International media outlets, including The New York Times and the BBC, have raised serious questions regarding Gaza civilian casualty figures as recorded by health officials both in the Strip and abroad.

The outlets maintain that the hard data does not support the notion that the Israel Defense Forces is engaged in "indiscriminate" killing of unarmed residents in the Palestinian enclave, as was suggested by several international leaders over the past month.

Citing figures released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the BBC's head of statistics Anthony Reuben found that the number of civilian men killed in the fighting outnumbered the number of women by a factor of nearly 3.5:1. According to the UN, 725 men were killed in the conflict as opposed to 214 women. When the 216 confirmed "members of armed groups" were included in the figures, the disparity grew even larger. Israeli military officials said 750-1,000 Hamas and other gunmen had been killed in the fighting as of Tuesday, August 5.

"If the Israeli attacks have been 'indiscriminate,' as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women," Reuben noted dryly.

IDF indiscriminately killing in Gaza? Data says no