There is nowhere to hide from Gaza’s human tragedy

More than 11,000 people have died so far the bombing, according to the internationally respected Palestinian Ministry of Health. More than 70% of the victims are children, women or the elderly – that is 7,700 people – and 40% of the lives lost are the youngest: 4,400 children have been killed, according to analysis from The New York Times.

The death of childhood

Save the Children in the Palestinian Territories, a charity group, has come to a similar conclusion. Numbers from its Director Jason Lee show that two victims out of every five are children.

And that does not include at least 1,000 children who are still missing under the acres of rubble of Gaza's destroyed homes and buildings.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) says the number of children killed is higher than the number of children killed in all conflicts and wars in any given year since 2019, with many more seeking shelter from the onslaught with the international group.

Those were not the only numbers from UNRWA that reveal the extent of the devastation. Its Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: "More than 700,000 people live in 150 UNRWA buildings in the Gaza Strip," and "99 of my colleagues are dead." He also said 50 of the agency's buildings have been destroyed.

And there is yet more from Save the Children's Lee:  "We are in a situation right now where a child is killed every 10 minutes," and more than twice as many Palestinians of all ages are killed every hour, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory.

For Israel, every Palestinian child is a potential "fighter" for their enemy, so the killing of children is part of Israel's preemptive defense plans. This comes with about 43% of Gaza's population under 14 years old and 22% under 25.

Amid all the death, a brutal existence

This war of annihilation has not only used internationally banned weapons like phosphorus missiles and shells.

It is also deliberately depriving its victims of clean water, electricity, internet, and other basic services, making day-to-day live more difficult and causing mass forced displacement of people.

This all adds to the strain of hard-pressed population tightly packed into a region where the population density reaches 6,019 people per square kilometre, compared to about 570 individuals in the West Bank. And most Gazans have suffered before 66% of them are originally refugees.

And there are also numbers that show just how tough daily life is, even when bombs are not falling. Even when the skies are quiet, only around 60% of the demand for electricity can be met. Water production is down by 95% compared with normal. The Strip's three desalination plants, which provide drinking water, require electricity to run. 

The gap this creates is partially offset by using seawater and contaminated well water, which increases the risk of disease transmission. Even before the war, there was not enough clean water, with coastal groundwater in use that was around 96% unfit for human use.

The average water consumption ran at around 84 litres, under the World Health Organisation's recommended minimum of 100 litres per person per day for basic needs. For comparison, the average Israeli consumes between 240 and 300 litres per day.

Weaponised fuel supply

The story of fuel use in Gaza is a different and more tragic tale, with the Strip dependent on supplies from Israel, which can easily and deliberately be cut off, simply by stopping conveys from going in.

This can, in effect, hobble Gaza's medical capacity, preventing hospitals from running and people receiving the care they need, at the exact time when the bombing means the need is greatest.

Regular treatment and medical assistance is also interrupted. This adds to the list of victims of war. In numbers, that amounts to around 1000 patients in need of kidney dialysis and more than 130 new-born babies who need incubators.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 16 hospitals have ceased operations due to the destruction and lack of fuel and medical supplies, a shocking number for  Gaza.

In addition, 21 out of 23 bakeries affiliated with the World Food Programme have closed their doors due to fuel shortages. Gaza residents wait in queues for more than six hours to obtain their daily share of a half-loaf of bread.

The Strip's losses and its bleak future are obvious enough not to require formal economic research and analysis. After 16 years of blockades, it is reasonable to ask if it even has an economy at all. It already suffers from extreme poverty –affecting more than half of its population – and youth unemployment rates exceed 80%.

UNICEF estimates that humanitarian workers will need over $500mn this year to provide food, water, sanitation, and health care services to around 600,000 people in the Gaza Strip. But even humanitarian aid from these globally recognised agencies cannot get in.

Only around 800 aid trucks loaded with food and medicine have arrived since the start of the war. That is enough to meet just two days' needs. Before the war, the average number of such trucks coming in was 500 per day.

A million displaced

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of displaced people in Gaza has reached 1mn. For comparison, displacement in the 1948 Nakba affected 750,000 people.

The deliberate targeting of civilians and their displacement from their homes – especially in the northern part of the Gaza, which was previously home to more than a million people – reflects Israel's instructions to evacuate this population, paving the way for bombardment and transforming it into scorched earth.

This is part of a plan to secure Israeli control of these areas, driven by Western economic interests, notably gas off the coast of Gaza.

For this reason, the economic losses and widespread devastation of Gaza's homes, schools, industry and offices – including the agency premises and media sites, where several dozen UN staff and 50 journalists have died – no longer seem significant. It is why so many mosques, churches and historical buildings are in ruins and so many hospitals are out of action without the international community stepping in.

And the cold, hard numbers that tell this terrible story are updated in the media while all the time, children, women, and men are buried under the rubble.

These figures, robbing the people of Gaza of their humanity, are shown on screens and on social networks, under the watchful eye of the world and its laws that are supposed to respect  – and protect – human rights.