Above 40, 000 confirmed casualties in Gaza, there is a possibility that other 186000 – 240000 have been killed indirectly, going by lower limits of known ratios of direct and indirect deaths in wars. This range suggests that 8-10% of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million has been killed as the world watched. The European Union (EU) is a partner in these deaths, as it has declined to sanction Israel, supplied weapons, facilitated transit of US weapons, and invested in developing war technologies used currently in Gaza.
40,000 directly and, at least 3 times indirectly killed Gazans
International bodies (UN, UNICEF, ICJ, and ICC) have decried Israel’s action in Gaza and called for action against the Jewish state, which makes EU’s failure to act indefensible. Besides Gaza’s official death toll of 40, 000, the real fatalities could be higher, while considering unretrieved bodies and indirect deaths (those killed by conditions of war) which can be three to 15 times higher than direct deaths. On 19th June 2024, Lancet study reported that Israel had directly killed 37 396 since October 7th, 2023, and estimated that indirect deaths could be over 186,000, taking the lower limit of 4 indirect deaths to every direct one. Using Lancets estimates seen earlier, about 8% of Gaza’s prewar population has been killed, a percentage that is close to what can be arrived at using the daily rate of 250 directly killed, expressed by Oxfam for the first three months of the war, which made Gaza war the deadliest conflict in the 21st century. Gaza’s official death toll is underreported due to authority’s increasing inability to access most areas and retrieve bodies. For instance, over 300 bodies were found on July, 30th, 2024, when IDF withdrew from Khan Yunis after only a week of operation. Therefore, more bodies remain under the ruins........