With over 20 thousand victims, the Israeli campaign in Gaza is already one of the deadliest in history

The number of Gaza Strip residents killed during the territory’s 10-week war with Israel it has already exceeded the number of victims of any other Arab conflict with that country for more than 40 years and perhaps since the founding of Israel in 1948.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday the death toll was more than 20,000which places it above one of the most authoritative estimates of deaths in Lebanon due to the 1982 Israeli invasion.

But which Iraq or Afghanistan

And even though Gaza officials said so counting the dead has become increasingly difficult, most experts believe the figure is likely an underestimate and express shock at the enormity of the losses.

Some military experts said that in this war hmore people had died more quickly than during the deadliest phases of the US-led wars Afghanistan or Iraq.

Azmi Keshawi, a Gaza-based analyst at the think tank International Crisis Group, spoke about this war It was “more horrible” than anything he had experienced before.. He noted that he and his family had fled their home in northern Gaza and moved six times until now. They now live in a tent near a United Nations shelter in the southern city of Rafah.

The Israeli military has waged an intense air and ground campaign to eliminate Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that rules Gaza and led the October 7 attack that authorities say killed around 1,200 people in Israel, including hundreds of soldiers .

The high number of deaths it reflects the way Israel decided to wage warusing thousands of airstrikes, heavy bombs and artilleryin a small territory densely populated by civilians who cannot do so

leak. Israel said Hamas has built a vast network of underground tunnels to protect its fighters and their weapons, putting civilian infrastructure and people on the ground in the line of fire.

The latest war between Israel and Hamas was already considered the deadliest conflict for Palestinians in the 75 years since Israel’s founding. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it is estimated that 15,000 Palestinians died in the war that followed the creation of Israel in 1948.

Deaths in the current conflict, if Gaza data are accurate, have also exceeded the most widely cited estimate of the number of casualties recorded during the first three months of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. But as is the case in Gaza today, researchers say That may never be known for sure the death toll in Lebanon due to the fog of war, even four decades later.

This estimate comes from an analysis of police and hospital records compiled in 1982 by the newspaper An Nahar, which was then among the most respected of the Arab world. The death toll rose to 17,825. But the newspaper says the count is very likely insufficient, and in 1982 the New York Times reported that “counting the dead correctly is practically impossible“in Lebanon.

In the 1967 Middle East war, it is estimated that almost 19,000 Egyptians, Syrians and others died fighting Israel, while a similar number (mostly Syrians and Egyptians) died in the 1973 war, according to the Associated Press. As in the Gaza and Lebanon wars, the exact number of casualties in these conflicts is also unknown, but it is believed that most of the victims were combatants.

In contrast, Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, said so on Wednesday approximately 70% of the dead are women and children. The Gaza authorities never specify how many of the dead were combatants. On Thursday, the ministry reported the death toll at 20,057.

Israel claims to have killed around 7,000 Hamas fighters, but He did not explain how he arrived at that figure.

The number of victims in Gaza is expected will increase significantly when the Palestinians can emerge from the enormous destruction caused by the war. A Gaza government spokesman said Wednesday that in addition to the deaths, 6,700 people are missing. Many of them are believed to still be buried under the rubble.

“Many people missing under the rubble will probably be dead,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. For this reason the death toll “would probably increase even if the bombing stopped today”, he added.

No independent organization has been able to verify the death toll in Gaza due to difficulties operating in the territory. And as the conflict progressed, it became increasingly difficult to compile casualty figures.

Gaza’s Health Ministry collects data on the death toll from local hospital and morgue records, officials in the territory said. But in recent weeks, the government’s press office said it stepped in to collect data after Health Ministry facilities were bombed and 27 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were left unusable by airstrikes during a siege. Israeli who severely restricted the entry of food, water and supplies. , fuel and medicines.

The frequent communications disruptions caused by Israeli attacks on telecommunications towers, Israeli control of communication lines of the enclave and fuel shortages also made intelligence gathering very difficult.

Mahmoud al-Farra, a spokesman for the government’s press office, said people collecting data must make the most of “available possibilities” during fighting. “It is difficult to count them because the number of martyrs is high”, he added.

Throughout the war, the Gaza Ministry of Health published updated data on deaths that in general the UN considers it reliableto the

Pleases humanitarian groups and a study published this month on The Lanceta British medical journal.

This month, when the ministry said the death toll had surpassed 15,000, some Israeli officials said they believed that figure was it was approximately accurate. However, the Israeli military also noted that the death toll reported in Gaza cannot be trusted because the territory is ruled by Hamas.

On October 26, the ministry published a list of the names and identification numbers of 6,747 people it said had been killed by Israeli shelling so far, a tally that added to the credibility of its figures.

The ministry’s staff includes many civil servants who have worked since before Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, and aid groups defend their records. They say thatThe ministry has a history of reporting in good faith and provided reliable information.

But the ministry came under fire after the explosion at al-Ahlid hospital in Gaza City on October 17, when the government published almost instantly The number of victims varied between 500 and 833 deaths. Days later, announced a final figure of 471.

After the explosion, White House spokesman John F. Kirby called the ministry “a front for Hamas”and President Joe Biden told reporters he had “no idea the Palestinians were telling the truth about how many people are dying.”

Biden then added: “I’m sure innocent people died and that’s the price you pay for fighting a war.”

The war posed many other complications in obtaining accurate casualty data.

An estimated 85% of Gaza’s more than 2 million people fled their homes after Israel ordered the evacuation of much of the territory to try to escape airstrikes and Israel’s invasion of territory. The largest center of

population, Gaza City was reduced to rubble. Thousands of people sleep on the streets and others live in overcrowded shelters where diseases are widespread.

The risk of dying of hunger

Practically There has been no electricity for more than two months. THE food and drinking water They are scarce. The UN says that half the population runs the risk of starving to death and that 90% regularly go without eating for the entire day.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an outspoken critic of Hamas who grew up in Gaza but now lives in California, said the Israeli airstrikes So far they have killed more than 30 members of his family, including people in their 70s and cousins ​​between 3 months and 9 years old.

Early in the war, he said, his childhood home was bombed, resulting in the death of a young cousin. And last week his aunt and uncle’s house was bombed, killing at least 31 people. Sitting in California, he watched the video of his house being destroyed on his phone.O. None of the people living there were affiliated with Hamashe assured.

“It was a family home.”