NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Cheat Sheet for the Da Vinci Code-ification of Mideast Reporting.

So what’s the updated number of casualties? Hamas says 40. After the strike, Israel released a detailed photo dossier of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in the strike—19 of them. That leaves 21 possible civilians and proves that, yes, it was a command center after all and without any doubt a legitimate military target. (Israel also used smaller, more targeted bombs for the strike so it could hit the command center directly.)

Then Israel released another dossier with an additional 12 Hamas officials identified among the deceased. That brings our total number of terrorists killed in the strike to 31. (There is another report claiming that number can be raised all the way to 38, but it’s unclear at the time of writing if the level of detail available can definitively back up that number.)

There are, at most, nine possible civilians among the dead.

So let’s review. We went from 93 killed (“all” of them civilians, according to a source quoted by CNN) in a school and shelter to 31 Hamas officials killed in a targeted strike on a confirmed command center, with anywhere from two to nine possible civilians killed.

Those civilians should be mourned. Any innocent life lost is a tragedy. And now that we know it was a command center, we also know Hamas is to blame for their deaths.

Obviously, it would be much better if the media would report accurate information. But once you understand how these pieces of propaganda are put together, you can disassemble them yourself and construct the reality.

Read the whole thing, it’s an excellent guide to the division of Pallywood that cranks out their equivalent of “based on the upcoming motion picture” novelizations to accompany their videos.