Geneva (Reuters) – The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday (8) that almost 70% of the fatalities recorded in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of fundamental principles of law international humanitarian.
The UN count since the start of the war, in which Israel’s military is fighting Hamas militants, includes only the deaths it has been able to verify with three sources, and the count continues.
The 8,119 verified casualties are a much lower figure than the figure of more than 43,000 casualties provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month war. But the UN’s breakdown of the age and gender of victims corroborates the Palestinian claim that women and children make up a large proportion of the war dead.
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That conclusion indicates “a systematic violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality,” the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.
“It is essential that there is a due reckoning with allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence is collected and preserved,” said the senior United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report’s findings.
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The Israeli military, which began its offensive in response to the October 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 250 hostages, says it is taking care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza.
The military says approximately one civilian was killed for every fighter, a ratio it blames on Hamas, saying the Palestinian militant group uses civilian facilities. Hamas denies using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters in Geneva that the deaths included in the report were verified by three sources, such as neighbors, family members, local NGOs, hospital records or UN officials. on site.
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“The numbers are obviously huge compared to previous years, so we need time to catch up and check,” he declared, adding that he thought the final UN count would likely be similar to the Palestinian count.
The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman, according to the report.
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