Civilians in Gaza, under Israeli barrage, are being murdered at a historic rate
According to Iraq Body Count estimates, more women and children have been killed in Gaza in less than two months than the roughly 7,700 civilians killed by U.S. forces and their international allies in the entire first year of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. independent British research group.
And the number of women and children reportedly killed in Gaza since the Israeli campaign began last month is already approaching the roughly 12,400 civilians reportedly killed by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan during nearly two decades of war, according to figures from Neta C. Crawford, co-director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project.
These comparisons are based on the thousands of deaths directly attributed to U.S. coalition forces over decades in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. It is estimated that many more people – hundreds of thousands in total – have been killed in these conflicts by other groups, including the Syrian government and its allies, local militias, the Islamic State and Iraqi security forces.
But while the overall death toll in those wars was higher, the number of people killed in Gaza “in a very short period of time is higher than in other conflicts”, says Professor Crawford, who has done extensive research on modern wars.
In the nine-month battle for Mosul, which Israeli officials have cited for comparison, an estimated total of 9,000 to 11,000 civilians were killed by all sides in the conflict, including many thousands killed by Islamic State. The Associated Press found it.
In less than two months, a similar number of women and children have already been killed in Gaza.
The bombs used in Gaza are larger than what the United States has used when fighting ISIS in cities like Mosul and Raqqa, and are more consistent with targeting underground infrastructure such as tunnels, said Brian Castner, a weapons researcher for Amnesty International and a former researcher. Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer in the United States Air Force.
Not only is Gaza small compared to conflict zones like Iraq, Afghanistan or Ukraine, but the territory’s borders are also closed by Israel and Egypt, leaving civilians with few or no safe places to flee.
According to satellite analysis, more than 60,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the Gaza Strip, including about half of the buildings in northern Gaza.
“They are using extremely large weapons in extremely densely populated areas,” Mr. Castner said of the Israeli forces. “It’s the worst possible combination of factors.”
A war ‘for our existence’
Israeli officials say their campaign is aimed at degrading Gaza’s military infrastructure, which is often built near homes and civilian institutions — or buried beneath them.
“To achieve that goal,” Lt. Col. Conricus said, the military must use “bigger bombs with higher yields.”
When an Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, was asked on October 24 interview with PBS On the pace of the attacks, he said Israel was aiming for a shorter campaign than the United States waged in Iraq and Syria.
“Hopefully we can get it done faster,” Mr Regev said. “That is one of our objectives. But it could take longer than many Israelis would hope, because Hamas has been in power for 16 years.”
Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate areas where the bombing campaign is mainly concentrated, but has continued to attack other areas.
More broadly, Israeli officials say this is a campaign on its own borders to eradicate Hamas, a group committed to Israel’s destruction. “The war here is for our existence,” said an Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, told reporters on November 8.
The brutality of the Hamas attack on October 7 has traumatized Israelis, and some prominent members of the Israeli government have made it clear that they are waging a brutal campaign.
“Gaza will not return to what it was before. Hamas will no longer exist. We will eliminate everything,” said Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister. said in the days following the Hamas raids.
After initially questioning the death toll in Gaza, the Biden administration is now admitting that the real figures for civilian casualties may be even worse.
Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, told a House committee this month that U.S. officials believed the number of civilian casualties was “frankly very high, and it could be that they are even higher than is quoted.”
International experts who have worked with Gaza’s Health Ministry during this and other wars say it collects death statistics from hospitals and morgues in the enclave, which count the dead and report the names, ID numbers and other details of those killed .
While the experts urged caution around public statements about the specific number of people killed in a given strike — especially in the immediate aftermath of an explosion — they said the overall death toll reported by Gaza’s Health Ministry has proven generally accurate.
In recent weeks, recording the deaths in Gaza has become increasingly difficult amid the chaos of fighting, as hospitals have come under direct fire, much of the health care system has ceased to function and other government officials have begun updating the number of deaths instead of the ministry. But even before these changes, the number of women and children reported dead was higher than in other conflicts.
Women and children are responsible almost 70 percent of all deaths reported in Gaza, even though most fighters are men — an “extraordinary statistic,” Rick Brennan, the regional emergency director of the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean office, said at an event this month.
Normally you would expect the opposite, Mr Brennan said. For example, in previous clashes between Israel and Hamas, about 60 percent of reported deaths in Gaza were men.