The massacre of Palestinians
Last updated: June 18, 2024
Numbers and ratios
As of June 14, Israel has killed over 37,266 Gazans – over 1.5 percent of the total population of Gaza.1 This death toll is conservative and will almost certainly increase.2 The number is accepted by Israeli officials (see discussion below)3 and media.4 The number does not include over ten thousand missing people, many still buried under the rubble.5 It also does not include any individuals whose death was not reported to Gaza’s overwhelmed health ministry.6 According to the available public data some 60% of the deaths in Gaza are of women, children, and the elderly.7 As of mid May, 7,797 identified children had already been killed.8 85,102 people (over 3 percent of Gaza’s population) have been injured.1 Polls among Palestinians in southern Gaza in late March and late May found that about 60% of respondents lost a member of their family during the war.9
Israeli spokespersons themselves have estimated that two civilians have died for each Hamas militant, and stated that it is a justified ratio.10 In reality, the ratio is likely worse and civilian deaths could reach 75% and even more of the total death count.11 An NGO had estimated in January that some 92% of deaths were of civilians, while a Hamas member in Qatar claimed the organization lost some 6,000 militants in February (meaning some 80% of deaths were of civilians), although the group later rejected that claim.12 According to the key investigative report on the subject, Israel knows well the amount of civilians that will be hit by its attacks and proceeds to bomb buildings with little oversight, often through employing an artificial intelligence system (“The Gospel”). The number of acceptable civilians harmed by strikes against military targets (“collateral damage”) increased from dozens of civilians to hundreds of civilians.13 In some cases Israel assassinated a Hamas commander by bombing of a densely populated area that killed over a hundred civilians and wounded hundreds more.14
For comparison, civilian deaths in combat in other 21st century wars were far lower. In Iraq, for example, Coalition (i.e. US and allies) forces were responsible for killing 11,516 civilians over five years (2003-2008; many more were killed in local ethnic warfare, for example through suicide bombings).15 In the first four years in Iraq, the US killed 18,832 militants.16 In Afghanistan, 46,319 civilians and 52,893 Opposition fighters were killed in the war over 20 years (2001-2021).17 Here too a large number of the civilians were killed by opposition forces rather than the US.18
International responses
The rate of civilian deaths is shocking, particularly as it continues in real time and visual evidence for it is readily available online. The UN Secretary General has stated that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict [in recent years]”.19 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated that there is no safe space in Gaza.20 A website documenting cases of civilian harm using open source information has gathered preliminary information about 3,000 incidents (some 650 have already been published), which is more than during the entirety of the war against ISIS, and concluded that “this is a conflict that is far more deadly for civilians than pretty much any other conflict we’ve seen in modern history”.21 Although the International Court of Justice Order that called upon Israel to take “all measures in its power” to prevent the killing of Palestinians on 26 Jan., as of writing Israel has continued to kill an average of some 75 Palestinians a day.22 A panel of UN experts stated in February that arms exports to Israel are illegal and must stop immediately,23 while a Dutch court ordered a halt to export F-35 jet parts to Israel.24 In March, Canada declared it will stop selling arms to Israel because of its conduction of war in Gaza,25 and the UK’s Foreign Office received legal advice that Israel has broken international humanitarian law yet has refrained so far from making this information public to avoid acting upon it.26 In April the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip,27 and backed a call for an arms embargo on Israel.28 Those countries that still sell arms to Israel (especially the US, as well as Germany and the UK) are under pressure to stop sales as well.29 In late April, a leaked US assessment revealed that several bureaus within the US government raised “serious concern over [Israel’s] non-compliance” with international humanitarian law and asserted that Israel’s assurances were “neither credible or reliable”. Among the potential violations were repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure and “unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage”.30 In May, the ICJ ruled that Israel was to halt its military assault on Rafah and re-open the Rafah crossing to facilitate the movement of people and humanitarian aid.31 Israel refused, and in the following 48 hours, conducted more than 60 air raids on Rafah.32 In June, the UN Secretary General decided to include Israel in a blacklist of countries that harm children in conflict areas, alongside ISIS, Russia, Syria and Somalia.33
Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks
Immediately at the beginning of the war, the Minister of Defense told soldiers that he released all restraints in conducting the war,34 while the IDF spokesperson stated that the IDF was “focused on what causes maximum damage” rather than accuracy.35 Already in late October, US officials knew that Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets.36 About 40-45% of the air-to-ground munitions Israel dropped on Gaza by December were unguided.37 These bombs have a wide margin of error of about 100 feet around the target.38 When targeting junior militants marked by the IDF’s AI system, the army preferred to use such “dumb” bombs rather than precision bombs because of their lower cost, despite their more significant collateral damage. One IDF source claimed to have authorized the bombing of “hundreds” of private homes in such a manner. Frequently, the target was not even home when the bombing happened, so that entire families were killed for no reason.39 In the first week of the war, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza.40 As of December, Israel dropped 29,000 weapons on Gaza. For comparison, the US military dropped 3,678 munitions on Iraq from 2004 to 2010.41 In the first 200 days of the war, it is estimated that Israel dropped more than 70,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip.42
