About one in every 100 people in the Gaza Strip has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, according to statistics from a Palestinian official.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, in the West Bank, announced in its daily update this Monday (8) that at least 22,835 people have died in the besieged territory since the fighting began. The ministry generates its data from hospitals in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.
This number means that 1% of the enclave's total pre-war population of 2.27 million people died.
According to the ministry, a further 58,416 people were injured, meaning that more than one in every 40 inhabitants of Gaza was injured in the conflict.
Last month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it believes it killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas member killed, a ratio an IDF spokesman described to CNN at the time as “tremendously positive”.
Israel also stated that more than 8,000 of those killed were part of the armed group.
The Israeli army began the operation in Gaza immediately after Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and capturing around 200.
Some of the hostages taken to Gaza were released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Last week, the Israeli government said it believed 132 hostages from October 7 were still being held in Gaza, dozens of whom were believed dead.
One in every 120 children dies in Gaza
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says more than 5,300 of those killed are women and more than 9,000 are children.
Gaza's child population before the war was around 1.1 million, according to Unicef. This means that about one in every 120 children living in the enclave was killed.
Furthermore, according to data from the international organization Save the Children, more than 10 children, on average, have lost one or both legs every day in Gaza since October.
International organizations have warned that the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza is so deep that people are at risk of starving to death.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 90% of the territory's inhabitants have been displaced (when they move for the same reasons as a refugee, but do not cross borders).
UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said last week that famine was “just around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity on record”.
Younger children are at greater risk of dying from hunger, according to a Unicef statement last month.
The children's aid organization estimated that in the coming weeks, “at least 10,000 children under the age of five will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition known as severe wasting and will require therapeutic foods.”
Lack of sanitation for displaced people, who are crammed into parts of southern Gaza, has led to the spread of contagious and respiratory diseases.
Thus, diseases that would normally be easily curable are becoming deadly due to the lack of even the most basic medical equipment.
Source: CNN Brasil
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