From the moment that Israel began its military response to the Hamas massacre on October 7, it has felt as if much of the world has been played by the terror group.

Israel has been carrying out a targeted, specific and limited mission designed to root out and destroy Hamas, but instead of praise for the way it has carried out its operations – the IDF has even had a unit phoning residents of buildings that are scheduled to be attacked because of Hamas’s presence – there has been near universal condemnation.

Casualty figures purporting to show tens of thousands of civilian deaths have not only been blasted across the media, entering public consciousness as fact – they have formed the basis of the case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Statistical analysis, such as that by Professor Abraham Wyner of the University of Pennsylvania in Fathom Journal, showed weeks ago how the figures could not be correct. And the fact they have been supplied by Hamas – by the very terror organisation Israel is attacking! – has been ignored as if an irrelevant quibble.

Now, however, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has revised its interpretation of the number of Palestinian casualties, reducing almost by half the number of women and children it had said were killed. Out of 34,844 reported Palestinian deaths, 4,959 were women and 7,797 children, down from the previously cited figures of 9,500 women and 14,500 children.

But even these almost certainly exaggerated numbers – also based on Hamas’ figures – show that far from indiscriminately butchering civilians, Israel has been fighting one of the most controlled operations in history.

All civilian deaths are of course a tragedy, made worse by Hamas deliberately placing itself among women and children.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the rush to believe Hamas over Israel is merely the latest example of one of the oldest antisemitic tropes – the idea of Jewish blood lust.