During the first six weeks of the war, Israel used 2,000 pound bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians in at least 208 occasions.43 Especially during the beginning of the war, Israel used irregular shipments of 155mm shells that included shells dating to the 1950s, increasing the risk of missing the target and misfiring.44 In February, Amnesty International closely investigated four attacks that killed at least 95 civilians. All took place in the southern governate that was supposed to be safe at the time, and Amnesty found no indication that the buildings were legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets.45 A similar report by Human Rights Watch in April investigated an attack of four aerial munitions over 10 seconds without warning that killed at least 106 civilians, including 54 children (“among the deadliest single incidents for civilians” in the war). The identities of all civilians have been confirmed. The NGO found no evidence for a military target in the vicinity of the building during the attack, and Israeli authorities provided no justification for it.46
In addition, Israel has commonly used drones in Gaza – including drones that launch grenades,47 suicide drones,48 and drones that attack in swarms.49 Drones have also made the sounds of babies crying, perhaps to lure Gazans.50 These and other quadcopters have fired on civilians, with dozens of documented cases of purposefully killing civilians, as documented by a human rights group and witnessed by doctors, among others.51 One doctor stated that quadcopters wounded 30 people who tried to reach a hospital in a single night.52 There are some indications that Israel has used thermobaric weapons, which have been internationally banned by several Conventions and international humanitarian law.53
A former UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights stated that the Israeli attack on Gaza has probably the highest kill rate of any military killing anybody since the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.54 Several doctors returning from volunteering in Gaza stated that the situation there is unprecedented, for example, “As humanitarian surgeons we thought we had seen all manner of cruelty in the world, but neither one of us has ever experienced anything like what we found when we arrived in Gaza.”55 Another doctor with 20 years of experience in humanitarian relief including in Iraq said that “I’ve seen combat in war zones… this is nothing like this… the amount of children that I’d seen is unprecedented… I’ve done more amputations and seen more traumatic amputations of children than I’ve seen during my entire career in the last two weeks… this is not like a war, this is just a complete and utter destruction”.56
Israel has used artificial intelligence (AI)-based programs to generate massive kill lists for assassination. The “Lavender” system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets.57 As many as 37,000 Gazans were marked as suspected militants by the automated system at the beginning of the war, including children under the age of 17.58 An IDF source claimed they would devote only “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing, despite a high rate of errors in the system (~10%). The IDF systematically attacked targets at their homes, often at night with their whole families present, after tracking them with another AI system named “Where’s Daddy?”. In the first weeks of the war, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians (as opposed to 0 in the past) for every junior Hamas operative. When targeting senior officials the killing of more than 100 and up to 300 civilians was authorized.59 Experts in international humanitarian law expressed alarm at these ratios.60 For comparison, the number of permissible civilians deaths to kill Saddam Hussein was 29.61 When the US assassinated Bin Laden the authorized number of civilians was 30 while the number was 0 for most low-level commanders in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.62 This mass-generation of targets was stopped later partly due to American pressure,58 but subsequent attacks continued to be authorized despite knowing that many uninvolved citizens would be harmed.63
Mortality and impacts on groups in Palestinian society
Since the beginning of the operation, Israel has killed dozens of children on average every day.64 This number is greater than the number of children killed in conflict zones around the world over the past three years combined, and is far greater than the rate of children killed in other 21st century wars.65 In the first month of the war (October) alone, the number of killed Gazan children was over 10 times more than the number of children killed in the entire first year of the Russia-Ukraine war.66 As UNICEF’s Executive Director put it, Gaza is “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child”.67 UNICEF estimated in early February that at least 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents.68 Children deaths are prominent in videos from Gaza, often filmed by their own families.69 In late February, the head of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) stated in front of the UN Security Council that children as young as five told members of the organization that they would prefer to die than to continue to experience the displacement, fear and witnessing of the killing of their family members.70 A Gazan journalist wrote an open letter to Israeli society in which he narrated a case of a 6 year old boy who lay down to sleep under a truck and turned blue from the cold. When a passer-by woke him up and asked him what was he doing, the boy responded that he wanted the truck to drive over him in the morning because his entire family had been killed. The boy died the same day from hypothermia.71 A doctor returning from volunteering in a Gaza hospital said that 70-75% of the people he operated on were elementary school age or younger.72
