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More than half those killed killed during Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip last November were innocent civilians and a third were children, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a report released this week.

The B’Tselem based its findings on Operation Pillar of Defense on statements issued by the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet security service, and on an internal investigation.

The IDF killed 167 Palestinians during the operation, at least 87 of them non-combatants, according to the data presented in the B’Tselem report.

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Thirty-one of these non-combatant civilians, or 35 percent, were minors. Of these minors, 20 were under the age of 12, according to B’Tselem.

The B’Tselem report also segments the number of Palestinians killed on each of the eight days of fighting: during each of the first four days, an average of four “non-participant” Palestinians were killed; over the next four days, the number in this category soared by more than four to an average of 17.5 per day. The report also notes that during the first days of the fighting, the number of Palestinian combatants who were killed was nearly twice the number of non-combatant fatalities. In the subsequent days of the operation, this proportion was reversed.

For more, go to Haaretz

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