About 70 percent of people who die in Gaza are women and children: UN | Israel-Palestine Conflicts News

Overall, 44 percent of the victims were children; the youngest was a one-day-old boy and the oldest is a 97-year-old woman.

The head of the United Nations, Volker Turk, has criticized Israel’s “blatant indifference” to the killing of civilians in Gaza, after a new report from his organization revealed that almost 70 percent of the confirmed deaths were women and children.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published this report on Friday, as it confirmed 8,119 people out of more than 34,500 reported killed during the first six months of Israel’s war in Gaza, and found that the majority were women and children. – the little one just one day old.

Turk criticized Israel’s “neglect” of the “laws of war … designed to limit and prevent human suffering in times of conflict”. He called on Israel to comply with its international obligations, noting its current siege in northern Gaza and its decision to cut ties with the UN refugee agency for Palestine (UNRWA).

The report warned that “widespread or systematic” attacks on civilians could amount to “crimes against humanity”.

“And if you are committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, they may also include genocide,” he said.

The UN’s breakdown by age and gender of the victims is consistent with Palestinian assertions that women and children represent the majority of those killed in the war.

Overall, 44 percent of the victims were children, the largest single category being ages five to nine, followed by ages 10-14, and ages up to and including four.

The youngest victim was a one-day-old boy and the oldest, a 97-year-old woman.

It showed that in 88 percent of the cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, which points to the Israeli military’s use of weapons that affect wide areas in densely populated areas.

Some of the deaths may have been the result of a decrease in the rate of firing by Palestinian armed groups, the report said.

It also pointed to “the continued failure of the Israeli government to allow, facilitate and guarantee humanitarian access, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the repeated displacement of large numbers of people”.

“This behavior by the Israeli military has caused unprecedented levels of killing, death, injury, starvation, disease and disease,” it continued.

Israel did not immediately comment on the report’s findings.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 43,469 Palestinians and injured 102,561 as of October 7, 2023, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.