UN finds majority of verified Gaza war dead women and children

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70 percent of the fatalities it has verified in Israel's war on Gaza were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

The UN tally since the start of the war includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.

The 8,119 victims verified is a much lower number than the toll of over 43,508 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war. However, the toll from Palestinian health authorities is speculated to be an undercount, with thousands believed to be buried under the Gaza's extensive rubble.

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," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment on the report's findings.

The Israeli military, which began the campaign following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 which killed around 1,200 people and took 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.

Israel's war on the enclave has seen it be brought to the International Court of Justice in the Hague on accusations of breaching the genocide convention. The court is continuing to probe the case after find it plausible Israel is breaching the convention.

Youngest victim aged one day

Ajith Sunghay, Head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva that the fatalities included in the report were verified by three sources such as neighbours, family members, local NGOs, hospital records or UN staff on the ground.

"The numbers are, of course, massive compared to 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, those aged 18 or under represented 44 percent of the victims, with children aged five-nine representing the single biggest age category, followed by those aged 10-14, and then those aged up to and including four.

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

It showed that in 88 percent 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 & The New Arab Staff)