The Hamas-run health ministry says 30,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the war began.
It come as Israel’s assault on the densely populated strip approaches the end of its fifth month – and amid fears that the Israel Defence Forces will launch a ground offensive against the southern city of Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is determined to destroy Hamas after the militant group killed 1,200 people and seized about 250 hostages on 7 October.
Talks have been held to agree a pause in military operations and swap Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners – and it is hoped that another deal may be close.
As well as 30,000 lives lost, a senior UN official warned that at least a quarter of Gaza’s population is one step away from famine and many children are severely malnourished.
Humanitarian coordinator Ramesh Ramasingham told the UN Security Council last night that “there is every possibility for further deterioration” in the enclave, where nearly everyone needs food.
One in six children under two in northern Gaza – which was first targeted by Israel – are suffering from “acute malnutrition and wasting”, he said.
Middle East correspondent
Thirty thousand dead, in less than five months of fighting. That figure doesn’t include the huge number injured.
It is only an estimate, and impossible for us to accurately corroborate as a figure, but historically the running toll during past Israel-Hamas wars has proven to be fairly accurate, once the guns have fallen silent and the dead could be formally counted.
Israel has repeatedly tried to discredit the Gaza health ministry which collates the numbers as being “Hamas-run” but, in truth, the people who count and register the dead tend to be medical professionals or administrators; according to reports by a number of international news agencies. IDF officials have admitted the figure is probably broadly right and the US State Department has assessed it could be even higher because of the many who are undoubtedly buried under rubble and currently irretrievable.
Among that number, Israel estimates around 12,000 of them were Hamas fighters – that means almost 20,000 were civilians, the majority reportedly women and children – they are every bit as much victims of Hamas’s deadly terror attack on 7 October as Israel’s unforgiving assault on Gaza ever since.
By way of comparison, the charity Oxfam calculated the average number of dead each day in Gaza to be higher than any other recent conflict including in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
Although the Israel Defence Forces claims to be the most moral army in the world and insists it is making more effort than any army “in the history of the world” to prevent civilian casualties, its tactics in the first few months of the war were clearly assessed by allies, including the US, to be too heavy-handed.
The secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke of there being “a gap” between “Israel’s intent to protect civilians and what we’re seeing on the ground” and President Biden said that “too many” of the dead have been civilians.
It’s those concerns that are persuading Washington and others to warn Israel against invading the southern city of Rafah – with more than 1.1 million people sheltering there, and Israeli assault along the lines that we’ve witnessed over the past months, such an operation could result in a bloodbath unless considerable efforts are made to protect Palestinian civilians.
