The killing of civilians in Gaza is on a scale unprecedented in recent history, monitoring groups have said, as Israel continues to attack the besieged coastal enclave after more than three months of war.
The British-based charity Oxfam said Thursday that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel's war on Gaza exceeds that of any other major conflict in the 21st century, while survivors remain at high risk due to to hunger, disease and cold, as well as the continuous Israeli bombings.
“Israel's military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people per day, vastly exceeding the daily death toll of any other major conflict in recent years,” Oxfam said in a statement.
For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the beginning of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23 .8 in Afghanistan and 15.8 in Yemen.
Oxfam said the crisis is further aggravated by Israel's restrictions on aid entering Gaza, where only 10 percent of the weekly food aid needed arrives. This poses a serious risk of famine for those who survive the relentless bombardment, he said.
Also on Thursday, the US-based human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its World Report 2024, which states that civilians in Gaza have been “attacked, abused and killed over the past year to “a scale unprecedented in recent history.” of Israel and Palestine.
'War crimes'
At least 23,469 Palestinians have been killed and 59,604 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
In the most recent 24-hour reporting period, Israeli forces carried out 10 mass killings in the Gaza Strip, causing 112 deaths and 194 injuries, the ministry added. Some 7,000 people remain missing under the rubble and are presumed dead.
“The atrocity crimes carried out by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups since October 7 are the abhorrent legacy of decades of impunity for illegal attacks and Israel's systematic repression of Palestinians,” said Omar Shakir, director for Israel and Palestine from HRW.
“How many more civilians must suffer or die as a result of war crimes before the countries that supply weapons pull the plug and take action to end these atrocities?” she asked.
This comes as South Africa presented its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday, accusing the country of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, an accusation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as “hypocrisy and lies.” .
In its report, HRW noted that Israel's war on Gaza has included “acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation as a method of warfare,” including the cutting off of essential services such as water and electricity. and blocking the entrance. of the most important humanitarian aid.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, HRW said that during the first eight months of 2023, incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property reached the highest daily average since the United Nations began recording this data in 2006. At least 3,291 Palestinians were held in administrative detention without charge or trial, according to figures from the Israel Prison Service.
“The repression of Palestinians by Israeli authorities, undertaken as part of a policy to maintain the dominance of Israeli Jews over Palestinians, amounts to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” HRW said.
'Gaza is different from space'
Experts in mapping wartime damage have also found that the war in Gaza is now among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.
According to an analysis of data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite by the CUNY Graduate Center and Oregon State University, the war has killed more civilians than the US-led coalition in its three-year campaign against ISIL (ISIS). ).
The offensive has caused more destruction than the 2012-2016 razing of Aleppo in Syria, Mariupol in Ukraine or, proportionately, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II, researchers found, according to a report by The Associated Press.
Israel's offensive is likely to have damaged or destroyed more than two-thirds of all structures in northern Gaza and a quarter of buildings in the southern Khan Younis area, according to satellite data collected by the research group.
That includes tens of thousands of homes, as well as schools, hospitals, mosques and stores. U.N. observers have said that about 70 percent of school buildings across Gaza have been damaged.
“Gaza now has a different color than space. It's a different texture,” said Corey Scher of the CUNY Graduate Center, who has worked to map destruction in several war zones.
