JERUSALEM — Some 25 per cent of Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead were civilians, the Israel Defence Forces said.

The research department of Israel Defence Intelligence identified 1,166 Palestinians killed during Israel’s three-week military operation in Gaza in December and January. Of them, 709 were identified as operatives of Hamas or other terrorist groups and 295 were identified as “uninvolved Palestinians.” The IDF said another 162 had not yet been conclusively identified one way or the other. Of the “uninvolved Palestinians” killed, 89 were under the age of 16 and 49 were women.

The figures were gathered following the examination of various intelligence sources and were cross-referenced, the IDF said

Palestinian officials claim that 1,417 people were killed, including more than 900 civilians.

“The IDF wishes to emphasize that its objective during Operation Cast Lead was to target the Hamas terror organization and not the citizens of the Gaza Strip,” the IDF spokesman’s office said. “It must be stressed that the fighting took place in a complex battlefield, defined by the Hamas terror organization itself. The Hamas terror organization placed the primary fighting scene at the heart of civilian neighborhoods as it booby-trapped homes, fired from schools, and used civilians as human shields.”

Efforts to identify the remaining dead are continuing.

The fatality list presented by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has numerous inaccuracies and contradictions, the IDF says. For example, Tawfiq Ja’abari, the commander of the Hamas police, and Mohammed Shakshak, a personal assistant to the head of Hamas’ military wing, Ahmed Ja’abari, are both described as dead children on the Palestinian list