Gaza has entered the 10th month of genocide. News updates have gradually slowed down, but that does not reflect the reality of worsening conditions on the ground. What feels like an eternity of nonstop bombardment — accompanied by an intensified siege and a man-made famine — has only made conditions more difficult for Palestinians in Gaza.
Dr. Yara Hawari, writer and co-director of Al-Shabaka, explains that the reduction in coverage is not reflective of the extent of the horrors unfolding in Gaza. On X, she writes, “Palestinians in Gaza are reporting that last night [July 7] was one of the worst since the beginning of the genocide. Reminder; just because coverage has dropped in the mainstream media does NOT mean things have eased up. The genocide continues unabated and with international complicity.”
The Electronic Intifada reported that Gaza is currently facing its “most dangerous days” with “no end in sight,” adding that the Israeli Occupation continues to target and assassinate journalists, bringing the number of journalists killed since Oct. 7 to 158 journalists. The speed with which the Zionist Israeli regime is committing massacres is shrinking the opportunity for news updates to reach the world. Western governments and media outlets, meanwhile, continue to normalize and desensitize audiences to the world’s first livestreamed genocide.
On July 5, The Lancet — an independent, peer-reviewed medical journal in the UK — published an article by public health experts Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf on Gaza’s severely underestimated death toll. This article comes just one week after the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to ban the use of “international affairs budget funds to cite figures on the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza,” brazenly banning the use of the Gaza Health Ministry's official count. While the Israeli lobby continues to bankroll the overwhelming majority of U.S. politicians and keep Israeli interests at the forefront of U.S. politics, any mention of a Palestinian source is considered to be a cardinal sin.
The Lancet’s article explains that “documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war.” The only way to prioritize documenting accurate numbers is by heeding Palestinians, especially because “collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure. […] The Gaza Health Ministry is the only organization counting the dead.” These figures are extremely conservative and are used by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and countless other humanitarian groups.
The article clarifies why recording an accurate death count is necessary, but it also cites the Gaza Health Ministry’s current numbers and explains how they represent an undercount. By June 19, the Ministry reported that 37,396 Palestinians were confirmed dead as a result of being killed by Israel. Yet, with the number of destroyed buildings across the Gaza Strip, the authors contend that “the number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10,000.” This number is not reflected in the Gaza Health Ministry’s official count.
Not only would an immediate ceasefire be the sole way to accurately count the current number of martyrs in Gaza, but the authors state that “even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and noncommunicable diseases.” The magnitude of this annihilation campaign will have consequences for years to come, due to “destroyed health care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places, and the loss of funding to UNRWA.” These factors all intersect to create a catastrophic environment in which it is nearly impossible to survive.
Due to the current state of devastation across Gaza and by utilizing patterns from recent wars, experts added that “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” This shocking conservative estimate would translate into the murder of 7.9% of the Gaza Strip’s total population.
Further evidence of the long-term repercussions of Israel’s barbarity as well as the world’s inaction has been demonstrated through a recent UN press release. UN experts have declared that famine has taken hold of Gaza: “The recent deaths of more Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition leaves no doubt that famine has spread across the entire Gaza Strip.”
There is no disputing Israel’s actions and intentions throughout this genocide. The humanitarian experts declare that “Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.” They continue by noting how “the whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevent these deaths… inaction is complicity.”
As calls for a ceasefire and consistent advocacy and protests are unable to change Gaza’s unbearable reality, our society must grapple with the fact that the settler colony of Israel and its supporters are holding the world hostage with their Zionist ideology. Even at its most unpopular moment in contemporary times, Zionism is still claiming the right to commit an extermination project against Palestinians in Gaza. Frustrated and exhausted, Palestinians wonder: when will Israel’s genocidal privileges be revoked?
