One in 100 people in Gaza has been killed since October 7

<i>Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images</i><br/>Relatives carry the bodies of children from the Abu Quta family who were killed in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip

By CNN Newsource

Published January 8, 2024 11:13 AM

By Ivana Kottasová, Kareem Khadder and Richard Allen Greene, CNN

(CNN) — About one in every 100 people in Gaza has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, according to Palestinian statistics.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announced in its daily update on Monday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged enclave since the beginning of the war.

That staggering death toll means that 1% of the enclave’s total pre-war population of 2.27 million people has now has been wiped out.

According to the ministry, an additional 58,416 people have been injured, which means more than one in 40 Gazans have now been wounded in the conflict. The ministry generates its data from hospitals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Last month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it believed that it had killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant, a ratio an IDF spokesperson described to CNN at that time as “tremendously positive.” Israel has also claimed that more than 8,000 of the dead are militants.

The IDF began its operation in Gaza immediately after Hamas launched a terror attack into southern Israel on October 7. Its militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped some 200 others. Some of the hostages who were taken to Gaza have since been released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

As of last week, the Israeli government believed 132 hostages from October 7 were still being held in Gaza, of whom dozens are thought dead.

One in 120 children is dead

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that more than 5,300 of the dead are women and more than 9,000 were children.

With the pre-war child population of Gaza at about 1.1 million, according to UNICEF, this means that one out of every approximately 120 children living in the enclave has been killed.

A separate statistic released by the international organization Save the Children said more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October.

International organizations have been warning that the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza is now so deep that people are at risk of dying of starvation.

According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 90% of Gazans have been displaced.

UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said last week that famine was “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded.”

The youngest children are most at risk of starvation, according to a UNICEF statement last month.

The children’s aid organization estimated that in the coming weeks, “at least 10,000 children under five years will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as severe wasting, and will need therapeutic foods.”

The lack of sanitation for the displaced now packed into parts of southern Gaza has led to the spread of contagious and respiratory diseases.

Diseases that would normally be easily curable are becoming deadly because of the lack of even the most basic medical equipment.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that he plans to push the Israeli government “on the absolute imperative to do more to protect civilians” in Gaza during meetings Tuesday.

Blinken said he would also push Israeli officials on the need to increase humanitarian aid entering the war-torn strip “and also to talk to them about the future direction of their military campaign in Gaza.”