TRAGIC BALANCE SHEET ONE MONTH AFTER THE WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HAMAS
On October 7, a Hamas attack killed 1,400 people in Israel. The Israeli army’s response has already left 10,022 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip.
The death toll is not easy for independent journalists to verify. Difficulties of access to the conflict zones leave only the option of relying on official reports from the parties to the conflict.
Israel has said that in addition to the 1,400 killed, 240 people were kidnapped on October 7.
The Palestinian death toll was given by the Gaza Ministry of Health, a body controlled by Hamas, the extremist group that rules the territory. It specified that of the 10,022 dead, 4,104 are minors, 2,641 women and 611 elderly. And it reported 25,408 wounded.
While Israel and its staunch ally, the U.S., have questioned the balance sheets provided by Hamas during the month-long conflict, this Monday, November 6, 2023, the Pentagon has acknowledged that “thousands” of civilians were killed or wounded in Gaza.
‘GRAVEYARD OF CHILDREN’
The UN has not hesitated to point out the great level of tragedy that the war is entailing. “The Gaza Strip is becoming a graveyard for children,” said António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations.
Already last October, the international NGO Save the Children had stated that “the number of children killed in Gaza during the Israeli offensive has exceeded the annual number of children killed in armed conflict worldwide in each of the last four years.”
“The unfolding catastrophe makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with each passing hour,” Guterres said.
A ceasefire – which has also been called for by the European Union – with little chance of being heeded for now, given Israel’s total refusal. The U.S. does not agree to it either because, its diplomacy has said, it would benefit Hamas. Israel refuses any truce unless the hostages are released.
However, diplomatic pressure is mounting. The leaders of the main UN agencies issued a joint statement on Sunday to express their outrage at the rising casualties.
First, they called Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel a month ago horrendous. “However, the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza generate outrage, and is depriving 2.2 million Palestinians of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” the leaders of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory noted.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It has been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” they wrote.
Those calls may have an effect. Anthony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, met Monday in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. After the meeting, Blinken reported that his country was working very actively to get more aid into Gaza.
Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is reluctant to call a general truce, has been open to the possibility of “small tactical pauses” to allow basic necessities into Gaza and hostages out. He even said that they have already had such pauses, he said in an interview with the U.S. news network ABC.
Netanyahu spoke yesterday with U.S. President Joe Biden about such pauses for these purposes.
OTHER FIGURES OF THE TRAGEDY
One figure that the UN can certify is the number of displaced persons. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last week that nearly 1.5 million Gazans are displaced and that thousands of them are sheltering in schools and hospitals that are already overcrowded.
In addition, humanitarian organizations and the UN have reported that more than 23,000 wounded need immediate treatment and hospitals are overwhelmed.
The UN itself has been directly affected, as 89 workers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East have already died, “the highest number of UN deaths ever recorded in a single conflict,” according to a UN statement.
NOT ONLY IN GAZA
The West Bank, the other Palestinian enclave, has not been spared war-related deaths, albeit in smaller numbers.
According to the Palestinian Authority, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed there in a month by Israeli soldiers or settlers.
And the conflict continues to threaten to spread. On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, gunfire has been reported between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, a group allied with Hamas and supported by the Iranian government.
Hamas has admitted that 16 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
The AFP news agency gave a count according to which, since October 7, 83 people have been killed on Lebanese territory, among them 61 Hezbollah fighters. On the Israeli side of the border, six soldiers and two civilians were counted.
