ANKARA

The past month of Israeli attacks on Gaza has resulted in a higher civilian death toll than the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war since it started 620 days ago.

Anadolu compiled and compared civilian casualties in Gaza since Oct. 7 and the start of the Russia-Ukraine war since Feb. 24, 2022.

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, Israeli attacks in the besieged Palestinian enclave have so far killed 10,022 Palestinians, including 4,104 children and 2,641 women, wounding at least 24,000 people.

In the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli forces and Jewish settlers have killed 155 Palestinians over the past 31 days.

As of Oct. 8, 2023, a total of 9,806 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia.

This means more civilians were killed in Gaza over the past month than in Ukraine in over 20 times that amount of time, highlighting the severity of Israel's onslaught.

Five children killed every hour in Gaza

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 40% of the 7,028 Palestinians killed in the Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 have been children, indicating that about five children are killed every hour in Gaza.

UK-based NGO Save The Children revealed that the number of minors killed in Palestine in the last three weeks alone surpasses the number of those killed in conflicts worldwide in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Bombing of hospitals

The current conflict has also seen Israeli forces bomb the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital and Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza, killing thousands of civilians, while also targeting the surroundings of other hospitals affiliated with Palestine Red Crescent Society and Indonesia.

The largest healthcare facility in the strip, the Al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of injured and civilians have sought refuge, has also been targeted by the Israeli army.

Israel has been accused of war crimes due to both its military strikes directly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, as well as its blockade as it cut off vital food, water, electricity, fuel, and medicine to the enclave.

According to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, "Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm, and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict."

In cross-border strikes that have been ongoing since Oct. 8 between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, 61 members of the Lebanese group and four Israeli soldiers have been killed.

According to Israel, 30 soldiers have been killed in clashes in Gaza since Oct. 31, while the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian resistance group Hamas based in Gaza, hold 242 Israeli hostages.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine, Western leaders have repeatedly condemned and imposed sanctions on Moscow over the indiscriminate killing of civilians but have turned a blind eye to Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip, which has also led to civilian deaths in the thousands.

On the contrary, US President Joe Biden expressed his explicit support for Israel in a statement on Oct. 10.

In contrast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a massive pro-Palestine rally on Oct. 28 that those shedding "crocodile tears" for civilians killed in the Ukraine-Russia war were silently watching the deaths of thousands of innocent children in Gaza.

He said at the rally in Istanbul: "You shed tears for those who died in Ukraine. What about these children who died in Gaza? Why don't you say anything about them?"