Reply #8: Yes, the official count was actually an assumed dead because

[Igel]

they were missing.

Most officials would divide the numbers into confirmed dead and missing. But not Khalifeh, the Health Minister.

The worse the body count, the more the pressure. And Khalifeh isn't a new convert to supporting Hezbollah.

Keep in mind that the official body count of 600 from a few days ago included 100-150 missing in some attack, with the upper limit of the guess included in the official death toll. This was obvious to the reporters, for a day. No word on how or if that was revised.

The point: summing up the officially announced death tolls by attack will lead to spurious, inflated numbers. Which is, I suspect, the idea.

The civilians deaths are horrendous. Inflating their numbers to manipulate people is vile.