Israel’s relentless war on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, at least 16,456 of them children and over 11,000 women.
Gaza’s Health Ministry on Thursday announced the grim milestone, a figure that is likely an undercount as most of the missing 10,000 Palestinians are believed to be buried under mountains of rubble.
“Can you imagine what 40,000 means? It is a catastrophic number that the world cannot imagine,” Aseel Matar, a Palestinian woman in Gaza, told Al Jazeera.
“Despite this, the world sees, is aware, hears, and watches us every day, every minute, but remains silent, and we are powerless. We are exhausted, we have no energy left.”
Shortly after the ministry’s announcement of the death toll, a new round of ceasefire talks aimed at stopping the war began in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday afternoon. Qatar, Egypt and the United States are mediating the high-stakes talks, being attended by top Israeli officials.
The United Nations says Israel’s bombardment has damaged or destroyed two-thirds of buildings across the Strip.
“Today marks a grim milestone for the world,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk. “This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the [Israeli military] to comply with the rules of war.”
Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said the 40,000 figure is “a very conservative reading of the number of casualties across Gaza”.
“There are still those who are missing and trapped under the rubble, [who] haven’t been identified, haven’t been collected, haven’t been counted yet,” he said.
“There are those who are missing, whose family members don’t know anything about their whereabouts. There are those who were evaporated, given the intensity and the scale of the bombs.” (AlJazeera)
