On 11 December 2024, an article was published in The Guardian by Julian Borger titled “Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza, study finds.”
I conducted some research and discovered that there is no study that makes this claim. This article (whether intentionally or not) spreads misinformation.’
The following outlines my findings and reasoning for why I am making this assertion.
The Guardian article states that the study was conducted by a “Gaza-based NGO” and sponsored by “the War Child Alliance charity.” However, the article does not provide a link to the study or its source.
After a quick search, I found a webpage on the War Child Alliance charity’s website that appears to be the source of the information. Notably, this webpage also does not provide a link to the study itself.
Upon close inspection, I found that Julian Borger merely cited and paraphrased quotations from this webpage without paying attention to detail or understanding (or possibly deliberately misrepresenting) what the webpage actually said.
It is important to note that the sentence “Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza” does not appear verbatim on that webpage. Instead, the webpage includes the following:
Pay attention to the wording. It does not say “96% of children in Gaza,” as claimed by Julian Borger. Instead, it says “96% of children” without specifying the broader context. A question arises: 96% of which children? One might hastily assume it refers to 96% of all children in Gaza, but that interpretation is incorrect. This is where context becomes critical, and why reading in full context is essential.
Consider what is written in a previous paragraph:
From this, it is clear that the study is not based on a random sample of the entire child population of Gaza. Instead, it focuses on a specific subset: children who were “injured, separated, or disabled.”
The study does not survey, nor does it claim to represent, uniform statistics for all children in Gaza. It excludes children who did not experience being “injured, separated, or disabled.”
What the webpage actually says is that among children who were “injured, separated, or disabled,” 96% feel death is imminent.
This distinction is not a minor nuance or a negligible technicality. Let us assume there are 1,000,000 children in Gaza and that 100,000 (10%) are injured, separated, or disabled. According to the study, 96% of these 100,000 children—or 96,000 children—feel death is imminent. However, 96,000 out of the total child population of 1,000,000 is only 9.6%, not 96%. This figure is ten times smaller than the claim made in the article’s headline.
Of course, even 1% is tragic and horrific, but 9.6% is on a far smaller scale than 96%, and it generates a very different sentiment among readers.
Is Julian Borger incompetent or knowingly lying? I leave that to the impression of my readers. Regardless, it should be noted that Julian Borger and The Guardian are spreading misinformation.