Civilian proportion of deaths is higher than that in all world conflicts in 20th century, Haaretz newspaper says
The analysis by Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter.
The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The Haaretz analysis found that in three earlier campaigns in Gaza, in the period from 2012-22, the ratio of civilian deaths to the total of those killed in airstrikes hovered around 40%. That ratio declined to 33% in a bombing campaign earlier this year, called Operation Shield and Arrow.
In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Haaretz described as "unprecedented killing". The ratio is significantly higher than the civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead.
Comment: Andalou Agency, quoting the Palestinian Health Ministry - whose figures have repeatedly been shown by independent agencies to be accurate - report the following:
The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has mounted to 17,177 since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave said Thursday.
"Around 70% of the victims are children and women," ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told a press conference.
He said 46,000 other people were injured in the Israeli onslaught on the blockaded Palestinian territory.
"At least 290 medics were killed, 102 ambulances destroyed and 160 health care centers targeted in the Israeli attacks, while 20 hospitals and 46 primary care centers were forced out of service," al-Qudra said.
"The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel's security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it," Haaretz concluded. "The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand."
Comment: This reaction by even the Israeli press perhaps reveals why Israel, and those facilitating the genocide in the US, and UK, are escalating the slaughter and destruction, because it's only a matter of time before unrest at home, and a response from those abroad, will hamper their nefarious agenda.
It also serves to distract from the rapidly deteriorating situation in their own economies and societies, whilst at the same time setting the Middle East alight which, they seem to think, will provide justification for their sinister actions.
The study confirms an investigation 10 days ago by two other Israeli news sites, +972 Magazine and Local Call, which found Israel was deliberately targeting residential blocks to cause mass civilian casualties in the hope people would turn on their Hamas rulers.
Comment: The report revealed that they were using Artificial Intelligence to achieve that goal: 'A mass assassination factory': How Israel is using AI in its calculated genocide in Gaza
The figures will make uneasy reading for the Biden administration, which is facing global criticism and isolation for vetoing a UN security council vote for a ceasefire on Friday.
Since the start of the war, triggered by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, the US has been seeking to persuade Israeli forces to be more discriminate in choosing targets, and has repeatedly claimed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are "receptive" to American advice, despite the consistently high civilian death toll.
Comment: The Guardian has been exposed as being compromised by the UK's intelligence agencies, and that's perhaps one reason why it fails to mention that strong evidence, along with logic, has since revealed that not only was the attack known about well in advance; the IDF was forced to stand down; that Israel was responsible for killing a significant number of its own people; as well as destroying evidence.
The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, repeated that claim while briefing reporters on Air Force One on Friday, but added: "We certainly all recognise more can be done to try to reduce civilian casualties, and we're going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end."
Kirby was speaking as the Biden administration faced allegations of abetting war crimes for vetoing the security council resolution.
Human Rights Watch said the US risked "complicity in war crimes" by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic support. Paul O'Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: "With this veto, the US government is shamefully turning its back on immense civilian suffering, a staggering death toll, and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza."
Comment: In a vote for a ceasefire at the UN today, the US voted against, the UK abstained, the rest of the UN voted for:
The Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Washington on Friday night to maintain pressure for "urgent steps" to establish a ceasefire so humanitarian aid could be delivered.
In the face of the global criticism, US officials stressed the role the US has played in pushing for humanitarian deliveries to Gaza through the Rafah crossing point. Kirby said a US military transport plane had landed in Egypt on Friday carrying nearly 26,000kg (57,000lbs) of food, water, and medicine bound for Gaza.
Comment: Meanwhile the US & UK also provides the weapons, the funds, and the veto powers, without which there would be no need for them to send humanitarian aid.
"We're certainly mindful of the suffering of the people of Gaza, and we're doing everything we can to not just get stuff in there but to lead an actual international effort to get stuff in there," he said.
Kirby said fewer than 100 trucks had crossed through the Rafah gate on Friday, about half the daily volume that entered Gaza during a week-long humanitarian ceasefire at the end of last month.
"Obviously that's not at the level that we want it to be at," he said, noting that Israel was preparing to open an additional inspection facility at Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border, which is expected to ease the most significant bottleneck, inspection capacity.
However, the UN and other aid agencies say that even when trucks enter the Gaza Strip at Rafah, the ground offensive in southern Gaza and the general lack of security is preventing the supplies from being distributed, at a time of a high and rising threat of starvation and disease.
Comment: The UN has also sounded the alarm that 130 of their own staff have been murdered; that their staff are taking their children with them to work in the hopes that, if they can't be safe at home, they can at least 'die together'.
They're also warning that, with the conditions in Gaza being so dire - with 700 people sharing 1 toilet and 25 babies a day being born with little medical supplies - it won't be long before disease and viral outbreaks ravage those that managed to escape the death from above:
The IDF said it had failed in a hostage rescue attempt on Friday. The chief spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said: "The forces raided a Hamas site and eliminated terrorists who had taken part in the abduction and captivity of hostages."
He said two Israeli soldiers had been seriously wounded in the mission, and no hostages had been rescued. He did not confirm Hamas claims that one hostage, 25-year-old Sahar Baruch, had been killed in the rescue attempt, but his home kibbutz at Be'eri announced Baruch had died.
And it doesn't just happen there; it just seems like it due to space and time.
Anyone who is not in that extermination camp is complicit with it.