When it was recently announced that 40,000 people, the great majority civilians, have been killed in the Gaza conflict, I checked the media coverage. Almost all – Sky, CNN, the Guardian etc – correctly reported that the figure came from the Hamas health ministry. All, however, implied acceptance of the figure’s accuracy by the prominence they gave it (except for the Guardian, preposterously plus royaliste que le roi, which said the Hamas figure ‘does not tell the full story of Palestinian losses’).