Despite the report from Italian newspaper Corriere della sera, Israeli officials are standing by their estimate of 1300 Palestinian casualties in Operation Cast Lead, mostly Hamas fighters.

Despite a report by Lorenzo Cremonesi, a correspondent for Italy’s Corriere della sera, that the number of Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead did not exceed five or six hundred, Israeli defense officials on Thursday said there were around 1,300 Palestinians killed during the fighting in Gaza and that a majority of them were Hamas operatives.

The IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration has already compiled a list with 900 names of Palestinians killed during the operation, out of which 750 are believed to be Hamas operatives.