 to 2020 is being shared on social media. The figures are exaggerated, as per UN data.
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