UN condemns Gaza’s civilian death toll; 70% children, women
The United Nations Human Rights Office says the overwhelming majority of Palestinians killed by Israel’s military in Gaza are women and children. It says it has verified the personal details of thousands of victims, and calls for a “due reckoning” for horrific violations that may amount to genocide.
The UN also warns famine is imminent in the north where Israel’s siege for more than a month has already killed more than 1,000 people.
‘No surprise’ children, women represent 70% of Gaza war deaths
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says the UN report showing about 70 percent of those killed in Gaza have been Palestinian women and children is not surprising at all, with experts saying the same for months.
Elmasry described the Israeli military policy known as the 100:1 ratio, in which if one Hamas target is located in a heavily populated area it is still permitted to attack – even if 100 civilians are killed.
He said the UN report is important because it adds to the mounting pressure on Israel to stop killing innocent children and women in Gaza.
“But we have to remember the United States and Israel – which Noam Chomsky calls the two ‘rogue states’ in the world – have been working for many years to undermine, sideline, and weaken the United Nations. And the fact the UN doesn’t have a great deal of power means we can’t expect anything immediate or tangible to be done,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.
‘Ghost of famine hovering over Gaza’
While northern Gaza remains under siege, food and supplies are stretched for the several hundred thousand people in Gaza City to the south as well. Much of the city has been flattened by months of Israeli bombardment and shelling.
Dr Rana Soboh, a nutrition specialist at Gaza City’s Patient Friend Benevolent Hospital, said she sees some 350 cases of moderate to severe acute malnutrition daily – most from the north but also Gaza City.
“The bone of their chest is showing, the eyes are protruding,” she said of her patients, adding many have trouble concentrating. “You repeat something a number of times, so they can understand what we are saying.”
She cited a 32-year-old woman shedding weight in her third month of pregnancy. When they put her on the scale, she weighed only 40kg (88 pounds). “We are suffering, facing the ghost of famine that is hovering over Gaza,” Soboh said
Hospital staff get calls from Beit Lahiya and Jabalia pleading for help, but “what can we do? We have nothing”, the doctor said.
Ethnic cleansing taking place during news void in north Gaza: Media group
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Israel has stepped up systematic attacks on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign.
Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and Israeli forces began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north, it said.
“There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began,” CPJ said in a statement.
“It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna.
“Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them the world won’t be able to write history.”
