Press Coverage of Civilian Casualties:
AP has ended its 'newsy' three-day-old practice of providing the plain numbers of civilians and non-civilians killed on both sides of the conflict. None of today's AP stories on Yahoo (over the last 10 hours) provide any casualty totals. Basic lack of information provision, of course, is why I started this daily diary 25 days ago.
Today, rather than use Lebanese security forces numbers -- which I think contain some guesswork and estimation, in contrast to the health ministry figures used by AP -- I will extrapolate (that's why there's a question mark) from yesterday's AP data based on the percentage increase in total deaths reported by the Lebanese security forces (in today and yesterday's CNN's news reports). The math looks like this 524 x 781 / 716 = 571.57.
AP/Yahoo
On Yahoo's main page covering the crisis, none of the AP stories tell us the numbers of casualties. The lead AP story does tell of Israeli air attacks on Lebanon, sometimes graphically, and the launching of Hezbollah missiles into Israel.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
FoxNews/AP
Fox, primarily using the same AP copy as above, also does not relate the casualty totals for the conflict.
http://www.foxnews.com/...
CNN
As it has the previous two days, CNN continues to provide the Lebanese security forces figure for the number killed, and perhaps the security ministry does not distinguish civilian and non-civilian deaths, because CNN doesn't subdivide the total as it does for Israelis killed. As I've said, my strong impression is that the lower Lebanese health ministry figures -- used by AP (and Fox and Yahoo) yesterday and the previous two days -- are more certain and `confirmed'.
Israeli casualties in the conflict stand at 98 dead, including 35 civilians, and more than 700 wounded, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Lebanese security forces say that 781 people have died, most of them civilians, and nearly 3,000 have been wounded.
http://www.cnn.com/...
Reuters
Reuters' Lebanon figures in all likelihood continue to be those provided by the Lebanese security ministry. I don't know why the numbers are larger than those reported by CNN. As I said above, and not to be ghoulish, but the lower health ministry figures appear to be based much less on guesswork.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed fighting guerrillas, raising Israel's military and civilian death toll to 101 in the war ignited by Hizbollah's capture of two soldiers on July 12.
Dozens more Hizbollah rockets landed in northern Israel on Tuesday, but there were no reports of casualties.
At least 992 people have been killed in Lebanon and the authorities say dozens more are still buried under rubble.
http://today.reuters.com/...
AFP
Once again, I think the data provided to AFP is coming from a government source relying less on confirmed deaths than does the Lebanese health ministry.
The authorities in Beirut said that as of 1100 GMT Tuesday 1,064 non-Israelis had been killed in Lebanon, 968 of them civilians.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said he had ordered contingency plans to be made for a larger ground offensive in the event that the international community failed to halt Hezbollah rocket fire that has now killed 36 Israeli civilians.
http://www.afp.com/...
UK Guardian
The Guardian's main Lebanon story doesn't break down the civilian/non-civilian totals.
Reuters tallied around 80 air Israeli strikes against Lebanon overnight, and 140 Hizbullah rockets fired into Israel. At least 49 Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers were killed in the overnight violence. ...
At least 961 Lebanese and 98 Israelis have been killed in the conflict, which began after Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
BBC
Same old lack of specificity from the BBC.
Nearly 1,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict, the Lebanese government has said. More than 100 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have also been killed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Please donate to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at www.ifrc.org, to assist Lebanon.
By the way, many 'failed' yesterday's poll. The 'correct' answer was 'yes'. (:>)