Gaza: 70 per cent of those killed were women and children, says UN; survivors starve

A new United Nations human rights report shows nearly 70 per cent of the verified deaths in Gaza were those of women and children.

Published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the report counted 8,119 women and children in the 34,500-plus people reported killed during the first six months of Israel's war on Gaza.

Presenting the report online, UN human rights chief Volker Turk spoke of the "horrific reality" of Gaza constituting "unprecedented violations of [international humanitarian law that] give rise to concerns of atrocity crimes". He spoke too of Israel's apparent indifference to the result of its retributive justice, in the name of 'self-defense'.

The youngest child killed in Gaza was reportedly a newborn just a day old.

Noting that the whole point of international humanitarian laws were that the “rules of war [are] designed to limit and prevent human suffering in times of armed conflict”, Turk mentioned Israel's "wanton disregard" of them.

The published report too speaks of Israel's likely culpabilty for 'crimes against humanity' due to the 'widespread or systematic' attacks on civilians in its 'war on Hamas' and avowed attempts to bring home its hostages taken on 7 October.

'...if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, they may also constitute genocide', the report highlights.

The largest age group of children killed is 5–9 years age group, followed by the 10–14 years group and then the 0–4.

The report also showed that in 88 per cent of IDF strikes, 5 or more people were left dead.

It highlighted the IDF's use of weapons with a wider impact in densely populated areas — surely the opposite of what international law would suggest to limit civilian casualties.

The report speaks of 'the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement'.

'This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,' it continues.

Just last week, on 7 November, northern Gaza finally received its first aid after a month of being starved, ever since the new wave of Israeli assaults began in October. The same day, 7 November, another 40 Gazans were killed.

On the 400th day of the war on Saturday, 9 November, the Gaza ministry of health claimed that at least 43,552 Palestinians have been killed and 102,765 injured in this year-and-a-month-long attack.

The actual number of dead is presumed to be far higher, with an estimated 10,000 bodies buried in the rubble that has become the most common landscaping Palestine.

As for the aid that arrived, it was a mere trickle compared to the flood that is needed, said the UN.

With the UNRWA's operations outlawed by Israel, 11 aid trucks was what Gaza got — as the deadline Israel's key ally, the US, had set for delivery of aid to Gaza or reconsideration of US aid to Israel.

However, Washington's ask was a minimum of 350 aid trucks a day being allowed into Gaza. Aid organisations on the ground had called for as many as double the number being actually needed, per an Al Jazeera report.

The UN reports estimates an average of only 37 trucks currently get through (per October figures). The World Food Programme estimates Gaza is getting barely 30 per cent of the sustenance it desperately needs.

On Friday, 8 November, the Famine Review Committee — an independent global body comprising 19 organisations — rang the alarm bell, saying there is a 'strong likelihood' that 'famine is imminent' in Gaza.

Oxfam was one of the leading organisations that responded to the warning, noting in a press release:

'The situation in northern Gaza is now beyond catastrophic and families there literally have nothing to eat. In southern Gaza, things are also rapidly deteriorating, with almost no food left in the markets in Deir El Balah.

'Famine has been looming for months and humanitarian agencies like Oxfam have repeatedly warned of how horrific the situation is, yet we’ve been repeatedly blocked from getting enough aid into Gaza. 

'The IPC is warning that action must be taken within days, if we’re to have any hope of preventing famine,' the statement continues, and ends with:

While we discuss the state of health of the 30 per cent that are the survivors of Israel's war on Palestine, It is worth bearing that more than 1,000 health workers have been killed in this 'conflict' as well.

After all, Israel has dropped some 86,000 tonnes of explosives all over Gaza in retaliation against the few hours of Hamas' 7 October attack — effectively (and rather efficiently, by some lights) destroying most of the conclave's infrastructure and displacing around 2 million people, which is to say 90 per cent of its population (almost half of which are, again, children).

However, Israel has assured the international community that it has no intention of pursuing an agenda of ethnic cleansing. Many of our leaders seem inclined to believe them.