More than 100 were martyred in - what was called - the flour massacre that took place in the northern Gaza Strip (Al Jazeera)

The Hebrew website "Siha Mekumet" said that the real number of those who died in Gaza due to the Israeli attack may be close to 100,000, or about 3 times what was announced by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, if those who were classified as missing and those who died from other secondary causes related to the aggression are taken into account. Such as hunger and disease.

In a report entitled “The death toll in Gaza may be 3 times higher than the official figures,” Martin Fine wrote that the official number announced by the Gaza government - which is approximately 30 thousand - appears reasonable and credible according to the testimony of the famous medical journal The Lancet, but it only addresses those who were killed. Direct bombing, no excess deaths.

Fine added that the surplus of deaths is much higher than 30,000, and includes those who died from secondary causes related to the tragedy, and recalled the Ministry of Health’s announcement last November of its inability to track the death toll due to the collapse of the communication system and logistical complications.

According to the writer, reducing the number of casualties serves Israeli and Western interests, because it reduces the human tragedy and crimes committed. Despite this, these “extremely low numbers” were challenged by US President Joe Biden during the first weeks of the war on the Strip.

Numbers gap

In referring to the gap in numbers, the writer gives the example of the resistance members who entered the Gaza Strip on October 7, saying that their number may never be known, although estimates indicate that they are several thousand, including members of the elite, other fighters, and even ordinary citizens.

Fine says that many of these people, and most likely most of them, were either killed or arrested, and recalled that Israel reduced its official death toll from 1,400 to 1,140, ​​after it became clear - as it claimed - that dozens of bodies that were thought to be Israelis were actually those of fighters from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). However, these fighters who were killed or “disappeared” inside Israel are not included in the Ministry of Health’s death toll in the Gaza Strip.

There are also the missing, a segment not included in the ministry’s list of dead, but according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, they are not only those whose families have lost contact with them, but also include victims of the bombing who were buried deep under the rubble, and there is no doubt that they died after days and, in many cases, long weeks. As evidenced by the screams that no longer emanate from the rubble and the smell of corpses that fill the place.

As for the third gap in numbers, which is the most important - according to the author - it comes from the method of counting the wounded and residents who died of hunger, but they are not in the number of dead.

Fine says that even a superficial wound may cause death in the absence of basic medical supplies such as sterilizers and antibiotics, in addition to the fact that many of those who died a “natural death” due to malnutrition and psychological shock, for example, are in fact direct victims of the Israeli attack, especially the elderly and infants, and these are unknown. If their names were recorded before they were buried, the burial ceremonies were often carried out in a hurry and under bombardment.

Mass death

The writer goes on to expect mass death in Gaza after the end of the war due to the spread of diseases, suicides, malnutrition, the collapse of the health system, and a decline in the quality of life in general. He quotes the estimates of a senior researcher at the University of Edinburgh who do not rule out the death of a quarter of the Strip’s population within a year.

The Israeli writer also cites a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Medicine that forecasts an excess death toll estimated at several tens of thousands during the next six months if the situation continues as it is or an escalation occurs.

Martin Fine concluded that Corona provides a good example of the difference between declared and unannounced deaths, as the World Health Organization stated that the real number of those who died from the epidemic throughout the world is more than 3 times what governments announced (and 10 times in the case of India), saying that by applying the same rule. The number of people killed in the Israeli attack on Gaza will not be less than 90,000.

Source: websites