The Statistics Bureau recorded 22,404 documented killings of Palestinians last year. Of these, 22,141 occurred after Oct. 7, with 98 percent of those taking place in the Gaza Strip. This distressing figure includes nearly 9,000 children and 6,450 women.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least 319 Palestinians, including 111 children and four women, have been killed since Oct. 7 following an increase in indiscriminate and retaliatory violence against Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli settlers and military and police.
In Gaza, over 7,000 Palestinians, predominantly children and women, have been reported missing, while almost 1.9 million people have been internally displaced. (Related: TIMELINE: 75 Years of Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians.)
Gaza's total pre-war population stood at 2.3 million, with nearly half of these being children. Israel's offensive against Palestinians in the Strip has seen them deliberately targeting civilian homes and infrastructure, resulting in the destruction of 65,000 housing units and the inflicting of partial damage to nearly 300,000 more since Oct. 7.
Furthermore, Israel has deliberately targeted and killed at least 100 journalists. Israeli indiscriminate bombing has also killed doctors and other medical staff and caused significant damage to multiple hospitals and clinics.
Compiling accurate casualty tolls in Gaza has become increasingly challenging due to the destruction of basic infrastructure, frequent disruptions to phone and internet services, and the loss of health statisticians.
In the initial six weeks of the conflict, hospital morgues in Gaza provided figures to the Gaza Health Ministry's main data collection center at Al Shifa Hospital.
Excel sheets were used to record information on the dead including names, ages and ID card numbers. These were then transmitted to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. However, the situation has since worsened, as at least one official working at Al Shifa has been killed since then and three others have gone missing after Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza allegedly seized the data center after claiming it was a suspected Hamas hideout.
The destruction of information infrastructure and health systems further complicates casualty recording, raising concerns about the ability to maintain an accurate count of the toll.
“The kind of casualty recording required to understand what’s going on is getting harder. Information structure, the health systems that existed, are being systematically destroyed,” said Hamit Dardagan of Iraqi Body Count, set up during the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Israel also illegally detaining thousands more Palestinians
The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has confirmed that Israel is also currently detaining nearly 8,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children.
Among these detainees, nearly 3,000 are classified as "administrative detainees," or individuals being indefinitely held without charge or trial.
Many of these detainees are being held long enough for illegal Israeli settlers to come into the West Bank to steal their homes. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs notes that, by the end of 2022, there were nearly 750,000 Jewish settlers residing in 151 illegal settlements constructed all over stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It is essential to emphasize that international law considers all of Israel's settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as being illegal.
Watch this clip of Israeli forces raiding and violently beating and arresting Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:
40 percent of Palestinians killed in Gaza are children
Report: Number of Palestinians JAILED in Israel soars to 10,000 in 2 weeks
The Palestinians were right all along: Netanyahu wants them completely expelled from the region
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