As of today, the estimated number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza is over 18,200. Among the dead, 70% have been women and children, with over 5,100 women killed and over 7,700 children.
One of the claims made by defenders of Israel’s onslaught is that the numbers of Palestinian deaths come from the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas and therefore cannot be trusted. US President Joe Biden himself attempted to legitimize this Zionist propaganda claim by mindlessly repeating.
Well, the claim that the Gaza Health Ministry is not a reliable source of information is belied by its record. UN agencies and international human rights organizations cite its data as generally reliable because it has consistently proven reliable.
After each of Israel’s prior operations to “mow the lawn” in Gaza, which entails the deliberate use of disproportionate force to punish the civilian population, the estimates provided by the Gaza Health Ministry were found to be close approximations of the subsequently verified numbers. They also happened to be pretty close to Israel’s own death estimates.
When I say that the numbers were subsequently verified, I mean that there were international investigations to determine the truth. In the case of Operation Cast Lead, for example, which I extensively documented in my book Obstacle to Peace, this included numerous UN inquiries, including a UN fact-finding mission headed up by a self-described Zionist, and investigations by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (whose database you can browse here.)
Those prior Israeli military operations in Gaza were characterized by war crimes, but “Cast Lead” and “Protective Edge” are dwarfed in comparison to the scale of death and destruction from Israel’s current military operation. In prior operations, Israel openly declared its intent to commit war crimes. In this operation, Israel is openly conducting its military operation with genocidal intent.
If you go right now to the website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHAOPT.org), you will see that it has been providing daily updates of the situation in Gaza. That’s where I got the numbers above. You will also see that the UN’s estimates of the number of dead Palestinians are presently sourced to the (1) Gaza Ministry of Health and (2) the Government Media Office.
That’s because, by around November 11, health care services in Gaza were so thoroughly crippled by Israel’s military assault that the Gaza Health Ministry could no longer even attempt to provide a reasonably reliable estimate of the number of dead Palestinians.
Since then, the Hamas-run media office has been reporting very rough estimates based on what relatively little data the Health Ministry manages to compile, with doctors and other health care workers persisting heroically in their jobs despite the threat to their own lives as Israel targets health care. The WHO has documented over 200 attacks on health care, including 24 hospitals and 59 ambulances. Right now, half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are no longer operational, and the rest are only partially functional and disastrously overcrowded.
To give some idea of the scale of the destruction from Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment, which is being carried out with the transparent aim of making Gaza uninhabitable, over 60% of housing stock in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. As I mentioned in my December 8 “Yes, Palestinian Civilians Are Being Massacred”, Israel has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure including power systems, water supplies, bakeries, hospitals, and schools, including UN-run schools where displaced civilians have sought shelter.
Principled scholars in such areas of international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies have been warning for weeks upon end that the world must act now to prevent the stop genocide.
And this genocide is being carried out with the support of the US government. Several days ago, in the UN Security Council, where the US wields veto power, the US stood alone in voting against a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
