Nearly 70% of the people killed in the war in Gaza are women and children, according to a UN analysis of verified deaths that highlights the heavy civilian toll of the conflict.
In a new report, the most detailed analysis of its kind yet, the UN human rights office said it had verified 8,119 of those killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza. Of the fatalities, 3,588 were children and 2,036 were women. The youngest victim was a one-day-old boy and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman.
The number marks deaths verified so far and is therefore lower than the figure of 43,000 deaths provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month conflict, but backs the assertion that women and children represent a large proportion of those killed.
The new figures came as the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said people had been pushed “beyond breaking point” with families, widows and children enduring “almost unparalleled suffering”.
The UN said the figures indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law”.
Of the verified figures, 7,607 were killed in residential buildings or similar housing, out of which 44% were children, 26% women and 30% men, said the report released on Friday.
Children aged five to nine represent the single biggest age category, followed by those aged 10-14, and then those aged up to and including four.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the attacks in Gaza, said the report, including through the initial siege by Israeli forces, as well as repeated mass displacement, the Israeli government’s failure to allow in humanitarian aid, and continual bombing. The report added that in 88% of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, pointing to the Israeli military’s use of weapons with impacts across a wide area, although it said some fatalities may have been the result of errant projectiles from Palestinian armed groups.
This has caused unprecedented levels of killing, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease, according to the report, which said many families had been killed together, often in their homes, in Israeli strikes on residential buildings. The UN said it had verified 484 families that had lost between five and more than 30 members.
The killing of whole families together in their places of shelter adds to concerns over breaches of international humanitarian law, the report said.
The two families with the highest verified number of deaths were the Al Najjar family, with 138 members killed (in 18 incidents), including 35 women and 62 children, and the Al Astal family, with 94 members killed (in eight incidents), including 33 women and 45 children.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, said: “Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law – namely the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva said it categorically rejected the report. “Once again, OHCHR fails to accurately reflect the realities on the ground, and disregards the extensive role of Hamas and other terrorist organisations in deliberately causing civilian harm in Gaza,” it said, referring to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
Israel’s military, which began its offensive in response to the attack on 7 October 2023 in which Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and seized more than 250 hostages, says it takes care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza.
The report also highlighted that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups had attacked and killed Israeli and foreign civilians, committed sexual violence, and taken hostages. These acts could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, it added.
During a visit to Gaza,Egeland said he had seen “scene after scene of absolute despair”, with families torn apart and unable to bury relatives who had died. He said that Israel, with western-supplied arms, had “rendered the densely populated area uninhabitable”.
“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he said. “The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled to anywhere in recent history. There is no possible justification for continued war and destruction.”
Nearly 2 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, according to the latest estimates from the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), and the population faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.
Families are still forced to move from one area to another. Areas designated by Israeli forces for evacuation and forcible relocation now cover 80% of Gaza. Palestinians are thus restricted to 20% of the strip and an Israeli brigadier general said this week that there was no intention of allowing people to return to their homes. Experts in humanitarian law have said that such actions amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.
In northern Gaza, a month-long renewed offensive and tightened siege has led to desperate conditions, with an estimated 100,000 people completely cut off from humanitarian aid.
The UN has condemned the “unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement”.
Most aid remains blocked from leaving crossing points due to insecurity, active hostilities and widespread destruction. An average of 36 trucks a day crossed into Gaza in October, marking the lowest rate for a year.
Egeland, a humanitarian leader, former foreign minister and diplomat in Norway, said he witnessed “the catastrophic impact of strangled aid flows”; adding that people had gone for days without food and drinking water was nowhere to be found.
“There has not been a single week since the start of this war when sufficient aid was delivered in Gaza,” he said.
Last week, Israel’s parliament passed bills banning Unrwa from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories, designating it a terror organisation, and cutting all ties between the UN agency and the Israeli government.
Egeland said the situation in Gaza was “deadly” for all Palestinians, aid workers and journalists. He said that to prevent tens of thousands of lives being lost, there should be an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and the start of a peace process.
“Those in power on all sides act with impunity, while millions across Gaza and the region pay a terrible price,” he said. “Humanitarians can speak out on what we are seeing, but only those in power can end this nightmare.”
