The Health Department in Gaza disclosed a document on Sunday, listing the names and ages of Palestinians who have lost their lives in Israel’s offensive since the Hamas-led attack on October 7. Although the document is incomplete, it spans an astounding 649 pages—with the initial 14 pages dedicated to infants.
The list, made available on the health department’s Telegram channel, only includes those individuals for whom Gaza authorities obtained information—over 34,000 individuals—and the tally halts at August 31. The current number of fatalities, as per the department, is nearing 42,000, but experts speculate that this number is likely a severe underestimation.
The recently released document underscores the devastating impact that Israel’s U.S.-backed war has inflicted on Gaza’s residents, especially children. Based on Gaza authorities’ data, children constitute a third of the casualties since October 7.
“This is a mass extermination of children. 14 pages of infants. Infants,” lamented Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York’s Hunter College, posting on social media in reaction to the list. “This is nothing less than a bid to obliterate a population.”
The statistics provided by the Gaza Health Department are regarded as trustworthy by independent monitoring organizations and have been internally referenced by U.S. officials, despite President Joe Biden’s public skepticism about the figures. In June, the U.S. House approved a measure that would prevent the State Department from relying on statistics from the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH).
However, after scrutinizing an earlier list of names released by the department, the research organization Airwars discovered “a strong correlation between the official MoH data and what Palestinian civilians reported online.” The group conceded that data collection has become increasingly challenging “as Gaza’s healthcare system has been severely damaged by the war.”
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, stated that the recently released list emphasizes “what sets Gaza apart.”
“It’s a genocide of children given their unique proportion,” Parsi wrote, adding that the “U.S., U.K., and Germany arm and support the genocide.”
