Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

ADL Slams Sanders for Exaggeraring Palestinian Death Toll in Gaza War

The Anti-Defamation League has called on Sen. Bernie Sanders to publicly correct his statement that “over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza” in the war between Israel and Hamas in 2014.

Sanders, I-Vt., a Democratic presidential candidate, made the statement in an with the editorial board of the New York Daily News published Monday.

“Even the highest number of casualties claimed by Palestinian sources that include Hamas members engaged in attacking Israel is five times less than the number cited by Bernie Sanders,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Wednesday.

Greenblatt added: “As Mr. Sanders publicly discusses his approach to key U.S. foreign policy priorities, including Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, accuracy and accountability are essential for the voting public, but also for U.S. credibility in the international community. We urge Senator Sanders to correct his misstatements.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has estimated that 2,125 Palestinians were killed during the fighting and 936 of those were militants. The United Nations’ Human Rights Council estimated that 2,251 Palestinians were killed.

In the Daily News interview, Sanders acknowledged he did not know the exact number of Palestinian casualties.

“Anybody help me out here, because I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?” Sanders asked.

After a Daily News editor said the estimate sounded too high, Sanders said that regardless of the exact numbers, Israel’s response to Hamas’ aggression was “more indiscriminate than it should have been.”

“My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe, and I don’t think I’m alone in believing, that Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been,” Sanders said.

A Daily News editor later said that “about 2,300” Palestinians were killed during the conflict.

Sanders also said in the interview that Israel must better its ties with the Palestinians if it hopes to continue to receive unanimous support from the United States.

“To the degree that they want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship with the Palestinians,” he said.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.