The Latest Blood Libel Spread in Media: How The Guardian Turns Terrorists into “Civilians”

The Latest Blood Libel Spread in Media:
How The Guardian Turns Terrorists into “Civilians”

August 25, 2025

The Guardian’s August 21, 2025, front-page exposé screaming “83% of Gaza war dead are civilians” isn’t journalism—it’s a masterclass in anti-Israel activism masquerading as investigative rigor. By cherry-picking a partial Israeli intelligence document and burying exculpatory context, the paper manufactured a statistic designed to indict the Jewish state for “genocide” while whitewashing Hamas’s human-shield warfare.

Here’s how the deception works:

The Guardian, in a joint investigation with +972 Magazine and Local Call, took Hamas’s unverified May 2025 death toll of 53,000, subtracted a leaked Israeli list of just 8,900 positively identified Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters killed up to that point (named or “probably dead”), and triumphantly declared the remaining 44,100—83%—must be innocent civilians. The implication? Israel is indiscriminately slaughtering Gaza’s population at “an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.”

This is statistical malpractice on steroids.

Even the Guardian’s own sources undermine the claim. The 8,900 figure narrowly represents terrorists whose names are known to the IDF—not the total number of terrorists killed. Their logic depends on the absurd premise that any Palestinian killed without a confirmed name on that specific list is automatically a civilian. As +972’s version explicitly noted in a key paragraph omitted from The Guardian’s report:

The intelligence sources explained that the total number of militants killed is likely higher than the number recorded in the internal database, since it does not include Hamas or PIJ operatives who were killed but could not be identified by name, Gazans who took part in fighting but were not officially members of Hamas or PIJ, nor political figures in Hamas such as mayors and government ministers whom Israel also considers legitimate targets (in violation of international law).

The Guardian truncated this to a vague “Israeli military intelligence are not aware of all militant deaths or all new recruits”—just fourteen words that obscure the self-evident truth undermining their entire “83%” narrative.

The timing makes the omission sinister. One day before publication, on August 20, 2025, the IDF publicly announced that roughly 22,000 Gaza terrorists had been killed thus far. Using Hamas’s own inflated August 2025 toll of 62,000 total deaths, that yields a civilian-to-combatant ratio of roughly 2:1—a restraint ratio that urban warfare expert John Spencer, Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute, calls unprecedentedly low for such dense, urban fighting, especially given Hamas’s human shield strategy.

Indeed, as even Hamas’s Ministry of Health (MOH) detailed casualty figures show, most of those killed have been combat-aged males. Hamas’s own published lists (when they name names) further demolish the “women and children” narrative: 70-80% of identified dead are military-age males, with thousands eulogized as fighters.

The Guardian also promotes the unevidenced claim that thousands remain “buried under rubble,” ignoring credible triangulation methods. As analyst Andrew Fox noted, a proper ratio would define “combatant” clearly, triangulate total deaths using morgue records and estimates, build a fighter count from after-action reports, obituaries, interrogations, and probabilistic matching—and allow replication. That’s scholarship; The Guardian delivered activism.

Yet The Guardian ignored:

• Unit after-action reports confirming thousands more terrorist kills.
• Terrorist funeral announcements and martyr posters.
• Detainee interrogations identifying unmarked combatants.
• Gaza cemetery records showing mass graves for fighters.

By October 2025, IDF estimates placed the terrorist death toll at approximately 25,000—nearly triple the Guardian’s baseline—making the true civilian ratio closer to 1.5:1, among the lowest in modern urban warfare history.

And Trump, on Oct 3, 2025: “25,000 members of Hamas have been killed following the militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.”
"Trump says Hamas has until Sunday evening to accept Gaza peace proposal or 'all hell' will 'break out'". (NBC, Oct 3, 2025)

What The Guardian delivered wasn’t a scoop; it was a blood libel. By laundering Hamas propaganda through selective omissions and distorted data, the paper revived the medieval trope of Jews as child-killers—only this time with spreadsheets and charts purporting to show Israel’s “indiscriminate killing.”

When supposedly reputable media sacrifice truth to demonize the world’s only Jewish state, they don’t just fail at journalism. They become accomplices in the very hatred they claim to oppose.

Notes & References

1. Adam Levick, “Guardian ‘83%’ civilian death toll claim is farcical,” CAMERA UK - Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, August 24, 2025.
   https://camera-uk.org/2025/08/24/guardian-83-civilian-death-toll-claim-is-farcical/
2. Adam Levick, “The Media’s Latest Blood Libel: How Distorted Data Turns Terrorists into “Civilians,”Honest Reporting, August 24, 2025.
   https://honestreporting.com/the-medias-latest-blood-libel-how-distorted-data-turns-terrorists-into-civilians
3. IDF Spokesperson’s statement, August 20, 2025: “Roughly 22,000 terrorists eliminated in Gaza.”
4. John Spencer, Urban Warfare Institute, on unprecedented low civilian casualty ratios in Gaza.
5. Andrew Fox, Henry Jackson Society, Substack critique of +972/Guardian methodology.
6. Hamas Health Ministry casualty breakdowns (May-August 2025) showing high proportion of military-age males.
7. Eylon Levy commentary on IDF’s naming of nearly 9,000 combatants.