71 thousand people killed, a bit like 71 thousand death knells. 71 thousand chimes that no one wanted to hear for two and a half years.
Mobilizations, petitions and declarations from NGOs were not enough. The Flotilla was not enough and not even those Government representatives who recognized the State of Palestine from time to time. Everything was done in complete indifference, everything was done in such a way that an entire population was atrociously halved and denied, at the exact moment when the Israeli government spent months dismissing the Gaza health ministry’s death toll as “misleading and unreliable.”
A disgrace to humanity that many still have difficulty recognizing. A paradox dressed as propaganda. A genocide shouted by few. But now, perhaps, it is no longer time to contradict the evidence. Those who are guilty of crimes against humanity will sooner or later pay the bill, at least we hope.
A small glimmer of light, a very small satisfaction, arrives today when the Israeli media reports a change of tone on the part of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which for the first time would have “accepted” the figures provided by the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza ministry says 71,667 people have been killed since Israeli military operations began on October 7, 2023, including 492 people killed since a ceasefire agreement was finalized in October.
These are the incontrovertible numbers that the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian territory has never stopped making public, collecting from time to time the documents arriving from the morgues of the few hospitals still operating in the Strip and noting the death reports presented by the victims’ families. The result is an ever-updating list of victims’ names, ages and locations. And it wouldn’t even be enough.
According to a study published in The LancetIn fact, according to a study, real deaths in the Gaza Strip are 40% of what was declared by the local authorities. According to yet another study, by Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and del Center for Demographic Studies (CED), the number of deaths could exceed 100 thousand people. Regarding the profile of victims, the British non-profit organization Action on Armed Violence published a study according to which Israel killed five civilians for every combatant, which means that 083% of all victims were civilians.
Israel’s change of direction
For over two years the Israeli government and the IDF have systematically disputed the data released by the Gaza Ministry of Health, without ever presenting alternative figures. A choice that, over time, ended up weakening the credibility of the official narrative. On several occasions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the majority of victims were combatants, going as far as to speak of at least 50%.
Now, however, something seems to have cracked. Several Israeli media, both those closest to the executive such as Times of Israel, and critical publications such as Haaretz, report that the Israeli army has in fact recognized the toll provided by Hamas, which speaks of over 71 thousand deaths. The confirmation comes from an anonymous IDF official, according to whom the army’s attention is now focused on distinguishing between civilian victims and combatants.
Haaretz, in a harsh editorial, invites Israeli public opinion to question the meaning of this belated recognition. If the Palestinian numbers are credible, the newspaper writes, then it is legitimate to ask how reliable the other versions provided by the army and the government are on what is happening in Gaza: from the rules of engagement to the abuse of Palestinian prisoners, from the looting to the alleged Hamas bases in hospitals, up to the extent of the destruction.
The death toll is in fact only one of the many points on which, in recent years, Israeli reconstructions have clashed with the testimonies coming from the Strip. From the narrative – repeatedly denied – of hospitals used as military bases, to the administrative detention of thousands of Palestinians, including children, imprisoned without trial in violation of international law. The change in position of the Israeli Defense Forces, which today accepts figures denied until yesterday, thus appears as a clear crack in the propaganda and manipulation of facts carried out by Israel from 7 October 2023 onwards.