150 journalists and media workers have been killed, more than the entirety of journalists killed in World War II, and at a rate higher than any other conflict over the past century.73 The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that there was a pattern of journalists in Gaza receiving threats, and subsequently their family members being killed. One journalist, for example, said that he received multiple calls from IDF officers who demanded that he stop his coverage and leave North Gaza, as well as voice messages that disclosed his location.74 For context, the IDF has killed at least 20 journalists in the 22 years preceding the current war. Despite numerous probes of the IDF into these cases, no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths.75
As of April 15, 273 UN and aid workers have been killed.64 More than 100 university professors, including several leading Palestinian academics, have been killed.76 More than 243 athletes (of which 161 are footballers) have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank.77 498 health workers have been killed.78 By June, 55 specialist doctors (4% of the total in Gaza) were killed.79 Israel’s attacks on hospitals have killed hundreds of Palestinians. More have died by lack of supplies80 or forced evacuations, including four premature babies in intensive care after the IDF forced the nurse taking care of them to leave when IDF soldiers reached the hospital. The babies were left in their beds and later found during the ceasefire in late November in a state of decomposition as nobody cared for them.81 The number of Palestinian deaths has led to digging graves and mass graves everywhere, including in formerly built areas and parks.82
Massacres, rules of engagement and examples
Palestinian lives are incredibly cheap. Based on sources inside the IDF, an investigative report has pointed out that dead Palestinians are defined as “[Hamas] terrorists” based not on what they did but on where they were killed.83 Palestinians who were killed in an area near IDF forces, “the combat zone”, were often de facto shot on sight even if unarmed. A considerable number of these people were likely looking for food and other supplies after months of fighting.84 A video reveals how starving Gazans who rushed to collect airdropped aid were shot by IDF soldiers, with at least one of them shot dead.85 There are several filmed cases of Palestinians walking along the coasts and getting shot.86 The UNICEF spokesperson stated that as he was attempting to deliver aid, tanks came and shot up two nearby fishermen, adding that this was not a unique event in Gaza.87 A senior official in Israel’s security apparatus as well as IDF officers pointed out that there were no fixed rules of engagement and that different commanders developed their own rules in the field.84 One IDF reserve officer stated that “parts of Gaza are ex-territory… for some commanders, in junior ranks, the laws of the IDF and international law do not exist… the senior command is unaware of this or simply doesn’t seem to care”.88
There are many examples from Gaza for the results of IDF policy. In one case, a car with six civilians was attacked, killing four. A 15 year old girl called the Palestinian Red Crescent from the car, but was apparently killed during the conversation. When the Palestinian Red Cresent called back, her cousin Hind Rajab, a 6 year old girl, answered and stayed on the line, terrified and surrounded by her dead family members, for 3 hours. The Palestinian Red Crescent sent two paramedics to retrieve her, informing the IDF of their movement and receiving permission to proceed according to an agreed upon route. All connections with Hind and the paramedics were lost, and 12 days later the decomposing corpses of the girls and their family members were found in the car, while the paramedics were killed nearby when an IDF tank destroyed their ambulance about 50 meters away from the car that were trying to reach.89 In another case, IDF troops entered a family home and killed the two parents in sight of their children (aged 11, 9 and 5; the youngest, with cerebral palsy, lost his eye to a grenade the soldiers threw).90 In a different case, the IDF sent a handcuffed prisoner to deliver a message to evacuate a hospital in Khan Younis, then shot him as he tried to walk outside the gate.91 The IDF subsequently bombed the hospital.92 A detained Gazan had his hands zip-tied before driven over by an Israeli tank, potentially while he was still alive. An image of his mutilated corpse was shared on an Israeli telegram channel with a post stating that “You are going to love this!!!”.93 A human rights organization documented other occasions in which Israeli soldiers have deliberately driven over dozens of Palestinian civilians while they were alive.94 In another case, an IDF soldier shot and killed a Palestinian man with special needs in front of his mother in a Gaza hospital after the man shouted in fear and did not keep quiet as the soldier commanded.95 A different soldier killed an unarmed 73-year old Palestinian who signaled to him not to shoot. In response, the soldier’s commander said “He signaled ‘no no [with his hands]’ and you took him down? Excellent”.96 In a different case, a video filmed from an IDF drone shows the IDF killing four clearly unarmed Palestinians from afar as they walked in daylight amidst the rubble in Khan Younis.97 An Israeli soldier shared a video showing the killing of five other Palestinians walking in the rubble in North Gaza.98 A different video showed IDF soldiers shooting two unarmed Palestinian men before burying them in rubble with a bulldozer.99 Many doctors returning from Gaza have asserted that IDF snipers have shot at children, causing “single bullet wounds to the head or chest” that killed some of them.100 When the IDF evacuated a Gazan family by force from their building, forcing them to leave their grandmother, a 94-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s and unable to walk or speak, behind. The building was burned. Her charred remains were apparently found on her bed in the burned building.101 There are many similar stories of IDF soldiers purposefully killing civilians.102
