It’s not-at-all easy to follow the deadly numbers in Gaza over the past six weeks, with lives lost at an average of hundreds daily; children killed by the minute; pregnant mothers unable to give birth with medical help; newborns getting their death certificates before their births are registered; hospitals, shelters, schools, humanitarian and other civilian targets being bombed indiscriminately; and half the population forcibly-evacuated from North to South, only to be bombed on the way, on arrival and after – and still asked to evacuate in a besieged strip where nowhere and no one is safe.
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And all that, while the rest of the world looks-on in pure shock and horror, as Western governments continue to dither over if-ever to call on Israel to stop the disproportionate killing and bombing in the name of self-defense.
This war being fought and played-out live at homes and in-living-color on the global public square, the world witnessed earlier this week the sheer horror of newborn babies in a hospital under Israeli occupation given a death sentence when their incubators failed due to power failures caused by what top United Nations (UN) describe as Israel’s use of fuel, food and water as weapons of war’.
Globally-televised images of children dying in incubators in a hospital under Israeli siege and occupation enraged humans the-world-over, as well as in Israel, where the administration is coming under growing pressure from a widening range of Israelis backing peace and enraged at the carnage being exacted by the Netanyahu administration in their name.
Forced to respond, the administration embarking on a robust propaganda offensive claiming its troops bombed Gaza hospitals because Hamas used them as human shields – and also had command centers inside.
Al Shifa Hospital’s top administrators strongly deny the claims of military equipment inside the strip’s largest health facility -- until the Israeli assault and occupation.
But Israel is finding it quite difficult to provide sufficient evidence to prove its claims or to justify bombing Al Shifa, occupying its compounds, destroying medical supply and oxygen and fuel depots, interrogating medical staff at gunpoint, ensuring no food or fuel is delivered, while mass graves are being dug within the facility’s compound for mass-burials, with the World Health Organization (WHO) warning of diseases like cholera due to growing sanitation crises in the absence of water.
With all the hospitals out of water and oxygen, none is being allowed in, increasing the risks of more deaths and diseases.
The hypocrisy of this War on Gaza simply knows no bounds, as Israel’s Western supporters prolong the talking and debating, discussing “when” and “whether” to describe the Palestinian slaughter as “genocide” and splitting hairs over definitions like “weaponizing religion”, while Palestinians simply continue to be referred to as ‘human animals’ and die by the hundreds per day and thousands per week.
Western nations are now proposing sending ‘hospital ships’ to Gaza to treat those harmed by the weapons of mass destruction they supplied.
Likewise, with all the claims about secret Hamas tunnels under hospitals, it was revealed by an independent journalist associated with ‘The Intercept’ earlier this week that Israel itself built a bunker under the same Al Shifa hospital in 1983, which Hamas subsequently connected to its massive underground network after the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) left.
Even more hypocrisy lies behind the claim by Israel and its supporters that the current War on Gaza only started after October 7, as the period from January to October 6, 2023 had already been the bloodiest on record for a long time, with over 260 Palestinians killed.
This is the worst period in the 75-year-old Israeli War of Occupation in Palestine, especially following Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu’s life-saving December 2022 election victory, after his Likud Party allied with the most right-wing and extremist parties to form the worst political coalition of Jewish hardliners in Israel’s history.
And while the world discusses ‘What’s next…’ for a blitzkrieg Gaza on steroids after six weeks of relentless bombardment, Israel also increases its attacks on the occupied West Bank, with 196 Palestinians killed, 2,400 injured and 2,280 detained since October 7.
According to figures published by The Palestinian Authority, Gaza Health Ministry and departments compiling the daily death-counts, as well as figures released by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and representatives of the Israeli government, as well as international media houses including BBC, CNN, Sky News, Al Jazeera and The Intercept, this past week:
• 12,000+ Palestinians killed in Gaza, including 5,000 children and 2,700 women
• 30,000 Palestinians injured and 3,750 missing, including 1,700 children
• 44 children dead and 248 wounded on the West Bank
• 70% of Palestinian fatalities are children, women and elderly
• One Palestinian child is killed and two are wounded every 10 minutes in Gaza
• 1,200 Israelis were killed on October 7, including 300 soldiers, 5,400 were injured and 300,000 displaced
• 55 Israeli soldiers have died and 62 tanks destroyed during the ongoing ground assault in Gaza City
• 61 captives in Gaza killed by Israeli bombardments
• 7,000 Palestinians sheltering in Al Shifa Hospital, with 600 injured and 39 premature babies dying by the day and hour, due to lack of power for incubators
• 33,000 cases of diarrhea, especially among children
• 55,000 women pregnant and 5,500 ready to deliver, with no hospital care available at Gaza hospitals under siege and civilians seeking shelter not allowed to leave
• 258 (more than half) of Gaza’s school buildings are damaged or destroyed
• 1.5 million (or 70% of Gaza’s population) are internally displaced
• 1.7 million Gazans are without water
The average rate of deaths in Gaza, after only six weeks, is 2,000 -- with over 4,000 injuries -- in a war that can stop only if and when Israel’s Western backers are ready and willing to take the interventionist positions, they did on Rwanda, Kosovo and Libya, in the name of protecting lives. But even that seems too-much-to-expect.