Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that the number of Palestinians it has recorded killed by the Israeli onslaught has surpassed 40,000, or about 2% of the population. The number is considered a conservative estimate since it doesn’t account for the 10,000 people who are missing and believed to be dead under the rubble.
The Health Ministry said a total of 40,005 Palestinians had been killed over ten months, including 40 that were killed by Israeli forces in the previous 24 hours. They also said a total of 92,401 Palestinians have been wounded.
The Health Ministry has identified 32,280 bodies by name, which includes 10,627 children, 5,956 women, and 2,770 elderly people. Gaza’s Media Office has estimated more than 16,000 children have been killed by the Israeli onslaught.
It’s unclear how many Palestinians have died due to indirect causes of the siege, such as food shortages, medicine shortages, the destruction of Gaza’s health facilities, and the spread of disease. Gaza’s Media Office has said at least 35 children have starved to death.
A letter written by a group of experts recently published in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the total number of deaths in Gaza, including those killed by the Israeli military and indirect causes, could reach 186,000. The estimate used the death toll from the end of June, which was 37,396.
A group of American doctors and nurses who volunteered in Gaza wrote a letter to President Biden last month, and they estimated that the actual death toll has already exceeded 92,000, or 4.2% of the population. The American medical professionals also detailed the horrific violence being committed by Israeli soldiers against children.
“Every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head,” the letter said.
The US continues to support the genocidal war despite the massive civilian and child death toll. This week, the Biden administration showed its strong backing of the slaughter by approving $20 billion in weapons sales for Israel, which included F-15 fighter jets and tank ammunition.