Cases in which the IDF kills civilians almost never make the news in Israel and the United States.103 An exception happened in early April, when the IDF killed 7 workers of the international NGO World Central Kitchen (all foreign citizens) within their clearly marked vehicles operating in full coordination with the IDF.104 A source from the IDF stated that a drone attacked the convoy of three vehicles because a Hamas person was thought to be in it (later investigation stated this was uncertain and the person simply appeared armed).105 After the first vehicle was bombed, some NGO workers left their vehicle and evacuated to a second vehicle, immediately notifying the IDF. Despite this, the second vehicle was bombed as well, and the survivors evacuated it to a third vehicle that was also bombed, killing them all.104 The images of the bombed vehicles were geo-located and the distance between the first and third bombing was 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles).106 This exception (alongside a few others I document here) suggests that in many similar occasions the IDF killed civilians with little oversight or consequences. Later in April, a UNICEF truck bringing humanitarian aid was hit by IDF fire (directed at nearby civilians) while a water truck operated by a Canadian NGO was bombed in a targeted attack.107 The first international UN worker was killed in May when an Israeli tank attacked his vehicle, which was marked as a UN vehicle.108 A investigative report found that back in January, five Palestinian technicians were on their way to fix a cellular operator unit in Khan Younis, following coordination with the IDF. A tank in the area shot their vehicle, killing two. The investigative report found that the IDF spokesperson’s version of events is likely false.109
In one particularly notable event, the “flour massacre”, at least 115 civilians were killed and over 700 were injured as they attempted to get food from a convoy of lorries bringing in humanitarian aid.110 Palestinians claimed that the IDF shot them,111 while the IDF claimed that most casualties died because of overcrowding and the general mayhem in which the lorries run over the civilians.110 In both cases, the IDF, according to the rules of war as an occupying power, is legally responsible for the deaths of civilians. UN experts and human rights organizations,112 as well as the media,113 largely confirmed the Palestinian version of the story, partially because the IDF did not provide evidence to support their claims (an IDF video supposedly showing the event was clearly edited several times; the IDF refused to publish the full video) and testimonials from Gazans who experienced the massacre. The director of the al-Awda hospital claimed that the vast majority of injuries who came to receive treatment after the event (142 of 176) suffered from gunshot wounds.114 A CNN investigation found inconsistencies with, and cast further doubts on, the IDF’s version and leaned towards accepting the Palestinian version.115 A sample of 200 dead and injured victims found that they were hit by bullets of the diameter used by IDF troops.116 A subsequent report by the UN Committee of Human Rights reached the conclusion that the IDF is likely responsible for the deaths of civilians by firing at them.117 According to UN experts as well as online sources and videos, Palestinians seeking food were shot on many occasions on the days before and after the “flour massacre”.118 Israel’s National Security Minister nonetheless praised the IDF soldiers for their conduct during the event.119 International law stipulates that Israel is required to supply food and water in the areas where it is an occupying power.120 Notably in this context, Israel and the United States were the only two countries who voted against declaring food as a human right in the United Nations in 2021.121
A report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that between mid January and late March, Israel killed a total of 563 Palestinians and injured 1,523. All of these were waiting for aid, were in or around distribution centers, or were responsible for organizing, protecting and distributing aid.116
An NGO documented around 130 random mass graves of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.122 Other corpses have been interred in improvised burials within built areas,123 with additional decomposed corpses124 and skeletons on the streets.125 Reports have “documented dozens of cases of field executions carried out by the Israeli army”.126 In one such event, on 19 Dec. IDF troops are said to have executed at least 19 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members.127 In another, over 30 Palestinian corpses were found in black plastic bags, blindfolded and handcuffed.128 Similar events took place in al-Shifa hospital, according to several eyewitness accounts (see also Zoom-In 1 below).129 Few of these cases have even been covered in Israeli media.130
The IDF has refrained from accountability or responsibility in the past. Not only does the Israeli security apparatus attempt to hinder the ability of Palestinians to file claims,131 but the ratio of indictments among those complaints that had been filed even before the war has been negligible. Among 1,260 complaints regarding Israeli soldiers harming Palestinians and their property between 2017 and 2021, less than 1% resulted in an indictment.132
In a January poll, two thirds of Israelis preferred to continue the war in its current form of excessive bombardment and violence.133 In a poll from February, about three quarters of Israeli Jews supported the continuation of the military operation to Rafah.134 A poll from March-April found that only 4% of Israeli Jews believe the military campaign has gone too far.135