Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women and children, UN rights office says

GENEVA - The UN Human Rights Office said on Nov 8 that nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

The United Nations tally since the start of the war between

Israel’s military and Hamas militants

, which began more than a year ago, includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.

The 8,119 victims verified by the UN Rights Office in that seven-month period is considerably lower than the toll of more than 43,000 provided by the Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war.

But the UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.

This finding indicates “a systematic violation of the 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 due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN report.

Israel’s military, which began its offensive in response to

the Oct 7, 2023, attack

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.

It has said approximately one civilian has been killed for every fighter, a ratio it blames on Hamas, saying the Palestinian militant group uses civilian facilities.

Hamas has denied using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.

Youngest victim aged one day

Mr Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told a news briefing in Geneva that the fatalities included in the report were verified by three sources, from among those such as neighbours, family members, local non-governmental organisations, hospital records or UN staff on the ground.

“The numbers are, of course, massive compared with previous years, so we do need time to catch up and verify,” he said, adding that he thought the final UN tally was likely to be similar to the Palestinian toll.

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, the report said.

Overall, children represented 44 per cent of the victims, with those aged five to nine representing the single biggest age category, followed by those aged 10 to 14, and then those aged up to and including four.

This broadly mirrors the enclave’s demographics, which the report said reflected an apparent failure to take precautions to avoid civilian losses.

It showed that in 88 per cent of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, pointing to the Israeli military’s use of weapons with an effect across a wide area, although it said some fatalities may have been the result of errant projectiles from Palestinian armed groups. REUTERS