Israel & Lebanon War: By The Numbers
ISRAEL:
• Deaths: 157 total — 118 soldiers and 39 civilians.
• Wounded: 860.
• Number of buildings destroyed: no official figures, but tax authorities report more than 6,000 claims for damaged buildings and more are expected as displaced people return home.
• Number of strikes: 3970 Hezbollah rockets, 901 of them inside cities.
• Number of displaced people: 300,000.
• There were no school days lost because they were not in session.
• Many businesses in the north of the country were closed throughout the war. No specific figures were available.
• Tourism: $80 million of lost revenue during the war, many hundreds of millions in projected losses in the future months because of the war.
• Damage to transportation system: Not immediately available.
• Overall damage: Media reports say about $3 billion in damages and lost revenue, but do not give a source for that estimate. Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Hirschon could give no precise figure but said it would be "many billions."
• Access to water and electricity: Isolated water and electricity lines hit; repairs made within 48 hours.
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LEBANON:
• Deaths: 845 total — 743 civilians, 34 soldiers and 68 Hezbollah. Israel says it killed about 530 guerrillas. The Higher Relief Council put the overall death toll at 1,181 and said one-third were children and the majority were civilians.
• Wounded: 4,051.
• Number of buildings destroyed: More than 15,000 homes — houses or individual apartments within buildings. About 900 commercial structures, including farms and factories.
• Number of strikes: Lebanese officials reported, unofficially, more than 4,500 Israeli bombing raids on Lebanon. Israel would provide no figures of the number of its strikes in Lebanon.
• Number of displaced people: 916,000, or about one-fourth of the population.
• There were no school days lost because they were not in session.
• Figures on business days lost were not available, but up to 75 percent of the people were unemployed or unable to work because of fighting or gasoline shortages.
• Tourism: Hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and repairs to facilities, but no specific figure available.
• Damage to transportation system: 400 miles of roads; 80 bridges; the international airport.
• Overall damage: At least $3.5 billion to infrastructure; $9.4 billion overall, including clean up of a major oil spill from an Israeli strike on a storage facility at a Beirut power plant.
• Access to water and electricity was severely interrupted. About $180 million in damage to the electricity grid; $70 million to the water treatment and delivery system.
source: Associated Press
posted by D.B. Shobrawy @ 2:37 PM
8 whispers of madness
8 Comments:
Whisper of Madness is a must with a cup of coffee every morning now.
Sounds like an advertisment.
Didn't mean it to be that way, but I like the posts :)
I suspect a bit of context is required for interpreting the numbers.
Citing economic damage is always misleading, it obscures that there may be greater damage to a poorer neighborhood than a richer, and quite possibly the poorer neighborhood will be even less able to sustain the damage.
But are the numbers themselves even equivalent?
Are Israelis who are displaced equivalent to Lebanese who are displaced? Is the displacement temporary, do they have liveable homes to return to? Are there services available, either in their places of refuge or once they return? Are there supplies of food, water, and medicine available? What sort of damage to one's home or business was sustained? Are there lingering dangers, unexploded ordnance for example. Are the physical injuries reported as casualties even equivalent?
Obviously for the individual involved such questions are of little relevance. But in presenting the costs incurred for either "side" in this war they are quite relevant, and for the article not to present them falls somewhere between negligent and propagandistic.
mas
Anon is right. Stats are just surface stuff. Besides how can they come up with these figures so soon? It boggles the mind.
Trust me Miss C, If the Department of Defense can come up with the names and pictures of 19 hijackers on September 12th 2001, then it isnt that hard to figure out how much it will cost to replace a building that isnt there anymore. Right, I think thats obvious.
Yes but every time we have a bridge project it is never on schedule and always over budget!
Think of all the downed bridges in Lebanon, they may all go over budget. Or maybe Hizballah can keep a tighter rein on the projects than most state and city governments.
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