The death toll of children and women in Gaza, after five months of Israeli aggression, has reached frightening numbers as it exceeds six times that of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
In a report published on Sunday, Anadolu news agency compiled civilian fatalities in the Russian-Ukrainian war since February 24, 2022, and women and children deaths in the US-backed onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The report indicates that according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission (HRMMU) in Ukraine, 10,378 civilians, including 579 children and 2,992 women have been killed, and 19,632 others injured since the beginning of that war in early 2022.
This is while Israeli strikes have killed 29,606 Palestinians, including at least 12,660 children and 8,570 women and injured 69,737, with more than 70% of the wounded being women and children.
The number of deaths almost five months after the Israeli aggression exceeds six times the number of women and children killed in the Russia-Ukraine War in two years.
Last month, the Britain-based charity Oxfam reported that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses that of any other major conflict in the 21st century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments.
Israel has been relentlessly bombing the Palestinian enclave, from the air, land and sea, using more than 66,000 tons of explosives in the attacks, averaging 183 tons of explosives per square kilometer in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources.
As Gaza is devastated by the attacks, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced and the UN warned that 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip are facing famine under Israel’s intense attack.
The 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007, are trapped in an approximately 360 square kilometer (139 square mile) area and due to the attacks, there is no safe place for them to take refuge in Gaza.
Nearly 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, covering an area of 64 square kilometers, amid raging attacks in northern, central and southern Gaza.
Now food is running out, with aid agencies unable to get into the area because of the bombing and frenzied looting of the few aid trucks.
The humanitarian catastrophe comes ahead of a potential Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, which houses more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians and is the last major population center in the Gaza Strip.
