07/09/2024
The UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, has warned with horror that if it’s not stopped, Israel’s assault could end up exterminating almost the entire population in Gaza over the next couple of years.”
Albanese stated, quoting a recent article from The Guardian: “The range of presumable direct and indirect deaths could be between 15 and 20% of the population already by the end of this year, according to Prof. Devi Sridhar.”
“Once the dust settles, I can’t imagine how the world will go on after having allowed that. Again,” Albanese said in her Friday post on X.
This rough estimate of Sridhar is based on a public health researcher estimate published in The Lancet in July on indirect death counts from other wars, which has been regarded as one of the best in the business. As regards that consideration, the researchers put forward the estimation that actual number may be around 186,000 considering all the major factors, such as direct violent acts like bombardments and also the annihilation of health, food, and sanitation systems of Gaza by Israel.
The death toll, therefore, may end up reaching between 15 and 20 percent of the population by the end of this year, Albanese stated, in only a bit more than one year of Israel’s genocide. And even that, Sridhar writes, is borrowed by her from the international medical journal The Lancet and is very conservative — This implies that even her estimate of 335,500 deaths may be an underestimate, as there are likely many more unreported or underreported cases that have profoundly shocked the conscience.
According to Sridhar, last winter she calculated the number of deaths that would occur "if fighting continued without international intervention" using data from past crisis scenarios.
"Without a ceasefire, my estimate for December 2023 was roughly half a million deaths," she stated.
Sridhar continued, "They used a very conservative estimate, but allowed that the number could easily be much higher." This generally corresponds with the Lancet figures.
She also noted that the statistic illustrates “what could have happened had the international community not acted, and taken advantage of the brief windows available to deliver aid and medical care.”
The professor emphasized, "Many have been saved by these various humanitarian interventions and pauses in fighting, even if they have been patchily enforced."
A UN Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire has been disregarded by Israel, which has also come under international criticism for its ongoing, ruthless onslaught on Gaza.
Tel Aviv is presently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice because of its continuous and catastrophic bombardment on Gaza, which began on October 7.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that 40,878 Palestinians have died and 94,454 have been injured so far. Furthermore, throughout the enclave, at least 11,000 individuals are missing and thought to be dead beneath the debris of their homes.
The majority of those displaced by Israel's aggression were forced into the crowded southern city of Rafah, which is close to the Egyptian border. This has resulted in the largest mass exodus from Palestine since the 1948 Nakba, and it has affected nearly two million people from throughout the Gaza Strip.
Source: SPCE/44 NAP-23
Image by Save_Palestine from Pixabay.