Published: 20 August 2024
Last updated: 6 September 2024
One of the favourite arguments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli spokespeople, is to accuse the international community of hypocrisy concerning the war in the Gaza Strip – and to claim it is ignoring other conflicts and humanitarian disasters.
"Where was South Africa when millions were killed or expelled from their homes in Syria and Yemen," said Netanyahu in January, for example. But a cold examination of the numbers killed in the Gaza Strip reveals this is one of the bloodiest wars since the beginning of the century, especially if you examine the rate of mortality out of the total population.
Close to 40,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7. In percentage terms that's two percent of the population of about two million people. For comparison, two percent of Israel's population is some 198,000 people. "In terms of the total number of dead, I assume Gaza won't be among the 10 most violent conflicts of the 21st century," Prof. Michael Spagat of the University of London told Haaretz.
"But compared to the percentage of the population killed," Spagat says he assumes it is already among the top five. Spagat is a researcher of war and armed conflict and monitors the number of casualties in conflicts. "If we factor in the amount of time it took to kill one percent of this population, then it could be unprecedented," he said.
The figures on the number of people killed in the Gaza Strip are based on information released by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, controlled by Hamas. Since the beginning of the fighting, the information has been examined by a large number of international organisations, governments and media outlets and there is a broad consensus that the information is credible.
Comments5
John2 September at 05:12 am
>reply to a comment above mine and all the others who believe that terrorists can be killed by bombing a city and Israel have a special way to identify them and count them….you are not better than a terrorist, your ignorance, irrationality and prejudices are the reasons we have evil leaders who decide to make wars and kill innocents while they stay unharmed and protected. blood is in your hands too, so dont feel better than your enemy because you are the same.
Deborah Stone20 August at 05:27 pm
Full details for the statistics are available at the Haaretz link. According to the IDF, 608 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/swords-of-iron-idf-casualties#IDF%20CASUALTIES
Yehuda Aharon20 August at 12:16 pm
40,000 is the current accepted and counted death toll across the globe.
The numbers likely go much higher. In July, The Lancet published a peer reviewed article estimating the death toll is more likely to be at 186,000+. This brings the percentage to 7.9% of the population.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
There is repeated evidence that Israel is targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Almost every building in the highly populated strip has been damaged, most are unlivable. This has resulted in many people (upwards of 10,000) being dead below the rubble, who are not counted or listed as missing.
But the death toll will only keep rising as the dust settles and more evidence is found. At present Israel isn’t allowing foreign journalists in and has repeated targeted and killed local journalists alongside aid workers and healthcare workers. We will one day know the true cost to human life in this atrocity, but until then it looks like a genocide to me, and there are plenty of human rights organisations who have the same view.
Maybe it’s time to ask a difficult question about Israel instead of looking to the IDF spokesperson for an easier to digest perspective.