Counting the Lebanon Dead Not So Easy

Chinese United Nations soldiers watch as heavy equipment is used to dig for bodies under the rubble of a home that was hit in an Israeli missile strike in the village of Qana, east of the port city of Tyre, in a Monday, July 31, 2006 file photo. Human Rights Watch and news organizations which initially reported that 54 or more civilians died in an Israeli airstrike July 31, 2006 in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. But a re-examination Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006, indicated there were 28 deaths. Human Rights Watch said it discovered the discrepancy as part of a larger investigation of civilian deaths in Lebanon. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer, File) (Kevin Frayer - AP)

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- In the rocky hills and isolated villages of southern Lebanon, counting the dead from Israeli airstrikes and artillery has become a dangerous and often imprecise task.

The Israeli bombing of Qana became a textbook case Thursday when a new look at the civilian death toll in this week's Israeli airstrike showed it was about half the initial report.

The numbers of dead have become especially important to Israel and Lebanon, as well as to Hezbollah, in the battle for world opinion. With reported Lebanese civilian deaths running at about 20 for each Israeli killed in Hezbollah missile strikes, Lebanon would appear to have the upper hand.

The Qana casualties were re-examined after Human Rights Watch issued a report late Wednesday saying 28 people died in the village Sunday after Israeli jets hit it _ not 54 as the New York-based organization initially reported in the immediate aftermath of the attack. At the time, The Associated Press reported 56 were dead.

"I've worked for Human Rights Watch for a decade. This is one of the most difficult conflicts to cover," said Peter Bouckaert, director of emergencies for the organization.

"It's very hard and dangerous to reach many of these places," he said of the sites of airstrikes. "So, we often have to rely on phone calls to the mayor and officials to get this kind of information."

The southern village of Srifa provides another example of the difficulty of getting hard facts. On July 19, Lebanese media reported 25 to 30 people were believed to have been in 15 houses destroyed in an airstrike. Their fate remains unknown, and the casualties have not been added to the AP's count.

Even in far safer and more organized environments, death tolls often decrease dramatically, some over long periods of time.

Two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the official count of the dead peaked at about 6,700 amid confusion and calls to authorities from frantic relatives. A year later, that number dropped to 2,792. And in January 2004, the New York City medical examiner put the final number of those killed at 2,749.

Human Rights Watch said it had discovered the discrepancy in the Qana count as part of a larger investigation of all civilian deaths in Lebanon. The bombardment of Qana and pictures of dead children pulled from the wreckage led to an international uproar.

The base line for the Qana death count was a list of 63 people who local officials said had taken refuge in the building that was hit by Israeli jets. After the attack, 27 bodies were taken to the government hospital in the southern port city of Tyre. Nine people were known to have survived, and the remaining 27 were reported dead _ buried under the rubble of the three-story structure. That resulted in the Human Rights Watch initial report of 54 dead.

The Lebanese Red Cross gave a figure of 56 at the time, which AP used in its reports. An AP reporter counted 27 bodies on the day of the bombing at the hospital in Tyre.